Public Twice as Bright, Half as Long

[Delsin Shaw]

Nar Shaddaa

The bars and venues of Nar Shaddaa were the perfect place to recklessly spend credits. Even more so, when it was at the benefit of others. Benefit being a very generous term of buying round after round, after round of drinks for everyone in the bar. Sitting at one of the booths, after having paid for various drinks over the past several hours now, a rough looking individual came over, and slid themselves into the seat across from me. Bright smile on my face before taking a deep swig of the Seikoshan Whiskey. My particular drink of choice. Just the right kind of burn while having a flavor that didn't taste like piss from a farm animal. A gentle raising of my glass to them while they sat forward.

"Ahhh, and what have you come here for my fine friend?"
"You spend credits too much."
"Something wrong with that?"
"Spending that much puts a target on your back."
"Oh I am aware."
"Then you won't mind if I-"

A sharp flash of movement. The drink still in my hand, and immobile, as my other hand had slammed down onto his. A dagger piercing through his hand and into the table. Pinning it there like parchment to a board. His yelp of pain as I slowly leaned forward. Whispering gently to him.

"I would think carefully of your next words. I am being generous to you and the other patrons."

A wide open set of eyes looked at me, my hand holding the dagger firmly into his hand. Blood slowly oozing from the top and bottom of his hand onto the booth table. My eyes looked to the blade then to his face again before gently tilting the grip. Letting the blade shift in the soft flesh of his hand between the bones.

"Alright!"

A quick pull of the weapon before sheathing it. A bright smile on my face once more as I spoke cleanly to them. Tossing over a credit chip that clinked onto the table and landed into his lap.

"Get bandaged up. Here, on me."

The man stood up and left me to my devices. A shake of my head at the absurdity of what happened before taking another sip from the glass. Once done, I let out an audible sigh of enjoyment.

 

[Braze]

​

〘BOUNTY: Delsin Shaw 〙



​

Braze stepped into the establishment, looking about with curiosity before his gaze settled on Delsin Shaw .

The little droid perched on his shoulder churred quietly near his ear, while the second droid tucked within his cloak kept scanning behind him as he made his way to the bar and took up a glass.

With that secured, Braze crossed to the booth where Delsin Shaw sat, flashing him a coy smile and a wink before downing the drink in one clean go. Then he turned the empty glass over and set it upside down on the table in front of the man.

"So… is it true you're wanted, or did you just make that up to feel popular?"

---

Bounty Hunter

Name: Braze
Affiliation: Independent
Bounties Claimed: [X]

#ID-45 • ACTIVE

-- This post is made in accordance with the Bounty Hunter's Code. The target's toggle was active at the time of posting. This post includes a valid license and links directly to the bounty as required by board rules. --​

 

[Delsin Shaw]

The room never really settles into anything permanent. It only pretends to.

Light shifts across glass. Credits change hands. Voices rise and fall in patterns that suggest importance to those producing them. I let all of it exist without interference. It costs nothing to observe and even less to ignore what does not require acknowledgment.
Someone approaches.

There is a pause in the air that other people might interpret as significance. I do not. Distance closes, not because it matters, but because it is physically permitted to. A question is spoken. Lightly, almost carelessly framed. Something about whether I am known, or whether the weight attached to me is self-assigned. It lands nowhere that requires response.

I continue what I was doing.

There is no shift in posture that would imply consideration. No pause that would suggest thought being redirected. The motion of my attention remains exactly where it was before the voice existed

The room does not change its rhythm for him, and neither do I.

He remains in the space where he decided to speak, as if proximity can create inclusion. It does not. Not in me. Not here. Not in anything I am currently tracking.

The rest of the room continues as though uninterrupted. That is the part most fail to recognize. It is not that I isolate him. It is that nothing around him is required to adjust for his presence. Everything continues at its natural pace, unbent.

Still nothing is granted in return.

Not acknowledgment. Not refusal. Not correction. Because all of those things would imply that something has been received. Instead, the space remains unchanged.

A child can throw words into a current and believe the water has heard them. The water does not hear. It passes through. It continues.

I finish what holds my attention. The details complete themselves. My focus releases from the table, from the exchange of value, from the surface-level mechanics of the room. My body shifts only when there is reason to move forward, not backward, not outward.

I stand.

The booth ceases to matter the moment I am no longer using it. The environment resumes its own relevance in my absence of engagement with it. I move through it the same way everything else moves through background noise.

And whatever remains behind me is not something I carried forward.

It was never carried at all.

Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Delsin Shaw ​

Braze watched him rise, pale lashes widening slightly as jade green gaze settled on the man, as if he were weighing the silence left behind. Then a devious little smirk began to curl in to place etching it's self across his soft visage.

The little droid on his shoulder gave a soft chirr, lenses adjusting as they followed Delsin's movement through the room. Braze did not hurry after him. He only lifted the upside-down glass between two fingers and set it upright again.

Braze flipped a small latch on his gauntlet and tapped a few buttons, confirming his target and relaying the information elsewhere. He would rather avoid violence, if possible, and preferred to take him in a less crowded place. His droids were already mapping exits, angles, weapons, and bystanders.

"Impressive," Braze said, as if marveling at how he had asked one question and Delsin had managed to monologue an entire refusal without saying a word. "Does the strong, silent type routine work on all the girls, or am I getting special treatment?"

The annoying pest that was Braze followed after him, drawing one hand up with overdramatic flair. He pressed the back of it to his forehead and released an equally theatrical sigh.

"Oh, Delsin~ You're so0o0o0o0o0 mysterious~" he crooned, playfully mocking the voice of some lady completely smitten by his antics.

The droid trilled again, supplying some more chirring beeps.

G.I.Z.M.O.
═ ✦ ═══ ✦ ═

"Bweep-bweep. Dee-deet-krrt… wooOOop. Bip-bip-bip. Chirr-vrrt… meep? Deet-deet-deet."

That sufficently interupted Braze's teasing. He sighed softly looking back at the fellow.
"Since you are committed to pretending this is not happening, and being no fun..." he said, "allow me to make it official."

One small motion of his gauntlet brought the bounty puck up in a pale wash of light.

"Delsin Shaw, you are the subject of an active bounty For the murder of a mighty wroshyr tree on Ruusan; I am declaring intent to pursue and bring you in under the listed terms."

The little droid on his shoulder gave a prim, self-important chirr. Braze smiled again.

"You may come quietly,"

 

[Braze]

Braze took out hand cuffs to put on Delsin Shaw .

 

[Delsin Shaw]

The announcement finally accomplished something the questions had failed to do.

As the bounty puck illuminated the space between us and Braze formally declared his intent, I found my stride slowing for the first time since leaving the table. It wasn't concern that caused it. It wasn't even surprise. Instead, it was the growing suspicion that I had somehow misunderstood the conversation despite being present for all of it. The possibility irritated me enough that I found myself replaying the last several minutes in my head while Nar Shaddaa continued carrying on around us. Music drifted from somewhere deeper in the establishment. Glasses clinked against tables. Patrons laughed, argued, and drank without the slightest awareness that a bounty hunter had just announced his intentions a few meters away.

Then the realization finally settled into place.

A tree.

Of all the possibilities I had considered when the young man first sat beside me, that particular outcome had never crossed my mind. The absurdity of it lingered for several seconds before a quiet laugh escaped me despite myself. It wasn't mocking. It wasn't cruel. It was the genuine reaction of someone confronted by a reality so unexpected that it briefly overwhelmed every other thought.

Slowly, I turned to face him.

For the first time since our conversation began, I gave Braze my complete and undivided attention. Not the casual observations I'd been making before. Not the detached curiosity that accompanied most interactions. Actual attention. The kind reserved for puzzles that refused to behave the way they were supposed to. My gaze moved from the bounty puck to the droid perched upon his shoulder and then back to the young man himself, examining him as though I expected some hidden punchline to suddenly reveal itself.

Nothing came.

He was serious.

That realization somehow made the situation even stranger.

Most hunters who pursued me concerned themselves with atrocities measured in bodies. They obsessed over massacres, political crimes, assassinations, wars, conspiracies, and every other grand evil the galaxy preferred to catalogue. They built narratives around monsters and convinced themselves that slaying one would somehow improve the world around them. It was predictable. Almost comforting in its consistency. Braze, however, had walked into a bar filled with criminals, sat down across from a man responsible for horrors he likely couldn't begin to quantify, and chosen to serve a bounty connected to a tree.

A mighty tree, admittedly.

But a tree nonetheless.

The longer I considered it, the less ridiculous it became and the more curious it grew. Most people focused upon scale. Braze seemed focused upon principle. Whether that principle stemmed from wisdom or naïveté remained an open question, but I found myself increasingly interested in discovering the answer.

My head tilted slightly as I continued studying him through the mask.

"You may be the strangest bounty hunter I've ever met."

The observation carried no mockery because none was intended. If anything, there was a faint note of sincerity beneath the words. Over the years I had encountered zealots, mercenaries, Jedi, Sith, soldiers, vigilantes, criminals, idealists, and fanatics of every imaginable variety. They all tended to follow familiar patterns. Braze did not. Every assumption I made about him seemed to collapse the moment I thought I understood what motivated him.

My gaze drifted briefly toward the little droid as it chirped from his shoulder before returning to its owner.

"And that is saying something."

For a moment I simply stood there, considering him. The confidence wasn't forced. The humor wasn't an act. Even the declaration itself lacked the hostility most bounty hunters wrapped around their work. He genuinely seemed to believe this was a conversation that could still end peacefully, which was perhaps the most fascinating detail of all. The galaxy had spent years teaching people to fear monsters. Braze, for reasons I couldn't yet determine, appeared determined to speak to one.

The thought lingered long enough for another quiet laugh to escape me.

"You know, if you'd led with the tree, you might have saved both of us a considerable amount of time."

My gaze dropped briefly toward the glowing bounty puck before returning to him. Behind the mask, I found myself wondering whether he understood how unusual he truly was. Most people entered a room already convinced they knew who I was. They saw a Sith. A monster. A threat. An enemy. Braze seemed more interested in figuring it out for himself, and that curiosity had earned far more of my respect than the bounty ever would.

Unfortunately for him, respect and compliance were not the same thing.

"I'm afraid I'm still not coming quietly."

The refusal came without malice. Without threat. Without even the implication of violence. It was delivered with the same conversational ease one might use when declining another drink. Yet as the words left my mouth, my attention never wavered from him. The bounty itself no longer interested me. The tree interested me slightly more. Braze, however, had become genuinely fascinating, and I suspected that whatever happened next would teach me far more about the man than the conversation we had just shared.

Braze

 

[Braze]

Tags: Delsin Shaw ​

"I suppose bounty hunting wouldn't be much of a job if everyone reasonably decided to cooperate…" Braze chirped simply.

Delsin's suspicions were right. It was about principle.

He was the acquisition, and Braze had taken the contract over him killing the big tree. Perhaps others would have thought it a negligible, almost laughable task; some small offense hardly worth the trouble of pursuit. But to Braze, it mattered. A life had been taken. Something ancient had been cut down, and the world had been left poorer for it.

So here he was, bright-eyed and slight as a blade of moonlight, treating the whole affair with the breezy politeness of someone discussing afternoon tea… while still very much intending to see the contract through. His jade green eyes began to tremor almost imperceptibly as they took in Delsin Shaw 's form studying his body line carefully.

"Your initial bounty of 75,000 was raised to 225,000…" Braze chirped. "That surpasses the 200,000-credit threshold, which places you beyond both Galactic and Regional brackets. Congratulations… you have reached the very bottom rung of the Most Wanted Range category."

His hand moved to a pretty little blue orb like gem at the clasp of his cloak as he adjusted it gently keeping his attention locked on Delsin for any sudden motions.

"We can do this here," Braze said, glancing briefly around the bar, "but I would prefer not to involve the furniture, the patrons, or whatever unfortunate person owns this establishment. So I am going to politely suggest we step outside."

The little droid on his shoulder gave a soft chirp, as if recording the offer for legal purposes.

At the same time, a few simple commands slipped through the droid's quiet relay. Outside the establishment, a team ( FFS - C.A.T.C.H. | FFS - B.L.A.S.T.A. | FFS - S.P.A.R.K.) of Braze's standby units stirred from their waiting positions and began following capture procedure. They moved hovering into vantage points near the exits connected to the building, careful not to block them outright… at least not yet.

"You may consider that my final courtesy before I begin active apprehension."

 

[Delsin Shaw]

The more Braze spoke, the more convinced I became that the bounty itself had ceased being the important part of the conversation. The credits didn't interest me, nor did the increase in value or the arbitrary distinction of having crossed some threshold that elevated me into a different category of criminal. Those things were little more than numbers assigned by people who preferred quantifying problems to understanding them. Somewhere in the galaxy, someone had decided my existence was worth a specific amount of money and then later decided it was worth more. The practice always struck me as oddly comforting to those involved, as though assigning a value to something somehow made it easier to comprehend.

Braze, however, wasn't truly speaking about numbers. The bounty might have been the reason he was here, but it clearly wasn't the reason he cared. That distinction became increasingly apparent the longer I listened. While the puck displayed figures and classifications, Braze kept returning to principles. Life. Responsibility. Consequence. The conversation had long since drifted away from credits and into something considerably more interesting.

As he continued speaking, my attention lingered on him rather than the bounty puck itself. The subtle tremor in his eyes wasn't fear, nor was it uncertainty. It was concentration. Beneath the easy smile and conversational tone was someone actively studying me, attempting to understand the person standing before him rather than the reputation attached to my name. The droid perched upon his shoulder chirped dutifully while its master discussed my arrest with the same casual politeness another man might use when discussing travel plans or the weather.

Then he gave me a choice. One to leave the bar, and handle this, "outside."

The revelation itself wasn't surprising. The moment Braze had identified himself as a bounty hunter, I had assumed that they would have gotten the drop on me. Instead of openly giving me a choice. Braze had done the opposite, openly revealing their intentions.

That detail mattered more than he likely realized.

My gaze drifted briefly toward the nearest exit as I considered the implications. When my attention returned to him, I found myself studying him with renewed curiosity.

"You know," I said slowly, amusement creeping into my voice despite myself, "most people begin with the massacres, the murders, the conspiracies, the planetary incidents, or whichever political disaster they've decided I was responsible for this week. Occasionally someone gets particularly creative and blames me for an entire war."

The absurdity of the situation settled over me as I considered it. Of all the accusations that could have brought a bounty hunter across the galaxy, of all the horrors my name had become associated with over the years, Braze had arrived because of a tree.

The observation lingered in my thoughts longer than it should have. At first it seemed ridiculous. Then it became fascinating, because he wasn't truly here for the tree. Not really.

He was here because something living had been destroyed and he had decided that fact mattered. Most people only seemed interested in tragedy once it reached a sufficient scale. They ignored individual losses until enough of them accumulated to become statistics. Braze appeared to operate according to a different philosophy entirely. Whether the loss involved one life or a thousand seemed largely irrelevant to him. What mattered was that the loss existed at all.

I wasn't entirely certain whether that made him wise or hopelessly idealistic. Perhaps both.

My gaze settled briefly on the blue gem clasping his cloak before returning to his eyes.

"And yet despite all of that, you've still offered me a choice."

The statement wasn't intended as a challenge. It was simply an observation. He could have attempted an ambush. He could have waited until I stepped outside before springing the trap. Instead, he had chosen transparency and extended a final courtesy to a man he believed deserved arrest. The galaxy rarely rewarded people for remaining principled, which made those who persisted all the more unusual.

For a moment I found myself wondering how long he had managed to hold onto that belief and whether the galaxy had tried to take it from him yet. A quiet laugh escaped me as the thought settled in. Not at him. At the situation. At the sheer absurdity of standing in a Nar Shaddaa cantina discussing morality with a bounty hunter carrying a contract over a tree while hidden droids prepared for a confrontation outside.

The laughter faded as I shook my head.

"I'm afraid the answer remains the same."

My gaze drifted once more toward the exits before settling back upon him.

"But I appreciate the offer."

The words carried more sincerity than I would normally allow myself, because despite everything, I did appreciate it. Braze had approached me with honesty, offered me a choice, and continued treating me like a person rather than a problem to be solved. That made him infinitely more interesting than the bounty itself, and I was beginning to suspect that fact would complicate matters.

Braze