Public Kiss Land

[Valintyn]

Coruscant
Uscru Entertainment District

People were screaming.

Isar looked down. He held a blaster, barrel smoking. In front of him, a human lay on the ground with a scorched hole in his chest. Isar ran a tongue along his gums, tasting the glitterstim residue.

The thump of the electronic music inside the club still drowned out most of the screaming. Isar let out a laugh. He knew he sounded deranged, even to his own ears. The Zeltron wore a black and gold jacket over a dark red shirt.

"Well, I told you not to keep talking, idiot," he said to the dead man. Isar holstered his blaster pistol, took a long sip of his Corellian whiskey, then tossed the remaining contents onto the body.

"Rest in peace."

Isar walked out the exit, waving a hand and muddying the minds of bouncers racing toward the scene so that they let him slip past and out onto the street.

Lilac eyes flicked one way, then the next along the street. He started walking. A few blocks later he entered another club and went up to the bar, found a guy selling spice in the crowd, and then went up to the bar.

"Corellian whiskey, on the rocks."

Isar tried to gauge if he could feel any type of way about what just happened.

He decided he didn't give a shit. He just wanted another drink. The blare of the music and the dancers inside drowned out any other thoughts. The alcohol and spice did the rest.

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

"And then he asked if I had ID, and I said - does anyone in this place -"

Again and again, Tansu replayed Talin Treicolt 's story. The line sounded so cool, so cavalier, and so perfectly delivered that it struck a chord of envy deep in Tansu's soul.

Talin's story ran through her mind now because she'd taken a wrong turn on the way to Hollow Heart Enclave and was somewhere abundant in saloon-looking establishments.

With all the pandemonium they'd gone through to trying to find the Enclave, finding it again for a second time, or a third time, proved a challenge. She'd made it to the lower levels well enough, but had taken a wrong turn or two.

And now that she was here. Wherever here was. Here was just another somewhere she'd never been before. As much as she knew she should turn around and walk out of the neighbourhood, the glittering lights and flashing neon held too much allure; even if what the bright advertisements were trying to sell didn't interest her.

Plus, she reasoned with herself, she could ask for directions from someone what worked here. Maybe she'd even get the chance to use Talin's brilliant line for herself. It was as good a plan as any, and Tansu made up her mind.

The bar she chose to walk into was busy. So busy that people didn't pay her much heed as she walked in. It was an outrageous assemblage of humans mixed freely with alien counterparts. Tentacles, claws, and hands all curled around drinking vessels of varying shapes and sizes. Conversation was a steady babble of human and alien tongues, all of it indistinguishable.

At the very back of the bar was where people ordered their drinks. That's where she'd ask for directions. To prepare for the inevitable question of her identification, Tansu would simply dispense the same line Talin had used and ooze so much charisma that she would not be denied.

Tansu puffed up her chest, ran the line through her mind one last time, made eye contact with the bartender and immediately chickened out and veered hard right and into the refresher instead.

It wasn't empty. She could hear noises coming from the stalls, but she focused on the mirror instead, and used it for a pep talk.

She was almost ready to try again when a sound rattled the walls. It sounded like a blaster! And then screaming!

Tansu darted out of the washroom. The scene was chaotic. Energetic music thumped, patrons darted around without agenda, and someone with a smoking blaster was pouring a drink on the dead body.

What she couldn't understand was the inaction. Nobody was doing anything. Nobody was checking the pulse of the body, and absolutely no one was chasing the leather jacket-wearing murderer out into the streets. It didn't even look like anyone was calling the marshals.


Without thinking, Tansu slid next to the body, checked for a pulse and found none. She pleaded for someone to take care of the situation, was met with apathy, and decided her time was best in pursuit of the killer.

"Hey!" She yelled out into the streets. It was busy. People kept their heads down and ignored her. She stood out like a sore thumb because civilians in the lower levels kept to themselves and here was some backwater teenager shouting out for attention.

Oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man what would Kyric do? What would her parents do?

Streetlights caught a glimmer of gold up ahead, and Tansu recognized the shape as the silhouette that had stood over the dead body. She darted down that pathway and into yet another bar.

"Hey!" She reached for the blaster holstered at her thigh and pushed through the crowds to interrupt the fellow hunched at the bar. It seemed like a good idea to point the blaster at his power back while he sat there, not looking her way. "Hey, you! You just killed a guy! You're under citizens arrest!"

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Valintyn
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[Valintyn]

The bartender slid Isar his drink: a simple glass with a perfectly shaped cube of ice floating amid the brown Corellian liquor. Isar lifted it to his nose, drank in the smells. Notes of dried cherry, nutmeg, and anise.

He lifted the glass to his lips and titled the glass. He could already imagine the sensory prickles across his tongue of brandied fruit, chocolate, and -

“Hey, you!”

Isar paused and turned, one lilac eye staring the interloper up and down. Just some teenager, way out of her depths by the look of it. Of course, she did have a gun pointed directly at him.

He finished taking a sip of the whiskey, enjoying the burn as it trickled down his throat. He regarded the glass with the expression of someone longing for another sip, but his long, magenta fingers set the glass back down on the bar. One indigo-painted nail tapped against the glass. A soft clink-clink, completely lost amidst the hum of the bar and the loud music.

The fingers of his other hand came up and stroked the edges of his mustache as he tilted his chin up and settled his full attention on the girl.

“Your parents know you’re here, Blondie?”

Didn’t seem like anyone noticed her brandished firearm yet. That wouldn’t last. Isar leaned against the bar, an eyebrow arching. The smell of lavender was heady.

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

​

Tansu instantly bristled. Her brows knit downward, her mouth became smaller, tighter, and pinched up, crunched in barely-veiled indignation. She could not let a comment like that get under her skin.

But she did.

"Do your parents know you're a murderer?"

Very uncool. That comment sounded so lame. The only thing that kept her relatively credible was the blaster she kept pointed at him. She lowered it a bit though, for discretion, so it rested more at her hip height and right at his belly that he'd exposed by turning around.

It was clear that this was not the first time he'd had someone point a gun at him. He was as unaffected by it as Dax had been on Castell. Tansu was very close to understanding how demoralized Talin Treicolt had felt.

"List'n bub, you just killed a man." She asserted, and took a step forward. He seemed so unbothered, and that bothered her. "You 'n me, we're going to the marshals. Good idea not putting up a fight, so, let's go."

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Valintyn
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[Valintyn]

"Heh."

A long finger traced the rim of the glass, slick with a bit of the whiskey. Isar nodded with his chin toward the blaster, his lilac eyes flat and devoid of expression though his lip quirked beneath the mustache in an annoying smirk.

"You ever shoot that piece before?" Then he bobbed his head to the side a little. "Eh, no I bet you have. You seem like a farmgirl type. What'd you shoot..."

He picked up the glass and lifted it to his lips, took a long sip.

"Womprats?" He set the glass back down, eyes never leaving hers.

Isar took a step toward her, keeping his hands slightly raised where she could see them, wondering if she would even notice the lavender smell in the air from his pheromones influencing her emotions. Telling her to listen. Telling her not to shoot.

There were other odd things going on, if she noticed. For one, the loud thumping of the club seemed to be surrounding them, yet Isar's words came to her as clearly as if they were alone in the room. Everything else was just a dull background noise. Another, nobody seemed to notice them, despite her blaster waving. The air did seem to shimmer at the edges of the space around them, an almost imperceptible bubble.

"Ever shoot a person with it? Probably not." Another step forward, "There's this sound blasters make, you know. When the plasma hits someone, causes their flesh to superheat." He wiggled the fingers of his right hand at her. Three of them were cybernetic. "Its a popping sound. Like a log on a campfire. I'm sure you've been around one of those before, eh Blondie? All that sap in the wood overheating." He mimed an explosion with one hand. "Pop."

The longer he spoke, the more distracted she was, the more the pheromones would take root in her mind - giving him influence over her.

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

​

"Womprats." Tansu parroted voicelessly. Her mouth, moved and in her head her voice ricocheted, but words seemed faraway. Her eyes felt bulgy, wet, and her whole body just slipped into a wrap that felt warm and woozy.

He smelled so pretty. Powdery, like flowers on a summer's afternoon.

She had no idea what was happening to her. Wasn't even aware that anything was out of the ordinary. All she was doing was watching this guy lazily sip, step, gesture and mesmerizingly motion through his evaluation of her gumption. He seemed so unbothered that she felt the need to second-guess herself. Was she in the wrong?

Initially her motive had been to use the weapon to get the fellow to capitulate to arrest. Now, that seemed not the case. It was as though he'd recognized her moral compass and its inability to pull the trigger in a deadly way. He was too confident in his aversion; however her motivation for justice wasn't wholly eroded or overcome. It was just severely impeded by inaction.

At the pop, she flinched.

"I can't." She admitted, and felt heat bleed across her cheeks. "I can't pop a guy."

Without a shed of defensiveness, Tansu repealed the firmness of her grip. Finger slid from the trigger. Hand loosened, knuckles slackened, blaster hung loosely from her fingers.

Her downward sloped brows lessened, and pitched upward, questioning: "Why did you shoot that fella?"

The words swirled around her, like uninked tattoos sailing through the air. "Dont'cha'feel bad?"

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[Valintyn]

He shook his head and shrugged, seeing her fingers grew slack around the trigger and the barrel tilted away from him.

"Nah," he looked at his empty hands, briefly annoyed, and gestured back at the bar. His glass floated from the bar and back into his hand. He took a sip, then gave it a little shake in front of her, sloshing the amber liquid around.

"Farm girl like you probably knows a thing or two about whiskey. First time you sip it, feels like you're drinkin' speeder fluid, yeah? But you take another sip. Then another. You get used to the taste."

Tilting back the glass he drank the last of the Corellian label and finished with a satisfied smack of the lips.

"Goes down easy after that."

He dangled the glass in front of them, then let it drop. It shattered on the floor, pieces spinning. He watched it, a bored expression in those lilac irises.

"Killin's kinda like that."

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

​

There was a strong impulse to take a step forward, and another that suggested she take a step back. Caught between both, she stayed still, mesmerized by the demonstration.

The person ahead of her seemed just as caught between two pulls — not the same kind, of course, but their disinterest in the grand and their interest in the details felt like someone who might be trapped with something. What, Tansu couldn't discern. Her worldview was far too limited to draw any sort of wise conclusions.

She made a petulant, disagreeable sound through her nose at the insinuation of her familiarity with whiskey.

Admittedly, he wasn't wrong. There wasn't much to do back home, and her brothers had a penchant for experimenting with self-made moonshine. Every time the taste seemed to worsen.

"Ah?!" Wide-eyed, she sought out the barkeep. Surely the bartender wouldn't appreciate a patron breaking glasses! Perhaps she'd have another advocate on her side for this Zeltron's arrest. But the barkeep seemed to be intentionally avoiding her gaze. A finger pointed lamely at the ground, and she finally willed to take a step back.

Those few inches were precious, and she felt the miasmic pressure of enchantment lessen. She didn't know what was wrong with her, but something was, and the further she stepped back, that eerie and unlabelled feeling lessened.

The teenager took another experimental backward step, and found herself stiffen and lift her blaster again. Like an invisible hold around her arms unravelled slightly.

Hm. Weird.

With her rediscovered agency, she used it to go back to her original intent.

"Yer a mess." She both observed and accused. "A right rapscallion. You needa be behind bars or somethin'. I'm not gonna shoot to kill ya, but you need to —"

Just then, the bartender's bouncer came sauntering over. Huge, hefty, and with enough muscle on him to put pause in a bantha's charge, the lasat had mean-lookin' green eyes hidden under a scowl of violet dusted fur. And he was coming straight for them.

"Oh good!" Tansu perked up, relieved to finally have aid.

Imagine her shock when the bouncer grabbed her arm aggressively, and not Isar's.

"What?! What're you doin'?! Lemme go! That guy's a murderer and look! Club property!" She waved the barrel end of her gun frantically at the shards on the floor.

The giant lasat grunted.

"You need an eye-dee to get in here. Guests are required a one-drink minimum. Y'aint it, kiddo. Let's go."

Tansu squirmed and struggled, shoving her foot against the heel of the giant lasat's ankle for leverage. For all her fuss, she barely budged. So she raised her voice:"BUT HE KILLED SOMEONE! Arrest him!"

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[Valintyn]

The lasat seemed more concerned with losing his liquor license over the underaged human brat than with looking into allegations of murder. Besides, looking into a murder sounded dangerous.

Isar didn't move except to cross his arms in front of him. He should probably just watch it play out. She'd be tossed out, call the authorities later. By the time they arrived he would have finished a second drink and disappeared into the night - if they even came at all. But something about her, that naivety... it bothered him.

If she kept waving blasters at the wrong people, she would end up a holo-chalk outline one day. Unless she learned how to use that blaster.

Yeah. That's right. I'm doing her a favor.

Bitter thoughts that made him grimace at the lies.

Come on now, that really why?

Did that make him no better than the refuse they'd stuck him in an Alliance cell with, a galaxy's worth of stinking filth? Maybe. A tingling came into the back of his mind. He wanted to feel something, anything. And that touch of fear, that niggling doubt, yeah... that was something. Isar followed it, a bloodhound with a scent.

"Hey," Isar called to the lasat, "She has a gun."

Just a few words. A few words and a tug in the Force, pulling at rising, knotted anger in the barkeep. Not hard, the lasat didn't keep it buried deep. Isar felt the large alien's anger bubbling at the surface. For a brief moment, he wondered at its source: divorce, death in the family, couldn't afford his mortgage? Yeah, something banal like that, something simple. It usually was. Isar didn't feel like exploring the why, only used it as a catalyst for what happened next.

The lasat seemed to notice the blaster in her hands for the first time and his eyes just about bulged out of his head at the sight of her brandished weapon. His huge, four clawed hands suddenly wrapped round her throat and started to squeeze, driven by a primal instinct - an instinct Isar encouraged with the Force and his pheromones, feeding it. The lasat tried to lift her into the air as he squeezed, rippling muscles threatening to snap her neck like a twig.

"It's you or him, Blondie. Like wood on a campfire."

 

[Tansu Treicolt]

​

"Hey," "She has a gun."

That, for some reason, seemed more important than the murder allegation Tansu had broadcast.

"Yeah but —" She wasn't using it on anyone! The safety was still on! The Lasat didn't seem to care. Any of her attempted objections fell silent, and the only sounds she made were strangled hyruks and gurks, gasping for air. She tried to protest, but words failed. Air failed. She was just kicking feet and clawing hands, scraping at the oversized furry wrists that closed over her trachea. Suffocating, immense pressure ignited more pain and fear than she'd ever known.

"Pl—please." The suddenness of the guard's contempt felt misguided. And, if Tansu had more time to prepare, perhaps she could have traced it. But instead, all she had was the need to survive. And her clocked ticked by the firmer the Lasat pressed, the deeper, darker, her bruises spread and grew.

Passing out wouldn't be an option, she was vaguely aware of that. If she went unconscious, she would never wake up.

"It's you or him, Blondie. Like wood on a campfire."

It was hard to hear the conniving snide over the thumping pulse in her ears, and the focused grunt of her oppressor, but there was something nasty, intentional, purposeful, behind that sentence. Tansu whimpered out, tried to kick at the guard's belly, failed, and felt herself going slack.

Shooting him in the head would be so easy. Theoretically. But he was innocent. She couldn't do it. And her saber, it was...hidden at her hip and...

Consciousness threatened to slip away. Her vision blackened.

"Please." She whispered out again, broken, hands tearing into those which gripped relentlessly against her throat. He was only doing his job. Not a very good one but.. through teary eyes and blurred focus, Tansu made saw the edge of hell in those irises. Like someone driven mad and out of control. "I —"

How could she get out of this?

Her blaster clattered to the floor noisily, between herself and the brute, and, barely conscious, Tansu took all her focus to mentally divide herself from the Lasat. It took everything to visualize him, and her, and gather up whatever amount of The Force she could muster and then bellow it outward.

The blast was enough to knock the Lasat in the chest and belly like an AA-5 Ton truck. He stumbled back, arms out and dropped Tansu to the ground. She slid a foot or two, not much, gagging, gasping, and all sorts of undignified sounds and heaves to just try and gasp in as much air as possible to refuel herself back to mobility. For now, she remained a heap clinging to ever-slippery consciousness.

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