"Hey now, don't be bringin' any trouble in here with that thing." A one-eyed man, thin and knobby with a bit of a wheeze in his breath, leaned across the shoddy counter to peer warningly at the tall, wisp of a woman that now entered his little establishment. By day it was a place to get some food (restaurant was a strong word...) , by night, a bar. He motioned to the sword strapped to her back, upside down and at an angle like a quiver of arrows, held there by a handmade leather harness of sorts that looked to be as much a part of the woman as her own skin. He couldn't see the knife she kept underneath her shirt, nestled away in a similar fashion as her sword, though much less obvious under her loose tank top. He'd never seen anyone come in with a sword before. A machete, once, and the poor sap was desperate and scraggly. She looked somewhat dusty, but no more than anyone else here. And she was not scraggly. No, he thought she moved like the forward roll of an incoming storm; confident, indifferent. He wondered why she'd have such an archaic thing, but then again, he'd seen lots of other strange things. "I got enough trouble without you puttin' holes in people's lungs er takin' heads off."

"I don't want any. But I'll end it if it comes to me." There was a coldness in her tone that made him absolutely certain that she meant it. Something about her was off-putting. Was it her eyes, too light a honey color for her dark russet skin? Was it the chilly seriousness in her manner of speaking, the jaded attitude? Or just the tattoos? The many, many tattoos. Something. But he just hoped she'd stay to herself; she didn't seem to be the sort that would play nice with others. "I need something to eat."
"Yeah?" He said dispassionately. "I need money."
Ridahne splayed the five dull tabs of metal, stamped with an odd symbol, out on the splintering counter. "Here," she huffed with a sigh.
"Credits!? That's all you have? Credits! Worthless pieces of scrap...ohh, alright. Fine. For that...er...I can give you a slice of bread or two--" Ridahne scooped up the credits and turned to leave without ceremony. "Wait, wait, alright. I think I've got some ship rations in the back." Ridahne did not answer, but instead just dropped the metal tokens back onto the counter and waited for the man to retrieve her prize. 

The meal was bland at best, chalky at worst. Ridahne thought it might be something like hot oats, though it'd been too long since she had real proper Azurian hot oats for her to make a good comparison. Except the one difference was that the rations were packed with all kinds of nutrients and carbs and proteins, and the rations also tasted like sawdust. Wet. Gooey. Sawdust. Still, it was food and that was something right now. In fact, that was all she had, now that she spent her last five credits on it. She'd have to scrape up some change somehow if she wanted to eat tomorrow. That would be fun. Really, really fun.

"Did those tattoos hurt?" Some overweight man in a sweat-stained shirt asked as he leaned in closer to where she sat at a slender bar. 
"Sure." It was a noncommittal noise, simply spoken to appease his curiosity and end the conversation, not to actually answer him.
"Do they ever seem a bit...much to you?" Ridahne bristled, but said nothing. "I mean, you seem real pretty, but it's hard to tell under all that jumbled ink--"

He'd only just finished the 'k' sound when she drew her hidden bowie knife, pressing its warm face flat on his forearm so he could feel the smooth metal. No one else seemed to notice the quick movement. The sharp end of her blade found its way to the base of his pinky finger and she pressed hard, though not hard enough to break the skin just yet. "Don't. Or you'll lose it." The man, now a few shades paler and far quieter, took the hint and left her alone after that. 

So went most of her encounters with others in public places, particularly anywhere men were a little drunk and a little bold. She didn't take kindly to idiots, fools, or overly forward men (or women, for that matter) and had little patience for...well, anyone. This was not to say she was a cold person; once upon a time she'd been very warm and jovial, albeit a bit fiery. But the destruction and bleeding-dry of her current planet of residence soured her mood just a bit. It wasn't even so much that this world had become a giant sand dune--Ridahne grew up in the desert. It was just...desolate. Azurei was arid but there was beauty and life in those red sands, there was culture. Here, there was...nothing worth noting. 

It was while she was dwelling on this particular thought that some drunk loser stumbled into her like a ship adrift in a current without a compass. He steadied himself on her, which of course meant grabbing her and that was never generally a wise thing to do to Ridahne. She was inches away from the handle of her knife when the man sputtered up blood all over her. "[i]Ai![/i]" She growled, equal parts stunned and enraged. But then he fell, crumpling to the dusty ground like a broken mech. Ridahne made no move to catch him. At first she just stood there with her arms akimbo, puzzled and offended all at once. And then she realized she had blood on her face, on her tattoos, and she cleaned it up with the backs of her wrists as quickly as if it were an acid that would burn her. It was only after this was finished that she paid much heed to the guy at her feet. She would have written him off as just a drunk who passed out and would regret his choices tomorrow if it were not for the blood. That was unusual. And while Ridahne had become hardened and abrasive as of late, she was not altogether cruel or heartless. 

"Fine..." she sighed to the universe, crouching down to sling him over her shoulder like a dead animal. For her slender frame, she was surprisingly strong, though brute strength could never be considered one of her best assets. And slowly she hauled the stranger back to the little encampment amidst some rubble that she now called home. She'd dealt with sick people before--unwise fools who ventured into the desert seas without knowledge or equipment enough to keep themselves alive. For a long time, Ridahne spent her days cleaning up these poor saps and bringing them back up to strength, though not with out berating their stupidity first.

Ridahne put him down on the pile of blankets she called a bed, then stretched a dirty white sheet over the two opposing slabs of broken concrete that formed the walls of her sad fort; shade would do him some good. She took a spray bottle and spritzed him with it head to toe to keep him cool, checked his vitals, and sat back on the opposite side of the slab floor. There she waited, wondering why she bothered to drag the man all the way out there and what she was going to do with him now, but she resolved to pick his pockets if he didn't wake up by morning.