Decoding Girl Talk

[Liam Quez]

I was pretty much at my wits end. I couldn’t figure anything else out beyond pissing her off. It seemed to be the only thing I was good at when it came to well her and girls in general. Everything started off well, they blush, they giggle, and they’re open to all of my flirtatious advancements. Though it's as if they get to know me and then it’s as if they realize I’m not the cool guy they originally thought I was. Which is absurd. I’m nice to them and compliment them, still no. Then I’m rude and I don’t compliment them and then it's even worse.

There was a bench near by so that people can watch the ships zip right into the station, I decided to park my pathetic rump on the bench to hopefully get some thinking done. The more I thought about my situation with the lady folk I realized that it was only one lady folk that was giving me the hardest time. Of course it was the one that I spent the most time with, the one that made my blood boil the most and the one that I didn’t want to imagine my life without. Her face appeared in the back of my mind as I sat there with my arms crossed and the ugliest angry face I could make. I needed help and if I was a Force user I’d probably be praying to the Force or something, alas I was not one of the magical magicians of this great galaxy.

Still, it couldn’t hurt.

Falling off the bench, my knees hit the metal ground hard. There was a bit of pain with the impact, but my face was already in pain so no one could really tell what was going on with me. I reached out towards the sky, well the sky above me and whined slightly. “Please great magical Force bro thing. I don’t ask for much and I know we haven’t talked ever...but PLEASE send me some help here man. PLEASE!” People passed by me and gave me weird looks, I realized this probably wasn’t the best way to try and appease the great and mighty Force bro. So I stood up and sighed, I began to think my cause was a lost one, but then something caught my attention. A beautiful sight laid before me, it was a ship of course. My face pressed against the glass as I saw it was docked not too far from where I was standing. The ship belonged I think to my sister and her husband, who I remembered being the coolest guy ever. Mostly because he took my sister Lyanie off my hands - which kind of made me an only child for a bit. I don't’ count my other sister, she’s kind of mean and reminds me of smelly bantha poo.

Before I realized it, my feet were taking off into a sprint towards the hanger, I ran as fast as I could which was pretty quick if I might add. Stopping, I opened the gate and waltzed in while people were entering the station and made my way towards the Novgorod. Hopefully Lyanie was busy and I could get some man time with Cirrsseeto.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

The past week had been so typical. The new normal, in which conflict, strife, tragedy, and drama had become expected. The terrorist attack on Jovan Station was behind everyone now, but the healing was still a fresh experience. It was like listening to deafening music, and then straining to learn to hear again in the silence that followed. How did you live a normal life, stuck between these two extremes? Cirrsseeto felt at times like he was two people, tethered together by a thin band to keep him sane.

Novgorod had been ordered to remain at port for the next two weeks. They'd suffered minimal damage in the attack, so most of the heavy lifting Regan and Lyanie were tending to was helping Jovan's own engineering teams with the mess. Each of the docking spires had been severed from their umbilical by bombs. It took a few days of joint effort between engineering crews in space gear to get half of the spires working once more. Once Spire A was up, Novgorod returned to berth, and began working actively on the station. It gave Cirrsseeto a bit more time with T'yeellaa, with Rai'faani, and with mother. Not exactly how he'd planned to have a family reunion. Even in tragedy there was a silver lining.

Cirr had just taken the morning report from Commander Luka, and was off to return to the station. There was a joint commands meeting at 12:00 hours to deal with, and the Captain intended to keep Commander Akiena abreast of their shared tasks. In addition to the joint engineering work, he'd taken Jaden's suggestion to heart of mobilizing Valkyrie squadron for patrol sorties. It was largely unneeded, as the slice of ether around the station was now thick with supporting Alliance and Cizeri warships. Nevertheless, it gave restless pilots a bit of good to do.

Now laden with a half dozen datapads, Cirrsseeto cut himself loose momentarily from morning obligations, and prepared to head back to Jovan. As he cleared the airlock and was strolling down the umbilical, a familiar face came rushing at him.

"Ljiam?"

The surprise was plain on his face. Sure, he'd weathered the brunt of most of his own extended family showing up on the station, but seeing his brother-in-law from the Quez clan certainly was not something he'd expected. They'd gotten along really well on Lyanie's little meet-the-family excursion to Dantooine half a year ago, but with the treaty complicating matters, contact with the other side as it were had been touch and go, largely limited to HoloNet face time.

"What jin the Goddesss's name arre jyou dojing here?" he asked with an affable grin on his face, putting out a big paw to shake.

[Liam Quez]

I couldn’t help but grin, it had been some time since I had seen Cirrsseeto and Lyanie. They were my favorite people, mostly because Lyanie was my favorite sister and that automatically made Cirrsseeto my next favorite person. Also this provided me with another guy to ask guy questions to, I don’t think Dad would be much help in this situation. Especially if he asked for details of my attempts to get the ladies. Despite my attempts being for all the ladies, I mainly focused on one, but I’m not going to let on too much about that.

Maybe.

“Hey!” I reached out and shook his hand. My hand ran through my blonde hair for a moment as I tried to explain myself on why I came out of the wood-works. “Um, well Ib—my partner and I are docked here for a little bit resupplying and all that jazz. I saw your ship and well thought, I haven’t seen the best Brother in Law in ages! How have you guys been? Lyanie hasn't driven you crazy yet?” I forced a smile and then sighed the smile away. “I’m having girl problems, you did something right to get Lyanie to notice you – tell me your secrets PLEASE” I was ready to beg, but hopefully this would be enough.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Same Liam.

Cirr held his brother-in-law's hand in embrace as the torrent opened on conversation. It was a little eye-opening. Of course, being raised in the Meorrrei family meant that you had to master the art of conversation, but that way of talking was more leisurely, careful, and with a little poetic license at times. Liam pressed as much conversation into empty space in the shortest amount of time. Maybe it had to do with living on Dantooine, and going days or weeks without seeing a neighbor in the wide open country. Maybe it meant that when you did talk, you covered everything, because you never knew when you'd get the chance again.

Still didn't explain Lyanie though. Or maybe their big news got a lot smaller after marriage, and spoken at a more leisurely pace. How was your day? Good, how was yours? Did you remember to purge the ion impellers? Did you eat the last of the chocolate biscuits? Cirr's expression almost went to bliss at the endearing dullness.

"jIt'ss been a whjile, hasn't jit?"

He wanted to vault into chatting about the Sorosuub PX-R that Liam had been restoring in the barn last time he was around, but speeder talk was going to wait. Liam had full sails ahead with an entirely different sort of topic.

"Gjirrl prroblems? You? Ai'a laa..."

Having a human wife made Cirr a reasonable expert on the quality of human attractiveness, so the Captain had no qualms about considering his brother in law to be a pretty handsome representative of the species. He'd seen his fair share of ugly humans to know the difference, that was for sure. So, shaking what papa gave you was probably not the problem.

"Tell you what. Let's get some caf and talk jit out."

[Liam Quez]

Cirr was officially the best, he always knew what to say at the right time...

I nodded quickly agreeing to the Caf idea. Caf gave me bubbles in my stomach, but it’s all good. It usually took a good few hours for me to actually start to develop them and then well release them as if my bottom was a symphony. I grinned for a moment wondering if I could hold it in long enough to see Lyanie, if I remember right she was never a fan of my music. I wondered if we were going to go into the ship – which would make my day so I kept my fingers crossed.

Cir seemed surprised at my dilemma, which mean that the problem was obviously with the girls. I felt a bit better after realizing that, but then I didn’t. If the problem was with them well, that meant that there was nothing I could do to fix it. Disappointment showed on my face as I sighed softly. Okay, the problem is with one girl, but we won’t go there – let’s just keep in all general for now. Cirr had to have some good advice – he was married! He got to the end game, the game over, the credits! I smiled and followed Cir to the caf.

“Thanks man, I really need it – it’s been a stressful kind of thing. Like a secret mission or a puzzle that I can’t figure out. Girls are weird, I don’t get them.”

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

The pair of extended fam arrived at a caf stall on the nearest terminus of the concouse. Cirr wasted little time, ordering two - straight black, and he covered the bill. They dawdled a bit, strolling through the busy crush of pedestrians and consumers through the kiosks, store fronts, and more well-to-do establishments. It was a bit of a scenery change for a Captain who spent day in and day out in a large family of people he wasn't related to, crammed onto two hundred meters of frigate. It felt good to stretch legs, even if one was artificial.

"Ljiam, jI thjink jif we actually got gjirrls, we would have djiscoverred a curre forr them a long tjime ago and moved on wjith ourr ljives."

Cirr half-smiled, showing fang as he glanced sidelong to his shorter tagalong.

"Look. jI may not be the best perrson to ask. Forr us..."

The Captain gestured to himself, as if he needed to illustrate their fundamental difference.

"...we'rre the ones who show off. The ones who drress to be seen. The ones who wajit by the comm hopjing that she wjill call. Arr'uhai, jI went frrom all that...to yourr worrld. Wherre a man jis expected to ask a woman out."

Cirr gave a little grimace at the thought.

"That's scarry to me. jI saw plenty of gjirrls, and thought about them. Not forr just fooljing arround, no...jI mean serrjious. jI'd worrk up courrage to...you know...actually talk to them, but by then jI was too slow."

He thought about the old times. Faces he hadn't seen in a while. Remembered flirting with James, thinking she was the cutest thing in six sectors. Then just like that, things simply changed. It wasn't like he regretted it, but he'd never really thought about looking back on it in that light until now.

Cirr sipped at his caf, still a little too hot to dive into.

"jIs therre anyone jin parrtjicularr you'rre afterr?"

[Liam Quez]

This was the point in the conversation where I remembered that Cirr was not human. I guess I was blind to all of that especially when he’s family to me. Never really had a big brother, so Cirr was the closest thing to that – which is why we were walking side by side with really hot Caf talking about girls. Frowning, I really didn’t want to get into any details of his courting ritual with my sister or anything like that. The thought of it made me stick my tongue out, it was gross to be reminded that my sister was like me and had urges. It was interesting though, how different his culture was compared to humans.

I blew on the caf, but decided it wasn’t time to drink the liquid lava. Turning my head towards him, I examined his features. Nope he wasn’t anything like a human. “That’s pretty cool, seems to be less stressful waiting for her to call.” I thought about it and figured Ibaris would let me rot where I sat then actually call me. My idea of waiting for her quickly changed. I should have figured he would question who I was trying to impress. I bit my lower lip for a moment and questioned if I should say who. Sighing, I knew it was for the best.

“Her name is Ibaris, I’ve worked with her for some time now – we’re partners. We’ve been partners on the same small ship for the past…” I had to count, I really didn’t know off the top of my head. We had teamed up when she was fourteen and I was fifteen – fresh off my father’s farm. “…almost five years now I think.” I had stolen a kiss from her and had received a kiss on my cheek – that was the extent of our intimacy, if you could even call it that. My frown grew larger as I remembered that we also shared a bed, but I had to sleep at the foot of it – no touching. Any guy in my position would have quickly given up, but she had her moments, like at that pool party where she clung to me for just a few moments and I couldn’t forget how beautiful she was at that party.

“Cirr, I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’ve been nothing but good to her. Heck, I tried to stop her from getting kidnapped and only got myself beat up. I thought girls liked it when you put your life on the line for them.” I looked down at my hand and examined the faint scar.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Cirr followed along as Liam told the tale, his eyes drifting down into his caf as his brother in law explained his complicated situation. And it was complicated, at least for him. He tried to insert himself into Liam's story, tried to rationalize the actions.

"Arr'uhai, jI'm surre she's grrateful forr you standjing up forr herr, but jI don't know jif that's enough. You shouldn't want to be wjith someone because they know you'll rrjisk yourr ljife forr them. You should show them you'rre wjilljing to ljive forr them too."

Liam was young, but he wasn't that young. Cirrsseeto had to learn these difficult things during his first marriage as a young teenager. He had plenty of hard knock tales that he wasn't ready to talk about, but they'd certainly helped him to grow, even if it was the toughest kind of love.

"Alrrjight, let me ask you somethjing serrjiously, and you need to rreally be honest wjith yourrself. jIs she the one?"

[Liam Quez]

My upper lip pushed out while it sucked in my lower lip, Cirr was right. Ibby probably wanted to know that I was willing to survive whatever came our way to be with her. What use was I if I died and then she was left alone to find another dashing pilot to whisk her off her feet. The thought of someone else taking my place infuriated me. My upper lip pressed down as I felt my grip on the caf tighten. Before I spilled it, I took the cup to my lips and gulp down the hot caf without caring that it was hot. My mind was too busy imaging an uglier version of myself doing everything that I did with Ibaris.

It was this moment that Cirr asked me a very important question. He asked if I thought or well felt, if this chick who at times makes my life a living hell was the one I wanted to be with the rest of my life.

Now, I’m almost 20 years old - I’ve really only pursued one other girl besides Ibaris. That chick was CRAZY! With a capital C or something. I can’t fully express how crazy this girl was. Falling to the dark side when I decided to find Ibaris when she was kidnapped and some other stuff. Come on. Rule of thumb, never kiss a girl to give her water no matter how much the holofilms tell you it's a good idea. In reality - it's not.

I continued to think, despite knowing the answer which was screaming in the back of my head. I knew Ibaris was the one I wanted to be with, if she wasn’t why was I driving myself insane. Looking at Cirr as I inhaled deeply trying to get the hopefully crisp air to cool my mouth. “She drives me insane. She seems to enjoy getting us in impossible situations...and yet I can’t imagine my life without her. Waking up and finding her drooling on her pillow is probably one of the best moments.” Grinning, I remembered the time I threw a picture of that on the holonet. “I don’t want to spend a moment without her.”

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Sounded like all the right symptoms. Cirrsseeto took a ponderous sip of his caf as he searched Liam's eyes for any aversion, any sense that he was convincing himself of his answer. By the time Captain Quez lowered the cardfoam cup from his lips, he had the truth of it.

"Okay."

Liam was serious, and his serious demanded a serious response. Cirr draped an arm over his shoulder, and began to lead him through the swell of people on the concourse, heading down the brightly-lit ring of shops and businesses.

"You'rre close. Prroxjimjity-wjise. You worrk togetherr. You sleep...err...togetherr-jish. You prrobably know everrythjing about each otherr that you ljike and that you don't ljike, so forr betterr orr worrse you've got hjistorry, and hjistorry's prretty honest. What does she ljike to do? Wherre does she want to be jin fjive yearrs? Ten?"

This all sounded pretty sage, but Cirr began to compare it to his own situation with the two women he'd married. Sometimes he had the pieces to that puzzle, and sometimes he didn't.

[Liam Quez]

As Cirr put his arm around my shoulders and guided me around the place, I thought about his questions about Ibaris. The girl wasn’t like other girls I had met, she was unique and special. I blame who her parents were, they were weird too – rather opinionated and outgoing. It was easy to pin point how and why Ibaris was the way she was. My mind continued to work over what I knew about her and how she responded to things. It seemed like the girl was all about improving herself and finding adventure – she had her own ship from what I knew since she was 14. Looking up at Cirr, I sighed once again.

“I think she enjoys chasing large creatures in hopes I’d either piss my pants or get eaten. As for the future, Ibby doesn’t talk much about the future, but from what I know is – she wants to keep doing what we’re doing. Make a difference I guess maybe.” I didn’t lie, I didn’t know much about Ibaris’ future plans. We traveled and explored by a gut feeling and the seat of our pants. We were both young so there wasn’t anything wrong with this. I continued to think, remembering my feeble attempts to try and win her over.

“Cirr, I wanna try it your way, maybe you guys are on to something….I mean you managed to wife up Lyanie…” I thanked all the different gods that were out there, even the force for Lyanie getting married. It meant she wouldn't come home and steal the food - also meant that it was another worry off dad's mind. Now if someone would marry that she-devil sister of mine Bic--- we won't talk about my nickname for her...but if someone would marry her, I'd first off pray for his or her safety and then secondly praise them as a war hero for tolerating that woman long enough to want to marry her.

[Cirrsseeto Quez]

Echoes of a life he knew.

"Well, you'rre starrtjing out about ljike jI djid, so jif you'rre hopjing to rrecrreate some kjind of magjic, you've got the bujildjing blocks."

Still, there was some degree of conflict in the Cizerack's face. He took another sip of caf, his eyes narrowing as he looked past and into the crowd.

"You adventurre long enough, and somethjing wjill fjind you. jIt'll pull you off those rrajils. Maybe you'll take that step wjilljingly, orr maybe you won't. jIf you'rre lookjing forr the wjinds of forrtune to get you therre, you need to be rready forr the possjibjiljity that they'll pull you aparrt."

Cirr's blue eyes met with Liam's. They seemed older than they should, full of hidden wisdom and joy and sadness.

"jI met yourr sjisterr beforre therre was an Alljiance. Back then jit was just the Rrebelljion. We both turrned spannerrs on someone else's shjip."

He paused, pressing his lips taut as he shook his head.

"They werre ourr shjips, we just let someone else fly them. Thjing about mechanjics, you get two of them togetherr and they'll fjight overr anythjing. jI couldn't stand Lyanjie when we fjirrst met. jI thought she was a know-jit-all, that she aljigned fuse junctjions ljike a rreckless bantha. jI djidn't ljike herr weldjing, jI djidn't ljike herr coolant jinjectjion tolerrances. jI djidn't ljike the way she smjirrked when she sajid somethjing ljike she thought jI'd mjissed jit."

Reliving every pet peeve he had with Lyanie only served to bring a smile to his face.

"And then one day, we werre attacked. A starr destrroyerr trracked down ourr convoy. jI don't know how we even made jit out of therre, but ourr majin shjip took a total beatjing, and they called everry frree hand aboarrd to handle rrepajirrs. Guess who jI got pajirred wjith?

jI was mad. Mad at havjing to fjix someone else's shjip and not my own. Mad at havjing to worrk wjith herr. Mad at everryone else too. Then we had to cljimb jinto one of those majintenance tubes and take carre of a few powerr coupljings. And forr the ljife of me, jI don't know what happened, but jit djid. We werre alone. Djirrty. Tjirred. Both of us jirrjitated at everrythjing, and despjite all of that, ah...c'ei aullanaai'nee kai."

The Captain sighed through a smile.

"jI had no jidea how everrythjing would change. jI lost my shjip. She lost herrs. We lost trrack of ourr frrjiends along the way. But despjite all the change that pulled us away frrom the famjiljiarr, we found each otherr's orrbjit. Maybe jit's some kjind of grravjity that affects people. Pulls them frrom thejirr comforrtable courrse. All jI can tell you jis that you ejitherr contrrol yourr destjiny orr you let jit contrrol you. jIf jIbarrjis has starrs jin herr eyes, you'rre not gojing to get them out of herr vjisjion. You can only hold on and hope to make jit to the otherr sjide."