...To Crash a Party

Posted on Fri Dec 7th, 2012 @ 7:09am by Berry
Edited on on Fri Feb 16th, 2018 @ 2:12pm

3,118 words; about a 16 minute read

Chapter: Chapter II: Era's Dawn
Location: Jesper's Apartment of Many, Galactic City, Coruscant
Timeline: 2115 (Local time), Day Six, a little before "Bonds Betrayed"

OLD

She paddled around the pool, almost as fast as she was running on land. This was obvious to any, and Jesper chuckled amusedly as he slowly waded into the water. “You’re quite the fast one.”

“Yup!” Berry replied as she churned around the expanse of the pool, splashing many displeased party goers. “I was born in water, but too bad I can’t breathe on it like other Aquar…”

It was then the Rodian female’s dark eyes glittered, and she left the party. Jesper wanted to know more about this strange girl…and perhaps would pay well for information.

NEW

Jesper himself smirked at Berry, although he was unsure how much of it she actually saw. “You know, Berry…unlike you, I...take my time.” His smoldering eyes spoke of another activity, but Berry surprisingly didn’t catch on.

She grinned over at him as she slowed her swimming to slowly float by him at the edge. “Oh yeah?? Like being SLOW in paying bribes?” She laughed like it was the funniest joke ever.

From her seat, Eva looked in alarm at Jesper, as did everyone else in hearing distance.

But all he did was bark a laugh. “Perhaps. I’ll make sure to have transaction go through.” He glanced at Eva, who glared at him. He looked back at Berry, watching her bob in the water as she back-stroked around the place. “How long are you staying here on Coruscant, Berry?”

“Oh, I dunno,” she sighed, swimming around. The night sky looked so different here…so bright. She couldn’t even see the stars. “Probably a while.”

“Then you should stay with me,” came Jesper’s voice in her ear, and Berry turned her head to see him treading water right beside her, with that silly expression on his face. Why’d he have to narrow his eyes?

Berry chuckled. “Um, no thanks. I don’t even know you.”

Eva’s eyes flashed at the impudent handsome man. “Exactly. Berry, we should get going.”

“Awww,” the part-Aquar whined. “But I wanna swim a little moooore!”

“Five more minutes,” the mechanic said sternly as if she was a mother.

Berry laughed and swam around Jesper some more, glancing at him every once in a while as she wondered why he was staring at her the whole time. “Hey, y’know what?”

“What?” he asked, still watching her like a feline confused but intrigued by potential prey.

She slowed down and floated by him, frowning in thought. “You remind me of someone I left back home. He really wanted to be my man, y’know, but I didn’t really know why.”

Jesper paused, green eyes slightly widening. “ ‘Your man?’” he repeated, almost in disbelief. Did this scrap of a girl actually attract suitors? Perhaps she had other assets he did not know of…

“Yeah.” Berry floated on her back, eyes squinting as she tried to see the stars. “He was really handsome like you and had even longer hair and bigger muscles and he wanted to marry me.” She smiled amusedly, then looked over at him with a small smile. Her dark eyes shone with the light from the torches, and her undone braids fanned out under her head as she floated. The blue beads in her necklace glinted in the torchlight. “But unlike you, he was a ~good~ man. He led his people on an island with some fairness and even risked his life to save mine and my sister's. Well, after I risked mine to save his.” She chuckled. “And he always looked down on people like you do!!"

Jesper’s eye twitched slightly. He was being…compared? To someone he didn’t even know about?? How dare she! “I…can risk my life sometimes,” he growled. For himself, obviously.

Berry laughed again, not to make fun of him, but just out of amusement. “Yeah, I know.” She swam over to the steps and got out of the pool to pad over to the food table and eat some more.

Jesper regarded her from the pool with a mixture of confusion and amusement. Here was someone that he couldn’t enslave like the normal denizens of this galaxy. He stepped out of the pool, water trailing down his muscly thighs and arms in silver rivulets, making him gleam. He stood there, watching her as he contemplated his next move.

“Don’t you touch her,” Eva muttered as she walked up next to him, glaring still. She echoed the words Berry used when the part-Aquar defended the mechanic from this beast of a man, and Eva found herself wanting to protect the young woman back.

“With what I do, I won’t have to,” he replied nonchalantly. Having someone bend to his will with their own freedom was more satisfying than coercing it. But the usual tactics he used didn’t seem to work. That said to him one thing: She was special. So something special had to be used on her… “I’ll win her.” His eyes glittered with want. He hadn’t run into a challenge in a while.

“Why bother??” Eva asked, frowning confusedly at him. “I thought your types liked to sit on your lazy pale asses and own pretty people.”

“She isn’t pretty in that sense,” Jesper ventured to agree with. “But it’s her spirit I want.”

Eva rolled her eyes. “With those types, they’ll die before their spirits break.”

Jesper smirked disdainfully down his nose at her. “What do you know.” Then he proceeded to walk to the young woman at the food table. “Here, let me get you a towel for you…” His smirk widened as he steered her to the corner of the pool, his hand finally touching the bare golden-green skin of her back.

Berry munched on another fruit as they walked, her eyes looking around the place in slight curiosity. “Yeah, I guess I’m kind of wet.”

He chuckled. “Yes, females tend to be like that around me.”

“What, you guys swim all the time?? No fair!”

“You could call it that…”

Eva followed from a distance, Berry’s clothes and sandals in hand for a quick getaway. Her eyes narrowed as she saw them enter some kind of huge refresher chamber for guests. A droid left the chamber and she followed inside, making sure to stay out of sight so as not to mess up Jesper’s plan and confirm her suspicions—that maybe Berry didn’t need her for protection. But the mechanic made sure to be prepared for the worst.

“Here.” The Human man took a towel from a shelf and wrapped Berry in it.

“Thanks!” Her chipper voice echoed around the empty fresher chamber. Boy, it looked fancy, with all this tile and fountains and stuff for people to wash off in. Nice! She rubbed her hair but refrained from drying her skin. The water felt good on it, like back home…just less salty.

Jesper patted himself off, glancing at her every now and then. Finally, they were alone…even Threx was busy seducing his own nightmates. “Berry…you know I like you, right?”

Berry gazed blankly at him. “Huh??” Her damp hair stuck out at all angles, and she looked rather stupid. “You do?”

His brows furrowed slightly. “But of course…you seem to, purposefully or not, resist my charms…and my money, which I luxuriate in.” He stepped closer to her, close enough so that she could feel his body heat radiating from his bare skin. “So what do you want?” he asked in a deep, intimate murmur.

She grinned up at him, unperturbed at such close contact. “Not your money! I don’t need that stuff.” She rubbed the towel at a part of her hair as she blinked in thought, gazing off to the side and ignoring him. “Hmm…I dunno, I think I just want to be free to do what I want whenever I want.” She grinned again at him, brows lowered to make it mischievous and challenging. “And if it means beating up mean people like you, I can do it.”

“You, beat me?” Jesper asked, incredulous. “A twig like you against all my muscle…a woman against a man?” He chuckled at her naivete and shook his head, stepping up against her. His eyes glittered as he gazed into her eyes. “Prove it.”

Berry just stood there, looking up at him with wide eyes. “Uh, I don’t need to.” She raised her hand with the towel but found it blocked by his hulk of a body, and so she frowned. “Hey, I wanna dry my hair s’more. You’re in the way.” She stepped back and smacked into the fresher wall. “Owww!” she whined, pouting mightily at how ouchies her head was.

Jesper stepped toward her, slightly menacing. “No, I’m not.”

"Yes, you are," she retorted, pushing against his bare chest with a hand as her brows lowered into a dark glare. "Move it."

“Make me,” he growled, breathing across her face that was inches away from hers.

Eva shook her head, beginning to take a step forward and about to turn the corner to reveal herself. It was high time they had left, and she would use her knife if necessary.

Berry’s eyes suddenly widened as she froze. All the water magic she could hear around her suddenly quieted, like the calm before a storm. She felt something ripple across the city to her...and then she saw it. A huge tidal wave roared toward her—and all she could do was stand there, watching.

Then it slammed into her, and all the rage and hate scoured her mind. The little worm of annoyance inside her suddenly erupted into a full-born monster of rage, tearing out of her.

She grabbed Jesper’s arm and with water-strength flipped them around, now Jesper with his back against the wall. He smirked. “Ah, so this is how you do foreplay?”

“Shut up!” Berry snapped, her tone unheard of before, even by herself. It was mean, short, and full of annoyance she never let herself feel. Her glare had intensified, and her brow was dark as her gaze pierced into Jesper’s.

He frowned slightly, feeling as if she was looking into his mind and feel everything about him…and he suddenly felt exposed. “What’s that look for?” he asked with annoyance.

“You don’t even deserve a look,” the part-Aquar bit out. Her nose wrinkled in disgust as she looked disdainfully at him. “You’re just bored, trying to take advantage of me for your own personal amusement and should I say perverse sexual wants? Disgusting.” She dropped her arms and stepped away, scowling to the side.

Jesper took a step forward but Berry whipped a hand out. "Stay there!" Her voice echoed harshly around the freshers, bouncing off the wall Jesper felt smack against his back again. He couldn't budge.

“An incurable sickness, you aristocrats,” she growled. “I left them back on Velusia…but they’re everywhere, aren’t they?” Her hands clenched into fists as she allowed herself to remember…he just wanted to do something they didn't want. To adventure and leave the city...and they silenced him forever. “They killed their own son—my blood-bonded brother—and he was a mere child of ten years.”

Then she whirled on Jesper, pressing a hand against his chest as she spoke viciously to him, face inches away from his. “They never think of the children, the innocent, the powerless. Why? Because they do what people with money always do—which is WHATEVER they kriffing want to!”

Her nails began to dig into his chest, some blood seeping out, and Jesper winced at the stinging, managing to say, “You can stop talking and get to the action now…unless this is your style.” He smirked back at her as blood dripped down his broad chest.

Berry took her other hand and slapped it across his face. Jesper’s eyes widened in surprise—it felt like a metal hammer had struck him. He looked back at her with rage—and a little fear.

Berry’s dark eyes narrowed at him, her usually-cute face not so cute anymore. Her damp, half-dried hair was wild and spiked at every angle as she scowled at him. “You aristocrats are always the kriffing same. Always having it YOUR way no matter what. Despicable.”

Even the pale one? ventured the dark water part of her in a small whisper.

Could it be? The anger immediately drained out of her, leaving her breathless and weak. Berry sagged against Jesper, an object of hate just a few seconds ago. The blood smeared slightly on the edge of her fingers across his lightly tanned chest.

The Human man did not move, but instead just looked confusedly down at her, his cheek starting to swell already. Even an idiot like him could tell something was wrong with her.

Eva rushed forward from the entrance and took Berry from Jesper, pausing to briefly glare at him before sitting herself and Berry down on a bench. “Hey, are you okay?”

Berry frowned into the distance, her brows furrowed as she tried to seek out what happened. Her blood-stained fingers pulled at her necklace, the silver thread snapping and connecting repeatedly. She never held her emotions back, but just now...those weren't hers. She shivered slightly from that ice storm of water magic, something she wasn't prepared for. That wave…it felt familiar. It had a flavor she had tasted recently…of dim suns and rainy days, where darkness in the sky permeated the dark soul that came from that planet. He said he could help her, that he could teach her…but could she help him?

She frowned deeply, pulling on her necklace one last time. Curious. Then the look dissipated as she looked over at Eva, her eyes wide. “Huh? Oh, I’m okay…I just need some food.” She grinned, the usual cheer and happy-go-lucky spark back in her eyes. “Always does the trick.”

“C’mon,” Eva murmured to her, giving the part-Aquar her clothes. “You can stay at my place, okay?”

“Okay.”

Jesper was busy examining himself in the mirror and looked quite displeased at the scratch marks on his chest and across his cheek. They belonged on his back from embraces, not from this kind of thing. He glared accusingly at her in the mirror, still slightly intrigued. He wasn’t going to argue with the strange girl’s words—he, of all people, knew it was true. But for her to get so animated and forceful…something happened here he couldn’t explain.

Berry looked over at the mirror and met his eyes. Her brows knitted and she rushed over to him. “I’m sorry, Jespy. I don’t know what happened…but here.” She fished out of her pocket a dried up insect of some sort and shoved it into his hand. “It’s my last snack beetle I found yesterday. I was saving it for later when I missed home, but…you can have it.”

Jesper just stared back at her, not sure what was happening.

She chuckled and smiled warmly up at him before turning and walking out with Eva, her sandals back on her feet.

Jesper frowned and walked briskly out after them. A swish of the girls’ grass skirt was all he saw as they entered the dance hall, and the man stood there, still frowning.

“Stop that,” Threx the Zeltron breathed as he came up and leaned against Jesper. “You’re going to give yourself wrinkles.” He paused, getting a reading off of his human companion. There was no satisfaction…no, Jesper was still wound up more than ever. “Oooh, what’s this? All these waves of desire coming off of you…don’t tell me you didn’t have her yet?”

The Human clenched his fist, still frowning in the direction Berry left. “I must have her.”

Threx smirked slightly. That answered his question. The Zeltron hadn’t felt this kind of emotion from an object of desire in quite a long while. It had a delicious mix of indignation and want with a dash of scorned pride. “I won’t help you—I kind of like the emotional cocktail you’re giving off.”

Suddenly Rema the Rodian returned, a datapad in her hand. “Sirs, I have the information you seek.”

“What information?” Threx asked, totally out of it.

“Berry,” Jesper breathed as he activated the disc. A picture of the girl’s face floated in his hand, the part-Aquar in the middle of taking a drink—surprisingly not stuffing her face. Blinking below it was a number that had a symbol of a shell next to it. Currency, perhaps, as it seemed to be a local poster, nothing galactic.

“She is from the Core World of Velusia. I can tell you much on the world, but there is barely anything on the girl. You’d have to visit the planet for information, but technology malfunctions to a high degree there from the magnetic fields.”

Threx chuckled at the picture. "Hey, she sure knows how to have a good time...I feel like I could jump to the sky when she's around."

The Human man scowled at the Rodian. He opened his fist, the dust from the crushed beetle floating away. “Stop boring me with technicalities. I want to know more.” He glared at the Rodian. “And you’ll get it for me.”

O—O—O—O

Berry stood at the top of the stairs of the dance hall, being ushered by Eva to the exit. She didn’t hear anything though, or see anything. Rather, she turned her head to look out past the windows and at the glittering skyline and towers, eyes wide with worry.

All that brightness was so cold, so unnatural and full of strangers she could feel with her mind but no one she'd actually meet. What she wanted wasn't here, was it?

And he was somewhere out there, a storm in his eyes, heart turning to ice if it hadn't frozen already all those years ago. Something happened tonight out there.

Berry bit her lip, brows drawn, and she turned, walking away into the lobby as she pulled on her necklace, finger tips still a little red.

"Um, Eva...can you take me to a flying ship tomorrow? It's called the Red Raptor..."

 

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