Woman without a Country

"Ellie. That guy is here again." The Twi'lek dancer nodded towards the door, as a tall, clean-faced Human male in the early prime of his life. He wasn't wearing armor, not in this establishment, but the way he walked and held himself showed his Mandalorian upbringing.
The woman that everyone in the house called Ellie sighed, and leaned back against the wall. She was tall, well-muscled, curved, beneath her cheap and ill-fitting clothes. Light brown hair, unkempt and disheveled, hung down lankly, almost covering her face. Wide, slightly slanted green eyes that looked as though she hadn't slept in days. And yet, she was still beautiful.
She was the bouncer, and it was her job to keep unwanted – and non-paying – guests out of the 'working area' upstairs. She pulled out a small silver case, and drew out a cigarette, lit it while she watched him walk nervously across the room. It amused her to think that a man with all his battle experience shrank from talking to a woman he wanted. It amused her more to wonder how he would react if he really knew who she was.
He saw her smiling, and swallowed nervously. "Hello, Ellie."
"Tamm." She didn't want to welcome him. She wanted him to leave. She took a slow drag on her cigarette. "I thought you were going home."
He smiled at her words. She had an odd accent that he could never quite place. Her Basic was clipped in places, and she used an unnatural rhythm for some of her words, but then her voice would slide back into perfect Standard Basic. He wondered if she even knew that she was doing it. He loved listening to her talk, listening to the strange and beautiful rhythms of her speech. "I won't go home, Ellie. Not until I can take you with me."
She frowned at the need in his voice, the hunger. "Don't you already have a wife in your tent?" she said sharply, switching to Mandalorian.
"Did I ever tell you how wonderful it is to listen to you speak our language?" he answered in the same language.
"I am not a Mandalorian," she said harshly.
"None of us are, technically," he smiled. "Mandalore is no more. But I still have a clan and a world – what's left of it, anyway – to go back to. Come with me, Ellie. Whatever it is you're hiding from – "
She stood up sharply, her eyes blazing. "You go too far, boy. What do you know about me?"
He stood his ground, fearless and defiant. "I told you I loved you, mesh'la, and you did not refuse me. What did you expect me to do? Cower and walk away from your silence?"
She gritted her teeth in frustration. "You endanger not only yourself but those around you. All for a woman who you will never have."
He shook his head. "I'm not as foolish as that. I didn't leave traces when I was searching."
"The fact that you were searching is the danger. Go, get out of here. And don't come back this time. Go home to your wife." She wanted to be angrier, but all she could think of was that he had called her beautiful. Even here, in this dingy brothel, under the harsh lights, half-washed, half-starved and unkempt from lack of sleep, he thought she was beautiful.
A drunken Twi'lek man staggered up. "If you're not going up, stop bothering the woman and let other people have their chance." He waved a chit, trying to offer it to her. "I have an appointment for Room B-262."
"You're early," she said flatly. "Come back at the next bell."
"Oh?" The Twi'lek blearily looked at his chit. "You are right, of course! Come my friend, we will drink until the women are ready for us!" With drunken and irresistible camaraderie, he slipped his arm into the young Mandalorian's and led him to the bar.
The woman smiled to herself, and promised to give Tott'syive a small present later on. Two more appointments came up. She checked their chits and the schedule, and let them up. The evening was going on quite normally until the woman walked in.
She was just over average height, dark hair, dark eyes, scowling and angry. Unlike the regular guests, she was wearing not only a uniform but weapons. And since her uniform was an unmistakable shade of azure blue, the proprietor didn't try to stop her. The woman, in a voice cold with anger, demanded to know where her husband was.
The proprietor looked around nervously, and wisely kept his hands where the Sith officer could see them, and pleaded ignorance. Since no one was watching the woman casually leaning against the door to the stairs, no one saw her set off the alarm.
"Don't insult my intelligence," hissed the Sith officer. "I know this is a brothel. And I know he's in here."
"Perhaps someone could take you upstairs?" offered the proprietor helpfully. "Ellie, maybe you could take this woman upstairs and help her find what she is looking for?"
The woman they called Ellie nodded, as if she was already bored with the whole proceeding, and put out her cigarette in a nearby ashtray. "You want to go up?"
The officer stalked over to the door, and gestured that Ellie should precede her. The door opened automatically, as if it had never been locked, and they walked up the noisy back stairs.
"One moment," snapped the Sith, and pulled out her blaster.
The woman considered, then her fist shot out, catching the Sith on the shoulder and dislocating her shooting arm. She followed with a fast, hard shot to the Sith's head, and the officer tumbled down the stairs. "I'm not in the mood to deal with shooting today," she muttered to herself. She started down the stairs to make sure the officer was just unconscious, and then she heard the screaming. She ran down to the door, and brought up the secret viewscreen. A whole troop of Sith were storming the brothel, shooting wildly and killing everyone in sight.
She locked the door, knowing that would buy the girls upstairs a few extra seconds, then ran back up the stairs to her room. The other girls, typical of women in their position, had already started clearing out at the first alarm. There was no curiosity about what was happening downstairs. They threw on their clothes as quickly as they could and ran for the secret exits.
The woman thought, then decided to leave by the window instead of the secret exits. If this wasn't an accident – if they were really after her, somehow – she didn't want to endanger anyone else any more than she already had. Her bag was already packed, as she always knew that she might have to run at any time. She opened the window, and looked around cautiously. They were on the top part of the city, with three different levels below. About seven thousand stories, total. It was very unlikely that anyone else would try to go this way.
She launched herself gracefully from the window, jumping down to an untenanted room in a building two streets away and a level down. She had practiced this jump before. With a dirty brown robe wrapped around her, she looked like garbage flying in the wind. She landed neatly, rolling with the speed of her fall. She brushed dust from her legs, and calmly walked out to the elevator. She hailed a shuttle, and headed down to the spaceport.
It was time for her to leave, time to move on. A foolish boy in love with her, Sith attacks, and the possibility that he had used her face in the search? Clearly, it was time to go on. Nothing held her here, or anywhere else. Not anymore. She pulled off the robe before she reached the port quarter, and stuffed it into a trashbin for some urchin to find. It would keep them warm, and at least do some good somewhere.
Besides, she thought wryly, another robe would fall into her lap again. They always did.

The blow made his head sing, but he made no noise of protest. "Tell me about her," said the Sith interrogator. "You must know something. For all the money you spent on her, you'd better know something," he said conversationally.
The young Mandalorian, barely old enough to have fought in the wars, took the blows as if he was a hardened veteran.
"This is stupid," the interrogator complained. "Why am I asking this dumb kid about some whore?"
"She isn't a whore," the Mandalorian snarled. His voice was slightly slurred, from the abuse he had taken.
"Go on," rasped an old, old voice.
The Mandalorian fell silent. He'd already said too much.
"If she isn't a whore," said the voice, so old it was barely recognizable as Human or female, "then what is she?"
The Mandalorian closed his eyes, and began to whisper the words of an old Mandalorian song to himself.
The interrogator raised his hand in fury, but the owner of the voice stopped him.
"Wait." She listened curiously. "An angel?" she asked.
The Mandalorian flinched, and wished that he had a knife so that he could silence himself.
The door opened, and he heard someone leave the room. He looked up, and saw that he was alone with the crone. She was wearing an ugly brown robe, with the hood pulled down over her eyes so that her face was almost completely invisible.
"An angel," she repeated in her cold, rasping voice.
"Leave me alone," he whispered. "I … I made a mistake. I've endangered her life. I can never repair the damage I've done to her, and this is the only way I can make it right."
"Indeed. Tell me, child, have you any message for your Angel? I will be seeing her soon. Don't worry, she will come to no harm."
The young Mandalorian's head was heavy, and he could feel blood dripping down the side of his face. He couldn't think properly, he just knew that he couldn't say anything that would help them hurt her. He had to protect her. "Tell her – tell the Angel – I'm sorry. Tell her I've done all I can to protect her. Tell her – please – tell her that she was always beautiful to me."
"Have no fear, child. I will deliver your message."
The Sith interrogator entered the room again. "I brought the – wait, he's dead. What did you do? What are you doing?" He screamed horribly as he died, and it was the last sound the young Mandalorian heard before he faded away.