Hoth: Blood and Ice

Sometime late last night Riss had left her room in a fit, and only calmed about an hour later after a few good hard laughs with total strangers at the bar. It was sometime during this time that Aurilie had found her and brought her back up to her room. Not wanting to leave Riss alone in such a condition, she'd stayed the night. Though still ornery she couldn't get Riss to sleep in the bed, and ultimately that is where Riss woke from her haze- on the floor of her single bed room.

Initially, Aurilie had planned to go back to Echo Base after her meeting. It was bad enough that she should leave in the evening and associate with bad people. She'd rather not get Cynella worried about what she was doing. However, seeing Riss here did change her plans and she wasn't going to leave her on her lonesome. She knew her tendency to find trouble with her side adventures and wanted to prevent her from ending up on the face of blue milk cartons.

So, she ended up staying in town, much to her chagrin. Aurilie and Riss weren't strangers to the occasional slumber party, although her fancy pajamas were missing and they would be staying at more comfortable accommodations. When she awoke, she turned to face Riss from the edge of the bed. "I know this room leaves much to be desired but sleeping on the floor is not going to do you any favours."

The hungover mess of human limbs on the floor rolled over away from the sound, and then shifted again at the realization it was Aurilie's voice, "Not even one? What if I ask it really really nicely?" she says through slightly gritted teeth. An edge to her tone that suggests the throbbing in her skull.

Aurilie sighed and looked around. Well, now she was awake...and Riss was laying on the floor. She could fix one of those issues while maintaining a good conscience. She cast aside the sheets and got to her feet to gently help Riss off the floor with her arm over her shoulders. One of them had to be the parent, despite Riss being taller and older. "Riss, Riss...I have so many questions but I'm not going to bother you with them until I get you in bed with some water. Or whatever passes as water around here. Up you go now..."

Not in the mood to resist, or be awake, Riss only groans dramatically as Aurilie helps lift her to her feet. Stumbling a little here and there, but it mostly goes off without a hitch.

"You have so many question?" she asks, and winces a little from the headache. "No no, I have so many questions like what the kri- ow ow ow," she hisses and decides shutting up is better for now.

Aurilie sighed softly and patted Riss's hand in reassurance as she strained herself. "Easy, easy, now. No need to put yourself in vertigo. I'm sure we'll have plenty of time to talk about this. Of course, I'm assuming that we'll talk this out."

She helped Riss sit on the bed at first, although she encouraged her friend to lay on the bed as that might better serve her with her migraine. Aurilie couldn't help but take a few sniffs in the air to catch wind of how she ended up like this. She couldn't help but give a shake of her head, bad enough that she was carousing and (attempting) to cozy up to people here, but it was another thing to get drunk.

Once Riss was in a stable posture, Aurilie gave a glance at the lavatory in the room and thought it might be better not to take their chances on whatever filtration system they have in a pirate town. She moved over to her bag and took out an insulated canteen of water, offering it to her. "Let's get some proper fluids in you, Riss. This will actually help you."

Much as she wanted to lay down, there was still that important manner lingering right behind the throbbing of her head. Sitting up against a pillow she half-smiles while accepting the water, the other half reserved for the grimace which almost seems a semi-permanent fixture of her features. "Okay okay, whatever you say mom," she smirks just a touch more. Though with the drink allows herself to close her eyes a little while longer. Resting against the bed in the moment for the pause.

Aurilie shot her a glare of disapproval, thought that glare wasn't filled with malice at all. Just the disapproval of Riss just finding a way to be more Riss. She sighed softly and moved to collect her pants as she had been sleeping in her long underwear. Seeing as it was below room temperature both here and back at the base, the luxury of wearing her royal pyjamas just wasn't going to happen for the duration of her stay here.

She maintained her royal poise and let out a sigh. "While I am a mother to many children, I am not your mom, unfortunately. Rhia may think of me as lenient but I would have for sure sent you to your room a long time ago. However, you seem to have found a way to let your restlessness get the better of you and found adventure within an adventure. I'm not upset...just glad you're fine. As fine as can be. Please tell me this was from drinking and not a barfight tumble."

"No, no bar fights," she says, chuckling softly to avoid the attack from her head throb. Pulling her legs up toward herself she rests her head into her knees despite the somewhat rough material of her pants. Riss wasn't dressed for bed so much as underdressed enough to be somewhat comfortable. Resting her head forward like that she could feel a little more active in the conversation while keeping her head nice and steady. "Just.. had a fight? Omandri he.." she sighs, slowly trying to steady herself and learning what she can and can't do in her current condition.

"It's not just restlessness you know- but," she takes the risk, and looks up over her knees to Aurilie. "What are you of all people doing here Aurie? Mother, wife, this is- a really interesting time to start taking an interest in crime?"

Aurilie put on her pants and sat down at the edge of the bed so that she could be near her friend but didn't take up much real estate in case she wanted to lie down. She was sure after that too many of those jokes and laughs, it was bound to send her enough headaches to regret it. She raised her brows at the mention of Omandri and then frowned as she brushed some hair behind her ear. "...we have so few friends among our group here. What happened in this fight?"

She sighed deeply as she directed the examination on her. "It's not so much about the money or the want for a life of crime. While I have a tendency of upsetting my parents, I wouldn't go this far to prove a point, to be clear. I suppose it all started last morning when I did some wandering and found Junktown. I didn't expect it to be so easy to wander in and have an audience with the Queen. There were slaves there, which might be a link to Breela Po. Then, there was the mention of the first make, which I know a gank around here is very keen on bringing them back to a Hutt dead and not alive. There's something more that lies around here but I am more so interested in finding some advantage that will get us off this planet safely."

"You've become quite the little people connector," she teases, managing barely a smile. A smile mostly seen through only the crease of her cheek. Finding a comfortable spot there she stayed a few more seconds, but ultimately shifted her position so that she could do just as Aurilie thought she might and lay down. Curling a little around a pillow she turns away from the majority of the room.

"You know, if you need anything.. I'll be right there with you the whole way. I'll.. I'll watch your back," she says, keeping her voice steady for her own sake though the tiredness in her tone crept up.

Aurilie raised a brow momentarily when she noticed that Omandri wasn't mentioned in the conversation again but she wouldn't pry. She placed a hand on Riss's shoulder and gave her a small pat. "The same could be said for me, you know that. In fact, it's part of the reason why I'm still here..."

"And believe it or not, I am a people connector from time to time, It's quite shocking, I know, considering how effortless I look in the snow" she chuckled with a nudge in her direction. "No, these meetings are more by coincidence and I'm just surprised at how minuscule this ice ball really is. That goes in many ways, considering that I just happen to see hanging around here. I suppose the base didn't have a bar set up to your liking yet to keep you indoors, hm?"

She raised a brow, there was that other person she bumped into when she was talking. "It seems you've bumped into someone who is all too familiar with your past, too, or else you wouldn't have referenced certain events."

"No, it didnt- and I lost the Rimma," she says, peeking over so that her smile could more readily be seen at that assertion. Almost about to laugh but she holds it back. Sighing softly, restfully, she snuggles a bit toward Aurilie.

"Still, all meetings are kinda just coincidence. Like that whacko Vaylin I met today but.. I like her, she's a fun kinda wacko," she chuckles, and doesn't seem to be forced to regret it. "That's just how being a people connector is~ but you do really look amazing in the snow," she gives Aurie a wink."

"Certain events?" she questions, with her own little raise of the brow.

There was a pang of guilt that did hit Aurilie at the mention of the Rimma, enough that she slouched her shoulders slightly at the mention of it. "That was a bit of an unfortunate mishap. Probably an understatement at that, I admit," she nodded gravely on that note.

"That said, if I'm passively connected to a few things, you seem to be the crossroads to everything." She said as she raised a brow momentarily before she shrugged with a hint of humour on her expression. "Maybe this is just me trying to step in your shoes and see how many people I can connect myself with before the end of it. It helps to someone in this galaxy...so long as they aren't enemies."

With a serious but inquisitive expression, she looked at Riss as she asked. "It this relating to Bryson?"

"Heyy," Riss says, shifting her position despite the throbbing of the headache. Coming up to Aurilie's side at the shift of tone at the bit of the Rimma she wraps her arms around Aurie and gives a little squeeze. "Thanks to you we ain't dead- Rimma doesn't mean kriff compared to that. Dryden would be way more upset than I ever could be," she says with an extra little squeeze of comfort.

When it turns to Bryson though Riss' turn came to be somber, "Sorta," she says, but hesitates going further.

Aurilie put an arm around Riss's side as she was pulled in for a hug. She let out a sigh and nodded at that. "Sorry, I'm trying to not berate myself too much. Yes, we did get here all safe and we're safe and sound. There was just a lot of weight on my shoulders put on by me to get us to safety, especially when I thought I could do better..."

She gave a shrug of her shoulders, perhaps realizing it looked more silly than what she felt. Eventually, she mustered a smile at Riss and gave her a squeeze back. "...and I did pretty well, yeah? So, who's going to bail us out of this next one now?"

Her gaze looked at Riss with a bit of uncertain concern. "I had figured as much when you mentioned a fatherly figure...You seem almost rather pleased to be with the person from the other night."

Riss seems distant a moment, trying to recollect. "O-oh!" she chuckles a bit, and winces from her headache. Taking the moment to settle herself a bit she relaxes against Aurilie's shoulder.

"Mmm," she rouses herself from it. "No uh.. no, that- that wasn't what that was. That was.." she chuckles, more softly now though, "just something he brought up earlier in a conversation actually. I was actually talking about Omandri, he-" she swallows, "his sister is.. hold on, make sure you're sitting down okay?"

Riss asks, despite knowing full well both women are clearly sitting together on her bed.

"Oh..." Aurilie said with a bit of embarrassment on the matter, a blush finding a way to her cheeks. Clearly, Riss meant one thing and she went delving into an entirely different past. It had been years since Riss first talked about Bryson to her but she recall how fond he spoke about him. She perhaps had thought that infatuation still remained even with his death. She supposed she wasn't entirely wrong...

"Sorry! Sorry about, I had thought uhm...well," she quickly gave a shake of her head and quickly mustered a smile as they jumped into the topic of Omandri. "I think we're already sitting, Riss. Ready to collapse, if it even comes to that. What's so bad here?"

"Omandri's sister, Vidara, is the woman behind the moniker The Cunning Man," she says with all the gravity her words could muster.

There was a blink from Aurilie at first before she knit her brows in thought. That didn't sound quite right, maybe Aurilie got some things mixed up. "...Is this the same Cunning Man who was responsible for the attempted insurrection on Alderaan a few years ago? Or was that another sort of 'Man'?"

"Same one," she shudders a little but just buries it against Aurilie a bit. Hugging a little tighter, not quite keen on giving her throbbing head anymore fuel.

"Very well, then..." she blinked and nodded at that. There was a passing thought where she wanted to say that she wasn't surprised that it would be a Rist but if it had to be someone from a House in Alderaan... "That's a bit of information to take it, likely especially so for the poor doctor too."

She blinked. "...I take it that she's here too?"

"Omandri has been on her trail, and is getting close supposedly," she says, but she can't hide the shift in her tone. There's a barely concealed frustration to how the tension rises in the sound, with her shoulders. Letting go of Aurilie she backs away a bit, almost like she didn't want to get any of her mood on Aurie. How it felt so easily contagious like that.

Aurilie reluctantly let her find her space. She nodded at first but there was a look of confusion on her features at this, feeling that it wasn't as simple as that sounded. There had to be way more to this. "...I imagine this is complicated. Almost everything is. And how is this a bad thing? You disagree where?"

"Omandri Rist is not a man who will do what he needs to do. When it comes to his sister, he'll make a mistake because he'll want her to see justice in a court our.." she grimaces, her head throbbing just as much as her heart aches. Grinding through that brief bit of pain, "He's going to screw up because it's his sister, and he cares for her. He won't see the danger that a woman with her.. ability can wield. She'll get away with it, one way or another," she says, the thought lingering a moment.

"I.." she swallows, raising her head enough to look to Aurilie with ultimate sincerity. "If I had the choice and the chance, I'd shoot her and be done with it. Omandri won't do that.. and it's the only way to be sure she doesn't get away."