Ask Coruscant Coruscanti Kerfuffle

[Priscilla Castelle]

Night descended over Galactic City level 4026. With it came a calm that settled over the districts; brief respites to take the mind off the urban sprawl. Crowds mingled on the duracrete streets, edging nearer to multifluous destinations. In the suspended dusk, it all converged. A homogenous blur of people and droids falling nothing short of splendid.

Priscilla wandered among them. Another face in the mass, unadorned but with the weary tracks of exhaustion. An interview at the lower municipal court brought her here. A wildly unsuccessful one. They'd grilled her without cessation, demanded transcripts and referrals from a dozen live sources, and investigated her claims live before her eyes. The secretary had hardly hid disdain upon her arrival. It made for a wasted morning. All that effort to dress, to take the turbolift up to the district office... all that courage mustered to give them a smile worth hiring.

Civilian life hardly suited anyone these days.

There was an edge of hostility about. Folk carried arms openly, lacking the reservation she remembered from her youth. Even here, on a block patrolled hourly, she felt ill at ease. If not for the strain the afternoon put on her, and the early reservations she'd made for travel back to Corellia, wisdom might have dictated her straight back to her rooms.

Instead, with some small chagrin, she decided to hit the bars. The opportunity was hard to overlook. Rarely did she find herself in this sector of the run, and rarer still could she justify the expense of letting loose. Two or three drinks were all she asked for. Nothing extravagant. Only the barest of luxuries to afford an evening's reprieve.

Alas. It was not meant to be.

When she came to a crashing halt against a man's outstretched arm, a groan of agitation escaped her.

"Can you—"

And just as swiftly, she was cut off. A hand shot at her coat, ripped away a credit chit resting there, and boots tore away into the setting sun. She threw her hands up, teeth grinding, and watched her bar funds race out of reach.


@Zay

 

[Crix Dolan]

The Imperial city's opulent façade faded quickly past the upper layers. Where bureaucracy and upstanding were greased like palms in a seedy gambling hall for public appearance, the blaster scored duracrete sidewalks and glowing lascivious neons spoke the truth of Coruscant's current state. Crix stepped off the turbolift on the 4026th level. He blended in well with the riff-raff that terrorized these streets at night. Dressed in a pale blastvest with his weapons hanging from his hips, it wasn't a surprise most people chose to cross the street rather than his path.

Syndicate business dictated he be here, but his mind was elsewhere. His past and present coalesced like a sick joke as his dead wife's birthday sent him into a downward spiral he hoped to cope with any vice his affiliation could afford. A thin serpentine tail of smoke coiled around his cheek and lost itself in the gloom of impending night. A pinprick of burning light stood stark against the waning light as Crix took a drag off his cigarette.

His path was one of meandering misfortune for whoever chose to challenge him. He did not seek violence, but he would embrace it. As Crix rounded a corner a man moving with dubious purpose crashed into him.

"Watch where you--"

Crix's hand moved on it's own. An accord of living pain and fury destined to release with reckless abandon. Blows were cast about like raindrops during a thunderstorm. Some given and some received. Where fury is the perfect ignition, desperation is the great survivalist. The flash of naked steel and the spray of crimson released a cry of pain. One man collapsed.

The Criminal remained standing, glaring down at the man who'd run into him. Blood leaked from the slash across his cheek, and the puncture wound in his right shoulder. With the toe of his boot, Crix rolled the man over the knife was protruding out of the man's shoulder mirrored to his own wound. The victim whimpered. The Criminal bent down and plucked the credit chits the man had been clinging to from the ground.

With a flick of his gaze, he found the credit's original owner. Crix expelled a globule of blood from his mouth and it painted his lips crimson. He turned toward her and approached.

"You okay?" He asked in a raspy voice still tinged with the embers of conflict.

@Toska

 

[Priscilla Castelle]

She had time to blink maybe thrice. Too few times to count the seconds. A flurry of activity. Shouts, the shifting of a crowd edging from danger. The sudden thud of a half-conscious body hitting the ground. It happened fast, bereaving her of the frame of mind to reconcile the events. Robbed, check. Frustrated, yup. Only...

She floundered in the air, grasping at the credit chits so recently absconded from her. A few flopped out of reach, and she had to bend to pick them up. On straightening, she registered the voice, and offered up the semblance of a shrug. Not so robbed, then.

"Um, no," she said. Simple truth.

"Better now." She looked at the chits staining her fingers. Disbelief locked her knees, had her appraising the man with the wounded shoulder. Blood leaked from it, much the same as her reacquired funds. Truly dangerous times, when the heart of the core housed such ruffians.

A bit of a smile crested her lips. "Better than you, probably."

The crowd lingered, asperity in their eyes. Hesitation, too, no small measure of it.

"We should get out of here though. Patrol swings by often. Well. You should go, and I hardly look so innocent myself. Whisky to wash the wound?" A raised eyebrow accompanied the question, along with a nod down the street. There'd be a bar down that way. There always was in districts like this.


@Zay

 

[Crix Dolan]

Prying eyes were turning to concerned witnesses as comms started to appear among the gathered onlookers. His time here was limited. Normally, he'd have kept walking after tossing the credits back to the woman, but something about her reminded him of Mal...

Sticky ichor coated his cheek and clung to the fabric of his shirt. The searing pain of the stab wound was beginning rear it's ugly head as the fury he'd been full of moments ago ebbed. The woman was shaken up, but handled the situation with surprising grace. She'd just been robbed and rather than falling into the self-absorbed pity party that most dove into she was concerned with him. He didn't deserve her kindness, but selfishly he didn't walk away.

Crix's eyes followed her nod and found the bar. At the corner of the iridescent holoprojector rotated a small opaque symbol. This bar was affiliated with the Zaa Fenn.

"Sure."

The concerned citizens began to disperse as they cleared the scene. As he waded through the onlookers he couldn't help but feel like a shark surrounded by minnows looking to escape his hunger. The walk was blissfully short, and the entrance to the bar welcomed them with a sharp hiss.

The general population would only see this place as a dive. The kind of bar a working man or woman would frequent to forget their sorrows for a while, but behind the mundane hid the sublime.

Over his wounded should he said, "Stay close."

He strode to a door marked with a syndicate sigil and knocked twice then once. A durasteel slot slid back and a voice barked, "Name and affiliate."

"Dolan, Zaa Fenn."

The faceless voice was silent for a time then the door slid open. It was his turn to nod toward their destination. Passing through that threshold was like stepping into a new realm. The sepia tones of everyone's favorite dive were replaced by deep blues and purples. The haze in the air smelled of spice and the inhabitants were enthralled by their vices. No one took notice of two more beings entering the fray.

Crix sidled up to the bar and said, "I need a medical droid, and a shot of whisky," then almost as an afterthought added, "and whatever she's having."

The Criminal finally turned to her and asked, "So, what's your name?"

@Toska

 

[Priscilla Castelle]

"Priscilla," she said over the pulse and thrum of music. Over the lip of a vodka strawberry, she cast about the room, admiring what few patrons she could see. Handfuls here and there gathered and spoke, or danced amidst the candescent blue within. The trill of early eve captured this place.

That sigil at the door... the casual familiarity with which the man had approached, the sudden shift in ambiance. It painted mystique in the air, and that was something she could appreciate tonight. Partitions cordoned off the room, obscuring sections visible either from the enshadowed recesses above or within their own guarded domains. The bar itself stood aloft of the rest, haloed by light and distinct.

She leaned up against it.

"I didn't catch yours." She tossed a few of the stained credit chits onto the bar; not enough, perhaps, to settle her tab, but to play ambiguity over its nature. The night was yet young. She had all the time in the world to enjoy it, even if some small concern whispered hesitance in her ear.

"You from around here?" she asked after a sip. Idle talk filtered easily, and crooking an arm up to rest her chin, she arched an eyebrow at the man.

 

[Crix Dolan]

Independence is often misunderstood as indignance and rather than try and correct or return her money Crix let Priscilla do as she wished. Sometimes our own choice is all we have in a galaxy hellbent on taking everything from us. The barkeep returned with his whisky and a damp cloth. They gestured toward his face and Crix understood.

Carefully, The Criminal wiped at his wound absolving his flesh from the dried blood caked there.

"Priscilla's a pretty name," he remarked before throwing back the whiskey. He tapped the counter and the bartender poured another. He settled in on the barstool and admired her for a moment before the whine of repulsers introduced the medical droid. A refurbished imperial interrogation droid hung in the air just behind Crix.

With a sigh, he removed his blastvest and shirt to expose the wound on his shoulder. He had a litany of scars across his arms, chest, and abdomen that told the story of his traumas. The droid scanned his face and shoulder then set to work.

"Crix," he said through a pained sneer as the droid probed his wounded shoulder.

"Nah, I'm originally from Denon, just happened to be here on a job," he took a sip of his whiskey and asked, "What about you, you Coruscanti?"

@Toska

 

[Priscilla Castelle]

Priscilla loosed a laugh at the question. Perhaps unfairly so, given its innocence, but she stayed true to her roots. She diluted the sting with another small smile. Just enough to take the edge off.

"Hardly," she said, finishing her glass and nodding for the bartender to refill it. In the interval it took for the drink to reach her, she watched the man—Crix—as his shoulder was patched. The pained winces sparked sympathetic cringes from her. At least it no longer bled.

"I'm Corellian, if I didn't already give it away. People always say you can tell us by the tilt of our noses when we look down at the rest of the galaxy." Or, less kindly, they might defame the Corellians as stuck up, high strung; a people incapable of leaving the past. For Priscilla, the latter struck uncomfortably close to home.

Before it could show on her lips, she raised the fresh glass and parsed silence with its perusal.

"Anyway. I flew in the other day for an interview at one of the municipal offices. Not glamorous by any means, but it would put my schooling to work."

@Zay

 

[Crix Dolan]

It was Crix's turn to laugh. Now, that she'd pointed it out he felt a fool for missing the tell-tale signs of a Corellian. The medical droid slid a laser beam across the gash in his shoulder sealing the wound. It happened so quickly he barely had time to wince.

"Sorry, you hadn't told me how you were distantly related to Han Solo, so I wasn't sure."

The droid floated up to his face, but Crix waved it away. The droid hesitated as if it wasn't used to being told to buzz off, but with a little encouragement, it reluctantly moved on. He threw back the rest of his whiskey and ordered another drink in tandem with Priscilla.

Melancholy filled the void between the two of them for a time, but libations filled the gap. He lifted his fresh drink and enjoyed the Denon Single Barrel bourbon while listening to her story. It was shocking how mundane it was. How long had it been since he'd just had a conversation about something normal?

"That's interesting," he said, "What exactly is your field of study?"

As she spoke he'd retrieve a ratty pack of cigarettes from his vest, offer one to her, then spark up.


@Toska

 

[Priscilla Castelle]

Priscilla waved away the cigarettes.

Deadpan: "Sweetie, the Solo dynasty dates to the very founding royalty of my people. Who among us could be expected not to intimately know our progenitors, and give them the respect they deserve?"

Meeting his gaze, long and slow, and holding it, she sculpted her topology in the very picture of offense. That brow crinkled just so. Eyes narrowed slightly, early crow's feet dragging wrinkled ire from her. Tension knitting the blades of her back, turning her hips from him as if to ready herself to leave...

And she fell apart without ceremony. Laughter rolled over her. Giggling shakes of the shoulders shattered the masterwork of indignant offense she'd so diligently crafted. Briefly, she tried to recover it; masking the amused curve of her lips behind her drink, steadying her shoulders just so, but alas. Her eyes betrayed her.

She let the glass fall away and smiled at him.

"I majored polysci and history," she said. "University life was very much a bubble, I think. Everyone extols the importance of education, but it hasn't gotten me past the secretaries for even the smaller party committees. I'd say it might be my personality at fault, but that's hardly possible right?"

 

[Crix Dolan]

A grin as wry as the whisky he sipped spread across his lips as she played her game. He went along feigning surprise as she began to leave and found himself reveling in the gag as she did. Was it possible he was having a good time?

The droid finished it's job and Crix tossed it a chit to cover the cost.

The Criminal took a drag on his smoke and considered her eduction a moment. He'd graduated from Denon's university as an engineer, so he wasn't out of the loop when it came to school and the mass populace's perceived importance of one's level of education, but his time in the Outer Rim and on The Smuggler's Moon taught him lesson's he'd never pick up at Uni.

"Nah, it's because you're cute."

Now it was his turn to make her squirm.

"The fact that you actually have a personality is a plus for sure. I bet people find it intimidating."

He took a sip from his cup and said, "color=#5c5cd6What're your goals? Do you really want to end up battling the corrupt bureaucracy of Coruscant?[/color]"

He scoffed as he blew smoke, "Doesn't sound very Corellian."

@Toska