[TOR] Jezerai Wildfyre

[Jezerai]

Jezerai Wildfyre looked at the contents of the hold of her ship, The Willing Lass, with satisfaction.  She had come a long way from the streets of Nar Shaddaa, where she had spent her youth and wished that her mother had lived long enough to see the heights her daughter had attained.  The expectations were low, even for longevity, when you were the daughter of a whore on Nar Shaddaa.  One day her mother had simply not returned to the room the two of them had shared and called home.  When she had been gone a week, Jezerai had simply thrown her mother's belongings out on the street.  The next morning, the clothing and makeup had disappeared as mysteriously as had their owner.  Jezerai never saw her mother again, and while she could not say she really missed her, she had wondered from time to time what had ever become of her.

[Jezerai]

After the disappearance of her mother, Jezerai took her few belongings and snuck out of the room they had shared thereby avoiding the landlord's demands for rent.  She judged that the man would not hesitate to take her and sell her to satisfy the outstanding amount owed.  A small nook, formed when the demolished walls of the old building were not completely cleared away prior to rebuilding and difficult to spot from the street, became her permanent home.  She found the spot when hunting for anything that might be useable or saleable in the crumbling ruins that were the foundation for the neoned world of Nar Shaddaa that existed just over her head.

Jezerai was uncertain of her age, her birthday never having been acknowledged.  But she thought she was eleven or twelve at the time of her mother disappearance.   The first thing that she did upon moving into the nook was to chop off her long, dark blonde hair into an rough, uneven mop which was tied back with a dirty strip of material.  She rubbed dirt into her face and hands to cover and coarsen her pale skin.  Nothing could disguise her bright green eyes or delicate features, but with several layers of clothing and a hat that slouched low over her forehead, she was able to fade into anonymity.  It was not the first time she had thanked fortune for her late maturing, which enabled her to pass herself off as male.  As an adolescent male she presented a much less tempting target to the bands of slavers who were constantly on the lookout for young girls to feed the brothels and dance clubs, or private collections, of the Hutt cartel.

In this way, she managed to survive the streets of Nar Shaddaa.  Reluctant to get too close to anyone who could learn, and betray, her secret she scrabbled with the rest of the underfed street children trying to survive.  The children of the streets were animalistic and violent.  Jezerai learned to fight and eventually joined a more organized gang run by an older boy, which kept itself employed in the nebulous world of petty thievery.

[Jezerai]

Enok got her into the gang, a small band of thugs with a charismatic leader by the name of Kalpuri Tal.  Enok and Jez went way back, growing up as closely meshed as siblings.  Jezerai was a couple years younger and Enok looked after her when she was small and her mother was too busy to tend to the needs of child.  He carried the infant Jez  strapped to his back while he did his daily rounds.  As she grew older, the two had become more evenly balanced in their care of the other, though Jezerai adored the older boy as only a little sister can adore a doting older brother.   When Enok left home to escape an abusive father and spice-addicted mother, the two stayed in contact.  The gang provided Enok with structure and a safe place to sleep in an environment where those things were in short supply.  While Kalpuri did not accept female members, Jezerai's disguise allowed her entry into the male world.

Jezerai continued to sleep in her nook, judging that to be far safer than any of the gang provided cots.  She started at the lowest rung of the gang's hierarchy: a messenger and delivery runner.  Jezerai proved to be a fast learner and was moved up the gang's order, surpassing even Enok's status.  He teased her about getting nosebleeds at her lofty height and the two would laugh, though Jezerai never noticed that Enok's laughter was slightly forced and he wouldn't meet her eye.  The two experimented with alcohol and took spice in their off-hours.  For Jezerai , these were fun diversions from the day to day world.  But for Enok, they soon began to consume his life.  Jezerai watched as her friend grew gaunt and spent his days in a spice-induced stupor.  She did what she could to cover for him, working hard to cover both of their assignments.  Nevertheless, word of Enok's slide drifted back to Kalpuri Tal and his officers.  While the gang did not forbid use of spice, shirkers were not welcome within its ranks.

Despite Jezerai's best efforts, Enok was expelled from the gang eighteen months later.  He was a thin ghost of his former self, his life consumed by spice.  Seeing what the drug was doing to her friend, Jezerai avoided it and the two drifted further apart as resentment drove a wedge between them.  Enok red-rimmed eyes burned now when he thought of Jezerai and he blamed her for taking rewards which he believed to be rightfully his.  Jezerai was unaware of her former friend's animosity towards her and worked all the harder to try to help him.

During one of her visits, Jez mentioned that she was leading a raid into their rival's territory.  It was her first time to be entrusted with such a mission and she was eager to tell her friend.  She did not notice that Enok remained sullen and quiet during their visit.  Indeed, it was not much of a change from his normal demeanor, though quite different than he had been before getting involved in spice.  But when the raid took place, they ran into an ambush.  There could be no doubt that their rival had been tipped off and Jez' small band was almost destroyed.  Jez escaped by only the luckiest of chances.

Jezerai went to confront Enok directly from her dressing down by Kalpuri.  He was in a spice-induced euphoria, and he grinned at her as she walked in.
"Heyas, Jez!  Lookin' good!"  He tried to wink, but blinked both his eyes instead.

"Surprised?"  Jezerai fiddled with her blaster, rage and hurt boiling under the surface.  Only her long love for Enok prevented her from shooting him where he lay.

"Aw, Jez.  Don' be tha' way.  It ain't like yer dead or nuthin'."  He hiccupped and vomited on himself.  Jezerai noticed two full bags of spice on the table.

"You sold me out for spice?"  The disgust in her voice cut through the spice and Enok peered at her.

Enok's head lolled.  "Yer takin' it hard, ain'tcha?  I knew ya'd be fine."

"I ought to shoot you, an' if you weren't a brother to me I would.  A buncha o' tha boys died.  Stellar, Boondock, Top, ... "  Her voice choked as she named the dead.  "They were your friends too.  Oh, Enok.  How could you?"

Enok sneered.  "Don' go gittin' high an' mighty wi' me.  They were never my friends.  Mebbe yours.  All o' em kicked me when it suited em."

Jezerai shook her head, truly seeing Enok for what he had become for the first time.  She didn't kill him, though he did that on his own shortly afterwards.  Instead, it was something in her that died.  She wasn't kicked from the gang, but it was clear that they had their doubts about her.  Doubts that hadn't been there before and the rumor started spreading that it was she who sold them out.  She realized that the time had come to move on.