#oc: athene corolastor

[sullustangin]

Fluffy February Day 9: Storm

SWTOR

Time: 3648 BBY (5 ATC)

~~

All the lights went out in Virtue’s Thief.  Everything went dead silent for a second, including, much to Eva’s panic, the life support system.  Then the backups kicked on.  She sat, terrified, in the pilot’s seat, with the orange glow of the emergency lights.

She’d taken her first nightshift on the Thief, and she broke the ship.  Somehow. Ma was going to kill her.  Absolutely.

And indeed, Eva heard the second her mom’s boots hit the floor.  Shit, she’s up.

Dad wasn’t going to be.  He was probably going to sleep through the whole thing, as he did these days.  Getting out of bed was a two-man operation, and her mother was already on the way to the cockpit. 

Eva turned to Huck, who was riding shotgun in the co-pilot’s seat.  “Remember, you’re not allowed to kill me, no matter what she says.  I’m only 15.  It’s your primary function to ensure I survive –”

“Interruption: to the date of your majority on your chaincode card.  Correction:  the chaincode card supplied to me by your mother.  That is already 21.65 years old.  Conclusion: my primary mission of ensuring your survival to the Republic age of majority has already been a success.”

Eva gave him a filthy look that only a foiled teenager could.  “You can be a real massive bag of robo-dicks, Huck.”

“Objection!  -- ”

Just then, the door hissed open.  Athene Corolastor’s red hair was braided tightly to keep the curls under control, and she’d thrown on a thermal top over her sleepwear and put on the socks with the little grips on the bottom that she and Eva squabbled over.  “What happened?”

“I don’t know, I swear to the Three Moons.”  Eva leaned back the captain’s chair, away from the dashboard.  “We were going along fine – and then it all shutdown.”

Athene frowned.  “No contacts on the sensors?”

“Not even space junk or an asteroid.”  Eva tapped at the nav computer.  “We were on the course you plotted before going to bed.  Didn’t touch nothing.  Just made sure all the green lights stayed green.”

Athene nodded, distractedly.  “I think…” she trailed off.  She consulted the trajectories she’d charted and the current state of the ship.  “We might have nicked the edge of a geomagnetic storm.” 

Eva made a face.  “How’s that happen?” 

“Local sun might be throwing solar winds and agitating the planetary magnetospheres – mostly self-contained, but if things line up, they can get cranky enough to mess with planets that are in the system – or are passing through hyperspace at the time.”  Athene rattled off the explanation as if it were nothing.  It was needed to know for the business of galactic smuggling; the rest of her education (and Eva’s) was nowhere near as impressive.  Athene motioned for Huck to get out of his chair.  He immediately acquiesced and disappeared down the hallway.

Eva nodded, as if she understood any of that.  “So not my fault?”

“Nope, not at all,” Athene replied, eyes still watching the lights on the dashboard slowly go green again.  “You just hope it doesn’t happen in hot pursuit or take you out in a less than friendly territory.”

Eva slumped into the chair in relief.  “I thought I broke the ship.”

“Happens to all captains, at some point.”  Satisfied that the ship was recalibrating and resetting appropriately, Athene let herself sit down in the co-pilot’s chair.  “Just part of learning the ropes.  What you can predict… and what you can’t.” 

Eva let out a sigh.  “Feels like I’m always going to be learning – never a master –”

“Honey, don’t think you’re going to be one of those skypirates from those books,” Athene cut her off before she could whing.  “We’re small-time.  You’re clocking 1500 hours as if you were some real important pilot that would fly ships that took people places; this is all pretty demanding, for what we are…”  Athene shifted in her seat.  “But I want you to learn it right.  I want you to be ready for anything.”

“Magnetic storms,” Eva gestured out the front viewport.

Athene nodded.  “Fires.  Hyperdrive failures.  Fuel issues… All the things that are going to be yours one day.”

Mother and daughter exchanged smiles. Virtue's Thief was destined to be Eva's, hopefully far, far in the future.

The door chimed and slid open, and in skittered Hylo the cat, unable to bear being separated from Eva a second later.

And then his paw hit something on he way up the dashboard and the ship was plunged into darkness –

“..but I never had a cat on here before.  That can be your new problem with the Thief.”

“…can you at least help figure out what he did?”

“…yeah.”

~~

@fluffyfebruary

[sullustangin]

Fluffy February 2023 Recap

Mission success: I wrote something every day!  Some of it was short, some of it was elaborate.  Main link to the AO3 collection will be in the reblog later today.

1.  Hello  -- Theron Shan notices something strange going on at base (with hideous fanart!)

2.  Soft -- Theron snuggles with Eva Corolastor (smuggler oc) early in the morning, before he has to go...

3.  Anniversary -- Jace Malcom, a stickler for etiquette, arrives with an appropriate first anniversary present for Eva (and Theron). 

4. Starlight -- After finding Nok Drayen’s treasure, Eva takes Corso Riggs, Risha Drayen, and Bowdaar somewhere special to celebrate.

5. Amber -- Arcann seeks redemption in the form of Darth Marr’s lightsaber, with the help of Talos Drellik.  I’ve already decided I’m going to re-edit this for a larger work in the indeterminate future.  Cameo by Ramesses (Sith Warrior OC)

6.  Stretch -- Jace watches Satele Shan walk through her lightsaber katas as he drafts a critical sales pitch.

7. Cloak -- Jace deals with the crisis of the day, thanks to his brother, Kal Malcom.  I’m mentioned Kal in the past, but this is his first appearance as a character.  Let’s just say he’s different from his big brother.

8.  Callous -- Eva and Theron spend time together at the firing range.

9.  Breezy -- Rass Ordo talks with Torian Cadera and thinks about Mandalorians in love.  Then he meets Fria Whitcord (consular OC). 

10.  Thunder -- Athene Corolastor tends to Eva during her first thunderstorm.  Athene has been illusive as a narrative voice until now.  Instead of the ethereal, light figure she looks like, she’s definitely coming out with a harder edge than I anticipated.

11.  Immaculate -- Arcann goes to see his mother Senya Tirall for an important appointment.

12.  Shell -- Eva goes on her first mission with Theron after the carbonite freeze.  This is a heist fic, with background bickering from Lana Beniko and Koth Vortena.

13.  Pride -- As he holds their son Argento (Argo for short), Theron talks to Eva about the pitfalls of parental pride.  This does have some sad feels in there, but everyone is safe and happy here.

14.  Free Space:  Heartbeat -- Theron goes on his first mission since Ziost, guided through the guts of Zakuul by Marcus Trant.  He takes a detour to visit someone.  This is the long one of the bunch, at 1800+ words.

15.  Reward -- Things weren’t always bad with Darmas Pollaran.  A brief look at the beginning of the relationship between Eva and Darmas, right after Balmorra in Chapter 2.

16.  Glow -- A fluffy, slightly risque fic on Copero with Eva and Theron: they have plans.

17.  Blessed -- Corso gets to know Guss Tuno shortly after Hoth. 

18.  Glide -- Theron races in his first swoop competition in front of Jace, a fellow former swooper. 

19.  Loop -- Eva, Corso, and Hylo the cat arrive on Coruscant for the first time.

20.   Sink -- The state of a sink and the surrounding environs can reveal a lot about a person.  This seems to have been a favorite with readers. :)

21.   Tender -- For once, Lana gets hurt, and her friends are there for her. 

22.  Remember -- Eva experiences her first “Eternal Fleet Remembrance Day” with Theron.

23.  Crave -- Aric Jorgan catches Theron at the cantina at 0300, due to unforeseen happy circumstances.  This one has some CWs at the top.  

24.  Bubbly -- Day 2 of the ‘official’ Jace Malcom/Satele Shan relationship on Alderaan.

25.  Murmur -- Theron is greeted by Eva and their daughter, Dyominia, after an unexpected mission gone wrong.

26.  Joy -- Joy is a noisy house, according to Jace Malcom.  Cameo appearances by Kal, Theron, Eva, Argo, and Dyo.

27.  Blaze -- They who shoot together, stay together.  Or at least that’s Akaavi’s advice to Eva and Theron.

28.  Goodbye -- the silly-ass bordering-on-crackfic sequel to #5, starring Arcann, Koth, and Talos. 

@fluffyfebruary

[sullustangin]

So the rule is that every time a new work in a series comes out you have to reread the entire series. (What? Them's the rules I don't make them.) Doing this sparked 2 questions: 1. What does Eva say to Marcus on Katalla? 2. Who is the grand admiral? (I feel like there's legends lore I'm missing on that one)

Yes, it's totally a rule, because I've been doing the same thing the last couple of weeks :D (partially to reacquire a feel of them back together again, which is happening today..!).

The Grand Admiral is an OC, but I did link him up to Great Galactic War events.

So, spoilers for those who haven't read the Cosmic Deck, The Grand Reveal, or The Planter of Trees.

What does Eva say to Marcus on Katalla?

Definitely something he did not expect her to know. I've left that open to interpretation. I don't think Trant was content with just Theron lurking at the edges of Voidfleet. Maybe there was an agent he wanted to get in...and just couldn't, and now he knows why. Alternatively, Eva is still acting as an information broker. What she has on Trant -- it might be enough to make him think twice about messing with her, even after she comes back from the dead later on. I tend to subscribe to the latter theory myself. Neither Eva nor Trant have deigned to inform me of the truth (yet).

2. Who is the Grand Admiral?

That is an OC. We first see evidence of him in Rishi, when Theron discovers Eva has a problem; she's using an Imperial key coffer as a snuffbox. Marr notices how old her maps are on Yavin 4 and actively wonders how she got what should have been Imperial family heirlooms.

Unless they were.

The Grand Admiral is revealed in Chapters 35, 36, and 37 of The Planter of Trees. He was among the youngest of the Imperial Grand Admirals, and one of their finest pilots. He'd been from the Outer Rim, and he had joined because of the Republic's systemic corruption and neglect. He was the best of his kind. The reconstituted Sith Empire had existed long before the Republic knew of it, so he did have a career prior to 3681 BBY, when the Great Galactic War kicked off.

The Grand Admiral died during the last war at the Second Battle of the Seswanna. Previously, at the outbreak of the war in 3681 BBY, the Imperials set up a blockade at Rimma. The Pubs tried to break it twice, succeeding on the second attempt, but at a massive cost in 3680. The Grand Admiral didn't let them have it without sacrificing his life and his ship. He is a Hero of the Empire, his name written on their walls of memory, with others worthy of the honor.

He was also Athene Corolastor's father. He knew of her. He did not meet her.... though I am having a fluffy February thought of him learning of her existence. We'll see how that formulates. But basically, Eva has his key coffer and his map set because he gave them to his lover and mother of his child, Dyominia Corolastor, Eva's grandmother. In my mind, Athene knew who her father was, and she knew he died at Rimma. Not too long after, Dyo died as well; like Eva, Athene was a young captain. Athene told Eva stories of the Grand Admiral and his daring acts of bravery and heroism...until Eva was old enough to understand that the Empire stood for slavery and oppression in the name of law and order....and the Grand Admiral was willing to tolerate that.

No more Grand Admiral bedtime stories after that.

As it affects Eva, she is technically the scion of his illustrious line. In Planter of Trees, Theron, in a misguided effort to guarantee her from being burned by the Republic, informed Darth Marr of this. Marr served under the Grand Admiral and still had a loyalty to his memory and his service. He was also impressed by the Voidhound herself. So he offered to have her recognized as the Grand Admiral's heir. Technically, this would remove Eva from the firing line of both the Pub and the Imps: she could retire to some estate as heir of a Hero of the Empire with the full protection of Marr, because he'd rather her off the playing board of the war than on it as an agent of the Republic. It would give the Empire a public relations win, but Voidfleet could continue to operate as long as it remained neutral. (And Theron doesn't think she'd be opposed to helping him out in the future.) There's a more nuanced conversation in the fic about this, but that's the broad strokes. Eva turned the offer down, because the one principle she always adhered her -- the one her mom always adhered to -- was no slavery. The Grand Admiral was wrong, and always had been.

Eva inherited the piloting skills, leadership abilities, and some elements of the Voidhound from the Grand Admiral.

Hope that clears it all up!

[sullustangin]

Fluffy February #2: Movie Night

Rating: PG (Eva and her jokes)

Pairing: Hylo/Gault mainly; background Theron Shan/Eva Corolastor (OC Smug)

Timeline: Current (post. 6.2; 3626 BBY/26 ATC)

**

“How can you forget you have an entire hold?” Theron asked, staring down into the darkness.

“She’s bigger than she looks!” came the reply in protest.  “The Thief is also older than all of us minus Bowie, so a lady has some secrets.”  

“Didn’t your parents use it?”  

“Yeah, but apparently not since I was a little kid.  Holy space harpies, there’s surplus from the Great Galactic War in here.”  Eva poked her head up, grabbing another light stick to stick to the wall while she worked.

“That stuff must be 30 years old.  Any of it still good?”  Theron craned his neck to keep an eye on his wife’s white shirt as it went further into the unlit hold.  He crouched down and activated a light stick so he could see immediately in below him.

There wasn’t any dust – the seal had been air tight – but there was a lingering odor of stale, expensive cigarettes (Hadrian) and floral shampoo (Athene) that occasionally made appearances on the ship, even though the people in question had been dead for 20 years at this point.  It was like having friendly residential ghosts, if such things existed.  

“I’m gonna say that we probably don’t want the rations, unless we want to haze newcomers,” Eva gaily replied.  “If they haven’t dried out, the raingear might still work.  Oh, thanks Ma and Dad – we have alcohol!”

Theron rolled his eyes. “Every hatch on this ship has something squirreled away for a fun weekend, I swear to the stars.”  

After a minute of Eva prying a crate open, there were a few moments of hearing nothing but her breathing. “Eva?”

“I didn’t expect to find any more of these.”  Eva’s free hand reached for Theron’s, and he easily pulled her up out of the long-forgotten hold.  

In her other hand was a holovid case.

**

Theron nudged Eva as their first mark entered the cantina.  She nodded, then gestured at the second.  

Home HoloVid Night had long become an Odessen tradition over the last five years.  It started with a sergeant who had been on Yavin and he’d caught some footage of the party the crew of Virtue’s Thief had thrown after the end of the Revanite campaign. Eva, Theron, and Lana had never seen the footage before, so it was equal parts excruciating and hilarious to watch. What hooked most people is that one never knew where new friends on Odessen would turn out to be people they’d met before.  Hell, there was one vid found of two childhood friends from some random beach planet somewhere who later were serving in the speeder pool together.  The galaxy was smaller than anyone thought.

The holo started up – silent.  “Oh, it’s Captain Corolastor’s – holocam’s sound is broken.”

One of the corporals – nobody remembered what side he’d been on before the Alliance and it didn’t matter -- struck up a tune on a repaired piano that had been hauled into the cantina.

As the pianist improvised, unfamiliar figures paraded across the screen.  There was some general mumbling and murmuring until Athene Corolastor came on the screen.  A cheer went up from the young male enlisted. She’d become a Home Holovid favorite. Thin with gloriously red deep copper hair, she almost seemed out of place on the smuggler ship – which was ironic, because she was the boss of the entire place.  Eva had to admit her mother looked more like some ethereal creature from a fantasy novel than she did a smuggler.

Then her husband hit the screen, and there was a dejected, “Hi, Hadrian” from the same crowd, followed shortly by a cheer from the female enlisted.  If there was ever someone who looked the role of the smuggler, the dark-haired, rangy man with the rather impressive mustache and mutton chops was it.

A very small Eva was greeted by both camps as one would a little cousin they hadn’t seen in awhile. The Holovid was of an old smuggler party – Eva was young, barely past toddling.  Hadrian hadn’t been injured seriously yet, so he was able to partake in all of the dumb things smugglers did at parties when they were bored.  At one point, he pointed at the person holding the camera, and said something, mustache quirking the entire time, before the camera was flipped around---

A gasp went up as a younger Gault – Tyresius at that time – directed the camera at himself.  He was in his mid-thirties at that point, and still had both his horns.  He gave the holocam a cheeky grin, then he angled it down slightly to catch sight of his pretty young girlfriend at the time --  Hylo. She was clearly much younger than he was, even then – early twenties.  “Oh stars.” The woman who had gasped was Hylo herself.  Theron and Eva watched from their perches as she sat up slightly, hand to her mouth.  

(Eva became the Voidhound at the same age Hylo had broken the Mandalorian Blockade.  For Eva, that had been an accomplishment…until she met the woman after the sour fallout of that triumph.)

The holocam switched hands, and it seemed like it became the Gault and Hylo Show.  Other people – strangers to everyone but Eva – meandered in and out of the footage.  This particular holovid seemed to come back around to the Devavronian and the Miralan, every time.  The front row gallery took notice.

“Goddamn, Hylo was a fox.”

“Still is!”

Theron nudged Eva.  Gault hadn’t moved from his chair.  He watched scenes of his old life as Tyresius flow past the screen.  It struck Eva suddenly that Gault was 70 now – twice the age he had been in these shots. And Hylo – Hylo’s time in stasis had meant she was now in her mid-forties, nearly doubling the original age gap between her and Gault.  

(The age gap between Theron and Eva was much smaller, but the smuggler and spy had taken into account the impact of a lost five years and a new total of eight years’ difference for two careers whose participants rarely lived to 40. Theron had crossed that threshold his last birthday.)

The pair danced and talked. Hylo even had some screen time with Athene and her small child – Eva didn’t remember the conversation.  

Finally, there was a cake cutting scene – there was a bunch of Imp ship decorations dotted across a hastily made rectangular cake and then an obnoxiously large model of Hylo’s ship slapped on top.  “I’d just done the run – broke the blockade.  Hell, I hadn’t even been paid yet, and we had a party.”  Hylo watched as she got the first piece of cake, then smashed the second into Gault’s face, laughing the entire time.  

Toward the end of the show, there was scene of Gault slumped back in his chair, asleep, the sugar and alcohol crash getting to him.  Much like cats, small children are inexorably drawn to large warm spaces to sleep on, and Eva was no different.  “Hey, Hylo, remember that one time you caught Gault sleeping with a younger woman?” Eva yelled out.

There was a beat of silence before Hylo burst out laughing, hard, as her  younger counterpart came onto the screen, teasing Gault awake likely with that exact joke, based upon the lipread; he startled awake with a confused expression on his face, which was followed up with momentary horror, the relief when he realized that the ‘younger woman’ was a toddler up past her bedtime.  “And it was the only time, thank you very much,” Gault yelled back at Eva.  The entire cantina was roaring with laughter at this point.  

As the holofilm continued, Theron and Eva watched as the real Gault leaned over to the real Hylo and whispered to her about something.  “For all his failings, I don’t think chasing skirts when he was with her was one of them,” Theron whispered to Eva.

“I don’t think he’d be dumb enough; he’d get a blaster to the face.”

“I don’t think he had the heart for it, strangely.”

Eva hesitated a moment before grudgingly agreeing. “It wasn’t a question about loving or wanting someone else – it was love of the game, love of the money that got him.”  She leaned her head on Theron’s shoulder, and his arm snaked around her waist.

The pair watched Hylo and Gault talk as the holo finished.

“Didn’t expect that to be on there.” That was Eva’s final comment on the film as she stretched her arms behind her head as she sat at the back of the cantina next to Theron.  As she eased out of the stretch, she let herself settle into his side, his arm still slung around her as they watched Hylo and Gaunt talk, words unheard, as the rest of the audience filed out, joking and laughing.  

“Hell of a time to find it – you know they were on the outs again?” Theron asked. Eva hummed in the negative.  “Gault’s been trading around some of our excess supplies – apparently, Hylo had clinched a deal with the Old Tion Brotherhood, only to find out he’d traded away the lynchpin products in question – the slicer guides.”

“Same man, same problems,” Eva murmured quietly.  “It won’t change.” Eva sighed.  “But I don’t know if there’s anyone else out there that gets either one of them like the other does.”  

Theron looked over at the other couple left in the room before standing up, Eva rising with him. “And that covers a lot of ground, no matter how rocky.”

Husband and wife left the cantina, the lights still on, as one old romance played out again, and would do so for as long as both participants were out of stasis and alive.

[sullustangin]

world building wednesday

Yoinked from everyone else.  Since I only have one character (SWTOR Smuggler OC Eva Corolastor), I’ll run with her.

B A S I C S

full name:  Eva II Corolastor

gender:  female

sexuality: heterosexual

pronouns:  she/her

O T H E R S

family:  Hadrian (father), Athene (mother) (other members classified)

birthplace:  somewhere in transit near Bespin

job:  Nothing legally recognized

phobias:  Irrational fears?  spiders.  She has many completely rational fears.

guilty pleasures:  Too many to list; how about watching the Imps and Pubs look like idiots when confronted by highly motivated but dissolute and drunk smugglers?

M O R A L S

morality alignment?:  Chaotic neutral leaning good.

sins - lust/greed/gluttony/sloth/pride/envy/wrath

virtues - chastity/charity/diligence/humility/kindness/patience/justice (real justice, not law-based justice, because laws are only as good as the people that make them)

T H I S - O R - T H A T

introvert/extrovert:

organized/disorganized:  both: there is a system, just don’t ask her to explain it

close minded/open-minded:

calm/anxious: She can play calm very well, particularly in risky situations.

disagreeable/agreeable: both; depends on the day and the audience

cautious/reckless:  Personally, she is impulsive; collectively (when risking others) she is cautious.

patient/impatient: She is patient for pazaak, sex, and her ship.  Nothing else.

outspoken/reserved:  She doesn’t say much but she says it loud.

leader/follower:

empathetic/unemphatic:

optimistic/pessimistic:  realist.

traditional/modern:

hard-working/lazy:

R E L A T I O N S H I P S

otp:  Eva/Theron Shan

ot3:  N/A

brotp:  Eva+Bowdaar -- what is a smuggler without a Wookiee?

notp:   Corso; Arcann