Playing swtor again, specifically Emeldir, has me in my feels about him and tweaking some random things about his backstory and Rielay’s as well. In no particular order:
- Rielay was pulled out of her dead end ‘job’ in the Coronet City Shipyards as a teenager by her old smuggling captain because she was a damn good mechanic and small enough that she could fit in all the tight spaces the rest of the crew complained about. Her captain was horrible, but it was Rielay’s ticket off Corellia and introduced her to her love of flying.
-Her crew got stuck in orbit around Coruscant during the Sacking of Coruscant. Her captain was killed while on a transport to the planet’s surface and Rielay held the ship and crew together and out of imperial fire until they were recovered by Republic forces. Despite her best attempts, the crew disbanded and went their seperate ways and Rielay was forced to sell the ship for scrap due to damages from running on fumes.
-With no way off planet and no options or connections due to her captain’s ah…loner approach to business, Rielay enlists in the Republic military and does a few year stint there to pay off the debts pinned on her by her old captain’s death. There she flies jets older than her, and it’s why she can fly her clunky old ship like a cracked out raccoon and still survive.
-Rielay is now ~31 at the start of the smuggler storyline instead of in her mid 20s. Emeldir is 23 at the start instead of 20.
-At the end of her contract she buys another ship, her current ship the Promise, in all its rust bucket gory from Emeldir’s father—a ship salesman on Coruscant. Who’s she had previously sold her captain’s ship to. It’s here that she meets Emeldir, now 18 and restless within the cityscape of Coruscant. He begs to join her “crew” for “life experience” (as he justifies to his unimpressed parents and Rielay). She tries to deny him, because it’s a tough life, but he’s there the next day with his bags packed and a CVS receipt long list of reasons this is Good Actually. They agree he’ll fly with her for a year or two then come home to Coruscant like the Good Senator’s Son he’s suppose to be.
- Just over a year into his time on her ship they’re working a contract on Hoth. A flash storm rolls through, separating Rielay and Emeldir’s speeders. He ends up wrecking his trying to get out of the storm, and in trying to shelter in place meets with a pissed off undecided creature that are the source of his facial scars and scars that extend over his shoulder/chest. His injuries were severe, and being stuck in the cold for hours nearly did him in. Rielay feels horrifically guilty about it still, years later.
-This event is the reason Emeldir has a perpetual tremor in his hands, specifically his right (the side with all his scarring too) (thanks Aimed Shot animation with its perpetual shake that gave me this character quirk).
-This event is also the reason Emeldir pursued becoming a captain in his own right. Rielay, without his knowing, paid his extensive medical costs from saving his life and pretty intensive fixing of his face and right upper body. He’s become a light sided smuggler in an attempt to ‘pay her back’ even if she staunchly refuses every credit he tries to give her.