Chapter Text
Dawn on Bracca is more of an idea than an actual occurrence. A fantasy, perhaps. Maybe just a joke. Dawn on Bracca is the system’s central star looking down on its wet, barren seventh planet with distaste, not unlike every time Prauf opens his conservator and sees the tangerette paste has grown a carpet of mold overnight again. Dawn prods Willflower once and then rolls over and goes back to sleep, letting the rainclouds crowd in on the city while the scrappers grumble out of bed… those of them fortunate enough not to be stuck on second shift, that is. It’s a far cry from mornings on Abednedo. Those were blood-orange sunrises burning off the mist, a nuna coop that always smelled of straw, rainbow patterns thrown across a field of white grass from the stained-glass spires surrounding Prauf’s family’s homestead. He and his sister would compete to see who could collect eggs the fastest without touching certain colors. Red on Saint’s Day, green on Baker’s Day; Glassmaker’s Day was always damn near impossible because there were more shades of blue on those towers than Prauf’s eyes were even capable of distinguishing. The loser got an egg smashed over their head until Mam found out and put a stop to the waste. Nothing wakes a guy like cold egg slime trickling down the back of his neck – not even the fifth hour alarm on his datapad jangling away into the silent flat.
Groaning, Prauf slaps a hand to his face, grinds his palm into his eyes like that’ll sandpaper away the sleep-blur, swipes his nostrils to make sure he didn’t snot all over himself in his sleep. The only sign of spring around here is a florid resurgence of the puffball weeds the city’s named for. They wriggle up through cracks in the roads, find every gap in a building’s foundation, poke their fluffy heads out of Maw-holes, sprout in the scraggly flowerbeds dressing up Guild Headquarters for whenever someone Imperial condescends to set foot on Bracca. For a couple days, Willflower-the-city is blanketed in Willflower-the-plant, a riot of pink and orange and purple that almost makes the place look inviting. And then, like an inconsiderate hooker, they splooge pollen everywhere before dying all at once. The following month or so of runoff drives Prauf’s allergies wild. Luckily, he can still breathe through his nostrils this morning, so winter hasn’t yet relinquished its grip on the planet. He pats at his datapad’s screen to silence the alarm and sits up, yawning and scratching the top of his eggless head.
It’s pouring. As usual. Prauf cranks open the shutter covering the window (a necessary addition, as it’s missing half the windowpanes) and grunts upon seeing the delightful weather conditions awaiting him. Practically raining sideways – doesn’t bode well for today’s plans, but nothing short of a typhoon will convince him to ditch those. He sticks his head out, sheltered by the shutter. The pewter-colored sky is a lighter shade of grey on the horizon, so the sun’s risen somewhere.
Out of habit, as he’s closing the shutter again, he reaches blindly to the other side of the bed, searching for an arm or a shoulder. The sleep-roughened words are sitting on his tongue – it’s five, so get outta my way or I’ll roll right over you – but his seeking hand finds only an empty mattress, and they wither, unspoken. Nobody in his bed besides him. Rather than dwell himself into a funk, Prauf stuffs that complex miasma of emotion into a box where he doesn’t have to look at it, scoots across unoccupied terrain, and gets up.
The ‘fresher’s off the kitchen, clear on the other side of the apartment. Prauf hasn’t needed lights to navigate his home in years, so he doesn’t bother putting them on, eyes half-lidded as he instinctively maneuvers around the drying rack where his scrapping gear is still damp from yesterday’s shift, inches through the narrow gap between his workbench and a loaded shelving unit without so much as rattling a loose bolt. There’s a bit of room to breathe by the sofa and the little holoscreen balanced on several crates. And then comes the tricky part – passage to the kitchen is fiercely guarded by an army of scrap-metal insects and fish and birds, few larger than Prauf’s hand, all aiming to thrust their rusting appendages straight into the soles of his unprotected feet. He has to finish building another set of shelves. A man shouldn’t need safety equipment to walk his own flat. He survives the trek to the kitchen, heads inside the ‘fresher, and promptly rams his bare toes into the little stool loitering in front of the sink.
Prauf doesn’t bother trying to muffle his profanity, teetering on one leg while he massages his throbbing foot. Once upon a time, he and Tabbers had shared an absolute dump of an apartment on Northside, biding their time and credit-pinching until they could afford a flat in one of the few buildings on Bracca actually sized for residents who aren’t Human-proportioned. He can fit beneath the showerhead now. He can reach the countertops without hunching over and stand up straight without banging his skull off the ceiling. Unfortunately, that also means the flat’s too large for his new roommate. And maybe new is stretching it, after almost six months of cohabitation, but the alternative is admitting Prauf keeps forgetting the stool has stood in that exact spot for almost as long.
Speaking of the roommate, once Prauf’s finished in the ‘fresher, he gets some caf started before deciding to wake him. Cal doesn’t have an actual bed – he sleeps on a mat laid out atop an old metal desk, nestled into the back corner of the living room. If it’s uncomfortable, he’s never expressed anything besides gratitude for the accommodations. He had a spot in the dorms, once, but there were… extenuating circumstances that demanded a change of scenery, and limited options. Now, did Prauf have the space for a second roommate? Obviously not. Could he afford another mouth to feed? Not really, especially when that mouth is still on bottom-rung Rigger pay for another three months. Does he even particularly like children? That’s an unambiguous no, and yet… Cal is the quietest, politest, most cooperative roommate Prauf has ever had in his entire life. It’s borderline unnatural. Prauf’s not lived with anybody Cal’s age since he was a child himself; he’d braced for teeth-grinding adolescent behavior and instead only needs to dodge dangerous artwork.
The boy’s an enigma, honestly. While he’s mostly stopped crying himself to sleep, he still has nightmares regularly, when he isn’t outright trading his six hours of shut-eye for catnaps on the train and a haunted expression. Prauf’s not sure what brought him to Bracca in the first place. Cal’s been silent on the subject except for the one time, under the influence of some truly appalling nectarot, he admitted he’d run away. It’s not hard to extrapolate from there – whatever ship he’d used, he ditched it out in the wastes, where it’d probably never be found if someone tracked him here, and came to Willflower hoping for a way to squeeze out a living. There’s really only one way, on this planet; lucky timing to arrive right when the Guild was desperate for fresh meat.
Prauf doesn’t ask questions. He’s good at keeping his mouth shut, even when he knows he ought to speak up. Still, there’s one question he wishes he’d asked while the kid was drunk off his gourd and almost unguarded… Cal and Prauf were equally rain-drenched when they met, so Cal’s face and hair and hands had been washed clean, and it’d taken Prauf a few minutes to realize he was not making some sort of bizarre fashion statement by dyeing the front of his tunic and leggings rust-red. He was just soaked in blood. Too much for a little Human body to survive losing. And aside from a spectacular lump on the back of his head, Cal had only blaster burns scorched across his jaw and hand and side. A horrific ring of bruises around his throat, too. None of those would’ve bled.
Something terrible happened to him, that much is obvious. Between whatever sent Cal fleeing to a shithole like Bracca and his stint in the dormitory, Prauf can’t fault him for having nightmares, even when they’re disruptive. Fortunately, last night was pretty good – no shrieking, no sobbing, no scrambling for a hiding place and shivering there until he could be coaxed out or it was time to catch their train. Prauf shuffles back through the metal menagerie, past his drooping sofa, and over to the makeshift bed he’d thrown together. Cal’s still sound asleep, curled in on himself like a tooka, skinny limbs and a mop of ginger hair and a… well, it’s definitely not a stuffed animal. It doesn’t quite seem to fit the definition of doll, either, unless there’s a destitute dollmaker out in Wild Space who’s mainlining Neutron Pixie for inspiration. It’s called Raggy Bones, a lopsided facsimile of a person rough-hewn from brown sackcloth, sloppily stitched and painted with what Prauf presumes is a Kaleesh skeleton, accessorized by its own tiny, authentic bone mask. He finds the thing creepy as hell – it looks like a prop from the sort of low-budget horror films his brothers liked to watch late at night – but Cal’s latched onto it. In hindsight, Prauf should’ve known the kid was really exaggerating his age.
All right, that’s enough standing here gawking at a sleeping child like some kind of parent. Ugh. There’s a word Prauf hopes never sneaks into his obituary. A tad surprised this notoriously light sleeper didn’t hear him accidentally punting the footstool into the shower, Prauf reaches over and gives Cal’s shoulder a good shake.
Cal always wakes like Prauf’s grandfather, a bare-knuckle prize fighter and veteran of several wars – instantly, completely, buzzing with adrenaline. His eyes snap open and focus, dart around the room in search of threats, muscles tense… and then he spots Prauf and his eyelids drop low, lending him the blurry, half-aware appearance most people get when they’re suddenly dragged out of dreamland. It’s bantha-shit, but Prauf doesn’t draw attention to that. “Morning,” he says.
“…oh, crud,” Cal yawns, uncoiling, sitting up, shaking off Raggy Bones’s clinging limbs and pushing a hand through his hair. “I wanted to be awake first.”
“Why?”
The kid’s mouth slants, suggesting a suppressed grin as he shoots a look at what stands next to his bed. It’s Prauf’s one indulgence, his money-pit, the savior of his sanity, his… rather damaged valachord. Either from age (this particular manufacturer went out of business around a century ago), mishandling (Prauf has to be the fourth or fifth owner), or the unending humidity (it’s stuck on Bracca), one of the soundboards split lengthwise the year after he purchased it. Wood glue was only a temporary fix; it broke again and now it’s held together with wire and a gratuitous application of space-tape. Gives half the strings a strange, watery sort of warble whenever they’re played, but it’s actually a rather interesting effect, and at least it’s still usable. Prauf needs a nonalcoholic outlet if he ever wants to see fifty. He’s practical, besides – no concert-hall dreams, no imaginary swooning audiences, just something to keep his hands occupied while he’s mentally constructing a new shelving unit from whatever’s lying around the apartment. “Be kinda nice to wake up to valachord music,” Prauf muses. “I could go back to bed for a couple minutes and pretend, if you want.”
“Sure,” Cal says brightly, swinging his legs over the side of the desk. “When you were taking that extra shift on Eleventhday, Tabbers dropped by, and he taught me some of a song he said you’d like….”
Prauf’s vague daydream of a pleasant, melodic awakening crumbles right before his eyes. “I’m gonna throw him off the roof,” he mutters, and the grin Cal’s trying to hide breaks free. There’s this old glimmerpop group on Abednedo – call themselves Candyshack – and their biggest hit is a high-energy romantic earworm pining after some sashaying, winking, teasing little flirt… named Prauf. Came out a year after his parents chose an uncommon, gender-neutral name for their upcoming baby. It’s never been translated into Basic, so nobody’s sung it at him in the decades since he left home, but that kriffing monstrosity is the soundtrack of his school days. He needs to die on Bracca so nobody plays it at his funeral. Tabbers, who is awful, finds this hilarious and got his hands on a copy of the song, memorized the chorus just so he could ineptly plunk it out on the valachord every time Prauf irritated him.
To think Prauf was thrilled when those two started getting along. Cal, who is almost as awful, taps a few keys – he can only reach the unbroken side of the instrument from here, but Prauf’s eye twitches anyway as his brain fills in the missing notes with his oldest sister’s mocking singsong. He swats Cal’s hand away from the valachord. “Keep it up and I’m leaving you here,” he grumbles. Giggling, Cal fetches some clothing from the desk drawers while Prauf opens the shutter on the living room window (repaired before the one in the bedroom, so the rain wouldn’t damage his valachord further). Then the boy starts plonking away again, but he isn’t playing anything recognizable this time, just fooling around. Prauf’s is the first valachord he’s ever seen, and he originally thought it was played by plucking the strings, which was so wrong Prauf didn’t even know where to begin. He’d finally just told Cal to go ahead and give that a shot. Cal had put his hand on a string, then stopped dead, feeling the thickness and tension of the wire and evidently realizing it wasn’t going to budge. Oh, he’d said, and went for the keys instead.
For a total beginner, he’s not bad at it. Actually, it’s more impressive the thing survived Tabbers. In the kitchen, the caf machine beeps, blessing them with a steaming carafe of liquid energy, and Prauf prods Cal until he leaves the valachord alone. “It feels too early to be awake on a day off,” Cal says with another yawn.
“Yeah, but I wanna get out of here soon,” Prauf says. “We’ve got a long drive. An hour or so and we should take off.”
Cal fusses with his unruly hair some more, practically cross-eyed as he scowls up at a lock encroaching on his nose. “All right,” he says, “that means I’ve got plenty of time….” He goes bounding off to the ‘fresher. Prauf follows more slowly and still manages to whack a hip into the sofa, which wheezes, legs folding, and slumps off its frame like it’s been shot. Sighing, Prauf straightens out the legs again and heaves it back upright. They’ve been babying it along for a while, but it’s terminal. Cal used to sleep on it. Now he’s afraid it’ll collapse and smother him in couch stuffing.
Prauf makes himself a cup of caf to the tune of the ‘fresher pipes gurgling loudly, then, fortifying himself with caffeinated sewer water, goes breakfast-hunting. Something filling, he thinks, if that’s at all possible. They do have a long drive ahead of them. Weeks on Bracca are twelve days, and typically, each scrapper crew gets one day per week off, with one spare, ‘floating’ day a month assigned at random. Used to be three, but Prauf doesn’t bother asking what happened to the other two; he knows he’ll never get an answer. His crew’s free today, Seventhday, and the month’s extra free landed on this Ninthday. And then there’s the true miracle – everyone is off Eighthday this week, meaning he and Cal have an unprecedented three-day vacation. Time to use it wisely and get the hell out of here for a bit. Prauf would rather be in the wastes tomorrow, far from civilization and holonet coverage. They’re calling it a new holiday celebrating the first anniversary of the Empire’s founding and Prauf’s no Imperial sympathizer. Not exactly a Republic sympathizer, either. There wasn’t really a side for people like him. The Republic was a hot mess, but a functional hot mess that kept a roof over Prauf’s head and food in his belly; he supported the Separatist cause, but their methods left a lot to be desired. The Empire… it’s like the worst of both worlds, he’d told Cal once. The kid had practically bared his teeth when Prauf dared admit he understood where the Separatists were coming from. Tabbers calls Cal a Core brat – he’d know, since he can smell that sort of thing. Realizing he had a bona-fide Republic sympathizer on his hands, Prauf said the little guys, not the bankers and tech giants in charge, had gotten shafted under that regime, and Cal cooled off while he chewed on that for a bit.
He’s a weird one. Awfully interested in politics, for a child. Even Prauf doesn’t care more than necessary (scrappers’ opinions don’t count for shit in the wider galaxy). He’d not thought much of it at the time, seeing as Cal claimed to be sixteen – and therefore basically an adult by Human standards – when they met. Prauf hadn’t bought it, though evidently he fooled whichever Guild recruiter signed him on, and was unsurprised when Cal eventually admitted he was fifteen… well, almost. Fourteen? Yeah, that tracked. The boy was small for his age, but he already had that creaky-voice thing Human males get during adolescence.
“Prauf?” Cal calls from the ‘fresher, and his vocal cords must’ve been eavesdropping on Prauf’s thoughts, because his voice cracks like a supply bar. “Where did my eyedrops go?”
Prauf tears a packet of powdered ruva open with his teeth, spits plastoid fragments into the sink. Porridge and toast is the best he can whip up. “Check the shelf in the shower!” Kid always remembers now to bring his goggles to the shipbreaking yard – letting a medical droid remove microscopic metal shavings from a man’s eyeballs imparts a lesson he doesn’t soon forget. If only he’d remember he left his eyedrops in the shower, because apparently that’s where he applies them….
“Oh – yeah – thanks!”
Shaking his head, Prauf sifts ruva through his fingers, thickening a pot of water until he ruefully determines he can’t add any more or else they won’t have breakfast for the rest of the week. Nothing worse than scrapping on an empty stomach. Cal is scatterbrained enough already. Some of that can be chalked up to trauma, some to the stress of holding down a full-time job that wouldn’t pay enough to live on anywhere else, and probably some to not being fourteen, either. Prauf had been drifting through life, happily oblivious to Cal’s deception, when he learned the truth. No happy drifting that night, however; he’d come home from his shift with a migraine, he and Tabbers proceeded to have a rip-roaring argument over something so trivial Prauf couldn’t recall it fifteen minutes after Tabbers stormed out of the flat, and, once again, the tangerette paste had sprouted fuzzy tendrils. He gave up, wrote the entire day off, shotgunned a glass of cheap Ithorian Mist instead of taking a painkiller, and went to bed early.
After all that, the last thing he’d wanted was to wake a couple hours later to his front door buzzing. The whiskey had beaten enough of the migraine into whimpering submission that Prauf could at least sit up without needing to hurl. His first thought was Tabbers – drunk, most likely, and forgot the lock code. Wouldn’t have been the first time. So he dragged out of bed, composing a sort of backhanded apology (I’m sorry I was an idiot about whatever stupid thing we were fighting over, especially because I was sound asleep before I got up to let your wasted ass inside), and opened the door.
It wasn’t Tabbers. Or, more accurately, it was, but he hadn’t been the one requesting entry. He lounged against the opposite wall, arms folded, sober and quite unruffled. Cal’s finger was still on the buzzer. He jerked his hand away like it’d shocked him, rocked back on his heels, and hugged himself. And Prauf… Prauf just stared at him for a moment, stunned. The boy was shivering, sopping wet, eyes wild. His nose bled in furious rivulets that dribbled off his chin. There was blood all over his hands, too, and his throat, streaking through round red marks standing out like brands against his fair skin. “Stars, kid,” Prauf blurted, “the hell happened to you?!”
Cal swallowed hard, pressed his lips into a pale, trembling line. Prauf glanced at Tabbers, who just tilted his head to one side a bit and said nothing, which said I don’t know, but prying it out of him is your job. When Cal finally opened his mouth, Prauf, who’d assumed the blood on his lips came from his nose, saw his teeth were stained red as well. “I’m sorry,” Cal said, clutching his elbows tight, bouncing on his toes like he was prepping to run, “I know it’s late, I’m – I’m sorry, I just –” He inhaled, fast and desperate. “I’m sorry,” he said a third time. Sounded a little steadier. “If it’s not too much trouble, could I maybe crash on your couch for the rest of the night, or….”
Had it not been for the lingering migraine, Prauf might’ve actually demanded answers first for once. He didn’t, though; he stepped back, gestured for Cal to come inside, and then for Tabbers to do the same unless he wanted to sleep in the corridor. “How long have you been out here?” Prauf asked. There was a pool of water on the floor large enough to drown a scrap rat.
Cal’s gaze skittered towards Tabbers, then away just as quickly. He’d still been scared to death of the guy back then. “A few minutes,” he mumbled, which was such a blatant lie Prauf didn’t even bother addressing it.
“Found him staring at the buzzer like it’d bite him,” Tabbers said, shutting the door.
“Right, well….” It wasn’t important. Prauf made Cal sit at the tiny kitchen table – the boy was so white beneath all the blood Prauf feared he would pass out – and dampened a rag so Cal could wash his face and try to get the gushing nose under control. That ate up about five silent minutes. Once he was pressing just one nostril closed, the other no longer hemorrhaging, Prauf gently said, “Cal, what –”
“Don’t,” Cal whispered, staring off into empty space above Prauf’s left shoulder. “Please.” He blinked again and again, trying to erase the sheen of tears they’d both been conspicuously ignoring. A few escaped and he scrubbed at his face with his sleeve. “I just want to sleep. I’ll find somewhere else to stay tomorrow, I promise.”
“No, you won’t,” Prauf said firmly, mind racing. If the dorms weren’t safe for the kid… he definitely couldn’t afford his own place yet, first-year Riggers didn’t get paid koja nuts… it’d be tight both physically and financially, but maybe they could make it work for a little while….
His train of thought was derailed by a sudden splash from the ‘fresher. They both looked towards the open door as Tabbers came back out, holding a dripping caf mug, which he set down next to Cal. The clear liquid that sloshed over the sides and puddled on the tabletop had a funny iridescence beneath the kitchen lamp. “Drink that,” he said.
If his expression was any indication, Cal had no idea whether he should be confused, revolted, or both. “It’s okay,” Prauf reassured him. “Just Tabbers’s bathtub moonshine.”
Cal chose confusion. “You guys have a bathtub?” he said blankly, peering towards the dark ‘fresher again.
“No,” Tabbers said. “Made it in a fuel drum.”
Suspicion overtook confusion, and Cal eyed the mug, where multiple colors gleamed atop the moonshine like an oil spill. Prauf actually dredged up a chuckle, patting the boy’s shoulder. “Relax, I had him clean it first… and if he missed a spot, the proof of that stuff ought to kill anything that shouldn’t be in there.” He’d been kneeling in front of Cal’s chair, and now, as he pushed to his feet, his body chose that moment to remind him not only did he still have the pointy edges of a migraine, he drank a glass of whiskey on an empty stomach. The room cartwheeled. Prauf braced himself on the table and swallowed a nauseous groan, rubbed his aching wattles. Cal watched him with wide eyes. His mouth formed the beginnings of a question. “I’m all right, I’m all right,” Prauf quickly said, and waved a hand. “Just… forgot how kriffin’ exhausted I am.”
“I’m all right too,” Cal said quietly. He curled his fingers around the handle of the mug. “Sorry for bothering you.”
“Go back to bed,” Tabbers said, as if he was the one who gave the orders around here. He twirled his own empty mug around a finger and ducked into the ‘fresher to fill it. “I’ll babysit.”
Prauf hated leaving them alone – Tabbers wasn’t exactly the most touchy-feely guy in the galaxy and Cal still looked a little too close to tears – but he really needed to lie down. He patted Cal’s shoulder one more time. “I’ll put something dry to wear and a couple blankets on the sofa. Try to get some sleep.” He almost added you’re safe here, then decided it wasn’t necessary. Cal had come to him for a reason. “And we’ve all gotta work tomorrow morning, so take it easy. That moonshine’s strong.”
Cal did not take it easy. Tabbers intoxicated everything he needed to know out of the kid. He was gone before Prauf’s alarm went off; Cal was sprawled across the sofa, blankets on the floor, thumb in his mouth (the only time Prauf’s ever seen him do that), tearstained but sleeping quietly. Prauf wisely chose painkillers over whiskey and was trying to figure out how he’d stretch his limited provisions to feed three when the apartment door opened. For the second time in about six hours, a blood-soaked countenance greeted him. Tabbers, however, absolutely radiated self-satisfaction as he sauntered into the kitchen. “Oh no,” Prauf sighed. “Tell me you didn’t kill someone again….” Violent death was a fact of life here, like Guild fees and rain, so Prauf doubted anybody would bother coming after him with an arrest warrant (did they even have those?), but it was the principle of the thing.
“I don’t like lying, though,” Tabbers lied, turning on the faucet and leaving a stringy smear of gore on the handle.
“Who –”
“Who do you think?”
“Tabbers –”
“You wouldn’t be complaining if you’d heard what the kid had to say,” Tabbers said flatly. “Turns out filth hunts in pairs.”
“What did they –” This time, Prauf cut himself off. He could guess. One of those red marks on Cal’s throat had already bruised into a ring of teeth. If Tabbers gave him the details, it was too early to liquor them out of his memory before he did something inadvisable. He watched the other man rinse his hands clean and thought, for all he didn’t approve of vigilante justice, it was the only kind on Bracca. Some scum deserved it.
“It didn’t get too far,” Tabbers said abruptly once he’d shut off the tap. “Not as far as it could’ve. The runt’s crafty. Still, he isn’t old enough for anyone to be fooling around with him like that.” Drying his hands on a rag, he slid Prauf an unreadable look. “How old did he tell you he was?”
“Sixteen,” Prauf said, leaning against the counter and rubbing his eyes. Tabbers snorted. “Yeah, eventually I got him to admit he’s fourteen.”
Making a humming noise, Tabbers flicked the rag back onto the rack above the sink. He headed towards the ‘fresher, then, but before going inside, he tossed one more comment over his shoulder. “He’s twelve, you know.”
“Twelve –” Once again, Prauf clapped his teeth shut before finishing a sentence, but it was too late. His raised voice echoed through the entire flat. Over in the living room, he heard a groan, which morphed into a gurgling retch, and then Cal made Prauf’s hideous rug a whole lot worse. Prauf closed his eyes for a moment, took a very deep breath, grabbed the trash bin and a cup of water, and went to go deal with that.
Not only had Cal been brutally hungover, he was still half-drunk yet. The foreman droids didn’t give a shit, but Prauf spent the morning on his toes, trying to keep the boy from accidentally walking off the deck of the cruiser they were scrapping, or deliberately throwing himself beneath an AT-AT so his head would stop hurting. Prauf hasn’t let him drink since. Unfortunately, that meant Cal was stone-cold sober (and Prauf wasn’t nearly wasted enough) the night they’d visited the local dive and some prissy-looking Human man popped up on the holoscreen to announce Empire Day. Because they just had to commemorate the Empire’s creation and the decisive elimination of the Jedi scourge. The guy prattled on about looking ahead to a safe, shining, prosperous future, but where he was sitting, all Prauf could see was Cal blanching a nasty greenish-grey color and then running outside to toss his cookies in the alley.
“Prauf?” Cal says from the ‘fresher, again, and Prauf hmmms as loud as he can with a burning mouthful of caf. “Did Jessa drop off the trailer, or do we have to go get it first, or what?”
“I have no idea,” Prauf says once he’s swallowed. “Guess we’ll find out when we go downstairs.” He’s elected to spend his longest vacation in six years on a landspeeder, and he knows it’s a good idea because Cal’s okay is almost chipper, like he can’t imagine anything more fun than two days in the wastes. So Prauf’s going to take him down to Scraw, pick up a nice piece of wood from a friend, and keep Cal the hell away from whatever tragic, limp ‘celebration’ is taking place in the city center tomorrow. They’ll bring the trailer in case they stumble across a shipdrop they’d be foolish to leave untouched. Although scrappers aren’t allowed to sell what the Guild’s claimed, whatever’s been abandoned in the wastes is fair game; they won’t get market value for a single scrap, and good luck hauling it offworld to find a better price, but it’s a few extra credits.
Prauf had pitched it as a road trip, like they’re normal people on a normal planet that actually has places worth visiting. And yes, Scraw’s a miserable, dilapidated shantytown in the middle of nowhere, but there are a few hidden gems along the way… well, ‘gems’ might be stretching it. Semiprecious at best. One of them, at least, Prauf’s decided to hit specifically as a treat for the kid. He’s been real quiet and withdrawn lately, like a full year on this rusting rock is getting to him. While Bracca might be Prauf’s shithole (and Tabbers, whose head is always off somewhere else in the stars, longing for a home to replace the one that rejected him, has never understood that), it’s a shithole nonetheless. In the long run, he wants better for the boy. Cal could do something with his life. He’s bright, good with his hands. He could get some kind of qualification and forge his own way in the galaxy. He’s also young enough that ‘Scrapper Guild’ might be a plus on his resumé – proof of a work ethic and self-sufficiency long before reaching any age of majority. Certainly how Prauf would see it, and not just because the same employer on his own resumé is proof he’s stalled at a dead end.
It isn’t feasible just yet. Cal’s too young. Young enough Prauf’s cooked more this past year than he has the previous nine, despite how thin his paycheck’s spread nowadays, because he’s trying to shovel some actual nutrients into the kid. A tough hurdle to clear on Bracca fare. He’s not done half-bad today, though; the ruva’s almost substantial enough to qualify as a proper porridge, and to mark their first day of vacation, Prauf busted out his little jar of moonfruit jam for their polystarch toast. They’ll eat good this morning… as long as he can find the table. It’s hardly visible beneath a spread of scrap metal and a soldering iron. Prauf’s deeply relieved Cal remembered to turn that off before he went to bed, this time. His poor table has burn scars.
Right in the middle, like a centerpiece, a half-finished starbird arches over the jar of cutlery. Its talons are built from nails and Prauf is pretty sure its beak is the nozzle off an old plasma torch. The bird’s mostly rust and tarnish so far, but the head is crested with a spray of thin metal blades, painstakingly trimmed into feathers, and painted – shimmering blue that fades white towards the ends, trimmed with orange, like something fresh from the forge, almost cooled.
Prauf leaves it there. They can eat around it, and besides, twenty-past-five is too early in the morning to slice his fingers open on that razorblade frill. He puts breakfast on the table and goes to fetch the ‘fresher hog before everything’s cold.