𝗔𝗵𝘀𝗼𝗸𝗮 𝗧𝗮𝗻𝗼

Chapter Eight

Darra was indifferent.

Really, that's all she wanted to be at the moment. It was a good defense mechanism, she had discovered, to dealing with everything that went on in the underworld of Coruscant.

Ever since she had been old enough to understand that she shouldn't assume the best of everyone, she had clung to it like a mother to a child.

Sometimes, when it was late and she was mentally done with anything and everything, she wished she could be a male, preferably human, so she wouldn't have to put up with the blatant disrespect and sexism, racism, and whatever other "-ism" that prevailed at an alarming rate on level 23c.

But, obviously, she was not a male, nor a human, so she just decided to be indifferent.

Setting down the tray of dirty dishes harder than she meant to she sighed. Her shift was only half-way done, but she was already pining to go home. If she had to deal with one more drunkard in the outer room, she thought, she would lose it.

She wished for the thousandth time that night that she could have chosen a different place to get a job, but that wasn't exactly an option anymore.

She needed this job, and she needed it to be close to her home.

There was a big difference between need and want, and Darra hoped she wasnt straddling the line.

Every time a drunken, disallusioned male looked at her, said something to her, tried to do something to her, she came closer and closer to just quitting once and for all.

But she couldn't. There was only one thing keeping her there, and that thought, that single thing that kept her going, was currently in the apartment in the set next door.

And that thought was her kids.

Her beautiful daughter and teenage son residing in the small apartment adjacent to the tavern.

So Darra really hoped she was doing the right thing by staying close, instead of quitting and staying as far from the place as possible, which meant she would be away from her children... one of whom was not well.

Darra was not an overbearing mother — quite the opposite, actually, but she did care deeply for her children, which was why she had quit her previous job two weeks ago in order to be closer to her home.

So, her mind elsewhere, she had not noticed a cloaked figure approaching until she had been startled out of her worried thoughts.

"Do you know a Darra?"

She almost dropped the glass she had been holding. She turned her head, the confused response sliding off her tongue before she could process the question. "What?"

The figure started again, but Darra interrupted as the delayed understanding broke through the previous surprise.

"Yeah, I am Darra." Her tone of voice sounded almost like a challenge, a threat, even to her. She set down the dirty dishes she had been holding, slightly wary — in her experience, it was never a good thing when an unidentifiable being came looking for you by name, and Darra silently cursed herself for not being more cautious in her response. Still, too late to turn back now.

Growing up in the lower levels, the first instinct for Darra was defensive, suspicious, so she eyed the figure up and down as she responded. "Who are you?" She asked cautiously, still not able to tell much about the being.

"... Ana."

Was it just Darra, or did the figure, who Darra now assumed was a woman, hesitate? Darra decided it didn't matter.