One beer, please.

[Dan the Man]

An older man entered the bar, not drawing attention to himself. He took a seat amongst a group of other patrons, and got the attention of the bartender.

"I'll take a beer."

With the bartender off to get his drink, Dan looked around the room.

[Ahron Harresh]

Ahron sits down on the stool to Dan's right. He looks down at him for a brief moment, blinks, then reaches out and snags the bartender's sleeve. He mumbles something and the bartender slides Dan his drink before going to get Ahron's order. The giant looks back down at Dan and his glass, staring as if he'd not seen a guy with a beer before.

[Remkah]

Coming up to the bar from the back of the tavern, Remkah rested an elbow on the bartop and leaned slightly infront of Dan in order to speak to Ahron.

"Good job docking that corvette, Ahron."

The Base Captain was referring to a recent "aquisition" that Harresh had steered safely into the SFF dockyard - the ship only functioning on half its forward thrusters after her...brave resistance.... proved a delicate task to say the least. Ahron was a better pilot than he gave himself credit for.

"We'll have a look at her in the morning, if youve got time. See what we can mend on her"

Noticing Dan seemingly for the first time, Remkah leaned back a little, realising he perhaps was interupting a private conversation.

"Hi...Did I interrupt?"

[Dan the Man]

"Not at all."

Dan set his beer down.

"I was actually looking to speak to the management, here."

[Ahron Harresh]

"S'nuthin'," he grumbles at Remkah. "M'rnin's good. I'll check in on it early...see what's t'be done..."

The next barely-audible comment by the silent giant is directed mostly at Dan, but also somewhat to Remkah.

"Management? Rem might c'n help ya...What'cha say, Rem?"

[Remkah]

Remkah nodded almost non-comittaly.

"I might be able t'help you"

He lit a cigarette and tapped a finger on the bar top, ordering a whiskey.

[Dan the Man]

Dan half-smiled.

"Of course."

He reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out a 1000 credit chit, which he sat in front of Remkah.

"I'll consider that a gift. I'd like to believe that Hera DrenKast has enough good faith to not patronize a guest."

The decibels of conversation in the bar seemed to grow quieter. Dan shared a few moments of silent exchange with Remkah, before taking another drink of his beer.

"I would rather not be forced to buy the lady's good graces."

[Remkah]

Remkah lifted his eyes from the chit over to his whiskey.

He drank slowly, the smoke of his cigarette curling up around his eyes.

Returning the glass to the counter, he sniffed through his nose as if resolved in his decision.

"Wait here"

Remkah pushed off from the bar, and walked to the back office.

[DarthHERA]

A few moments later, Hera took the seat that Remkah had so recently vacated beside the newcomer.

She nodded a silent greeting to Ahron, who too had made himself comfortable on Dan's other side.

As Dan looked up, he was greeted with clear cold blue eyes.

"And just who the hell are you that I should stop what Im doing and come talk to you?"

[Dan the Man]

"That depends on you."

Dan finished his beer, and set the bottle aside.

"I am comfortable and completely at ease with being either your friend, or your enemy, Miss DrenKast. We are, after all, defined by the choices that we make."

He smiled disarmingly, despite his aged facial features. A bit of light caught on something, barely visible under his jacket.

"I have chosen to offer my services to you, in the spirit of entrepeneurial zeal, I guess."

[DarthHERA]

"Entrepeneurial zeal" Hera echoed with an exagerrated raising of her eyebrow.

"And just what kind of services are these...that you are offering?"

[Dan the Man]

Dan smiled knowingly.

"The kind you don't see advertised on the holo."

He produced a gold coin from his jacket pocket, and began to roll it about on his fingertips.

"I suppose I am a magician of sorts. Disappearing acts would be my forte'."

A flick of his wrist, and the coin disappeared from view.

"The real carrot of it all, though, is that I offer my services discretely. Further, I chose my clientele carefully. I offer you what was previously only at the disposal of the Vigos."

This should indeed be a carrot to Hera. A master assassin of Black Sun was no easy find.

[Ahron Harresh]

Ahron, feeling himself to be an intrusion upon the pair, moves over to the office door where Remkah went. He's oddly curious about Dan, and his curiosity keeps him hovering by the door, torn between watching the man converse with the giant's boss and questioning Remkah.

[Remkah]

Remkah was leaning against the doorjamb when Ahron joined him. The Base Captain kept his black eyes on Dan as he observed in a low voice to the quiet giant beside him.

"You catch that guys name?"

[DarthHERA]

Hera noticed Ahron's discreet departure, but kept her focus on the assassin infront of her. His was an interesting arrival, to be sure.

The Black Sun was notorious throughout the galaxy, and Hera herself had been doing some private research of late on the massive organization's history.

"That is some claim to put on one's resume."

Hera had never hired an assassin. There had never been a need. She stipulated that if you wanted someone dead, you should do the killing yourself. Many had applied to SFF, only to find their skills were not required.

But she had never come accross an assassin of the Black Sun, and was loath to dismiss him out of hand.

"Why, here? Why now?"

[Ahron Harresh]

Ahron shakes his head to Remkah's question.

"Sum'n 'bout Vigos an' disappearin' acts," he says. "No name though."

[Dan the Man]

"Because I'm now to the point in life where its pointless to simply be in it for the money."

Dan looked into Hera's eyes, searching for empathy.

"Guess the cliche is right, after all. What I want from you in exchange, technically is free."

[DarthHERA]

Something in the way he spoke gave Hera pause, and Dan could see she was struggling to gain his meaning.

"Forgive my ignorance, but could you be a little more specific?"

[Dan the Man]

"One moment."

Dan raised a hand, giving pause to the discussion. He slowly opened his jacket up, gliding a deliberate hand slowly past the pistol holstered inside his coat, and to the inside jacket pocket. He retrieved a silver cigarra case, with an unusual inlay of a skull designed on it. Opening the case, he retrieved a cigarra and a match, and helped himself, setting the case aside.

"I have seen death."

Dan exhaled a white trail of smoke, which seemed to twist into the visage of an audience of demons, in the pale light of the bar.

"I have seen it in its most discrete, in its most brash. In all my years, I've counted its many faces. I feel each time that I deal my trade, I am atoning for something that can never be paid. Not in life, nor in an afterlife, should there be one."

Dan took another drag, looking to Hera through the smoke.

"I consider myself somewhat of a spiritual man. I've seen the light go out in too many eyes to not wonder where that light goes when I'm through. Until today, it was only my morbid fascination. But now..."

Dan flicked away some ash.

"...I am wholly convinced that I have lived my life for a reason. That reason is death. Death as more than a condition, or something dealt. Death as the metaphysical. I am the instrument of something greater, and I have come to you in order to find my understanding."

[DarthHERA]

A chill crept along Hera's spine as she sat listening. The Black Sun Assassin spoke with understated certainty. Hera couldn't help but be impressed. The lines in his face, the scars on his hands - all had a story to tell. She wondered how many had looked into this face and it been the last thing they'd lived to see.

She saw in his eyes no guilt or remorse. They were perhaps a little..tired..? or maybe it was just the look of a man who had seen it all and was unmoved and perhaps even disappointed that was all there was. But, faint, deep in the dark set pools, she saw hope for a knowledge that so far had eluded him.

He probably knew more ways to dispatch a man than she did, he cetainly had been in the game longer than she had. What this man was looking for, she wasnt sure he could find with her.

"A man lives, a man dies. Some say "Luck of the draw". Or perhaps its the gods above playing fickle with their dice - the fates of the mortals at their whim?"

Hera shrugged as if she thought little of these ideas and leaned forward into the smoke as it curled through the air between them.

"You have been a willing tool and delivered death to many over the years. All this time you have been the servant, the trigger finger. Perhaps it is time for you to be the driving force, the hand that orders the strike?"

[Dan the Man]

"Perhaps."

Dan dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand, clearing away a trace of smoke between himself and Hera.

"That in itself, I am not searching for. I have made my career amongst Black Sun, and even that goal will soon be reached, on my own laurels."

He turned a palm upwards, and with his other hand, extinguished his cigarra against his own flesh. The sizzling sound of burning skin was heard for a half second.

"The mechanics of it, and even the politics...these I know. I seek to understand beyond this."

If Dan was phased by the pain of his searing hand, he neither showed it in his expression or in the metered tone of his calm voice.

"Perhaps in the act of destruction itself, there is creation, or discovery. I have long been a killer, Hera DrenKast. What I seek is to sanctify the art I ply. I seek the same resolve in damnation that you and your kind know of."

[DarthHERA]

"My kind....? You refer to the Sith, I take it?"

[Dan the Man]

Dan nodded slightly.

"It is the obvious extention of thought, isn't it?"

[DarthHERA]

"I guess so"

Hera stared at him a moment, considering.

"You wish to embrace the teachings of the Dark Lords, live their disciplines of the Force? Are you even able?"

She tilted her head slightly, arogantly.

"You think learning of them will help you sleep at night?"

[Dan the Man]

"If I am unable, then we will find that out quickly."

Dan examined the burn mark on his hand with detatched interest.

"I've was putting men in graves when you were in diapers. Strangely, I never found my own. Why, I must be born lucky to dance so long on the razor's edge."

He then turned his palm downward, resting it on the table.

"Except, what if luck doesn't exist. That's my wager. It's a wager not a damn single one of those dice-blowing, rabbit-foot card shark hacks would ever front for, and I'm not even blinking. Am I bluffing, or have I found an epiphany?"

Dan then considered her second question, paused, and then laughed.

"I already lose sleep at night, young lady. I might as well have something to show for it."

[DarthHERA]

Reaching across, she took his arm by the wrist and lifted it up to examine the burn.

"Tolerance to pain is built over time and hard use" she eyed him from beneath hooded lashes, "but learning the ways of the dark side is only tolerable to those who have the force."

She used the physical contact to aid in her probing of Dan's essence, he would feel a slight flutter within his mind as any force ability he had would echo off what was equivilant to Hera tapping him with a mental hammer.

She watched him carefully and it was with true doubt she asked him,

"Why have you waited so long?"

[Dan the Man]

"Denial."

Dan answered, after a few seconds of thought. He looked up at Hera, his brow creasing. Something was not right.

"What are you doing?"

[DarthHERA]

She wanted to laugh...denial. A man who could face all kinds of hell had been afraid to take a true look at himself.

She continued to hold his arm, her grin broadening as he snapped at her. He could feel her investigating. Bout time he felt something. Hera figured he'd been stiffling his potential for decades. Gawds, longer than she'd been alive. The thought astounded her. It was like denying oneself the very necessity of life. Like breath, or food. Or sex. Gawd. Like Rum!! Perish the thought.

"Im snooping around...feel me?"

[Dan the Man]

"I feel something."

Dan looked to Hera, as if in contemplation. Her thoughts ran in echo behind his. He caught half ideas, residual musings...in and of themselves nothing, but indicative that he was not alone. He then felt her curiosity get the better of her, and she overstayed her welcome.

"That'll be enough, thank you kindly."

Unconciously, Dan slammed the mental door shut on the unspoken question that amused Hera so.

His barrier was weak, and could be penetrated if the Sith wished to do so, yet the reservation was made nevertheless. If Hera sought whether or not Dan had the gift, she should now have her answer.

[DarthHERA]

The sensation left just as subltly as it had arrived. Though Dan's response was like a slamming door, Hera's control hardly even rippled as she withdrew.

She knew exactly what she was doing and was unperturbed by his raising of hackels.

Sitting back, lifting her hand off his arm, she wondered if he had any real idea of what he was asking.

"You have the force in you, that is obvious. But, I cant expound to you what you want to know over an evenings conversation. It takes time."

She wasn't telling him anything he didnt already know.

"But, you would be worthy of such investment, despite the fact you have left such talent lie latent."

[Dan the Man]

Dan nodded.

"Time, I have. In the meantime, you consider what it's worth to you. I'm after a fair shake for the both of us."

[DarthHERA]

"Hmm"

Hera's half-comment hinted at her suspicion of such a fair-square deal between two such unsavoury villains. But Dan, indeed, could provide something Hera wanted.

Locked in his mind and body was a wealth of experience and information that could not have come at a more timely moment. Her planning for the advancement of ShadowFaene - and therefore, herself - on the intergalactic arena was taking on a new turn. Her planning was almost at the point of implementation...and now Dan's arrival.

If Hera was a beleiver, she would say it was the Fates at work..

"Well, lets just see if you live long enough for it to be a mutually beneficial arrangement shall we?"

Her wicked grin made it difficult for Dan to distinguish whether or not she was truly jesting.

[Dan the Man]

"An old snake like me has a knack for survival."

Dan's eyes seemed to squint slightly as he smiled, a look of knowing guile.

[DarthHERA]

She matched him smile for smile.

"Yes, I'm inclined to believe thats true."

She tapped the corner of the silver cigarra case Dan had laid on the table, so that it spun a three-quarter turn - the inlay skull staring now at her with hollow eyes. With a flick, her own brilliant blue eyes lifted to catch Dan's reflection in them.

"So...let me get this deal straight..." she took the liberty of running her finger lazily over the skull design as she spoke. "You dont want to work for me, you just want me to teach you how to use the darkside of the Force. Answer some questions that your innerself is struggling with. And you do me a favour in return."

This was a very different approach to apprenticeship, if one could rightly call it that. If thats, in fact, what Dan was seeking. Hera wondered what Ogre, her old Master, would think of such a set up - Instruction in the darkside as a business arrangement. Somehow it felt a long way from the experience she had known. But these were strange days, and no doubt, stranger ones were still to come.

She continued, "And no favorite Vigo of yours getting the inside edge on my operation here - not that you will be getting too close a look at that as there will be no need."

She halted her finger movement.

"Please correct me if and where I am wrong."

[Remkah]

Originally posted by Ahron Harresh
Ahron shakes his head to Remkah's question.

"Sum'n 'bout Vigos an' disappearin' acts," he says. "No name though."

"Krasst.." Remkah scowled under his breath to Ahron, "Black Sun. This is trouble"

He fished in his pocket for his cigarettes, holding out them out in offer first to Ahron.

[Dan the Man]

"I have no intention of working as your subordinate, Miss DrenKast, if that's what you're asking."

Dan helped himself to another beer.

"I'd like to believe that we are not the type which are governed by our passions. A life of bloodsport has taught me that unchecked hatred is a special indulgence. Few and far between. What separates that is professionalism."

Dan pressed a finger against the death's head on his cigarra case.

"This will be no different. In exchange for this rare thing you give to me, I will grant you my services."

He tapped the death's head again, fingernail clicking against the metal.

"But...to grant you more than this thing. This, I won't do."

Dan's eyes searched Hera's own for a sign of understanding. He lit another smoke.

"You seem cognisant of your present situation, well enough to understand that in this place you are a Caesar."

Dan pointed out a space portal with his cigarra.

"Out there, I am the newest of the greatest Caesars. For all the power the Vigos hold sway over, they are a mob of pimps and primadonnas. There is no common frame of mind at work within Black Sun. There hasn't been in many decades."

Dan flicked ash into a tray, and spoke again.

"Whatever interest Sasseeri or Shoe Stone have in your business, it neither bears my personal interest nor inspires compassion. If you are looking for assurances, the only one I can give is that if Black Sun takes a fancy to your business, the glitter won't be in my eye.

Whatever you may have surmised about me in first impressions, I am both complex and brutally simple, Miss DrenKast. I am a merchant of death, a simple trade. But within this simple act lies more complexity than in all the credits on Coruscant.

I can't take my credits with me to Hell, so I might as well enjoy the scenery."

[DarthHERA]

Hera watched him keenly, weighing the words against the man.

She found the two balanced favorably.

Dan was her kind of scum. Direct, hard and very, very dangerous. He would make an excellent student of the dark ways.

"Very well" she agreed. "I accept your proposal."

[Dan the Man]

"I'm glad you do." Dan smiled.