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Bressik found Kheli in a dive bar, on the comet Devrin-Anderglamp-24.

The bar was a hole of a place, built to expire, in a little plex bubble amongst the swirling ice storms on Devrin’s surface. The whole place would be burning up just a few years from now. That was kind of why Bressik liked it. It seemed like the sort of place you would plan a rebellion, if there was anything worth rebelling against. The bubble kept the sound of the storm out, and the heat and stench of the patrons in.

Kheli was on the stage in the front of the room. It wasn’t a stage, so much as a raised bit of floor in the corner. But it wasn’t the elevation that drew their attention. She practically glowed. She, Bressik thought, was the right word, shoving closer through the crowd. Humans had this weird binary gender thing going on, and some of them could be really touchy about it. There had even been a successful movement to add gendered pronouns in to the Galactic Standard Dialect.

The human woman wore a gown of tight, reflective silver. It caught what little light there was in the bar, and amplified it, split it, refracted it into glittering rainbows. It made it almost difficult to look directly at her, but Bressik squinted and scrutinised her nonetheless. Her skin was black as night; without the gown she might have easily disappeared into the shadows. Her hair stood out in a shock of grey, thick and coarse. Her eyes, painted around with silver to match her dress, were closed in concentration, and her face was relaxed as she pursed her lips to blow softly against the instrument in her hands. It was an old fashioned thing, Bressik was sure, though otherwise unfamiliar. But its melody was haunting. It carried not above the noise of the bar, but through it. The hollow, smooth sound wound its way between the words in conversations, wrapped itself around howls of laughter or barks of annoyance, muffled the clinks of glasses and the rattle of dice being thrown. Bressik had expected the volume to increase as they approached the front of the room, but it was the same by the entrance as where they stood now, an arms length from the source.

Bressik let their eyes unfocus, hovering before the shimmering vision, and relaxed into the music. They stopped noticing the jostling of the people around them, and their wings buzzed automatically, keeping them at average head height of the rest of the crowd.

Their mind wandered into the storm outside, eddies of snow and chunks of ice, but backed by the gentle billowing melody of Kheli’s hollow tube rather than the angry roar that was there in reality. The storm slowed, and froze in time. Flecks of frozen water became stars, and Bressik found themselves surrounded by a nebular. Enormous gaseous clouds of green and purple seemed to shift and change, without moving at all.

With a jolt, Bressik was back in their body, and the din of the bar was all that filled their ears. Bressik blinked and rubbed their eyes; the vision was gone from the stage, and a troupe of about ten tiny squat Mabratians were lugging around the ungainly parts of some kind of overly complicated set of drums.

Bressik swore under their breath and made a beeline for the stage door. They had played here before, and knew exactly where to go to find the human. The corridor was cooler, and Bressik took a moment to compose themselves. They straightened their shabby waistcoat and curled their short legs as far under their body as they could. Many species found the distorted shape of Tariian legs repulsive, and Bressik hadn’t dressed for respectable company today. They didn’t want to freak her out.

There were three doors here, that led to windowless cabins that passed for dressing rooms provided as a courtesy to performers. There was no telling which belonged to whom today, so Bressik tried their luck with the first. The door swung open; there was nobody inside, but it looked like a bomb had gone off. The Mabratians, presumably, had all been crammed in here together. Bressik buzzed over to the second door, and pushed it gently. It opened, and the antenna that covered their head quivered, sensing movement inside at once. Bressik knocked, and continued to push the door open.

Kheli was sitting on a stool at the far end of the room. She looked pretty out of it. Her reaction to Bressik’s entrance could have been anything between fear and nonchalance. She tried to stand, stumbled, and sat back down again.

“Hello,” Bressik said in Coraxian, since that was most commonly spoken in this sector. “Your music is beautiful.”

She gaped at him, and seemed to shrink. Shit. Bressik tried again, in ‘Tic.

She leaned forward this time, frowning. Her expression said maybe she could have made sense of what they were saying if she was sober and had slept recently, but in the bright cold light of this room Bressik could tell neither of those things were true.

Her dress was in the extravagant fashion of Cité de la Lune, which Bressik had assumed was just for show. But something about her face made them think that maybe she really was that far from home. Bressik’s Arabesque was rusty, but they gave it a shot.

The woman’s eyes widened and she visibly relaxed.

“Thank you,” she said. Bressik didn’t know if that was for the compliment, or for speaking her native tongue. “Why are you in my room?”

Bressik took a moment. If they beat around the bush, she might end up kicking them out before they could make their proposal. Might as well get to the point.

“I want you to join my band.”