RPlog:Squid Lake: Whaladon Spark

The Domed City of Aquarius, which lies far below the surface of Dac's oceans, is bustling with activity as it would on any normal evening. However, one place in particular is seeing its fair share of action tonight. "The Whaladon Pub" is located in one of the seedier areas of the city, and happens to be a place where Quarren like to frequent, most likely due to an atmosphere that favors neither indigenous race too much. What started as a simple conversation over drinks has escalated into rowdy, angered bickering. Now, the angry mob has moved outside of the bar, where a line of angry Quarren have forced out a small handful of Mon Calamari customers. Loud, bickering, disgruntled words are thrown back and forth. The Quarren are refusing to let the Mon Calamari come into the bar.

Gren had went ahead to one of the hotels to get a nap, leaving his wife to wander around, the Twi'lek having planned a bit of sight seeing and the like on her own until the time he joins her. Of course, as if by some kind of knack or odd turn of fate, that means Twila happens upon the fight as it filters outside and really gets starting. Wincing, she skirts around the impending brawl, trying to find away around the throng of beings without getting caught in it herself. "Damn." she utters in annoyance while a Quarren gets shoved in front of her, barely missing her by inches as he falls.

The fight hasn't yet broken out into punches. Rather, it's a verbal onslaught of obscenities in Quarrenese and Mon Calamarian, and the occasional shove and push. It's this last shove that almost gets it going for real, but one of the other Quarren moves in and puts his fist in the jaw of the most outspoken Mon Calamarian. The Calamari rush to the aide of their friend, hefting him by the shoulders and drawing him away from the Quarren. The Mon Calamarians have seemingly decided to let this one go. They grumble to themselves, and then one by one they start turning away, regrouping down the street as they head off to find another watering hole. As they depart, a collective shout of zeal goes up from the Quarren gathered outside. One of them manages to intercept Twila, and addresses her in heavily accented Basic. "Twi'lek. The Whaladon Pub is open to you." He elbows a path through two other of his racial brethren, and opens the door to the pub, grinning at Twila.

Twila nods as she steps around the bodies standing about, a brow arched slightly as she takes the Quarren in fully even as she moves to enter. "My husband will be joining me as well. A human. I do hope it is alright," she says in a voice that is slightly elevated in volume so she can be heard over any shouts or yelling that might be filtering throughout the air. The entry into the cantina is actually swift once the entrance is reached, the blue-skinned 'lek not taking any more chances. Squinting, she looks about the main area; trying to figure out whom... and what... are here.

"Yes, the humans are welcome," replies the Quarren, his meaty hand remaining on the door handle until Twila has passed through. He then forces it shut, and turns to take up the guard again. Inside, the Whaladon Pub actually seems much less dangerous, though it does show the signs of a brawl not long ago. There is broken glass here and there, a couple of overturned tables, and spilled beverages, all being attended to by an old, ratty but operational janitorial droid. The clientele is mostly Quarren, though there are a handful of humans, near-humans, and other sentients here. Just... no Mon Calamarians. Most of the Quarren present are talking amongst themselves in their native language, their voices far from quiet and carrying hints of anger and excitement. HJek Pathon sits at the bar with a look of mixed emotions on his near-human face. His hand holds a glass of ice-blue lum, fermented of Quarren origin.

"Well, looks like I've stumbled into the wrong side of the tracks, yet again." Slipping up onto a stool at the bar, Twila gives one last look about her immediate area warily before relaxing as much as she's able to, the tone of the voices keeping her from able to do so fully. "I'll have a Corellian ale!" she shouts out once the bartender finds their way to where she's seated, her own volume now heightened out of nervousness than any necessity. To say she's uncomfortable would be an understatement. Once her drink order's placed she looks down the bar, first to the right and then to the left, noticing Hjek as she does so. "Rough neighborhood, it seems." She smirks towards the near-human as she says that.

Pathon's eyes fell on Twila when she stepped up the bar. In a matter of seconds, many things happened inside the man's mind. First was recognition, followed almost immediately by an insatiable desire to gut the woman's torso. As quickly as bloodlust flashed through his mind, however, he remembered his mission. Yes, Korynn Fleming lies behind the disguise wrought of surgery and falsified identifications. His training as an interrogator lends itself to this operation, which requires the utmost secrecy and maintenance of his covert identity as a stranded spacer. Thus, he masks the bloodlust from his face, and begins to laugh in a watery way at Twila's smirking remark. "Here, here," he says, lifting his glass of lum in a toast. "Fortunately for the likes 'v you an' me, they don't have anythin' against folks like us." There isn't a trace of his Coruscanti dialect, having been erased through four days of solitary confinement and constant playback of a source dialect for him to learn, study, and practice without intrusion. He lifts the lum and draws it back with a harsh wince, followed almost immediately by a broad grin. "Just don't talk friendly 'bout the fish-heads, or you'll find yourselves at the wrong end of a suction cup."

Twila bites her tongue and almost literally as she finds herself fighting back something that'd be considerable snarky and entirely dangerous for her to say, the struggle to keep polite clear upon her face. "Well...yes. You're right. I'll just keep to myself, outside of talking with you, have a drink and such while I wait." A pained look forms on her face. Old habits do die hard, her habit being to cause fights and such whenever she darn well feels like it, but it'd hardly do her any good to do so now, especially on Dac. "So what brings you to this planet?" she offers as means of keeping the polite conversation going even as the barkeep brings her ale. The glass is picked up and drank out of while she looks at Hjek out of the corner of her eye.

HJek Pathon puts his glass of lum top down on the bar, signaling that he wants another. He rolls his alien eyes and looks away, scowling. "Way to spoil a man's night," he mutters. "Hyperdrive. As if I didn't have enough problems with the blasted rust bucket, she blew out four jointer rings. Took me a damned month just t' get here." When the bartender brings him another lum, Pathon's eyes brighten slightly. "Ohhh. You're a life saver." He brings the lum up and drinks half of it down without a grimace this time.

Wincing, Twila casts a sympathetic look at him although it's fairly easy to tell she didn't understand everything he said just now. "Sounds like it's going to be a costly fix, there. Time-wise as well as in creds." She wrinkles her nose before gesturing towards her newly made 'friend', speaking to the bartender as she does so. "Buy him another drink once that one is done. On me." She tosses the creds for that drink as well as her own, the Twi'lek also leaving a tip that might make a few people gawk... much more than what one person might tip for two drinks. "Hopefully your ship will be back in space soon..." Pausing, she tilts her head before shrugging and taking another drink. "I couldn't begin to imagine what we'd do if one of our ships went down."

Korynn has to swallow his pride yet again when Twila offers to buy him a drink. His blood threatens to boil, but he reminds himself again of the pain that he endured when Darth Venger unleashed the dark side of the Force on his body. He's now served as a pawn for the Emperor, bounced between the wills of two Sith Lords... revenge is a dish best served cold, not thrown about like the egotism of a teenager. All of this goes down as he tilts the lum to draw the rest into his body, closing his eyes and seeming to endure the heat of the liquid with something akin to awe. "That's nice of you," he remarks, looking toward Twila again as he sets his empty glass top-down. "I gotta say, I don't do much 'round these parts, but I don't think I could've picked a better place to get stranded." His eyebrows dart up, and he gestures toward some of the angstful Quarren elsewhere. "Gotta say, though, them Quarren can certainly make things interesting."

Looking about the room again to watch the glass that's still being swept up and chairs and whatnot being straightened, Twila finds herself nodding a bit, unable not to keep from agreeing with the man. "Seems like it," she comments dryly, "But it seems like that can be said about a lot of the races." A soft chuckle at that is given before she drains her glass. A second ale's not ordered, nor is anything else for that matter. "I probably should go," she says while the tender clears off the bar and pours Hjek another lum. She hesitates and then shakes her head and sits back down. "Second thought... don't think I'm ready to face whatever the frek might be outside."

As if on cue, the door opens and a handful of the Quarren from outside stride in. One of them kicks the janitorial droid in the side, smashing it into the wall. It gets the attention of the room pretty fast, including HJek, who ignores his fresh lum for now and turns to watch as the rest of the room goes quiet. The Quarren begins speaking in a loud, angry voice, using his native dialect. Another one next to him barks out a translation in Basic. "The Whaladon Pub is no longer going to allow Mon Calamari customers!" The bartender, a Quarren himself, gawks at the proceedings but says nothing, his tentacles twitching with worry. The translator continues. "We are declaring this place our ground, where we can be safe from the judgment and hatred of the Mon Calamari!!" A cry of agreement sounds from the Quarren in the pub, many of who raise their various beverages in the air. HJek Pathon begins to smirk. "Well, would you look at that? They're standin' up for themselves."

Twila has never been one with a mind for politics and such so all she can do is shrug, uncertain of what to do or say in response to Hjek's statement, at first. She does speak after a minute, however and she's very careful to not let herself be heard, leaning closer to him to keep her words between the two of them by doing so. "To be honest, I am very surprised by all of this. Aren't the Mon Calamari supposed to be peaceful?" A quick look around insures that she wasn't over heard and Twila's quick to cover her action by speaking loudly. "You know, I might be able to get you some parts for your ship. I have...connections."

"Really?" asks HJek, blinking as he seems to catch on to Twila's trickery. 'Clever,' thinks Korynn to himself. 'This must be how she managed to slip through the scandal alive.' He leans over and mutters a response. He smells a little stale, as if his clothes could use a good washing. Not that he cares much. "I'll tell you what I know," he murmurs. "Over four thousand years ago, there was a war here. I guess the Quarren were the underdogs here, so they waged war on the Mon Calamari, an' they almost got wiped out. You'd be surprised by the Mon Cal, sweetheart." He winks slightly. "I hear they've done real damage to the Imperials with their Navy ships." He reaches for his lum again, and turns a critical eye on the Quarren group, who now pave the way for the rest of their comrades to come back in. The place is going to fill up fast.

Either Hjek doesn't smell too bad or it's something she's used to, either way Twila doesn't seem to be offended in the least by his scent as he leans close to her to speak. "Oh. Well, yes. I could imagine that the ships they have are heavy-hitters. They must be if they're willing to go head to head with the Empire in them." Of course, she has seen a few of the Mon Cal ships in action, a truly impressive sight indeed. Not that he'll ever hear her say anything of the such that'd indicate her having done so. "It's no different than other civil wars, I would guess. One group thinks they've been wrong...the other side feels like they were the wronged ones.." The flat of her hand is brought down upon the bar now, resulting in a fairly loud *SMACK*, adding a bit of a melodramatic flair to her words, "..and BANG. You got a war and a lot of dead bodies on your hands."

HJek Pathon considers Twila's flair with a humored expression, and raises his glass a bit. "Well, then lets hope the both of us are long gone before 'at happens!" He lifts the lum and downs it in one swig, his eyes clinching shut as it lights his throat on fire. The mob of Quarren get closer, so HJek finds he must say what he wants to say now, if he's gonna say it at all. "I'll tell you this. If what they been talking about is true... then the Mon Cal'll deserve it. As for me, I think I'm gonna go find myself one of those underwater breathers. War breaks out tonight, I don't wanna be stuck in this glass ball without some protection."

Twila looks a little startled. "Lovely time to... pick Dac for a vacation." Sighing at the thought of returning from a long weekend in a body bag, Twila shifts slightly, her body twisting from side to side a bit as she grows uneasy. "Perhaps we should've gone to Kashyyyk." She taps the earpiece in her ear but doesn't turn the comlink on, the motion done out of nerves opposed to any real need to get in touch with her husband. She'll have to wait till they're alone before she can talk with him about the tension. "Get me one of those breathers, too, eh..?" She grins ruefully at having to even make a joke like that, but there it is. The joke's made.

HJek smirks wryly. "You got it." He rises from his seat, leaving a small stack of credits to pay for his drinks, and heads into the crowd of Quarren. He's greeted by a couple of friendly gestures, to which he returns a smile and a flash of gratitude, before disappearing outside.

Twila watches Hjek leave and then she taps her communicator on. Once it's answered on the other end, she makes sure Gren is still at the hotel. Once she finds out that he hasn't left, yet, she nods, looking relieved. "Stay put. I'll meet you at the room." Standing, she adds a bit more to the tip she left earlier and leaves as well, trying to blend in as much as a tall, blue Twi'lek can while walking past the squid-like Quarren...not easy.