Private Exhibitionism

[Mauve du Vain]

Fondor,
Fondorian Museum for the Arts

War memorials could be such somber things. Mauve examined one of the exhibits at the gallery, head tilted slightly. Someone had taken a ruined block of stone from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant and put it on a pedestal by itself. No doubt a half-dozen messages could be divined from such a display. Mauve took a sip of her wine and turned away, looking over the crowd. The Zeltron wore a simple, slitted red dress, while gold jewelry dripped from her ears, wrists, and neck. She wore a number of rings as well, though at least one was merely for her own protection. She hoped she would not need it, but the Alliance, until recently, stood on good terms with the High Republic, the same High Republic who happened to have a warrant for her arrest.

Hopefully a non-issue, considering she was here, after all, to raise money for charitable purposes as part of a refugee relief fund.

Her own contribution to the gallery stood some distance off, a piece she'd had in her own gallery on Nar Shaddaa: a shattered planet, done all in steelwork and encased in thick glass. The steel was still radioactive, remnants of Chiss. A Chiss refugee had crafted it. Every time Mauve looked at the piece she could feel the sorrow he'd poured into it, the grief. Mauve looked away.

A vain hope, perhaps, to wish for brighter emotions in this place. The Alliance were still in the middle of a war. Here and there she saw some of their politicians drifting. Some by choice, others because they likely felt they had to be here to show support. Mauve watched them closely.

Cressida Tolliver

 

[Cressida Tolliver]

Cressida Tolliver wore an evening gown that would have paid for a significant portion of the exhibit, because she had to look the part to be seen to be doing her part, which was to show up to these events and make large donations in the form of purchasing one of the objets d'art before turning around and donating the piece to some library or foundation who could sell it back to her -- or someone like her -- a year later.

It was almost criminal, except that the brokers were licensed and declared their fees and took their cuts in tidy white paper checks or official bank transfers rather than in used greenbacks being slipped underneath men's room doors in the dead of night.

The least said about that, the better, she thought as she fingered her necklace with her free hand.

It was almost absurd to be here, drinking champagne, dressed to the nines, while billions were under the yoke of the upstart Galactic Empire. In fact, Cressida thought it was quite absurd but her political affairs team had informed her it was important to be seen supporting the refugee effort, in addition to her work in the Senate, including having inherited Senator Fortan's seats on both the Defense Committee and SELCORE. And she couldn't show up in some pret-a-porter beige business suit.

She noticed a woman opposite the exhibit she was studying. Pink, and in a red dress. Clashes, she observed dryly as she sipped her champagne, her eyes going to the placard. A remnant of the cataclysm at Csilla. As any good former First Imperial would attest, reading the word Csilla -- hearing it, thinking it -- made a shiver race down her back. It had been the low point of the second First Order's existence, where it -- along with the rest of the civilized people in the galaxy -- had failed to stop the destruction of the Chiss homeworld. It was still too awful to contemplate, and yet confronted with this piece of it, this wreckage, this mausoleum, she couldn't refuse.

The woman opposite her looked away, as if it was too much. Cressida meandered around the display. "Terrible, isn't it?" she murmured. "Not -- as a piece of art. But its very existence. It feels like a condemnation of the living, in a way." Cressida could not look away, though a lump grew in her throat. It was a tribute to the failures of the galaxy to reckon with power-mad lunatics before it was too late. And here they stood on the precipice of making the same mistake again. "Sorry. This may well be the ravings of a madwoman, but -- I assure you -- I was invited. I'm Cressida. Tolliver."

Mauve du Vain​

 

[Mauve du Vain]

Cressida Tolliver, hmm. Mauve flicked through her memories. Oh right, the junior senator from the Renascent Heirate. New and, by all accounts, hungry. Lips stained the dark color of a winter plum curved upward in a smile.

"Give me a madwoman's ravings over a bore any day," she said, violet eyes focusing briefly on that point just above the woman's head where the colors of her emotions thronged out from the mind. The yellow of curiosity. The blue of genuine sorrow, or maybe fear. And a greener tinge of discomfort. Cressida did not want to be here.

"Pleasure, I'm Mauve. A bit dark, the Csilla exhibit, but the artist put his soul into the work before he sold it to my gallery. I don't think he had anything left really," Mauve sipped her wine and eyed the glass-sealed steelwork. The Chiss' grief coiled off it like a physical smell to her.

That or the residual radiation.

"A condemnation of those who survived, like you aptly put. Absurdly depressing and makes me want about three more glasses of this wine," Violet pools flicked back to the woman, "Incredible dress, by the way. Renascent style?"

Cressida Tolliver