ClocktowerEchos
Hitman
Blizz
shylarah*boops in a smol bunny friend*
image to follow, as always, once I get off my tail feathers and draw.
| {Full Name} |
| {Age} |
| {Species} |
| {Gender} |
| {Force Sensitive/Alignment} |
| Role on Ship |
| {Appearance} |
| {Equipment and Personal Belongings} |
| {Physical Abilities} |
| {Limitations} |
| {Personality} |
| {Place of Origin} |
| {Background} |
The …Pet.
image to follow, as always, once I get off my tail feathers and draw.
| {Full Name} |
Vifii ((Kushiban don't seem to take family names, and Vifii's never had a family, anyway))
| {Age} |
15 ((developmentally comparable to a ~20 year old human))
| {Species} |
Kushiban
| {Gender} |
Female
| {Force Sensitive/Alignment} |
Umm…no?
| Role on Ship |
Like it or not, Vifii has styled herself as an ‘infiltrator’ – no one is going to suspect a pet bunny to be making off with your commander’s dataspheres. The core of her skillset is petty pickpocketing, that and being able to sneak around in plain sight, but she’s donned a number of different identities and professed sets of abilities to carry out a number of jobs.
| {Appearance} |
Vifii is of a smaller size than would be expected of many kushiban, a byproduct of being raised in a crate, always hungry and with minimal space to move around. Standing upright on her hind legs, she’s a mere sixty-six centimeters tall (about half that when on all fours) and bears a thin and knobbly frame that resists every attempt at fattening. Her soft ears and tail dominate her small form – they grew normally, even if the rest of her didn’t - and the result is that she’s often tripping over the ears when walking on all fours, and they nearly skim the ground even when she’s standing upright. For that reason, and matters of pride, she prefers to stand on her hind legs and has taught herself to be able to walk and move with some amount of grace – though in danger she drops back to all fours.
Vifii’s eyes are usually some shade of bright blue, though they change colors slightly as her fur does – her fur, usually a shade of white or beige or grey, is always meticulously brushed and combed. Vifii can’t stand to have even the slightest dust or dinge in her fur. Most of her hair is grown out long, but for a bald, scarred band around her neck and a discolored patch over the slaver’s crest tattooed on the point of her left shoulder.
The only notable accessory she wears is a silver-colored hairpin which holds a particularly long tuft of hair in place behind her ears. It’s set with sparkly blue stones that on closer inspection are paste rhinestones – utterly valueless.
Vifii’s eyes are usually some shade of bright blue, though they change colors slightly as her fur does – her fur, usually a shade of white or beige or grey, is always meticulously brushed and combed. Vifii can’t stand to have even the slightest dust or dinge in her fur. Most of her hair is grown out long, but for a bald, scarred band around her neck and a discolored patch over the slaver’s crest tattooed on the point of her left shoulder.
The only notable accessory she wears is a silver-colored hairpin which holds a particularly long tuft of hair in place behind her ears. It’s set with sparkly blue stones that on closer inspection are paste rhinestones – utterly valueless.
| {Equipment and Personal Belongings} |
When Vifii joined the crew, she had nothing but a small rucksack with a few changes of clothes. She dresses in altered human clothes, whatever she can easily get her paws on, though they’re often child-sized, or else adult human’s shirts worn as dresses.
Since joining the crew, however, she’s collected an alarming assortment of nick-nacks and trinkets, favoring brightly colored and sparkly objects. So far she hasn’t taken anything from the crew, but whenever they stop in a town it seems she gets her paws on something. She has recently started wearing ribbon bands around her neck in an effort to hide the collar scar.
Since joining the crew, however, she’s collected an alarming assortment of nick-nacks and trinkets, favoring brightly colored and sparkly objects. So far she hasn’t taken anything from the crew, but whenever they stop in a town it seems she gets her paws on something. She has recently started wearing ribbon bands around her neck in an effort to hide the collar scar.
| {Physical Abilities} |
Fast ‘lil bugger. – Bunnies are fast. Bunnies are really fast. Vifii, small and nimble as she is, is remarkably hard to catch or land a hit on if she’s able to get all four feet to the ground.
Hidden in plain sight - Vi prides herself on being able to blend in, being passed off as a docile servant or pet. Either class is given a remarkable amount of freedom, especially in wealthy houses.
Quick-Thinking Pickpocket – Vifii is very good at quickly weaving lies and half-truths – and then remembering the stories that she’s spun. Anything to get herself out of a situation alive.
Seamstress – During Vi’s early childhood, she was instructed in traditional Kushiban weaving and spinning techniques – and has since taught herself other intricacies of the skill. Kushiban silk is prized for its iridescence and softness, and though it is a niche market, selling the thread spun from her fur earns a nice chunk of pocket change for her.
Hidden in plain sight - Vi prides herself on being able to blend in, being passed off as a docile servant or pet. Either class is given a remarkable amount of freedom, especially in wealthy houses.
Quick-Thinking Pickpocket – Vifii is very good at quickly weaving lies and half-truths – and then remembering the stories that she’s spun. Anything to get herself out of a situation alive.
Seamstress – During Vi’s early childhood, she was instructed in traditional Kushiban weaving and spinning techniques – and has since taught herself other intricacies of the skill. Kushiban silk is prized for its iridescence and softness, and though it is a niche market, selling the thread spun from her fur earns a nice chunk of pocket change for her.
| {Limitations} |
Hydrophobic – Given the hell that was her adolescence on Aquilaris, Vifii is horrified at the mere thought of visiting water worlds, and hates any exposure to the liquid beyond what is necessary. A mere ocean breeze can set her to trembling and refusing to leave her quarters.
Just a Dumb Bunny – The boon of her unconventional appearance is also a major flaw - the fact that no one will take her seriously. When she tries to engage directly in conversation, she is often as not laughed off. Even the crew of the Noreaster might treat her as little more than a pet.
Heart of Gold - Vifii is very young and naïve, and follows her heart over her head. Her strong moral compass has accomplished some major good in the world, but has also landed her in trouble and earned her more than her fair share of close calls.
Fragile – Vi has little way of protecting herself or fighting- sure, teeth and claws, but they do nothing against proper weapons - and her body is too fragile to withstand much force at all. Everything she does banks on her not getting caught.
Just a Dumb Bunny – The boon of her unconventional appearance is also a major flaw - the fact that no one will take her seriously. When she tries to engage directly in conversation, she is often as not laughed off. Even the crew of the Noreaster might treat her as little more than a pet.
Heart of Gold - Vifii is very young and naïve, and follows her heart over her head. Her strong moral compass has accomplished some major good in the world, but has also landed her in trouble and earned her more than her fair share of close calls.
Fragile – Vi has little way of protecting herself or fighting- sure, teeth and claws, but they do nothing against proper weapons - and her body is too fragile to withstand much force at all. Everything she does banks on her not getting caught.
| {Personality} |
Vifii is a delightful mess of contradictions. Her upbringing as a slave gave her a worldview that few possess, but also sheltered her from the more subtle cruelties of the galaxy. She is naïve, ill-informed of the way things work in the middle echelons of society, and still has a notion that she’ll be able to set the galaxy to being a better place – while being dreadfully fatalistic about the whole endeavor and her worth in the world. She tries to be optimistic, seeing some amount of good in everything and everyone – except slavers – and does her best to help people. With that being said, she is massively distrustful of any organization or group who claims to have a benevolent motive. Perhaps she is too cynical, or perhaps not enough.
Outwardly, Vi is a shy, reserved creature that is immensely distrustful of others. She could be mistaken for mute at first meeting her, mute save for squeaks and purrs and growls as one would expect from an animal. She has a very, very select few on the crew that she trusts, and to their perception she is a bubbly and inexperienced young woman, downright childish at times, who has an awful lot to say in an awfully soft voice that seems incapable of speaking emphatically. It’s hard to win her trust, but once you do you have a lifelong friend.
Outwardly, Vi is a shy, reserved creature that is immensely distrustful of others. She could be mistaken for mute at first meeting her, mute save for squeaks and purrs and growls as one would expect from an animal. She has a very, very select few on the crew that she trusts, and to their perception she is a bubbly and inexperienced young woman, downright childish at times, who has an awful lot to say in an awfully soft voice that seems incapable of speaking emphatically. It’s hard to win her trust, but once you do you have a lifelong friend.
| {Place of Origin} |
“Some backwater hellhole, wherever it was.” There aren’t any records detailing Vifii’s birth or upbringing, but she was born of an escaped Kushiban fur slave in hiding in the slums of the city-world Nar Shaddaa.
| {Background} |
There was softness, and warmth. Gentle voices around her. Soft paws guiding her own, a lilting melody in her ears, the twisting of downy fur in her paws. Soft ears draped over her; the wriggling of other small downy bundles against her side, twitching noses and blinking eyelashes. Harsh lantern lights eased by sheets of sheer cloth.
A crack that shattered every moment of peace. Screaming. Blood splattered on the mildewed green tiles.
Her earliest distinct memory is that of a market. A feeling of emptiness. Something lost. An overwhelming cloud of the stink of fear and pain and sickness and waste and ruin.
Loneliness.
Laughter. A flash of blinding white-hot pain.
Darkness.
When she awoke, she was overcome with the sweetest scent she’d ever smelled – the salty, bitter tang of ocean air and sunshine. There was a dull stinging in her shoulder, the only sign that whatever horrible thing had happened before wasn’t just a dream.
She was on the water world of Aquilaris, in residence on an island resort of some sort. The owner of the place, a seedy-looking grey-skinned fellow, was quick to put her in her place. She was not a slave, not at all, but rather an employee, and her job was simple. There was a buzzer in her collar-
At the mention of a collar she panicked, pawing at it and tugging, but the light pressure that had been on her throat only seemed to grow more intense as she did. A bolt of pain seared through her head and chest, and she collapsed to the floor again.
The collar would tighten if she tried to remove it, and could be remotely activated to electrocute her. It would explode, and her head with it, if she wandered past the bounds of the man’s resort. The man smiled lightly, politely, as he explained it, speaking quickly as though she understood perfectly. When the buzzer sounded, her crate would open, and there would be a magnetic tugging on the collar. She was to follow the tugging, and it would lead her to a resort guest who required some service or another.
Any requested service was to be delivered promptly, professionally, and without question.
She had no idea what all could be asked of her, but she soon learned. She was spared much that was inflicted on others, the other “employees” that she only saw in passing – it seemed that even as heartless as these cruel businessmen were, they were under instruction to not kill or cause serious injury to the - employees.
The routine was simple. After whatever …service had been completed, and to the customer’s satisfaction, she was to return to her cage, and wait until she was called again. Failure to do so fast enough, as she found, resulted in her collar tightening until she couldn’t breathe, electric shocks dancing down her spine. Sometimes it seemed even daring to think improperly would leave her fallen to her knees, fire dancing behind her eyes.
It was hard to keep track of time, beyond the blur of hunger and mistreatment - it was almost easier not to think, not to worry about the infeasible. She got older and with her age grew; her accommodations did not. She could not bring herself to care. An animal, only there to wait hand and foot on the seedy business lords, fetch and carry, “provide comfort”, a thing, an object for them – it was hard to keep herself above such basal lines of thought. It was hard to remember that she was a person in her own right. Everything faded into a sick kind of rhythm. As she matured, the market brand pressed into her shoulder faded and stretched. Fearing that it might eventually disappear, the master had his own insignia tattooed on over it. Her duties redoubled, now more personal and …intimate to the master himself, and any of his favored guests.
Every summer, the sea creatures encroached on the edges of the resort’s white beaches, but one year they were more brazen than they ever had been before. Vi desperately yearned to wade out into the water and let them take her – but her resolve quickly weakened, memories of the time she had tried to let the oceans take her- memories of the punishment she had endured from it. Whenever she could spare a moment, though, the diminutive creature found herself on the edge of the beach, hoping that a freak accident might let one of the creatures pick her off.
The resort found itself a peculiar guest soon after – a man who never removed his helm, a peculiar construction that hid his eyes and all his features, a man who carried more than his weight in weapons, in such a way that it looked like he might know how to use them. Vi had the privilege of waiting on him the first day he was there, feeling his gaze sharply on her collar and the tattoo. He didn’t seek out her other services, either, though not for lack of her offering. And he spoke to her as an equal would, and was not content with the animal grunts that she had been reduced to for years – he would wait until she spoke, haltingly and scarcely whispering, terror rising with every word. There were some things he asked that she could not bring herself to speak of. But it seemed he understood.
The sea monsters were soon dealt with, and the mysterious guest vanished once more. Vi was devastated to see him go, devastated to be left again tending the whims of the sadistic men and women who frequented their establishment.
Such return to the mundane was short-lived. Within weeks, a group of others – wearing the same peculiar helms and armor – descended on the resort.
Blood splattered on tiles. Cages were sprung, collars torn from necks, slaves – now freed – herded into the relative safety of a starship’s underbelly.
Freedom.
Vifii had no idea what that word meant.
These strange folk called each other mando’ade, showing a kind of affection that was outright alien to Vi, and invited them all to join their clan. Their family. At the mention of family, there was a tug in her heart.
She might be able to be happy there. In a large group. Of large, intimidating people who showed no mercy. But she was weak and frail, and oh, God- what if they decided she wasn’t worth it? What if they were just to trap her here again?
She could not bear the thought. So she took their other offer – that of a respectable new identity, and a ride to a safe part of the galaxy. Having no idea just how big the galaxy was, she dumbly agreed to follow one of the older slaves, a Twi’lek woman who said she had friends in Coruscant.
Wherever that was.
They arrived in Coruscant without much ado, the Twi’lek woman scooped up by her family as soon as they landed, paying no heed to the quiet Kushiban shadow that she’d had the last few weeks of travel. Vifii was left alone, again.
She was hired on as a maid in a mid-level tavern – safe, if rather seedy – but was let go as soon as her slave marks became obvious. She bounced back and forth between several establishments, being hired on and fired for various reasons, most involving her appearance and the mark on her shoulder.
It was an adjustment to be wearing human clothing – they had all been kept nude on the island, and it was apparently sufficiently socially acceptable for her species – but things tended to go better when her tattoo was concealed. Still, work was hard to come by, and she was often fired for her stature and bearing, and her inability to confront rowdier customers.
Without money or options, she grew to be desperate. Though she had tried selling her fur – Kushiban fur thread, as light and soft and warm as their fur was, had grown to be a luxury good – her prices were consistently undercut by people she knew were sourcing it from slaves. There had been talk on the island, as she’d grown, that she might earn the boss more money if he sold her to a fur trader. But whatever the case, she wasn’t able to earn enough money for the exorbitant accommodation rentals even in the mid-levels of the city, and she refused to move any lower.
She took to petty thievery, hitchhiking to the higher levels of the city-world and sneaking things from the transports and purses of insanely wealthy people as they went about their day. When she was caught, and it was often at first, she would play dumb and cute and soft – and they fell for it nearly every time. A woman took her in for a time, and treated her kindly, giving her food and a soft place to sleep- Vi felt horrible about taking some of the woman’s jewelry before she left, but when someone has an entire room devoted to rows and rows of sparkly objects, there’s no way she needs all of that. The three valuable necklaces that she took gave her enough credits, when re-sold, to pay her rent for almost a year. And the paste-rhinestone hairpin continues to be Vi’s favorite accessory, with pretty blue crystals that match her eyes.
Karma got her back for that, though, and left her with no successful heists and several near-misses, including nearly being gutted by an exceptionally un-amused battle droid and its equally un-amused owner, who stared at her impassively with his eyebrows halfway up his bulbous, enormous head. She barely managed to talk her way out of that, and is rather convinced the man only let her go out of amusement. (It’s certainly terrified her of all the people she now knows are called Muun – including the one in the Noreaster’s crew. But it can’t be the same guy, right? That would be too much of a coincidence.)
She slowly fell back into debt, and as she did, a swoop gang took pity on her. By which it’s meant that she was cornered on her midnight commute home from the tavern (she’d found work at one, for pennies, but it was work) and offered a deal – she drop everything and work for them, or else she be forcibly overpowered and sold into slavery. Their leader had noticed the inked-over brand on her shoulder while she worked, and put together that a former slave of a presumed-dead master would be in for a mighty rough life if ever returned to the markets.
They wanted her to infiltrate the estate of a wealthy fur merchant, one who consistently undercut their prices on all exotic fabrics, and they wanted to know how and why. Vifii thought she knew the answer – Slaves. Low prices are always a sign of free labor. But when she said as much, their comment was simple. Sabotage it, any way she could, and bring the profits back to them. They’d be watching and waiting, and they’d help the extraction effort.
She played her part, turning up on the lady’s doorstep beaten (that had been the gang’s idea) and shaking, and a great show was made of taking her in with kindness. Kindness which evaporated as soon as they were through the door.
When she explained the situation to the other Kushiban captives, their fur shorn short and eyes dull, they laughed in her face. Said she was naïve and a fool and had doomed herself and all of them – the swoop she was working for kills slaves, and calls itself merciful. She’d practically signed their death warrant.
That was just an unacceptable betrayal. If you asked Vi now what had come over her, she wouldn’t be able to tell you. The others, scattered now in all corners of the galaxy, would likely have similar answers. Rage blinded her, and her fury was infectious. The slaves revolted.
The merchant - who was foolish enough to not expect such violence from such soft, pacifistic creatures, and so no longer retained any guard or other brute force - was summarily murdered next feeding-time, her eyes clawed out and body left to bleed out on the floor. Her estate was left on fire, and her fifty-five now-free Kushiban fur slaves were smuggled onto various ships heading off-world. The commotion of it caused all eyes to turn to the fur trade running rampant just below Coruscant’s surface, seeing market restrictions cracked down everywhere, and a tiny Kushiban with enormous ears became the primary target of several of the city’s exotic good smugglers.
She had made it back to her tiny apartment and gathered up her few belongings, barely getting free of the complex before flames shot out of every window, shouts and screams echoing down the street. Suddenly confronted with the very real possibility of dying and blinded by terror, she booked it to one of the smaller nearby spaceports. That was when she’d found the Noreaster. Though she hadn’t known the ship, nor the crew, she had seen that it was a small craft – big enough to not be an obvious choice of escape, small enough that it wasn’t too un-obvious. She’d scampered aboard, blending her fur in with the various crates of provisions in the hold and praying she wouldn’t be found until they’d lifted off from the surface.
A droid found her, of course, when checking the cargo for biological trace, and had dragged her abovedecks to face a motley crew. Having scanned the crowd, her gaze settled on a fragile-looking young woman she would eventually grow to know as Requiem. Maybe it was the small creature on her shoulder, or the softness in her face, but she seemed the most reasonable to speak to in this situation.
Letting oily tears well up in her eyes for the first time in a very, very long time, she fell to her knees and begged the woman for protection. She left out the part of the smuggling rings having it out for her head, naturally, but explained some of the cruelty she’d endured and begged for refuge, promising she’d do whatever menial work was thrown at her and that she’d earn her keep.
Some part of her ached fiercely at the admission, at her sudden willingness to give herself over to another party’s mercy, but she bowed her head and vowed that she would take whatever was dealt. She was out of options, and out of time.
A crack that shattered every moment of peace. Screaming. Blood splattered on the mildewed green tiles.
Her earliest distinct memory is that of a market. A feeling of emptiness. Something lost. An overwhelming cloud of the stink of fear and pain and sickness and waste and ruin.
Loneliness.
Laughter. A flash of blinding white-hot pain.
Darkness.
When she awoke, she was overcome with the sweetest scent she’d ever smelled – the salty, bitter tang of ocean air and sunshine. There was a dull stinging in her shoulder, the only sign that whatever horrible thing had happened before wasn’t just a dream.
She was on the water world of Aquilaris, in residence on an island resort of some sort. The owner of the place, a seedy-looking grey-skinned fellow, was quick to put her in her place. She was not a slave, not at all, but rather an employee, and her job was simple. There was a buzzer in her collar-
At the mention of a collar she panicked, pawing at it and tugging, but the light pressure that had been on her throat only seemed to grow more intense as she did. A bolt of pain seared through her head and chest, and she collapsed to the floor again.
The collar would tighten if she tried to remove it, and could be remotely activated to electrocute her. It would explode, and her head with it, if she wandered past the bounds of the man’s resort. The man smiled lightly, politely, as he explained it, speaking quickly as though she understood perfectly. When the buzzer sounded, her crate would open, and there would be a magnetic tugging on the collar. She was to follow the tugging, and it would lead her to a resort guest who required some service or another.
Any requested service was to be delivered promptly, professionally, and without question.
She had no idea what all could be asked of her, but she soon learned. She was spared much that was inflicted on others, the other “employees” that she only saw in passing – it seemed that even as heartless as these cruel businessmen were, they were under instruction to not kill or cause serious injury to the - employees.
The routine was simple. After whatever …service had been completed, and to the customer’s satisfaction, she was to return to her cage, and wait until she was called again. Failure to do so fast enough, as she found, resulted in her collar tightening until she couldn’t breathe, electric shocks dancing down her spine. Sometimes it seemed even daring to think improperly would leave her fallen to her knees, fire dancing behind her eyes.
It was hard to keep track of time, beyond the blur of hunger and mistreatment - it was almost easier not to think, not to worry about the infeasible. She got older and with her age grew; her accommodations did not. She could not bring herself to care. An animal, only there to wait hand and foot on the seedy business lords, fetch and carry, “provide comfort”, a thing, an object for them – it was hard to keep herself above such basal lines of thought. It was hard to remember that she was a person in her own right. Everything faded into a sick kind of rhythm. As she matured, the market brand pressed into her shoulder faded and stretched. Fearing that it might eventually disappear, the master had his own insignia tattooed on over it. Her duties redoubled, now more personal and …intimate to the master himself, and any of his favored guests.
Every summer, the sea creatures encroached on the edges of the resort’s white beaches, but one year they were more brazen than they ever had been before. Vi desperately yearned to wade out into the water and let them take her – but her resolve quickly weakened, memories of the time she had tried to let the oceans take her- memories of the punishment she had endured from it. Whenever she could spare a moment, though, the diminutive creature found herself on the edge of the beach, hoping that a freak accident might let one of the creatures pick her off.
The resort found itself a peculiar guest soon after – a man who never removed his helm, a peculiar construction that hid his eyes and all his features, a man who carried more than his weight in weapons, in such a way that it looked like he might know how to use them. Vi had the privilege of waiting on him the first day he was there, feeling his gaze sharply on her collar and the tattoo. He didn’t seek out her other services, either, though not for lack of her offering. And he spoke to her as an equal would, and was not content with the animal grunts that she had been reduced to for years – he would wait until she spoke, haltingly and scarcely whispering, terror rising with every word. There were some things he asked that she could not bring herself to speak of. But it seemed he understood.
The sea monsters were soon dealt with, and the mysterious guest vanished once more. Vi was devastated to see him go, devastated to be left again tending the whims of the sadistic men and women who frequented their establishment.
Such return to the mundane was short-lived. Within weeks, a group of others – wearing the same peculiar helms and armor – descended on the resort.
Blood splattered on tiles. Cages were sprung, collars torn from necks, slaves – now freed – herded into the relative safety of a starship’s underbelly.
Freedom.
Vifii had no idea what that word meant.
These strange folk called each other mando’ade, showing a kind of affection that was outright alien to Vi, and invited them all to join their clan. Their family. At the mention of family, there was a tug in her heart.
She might be able to be happy there. In a large group. Of large, intimidating people who showed no mercy. But she was weak and frail, and oh, God- what if they decided she wasn’t worth it? What if they were just to trap her here again?
She could not bear the thought. So she took their other offer – that of a respectable new identity, and a ride to a safe part of the galaxy. Having no idea just how big the galaxy was, she dumbly agreed to follow one of the older slaves, a Twi’lek woman who said she had friends in Coruscant.
Wherever that was.
They arrived in Coruscant without much ado, the Twi’lek woman scooped up by her family as soon as they landed, paying no heed to the quiet Kushiban shadow that she’d had the last few weeks of travel. Vifii was left alone, again.
She was hired on as a maid in a mid-level tavern – safe, if rather seedy – but was let go as soon as her slave marks became obvious. She bounced back and forth between several establishments, being hired on and fired for various reasons, most involving her appearance and the mark on her shoulder.
It was an adjustment to be wearing human clothing – they had all been kept nude on the island, and it was apparently sufficiently socially acceptable for her species – but things tended to go better when her tattoo was concealed. Still, work was hard to come by, and she was often fired for her stature and bearing, and her inability to confront rowdier customers.
Without money or options, she grew to be desperate. Though she had tried selling her fur – Kushiban fur thread, as light and soft and warm as their fur was, had grown to be a luxury good – her prices were consistently undercut by people she knew were sourcing it from slaves. There had been talk on the island, as she’d grown, that she might earn the boss more money if he sold her to a fur trader. But whatever the case, she wasn’t able to earn enough money for the exorbitant accommodation rentals even in the mid-levels of the city, and she refused to move any lower.
She took to petty thievery, hitchhiking to the higher levels of the city-world and sneaking things from the transports and purses of insanely wealthy people as they went about their day. When she was caught, and it was often at first, she would play dumb and cute and soft – and they fell for it nearly every time. A woman took her in for a time, and treated her kindly, giving her food and a soft place to sleep- Vi felt horrible about taking some of the woman’s jewelry before she left, but when someone has an entire room devoted to rows and rows of sparkly objects, there’s no way she needs all of that. The three valuable necklaces that she took gave her enough credits, when re-sold, to pay her rent for almost a year. And the paste-rhinestone hairpin continues to be Vi’s favorite accessory, with pretty blue crystals that match her eyes.
Karma got her back for that, though, and left her with no successful heists and several near-misses, including nearly being gutted by an exceptionally un-amused battle droid and its equally un-amused owner, who stared at her impassively with his eyebrows halfway up his bulbous, enormous head. She barely managed to talk her way out of that, and is rather convinced the man only let her go out of amusement. (It’s certainly terrified her of all the people she now knows are called Muun – including the one in the Noreaster’s crew. But it can’t be the same guy, right? That would be too much of a coincidence.)
She slowly fell back into debt, and as she did, a swoop gang took pity on her. By which it’s meant that she was cornered on her midnight commute home from the tavern (she’d found work at one, for pennies, but it was work) and offered a deal – she drop everything and work for them, or else she be forcibly overpowered and sold into slavery. Their leader had noticed the inked-over brand on her shoulder while she worked, and put together that a former slave of a presumed-dead master would be in for a mighty rough life if ever returned to the markets.
They wanted her to infiltrate the estate of a wealthy fur merchant, one who consistently undercut their prices on all exotic fabrics, and they wanted to know how and why. Vifii thought she knew the answer – Slaves. Low prices are always a sign of free labor. But when she said as much, their comment was simple. Sabotage it, any way she could, and bring the profits back to them. They’d be watching and waiting, and they’d help the extraction effort.
She played her part, turning up on the lady’s doorstep beaten (that had been the gang’s idea) and shaking, and a great show was made of taking her in with kindness. Kindness which evaporated as soon as they were through the door.
When she explained the situation to the other Kushiban captives, their fur shorn short and eyes dull, they laughed in her face. Said she was naïve and a fool and had doomed herself and all of them – the swoop she was working for kills slaves, and calls itself merciful. She’d practically signed their death warrant.
That was just an unacceptable betrayal. If you asked Vi now what had come over her, she wouldn’t be able to tell you. The others, scattered now in all corners of the galaxy, would likely have similar answers. Rage blinded her, and her fury was infectious. The slaves revolted.
The merchant - who was foolish enough to not expect such violence from such soft, pacifistic creatures, and so no longer retained any guard or other brute force - was summarily murdered next feeding-time, her eyes clawed out and body left to bleed out on the floor. Her estate was left on fire, and her fifty-five now-free Kushiban fur slaves were smuggled onto various ships heading off-world. The commotion of it caused all eyes to turn to the fur trade running rampant just below Coruscant’s surface, seeing market restrictions cracked down everywhere, and a tiny Kushiban with enormous ears became the primary target of several of the city’s exotic good smugglers.
She had made it back to her tiny apartment and gathered up her few belongings, barely getting free of the complex before flames shot out of every window, shouts and screams echoing down the street. Suddenly confronted with the very real possibility of dying and blinded by terror, she booked it to one of the smaller nearby spaceports. That was when she’d found the Noreaster. Though she hadn’t known the ship, nor the crew, she had seen that it was a small craft – big enough to not be an obvious choice of escape, small enough that it wasn’t too un-obvious. She’d scampered aboard, blending her fur in with the various crates of provisions in the hold and praying she wouldn’t be found until they’d lifted off from the surface.
A droid found her, of course, when checking the cargo for biological trace, and had dragged her abovedecks to face a motley crew. Having scanned the crowd, her gaze settled on a fragile-looking young woman she would eventually grow to know as Requiem. Maybe it was the small creature on her shoulder, or the softness in her face, but she seemed the most reasonable to speak to in this situation.
Letting oily tears well up in her eyes for the first time in a very, very long time, she fell to her knees and begged the woman for protection. She left out the part of the smuggling rings having it out for her head, naturally, but explained some of the cruelty she’d endured and begged for refuge, promising she’d do whatever menial work was thrown at her and that she’d earn her keep.
Some part of her ached fiercely at the admission, at her sudden willingness to give herself over to another party’s mercy, but she bowed her head and vowed that she would take whatever was dealt. She was out of options, and out of time.