First Reply Casing The Place

[Neryn Ka]

Location: Military History and Military Art Museum, Thustra​

Neryn tilted his head to one side, then to the other, studying the target of his focus with an unblinking, almost avian intensity.

The piece was called "Cast From Heaven" and depicted the dramatic plunge of a damaged starfighter from low atmosphere. It was, on its surface, the sort of gauche military-inspired work that lined the walls of every Sith fortress in the galaxy. He had to admit that while the subject matter was banal enough, the skill of the artist was prodigious.

The painting focused largely on the transparent cockpit of the toppling fighter, writ large in the foreground. One could see the panic in the pilot's features, the tightening of his gloved hands on the controls as he tried in vain to wrestle his dying mechanical beast into compliance. The image was damnably photorealistic, while injecting just the right amount of subtle exaggeration to really sell the fear of the poor fellow's last moments.

Bright orange flames licked hungrily at the interior of the cockpit, blackening the pilot's flightsuit and causing the seals around the control panel to bubble and run like wax. Neryn could almost feel their heat, though fire was to him more refreshing than threatening.

There were other details, too, subtler ones that could be missed amidst the all-too-human nightmare of the foreground focus. The battle did not appear to be going well for the pilot's own side. The air around him was full of laser-flak and the smoking trails of SAMs, with several similar fighters portrayed mid-explosion. In all likelihood, everyone in the image was doomed, or would be were they not frozen in time.

Neryn found that particularly poignant. An instant of failure, immortalized forever on paint and canvas. He had no idea if the image was depicting a real battle, or if he was just looking at the artist's tired commentary on the manifold horrors of war. Whatever the case, it was a rawly-emotional piece, ugly in the extreme. Unlike many, Neryn believed ugliness to be as valid as beauty, so far as art was concerned. So long as it made the viewer feel something, it had served its purpose. Neryn unquestionably felt something when viewing the piece, though it was likely not the feeling the artist had intended to invoke.

Neryn had seen the painted pilot's panicked look in the faces of others before. More often than not, he was the cause, but that didn't stop him from appreciating the work. It was a fine little snapshot of the humanoid condition, one man's emotional state juxtaposed against the grinding industrial slaughter behind him.

He decided he liked it, and further decided that it would look better on his own wall than this one. He would be back for it later.

 

[R'ayne Asara]

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Comfortable Liar - by Chevelle

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Location: Military History and Military Art Museum - Thustra
Tag: Neryn Ka

The storm-choked skies of Thustra brooded above me as I ascended the black marble steps of the Military History and Art Museum, my boots echoing through its cavernous halls like the tolling of a funeral bell beneath vaulted ceilings adorned with banners of dead regimes and forgotten wars. I moved with unhurried elegance through the galleries, allowing my gaze to drift across oil-painted massacres, bronze effigies of long-rotted generals and fleet admirals, and portraits of decorated commanders whose hollow eyes seem to follow me with lingering accusation.

Yet even as I pause to admire each work with quiet fascination, my attention never fully strays from the masterpiece displayed far to my left, Cast From Heaven bathed in pale luminescence behind its protective casing like some sacred relic awaiting desecration.

I wasn't conducting reconnaissance because I coveted the painting itself; in truth, I found the piece almost painfully overrated, its beauty dulled by the reverence lesser minds heap upon it like worshippers before a false god. No, I wandered these halls for an altogether different reason, one far more amusing to me; I intend to steal the damned thing simply to prove a point to an associate who still clings to the illusion that power requires permission, laws, or careful justification before it acts.

As I studied, in nonchalant fashion, the patrol routes reflected faintly in the polished floors and whilst listening to the rhythm of security rotations beneath the museum's orchestral silence, a faint smile touched my lips beneath the shadow of my hood, for the lesson I intend to teach is beautifully simple; if one possesses the will to take what they desire, then ownership becomes little more than a temporary lie told by the weak.

I drew the attention of one of the museum's security personnel with the slightest crook of a black-clawed finger, my hood shadowing the faintly amused growing smile curling upon my lips, as I gesture lazily toward the endless galleries stretching beyond us like crypts of frozen history. "Tell me," I purred in tones lacquered with false curiosity and silkened civility, "what time does this magnificent place close? There is so much here to marvel at, and I fear I have scarcely even clawed the surface of everything this museum has to offer."

 

[Neryn Ka]

R'ayne Asara ​

The distant rumble of thunder outside told Neryn that the place would soon be experiencing a precipitous drop in patronage; nobody liked to risk being caught in Thustra's weather.

While he couldn't quite call it home, some portion of his essence did originate here, however ruined and divorced from its source. It nauseated him to know that the Mandalorian scourge had swallowed it up within their borders.

Such was the way of things, however. The bargain was a distasteful one, but made by those far above his station. At the very least, by those who imagined themselves above his station. Save one, no being was truly his better.

One obvious benefit of being seen as inconsequential: nobody cared where you were or what you were doing. That was a benefit Neryn had abused to no end, and certainly wouldn't stop anytime in the foreseeable future. He could cause a great deal of damage to the fabric of things, if so unobserved.

As interesting as it was, the painting had a wider purpose, and its vanishing would have a cascading series of consequences. One more tiny, infinitesimal step towards knocking down the rotting framework for good.

He lifted one hand, dragging a raggedly-gloved finger lovingly across the glass. Soon. He could hardly wait.

As he turned away from the display, there was but one other person in the room, save for the guards. Those could potentially pose an issue, but few were the establishments willing to keep a full night staff. He did possess a sneaking suspicion that a great many unemployment assistance forms would be filed, and very soon.

The one other person in question was a garishly-dressed outsider like himself. Graceful, strange, and carrying themselves as though they owned the place. No surprise there. Thustra was known throughout the galaxy for the quality and breadth of its art scene, and that meant plenty of tourists.

Still, they were asking interesting questions of the guards. Innocent enough, but Neryn had inherited his maker's paranoid nature. Knives in every shadow, conspiratorial whispers on every breeze. Hastily, he turned back to the painting, but his attention was now elsewhere.

Naturally, his diseased mind created a thousand improbable scenarios. Had his trail been picked up? If so, tonight promised to be a little less easy than he'd hoped.

 

[R'ayne Asara]

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Comfortable Liar - by Chevelle​

Tag: Neryn Ka

I listened to the guard's droning assurances with the stillness of a tomb statue, my hands folded before me as though I were some noble patron lost in admiration of the relics surrounding us. Yet beneath the shadow of my hood, my eyes betrayed my true attentions. I tracked the other guards in silence as they made their brisk circuits through the exhibit hall, their boots clicking against polished stone in nervous rhythms.

I allowed my gaze to drift, slow and deliberate, toward the only other soul in the chamber; whose posture carried the stiffness of concealed intentions. For a fleeting instant our eyes nearly met, and I could feel the tension coiling through the room like a tightening wire ready to snap.

Then the skies of Thustra awakened. Thunder rolled across the night with the voice of some ancient beast awakening beneath the clouds, followed by jagged bursts of lightning that spilled silver fire through the towering panes of glass. The artifacts around us flickered in violent illumination, their shadows stretching into monstrous shapes across the marble floor.

Beneath my hood, a smile threatened at the corners of my mouth. Such weather was no inconvenience, it was an omen.

"Beautiful, is it not?" I whispered to the guard beside me, my voice soft with reverence as silver lightning briefly illuminated the gallery in ghostly flashes. "Storms possess such honesty. They do not hide their fury behind pleasant masks." The guard shifted uneasily at my words, glancing toward the darkened entrance corridors before forcing a courteous smile onto his face.

He spoke of rain drenched streets, dangerous winds, and the wisdom of departing before the weather worsened, reminding me that the museum would soon be closing for the evening.

"Leave?" I said quietly, almost amused. "But nights such as these are when the galaxy reveals its truest nature."

Brushing against the guard's mind as delicately as one drags a silken blade across exposed flesh, the Force slipped into his thoughts with cold and patient precision. His anxious protests about the storm faltered mid-sentence, his posture softening as uncertainty clouded his eyes. I could feel his will bending beneath mine, not shattered, merely redirected like a helpless ship caught within the pull of a black star.

"I think not, I rather like it here," I told him in playful tones sweetened with venom, "but you should go." Without another word he obeyed, boots echoing farther and farther into the dim cathedral of artifacts until only the storm remained to accompany me.

Slowly I turned back toward the grand painting across the chamber where the lone individual still stood before it, beneath flashes of silver lightning. His attention lingered upon the artwork with an intensity that stirred my suspicion. Thoroughly intrigued by it, perhaps too intrigued.

 

[Neryn Ka]

Tag: R'ayne Asara ​

Neryn felt the Force move in the room, and heard one pair of feet shuffle clumsily away down the hall. He was alone with the unknown stranger now. If he were capable of feeling uneasy, he would most certainly be so now.

Much of the conversation was lost even to his keen ears, but it didn't take a genius to deduce what had happened. A good thing, too; Neryn was certainly no genius, though he certainly believed otherwise.

The exertion of one's will upon another was a skill that had largely escaped him. He was largely self-taught, and full of a great deal more power than finesse. Still, there were other ways to get the masses to do as you wanted. Fear was a good one. Simple, direct, primal, satisfying. Neryn's methods were as crude (and gruesome) as his dress and manner. Perhaps it ran in families.

He likely looked rather like an exhibit himself. Clad in ragged travelling gear of a strangely heterodox make, with layers of ancient cloth covering still-more-ancient armor, Neryn covered himself with trophies and baubles taken from places just like this one. Maybe he'd incorporate this charming canvas into it, somehow.

Outside, the storm had come in earnest, as angry as it was sudden. The heavens vented their wrath upon the hapless ground below them, and a particularly-vivid stroke of lightning tore through the sky nearby.

Its brilliance filled the room in cold white for an instant, causing the various objects and artifacts in the gallery to cast ghoulish shadows against the far side of the chamber. The lightning illuminated Neryn himself only briefly, but his own shadow lingered a fraction too long, crawled up the wall in a shape a touch too abnormal.

The ragged spawn could almost feel the stranger's eyes boring into the back of his head. Never one to simply let silence stand, he spoke.

"It's remarkable, in its way." He didn't turn around, keeping his unblinking stare on the image. "Simple on its surface, but there are hidden depths there to those with the wit to see them."

"Did you come to see it, too?" A surprisingly boyish question from so bedraggled a figure, full of seemingly-innocent inquisition and polite interest, but much like his creator, Neryn never did anything innocently.

 

[R'ayne Asara]

casing the place

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Savage Queen of Hearts - by Neon Dreams​

Tag > Neryn Ka


My gaze lingered upon the painting as though I sought to peel back the oils and pigments and expose whatever misery had been trapped beneath the artist's careful hand. Yet red my eyes drifted, almost lazily, toward the well-dressed man standing nearby, his posture sharpened by confidence rather than fear.

A dangerous thought slithered through my mind; perhaps the painting was not the treasure worth stealing tonight. Perhaps he was. A faint smile crept across my lips, slow and venomous, as though the notion itself entertained some private hunger within my soul.

When the man finally spoke, bold enough to let certainty lace his voice, one of my black brows arched delicately.

Without even turning to face me, I offered a slow, measured applause, the sound of hands striking together in rhythm to each strike of the lightning behind me. "Such confidence," I purred softly, each word wrapped in silken menace. "How refreshing. Most people tend to avoid open conversation with me. Mixed reasons mind you."

I drifted to the man's left side with the silence of a funeral specter, my boots whispering against the polished floor as I came to a halt beside him. Still, I kept my eyes upon the painting, studying the brushstrokes as though divining prophecy from dried pigment and fractured color. Slowly, I reached upward and pulled back my hood, allowing the severity of my features to emerge from the shadow.

"Art," I said, skepticism coiling through my voice, "like beauty, rests within the eyes of the beholder." My gaze narrowed upon the canvas, thoughtful and distant, before my tone softened into something almost cordial, though no less dangerous beneath its surface.

"But a painting should not be condemned for the flaws of the artist who birthed it. Even broken hands may create something worthy of reverence."

A faint hum of curiosity engulfed me as I tilted my head ever so slightly toward him, though my eyes remained fixed upon the painting like a predator lingering over fresh tracks in the snow.

"Indulge me," I said smoothly, dark intrigue threading through my voice, "what is it that you see within this canvas that compels your attention so completely; are you merely an admirer of art, or a collector of beautiful things?"