Challenge #02818-G261: Payback's a Blessing

They bounced from station to station helping out where they could. Due to the family they were born in to, they'd inherited enough time to live more than comfortably, but they didn't want to just sit around and do nothing for the rest of their life. So, taking training in security, combat, engineering, and several other, useful, fields, they went between stations, and aboard ships, just helping out. When offered contracts and pay for their work? The answer was always the same.

"No thanks. I have enough already, just a room and some food is all I ask."

Often much to the surprise of those who had worked with humans before. Unfortunately, there were some who were not above taking advantage of their kindness and worked them to the bone, yet refusing to give even a place to sleep or any food, unless they bought their own. Tired, sore, and a bit discouraged, for this had happened more than a few times, they sat sipping on a cup of tea looking down. A man sat next to them who seemed pleasant enough. He had a tattoo of a dog's head biting off a human hand on his forearm, and a bit of a wild gleam in the eyes, however. He asked the person why they seemed so down in a place known for it's entertainments and, when they explained. The exhaustion from work, and yet the one thing they ask not being honored when it'd been promised before they began, the wild - looking man merely smiled and said "Cheer up, it's already taken care of." -- Anon Guest

They could have surrendered to inertia. It would have been easy. Some people just don't like easy. Further, they had suffered under their parents' iron will and this was a firm rude gesture at everything those pocket despots stood for.

They plunged all their funds into a charity for the less fortunate and exchanged their inherited private yacht for the space equivalent of an ancient combi van with a mattress in the back[1]. It would get them as far as the next station, where they would work to help whoever needed it and help pay for the repairs enough to get to the next station.

It was not always great, but that was the point. On the Edge, people made their own way and sought their own joys. These siblings found joy in retroactive defiance against parents both too greedy and too controlling. It doesn't matter what names they were given, they chose their own. Meet Em and Bee. Free-range do-gooders extraordinaire.

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