Let Me Count the Ways… This Bores Me (D5 EE)

[Delmi Koor]

“We can’t do two things at once? You don’t seem all that willing to help out with the Alderaan thing any more than you’ve done… and you still haven’t hung up… So I take it you’re either looking for something… or leaving yourself open to talk.”

[Dapper Dog]

“Fine, I’ll play this game what is it that has kept you up for the last thirty years?” she responded.

[Delmi Koor]

“Did you ever… love…?” She paused.

“I don’t uhh… get those feelings. Definitely not since dad died… Figure the woman who left her baby and loving husband out to dry either didn’t have those feelings too… or just learned how to suppress them real good.”

She tilted her head, “Tryin’ to figure out if that part of me was broken from birth… or from experiences.”

[Dapper Dog]

“Probably, your father, again probably. He was the closest to anything of a stable intimate relationship even if it was a means to an end. Suppress, no. I just don’t allow such emotions to control my thoughts. I was never meant to be a mother, but it happened. You happened. Is that an answer, probably not,” she responded.

[Delmi Koor]

“It’s an answer… Means what you said about us being similar is probably not all that wrong after all.” She replied.

[Dapper Dog]

“Why did you seek me out, I should have meant nothing to you,” she replied.

[Delmi Koor]

“Nothing positive… that’s for sure.” She replied.

“They told me you were dead. Buried out on Thul grounds… It was an in. A way to see what machinations all these nobles were preparing for each other. I was here trying to stop them from being all stupid. Y’all just happened to be a part of it… When we dug up ‘your’ bones… was the first time I had an interest in seeing where you were again.”

[Dapper Dog]

“That’s not really a reason,” she responded. “Just a series of events that brought you here.”

[Delmi Koor]

“Sorry?” She replied.

“I mean… sometimes you just gotta ride the whirlwind and see where it takes you. The only reason I ever had before to seek you out was to kill you… But couldn’t let that emotion get the best of me yesterday when I had a job to do.”

[Dapper Dog]

“Such a bizarre response, why?” she said with a rare mirth in her voice.

[Delmi Koor]

“Why didn’t I kill you? ‘I don’t allow such emotions to control my thoughts’.” She said with a snort of air through her nose.

“You know stuff I want to know… Killing you does me no good.”

[Dapper Dog]

"The killing at all, seems an odd response for abandonment," she responded.

[Delmi Koor]

“You’re kidding, right? You ruined dad’s life.” She replied.

“He had to leave Anaxes… Havoc Squad… All his friends… He had to get some shitty job working for some overgrown noble on Brentaal IV. Didn’t have money… and no school was gonna take in a traitor’s daughter. So he raised me to fight… all the while not resenting you for a second. I saw how much you hurt him though… and that made me want to hurt you. Especially when he ended up dead for that job…”

She let out a sigh, “It was your fault… that he ended up dead like that.”

[Dapper Dog]

"He made his own decisions, I don't hold him at fault for where my life went after we parted. It sounds like he was pigheaded and could have restarted his life far away from Republic nonsense, instead... Well his life is his own doing," she responded calmly.

[Delmi Koor]

“Yeah… Captain Koor… Spend your whole life protecting the weak… give everything for the Republic… and then just pretend your whole life didn’t matter. Betray everything you were because people say you’re a traitor. And here… here’s a baby to take care of too. Drop it off at an orphanage or something. That’s not who that dude was.”

She shrugged though it was not something her mom could have noticed, “What’s a man got if not himself? You got your crusade… he had his.”

[Dapper Dog]

“I have no sympathy for how things turned out. I told him early on I didn’t want children, but things happen. It’s a sad end, but it seems he fought till the end an admirable if futile quality. I think I understand you better. I’ll be in touch,” she responded before the call ended.

[Delmi Koor]

Delmi pulled the earpiece out of her ear and nearly dropped it to the ground to stomp on it.

Instead she let out a breath and put it back into her pocket.

And I have mine…