Private Neon Burn

[Mauve du Vain]

New Vertica City, Nar Shaddaa

Club Vertica Casino

"I don't think I'll ever get tired of the view," Mauve sighed, staring out the window.

The lights of the sleepless moon shone beneath the floating city of New Vertica.

The protocol droid's servos whirred as it cocked its head. "Madame?"

Mauve looked away from the view, drawn by the bustle of the casino floor below the mezzanine.

"I have an estate on Naboo now, did you know?"

"Of course, Lady Tapolo."

Mauve snorted, "Ridiculous."

She tossed back the rest of her glass, the liquor burning down her throat, then handed the crystal to her droid. "Any big fish?"

"As a matter of fact, we have -"

"I'm going to go walk the floor," she said over him, waving a hand dismissively.

"Oh. Of course, Madame."

She strode down the stairs of the mezzanine, wearing a backless dress of shimmersilk, dark as the night, and matching heels. Gold jewelry dripped from her wrists and neck. Once upon a time, Mauve relied solely upon her natural abilities to navigate society. But after being attacked by a nine foot Whiphid bounty hunter, then shot by her own bodyguard and betrayed, she'd had to take several additional steps to protect herself. They told her the shimmersilk could take a blaster bolt without burning. And the bracelet on her right hand could activate a miniaturized personal shield, if needed. But it would burn out in a few hits.

Mauve tried to remember what life was like before having to worry about such things and found she couldn't. Forcing a smile she didn't quite feel, her eyes swept across the casino floor. Looking for something interesting. Anything that might distract her.

Milla

 

[Milla]

New Vertica City, Nar Shaddaa​

Nar Shadda was perfect. Milla didn't know why anyone ever left. She'd landed here after bullying her way onto a small transport, disappearing into the low life of the city. Every planet she'd gone to had been an improvement upon the last, but she thought Nar Shaddaa really had a certain poetry in its filth and decay, a certain amount of desperation that hung like a hazy miasma an inch bellow your nose. How wonderful a place she could slide a piece of glass into someone's liver just for thinking they could take her things, and no one had raised an alarm or called for law enforcement as she'd let the man slide down the wall of the space port.

Wonderful.

Milla wasn't a particularly elegant or beautiful figure. There was a vague sense of the feral that did not denote good health or passion so much as someone who when cornered or trapped might be prone to bite. So when her evening found her slinking into the Vertica Casino, attracted by the shiny distractions of tipsy sentients along with the wealth of different species gathered there, she did not particularly blend in. When she was noticed, at least. Most people were too interested in their vices - their gambling, their flirting, their drinking, their drugs- to care much about the scrawny shadow in the background of the evening. Sure, some people gave her dirty looks but that was fine, none of them signified. She'd been the recipient of far worse expressions. There was an inherent distrust in those eyes as they followed Milla, briefly, until she disappeared again. The sober and suspicious ones Milla avoided coming into contact with again. The ones drinking poison, on purpose, to dull their senses?

Oh those were easy prey.

If she'd been picking pockets or lifting chronos, someone would have interfered. But all she did, now and again, was casually pluck a fallen hair from the back of a chair. Or run a sample sheet along the rim of a sipped from glass. Tucked into her bag as she moved around the crowded club. Nothing illegal with that perse, no rule against it at least, was there?

Who made rules about theft of abandoned genetics?

An oversight, if ever there was one.

Occasionally, Milla caught sight of a couple of denizens that caught her specific attention. Four arms, for instance, seemed seriously useful. A probiscis? Why, yes, please. The flash of magenta between the space of other bodies? That made her head cock slightly. Starting to drift in that direction even as she lost it again.

Mauve du Vain