The Matai District

"Perhaps your energy would be better spent trying to cooperate with us Mister..." *Tanith's smooth voice trailed off as she pushed out of the shadows of the corner walking towards the center of the room, the light shinning off her auburn hair, her amethyst eyes fixed on the man before her, her unfinished sentence a prompt for him to tell them his name.*

As the man spat at her the muscle in Tanith's jaw ticked slightly, it was a mistake to come here. She should be relaxing not getting involved in city matters. What was she thinking? Shaking her head Tanith turned to away from the man and headed towards the exit while saying to the soldiers."Do not harm him, see that he finishes his business on Contruum before escorting him off the planet..."

'What in the blue hell!' Tanith thought to herself as the man babbled then fall forward coping a feel, immediately she became infuriated and as he asked about being let out the door, she violently used the force to push him through the door causing him to crash through the heavy steel an onto the cold tiled floors. "The nerve..." Tanth said to herself as she shook her head as she exited the room and quickly made her way towards the exit wanted to get out of the city as fast as she could. Perhaps she was not ready to leave the towers yet, it seems that she was not prepared for the various interactions with other individuals as yet.

Tanith muttered as she looked over her shoulder and noticed he lost consciousness, "Oh come on!" She said out loud before finishing silently to herself, "I didn't even hit him that hard..." Sighing softly she instructed the guards to have the man escorted to the Medical Bay within the Towers so that the droids could tend to whatever injuries she may have caused. Tanith did not need the man whoever he was blabbering off world about his treatment on Contruum, she was trying to keep a low profile after all and the last thing she needed was a loud mouth exaggerating about his encounter with the Empress. As she exited the building she made her way back to the towers, the strange man to be escorted after her.

Gulliver gave the commando a sloppy salute, two fingers raised to the eyebrow. Just casual enough to be insulting to a hardcore King and Country type, but not enough to be blatant about it. He knew he was being told to bugger off, however politely. The merc wasn't looking for a fight, but that didn't mean he had to leave without a parting shot.

"Not a problem. Monoc Security Services: we do your job so you don't have to."

He turned to the girl for a moment, right as she was pointing to her tattoo.

"Miss...39? It's been a pleasure. Offer's still open if you're interested."

And with that, he set off down the street. Hard to move quickly, what with the crowds and the heavy-ass pack. Between the body armor, the machine gun, the assault rifle, elbow and knee pads, a helmet, rations, water, emergency blanket and shelter, first aid kit, enough ammo to hold off a full frontal assault from a platoon sized armored element, and a fair-sized collection of old fashioned paperback books, the pack probably weighed more than the singer. That it was packed in such a manner that he could get to the guns and vest in a matter of seconds was his little secret.

If the singer decided to catch up, she wouldn't have much trouble. And if she didn't, it wouldn't bother Gulliver too much. Company would be nice, but he'd traveled alone before. That's why he brought books.

You don't scrape together a decent living entertaining in pubs and clubs without learning a few things. Firstly, nobody was your friend unless you had something they wanted. Secondly, different people with wildly different intentions often compared and contrasted with each other in regards to the approach. This big mercenary laying hands on her was a huge no-no. They were strangers, she wasn't selling her body as property, and the world was brimming with malevolence. And in the business of entertainment letting someone brush up on your skin, however diminutive, spoke spades on the subtle nauances of dominance, equality, and subjugation. Good thing the GALSAF had two killer points going for him on his side. Their reputation was almost a miracle, or that was how most of the citizens would blather on about it; moreover, perhaps it was luck or inkling, but she did not sense a sinister or domineering nature with his touch. There was some sort of memory, something so woeful and melancholy you could see it the subtle slump of his shoulders and the slow hesitation of his fingers. So the gesture goes unchallenged while Thirty-Nine "susses" the situation. She could be wrong about her assessment, we all are sometimes. Time would tell.

"There's no beginning to this story,
the truth will sync into the sound,
and a language learned, a forgotten tongue,
is studied once again..."

Thus the pair begin their walk to what seemed like one of the local cantinas. If they went into one she sensed, then they would recognize her there. Might be good. They could convey things about her to the recruitment officer. She takes one last look at the man with a backpack full of death, treats, and books, and stows his card into her shirt's breast pocket. Yes, she'll be able to contact him. Now she just needed a situation that would somehow draw him back in. Something big, she guessed. She didn't know what: she wasn't one for nefarious plans. As for the money he gave her, the first homeless person they walked into, some poor sod displaced by the Sith, she gave it all to him with a cute wink and smile. The man was too jaded to do anything but say thanks, and that was a-okay. Because if the universe shares with you, share. And even if the unlucky just wanted to scrape enough to buy a pint of cheap booze, then let them escape this place in a haze for a little while, because if they can see or hear something beautiful in the murky waters of depression, then that was a-okay too.

Cal waited several anxious moments for a response, initially keeping his eyes forward after expressing his query. But after the moments of silence dragged on, he couldn't help but look back and the small woman, and the desperation in her expression nearly broke his heart. It was as if an internal struggle were ensuing within her mind and soul, a battle between who she was and who she wanted to be. Eventually, Cal couldn't refrain any longer. He reached over to the girl and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, intending to be consoling.
"Look, I don't know what might be going on, but I think I get the sing-song communication thing," he muttered to her. "Maybe, if you're able to…write your own songs, just describe where it is you're from. I've been around the galaxy enough times to know most places, I fancy I could take a solid guess."
He squeezed her shoulder softly, then let his hand fall away. "If not, then maybe you could sing me a song from wherever it is you're from. Like a Twi'lek singing of Ryloth, or a Coruscanti singing of the capital?" Cal wasn't sure why the girl was the way she was, all he could tell was that it couldn't have been her own doing. Whatever lay in her past, it had left her marked, both through the tattoo on her neck and the limitations placed on her mind. If she could only sing a song written on the planet she was from, or describe it well enough in verse, Cal would have a better idea of her origins.

Cal continued on in silence, mulling the girl's song over in his mind. No matter how he picked it apart, Cal couldn't arrive to any sort of tangible conclusion. Her words were fluid, graceful, though struck through with such sadness Cal hadn't experienced in years. Though the sadness didn't seem to belong to the girl, it was stale, in a sense, as if it were someone else's feelings she was expressing. The more Cal thought of it, the less the song made sense, though he eventually reminded himself that the girl, 39, wasn't much herself to begin with. He began to believe this sadness was her sadness, though she may no longer have known it. They were approaching the flat now and Cal swallowed a lump in his throat as he forced to admit his failure to the woman.
"I've got nothing," he muttered, a grimace on his face. He looked over at her, quick to clarify his inner thoughts. "It's not that I don't get you, though I'm sure I don't, on many levels. I mean, I get that you sing in place of talking, I just don't know why."
This doing was obviously not her own fault, Cal reflected briefly. It was something that felt perpetrated by another, though to what ends, Cal couldn't begin to decipher. As the pair reached the door of the flat, Cal stepped in front of the girl and turned towards her.
"Okay, let's just forget where you're from. We'll say you're from here, on Contruum." He told her, running a hand through his own hair, thinking. "We'll concoct some sort of story for record, which is nothing new, commandos do it all the time when they enlist."
On impulse, Cal reached out and placed both of his hands gently on the girl's shoulders. He hoped she didn't mind. "Whoever you are, whatever you're deal is, forget it's importance for now. If you want help digging up the past and sorting things out for yourself, I'm your man. But for now, where you're going is far more important than where you've been."
Cal knew why he was making such a promise, and a promise it was. This woman had spoken not a single word he had understood since they met, and yet he felt she identified with himself and so many of his comrades on a deeper level than most people he could carry on a normal conversation with. She fit in. Maybe she wasn't Mando'ad material, and maybe she couldn't lift a rifle to save her life, but at the end of the day, being Mando'ad had nothing to do with who could fight and who couldn't. All that matters was that you had the spirit to try.