#rielay/brevom

[captainderyn]

@lumielles is feeding me good with Lumielle family feels which obviously means I need to counterbalance with some Brev and Rielay cuteness :,)

[captainderyn]

Dialogue Prompt: ❝ I take it you’re King of the Crazy People. ❞

Thank you for this ask! It's been sitting, but I'm taking a little break from original stuff to mull over things and really have missed writing Rielay.

I have not re familiarized myself with SWTOR so I am just straight diving into this, no plan, just vibes xD (Brevom is @lumielles boy)

--

Rielay landed on Odessen less than 48 hours ago and she already wanted to go home. Wherever home was. It certainly wasn't Corellia anymore with it's shipyards becoming a battle ground and the sounds of fighting reaching her quaint home. Packing up the home she'd made for herself there had been one of the hardest things she'd done in a long while, but Emeldir had practically begged her to find somewhere safe when he'd caught to holonews of what was happening.

She loved him too much to stubbornly plant her feet and say no. So she'd joined him and Risha on Dubrillion in their little manor. There, at least, the only warfare was the battle Risha waged on with those on her staff that dared attempt to veto her plans.

They got along, well enough she supposed, like a cat gets along with a hose. Not well at all, she mentally winced each time Emeldir had to calmly mediate that Rielay really didn't mean to insult Dubrillion's current state.

(She had, actually, meant to insult Dubrillion's current state, just not Risha herself.)

It had been a blessing in a too-good-to-be-true disguise when she'd met a lovely woman named Petra who claimed to know her old friend Idan and the thick-headed Miraluka Jedi that'd been with her. She'd broken out her ship, dusted off her teaching days from all the way back when she'd taught Emeldir to fly.

And somehow found herself on Odessen.

Rielay planted her feet on the rim of her ship's airlock entrance, pushing with all her might as if that would dislodge whatever rusty bits kept her ship's ramp of descending all the way. She grunted, feeling blood rushing to her face, all to no avail. The ramp stayed stubbornly stuck.

This ship had been with her for more than half her life and the ship itself was twice her age. One of these days she'd have the ramp fixed so every couple months of flight she wouldn't end up in this position.

Sure, she could still fit out of the entrance when the ramp got stuck three quarters of the way up, but the jump down hurt her knees now and getting up either required an embarrassing amount of precision jumping or a step ladder. And she was too proud to carry around a folding step stool in her bag.

"What happens when that dislodges?"

Rielay gasped at the new voice, losing her grip with her boots. Her foot went sliding off, sending her scooting backwards in an ungraceful slide. She snagged the struts of the ramp before she slid entirely off the ramp and fell the several feet below.

She glared at the newcomer, daring to release one hand to yank the curly floof of her ponytail from beneath her shoulders, where it craned her neck backwards.

"Does it look like it's dislodging?" she snapped, kicking a foot halfheartedly at where her feet had been pressed against. Her short legs missed and more heat rushed to her face.

She chose to work on The Promise in this hangar specifically because there wasn't supposed to be anyone in here. She eyed the upside-down man standing beneath the ramp, trying to place him in the sea of new faces she'd met in the last two days.

He vaguely matched up with the lanky figure she'd seen puppy-dog trailing after Idan's scary sith daughter and her equally as scary, equally as sith shadow. Aramys and...she didn't catch the other woman's name. She didn't know if in her accented Imperial voice she'd been telling Rielay her name was Wren or commanding her to run.

It still offered her no name. Everyone should be wearing name tags, or she'd never keep up with what was going on.

"No, but you're head looks like it's going to explode if it gets any redder." Was he...teasing her? The shit eating grin on his face sure made it seem like he was.

Rielay flipped herself around, squirming to her knees. The world went topsy-turvy for a moment and she shook her head to right it again. She planted her hands on the edge of the ramp, glaring down at him, "Listen Mr. Look At Me, I'm So Funny--"

She leaned a little far and felt her sweaty, rust-cleanser slicked palms slip off the metal edge. Suddenly the equally metal floor was coming at her at terminal velocity and she yelped, bracing for impact.

Ungraceful arms were around her then, her chin slamming into a t-shirt clad shoulder and a forearm catching her fall right across the chest. She grunted, he grunted.

But her face was mercifully spared from the smashing it'd almost experienced.

"Holy fuck." Rielay breathed out, world tipping again as her stranger savior hastened to put her back on her feet. Feet back where they were meant to be, she wiped her palms down the front of her pants. The denim was already stained to hell, the oil soaked rag tucked into one of the belt loops leaving a bleeding dark stain across her thigh.

She looked up at the stranger, blowing a curl out of her face. His eyes were wide, his cheeks flushed completely red as he looked between her and the ramp the was far above her head.

"I'm sorry," he blurted, blinking rapidly and gestured between his chest and hers, "For, well, that."

Rielay stared at him for a long moment before looking down at her own chest as if she'd forgotten the presence of her own boobs and the connection his arm had made, "Oh? The ladies are fine, don't worry about it. If they had to be sacrificed to keep me from getting a nasty concussion, that's fine by me."

She glanced up again, tilting her head at the still baffled look on his face, "What?"

The man gestured pointedly at the ramp, then to her, "You do realize that's a really long fall, right? What would've happened if no one was here?"

"I wouldn't have slipped," Rielay crossed her arms over her chest, "Because I wouldn't have been distracted."

He snorted and her brows knitted, "You were trying to shove your ramp down on that rust bucket by yourself! Are you crazy?"

"What are you, king of the crazy people? Dictating what can and can't be done?" Rielay bristled, "Hey! She's not a rust bucket!"

"That ship's older than the Sacking of Coruscant!"

"Yeah, she is!" Rielay agreed, "But that doesn't make her a rust bucket! I take loving care of that ship."

"By planting your boots on it?" He was grinning and without thinking Rielay pushed her hands against his chest, leaving two Rielay-sized, greasy hand prints on the grey fabric of his shirt.

"It's really fucking rude to talk down to a smuggler's ship." she growled, "Didn't anyone teach you manners?"

She probably shouldn't go around shoving strangers who just saved her, but she couldn't help it, and all it did was make him chortle. In fact, if he kept laughing as hard as he did, the man was going to pass out.

"Teach me manners?" he wheezed between breaths, pulling the hem of his t-shirt so he could get a look at the hand prints on his chest, "Pot...kettle...black."

Rielay put on her best no-nonsense frown and jabbed a finger at her ship, "If you're gonna be a pain in the ass, at least be a useful one and put me back up there." She dredged up some of her manners, "Please."

"On one condition." she narrowed her eyes at him, "Can I help you?"

She opened her mouth, ready to fire back that she didn't need help, especially from someone who would give her shit when he added, "Just from one ship-goer to another."

Rielay mulled this over, deciding that she really could use some help and that despite the frown she pressed onto her face, a smile was threatening to break through with how raucous his laughter had been, "Alright. Only if I get to know your name."

He agreed quickly, hoisting her up onto his shoulders so she could scramble back up onto the ramp, "Brevom."

She turned, planting one hand a safe distance from the edge of the ramp this time so she could extend her hand, "Rielay Taqq."