Better Bodies By Black Sun II

Latest commission from   The smugglers, Ardanna Cynn and Tess Aurora

Model for 'Autumn' taken with permission of and


"I wish could tie you up in my shoes
Make you feel unpretty too
I was told I was beautiful
But what does that mean to you?
Look into the mirror, who's inside there?
The one with the long hair...
Same old me again today

My outsides look cool
My insides are blue
Every time I think I'm through, it's because of you
I've tried different ways but it's all the same
At the end of the day, I have myself to blame
Believe I'm just tripping

You can buy your hair if it won't grow
You can fix your nose if he says so
You can buy all the make up that MAC can make
But if you can't look inside you -
Find out who am I too
Be in the position to make me feel so damn unpretty..."

TLC, 'Unpretty'

Jo angrily paced the cramped, narrow bedroom they shared with other Krayt Dragons, watching with irritation as her heartsweet looked miserably into the mirror.

“Enough already,” she muttered.  “This is stupid. All you’ve done since the heist is pout and feel sorry for yourself. What the Byss got into you?”

“I can’t help it,” she sniffed, eyes welling with tears.  Her lekku curled and twitched as she reached up to touch them. “They’ve always looked so terrible!” she grimaced.

“What the kriff…? This again?” Jo grimaced.  “Your… things… are fine! All of you is fine! Cynn – Ardanna!  - I love you. Okay? If you haven’t got that in the two years we’ve been together, you’re never going to know it.  I think you’re beautiful. I think your body is great, and your head things are cute, and – “

“Head things…? Jo, you’re human! You don’t even know what they’re called, and you have no right to judge me!”

“I’m not judgi – “

“They’ve always looked fat! Thick, short, stubby, graceless, awkward.  Do you know why I wasn’t wanted when I was young? Why my sisters had dowries and I didn’t?”

“For the love of…! Cynn, listen to yourself! Get a grip on yourself! You ran away from all that! You made your own life. You’ve made yourself strong. You put this outfit together from nothing. Everyone wants a piece of us now, we’re the hottest thing in the galaxy after that stunt we just pulled! And now all that money is burning a hole in your pocket? Listen to yourself! This is stupid!”

Cynn looked angry and hurt.

“If you cared about me, you’d want me to be happy. I can change something I’ve always hated about myself. Make myself better – “

“You don’t need to be better!” Jo shouted. “I mean, you are better!  You’re beautiful and smart and graceful and clever, and you don’t need all this stupid, weak bullshit about your head tentacles or your boobs.  I have small boobs! I like your boobs just the way they are! If you ask me, Laera looks silly with her stupid watermelons that she had to have spinal implants so she wasn’t bent double all the time!”

“I wouldn’t have to go that far! Just… some things touched up that need improving – “

“Cynn, you don’t NEED improving!?” Jo yelled.

The twi’lek pouted and looked hurt.

“Aaaaagggggghhhh!”

Jo’s eyes burned cobalt blue, her hands flared, and in her anger, objects and chairs hurled themselves about the small chamber, knocking Cynn from her seat.

Horrified, Jo picked up her lover and held her in her arms. 

Cynn was crying, the first time Jo had ever seen her lover cry real tears.  

“Cynn, damn, I’m sorry, I – “

“You don’t know what it’s like,” the twi’lek whispered softly in her ear.

What was I supposed to do? I didn’t realise how bloody much this… stupidity meant to her. What could I do? I could fight her, and keep letting her hurt herself. Or I stood back, and let her deface her body out of some misplaced childhood phobia that her head-things were fat. What could I do? We had the money. Even if this felt somehow worse than spending the entire haul on death-sticks and chain-smoking them.  Either way, it’s death by inches. Of the body, or of the soul.  And either way, Black Sun own a little piece of us more than they did before. Either way, we lose.

So I let her do it.  She was pathetically grateful. But it felt like giving in. The strongest, best person I ever met, reduced to this. It made me sick.  I didn’t love her any less – you can take the twi’lek off Ryloth but you can’t take Ryloth out of the girl.  But it hurt, for all my powers, that all I could do for the person I loved the most was stand by and grit my teeth.  It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

I only hoped it might somehow cure the hurt that she’d carried around inside her for so long.  That somehow, maybe she’d get the surgery and she’d be happy. I really didn’t like it, but it wasn’t my choice, was it? She seemed happy enough, on the outside. But inside? I’m not sure I really know her any more.  How much is artifice, a false front, and how much is real?  I thought I was different. Maybe I’m not.

Well, she’s got what she wants in the end.  Maybe that’s the moral in all this.  Be careful what you wish for, because Black Sun will make sure you get what you want, but not what you need…