Private For a Price

[Koda Fett]

Coruscant was nasty business. It should have been nothing more with a botched job, finding a swarm of unaccounted for interference on top of his slicer partner dying in the opening salvo. Fett was not the only one after that bounty, however. Mercy and that gunslinger served as suitable distractions, allowing the Mandalorian to slink away with his Jedi hostage. Taking the archive data, an artefact and a council seat in one fell swoop. A less than ideal exit by way of tumbling down the outside slopes of the Jedi Temple, but beggars can't be choosers.

Though as a non-Force user, Fett had great difficulty discerning the value of what he found. Taking it to an Ithorian appraiser on Ordell Station above Kijimi resulted in it being stolen, beginning a new hunt. The Ithorian let slip what it was in a bid to cling to life, though the bounty hunter was hardly very forgiving.

The Cradle of Life. A life for a life, allowing someone to trade their life for someone that lost theirs. Useful, but someone as selfish as Koda had no use for a selfless thing, nor someone particularly worth bringing back. Just didn't seem worth the hassle. And, well, Mauve offered a substantial amount of credits for artefacts. It wasn't going to grant him a black crown, no, not yet, but it was a step in the right direction.

He set down on the Smuggler's Moon, the Spear III landing in the spaceport in New Vertica. Rife with criminals, yes, but of a higher class. Not quite his scene, striding through the cleaner streets of Nar Shaddaa. There were no gutter rats to test their luck here, only nervous glances from those in their fineries. It was only becoming more of the same as he neared Mauve's gallery.

Fett entered as if he was any other patron, looking around at all the Zeltron had gathered and placed on display. Doubtless there was more higher value hidden in the back. Word was sure to reach Mauve, and quickly. An armoured Mandalorian entering a gallery was not likely to go unmentioned, let alone Koda Fett.

Mauve

 

[Mauve]

“Look what the Nexu dragged in,” came a silvered, sultry timbre.

Mauve rounded a corner, a scarlet dress dripping from her figure like water, a datapad in one hand. She waved a hand, shooing off some of the gallery workers, leaving her and the Mandalorian alone amid a forest of paintings in a room of glass and marble.

“I would say it’s good to see you Fett, but I suppose I should ask what you’re here for… me, or my bounty?”

Unlike before, she didn’t press close to his armor and sigh and pout. Such theatrics might have served their part to keep the dangerous sort at a distance, but here in her sanctum they were frivolous. Much as she enjoyed her frivolities, Fett was a man of business, direct and to the point.

 

[Koda Fett]

He could not deny her, her charms. Though whatever briefly lingering look there was, Fett was quick to turn to business.

"You said you were in the market for Force artefacts," he said, bringing an item from a pouch; the black sphere within burned with an ever-alight white flame. It held no heat, however, evident by the lack of caution given.

Though Fett had not known what it was at first-sight, maybe someone such as Mauve might.

"Pilfered this one from the Jedi Temple on Coruscant."

Mauve

 

[Mauve]

The flickering undyed flame within the obsidian sphere held her eyes. She reached out to touch the proferred object, then stopped, fingers hovering. The last time she had fumbled with force artifacts, there had been certain unanticipated reactions that she did not wish to replicate in the middle of her art gallery. The thought of an unleashed white flame vaporizing an eight hundred year old nabooan Palpatine caused her to wince.

"The Jedi Temple you say?" She crossed an arm at her waist and rested an elbow on it, wrist limp as she pointed at the sphere. "It looks pretty enough, but what does it do. Or did you just grab whatever you could off the shelf in the middle of all the tumult," she smiled knowingly, imagining Koda with a great big burlap, shoveling precious Jedi keepsakes into it with sweeps of an arm.

"How did you manage that, in the middle of the uprising?"

Koda Fett

 

[Koda Fett]

"I might've," answered Fett, the shrug of his shoulders and the dip of his helmet adding some truth to the image of a burglar.

"I was after the archive data, which I have-" flashing a data stick between his fingers, "-when I came across it. It was in a guarded room behind a shielded container. I figured it had some value, and it does. The Cradle of Life, it's called - can use it to bring someone back from the dead, at the cost of someone else's life."

It was truly a crime that someone so vile could be so fortunate. Blessed, even.

"Imps made for a fine distraction. Still, I had to break some bones to get it." And that chair.

Mauve

 

[Mauve]

"I don't doubt you did," she eyed the bounty hunter's gauntleted hands, "Well. A few broken bones for something of this magnitude - if the archives aren't embellished, is quite impressive."

Mauve smiled, "I would say you earned your reward, Mr. Fett." Her finger typed out something on her datapad, then flicked up. "There. The credits should be in your account now."

She extended a hand for the orb, the cradle, once again staring at that strange flame in the midst of it. Softly, almost as if to herself, she asked, "Is there anyone worth that sacrifice? Anyone you would call back if they died, life for life?" Violet eyes looked up and into the uncaring expression of the t-visor, seeing only her reflection. "Please, indulge my curiosity while I have you here."

Koda Fett

 

[Koda Fett]

He relinquished the cradle and all the power it held in favour of another mound of credits. Some might argue it his most foolish decision yet, the most greed-fueled act the would-be Mandalorian had engaged in thus far. He tried not to dwell on that, but the question hung unanswered in the air for a moment a touch too long to be deemed dismissed.

His helmet tilted with a soft adjustment of his stance, as if to convey some amount of consideration.

"Once, maybe." He answered with a deathly-seriousness. "Try not to pry."

Fett was a man grown, but all men were once boys. The roads of their lives were not yet paved, their fates uncertain and left to hang. Some people became bounty hunters as a result of greed and a violent nature, and while Fett cherished his credits dearly there was a sense of personal honour about him. A Mandalorian, once with the clans, but no more and declared akin to sin. Whatever he was, who he was, remained a mysterious thing. Just a suit of armour wandering the galaxy, collecting and killing for reasons beyond common understanding.

"But, I'd bet all those credits you have someone in mind right now."

Mauve

 

[Mauve]

Putting the datapad away, she accepted the cradle and listened to his reply. That smile of hers, lipstick of deepest plum, faltered only slightly. Bittersweet.

"Maybe. Maybe I'm just thinking of myself," a silvery laugh hummed from her throat, just a few notes of mirth, tinged by a sadness. A longing. "Look who is prying now," she sighed deeply, existentially, "But I want to trust you, Fett."

She clutched the orb to her chest and reached her other hand up, slowly, cautious - as if touching a wild animal - to cup the side of the bounty hunter's helmet. The metal felt cold beneath her fingers. Beskar, she thought. Did not all Mandalorians wear beskar?

The woman stared up into his visor, "I know what you are though. I cannot change your stripes anymore than I could a Nexu's. Let me ask another question, dearest hunter. Professionally." It was hardly professional. "Are there jobs you would not take? Would you... if they paid you enough, I mean... would you come for me?" her words trailed to a whisper, "Kill me, even? How much would it cost them?"

Koda Fett

 

[Koda Fett]

In armour worn and weathered, beaten in with scratches and scrapes and all things dangerous to flesh, Fett stood opposite Mauve with a blaster carbine slung over his shoulder, a pistol neatly sat in one holster with a disintegrator in the other. The amount of weapons that lined his armour, his body, were impossible to count as the man had made himself into a weapon in of itself. On his shoulder, a tattered side-cloak hung loosely and draped down his left side. Death incarnate, with the last gaze his prey ever saw now set on Mauve.

There was almost a softness, almost a tenderness with the manner in which her soft hands graced the cold metal of his helmet.

"For the right price," said Fett, resolute. His gloved finger crossed the space between them, the length of his finger set beneath her chin, "There's no job I won't take."

Mauve