Public Neon Moon [Open Life Day Event - Criminal Style]

[Kinley Pryse]

You've been hit by... you've been struck by...

Kinley Pryse is making her way the only way she knows how, but that's just a little bit more than the law will allow
​

Life Day on Nar Shaddaa didn't come with glowing orbs, family feasts, or Wookiee songs drifting through warm halls.

Here, no one gathered around hearths. No one went home.

But the galaxy turned another year older all the same, and the Smugglers' Moon found its own way to celebrate.

The cantina was alive, too loud, too crowded, and far too volatile for anyone with good sense. Smoke clung to the ceiling in greasy layers, tinted green and amber by flickering holos that advertised drinks no one asked what was in. Music pounded from battered speakers, the kind of rhythm that didn't invite dancing so much as dared someone to start a fight.

And someone always did.

A bar fight had already spilled across three tables, chairs cracking as a Rodian went down laughing with blood on his teeth. Credits and dice skidded across the floor where a betting ring collapsed into chaos, shouts rising as fast as the odds changed. At the dartboards, sharp metal thunked into durasteel inches from unlucky fingers, punctuated by curses and drunken cheers. Somewhere in the back booths, spice traded hands in practiced motions, quick, quiet, lethal.

This was Life Day, Nar Shaddaa style.

Glasses clinked not in toast but in challenge. Drinks were swallowed like armor. Old rivals crossed paths, new grudges were born, and a few temporary alliances formed under the shared understanding that tonight, everyone was reckless. Smugglers, bounty hunters, slicers, enforcers; every flavor of criminal the moon could breed or attract packed shoulder to shoulder, laughing too loudly, watching each other too closely.

No goodwill. No peace on earth.

Just survival, excess, and the unspoken agreement that if the rest of the galaxy insisted on celebrating hope, Nar Shaddaa would celebrate being alive, however briefly, however violently.

And by morning, the cantina would be scrubbed clean, the bodies hauled out, the debts remembered.

Life Day would pass.

Nar Shaddaa would remain.

A Smooth Criminal

 

[Sharill]

Kinley Pryse


The cantina was all heat and pressure. Lights burned too low, bass too high, smoke hanging like fog that had nowhere better to be. Every table had a deal going, or a fight brewing, or both. Sharill stood near the bar, half in shadow, drink in hand. She wasn’t drinking it. Not yet. She was watching the door.

He was late.

A full cycle, maybe more. Enough time for three arguments, one stabbing, and a Twi’lek bouncer to drag someone out by their collar and drop them in the gutter like old meat. Nar Shaddaa ran on timing and threat, and right now hers was slipping in both directions. Her contact was supposed to bring parts. Stabilizers, micro-coils, a few illegal cores. Nothing fancy. But rare enough, volatile enough, to matter. Enough to get her killed, depending on who saw what. She didn’t like waiting. Especially not in places where everyone looked like they were running from something.

A table nearby exploded into shouting. A pair of Weequay shoved each other, fists tight around empty shot glasses. One reached for his belt. His friend pushed back, and then chairs scraped loud and fast. No weapons drawn, not yet. The crowd leaned in without getting up. Sharill didn’t flinch. Didn’t step back either.

The bartender, a Nikto with a rag that looked older than the bar, set another drink near her elbow. She hadn’t asked for it. Didn’t make a scene. Just nodded once and let it sit.

Voices cut through the noise. A slicer in the back corner was trying to auction off decrypted Imperial data. The bid was getting too high. That kind of heat could spill. One wrong tone, and someone would start bleeding.
Sharill’s drink wobbled. She glanced down. Someone had bumped the bar. Human. Young. Nervous. Too many eyes on him. Not enough sense to notice. She moved her hand off her blaster. Just in case.

Still no sign of her contact.

In the far corner, someone laughed a little too hard. A short, clipped sound. Not drunk. Not amused. The kind of laugh that came before something stupid. Sharill turned, slow. The Weequay weren’t arguing anymore. One of them was sitting very still. The other was gone. No sign of a fight. No blood. No noise.

The cantina swallowed things fast. Sharill checked the time again. She looked toward the door one last time. No movement. Just more smoke, more noise, more faces looking for an exit they could afford. She muttered to herself, just loud enough to hear it.
“This is what happens when you start trusting amateurs.”

Her drink still hadn’t moved. She picked it up anyway. Didn’t sip. Just held it there. Heavy. Waiting.

Someone else walked in.
Not the contact.
Worse.

 

[Seraphine Vosten]

The cantina doors hissed apart like they were already tired of the night.
Seraphine Vosten stepped through anyway.
She looked like hell in the specific, hard-earned way Nar Shaddaa respected.

Dust streaked her cowgirl leathers, ground deep into the seams where tan should have been warm and clean. One sleeve was torn at the shoulder, the fabric darkened with something that might have been blood. Her boots tracked grit across the floor, every step heavy, deliberate, carrying the weight of a bad deal and worse decisions. Her hair, usually pulled tight and purposeful, hung loose and tangled, clinging to sweat and smoke like it had lost a fight of its own.

She smelled like ozone, dried blaster residue, and a night she had no intention of explaining.
Her blasters, though, sat right where they always did. Polished enough. Charged enough. Comfortable as old sins. The kind of weapons that told a story without her needing to open her mouth.

Seraphine paused just inside the threshold, eyes sweeping the room. She cataloged the chaos in seconds. The busted tables. The blood on the Rodian's grin. The way too many hands hovered near holsters and too few faces looked sober enough to care. Life Day. Of course. The whole moon leaned into its worst impulses when it felt festive.


"Figures," she muttered, voice dry as sand.
She pushed forward through the crowd, shoulders squared, daring anyone to test her. A drunken human bumped her hip, sloshing his drink. He looked ready to apologize until he caught the look in her eyes. Then he decided he had somewhere else to be.
Smart man.

She reached the bar and planted both hands on the sticky surface, leaning her weight into it like she might collapse if she didn't. Her throat burned. Her head throbbed. Every muscle screamed its own complaint in a chorus of regrets.
The bartender glanced up, took in the torn leathers, the blasters, the faint scorch mark near her ribs. He didn't ask questions. On Nar Shaddaa, questions got you killed.


"Something strong," Seraphine said. "Something that doesn't ask me how my Life Day's goin'."
The bartender snorted and reached for a bottle that didn't have a label anymore.
As he poured, Seraphine exhaled slowly and let her eyes drift shut for half a heartbeat. Images threatened to surface. Xae's face, too smooth, too calm. A deal that went sideways. Voices raised. Blasterfire in the dark. Running harder than she meant to, leaving more behind than she'd planned.
Lyra Vosten would have words. Later. Always later.
Right now, Seraphine just needed the noise to drown out the rest.
The glass hit the counter. She grabbed it, downed half in one pull, and winced as it scorched its way down. The burn was welcome. Honest. Simple.
She lifted the glass in a mock toast to no one in particular.


"Happy Life Day," she murmured, lips curling into a tired, crooked smile.

Kinley Pryse Sharill Tags: OPEN

 

[Allie J.]

​

[]

Hellhound - DeathbyRomy ft. Jazmin Bean
​

Location: Nar Shaddaa
Tag: Kinley Pryse .. Sharill .. Seraphine Vosten


Allie J. stepped into the cantina on Nar Shaddaa with a measured grace, her presence cutting through the haze of smoke and the rank stench that clung to some of the bodies who lingered here. The patrons, not all but some, moved with a sluggish deliberation, each one seeming to carry the weight of foul deeds and fouler odors, their eyes glinting with suspicion or indifference: or both.

Even the air itself seemed corrupt, a thick, oily suspension that pressed against her skin and carried whispers of things best left unnamed. She inhaled with care, noting the sharp tang of sweat, burnt rations, and chemical additives that filled every corner, a bouquet of vice and neglect that set her teeth on edge.

The cantina's music was a grotesque mockery of melody, a series of grinding notes and off-key harmonics that scraped across the ears like claws across stone. It was impossible to tell whether the instruments were alive or cursed, or whether some hidden sorcery twisted their sound into madness.

The rhythm clawed at her thoughts, threading through the edges of perception and making her wonder how any sentient being could endure such a symphony without succumbing to some quiet, creeping despair. It was a fitting accompaniment to the distorted tableau before her: the patrons, the lights, the shadows all moving in an uneasy choreography of chaos and lawlessness.

She found herself pausing in the doorway, a hint of sardonic amusement touching her lips as she considered why, of all places, she had chosen this den of degradation to celebrate Life Day. Perhaps it was the stark contrast, the innocence of celebration set against the foul theater of scum and villainy that drew her here. Or perhaps, she mused, it was the subtle thrill of camaraderie, of taking solace in her own corrupted vitality and morals amidst a world so thoroughly steeped in its own corruption and despair.

Whatever the reason, the cantina, with its haunting ambience and its odorous congregation of miscreants, would serve as her stage for observing the fragile, fleeting joys of life, even as shadows whispered of darker truths lurking just beyond the edge of perception.

Moving through the cantina with deliberate ease, her eyes scanned the dim interior before settling on the bar, where a green-skinned Twi'lek moved with practiced fluidity. The female bartender's lekku swayed with each motion, an elegant counterpoint to the grime and chaos surrounding her, and Allie placed her order; a non-alcoholic drink served in a clean glass, an oasis of clarity amidst the cantina's background.

She slid a few credits across the counter with a curt nod, the cold metal clicking softly against the worn surface, and took possession of her drink with the detached precision of one accustomed to maintaining control in environments designed to unsettle.

With her beverage in hand, Allie drifted toward a secluded table, selecting a spot that offered a vantage of the room while minimizing unwanted interaction. The cantina's foul symphony of noise continued to claw at her senses, and she resolved, quietly but firmly, to avoid any debate over the hideous music that assaulted the air.

Finally settling into a chair, she allowed herself a measured sip, feeling the cool liquid cut through her parched lips, a rare comfort amidst the encroaching madness, and prepared to observe the fanciful theatre of Nar Shaddaa with careful detachment, savoring the fragile pleasure of solitude in a place built on chaos and vice.

Allie lifted her glass with a languid, sardonic grace, the liquid catching the flickering light like a shard of fleeting sanity. "Happy Life Day," she intoned, her voice carrying a mockery that seemed to ripple through the shadows, directed at no one in particular.

 

[Gillem]

GILLEM

His mechanical thumb folded back and a small blue flame ignited, lighting the end of his cigarette, just revealing the outlines of his face from the shadowed corner he sat in, foot propped up on the table as he held his glass in the other hand sipping on something strong but constant. A deep inhale and hold melted away all the troubles nearby, eased the senses. A slow exhale as his eyes opened to gaze at the cantina before him. He was here for the same reason as anyone else. For no reason at all.

His revolvers clung to his hips as he picked up his cards to look at his hand again.

“Well? Ya callin, Gillem?”

His eyes flicked over his cards and squinted over to his opponent. Another human, bald, more teeth than brain cells, and even those were lacking. A scoff left his lips with a puff of smoke. The fight rose more ruckus across the bar and his eye stayed on his opponent, the cybernetic eye looking him over for information in the bounty hunting database.

He was off today, but it was habit.

“Five hundred.”

He tossed in some more credits to the pot.

“Raised.”

The human across from him looked down at his cards, the sly smirk leaving his face as he growled.

“Call it!”

Gillem took another casual puff as he flipped his cards. The other human eagerly flipping his.

What a surprise, Gillem beat him, for the fifth time.

Enraged, the human flipped the table.

“THIS IS BANTHA CHIT! HE'S CHEATING!”

Gillem folded his hands over his lap, tapping a finger on his gun.

“Perhaps you’d like to bet in a way where neither of us can cheat.”

The human’s eyes fell to the slug throwing revolvers he was tapping on. High quality, packing a punch that would probably make your average mando see stars if shot in the head.

A bead of sweat ran down his temple.

A pause of tension clung to the air like sticking tar on a curbside.

The human drew first only to see Gillem's iron already pointed at him. Gillem glared in his direction, daring him to try and pull the trigger.

“Say when.”

The human’s hand shook while Gillem was still as stone.

“You’re not worth it Gillem.”

He holstered his weapon as he spat at his boot.

“Keep the damn credits.”

He walked away.

Gillem took another drag as he flourished his pistol and holstered it with ease.

“Smart option.”

Tags: Open​