Head in the Nebulae

[Janeth Farr]

HAPES

The Hapes cluster is home to many secrets and unusual events.

None among them more famous than the Transitory Mists which once allowed the fledgling empire to develop in near isolation. It has been many millennia since that era occurred, yet Hapes remains cemented in the center of galactic politics and technological development.

Officials, corporate executives, and even agents of the Collective found their way to one of the Hapan elite's exclusive party. A celebration of Hapes newfound independence from yet another pretender power. Janeth arrived as the Collective's representative, though in public she was representing some nobleman from Carida. No one truly important.

She wandered away from the crowd, no longer thrilled by the posh entertainment and food.

Sooner than later she arrived in the open garden beneath the shimmering sky, the dancing lights reflecting off the fish filled pond in front of her.

[member="Lily Kuhn"]

 

[Hailyn]

If there had been a single system in the galaxy that Lily envied, it was the Hapes Cluster.

She admired their naval strength, something her own system had forgotten somewhere along the way after the fall of Ulic Qel-Droma and Exar Kun, and the ability of their leadership to throw off the sort of coups that the Krath on Teta could only dream of. Despite all of the political and social issues that Lily faced as the empress of her own system, she had next to nothing to complain about when the leader of Hapes had to deal with her own friends and family conspiring against her - but it was their independence that truly fostered that envy in her.

She longed to be able to go a day - just one day! - without worrying that she'd upset someone else in the Alliance, that she and her people could be as free as the people of Hapes.

And it was that independence that drew her to a party held by a member of the Hapan nobility, invited perhaps to brag about such a connection to rivals in the political arena. She didn't stand out, here, dressed in clothing that was only barely more expensive than the silks that the Hapans themselves wore to this soiree. In a way it was somewhat refreshing, and it helped, perhaps, that the Hapan tendency to inflate their own presence and egos kept them from treating her like the royalty that she was.

In the end it was a rather nice night, but food and drinks had a charm that had long wore off on the Tetan, and she, too, found herself lingering away from the bulk of the entertainment, bright green eyes staring up into the sky with a wistful expression smoothed over her face.

[member="Janeth Farr"]

 

[Janeth Farr]

Janeth first heard the sound of soft footsteps against the tailored ground of the garden.

She looked over with the slight turn of her head, eyes peered across to see [member="Lily Kuhn"] standing alone. "I swear I know her..." Janeth thought to herself. The mandalorian couldn't pin her face to any person she met along the way, which meant that Lily had to have been famous for something. At least enough to be presented on HoloNews or some other source of public information. Social media? Janeth didn't really partake, so that was a cross off.

Taking a shallow breath, Janeth turned her full body towards Lily and took a few steps closer to bring them both within comfortable space. "Catching the stars with your eyes?" She smiled. Janeth knew how to put on a good smile, it was one of the few social functions she adapted from her time as a smuggler; how to dispel suspicion and feign normality. In fact, she had become very good at the act. So much so that it became easier to believe it was true. That she was normal, just another woman attending this event for one superficial reason or another.

"I'm Janeth, by the way." She extended an open hand. Janeth's right hand was covered in a red glove, which attached the two smallest fingers were artificial digits connected to her nervous system.

 

[Hailyn]

She hadn't taken notice of the other woman in the garden, at least not at first. For the first time in so many rotations, Lily was starting to remember what it was like to find enjoyment in the little things. Life wasn't an adventure anymore, she wasn't a kid and trying to get involved with dangerous people just to feel like she was living an exciting life wasn't doing her any favors. She could mope over A'sharad, or she could get on with her life and move on - and maybe staring up at the twinkling starlight helped her do just that. But, like most of those little things people tend to lose sight of, Lily soon turned her gaze down from the sky, pulled from her reverie, to look squarely at the stranger that had seized her attention.

In the blink of an eye, or maybe two, Lily's expression transitioned from something akin to mild surprise to her warm and welcoming face, something reserved for the public. "Catching stars? That's an interesting way to put it." She replied, pausing to mull over her answer as Janeth introduced herself. "Lily Kuhn." Lily said in turn, reaching out with her own slender hand to return the gesture of a handshake. "You tend to forget to stop and enjoy these kinds of moments when every day seems to be consumed with politics and the squabbles of nobility," The Tetan admitted, "I try to remind myself that I'm just one person among the stars, otherwise I'll end up as full of myself as some of my predecessors." She explained. If the soft smile that followed hadn't come naturally, she certainly didn't let it seem that way.

"And you, are you enjoying yourself?" She asked, trying to shift the focus off of herself for a moment.

[member="Janeth Farr"]

Spoiler

I'm so sorry for taking so long! It won't take anywhere near as long for replies after this.

 

[Janeth Farr]

"Can I just say I'm surprised to find a politician with an honest thought?" She commented first before saying anything else.

Janeth turned her back to the railing and propped herself up to use it as a seat. "My name is Esli, and I'm just lucky enough to be here..." She chuckled at her own remark. In truth, however, Janeth was far from the type normally allowed to such an event. She stuck out like a sore thumb and that wasn't going to change anytime soon.

"If you aren't some stuck up noble, then what brings you here?" More questions.

Am I pushing it? She thought to herself.

Then she noticed two other guests rushing off into the gazebo, likely to abscond for more 'pressing' matters.

[member="Lily Kuhn"]

 

[Hailyn]

She smiled at the woman's blunt straightforwardness, her cheeks tinged with red in embarrassment coupled with amusement at the statement, and moved a slender hand, one that had been resting near her thigh, to clutch, tenderly, at the elbow of the opposite arm. It had been .. a decade? .. quite some time since she last kept people of lower station in her company, and though the three years she'd spent trying to be just any other young teen on the cusp of adulthood and all of its responsibilities were so long ago, it was just as easy to remember what it was like having friends that turned up their nose at the thought of spending more than a minute or two with anyone of noble station - a bad time in her life, certainly, but one that made her who she was just as much as any other experience.

Again she looked to the stars as Esli revealed her name to her, perhaps romanticizing the brief epoch of time in the breadth of the moment, only turning her gaze back to her new acquaintance with a stifled laugh. "How do they manage such good posture with such heavy hubris?" She answered with something halfway between a laugh and a giggle followed shortly thereafter. It'd be rather disappointing, she supposed, to inform Esli of her actual identity - as surprised as she was that her name didn't ring enough bells, but then she had withdrawn from much of the public eye quite some time ago - but it was better than the current game of self-deprecation she'd put herself into. "I'm, uh, actually just visiting Hapes." Lily said, her expression mixed as she tried to think of how best to put her thoughts into words. "Here from Empress Teta, actually.. Head of state, royalty, all of that silly stuff." She muttered, loud enough to be heard but quiet enough to still maintain her humbled attitude.

"The Empress of Teta, actually. Trying to blend in, really, I don't really live for the attention these days.. trying to mend something of a broken heart." Lily mused wistfully, momentarily wrapped up in her own little world before she pulled herself back out of it. "I'm here by obligation, though, so what brings you here to celebrate?" She asked, not hiding her curiosity in the least.

[member="Janeth Farr"]

 

[Janeth Farr]

Janeth continued to listen to Lily.

She found some amusement, and even felt a bit of sympathy there. Janeth was far from royalty, but she was technically third in line to the top of Clan Farr by blood. Only technically, because Mandalorians would rather drink from their own latrines before acknowledging any form of hereditary succession. Still, being family with the clan leaders did offer more opportunities for a Mandalorian to prove one's worth to their clan.

For a while she was even lined up to be a rally master of her clan. In her youth she did more than anyone else at her age ever could. Fought smarter, not harder, and won more duels in the pit. Survived missions even when they started to go wrong. Her only shortcomings were due to her own frustration when handling fancy tech. She could slice a computer if you gave her a device that did it for you, but beyond that she couldn't do much but pilot a ship or speeder, and use a blaster. Then things changed when she became a smuggler.

"I guess I'm just here to meet people like you," she joked and returned a bubbly laugh of her own. Then she shrugged, looking back up to the Nebula surrounding them. "I guess I just like sneaking into parties... Promise not to tell?" The Collective did know how to forge a document, she'd give them that. Hell, they even managed to forge an entire corporate manifest within hours for the operation on Eshan.

Janeth looked back to Lily. "What the chances of me dragging a foreign head of state out for a private drink?"

[member="Lily Kuhn"]

 

[Hailyn]

If Lily was surprised by the revelation - or at least surprised by it at this point - she was rather good at hiding it. Truthfully, she'd suspected that this 'Esli' person wasn't one of the other Hapan nobles when she hadn't immediately recognized her - they had some kind of ridiculously extreme political in-fighting and intelligence networks that would have made the Krath's power grabbing schemes jealous, and usually there was little about the more important guests that they didn't know. A foreign dignitary, one from the core especially, would have been recognized immediately. If she had a credit for every time one of them started their conversation with 'Oh, Miss Kuhn, how is your father..' or 'Why hello, Miss Kuhn..' she would never had needed any amount of inheritance from her parents, nor the company she helmed, to survive on her own for the rest of her life.

But, surprise lacking, she wasn't too displeased by this bit of information. Perhaps disappointed, which did seem to bleed through a bit in her transition between a small smile to a larger one, but that was perhaps more to do with realizing there were no members of the Hapan nobility that knew what it was like to be normal.

Or as close to normal as it got in the days after the darkness.

"My lips are sealed." She said with a wide smile, recalling her own little fanciful alias when she was traveling with a certain unmentionable in First Order space. "I've been doing it since I was seventeen, anyways. Though.. not these kinds of drab affairs." Lily explained, the corners of her lips turning with distaste at the comparison to the kinds of parties she enjoyed into her early years of adulthood with these kinds of silly events. In all honesty, she'd expected the girl to make her exit after that, usually that was how it happened - someone who wasn't supposed to be at some big political thing outed themselves on accident, or even on purpose, to someone who wasn't in a position to do anything about it, and then they left right away - instead Lily found herself being propositioned to do something, something that was an excuse to get away from the snobs and the game of cards going on in the mansion behind them.

She needed a drink, or five, anyways.

"Hmm.. A late-night excursion? Well, maybe.. Make it worth my time, and I'll make it worth yours." She quipped with a grin.

[member="Janeth Farr"]

 

[Janeth Farr]

Janeth smirked.

"Then it looks like I'm buying."

She hopped off her impromptu seat and brushed down her jacket which had caught some fallen petals from one of the garden trees. "There's this little place not too far from here that I stopped by last night. Quiet, good drinks, and music that doesn't make you want to blow your brains out." She said with a playful finger gun to her head.

Assuming their plan was now underway, Janeth would slip through the exit where only a few guests mingled on their early exit for the night. The doorman was far too careless, as he himself was flirting with one of the hostesses whilst the two guards were chatting away.

Janeth almost couldn't believe it... Then again she could. No matter how dangerous the galaxy might be, no matter how great a crisis might be that's underway, the richest of the rich would always act as if everything were fine. As if in their little bubble they were immortal. Untouchable. An intruder like herself would have been written off as a gullible street rat on this world, rather than the political assassin she might've been on another, more practical world.

After exiting the gala, Janeth continued down the exterior garden towards the air speeder she arrived in.

She eyed Lily, "I promise i'm a good pilot."

[member="Lily Kuhn"]