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Boba Fett stalked onto the train platform, regretting having parked Slave I as far away as he had. The next train wasn't coming for at least an hour, but walking to the outskirts of town wasn't an option, not with the distance and the way Boba's entire kriffing body ached. The job had gone badly—too many opponents at once after a week of little sleep—and someone had managed to slip a blade through a part of Boba's kute that wasn't covered by armor. But he was alive, and they were dead, and the stab wound wasn't so bad that it wouldn't keep until he could treat it properly.
His throat hurt too, painfully dry as he swallowed, somehow more annoying for how every other part of his body hurt rather than blending in with the rest of the pain. But this small discomfort, at least, he could do something about sooner rather than later. The train platform wasn't very crowded—and most of the people on it were giving Boba a wide berth—but there was a food stand built into the wall. A customer had just turned away from it, holding some kind of purple drink with a straw.
Boba squinted at the menu painted on the wall. Whatever script the sign was written in, it wasn't standard aurebesh, and it had certainly seen better days. All of it was faded, a fair bit was chipped away, and there was graffiti covering the bottom left corner of the menu. He gave it up as a lost cause.
"I'll have what the last guy's having," Boba said when he approached the counter. He wasn't sure what flavor pale lavender was, but he didn't care enough to ask. As far as he was concerned, a drink was a drink, and the man had at least appeared to be human so it should be a safe choice for Boba.
"Is that all I can get you?" the young woman operating the stall asked, and Boba nodded sharply. He was hungry enough to eat a bantha, honestly, but he could wait until he was back on his ship for that. Boba was still too keyed up from his fight to want to take his helmet off in public, but with a straw he wouldn't have to.
He watched her as she assembled his drink, scooping a serving of some kind of tiny balls into a cup, followed by ice and then the nearly opaque purple liquid. He didn't think the shop owner at a place like this would poison him, but it soothed his paranoia to see her prepare his order from the same batch as everyone else. The worst he could expect to deal with, then, would be food poisoning.
She slid the drink across the counter to him, and he picked it up, shaking it slightly to watch the way everything swirled in the liquid.
"Boba," she said, and his attention snapped to her in an instant, his free hand twitching towards the blaster at his hip.
"I beg your pardon?" he asked, low and dangerous but controlled.
She nodded towards the drink in his hand. "The pearls in your tea. They're called boba pearls. You chew them. Seemed like you weren't familiar."
"I see," Boba said, forcing his muscles to relax out of hair-trigger awareness. "Thank you for the information. What do I owe you?"
He left the credits on the counter and walked away, finding a bit of wall to lean against where he had a clear sight line to both platform entrances. As he settled in to wait for his train, Boba took a swig of his drink. It was creamier than he'd expected, almost too sweet and slightly earthy in a way that wasn't unpleasant. On his second mouthful, he sucked up one of the boba pearls, rolling it along his tongue to feel the texture before pressing it between his teeth.
He bit down.