Log:A Different Sort of Art Work
A Different Sort of Art Work
OOC Date: June 2017
Location: Art Gallery
Participants: Rheisa Dirleel, Kylo Ren
Today was shit. Stressful, terrifying, humiliating shit. And now she's alone, wallowing deeper into the depression in a state of self-inflicted isolation while she takes out a little pent up frustration on the wood. Furiously knicking away in the middle of the damn exhibit hall, beside the giant Ryl statue.
The new display cases are almost full again, after their unexpected destruction a couple months earlier. The scars on the wall have been painted over, healed, but not erased. That's all she could do, really. Since that disturbing evening, an entirely new addition has joined the many wooden figures in the vertical case. It sits at the very bottom, behind the robed/bearded humanoid, below the many shelves of Togruta. It is tall and narrow. Hooded. Masked.
The darkness wraps him like a garment. His footsteps are unnaturally quiet despite the heavy boots on his feet. The keypad at the door offers up its knowledge after a little prodding; well enough, as it would have had to be replaced entirely otherwise. The dark figure striding through the empty spaces of the gallery had unfinished business with its curator.
The art room is supposed to be private, and it is; unfortunately, that hasn't prevented the disturbing presence from creeping inside, and by the time the sense of dread begins to fill the air, the figure is already standing behind her, regarding the Togruta quietly.
Schiiiiiick- The blade scrapes to a halt, her hands frozen in time, as an inkling of that old hunger, the anger and the fear that broils within it, creeps under her skin and into her heart. The spirits of the air whisper again. He is here..."khos'a ki tohg'ha eh sa'darrra," she intones solemnly, looking only at the floor in front of her as he comes to rest behind the statue. "Your feet are quiet, but your spirit...it is not a silent beast."
"Some things are more difficult to hide," the vocoder crunches, pumping out its deep, processed voice in amplified tones. The figure's hands hang calmly at his sides, belying the tension surrounding him. "I've come back to tell you more about the task I had in mind. Assuming you're still interested in being paid. I would even pay a small sum more, to make up for the..." his visor turns smoothly toward the painted-over marks on the wall. ".../events/ of my last visit. I am pleased to find you alone."
Rheisa lifts her head, looking up to fix her gaze on the seam fusing her studio windowwall with the ceiling. Her kiln glows softly on the other side of that transparisteel. A giant eye in the shadow there. "For Togruta, it is difficult to hide anything. We are...very bad at lying." She looks back down at the evolving project, then puts it to rest on the floor. "I hold many bad thoughts in my heart, for those in the white masks who have come. For what they have done. But I feel that what is more of a sin, is the jealouseee I have, for the truths they so easily hide, behind those white masks." She stands, stiff and exhausted. "I wondered, after your last visit, if the hunter who covers his face in black, has the same secrets, or different ones."
Rheisa turns around and narrows her eyes, dropping her gaze with a small bow of her head to stare at his hip. "I have heard things, and I wonder less, as one does, when they know more." Swallowing, she reaches out to lay a hand on the statue and steady herself while shaking out a numb foot. "I am still curious, to find what it is you feel you've lost," a name lingers on her tongue, but she withholds it. "I have already begun to search, though I do not know the name of what I seek."
(OOC)- Kylo Ren says, "Are there any art supplies in here"
(OOC)- Rheisa Dirleel says, "On this side of things? No. Well, just her lil whittling blade. Everything else is on the workspace side"
-(OOC)- Kylo Ren says, "Okay, hm."
-(OOC)- Kylo Ren says, "Damn. This went downhill."
-(OOC)- Rheisa Dirleel quickly assembles an activity pack for Kylo before he loses his shit. "Here! Here is Crayola!"
The visor turns back toward Rheisa, and the chrome mottled on his mask stares with silent hostility. "I'll /show/ you my secrets," he decides after a long pause, and the black-gloved hand rises from his side, reaching out. The tension in the air builds, as he presses images and sounds into her mind. The shape of a mask, as frightful as his. The triangular mouthpiece. The forced breathing of the respirator. Flames, licking up around it, smoke rising, the crisp scent of burning flesh. "...this is what I seek." The hand lowers again. "The helmet. It survived the fire."
The stripes mottling Rheisa's paling face twitch and dance as she struggles to maintain the brave neutrality of her own 'mask' under the exrutiating weight of so much...force. Eye contact appears frozen in place, but it's not his souless visor she's seeing. It's not the light scent of freshly-waxed floors that she's smelling. The statue under her palm turns rough, like bark and she's there, witnessing a funeral pyre burn, burn, burn. A soft, mournful sound squeaks out and she sucks in a ragged breath once released from the vacuum.
The Togruta sways, but doesn't fall as her heart hiccups back into a more naturally unnatural rhythm. "It is special to you," she whispers. "I will help, if I can. But I do not want your monies." With visions of other fires still flickering in her memory, she hesitantly turns her gaze aside, to the unassuming figure on the lower shelf beneath her kin. "Only a truth." Her fingers reach up to press against the throb in her right temple. "Is it true, that you are the hunter they say? H-hunter of ghedai?" Her voice cracks a second time. The fear of said truth is probably palpable, radiating as pungently as the swamp stench that coated her /earlier/. Maybe at some point before morning, she'll get to be less stinky.
Silence falls. His breathing is audible, but lacks the iconic mechanical wheeze just impressed into Rheisa's thoughts. "Yes. I need to find it." Eventually he raises his head, the mask staring blankly at her. "Find the helmet, and then you will have your truth. Not before." His hands push behind his robe, clasping together. "I don't need to remind you what should happen if you betray my confidence." The new paint on the walls doesn't quite blend in.
And yet...an innocent, misunderstood man would surely have sought to dismiss any claims to the contrary, yes? The few flatish teeth in Rheisa's jaw grind thoughtfully over one another. The unease simmering in her belly only builds. Finally, she produces a feeble nod and the raised hand falls to grip instead at the pain in her chest. She'll look for the melty mask, sure, if she doesn't fall prey to a heart attack first. "You said, it escaped from the moon. This is before, or after the spirit inside was sent to live among the stars?"
"After." There is no hesitation there. The dark figure hardly has the aspect of an innocent man, though it's possible he's misunderstood. Aren't we all? "It left the moon, and at some point after it was kept on the planet Mustafar. From there, the path is... less clear." Optimism persists through the gloomy processing. "I have others looking as well but no art curators. It might be... misidentified as an exhibition piece."
(And then somehow I failed to copy paste my next pose, but it went something likes this: Rheisa blahblah asks Kylo blahblah how she's to know if it has already been found and can stop looking, blahblah, or how to contact him if she does)
"You will know." It doesn't answer her question, but maybe that's the point. "Be careful who you trust. There are many who would bid against me if they knew what you were seeking." The man turns to leave, the tail of his cowl turning behind him, but he pauses in the door. "...I know who your friends are, Rheisa Dirleel, Curator of the Muse, native of the planet Shili. You should know that your Twi'lek patron would not -approve- of our working together. Do not involve 'his hands'. Or hand, as might be the case." There's a small electronic snort, and then he strides out, taking the pervasive sense of dread with him.
