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Post by Klove Makem on Aug 20, 2009 3:20:37 GMT -6
Klove nodded. Castle seemed pretty seasoned. A decade of working would do that to you. He wondered idly what had pushed Castle. He wasn't a psychopath, or at least he didn't seem like a psychopath, and that usually meant someone normal with something in their past that made them able to treat human life as disposable.
Like Klove did.
"Five years." Klove said, brushing his hair out of his face, "I was an orphan so nobody paid much attention when I took off with Grace. I've been with her since." And he'd likely be with her for at least another few years. He wasn't ready to be captain of anything yet. He liked being the first mate, especially Grace's first mate.
"I've seen every planet thanks to her. Though there are a few I can't visit until the bounties go away." He scowled a little. His name wasn't attached to any of them, but there weren't too many werecougars operating off-planet, so he wouldn't be too hard to find if he acted dumb and got caught.
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Post by Jared Castle on Aug 20, 2009 16:54:22 GMT -6
Castle was intrigued. Five years... That seemed like a lot of time for someone so young. In fact, he didn't know how old he was. Unless he was told at some point but forgot. That happened sometimes. Castle's memory wasn't the greatest when he didn't care about what he's being told.
"How old are you, kid?" That was a big chunk of his life to be spent doing what he does. Being the first mate of a ship was a big deal for someone his age. He's seen every planet? He's even been to Nox. Must be a tough kid to be able to survive.
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Post by Klove Makem on Aug 20, 2009 17:46:59 GMT -6
"Eighteen." Klove said and sat on the edge of his bunk. He knew most people found that to be a bit shocking. Most cultures, even Klove's own culture, didn't like the idea of a thirteen year old kid in space, especially considering how dangerous it was. People died everyday when ships ran out of air or hulls were breached or any of the other million other nasty things. That wasn't even getting into the trouble of moving from planet to planet and the vaccines and shots you constantly had to get to keep you from dying from what other species would consider to be nothing but the common cold.
"I met Grace when she was doing a supply run and when she left, I went with her." He didn't mention that it had been on Nox, or that the main reason he'd gone was because she'd resembled his dead mother. He didn't know why Grace had taken him along. Maybe because Holo had taken her so young? He'd once asked her when she was really drunk, hoping for an answer, but she'd just shrugged and changed the subject.
"It's been pretty cool. I probably would had just gotten killed if I'd stayed at home. I wasn't too popular with the neighbourhood kids." Troublesome or crazy weres tended to get killed once they got really dangerous. More than a few had started hunting their own kind, too bloodthirsty to stand eating whatever little wildlife there was, or so crazy that killing vamps wasn't any fun and the only way to get a rush was to kill something you could sink your teeth into. Klove couldn't say that he would have become that, but he had been on his way before Grace came along and gave him a new life.
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Post by Jared Castle on Aug 22, 2009 15:00:29 GMT -6
Jared was surprised to hear that he was Eighteen. He couldn't quite come up with a guess for his age but it wouldn't have been eighteen. That means he'd been doing this since he was thirteen. That shocked Castle. He was impressed that Klove had survived that long at that age. He tried to think of why he'd just get on a ship with some woman he just met. Was she a cougar? That would be weird. Probably just felt sorry for the kid. Or theres a deeper more complicated reason that they didn't want anyone to know. Best not try and figure it out.
"Were you from the Below?" He asked. That would be the only explanation he could think of that he'd get killed by other kids. The kids in the Below were unpredictable. not like the ones in the Inbetween.
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Post by Klove Makem on Aug 22, 2009 15:34:30 GMT -6
And there it was, the inevitable question. Like Grace always said, just leave out a few key pieces of information and people would assume everything for you. Castle had assumed that Klove was from Terra's worse district, and really, he was practically right. The Below and Nox had a lot in common. They were both dark, both filled with danger, both full of wildlife (literary and figuratively). So when he nodded, he wasn't really lying. The Below was Nox, just with a forest made of steel and concrete. And the vampires came out during the day.
"I grew up just below the spaceport." Another half-truth. His 'family', if you could even call them that, lived just outside the spaceport. He hadn't talked to them in years and he really hoped he could keep it that way. "I ended up hanging out there a lot. There wasn't much else to do, except fight. So when I got the chance, I left."
And it had worked out pretty well. Lots of people never got to be anybody's first mate. Klove had made it by age sixteen. And it was real, not just something he'd gotten due to nepotism.
"Grace is from the Below too." He added, since it seemed relevant. "But she grew up away from the spaceports."
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Post by Jared Castle on Aug 29, 2009 18:31:19 GMT -6
Jared never really liked hearing people's life stories but something about Klove made him want to listen. He had to admire a young kid doing what he did. He'd definitely have loads of experience when he got older.
He himself was from Inbetween. He knew what it was like to have a lot of violence in his younger days. Mostly from just one experience, the step-father incident. "I'm from Inbetween." If he left out the incident when describing his past it wouldn't turn out to be a very exciting story. One day Jared decided to become a mercenary. Not a very flashy story. "Have you seen a lot of action with the Queen of Spades?"
He took the darts out of the board and motioned for Klove to take his turn at throwing his darts.
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Post by Klove Makem on Aug 29, 2009 20:48:13 GMT -6
Klove grabbed his own and took careful aim. And maybe for a half a second, his eyes went a little yellow. Two darts hit the bullseye, awkwardly squished beside one another. The rest fell across the board as per usual. He blinked and the colour disappeared again, just like magic.
"Yeah, we've seen some." He stepped back and turned to face Castle, "We've faced vamps enough times, and lost a couple of crew members. I've got a couple of bites." He pulled his shirt to the side, showing one old scar on his shoulder, "And let's see... a lot of humans. We've run into pirates a few times and fought them off, and Sprung's bunch. I've gotten out of it without too many marks." But then again, it was easy to come out unmarked when you healed as fast as Klove did.
"We've taken down a few dragons on Heimdall but I mostly watched for those. ... I do help Holo hunt mammoths though. That's a lot of fun. It's the right season, when we go to the homebase at Glacies, you can come hunting too, if that's your thing."
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Post by Jared Castle on Aug 31, 2009 18:08:09 GMT -6
Jared listened intently, impressed at all the action he'd somehow survived through. Vampires. This kid had fought Vampires and lived to tell. He was liking Klove more and more by the second. He had some pretty impressive scars. Jared hadn't been hurt badly enough to get any big scars. Only little things here and there. Nothing like Klove's.
Jared had heard of Eddie Sprung. He'd been offered jobs to kill Sprung before. He refused them because he didn't think it would be worth it. Sprung is tough to beat. He knew that much. That's why the Terran police hadn't caught him yet.
Dragons and Mammoths? Klove was beginning to be Castle's hero. Jared had never been to Glacies before. Hunting mammoths might be fun. Then he wondered who Holo was. "Who's Holo?"
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Post by Klove Makem on Aug 31, 2009 19:09:25 GMT -6
"Jenos Holo." Klove said, "He was Grace's boss, but now he takes care of her place on Glacies. I guess he was a big shot smuggler back in the day, but he's so old that most people don't remember him, or they think he's already dead."
As far as Klove could tell, part of that was Holo's own doing. He probably liked that people thought he was dead. Then he didn't have to worry about some bitter idiot's son (or grandson) trying to kill him over something that happened years and years ago. There had been a few Terrans who had gotten excited at the mention of Holo, but most of them had been guys interested in history or engineers. Mostly everybody else didn't care.
"Holo's great. He's kinda like.. everybody's grandpa. Assuming your grandpa was a huge speciest who sounds like he eats gravel." Klove wasn't actually sure how much of what Holo said was supposed to keep people from getting to close to him, and how much he actually meant. Klove had learned long ago that when Holo called him names, he was just fishing for a reaction. The easiest way to deal with it was to just shrug it off and ignore it.
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Post by Jared Castle on Sept 1, 2009 10:09:03 GMT -6
((Forgot to put this in the last post.)) He watched in awe as Klove got two bullseyes in a row. He must be a good marksman. Good in a firefight.
Castle had heard the full name when he slightly recognized it. Jenos Holo. He had heard a story a while back about a known smuggler named that. He was surprised that he remembered something like that.
Jared laughed as Klove described Holo. After a couple seconds he caught himself. He didn't regularly smile, let alone laugh. Castle and Klove could be god friends. A rare someone that Jared could trust. There weren't many people that he trusted but he saw that Klove could be a good friend.
"Well he sounds like a great guy." He said jokingly.
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Post by Klove Makem on Sept 1, 2009 13:53:53 GMT -6
Klove grinned when Castle laughed. The merc didn't look like someone who laughed too often, which meant he had to like Klove to have gotten that reaction. That was fine with Klove, because Klove liked Castle too. He seemed pretty awesome.
"He's something." Klove said, still grinning. "And if you give him an opening, he'll talk your ear off, so you might have to run away quick. He's all-" Klove shifted his voice down, trying his best to imitate Holo's gravely timber and way of speaking, "-damn furry-legged freaks, haven't they figured out how to use razors yet and wear pants? being brought up in a barn is no excuse! even the fish have enough sense to wear pants, even if they stink like tuna!"
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Post by Jared Castle on Sept 2, 2009 10:34:46 GMT -6
Jared found himself laughing again. He didn't care this time. Klove wasn't going to judge him because he found his joke funny. If anything it would make him like Castle better. He imagined Holo to have been a real bad ass in his younger days to be able to talk like that. He liked those kinds of people. The older ones that could say anything they want and nobody stops them because they have way more experience.
He must have been talking about Fauns. He adjusted his gloves and aimed his darts. Two hit the edge of the board and one got close to the bullseye but not close enough. "Well, I'm done playing." He walked over to his bunk and pulled out one of his guns and a cloth to polish it.
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Post by Klove Makem on Sept 2, 2009 11:54:17 GMT -6
Klove nodded and took the darts off the board, locking them back up. It was just a good idea not to leave them hanging out. You never knew when you were going to make a sudden and sharp stop.
Once they were locked up, Klove flopped down in his bunk and got out his padd. It was pretty clear that Castle had enough visiting for one day, which was fine. He was surprised at how much he'd gotten Castle to open up. With his head turned away from Castle, he gave a little smile. It was going to be good having Castle aboard.
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