On Sleepless Roads

Written by Sailor Stroiketcy and the Nar Shaddaa Knight

It had been a frustrating night already. Not that this was particularly unusual, she spent a good portion of her life frustrated, but this evening Lal had been fairly tap-dancing about the place in his prophetic glee.

She generally ignored him, but if she tapped the Chalice a couple times, just to see him wince from the echoes of it, well who could exactly blame her?

She was at the moment drying one of her brandy mugs, and pointedly ignoring Lal's obvious attempt to make her pay attention to a man at the end of the bar; where 'obvious' meant that he was standing behind him pointing to his head and saying 'ONE OF THEM, ONE OF THEM!'

It took several minutes and Lal's energy beginning to pulsate in his growing anxiety before she finally addressed him. Which was done by slamming a glass full of Bothan whiskey in front of him, a death glare and a firm whisper: "If you get out of wearing a skirt for that sithspawn nonsense just 'cause you're male, The Senshi rulebook and I are having a very serious discussion."

The subject of her ire - male, yes, but hardly qualifying as more than a human-shaped bag of meat in his current inebriated state - showed no indication that he had heard her, other than a tiny jump in his slumped shoulders. His lanky arms hung lifeless between his equally long legs, which were planted wide-apart on the floor, tasked with supporting his teetering frame on the edge of the bar stool. His dark hair hung like a sweat-soaked curtain in front of his face, obscuring whatever view he had of the situation.

Carmelle leaned a fraction of an inch closer to him and sniffed the air. He reeked of methanol. Humans were unable to metabolize the potent alcohol; this human-shaped bag of meat was not totally Human.

Her eyes narrowed sharply. Fine, she thought. She grabbed him by the collar of his jacket and yanked him up to look her in the eye. She got a few blinks, but otherwise just a glassy stare. She let go with a disgusted sigh and had to reach quickly when he began to tumble off the stool. She was half tempted to let him fall, but the pleading look on her ghostly lover's face made her purse her lips angrily and settle him firmly on the stool.

"Do not fall," she instructed, her tone brooking no argument -- she supposed if he'd been capable of coherent speech he might have been frightened. As it was, he simply slapped the bar lightly with the one hand he still seemed to be aware of.

"Shound like her," he slurred, his face still obscured by hair. He lifted his arms up over his head, gesticulating loosely with his hands. One of his arms swung wide as he tried to indicate this - something, and he slid off of the stool, catching himself on his feet. He let out a noise, stuck somewhere between a snort and a chuckle. "The hair," he said, gesturing in the air above his head once more, before he recalled both of his arms to replace the rest of his body on the stool.

She let out another exasperated breath and ran her fingers over a series of buttons under the rack of glasses. A series of loud honks, whistles and various other languages filtered over a set of speakers, informing all in the bar that Cherry had closed for the evening and if everyone could kindly take his or her tail end out into the streets it would probably be best for everyone involved. Her security droid awoke from it's corner and began the nightly removal of the dead drunks -- some literal and some figurative. She wasn't sure if he would have attempted to move, but Carmelle's firm grip on the man's shoulder prevented him from joining his fellow sentients in leaving the rapidly emptying bar.

To his credit, he did try to leave, but the gloved fist pulling his bantha hide jacket tight around his throat stopped him from rising more than a few centimeters out of his seat. "Mrff," he said. Carmelle watched his hands creep into his pockets. She wasn't alarmed -- she had dealt with this particular brand of drunk enough before to know that he was not a threat. Hell, if he pulled a vibroblade on her, it was more likely that he'd lose his balance, fall on it, and bury it to the hilt in his own belly than manage to even nick her.

He pulled out a smattering of credits and slapped them onto the bar. Several of the coins did not agree, and careened off of the bar in a symphony of off-key tinkling. "Money," he helpfully offered.

She quirked an eyebrow at that, but did not release him. "First of all," she shook him a little to make sure he was paying attention. "I am not only aware that that is money, I am further aware that it is not nearly enough money to cover what you drank. Secondly, you are staying because we're going to have a talk. If I have to pour warm blue milk with purple pepper down your throat, you're going to be coherent enough to answer me." With that she released him and slammed her hand on a seemingly innocuous bit of fakewood bar, feeling the same thrill of satisfaction she always got as the large blast doors shut with a clang.

She pulled out a bottle of pale green liquid and pulled up a stool to sit opposite her guest -- or rather, until she received her answers, captive. She stared at him over the rim of her bottle as she took a long pull from it; she couldn't help but smile a little as she felt a cool burn from the unique beverage. "Can you speak? More than a word at a time?"

He shrugged. "Got nothin' to shay, shister."

She tilted her bottle up wordlessly, allowing the liquid to set fire to her belly and soothe it as it went. Force she loved her moonwhiskey. From the corner of her eye she saw Lal hold his hands together in a pleading gesture, and a soft whisper of 'please don't kill the drunk' reached her ears. She rolled her eyes and grabbed a different bottle from under the bar, this one wrapped in black velvet. She tilted her head and observed this man -- the first untransformed senshi she had come across in the vast cityscape that was her home.

"Ain't your sister," she replied after a moment. "Not s'far as I know anyhow, and I think I'd know. No, I'm just someone stuck in a boat she don't wanna be in, and I want to know if I'm alone or if I've got company. There're plenty of other boats floatin' alongside, but it'd be nice to have someone else rowing a bit. And if that got too metaphor-y for your brain right now, I want to know if you're a senshi."

He straightened up in his seat. "Shure, whatever. Shenshi, yeah. Kark," he whined, "will you lemme go now? I got real important shtuff toodoo."

"What, do you have someone important to go vomit on?" She rolled her eyes and leaned forward. "I want a straight answer. Now."

"Shenshi? Nobata," he said, the foreign word moving out of his mouth as slowly as a Hutt slithering on a hot day. "Never heard of 'em."

She straightened and shrugged. "Okay, guess the ghost is wrong then," she looked past his shoulder, where Lal was gaping at her. "I told you," she added. "No way this drunk is one of those arseholes."

That got his attention.

Whether he had been sincerely drunk before or whether the slowness and slurring had been an act, Carmelle didn't know; but what she did know now was that he was sitting up, as rigid as a board -- and, more importantly, he had lifted his head and actually made eye contact with her. "Ghost?" he said, the dilating fear in his red-rimmed eyes betraying him. Sitting before her was a man who looked to have hardened into his thirties, but his voice betrayed him with the same heady mix of skepticism and real, pulse-pounding fear as a child who had just been told by his malicious older brother that yes, really, monsters are living underneath your bed.

Carmelle rolled her eyes. "Yes," she nodded her head toward the increasingly irritated spirit. "The one that was pointing at you yelling 'it's a senshi, it's a senshi' a little while ago. But since you have never heard of such a thing I wouldn't worry about it, I doubt he'll follow you home just to make sure, or anything like that."

He leaned closer to her, whispering. "How many are here right now? Where are they?"

She reached under the bar and grabbed for a opaque black bottle. "One second," she muttered, opening the cap and holding the long strand of material up to the light. It began to spark madly and she shoved it in her mouth. Her irises grew large and her eyes turned glassy for a few moments. She scanned the room, her eyes locking on a few things he obviously didn't see before she turned back to him. "Three, plus the one I can see without the spice," her voice was higher pitched than before. "Two think they are playing sabacc, there" she gestured toward the entrance, "and the other is standing by the door to my apartment," this last was followed by a nod toward her stairs. "My normal ghost is standing behind you meditatin' on how I annoy him."

"-behind me?"

She folded her arms. "Aye."

"How far behind me?"

"Does it really matter?"

He bit his lower lip as he considered this. His eyes were as wide as the coins scattered across the top of the bar. "Tell them not to hurt me." He looked sideways at her. "Tell them I'm a friend. I'll do whatever you want me to. Just tell them to leave me alone."

She stared at him for a long moment, before she rolled up one of her long black sleeves. Midway up her forearm the scars begin -- long thin slashes, and small angry red burns. She put the sleeve back, and pulled the neck of her shirt down to show a long, thick scar that began near her collarbone and continued past the dark fabric. "Do you really think I can control them?" Her voice was low again, and raspy. "They can only touch you if you have the 'gift'."

A string of Huttese curses made their way out of his throat. He dismounted the stool by sliding backwards off of it. It was neither a graceful nor wise movement, which he soon realized, as he was torn between catching his footing and the pain in his groin. He stumbled and caught his hands on the stool to right himself. "Place is crazy," he declared. "I'm gettin' the hell out of here."

She leaned back on her stool and nodded slowly. "Go ahead. Make sure you don't walk through Lal, it makes him get cranky." She stood and walked toward the back, where she touched a few seemingly unremarkable spots on the wall. She leaned against the door to her apartment and watched as the blast doors over the entrance creaked open again.

He froze in place and cursed again.

She grinned suddenly. "Of course, if you feel like opening up, I promise to let you know if you're walking through any dead Jedi."

"Fine!" He threw up his hands in surrender. "I'm a gods-damn senshi. But I ain't exactly the master of all of this either, kiddo."

"Honestly, I'm not that interested," she shrugged. "It's just Ye Olde Blue Guardian over there that cares so much. He wants me to bug you, and if I don't bug you he will bug me -- and I have to live with him. As for the rest of the senshi, so long as none of 'em are knocking down my door begging me to join their damn club and 'fight the good fight' together," her voice turned bitter, "then I don't care what they are up to."

"Kark, I'm going to die for this," he muttered, laughing in disbelief. He rubbed his face, pushing his sweat-heavy hair off of his forehead. "So you're a senshi too, eh?"

"Unless the past couple years AND the ghost have been a spice-induced hallucination - which is the answer I'm still hoping for actually - then yes," she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "Any idea where Stroiketcy is?"

"No clue. Gotta be somewhere off in the boonies."

"I wouldn't know," she stared off into space for a moment. Lal gestured at the man again. "Well I'm talking to him, I'm just not sure what you want from him, so I can't ask it. He can't hear you, so I don't know why you insist on playing charades."

"Well--" Lal started and frowned. "You should... ask him... stuff. He's a connection, I know it."

Carmelle pursed her lips and refocused on the drunk. "He says you're a connection. Apparently he thinks that is helpful information, personally I disagree but it's difficult to argue with the dead. They're so stubborn."

"Well, I know someone who might be able to help." He rubbed his eyes again. "But you've got to get the damn boogeyman off my back first. Deal?"

"He's not doing anything, but sure, deal," she made eye contact with Lal-Akis and smirked a bit. "Lal, do we promise not to walk through or otherwise irritate the scared guy?" At his confirmation, she nodded to her customer. "Indeed, deal."

He gaped. "Hold on. This guy follows you around?!"

Carmelle tilted her head and peered at him. "As a general rule, yes. I think it's in the 'otherworldly guide' job description." She decided not to mention that he was occasionally her lover and - if she would have degraded herself to using such a term - her 'boyfriend'. "He's more or less harmless, you don't have to worry."

The man allowed himself a final heaving sigh "My name's Race, by the way. What's yours? I should probably at least pretend to know you."

"Carmelle Cherry," she said. She grabbed a jacket from a cabinet the man hadn't quite noticed before, and shrugged it on. "Now, where're we off to?"

"Stay here," he warned, stumbling ahead of her as the ancient door thudded shut behind them.

Carmelle's eyes scanned over the room, suddenly uncomfortable with her decision to leave the bar. She had been superficially aware that they had gone up a few levels, but it hadn't actually set in her mind what that would mean. She supposed she should have taken a couple fewer sips from her flask as they walked -- but she had promised him she would keep an eye out for spirits and she needed her glit-rum to hold up her end of the bargain. She pulled at the edges of her thin black sleeves, noting with awe the sophistication of the technology she could see. She had invested in a few upgrades to Cherry's security in the past few years, but only enough to know exactly how many credits she was staring at. She inched back toward the door, feeling an odd need for a defensible position.

"Where in the galaxy have you been?!" exclaimed a woman's voice, seemingly from above. "I've been trying to reach you all night!"

Startled, Carmelle's gaze shot to the top of the stairs, and suddenly her slight discomfort became an overwhelming sense of being completely out of place. The young woman who had shouted wore some sort of ornate creation of lace and baubles that Carmelle couldn't even place. She had an odd sense that the woman's clothing was worth more than her bar -- and due to the not-quite-fully-opaque nature of the garment, an equally horrifying idea that this was nothing but a night dress.

"Commcard's broken," he said, matter-of-factly. He pulled the offending item out of his pocket. It was - or, rather, had been - a state of the art model, flat like a piece of flimsi, and almost as thin. It had been bent and folded in the middle, and looked as if it had nearly snapped in half.

Carmelle watched, emotionless, as he hurled it across the room and into the stone floor. It exploded into a shower of chips and plastic.

"Broken," he repeated.

"You're an idiot, Race." She descended the stairs, wielding each bitter cadence, each wild gesture of the hand, like a master swordsman. "That's three that you've broken now, in as many months. And how are you feeling? Wonderful, I hope. I truly do. While you were off drinking yourself into a pleasant little stupor, Suri, Honouko and I were fighting off an acid-spitting mutant a hundred levels below."

She reached the floor and stopped right in front of him, her tiny hands concentrated into fists on her waist. She was nearly a foot shorter than him, and was standing so close to him that she needed to tilt her head sharply upward to make eye contact, but she still looked as grand and ridiculous as on her perch at the top of the stairs. "Are you too intoxicated to speak now, too?"

"No," he said, staring down at her nightgown. "Just thought I'd enjoy the view while it lasted. Is it another crazy tradition on Naboo to go commando at night, or is that just something you like to do?"

Carmelle hadn't paid too much attention to the woman until that point - wives shouting at drunk husbands was not too uncommon in her line of work - but at that comment she couldn't help but turn and stare at the luxuriously dressed lady. With the exact way the light was hitting her, the gown was nearly transparent -- and her drunken host was entirely correct in his estimation. Whether it was the liquor, the comment or the woman's rapidly purpling face that amused her so she couldn't tell, but a short and loud burst of laughter escaped her.

Race grinned at Carmelle's reaction and moved to scoop her up with an arm around her shoulders. He pulled her out of the shadows of the entrance foyer, pushing her towards the shocked woman. "Carmelle, meet Naboo."

Carmelle couldn't help but snicker again. The woman was torn between two physical instincts: an instinctive want to cover herself up, and an equally, painfully instinctive need to do the Polite Thing and move to shake Carmelle's hand. "How do you do," she said, nodding her head slightly and settling for a middle ground.

Carmelle held herself rigid, determined to portray pride and confidence, regardless of whether or not she actually felt either emotion; after a moment she returned the nod. "Carmelle Cherry," she introduced herself, only a bit of her tenseness leaking into her voice. She took a deep breath and stopped, her eyes focusing just past Race's shoulder. Lal-Akis had seemed to find it very entertaining to hover right next to the man, simply because he knew it bothered him. Of course Carmelle chose not to point it out.

But now her guardian was staring at 'Naboo'... specifically, about a foot below where he would need to look, were he attempting to meet her eyes. Carmelle's eyes narrowed. "She's up there Master Osaze," her voice dripped sarcasm. "Unless her chest is going to reveal the secrets of the senshi you have about ten seconds to stop staring." Lal started and looked up guiltily. He shuffled his feet a bit and muttered something vaguely apologetic.

"Dead for decades and still a perv," Carmelle grumbled to herself.

The woman's brow knit into confusion. "Who is she talking to?" she asked Race, staring at Carmelle.

"She has a ghost," Race said, leaning towards the woman, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper. "A blue one. Kind of like Suri's. Don't worry, he won't eat your soul."

She looked at him as if he were insane.

"Miss Cherry," she said, shaking her head at Race and collecting her bearings. "My name is Ilié Ramaret. It is a pleasure to meet you, whatever my prior interaction with this Gamorrean might have suggested."

"But I must ask," she said, staring at Race again, "What Race is doing bringing guests to this facility." Her voice turned to durasteel. "We have had this conversation before-"

"Yeah, yeah, shut up," he grumbled. "It's fine. She's not bad. She's a senshi."

"How do you know that?"

"She transformed in front of me."

"She doesn't necessarily have to be a senshi to transform. No one here is really completely sure as to how exactly this works. Has that ever crossed your mind?"

"Has it ever crossed your mind not to be such a bitch?"

Her eyes narrowed into slits. "You and I are going to have a chitchat tomorrow."

"So jealous, Naboo. That's a horrible trait." Her cheeks flushed red again, but before she could protest, Race slung his arm again around Carmelle's shoulders and ushered her past the speechless, shaking woman, leading her up the stairs. "She's so fun to tease," he said, practically grinning into Carmelle's ear. "I'll show you all of her fun buttons."

Carmelle couldn't help the smirk on her face. "I can hardly wait," she drawled. "So I take it Miss See-Through-Nightie is not the Great Senshi Guru I have been brought here to meet? Do any of you actually know what you're doing or do you just make it up as you go along?"

"Well, actually," he said, casting his gaze back to the woman as he spoke, "that's her. She's the best we've got. Scary, huh?"

Behind them, Ilié let out a snort. "Says the Halfling Zeltron drunk who's barely literate."

"Zeltron? Seriously? Did the human side lose a bet?" Carmelle did not wait for an answer before turning back to the wealthier woman. "Since my darling spirit Guardian made me promise to follow the next senshi connection I came across, I have arrived here. I am Sailor Stroiketcy. Would you could be so kind as to let me know what the bleeding hell's happening with the universe so I can go back home and drink myself into oblivion? I know that all this banthashit that's gone down lately is no coincidence."

Suddenly her head jerked forward and her nostrils flared with anger as she looked behind her. Once again the other senshi were treated to the sight of her arguing with thin air.

"That is incredibly rude!" Lal-Akis hissed at her. "You are here to make a connection with them, not insult them! You have a responsibility to help the universe! You can't just-"

"Before we get on the topic of what I 'can't just' do, let's start with what you can't just do -- which is hit me in the head! I can and will trap you in the olive jar Lal-Akis Osaze do not tempt me to it!" With that she turned back to the woman in the transparent gown. "Now, as I was saying -- what the hell's going on?"

Ilié, snapped out of her argument by Carmelle's dizzying behavior, merely shook her head. "I'm not exactly sure what's going on, either. But I'll do my best to try to help sort it out." She crossed her arms further over her chest, another blush accompanying the gesture. "I'm going to go put on a robe," she muttered. "Why don't I meet you two in the kitchen? I'm not sure how far away you've come from, but you're more than welcome to anything you find if you're hungry."

Carmelle sat heavily in one of the chairs Race had vaguely pointed to upon their arrival, and allowed her forehead to drop to the table. "Anything to drink around here?" she mumbled around the marble. "'Cause I'd really like something without glit in it. I don't even want to see what kind of spirits you have 'round here."

"We have LOTS OF ALCHIES!" A perky voice chirped from behind her. Carmelle tilted her head to look and wondered if she could just will herself to pass out. A purple-haired creature wearing very little clothing that covered very little of her ample curves was suddenly hopping around the kitchen. "Bartender Suri at your service what can I get for ya?"

"Please dear Xeixue tell me I am imagining things and that this is not real," Carmelle looked at the ceiling, desperation leaking into her voice. "I can't handle it if that thing is one of them!"

Suri bent down so she was at eye-level with their unhappy guest. "Camel? Camel from that bar! The bartender! I know you!"

"I hate my life," Carmelle wrapped her arms around her head and did not acknowledge the girl any further. "Tatooine Tequila Blast if you know how to make it and have the shit."

"Camel?" Race reappeared next to Carmelle, leaning back in his chair and taking a swig out of a bottle of beer. "You two know each other?"

"Know being a relative term... since it cannot even remember that there are additional and essential letters to my name, I would say decidedly not," Carmelle raised her head and looked at his beer, as if hoping it might replicate before her. "However, it has frequented my establishment on occasion. I will now definitely require a drink."

Ilié walked into the kitchen - thankfully, wrapped in a blue robe, itself nothing short of magnificent - with a small Bothan woman in a long shirt and sleeping shorts in tow. By the looks of it, she was not happy with being woken at the late hour. "Carmelle, this is Inga, Sailor Bothawui. Inga, this is Carmelle."

"Uhn," said the Bothan, darkly.

"Seconded," Carmelle grumbled. She heard a clink in front of her and looked down at the red and yellow layered mixture with some surprise -- a Tatooine Tequila Blast. Suri was standing on the other side of the table looking exceptionally pleased with herself. She was actually bouncing a little on her heels, waiting for Carmelle to take a sip.

She looked at the glass suspiciously, but decided after a moment's reflection that as long as it actually contained the prescribed amount of tequila, it didn't matter if the creature that concocted it had any idea about the actual process -- in other words, if it got her drunk as quick as one normally did, it could taste like bantha piss for all she cared at the moment. She held up the glass and with a well-practiced flick of the wrist, downed it.

Several seconds later, while Race happily chanted 'chug, chug, chug' beside her, Carmelle slammed the glass back on the table. She swallowed a couple times and let out a large breath. The purple-haired creature was still now, staring expectantly at her. Carmelle nodded slowly. "Pretty good," she admitted. Suri danced a little.

Ilié shook her head. "I don't suppose anyone would like some tea."

Carmelle simply stared at her, then looked back at Race's beer. Race slid her his, and looked at Ilié. "Is it that kind you make that tastes like trees?"

Carmelle took the beer thankfully, and after a couple sips let out a relaxed noise. "That's much more natural," she sighed. She realized she was getting a couple of odd looks. "Not the shit that tastes like trees, the beer. I don't drink trees unless they're magic whiskey trees."

"Well, I drink trees. Apparently." Ilié scowled and lit a fire under the kettle on top of the heating unit. "Is there anything we can do to make your ghostly companion more comfortable? I'm not quite sure how the etiquette goes in this situation."

"Oh, no he just sort of...exists," Carmelle took another sip of the beer and nodded appreciatively. "All's he can touch or feel is me, and I don't particularly feel like making him comfortable at the moment. Not appropriate to do in front of strangers."

If Ilié picked up on her suggestion, she was too polite to say so. "Why is he interested in the senshi? Was he a senshi before he -- passed?"

"Huh, you know I never asked," Carmelle tilted her head and looked at Lal. He shook his head. "Ah, no, he's just a normal dead Jedi. He's my guide and they apparently don't do a whole lot of informing on the Other Side, so he has no idea why we're suddenly active and what I'm supposed to be doing. I guess theoretically if I have a purpose it'd be nice to know what it is so I can decide if I want to do it or not."

"Is that why you came here, then?" she asked, her eyes on Carmelle, groping blindly inside a cabinet for a teacup.

"More or less. An opportunity to glean a bit of information about my current situation presented itself, and a wise woman never turns down information." Carmelle watched the others with eyes that were still alert and focused, despite the late hour and alcohol. "I figured I've spent a couple years going it alone, I could try being aware of what all of you are involved in."

Suri leaned over the table with a smile. "Well! If you're a senshi then you should fight with us! That's about what we do, we fight baddies. They lose," she whispered conspiratorially. "...Usually," she added after a long pause.

"So that's what you know? That you fight 'evil' and then go home?" Carmelle sighed. "Well, that's good I guess."

Ilié shot a look at Suri and shook her head almost imperceptibly. "Yes, well," she said, filling the cup she had managed to find with steaming water, then dropping a teabag into it. "We're trying to do the right thing."

Carmelle shrugged and sipped at the beer. "I get it," she shrugged. "But if that's all you have for me, I'd probably better get back down to my bar. It's a long walk."

Suri shook her head, purple hair waving seductively - which rather answered a longstanding question of Carmelle's as to whether or not it simply did that on it's own, or if she did it on purpose - as she bounced in place a bit. "Walking? No! I have - oh! Wait!" With that she turned and ran from the room. "Don't leave yet!" Her voice trailed behind her.

Carmelle tilted her head at Race and sighed. "Thanks for the beer, but if I'm ever going to escape I'd best do it while Perky McBigBoobs is out of the room."

Ilié cleared her throat delicately. "Actually," she began, "Suri will want to register you in our computer system. I imagine that's where she bounded off to," this last was said with a rather fond glance after the buxom dancer.

Carmelle frowned a little, but said nothing. She shot a glance at the half-drunk semi-human beside her, to whom she felt an odd kinship. He represented the familiar in the strange little world she had tumbled into. "What kind of computer?" she asked softly. "I prefer not having my name known to... well..."

"Just for their records," Race replied, shrugging. "I don't touch it. Suri would cut off my hands."

"Ah."

"We wouldn't report you to anyone," Ilié said. "We would never interfere with your personal life. What you choose to do is, well, your choice. We'd only store contact information, and we would only use that if absolutely necessary."

Race let out an ungentlemanly snort, but luckily any and all responses he might have made were cut off by the re-entry of Suri Rose. With a ribbon-bedecked bag in her arms.

Carmelle stared at the girl warily, eying both the dancer and the colorful gift she carried. Suri beamed.

"It's a 'welcome to the senshi' gift bag!" she exclaimed, holding it out to suspicious blonde. "Open it!"

Carmelle accepted it, staring at the package cautiously. After increasingly anxious prodding from the purple-haired girl, she removed the top layer of tissue paper and ribbons, peering into the depths of the candy-colored bag. She frowned a little as she pulled out a sheet of flimsy with odd pictures on it. She looked at Suri expectantly.

"Stickers," the Berchestian senshi informed her cheerfully. "You stick them on stuff to make it pretty."

Carmelle raised an eyebrow, but nodded, accepting the odd gift. The fact that the 'stickers' were of oddly colored nude women only made it stranger. She gently set it aside, and pulled out a few more odds and ends - a plastic fast-food prize, a hand mirror, etc. - before she found a small com card, identical to the one Race had hurled across the building earlier. She tilted her head and glanced once again at Suri.

It was plucked from her fingers and Suri held it up to the light. "This is how we get in touch with each other," she explained. She tapped on it and the display popped up. She tapped it a few more times, though as far as Carmelle could tell she didn't actually accomplish anything by it.

She pressed her thumb into the center of it, and said her name and planet. It popped up a new screen, this one showing her picture - Carmelle hadn't wanted to see that! - and a menu screen. Suri smiled and rapidly ran through the menu until she came across the option she had searched for. "Here you go," she handed it back to Carmelle. "Press your thumb there until it turns white," she did, "and say your name and planet," again the blonde followed the command.

Suri smiled broadly. "Now it's programmed itself to your biorhythms!" She stuck her hand into Carmelle's bag and pulled out an earpiece. "You press the card to this and tell it which one of us, or all of us, that you want to contact and it'll alert everyone else who has their com card with them! You can also take pictures and ride the lifts with it! I hacked the system," she added, grinning in a self-satisfied manner.

"I can do what?" Carmelle stared at her.

Suri's face dropped. "Do I have to repeat the whole thing?"

"No - I can ride the lifts? For free?"

"Uh huh! Lifts are expensive, we wouldn't expect people to waste their creds running to help us!" Suri laughed a little. "How else would we get around?"

Carmelle stared at the creation in her hands, an odd sort of pressure in her chest. Her proud desire to refuse any charity was warring with her almost physical longing to see the sun. 'If I help them...' she rationalized, 'I will be earning this.'

She nodded slowly and looked across the table at Suri Rose. "Okay, I'll help."

Suri beamed.

Carmelle stood just outside the doors of the Embassy, fighting down her feeling of panic. She was, beyond all else, a creature of habit and this -- this was out of her routine by extreme leaps. It didn't particularly help that Lal had decided to fade out sometime earlier in the morning without her noticing. He did it just to annoy her, if he decided she had ignored him for too long a period of time. He would be sleeping with the liquor for some nights to come, she decided furiously.

"Want some company?" The voice startled her and she spun around quickly, and winced as she felt all her previous alcohol consumption swish about in her stomach. Race grinned at her. "Come on, you know you want to take advantage of that lift pass."

She glared at him. "You don't know me, don't act like-"

"It was pretty obvious you hadn't ridden many of them," he elaborated. "When I brought you up here earlier, you were nervous and fidgety on the lift."

Carmelle did not appreciate the insinuation that she was easy to read -- she prided herself on being mysterious and complex. The idea that someone had been able to recognize one of her least favorite emotions so easily bothered her. She pursed her lips. "Well, it's not like I have creds to waste on stupid trips," she grumbled. "Most of my suppliers are on the same level. Just walk."

Race shrugged. "So, abuse the power now that you've got it. Let's take a ride." He strode forward, taking her arm as he passed her and pulling her with him.

"Where?" Carmelle wasn't exactly resisting, but she was not being terribly easy to pull either.

"Up!" Race replied, unhelpfully. They arrived at the lift point and he swiped his card as they entered, gesturing for her to do the same. She did, and a green light appeared above her head.

She let out a small noise of disbelief as suddenly they shot upwards. There were no windows this far down, and she wouldn't expect there to be. She realized after a long moment they had boarded an express - she'd never even dreamed of such a thing before. All her previous lift experience had involved stops every other level.

At the end of the rush upward, quite a few minutes later, Race once again grabbed her arm and propelled her out toward another lift, barely giving her time to glance around at the slowly livening level. She could see the faintest traces of natural light here and felt a strange terror pierce her. He pushed her toward another lift, and this time she swiped her card first. This one had windows, and moved somewhat slower. It still shot up toward the surface, but she could see that the levels here had foliage, the people were well-fed and well-clothed, they looked soft and round and comfortable. She felt dirty and out of place in her rough black cloth, coated in the grime that a night at her bar always produced.

Race squeezed her arm gently and grinned at her, looking brighter and more awake as the levels passed. It was getting brighter with each moment, and Carmelle soon had to shield her eyes. It had become mid-morning while she dealt with the senshi below, and Coruscant's sun was high in the sky. Suddenly the lift doors opened, and Carmelle tried not to show her reaction to the fragrant air, heavy with sweet scents and clear, non-recycled air. She was sure it was beautiful, if she could only manage to keep her eyes open more than a few seconds against the light.

She felt herself being pulled into the bustling walkway, and accepted Race's guidance. He placed her out of the stream of traffic for a moment with a firm command not to move until he returned. She nodded rather glumly and tried, once again, to force her eyes to adjust. She was as successful as she had been previously -- which is to say, not at all.

She bit the inside of her lip in frustration, then finally gave up and simply enjoyed the sounds and smells being offered to her. It was wonderful, she decided, able to see it or not.

Race appeared at her side again and announced his presence by touching her shoulder -- and being elbowed in the gut for his efforts. He grunted and she apologized quickly, pulling back and folding her arms tightly against her chest. "I didn't mean to," she added. "I just can't see."

Race grunted again, and opened the parcel he had been off purchasing. "Hold still a second okay?"

She nodded.

"And don't freak out," he added, grumbling. He pulled out his purchase, a pair of darkly tinted sunglasses, and placed them on her face. She opened her eyes and boggled at him. "Tada! Welcome to the senshi, kid."

Her mouth worked silently, she could look around with only a slight squint now. She stared at the marketplace, taking in now the colors of the garments worn and just how bright everything was.

"I... can't..." she faltered. "Thank you," she settled on. She looked over the edge of the bridge they stood on, then decided that was a bad idea and stepped away from the rail. She rustled in her pockets, trying to find loose change. A few coins appeared in her hand and she held it out to him, her lower lip caught between her teeth. "Will that cover it?"

He nodded, accepting the coins. The fact that it would have taken several dozen times what she held out to cover her glasses was irrelevant, she needed to pay him back, and he understood the impulse. His face lit up suddenly, and he was suddenly pulling her through the crowd again. "How do you feel about digging through rich people's trash?" He grinned at her.

She looked around her, at the opulence that she was rushing past. She abruptly began to match his pace, smirking slightly. "If we find anything good I'm claiming it."

"The hell you will!"

Carmelle suddenly smiled and he grinned back as they darted down an alley and found a suitably large dumpster. Carmelle seemed much more at ease as they returned to the shadows of tall buildings, even though at this level, the sun could not be blocked out. "Come on in, Camel," he called, climbing into the massive bin.

"Do not call me that," Carmelle grumbled. "For the record, I collect music chips. If you find any, I want them."

"What if their taste sucks?" Race asked curiously, beginning to tear into bags.

"Then we burn down their house," she replied calmly, echoing his movements.

Race shrugged. "Fair enough," and dug in.

By the end of the day they were both dirty, exhausted and carrying bags loaded with useless junk. Carmelle supposed, as they rode the lifts back down to the lower levels, that being a guardian of peace and justice, etc., etc., was not entirely a bad gig. After all, she'd found an unopened box of Bakuran candy!

Race grumbled beside her, and plotted how to steal it from her.

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