Brawln and Nomi 3

Nomi, Brawln and Reevo share a bunk on the way back to Zoph. It is slightly cramped with two droids and three people, but they make it work. On the second half of the journey, while Nomi reclines reading a book and Brawln is looking over the files that he got from his dad to get more familiar with them, Nomi suddenly puts her book down and looks over at Brawln. "Brawln, is it customary for Wookie families to live apart or did your parents have a falling out?"

Brawln looks thoughtful for a moment. He starts to speak and HC-7 realizes after a moment that he is intended to translate again. “Brawln isn’t actually sure. He had considered asking his mother why they didn’t spend much time together when he was younger, but it had been a long time since they had seen each other, and what with his father’s having recently passed, it seems he found discussing anything too potentially saddening to be in somewhat poor taste.”

“Could also have been a bounty hunter thing, though,” he adds. “Not many Wookiees are bounty hunters. His parents were quite different that way. Brawln wonders - did you spend a lot of time with your parents when you were little?”

Nomi shakes her head. "I have 6 older siblings and two younger. My older sisters, mostly Oola, did a lot of caring for us younger ones. Jiljuu did a lot of the cooking. My mother and father weren't around much. It's not that they didn't care. They just had a lot on their minds, what with trying to provide for 10 of us." Nomi turns on her side, crooking her arm and propping her head on her hand. "Somi and I were pretty much living on our own from about the age of 5- providing for each other. Do you know anything about Ryloth culture?"

“Brawln says he did a job there once, but doesn’t really know much about the planet or culture,” HC conveys, as Brawln sighs. “That is a lot of siblings. It must be nice to have grown up around so much family, although not having your parents around...” Brawln’s brow is furrowed, as though he is unsuccessfully trying to picture it. “Do you… get along with all of your siblings?”

Nomi puts her page marker in her book and twists to face Brawln, relaxing belly-down in her bunk. "It's not a very... Egalitarian society. My parents, my family, was considered among the lowest. My dad worked for a lot of, well, not very good people. Some criminals, some not, it just depended on who was in charge at the time. My parents had so many of us to provide for and it was a lot of work. So I didn't know them much. And same goes for my older siblings. As they got older, they went to work. But I do have to appreciate the fact that we all stayed together. None of us became slaves. Which did happen to a lot of the big families where not everyone could be provided for. We didn't have fights, but that's not saying too much because we didn't have much of anything. I haven't talked to my family since I left when I was 14. Even the one time I was back on Ryloth I didn't talk to them. Though I looked them up and they were all still alive. Somi and Lilikai were my family at the temple. My friends on the Rogue Ronto feel like family now, too. You need a little sister? I'm up for it." Nomi gives him a wink. "Though I'm fine if you prefer to just call me Captain."

Brawln regards Nomi for a moment before speaking. "Brawln knows how you feel," he stares up at the ceiling as he continues, "It's a bit hard for him to picture having you and the other members of the crew as brothers or sisters, as he's never had siblings, and yet, regarding the crew of the Rogue Ronto as only 'friends' doesn't seem quite right. Friends are someone you go share a drink with or swap intel with. The way this group seems to be opening up to one another, helping each other out… Brawln thinks that perhaps he could use a little sister, or at least a friend who may as well be one..."

Brawln grimaces. “And you and Brawln would probably get along better than many siblings.”

"Brawln was working a case, once, many, many years ago where he was tasked with trying to find a Rodian woman's husband. He looked all over town for the man, asked everyone she had listed as a contact, and none had seen him... until they started asking around in the criminal underground, where it became clear someone had taken out a contract on the man's life. The woman and her husband were nobody special, and once again we were coming up empty on leads until we tracked down the man who did the deed. When pressed for information, the assassin hired said the man who hired him was just some guy he met through his contacts within the local government - not someone he or the syndicate he worked for had heard of before or since."

"Anyway, it turns out the desire to get rid of the man had come from one of the assistants of a low ranking local government official - someone who happened to be the woman's brother. When we confronted him, he told us that the husband had been terribly abusive to his sister, and that even though his sister didn't feel like she could leave, this man felt so much revulsion towards his brother-in-law that he used the connections he had as best as he could to remove the husband. When his sister found out what he'd done, it was clear to my father and I that they would never speak again," Brawln paused for a moment, before continuing.

"Brawln was a fairly young Wookiee when all of this happened, and he asked his father how it was that two people who loved each other could treat each other like that. His father had a strange look on his face when he told him, 'Son, sometimes when people get really close to one another, they forget that the person they love and the role that person is filling are two different things.' “

Brawln pauses for a moment. “The brother in that story - he wasn't thinking about what his sister wanted when he had her husband killed. If he had, he'd have at least consulted her beforehand. But he felt like her relationship was something he needed to involve himself in, because in his mind, she was more his sister than she was her own person.”

Brawln looks over at Nomi. “This story’s been on Brawln’s mind lately. Looking back, Brawln believes what his father said was his way of indicating why his mother wasn’t around anymore. But now that his father is gone, and his mother is back in touch with Brawln, he thinks maybe that’s better left between them.”

Brawln tucks his hairy arms behind his head, and looks back at the ceiling again, like he’s still considering.

Nomi's mouth hangs open for a moment as she regards Brawln though HC's translation. "Skies!" She exclaims after he's done with the long story. "Can we just promise now never to take a hit out on the other's spouse? I was imagining a little simpler relationship than that. Like, you know: I could braid your hair and paint your claws and you could chase off potential suitors who are actually bad prospects by brandishing a bowcaster at them and yelling Wookiee obscenities. Untranslated, of course. They're scarier when they are loud growls than when they are translated to Basic."

"Not that prospects are high right now for suitors anyway- good, bad or indifferent." Nomi says. After a beat she adds hastily and with a little color to her cheeks. "Who has time to pay attention to that kind of thing right now anyway? As to your parents, if you don't have a burning curiosity about what happened between them, then no need to bring up old hurts. I am glad you are back in contact with your mom."

Brawln opens his mouth, but instead of Shyrriwook, he has this strange repetitive rasping sound coming out, almost as though he’s choking, even though he’s clearly breathing just fine. It’s a strange laugh, even among Wookiees, but it’s also not a sound Nomi has heard many times from Brawln.

He holds his hands up, and waves them back and forth as though indicating ‘no’ and HC makes with the translation. “Brawln was merely musing, Nomi, he’s been doing that a lot lately. He doubts he will ever marry, and if you do, he is quite confident that your relationship, whatever form it may take, will have his support. He forgets sometimes how his stories must sound to those who have not been inundated with them for decades- he will try to be more sensible next time.” Brawln continues to laugh for 20 seconds or so before he regains control of himself again. HC, meanwhile, simply looks back and forth between Nomi and Brawln. But eventually, he speaks again.

“On the topic of grooming, Brawln is perfectly comfortable with however his fur looks. You’re perfectly welcome to braid. However, paint on claws is rather distasteful, apparently, to Wookies. One of the social ramifications of being forbidden from using their claws as weapons, I guess.” Brawln shrugs. “At least, that is Brawln’s understanding. And as he mentioned before, he is perfectly willing to do what needs doing when it comes to you - if you don’t want someone around he’s perfectly willing to remove them, suitor or no.”

Nomi laughs too. "No, I got the story. I think my jokes are lost in translation." She glances at HC "No offence, HC." Nomi rolls back onto her back and puts her finger back in her book, preparing to open again to the page that she was on. "Anyway, I will keep in mind about no painting of claws, but I still think a few beads and braids would look pretty on you." She snickers a bit to herself and opens her book all the way, burying her nose once more in another culture and world she may one day explore.