Log:Corellian Memories
Qi'ra meets Colo Nell in the Grave Thorn Lounge...
OOC Date: April 27, 2023
Location: Grave Thorn Lounge
Participants: Qi'ra, Colo Nell, Krutur
ÎXÎ< Grave Thorn Cocktail Lounge - Dawnrise District, Nar Shaddaa >ÎXα±±ÎXα±±Î Guests are greeted by the sounds of clinking glasses and the soft hum of conversation. The lighting is subtle, casting a warm and inviting glow throughout the space with recessed fixtures spotlighting the expensive, abstract art pieces hanging on the walls. A night, live musical performances entertain the crowd ranging for jazzy, upbeat numbers to somber and heartfelt arias.
Around the exterior, large windows offer an unobstructed view of the neon-lit skyline of Nar Shaddaa. The windows are floor-to-ceiling, giving the lounge an open and airy feel and framed with long, flowing curtains to an extra layer of elegance to the space. These are opened and closed remotely depending on what the venue requires. The seating is designed for comfort and style, with plush velvet chairs and deep, comfortable couches arranged in intimate clusters throughout the lounge. The tables are sleek and modern, made of polished metal and adorned with fresh flowers and flickering candles.
Serving as the focal point in the center of the space is a large, living grave thorn tree from which the lounge bears the name. With the polished bar encircling it entirely, reinforced glass shelves have been afixed to the tree and house all manner of alcohols, spirits, and liqueurs. Backlit to accentuate all the different colors of bottles, several expert mixologists craft bespoke cocktails for the clientele seeking a more sleek and modern taste.
The atmosphere in the Grave Thorn Lounge is, as it usually is, sophisticated, lively, and welcoming (for the /right/ clientele of course... they didn't simply allow any dregs off of street to claw their way up and in to the high rise). The big, wooden bar that encircles the Grave Thorn tree in the middle of the lounge is full of people leaning, sitting, and chatting. There are species of all different kinds -- Ithorians, Weequay, Zeltrons, Twi'leks, the list goes on and on...
And among this crowd yet separate from it stands a lone woman with her back to the rest of the room. Her otherwise long, dark brown hair has been pulled up into an intricate up-do that leaves the slender curve of her neck entirely bare. A few wisps have been pulled to the front to fame her cheeks, however, her reflection just faintly visible over her shoulder in the floor-to-ceiling window she's standing in front of.
Qi'ra's hands clasp an ornate of some sort of bluish concoction, though she seems less interested in drinking it than she is lost in her own thoughts, looking out onto the dark, neon-lit skyline of the Dawnrise District and the distant rain clouds that are moving in.
Not far from where Qi'ra stands -- obvious enough to make his presence known, but several meters back out of her personal space -- is a two-meter tall police droid, nearly all black except for a few crimson panels and gold accents. He carries a stun rifle at low ready, watching the room move behind her, the flow of the other customers mingling seeming to break around her as if she were some sort of stone protruding from a river. And elsewhere, staged strategically around the lounge with their backs to various walls, there are three guards in head-to-toe black-armor with gold trim, her normal, personal guard, also carrying rifles in the low position.
The scene might be intimidating for some, but plenty of people move around the lounge as if Qi'ra's presence was a normal occurrence. Nothing seems to bar access to her, either, except for the watchful eyes of her four sentinels. It just seemed that no one really desired to disturb her, at the moment.
In amongst the crowd, as ever, are a co-mingling of Corellians that get along with all and sundry. They're not agglomerated, mind, so much as dispersed throughout, creating a particular awareness of their presence wherever they go. The Corellian Sector's not so very far from here and the denizens of that realm make it a point to venture forth, gather information, seed themselves across Nar Shaddaa to keep abreast of the moon's goings-on.
Colo is...not exactly doing as such as his brethren. The lone figure is nicely-dressed tonight, to be sure, with a smooth, slate-hued, high-collared jacket to beat back any sudden rains on the sunny day, but mostly to look fabulous where'er he trends. Tonight, he stakes a particular claim over a portion of the bar of the Grave Thorn, wrapped up in his jacket above, a neat looking button-down below, dark trousers that adhere to him and, most importantly, a drink of some, sludgey mixture in his mitts.
Pointedly, the stylishly-dressed man lingers near as he can to the tree itself, heedless of the gaggle of guardians near the gorgeous girl with her flank turned his way and her goons squinting on occasion should he venture too close. There's little threat of that for now. Mostly--entirely--Colo is lost in taking in the features of the decorations. He soaks it in with but a single pull from his beverage, then casts his eyes off to stare insouciantly at the rifle-armed baddie like the bodyguard barely exists. The woman he's guarding definitely does, even if in periphery.
At eighty-two years old, Lady Qi'ra had clawed her way off of the streets of Corellia to inherit one of the galaxy's largest criminal syndicates, made an enemy of Emperor Palpatine (who knew her by name), dueled Darth Vader, had a child nearly twenty years ago and a couple of years later made public that she'd taken the surname of Solo, and now she owned the entire district with largest shipping port on the Smuggler's Moon (as well as several other sizable holdings throughout the galaxy).
And those were just her legitimate holdings. To say nothing of her syndicate of smugglers, thieves, and assassins that were, at this very moment, earning her more credits than she knew what to do with.
Well, no, that wasn't true. She always knew what to do with more credits.
Yet despite everything that's happened in her life, this woman couldn't have been even forty years old, to look at her. Thirty-five, perhaps. Enough age to discard any notions of childish immaturity and enough youth to emphasize the radiant glow and stunning beauty that has been one of her hallmarks her entire life.
Now, Qi'ra sips at her drink, waiting for... something. Or perhaps simply lost in her own thoughts. Even wealthy crime bosses sometimes need moments of quiet contemplation where they can listen to some well played music among... 'friends.'
Alas, however, that drink runs dry, and she tears her gaze down from the skyline as if offended by the fact that it had been drained without her noticing. Regardless, she turns away from the window, striding towards the bar, herself, one long, slender leg stretching out from the thigh-high slit of her black leather dress at a time. Her big, two-meter tall droid moves as well, but it as ever stays back between five and ten meters to give her some space.
Space that, it just so happens, brings her right up into an empty spot beside Colo. Imagine that.
The club's security is top-notch, of course. No one's getting in or out without having possible weaponry flagged, inspected, possibly confiscated. By now Qi'ra's security apparatus has no doubt been informed that the man at the bar she's steering towards isn't simply some local wino intent on a view and a flirt for the evening, but is armed like any Corellian would be--should be. Perhaps that's why the guardsman keeps an eye on him, whirring though they are, as his mistress eases nowhere but towards Colo and his chosen perch.
It's a maneuver that surprises Colo to some vague degree as well, not because a lovely woman's headed near the bar--perish the thought--but that it's -this- particular woman. One would have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to fail to recognize one of the leading powers of the moon, nevermind one of his blood, though he never did learn if she hailed from Coronet City as he did. None of that matters now. He'll pick it up in her accent if she speaks. Just as she'll pick up his accent the moment he opens his mouth.
"The atmosphere here isn't what I expected," He opens with a ghost of a smile about the left side of his lips and a glass near the right. Ready to drink, he narrowly diverts his attention, instead, to the poise and status Qi'ra commands with her presence, yet he's utterly unperturbed by it. Guards, a sensual aura of power of a stunningly good-looking woman, and the possibility of being flagged as an enemy of one of the moon's movers-and-shakers doesn't deter him from being calm, collected, even...friendly? Hence the smile and the subtle tilt that infiltrates his wood-and-ocean-spray Corellian cologne towards the boss lady.
"I keep thinking what I might find up here is all lacquer and facade, chintz and cheap. But I look around..." He begins, gesturing with his glass a moment at the tree, the bar, at Qi'ra herself. "And what I see is form and function united. Substance. More fool me for missing out." One might think he's done when he takes a sip, offering the woman at his side a moment to interject, yet he finishes all the same with a coy look about his eyes shot towards her: "What else am I missing, you think?"
There's a quiet clink of glass on the counter when Qi'ra delicately sets the glass in front of her. She didn't speak to the bartender. Not did she claim the seat she hovered over. She'd come for a purpose, and that purpose was clear enough without a prolonged interaction. Her hands rest in front of her, fingertips lightly on the edge of the counter, and it's her head that turns first, looking over the curve of one shoulder when the man speaks.
Damn her weakness for bold Corellians.
That first statement brings a curl to her lips that crinkles the corners of her blue eyes. And what was she to care about his appraisal of the atmosphere? The maitre de? Yet she recognized it for what it was -- an opening. The start of a conversation. An initial search for a common topic from which to branch out and explore. A dance.
That glass is raised to gesture towards her, and she turns more fully to face him. A slender elbow finds its way to the edge of the counter, and she rests against it, all five-feet-two-inches of slinky, expensive gown and gold jewelry.
"I'm not convinced that you're missing anything, yet."
It would be hard to know exactly why without the woman explaining it herself, but her voice carries the accent of upper-crust core-world aristocracy (read: British) rather than the drawl of the Corellian streets she grew up on. That makes it hard to pin down a particular region, though that too was likely only a curious question or two away from being answered, if one were so inclined.
"Unlike some, however, I've never been tempted to underestimate the cleverness of a fellow Corellian."
That smile lingers on her lips, watching him and his reactions with a kind of easy confidence that simply radiates from her. She felt no fear. She also exuded no particular threat of her own beyond her reputation and her personal guard.
"Qi'ra," she says, her elbow leaving the edge of the counter so that she can extend her hand towards him. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure."
This is a dance Colo's been at many a time in his years. Whether on the streets of Coronet City, the sprawl of Coruscant, the dusty dwellings and cantinas of Mos Espa or, here, now, amidst the dark, neon glow of Nar Shaddaa, he finds a way to wriggle himself into something that entertains him. And it always begins with a little slice, an insertion of a wedge, a test to see if the defenses of who he's trying to jimmy open are up to the task or not. He knows he's got at least some leverage the moment she doesn't deign to ignore his overture and instead tickles his ears with words he doesn't expect.
Not Corellian, then. Yet she soon corrects him on that notion as well and, wearing his thoughts on his face, Colo lifts his dark brows in amused surprise. "A fellow Corellian, but you've done well for yourself," He tosses back, subtly commenting on the loss of her accent. To him? Her culture. But blood calls to blood, and the ocean planet of his ancestral seafaring kind have gone too far about the galaxy to quibble too much over syllabic inflection. So he smiles a perfect, pristine smile that's only had a few credits put into it despite his age. A brief bout with his glass and it, too, is sent testing the support of the bar with a gentle clink of glass and ice.
"You're a smarter woman than most sentients about this moon, then. What, do I have a sign on me somewhere that says 'Beware: Corellian'?" The comment is self-deprecating and accompanied by a brief, easy laugh. Her rotation towards him is met with quick deference to etiquette as he turns to 'face' her at a sideways angle, torso pointed towards her shoulder, yet his eyes--forest green--paint her own without hesitation when they meet grasps. His palm is smooth, warm, clean, yet with subtle calluses about the fingertips that suggest years of sabacc. Decades. "Pleasure's all mine," He promises, a line as old as time. "Colo Nell. Your reputation precedes you, but I think it was wrong. Always is, isn't it?" He playfully offers and belays any question about wrongness by commenting after a beat with slowly, carefully-narrowing eyes: "They never do prepare you for how magnetic someone can look up close."
"So I've been told."
It was a vague comment -- dismissive even -- about having done well for herself. Qi'ra didn't linger there, less interested in bragging about or flattery over her success, power, prestige, or affluence than she was in puzzling out exactly who it was she was speaking to. True to her word, she seemed to have no interest in underestimating a complete stranger, and she doted on him with the same level of attention that she might a visiting dignitary from a Sith delegation.
He was here, of course, which meant /something/ all on its own. He was also speaking to her, which meant he either had no idea who she was or he knew exactly who she was. For better or worse, there wasn't really anyone in-between left in the galaxy, anymore. But that would be cleared up in fairly short order.
/Sign: Beware: Corellian./ "Oh, it comes with the accent, if you know how to listen."
More smiles, and a mischievous twinkle in her eye.
Slender fingers curl around his briefly in a grip that is present without being overdone, her own fingers slender and soft without the barest hints of manual labor. After all, one didn't maintain a figure like hers or keep up on their Teras Kasi by sitting and drinking cocktails all day.
Blood-colored lips open to respond to the remark about her reputation, but they close again and she's left smiling after the last addition. Those soft, red pillows purse into an amused line for a moment, her approval once more obvious enough to touch the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes.
"The wonders of modern medicine never cease to amaze." It's a subtle, almost coy deflection of the complement. Instead of taking credit for her own beauty, it's put upon the advances of technology and HRO treatments that she was a poster model for investing in.
Once more, there's a quiet clink of glass on the counter, and Qi'ra allows her eyes to roam, collecting the fresh glass of blueish cocktail with a sweep of her hand. "Thank you," she says briefly to the bartender, well-mannered despite her station. And then her eyes are back on him, as-ever quietly appraising the stranger.
"Tell me, Mr. Nell, how /is/ Pakko's doing? I had half a mind to invest in some real estate in the Corellian District, but the Hutts are... shall we say... ever-observant of my continued expansion efforts." Which is to say, disapproving. Also, yes, she knew the name of the man who ran a basement bar in the slums of the Corellian district, even if she didn't have his face memorized. Until now.
Many parts of Qi'ra are noted in those brief flashes of action he's given. From the way she deflects flattery with ease to the thankfulness given the barman, Colo doesn't miss what these things and more say about her. The Corellian's doing his level best to put off the same aura he always does: inoffensive, flirtatious, perhaps a little daft and definitely over-bold with others despite their lot in life. He's utterly uncowed by the fame, the power, the looks of his current companion and shows as much with how attentive he is to it all.
"And yet those wonders can only augment what already lies under the surface, no?" He tosses back, not so much a detraction from her own comment, but a batting-back in good sport. She serves, he returns, and on and on, and he'll have it no other way. All part of the dance that amuses him so, especially when joined with a hit of booze. His own glass isn't replaced so much as topped up with a warm nod given the same barman, though no vocalization. He saves his words for the woman he drinks with, though only -after- he's had another, intoxicating sip, this time with his eyes laid upon her. "Perhaps you can aim me to your attendants? I rather like my hair. Be a shame to lose it to all that silver that I'm told is going to be creeping in."
But Colo's not here for vanity unless one counts peacocking about an upper-crust bar that's well outside his normal purview. Mayhaps one should? He cares not. What he does care for is smiling more widely, impressed at the capability of Qi'ra's mind as much as the dazzle of eyes he continues to seek. "Pakko's is Pakko's. As banal a statement as that is...it is. It stays open, continues to serve all and sundry, and is near to my heart." Reflexively, he renders that oath complete with a gentle tap about his left breast, just under the coat. "The moon rotates onwards and Pakko's provides. Plus, there's really no better place to watch the swoop circuits, y'know? I tried to go live once and the whole place ended up shot up. The arena, that is, not Pakko's," He clarifies, entirely unnecessarily as he recollects. A memory passes through his eyes and he shivers as if chilled by more than his iced liquor. "Less said of that the better. Holo screens for the dangerous items these days." A beat, then, and Colo can't resist the lurid smirk that crawls onto his lips as he tilts his glass towards Qi'ra again. "Though some are worth seeing in person."
Qi'ra lips press into that smile once more, eyes dipping down and to the side. "Perhaps."
That's all the /dangerous/ woman offers in audible reply about what's under the surface, but there's much more to be seen in the shift of her body language. She was careful, calculating, and discerning. By all accounts, impervious to attempts at winning her heart. In all of her eighty-two years, there had been only three men that had managed such a feat. Of those three, only one of them was still alive. And she'd loved him since the moment she gave birth to him.
But that didn't mean she was invulnerable to flattery, even if the words were blatant attempts to soften her for before the big reveal of his /real/ motives. Because this was, as always, the assumption. In Qi'ra's world, flattery didn't come without a cost and sincerity, if it had ever existed outside of the anomaly of one man named Solo, was a quaint notion from a time that she'd long since left behind.
"If you come back in, say, twenty or thirty years, I'd be more than happy to pass along their contact information," she answers once her eyes have returned to him. "Personally, I wouldn't consider anything for at least that long. I find signs of maturity handsome and distinguished. There are plenty of men that will never live long enough to understand what it takes to survive in this galaxy, Mr. Nell. Enjoy the right you've earned to claim those gray hairs."
Says the eight-year-old woman that looks like she's in her thirties. Then again, beauty standards were different for woman, and criminal empires didn't simply run themselves when you got too old and infirmed to tend to them.
There's a hint of a flicker of a laugh that ghosts across her eyes at the correction of /which/ place got shot up, but when Colo's expression doesn't indicate humor, it vanishes, leaving behind a curious sort of expression. Lips once more quirk up at the corners when she's called dangerous, however. No denial, though.
"I could use some air. Would you care to join me on the balcony?"
The question is asked with a little movement of her eyes to the door that leads out to the balcony. It's not nearly as crowded out there. There's no band to add to the cacophony of voices and clinking glasses. Regardless, she's already stepping away from the counter, though she awaits his answer before she departs.
There's little more prying on her surgical and medical mysteries. To do more than ask after a doctor might well be considered gauche. Though at the bottom end of the social rungs from birth, Colo's steadily scraped his way to a solid middle ground now. Talent, credits, ownership of a small slice of Nar Shaddaa--even if in the safe cocoon of the Corellian Sector--and a sticktoitiveness have kept him afloat thus far. He doesn't tarry from that which has kept him rising, bubbling to the fore. Maybe in forty years...
And so he takes the advice, albeit with a self-conscious run of fingers upwards, towards a temple at first, but rapidly redirected. The same digits stroke through his hair, still thick, lush, inky as the lightless sky of a Nar night. The waves of it are parted but briefly to expose pale scalp before they settle as undisturbed as the ocean after a brief wave. "Not something I've never heard before. I'm beginning to think I might have to take the advice and give way to the years. Maybe I'll look more distinguished at last?" Asks the roguish gambler, utterly convinced of his own worth yet preening all the same for someone well worth drawing in for more.
It's the same reasoning that makes him perk at the offer made. The drink will be coming with him and, even without Qi'ra's request, he hoists the lady's glass in the same motion that he pushes free of the bar. "I don't think I'm actually -capable- of saying no to that." There's no need for him to suggest she lead on, surely? He lets her. Colo also lets his eyes get away from him, long enough to enjoy the view of the way her dress frames her from all new angles, fore and aft. Yes, he shall be joining her on the balcony with cool, confident steps that lag only a foot behind her own. There's no indication that he should peek over his shoulder--an assumption that the security team is keeping an eye on him is just part of the agreement for being around her.
ÎXÎ< Grave Thorn Balcony - Dawnrise District, Nar Shaddaa >ÎXα±±ÎXα±±ÎXα±±ÎXÎ Stepping out from the cocktail lounge, patrons are greeted by open air of Nar Shaddaa. Here under the protection of transparisteel awning, the view is nothing short of spectacular. The neon-lit skyline of Nar Shaddaa stretches out as far as the eye can see, a glittering and vibrant display of color and light. A railing stretches from one side to the other at a grand arc, allowing for wonderful views while still posing a risk for those who get too drunk, and therefore too cavalier, for their own safety.
The balcony itself is spacious and inviting, with iron wrought chairs and cushions made to withstand the elements. Strings of hanging lights criss-cross above from post to post, casting a warm and twinkling glow on the customers below. Wait staff are quick to bring out drinks and finger foods from an unobtrusive door hidden behind broad-leafed plants. The music from inside cannot be heard and instead guests are treated to the distant sounds of Nar Shaddaa's many levels of boroughs and wards.
There was a time in Qi'ra life that /she/ was the one in the company of the leader of Crimson Dawn, when she was young and tenacious. Then it was she that accepted being the one under the watchful eye of the guard -- their scrutinizing glares waiting, untrusting, to viciously end her life if she so much raised a hand to Dryden Vos.
That was, of course, over fifty years ago. Since then, she had raised multiple hands to him -- in the sparring ring. She had him to thank for the fact that there were few people on Nar Shaddaa (or perhaps anywhere in the galaxy) that could hope to go toe to toe with her and survive it, even without her guards nearby. Then again, people on Nar Shaddaa tended not to fight air. Given how hard it was to hide vibroblades and thermal detonators in evening gowns, the guards were a necessary precaution.
Granted, they hadn't really helped him, in the end. But everyone has a weakness. You just have to find it, and use it.
With a grateful nod, the woman proceeds to the door, her heels clicking on the floor of the lounge and adding a not-so-subtle sway of her hips that fluidly shifts the fabric of that gown around her legs. She makes no glance back, either, and the guards do follow, three of them moving as quietly as shadows through the crowd. The forth, a somewhat menacing two-meter tall droid, making no overt attempts to be subtle about it.
The door of the balcony parts with a gust of 'fresh' air that blows back her dress and plays at the wisps of hair around her cheeks, and then she's angling towards a private section of the railing. It isn't raining, yet, but it can be smelled on the air and felt in the humidity. There's a transparisteel awning overhead that shields the balcony from the weather, but the railing itself is open, leaving anyone fool enough to lean over or get caught with a companion they didn't completely trust vulnerable to a very long and unfortunate fall to a very abrupt end.
"Thank you," she answers when she reaches her hands up to take her drink back from him. "I know it's not the same here as it is on Corellia, but there's something about the smell of the impending rain..."
Maybe it was the stench. Regardless, she took a moment simply to inhale it. Instead of the din of the lounge, the air was filled with the sounds of the city... ships, speeders, distant sirens.
"Why did you come to the Grave Thorn, Mr. Nell?"
It's conversational rather than accusatory, but the timing following the change of venue suggested that the two were connected.
Blue eyes shift back to him, the smile still lingering on her lips. "Just bored and looking for a change of venue?" Or looking for her specifically? Though that last part is omitted.
Colo's played this game many a time before. Chat a woman up, have a drink or two, then slip away into the night...except, this time, the destination is a balcony that promises as much danger as it does security. Mostly, he's just concerned with following Qi'ra's lead and getting out into the open air again, away from the prying eyes of potential spies, the ears of her guards. Somewhere they can be ever more free to be themselves, or whatever makeshift facade they concoct for one-another.
Yet Colo's giving no signs of insincerity as the moments lay on. Surely, there is a hint of carefulness as anyone would around someone new, potentially exciting, definitely dangerous as the woman before him is. The eletricity is there as well, however, and it erodes his defenses as she no doubt intends it. The swish of hips binds him in their spell and though not yet under her power, there's every evidence he's paying her heed as they trundle outwards and speak of Corellia again.
He sips from his liquor, now half-gone, and so he must seek shelter near the railing. Away from the hustle and bustle within, Colo exposes himself to further outside forces: Qi'ra no less than any. "Corellia will always have a special place for us all. The planet has its pull that no number of years can wear away. Even the old alleys of Coronet aren't without their charms, though..." And here he trails, wistful as he smiles and hoists his glass in answer. "I am glad that both of us made it out."
To that, he drinks, and to her he pays heed. No matter her intent, he answers baldly when the stunning display of her eyes dance to his own. "Bored? No, no. I think it's a simple mind that gets bored, if we're bein' honest," He begins, letting his voice drop some of its practiced finery in favor of the Coronet City accent seeping further in. "I'm a bit of a gambler. Wagers, probability...takin' chances, right?" She doesn't need to be told, so he doesn't belabor it, but smiles soon enough with the same, simple charm of a well-dressed Corellian. His eyes never leave hers now, save for the occasional flutter of a blink. "The moon has so much I haven't seen despite the years. I wanted to see it. And here I am..." He suggests with another, glass-assisted wave about the encompassing view the balcony provides, only his gesture ends up aimed directly at Qi'ra, a mere foot away from him now. "With something I never thought I'd see. So. Change of venue? Yes. Change of view? Certainly. Another risk...definitely. Have to admit, I live for 'em."
Colo's played this game many a time before. Chat a woman up, have a drink or two, then slip away into the night...except, this time, the destination is a balcony that promises as much danger as it does security. Mostly, he's just concerned with following Qi'ra's lead and getting out into the open air again, away from the prying eyes of potential spies, the ears of her guards. Somewhere they can be ever more free to be themselves, or whatever makeshift facade they concoct for one-another.
Yet Colo's giving no signs of insincerity as the moments lay on. Surely, there is a hint of carefulness as anyone would around someone new, potentially exciting, definitely dangerous as the woman before him is. The eletricity is there as well, however, and it erodes his defenses as she no doubt intends it. The swish of hips binds him in their spell and though not yet under her power, there's every evidence he's paying her heed as they trundle outwards and speak of Corellia again.
He sips from his liquor, now half-gone, and so he must seek shelter near the railing. Away from the hustle and bustle within, Colo exposes himself to further outside forces: Qi'ra no less than any. "Corellia will always have a special place for us all. The planet has its pull that no number of years can wear away. Even the old alleys of Coronet aren't without their charms, though..." And here he trails, wistful as he smiles and hoists his glass in answer. "I am glad that both of us made it out."
To that, he drinks, and to her he pays heed. No matter her intent, he answers baldly when the stunning display of her eyes dance to his own. "Bored? No, no. I think it's a simple mind that gets bored, if we're bein' honest," He begins, letting his voice drop some of its practiced finery in favor of the Coronet City accent seeping further in. "I'm a bit of a gambler. Wagers, probability...takin' chances, right?" She doesn't need to be told, so he doesn't belabor it, but smiles soon enough with the same, simple charm of a well-dressed Corellian. His eyes never leave hers now, save for the occasional flutter of a blink. "The moon has so much I haven't seen despite the years. I wanted to see it. And here I am..." He suggests with another, glass-assisted wave about the encompassing view the balcony provides, only his gesture ends up aimed directly at Qi'ra, a mere foot away from him now. "With something I never thought I'd see. So. Change of venue? Yes. Change of view? Certainly. Another risk...definitely. Have to admit, I live for 'em."
Speaking of chances out walks a massive scarred wookie with black fur, Ryyk blade and blaster pistol upon his hips. He smiles around waving to the guards and what's that he's got a mug of Kashyyk ale oh the creatur of habit he is spying Qi'ra he smiles broader. "rwowoal grarrrl. rwowoal woeieowl rwarrl rwowoal." He laughs as he teases her playfully. "woeieowl woeieowl rallr rwarrl rwarrl-wrall grarrrl grarrrl woeieowl rwowoal grarrrl wrall rwarrl grarrrl rwowoal rwal rwarrl rwowoal roarrl." [Language: Shyriiwook]
Mini-Translator Droid - 5079 repeats after Krutur, "Hey Boss. Fancy seeing you here. Oh I brought my YT-600 back after the upgrades if you want to look at her sometime."
Once out on the balcony, the points of ingress were limited. The two-meter-tall police droid takes up a sentry position near the door, all black-and-crimson armor with gold trim and stun rifle. The three sentient guards wearing all black armor with gold trim and their own rifles, fill in the space half-way between the door and the section of balcony that Qi'ra and Colo occupy, ensuring it stays an intimate space where they won't be interrupted.
"I know those alleys better than most," the woman muses, eyes twinkling with mirth. "And I'll drink to that."
In a mirror of the man's gesture, she lifts her glass and then takes a sip from her own, bluish liquor. But then she listens to his answer, entirely content to let him get it all out with interruption. This was, simply, where most would eventually wend their way around to their ultimate purposes, even if they weren't so bold as to come out an say it plainly. One need only listen carefully enough to pick through the relevant excuses and categorize them, find the commonality, determine how all of it related back to her.
And at the end, the mild surprise in her eyes seems to make it clear that she'd failed at that ask. For all her attempts, she couldn't see how gambling and seeing new sights at the Grave Thorn had any connection to each other /or/ to her. Which either meant he wasn't being entirely forthcoming or... he was being entirely sincere. He'd stumbled upon her by pure chance.
"I rarely find myself in company by pure chance, anymore," Qi'ra admits. An accusation? Her tone suggests more of a carefully pointed /observation/ . A second chance to come clean and make whatever elevator pitch he was going to make. After all, she'd been thoroughly softened up with flattery and talk of Corellia. She was primed to hear what he wanted, and she couldn't have made that any more clear.
But then there's the howl of the Wookiee, and the woman's gaze is torn rather unceremoniously from Colo. Even as she blinks at him, apparently not at all understanding his howls and growls until his translator speaks for him, her personal guard come to attention and their hands shift on their blasters. A giant black Wookiee howling in Qi'ra's direction was not only unexpected, it was perhaps unwelcome. Nor was he allowed through their line, any closer than about 10 meters to where she and Colo stood.
"One moment," Qi'ra offers to Colo with a gentle smile. "I apologize."
Then she's turning and taking a couple of steps closer, still well behind her guards, though her drink is still held in one hand. Her blue eyes turns up to Krutur, her expression hard.
"Have you no manners? Or can you not see that I'm having a private conversation?"
Colo seems on the verge of expounding further of the lost alleys and byways of Coronet City with his hostess when the imposition by a rather large heap of Wookiee growling nearby. At first, he simply ignores it. The balcony's not especially crowded, and the particular tongue -does- tend to cut through the din of any conversation even if it's merely nearby. But the translator droid makes swift work of an attempt to put the syllables and growls out of his mind. The Corellian perks at first, not quite grokking the source of it, but it's not long before his eyes skitter to a stop on the shaggy frame near the balcony's entryway.
Unsure how to respond, he has the choice taken from him and it's wholly welcome, that. Colo chuckles but briefly at Qi'ra's apology and nods to her, simply and reassuringly. "Of course. Busy woman," He accedes to her need for space and backs away, sliding further down the railing of the balcony to seek shelter from the conversation and, perhaps, to avoid eavesdropping as much as he can in such a circumstance. The view shall have to suffice. That and his drink.
Krutur takes a step back looking between the two his eyes Landing on Colo first before turning back to Qi'ra he shrugs and takes a few steps back he looks put out or put off But he takes a breath. "rwarrl grarrrl woeieowl rwal rwowoal grarrrl woeieowl woeieowl rwarrl roarrl woeieowl, woeieowl woeieowl woeieowl grarrrl rallr rwarrl roarrl rwarrl grarrrl rwarrl grarrrl rwowoal rwarrl rwowoal woeieowl rwarrl woeieowl rwarrl rwarrl rwowoal rwarrl worieowl grarrrl rwowoal woeieowl grarrrl." With that he finds a place to plop down his large furry behind. [Language: Shyriiwook]
Mini-Translator Droid - 5079 repeats after Krutur, "My Apologies I did not realize it was a private conversation, I was merely rather excited you'd mentioned last time you wished to see the ship so I lost my head in excitement for that I apologize."
"No," Qi'ra answers simply, "I did not. What I said was that I liked the Corellian designs. I've no interest in visiting every ship that takes a contract with us, nor personally overseeing every upgrade. I trust my captains to be competent enough to handle those decisions on their own."
Was that an insult or a vote of confidence? Both?
"If you have something specific to discuss, I trust you know how to use the holonet to set up an appointment or find me when I'm not otherwise occupied. I don't expect to be interrupted like this again. Do you understand?"
The meaning, however blunt and uncaring it might have been, was rather clear -- she did not exist to be friends with her employees.
Still, she held that drink in her hand without taking a sip, watching the Wookiee to ensure their business was concluded before she returned to Colo.
Colo lurks in the wings, keeping himself at a studied-enough distance to discreetly avoid listening to more than the stray, higher syllable that skitters past the winds and to his ears. Instead, he keeps that level gaze of his poised on body language, on the sight of Qi'ra's face contorting and the Wookiee's own level of growling. Reading lips is beyond him, but even at a distance there's plenty to be read from the way the pair stand, position, or just gesture at one-another.
It's that read that gives him plenty of excuse to stay right where he is, planted against the balcony's rail and going no further. He does, at least, sample more of his drink with a smirk this time instead of a placid expression of neutrality. Maybe just the -occasional- peek at some of the woman's guards to see what they might think of the situation?
Krutur shakes his head and takes a long drink. "grarrrl rwarrl rwal rwarrl grarrrl, rwarrl rallr, woeieowl grarrrl rwowoal rallr grarrrl." He grumbles taking another sip. "wrall woeieowl woeieowl rwowoal rwowoal rwarrl rwowoal worowl." He leans back again this time thoughtful and quiet merely taking in what's going on. [Language: Shyriiwook]
Mini-Translator Droid - 5079 repeats after Krutur, "Again you have my apologies, a misunderstanding, it won't be happening again. Yes I know how to use the holonet."
"Excellent," Qi'ra answers, her smile returning. "Apology accepted. Now, if you'll excuse me."
Of course, given the distance she still kept from the Wookiee, there wasn't much excusing to be done. She was, after all, still behind her guards. But she turned and strode back to where Colo was standing, that right leg once more escaping from the slit of her dress as her heels clicked along the patio, drawing her ever closer.
There was something both fluid and supremely confident about her movements, a dancer's grace and a warrior's posture.
"I'm sorry," she says again, moving back to the railing. Through pure happenstance of the events, their position on the railing now is even further from the guards than they were before. Colo had moved away, and Qi'ra had moved to join him. Either she wasn't worried at all about Colo posing a threat to her or she simply wasn't paying that much attention to how much vulnerable the new distance made her.
Given who she was, the latter seemed unlikely.
"Where were we?"
She seems genuinely to take a moment, then, to think about the conversation they'd been having before adding one final prompt.
"You grew up in CoroNet?"
Whatever the discussion had been, it's over with now. Colo sees that as clearly as he sees Qi'ra headed back his way, full of poise, confidence, and more than a little allure to keep his eyes aloft and his drink at hand, but nowhere near his mouth for fear of missing a beat. He perks and rights his stance in those next moments, only now realizing he'd slackened against the railing. For the woman with the guardians so close at hand, she gets his own, upright posture even if it does have a little Coronet City slack to it.
"Please, no apology needed. You're a busy woman. Your larger interests outcompete my small matters," He reassures, instantly returning to some of his more polished speech instead of the casual banter he'd faded into out of habit. Yet his eyes still swim with playfulness as he offers up. "I believe talking about the alleys we both know. Never did find the best ones," He jests with a gentle chuckle and, for once, doesn't retreat to his drink to cover it.
Rather, Colo brazens ahead, eager to nod, if not quite so eager to expound in the next breaths. "Did. Not in the, ah, best of circumstances, but who does? Clatter of machine-shops every morning, hawkers at night. Same ol'." A shrug, and then he presses: "You know Diadem Square?" The central hub of Coronet is surely known to any that've been near the city, nevermind in it. Colo smirks. "I grew up nowhere near it."
Krutur leans and sips and glances around his eyes taking in everything that he can. He remains quiet however and watches how things play out.
"Oh, the /best/ ones always changed based on exactly what you were looking for," Qi'ra quips, her eyes a little softer once they were back on topic. She found herself shifting a little, resting one hip of that exquisite dress she was wearing up against the trailing as she laughed openly at the last remark.
"I do know it," she confirms. "And neither did I. I didn't really have just one place, but I spent quite a bit of time on the streets in Old Town." Even as she says the name of it, she raises a hand slightly to her chest, a subtle indication of the significance of the memory. "Sometimes, though, I would venture up to Axial Park. Just for a little while, to get away from the shipyards."
Her eyes shift thoughtfully, taking a moment to to think something through and perhaps convince herself it was a good idea. In the end, she leans a little closer, as if it was some big secret, though the bit color that touches her cheeks suggested she was simply more ashamed of the admission.
"Did you ever hear of the White Worms?"
Body language continues to speak volumes to one as observant of human behavior as Colo. So accustomed to reading the shifts of eyes, twitch of lips, grit of teeth at various games of chance, the honed skill translates just as well to the thrust and parry of speaking to one of the moon's most dangerous denizens. When Qi'ra relaxes so much with him that her hip finds the anchor of the nearby railing, he knows he's at least done something right. Subtly, both of his inky eyebrows lift a fraction, not in surprise but to open his eyes that much further to behold her and listen to her adages of alleys.
Common touchstones, then, just keep reeling him further in. Old Town, Axial Park--he's bitten the bait fairly well and draws closer without realizing it, enough that her brief indication downwards actually dislodges his gaze from her eyes for once towards the shift of her dress. The glance is brief, but there, and he hopes to buy it off via a brighter smile despite the fact another glance at his glass reveals he's nearly drained his booze.
"The...White Worms." Another touchstone. Anyone who grew up where Colo did would know the name as would many that didn't. It's as if asking if he knows about myths of the Jedi Order or the many legends of Jonashe Solo. Reared in oral tradition, Colo shows every sign of recognition, though hasn't placed the pieces where they belong. "I have. Did. Have to admit, I don't know if they are still around. I, ah...know dad always used to warn me off 'em. 'Study your metallurgy or you'll end up Worm food', right?" Indirect, the lift of his brow just a fraction higher offers Qi'ra the opportunity to expound. Ditto the soft tilt at his hips that brings him and his cologne nearer to her.
"I'm sure they're around in one form or another," Qi'ra replies, her voice carried on an incredulous half-laugh. "Lady Proxima's not one to be easily trifled with." Was there a certain amount of respect in the way her grin went slightly crooked? Regardless of what her accent may or may not imply, in /that/ moment, she was entirely Corellian from the mischievous glint in her eyes to the lopsided smile.
To assume, at any given point, Qi'ra's guard was completely down was likely a mistake that anyone only made once. Certainly Dryden Vos had made it after forcing her to make an impossible choice -- Force rest his soul. Still, it would be an easy mistake to make. There was no retreat from the magnetic, inexorable draw that pulled them together. It was as if she didn't even seem to realize that the space between them was slowly evaporating, disappearing into the ether as if it had never existed in the first place.
"It's a good thing you listened to your father. We were certainly nothing to be trifled with," she muses. A little gust of wind from that approaching storm seems to keep playing with those tendrils of hair that frame her face. "Of course, I would have been long since gone by the time you were born," another subtle reminder of her age that was almost impossible not to be intentional, "but I spent my formative years as a scrumrat -- stealing my way up from the bottom like the others."
Her smile touches her eyes. Drawn perhaps by his cologne or just the attracting energy between them, one hand leaves her glass, fingers lightly resting on the man's forearm. "If you've never been chased in an M-68 down Narro Sienar Boulevard," the water-way spanning speeder bridge that connected the different pills around Coronet, "you don't know what you're missing." Her smile is absolutely infectious.
Accent or not, Qi'ra was certainly the real deal. She'd grown up on those streets. Lied, cheated, and stolen on those streets for shelter and food. Lied, cheated, and stolen even more to get /off/ of those streets. And that was only the beginning of her story -- the part of her story that occurred more than two decades before Colo was even born.
Once more, her blue eyes dip. And for the first time, it was as if she realized how close the two of them had gotten. There's a quiet stillness that seems to come over her that lasts only a handful of heartbeats, and then her gaze is back up to his eyes, again.
"I should get you a refill." Ever the hostess. "Can you stay?"
And even among all of the rest of those little tells -- the flirtations, the magnetism, he touch -- that was how the leader of of the most powerful criminal syndicates in the galaxy tipped her hand. By asking him one simple question and allowing him to see the little glimpse of hopefulness to be found in her eyes.
The same swish of wind that draws Qi'ra's strands here and there, frames her face like some sort of holo-model, makes Colo's bangs drift into his face like a drawn blackout curtain with shreds cut through. He doesn't bother to correct their presence, but instead allows the locks to obscure them from meeting eye-to-eye as a form of shield. Just that simple barrier that forces him to glimpse at her as if spying at something he shouldn't is enough to keep him that much more hooked and explains well the way his sultry greens sparkle with sincere interest.
There's but a brief jingle of ice in his glass as he hoists it amidst the dangerous woman's words, but though he drains it clear of liquor, he dares not miss a beat of her syllables. A moment passes where he considers blinking and even that is beaten, at least for a time. It's the presence of that intimate contact across his forearm that urges the lubricating blink to occur, both from delight and surprise in equal measure. Though she can't see beyond the fabric of his forearm's cuffs, will she be able to imagine the hairs rising on his span there? Colo doesn't look down to it, but instead answers. "I don't know many things. I've been told I'm an eager pupil."
This flirtation is stated with the utmost sincerity and intent besides. Mention of her age isn't lost on the man whose own father likely would have missed her heyday due to youth. And yet through the mysteris of technology and just a natural predilection to just her sort, Colo feels the truth of the adage that age is just a number. "You did what you had to." Commiseration? Sympathy? Colo doesn't make it clear whether he ever ventured in her world, though from what he's said of his own profession, it's hard to believe he hasn't taken something that doesn't belong to him in time. Maybe he's even en route to expounding about that before...before...
"I can." Simple, to the point, soft and soothing. He makes his voice melt as best he'll ever do, with a slow, silky bass added to inflect the promise. His next words complete the oath. "I will." Not for nothing, he lingers a full two moments longer in Qi'ra's orbit before rights his carriage and brings his glass all of two inches forward in silent offer.
Warmth. Pleasure. It fills Qi'ra eyes as she too straightens her posture and turns one delicate hand palm up to grasp the bottom of that glass. Everything about her -- her pose, her smile, her every easy movement -- was another reminder of how far up from the bottom she'd clawed herself to get where she was. She wasn't born into this life of privilege. She wasn't above taking a stranger's glass and fetching him a refill. She wasn't even more important than a man whom she'd never met before and had no reason to believe would ever hold any sway in her business or political dealings.
She was, simply put, a woman. One that had seen the bottom of the barrel and highest penthouse. One that had killed, had been nearly killed herself countless times, and had more years of experience than almost anyone she knew except for one very fuzzy co-pilot of Poe Dameron's. She'd earned those years by viewing the galaxy through a much more practical lens than most in her position would ever even consider. And so she smiled at his reaction and his promise to stay. Because the point wasn't to win the game. The point was just to be able to keep playing.
"I did what I had to do to survive," she reaffirms, standing there for a moment with his drink. "In that regard, not much has changed."
It's said with a certain amount of humor, but there's an admission of darkness to it -- a quiet understanding that there were rumors about her. Many rumors. And some or most of them were likely to be true. Granted, in this galaxy, it sometimes seemed like it was hard to stumble upon someone so innocent that they'd never raised a blaster to someone else, before. But Crimson Dawn was particularly ruthless in some of its methods. Assassinations, though not the bulk of their work, certainly happened. It it was likely that she'd done some number of them herself.
Still, that slender woman turned and walked away with no indication that she should be followed. Heels clicked, hips swayed, dress fluttered around her legs as she made her way back to her line of guards (one of whom the author was remiss in earlier describing as wearing a red vibro-arbir in staff configuration across her back). She parts that line with barely a glance from them in her direction and meets a server with a tray who she has a few quiet words with. Then she hands over the empty glasses and sends the server back on their way.
Even after she's turned from him and taken the blessing of her eyes away, Qi'ra's presence looms on Colo's mind. Truth be told, the Corellian knows he's achieved some measure of solid ground with her, if not a full rapport, but he still stands uncertain as to where this might be headed. A woman such as this Crimson Dawn countess doesn't simply let others into their world no matter how fancy they talk. Bereft of her face for a spell, he can only consider when the thumbscrews might be threatened, what the unsubtle suggestion of her guards might do to an interloper might portend for him.
He can only think of these things for mere moments before the whisper of her movement skirts off into the distance. This time, as when she led them onto the balcony, he marvels at her for altogether untoward reasons. Like him, Qi'ra dresses fashionably--even glamorously--with an eye towards taking full advantage of nature's and medicine's blessings in tandem. But where Colo peacocks and wears items meant to lure in others for friendly conversation and to lull them into security, he can only think of Qi'ra's attire in the sensual sense and watches accordingly. His eyes dazzle themselves with the shape of her advancing in another direction. Hips, heels...he shivers and wishes he had a drink to distract further. He will soon.
For now, he takes up his old, eavesdropping-avoidant stance against the balcony's railing. There, his jacket opens further to expose the inner lining and the fact that no matter his diplomatic words and phrasing, he's armed all the same. The small holster tucked deep in the recesses of the dark outer layer is put on view entirely purposefully. Here is a man who shows his cards not because he's lost, but because he wants his counterpart to know she's won his further opening up if she but asks it of him. Until her return? He waits. Waits...and watches without a sliver of obfuscation that that's what he's doing.
Qi'ra doesn't return right away. Once the server had turned to make their way to and then disappear into a door carefully obfuscated behind some greenery, the woman had turned to one of her guards and spoken to them in hushed tones. There were helmeted nods of understanding, an exchange of looks, and after that quiet conversation, there were only two guards -- the females plus the 501-Z droid still standing sentry by the door.
One fewer guard. Perhaps one step further within her defenses.
Or perhaps she just had an errand to send him on.
It was at about that time that another server emerged carrying a tray with a bottle of liquor and two fresh glasses. Instead of taking the tray, the woman wearing the Naboo-made dress that cost as much as some small starships took the bottle by the neck, slipped her fingers into the two glasses (each of which sported a single spherical cube), and finally began her trek back.
This section of the balcony had been effectively closed off since their arrival in it, and it had trapped a couple of empty tables within its confines. Her blue eyes watched Colo as she approached, taking in the sight of him -- his posture, the tension (or lack of it) in his body.
"Twenty five years old," she says, lifting the bottle a little to show, which shows off the Corellian whiskey's label. The dichotomy of the sophistication of her clothing, her jewelry, and her hair and the ease with which she handles a whiskey bottle might be striking to some. Those that didn't know her. "I hope it's not too young for your tastes."
Yeah, she went there.
She sets the glasses down on a table, however, pulls the cork on the bottle, and pours several fingers-worth over the ice cube into each glass. Then she re-corks the bottle, sets it aside, and lifts the glasses, closing the distance to him to offer his.
Then, she does the most odd thing. She lifts her glass in toast, and she recites a Corellian toast.
"From the shipyards of Corellia, a toast we raise, To pilots brave and stories that amaze. With hearts of adventure and spirits bold, In the galaxy's vastness, we'll never grow old. To the Corellian spirit, let's drink and cheer, For tonight and always, we have no fear."
Colo's given time to think, a dangerous passtime indeed. A Corellian left to their own devices can devise many an ill on the world. There's a brief thought to clambering over the balcony to see the highest height he might survive, another thought that tells him he's been had and Qi'ra's simply politely absconded, leaving him with two guards as a ruse until he gets bored. He discards -that- intrusive imagination in favor of the other daydream: that his expensive tastes have brought him here for a reason, to one of the priciest jewels on the moon itself, nevermind the galaxy.
It's an image that brings him to smile a softer, sort of pleased, contented expression that keeps his teeth hidden but mirth fully exposed for when the fantasy in his head makes her return. A return which he finds her even more stunning than her departure, though it has nothing to do with the dress and everything to do with... "Just on the edge of maturity. Not the finest, but if it's Corellian?" He begins with a slight, growing smirk at her effrontery. "It'll satisfy my thirst." A sparkle of mischief there in his eyes is the last of that particular kind of sparring for now. When he remarks, Colo's swift to push off the railing's support and shift his jacket mostly-closed again. Still exposed, he ensures that she doesn't find too many reasons to think him too comfortable with her yet.
No, instead, Colo's given another reason entirely to marvel at Qi'ra. He says as much as she pours. "If I thought I were going to share a drink with you tonight, I'd have dressed better." His roguish smile envelops his face, a few lines formed at the crook of his eyelids, a little weathering about the edges of his mouth where he betrays his habit of finding joy in life. Still, he goes on. "And if I knew you'd be pouring..." Well, the less said there, the better. But he means it.
Colo commits to joining the toast, but the words don't hit him with mawkishness so much as crystallize long-forgotten memories. The smile dips, but mirth remains even as his eyes fog over for a place not so much lost to him as so far away, remembered fondly. "From the light of Corell to the breeze of the sea, may my home never be far from me," Colo return-toasts with his old, pioneer-boy motto. To that, and to Qi'ra and to their homeworld, he drinks and closes his eyes to stymie the rise of tears.
"Why?" Qi'ra asks, a flicker of amusement in her eyes at the mention of dressing better. "You think being less comfortable would make the whiskey taste better?" Her eyes dip briefly. "I like what you're wearing. Anything more formal, and it would just be that much more difficult to hide your blaster."
Yes, she knew it was there. Maybe she'd always known. Maybe she'd only seen it on her way back with the bottle. Either way, they both understand that he has it. And she hasn't asked him to do anything about it.
Qi'ra lifts her glass slightly and takes a drink from her own, though her eyes don't close. No matter how much she might be enjoying her time with Colo, and despite their years -- correction, minutes -- of shared history, she couldn't simply change who she was. Everyone had a weakness, but despite how much she was obviously enjoying herself, this moment was not hers.
Why /did/ it feel like years, already? Damnable, lovable Corellians.
When that glass lowers from her lips, her tongue escapes to gather up the lingering droplets from her lips, and she turns to make her way back towards the railing. She liked it there -- on the edge. That was probably some sort of metaphor for her life.
"Tell me more about yourself, Mr. Nell. After Corellia, then what?"
She bends ever so slightly at the waist and rests her forearms on the top of the railing so she can look out at the neon, her drink held by the top of the glass, dangling over an almost bottomless drop by a few practiced fingertips. How far was it down there, anyway?
"Just gambling?"
It's a challenge, a glance slightly over her shoulder at him, eyes and smile ever tempting him to open up to her.
The eternal rapport amongst like-minded Corellians who've grown up in similar circumstances--if in different alleys, neighorhoods, decades--looms large for Colo. This far from home, how can two expatriates not help but feel drawn to one-another? He's felt the planet's particular gravity many a time. Despite their sojourns, the sea-faring is in their blood: go out, return home with a catch. One day, long from now, when he's well into his dotage he may just heed that call. In this moment, he pays it respects by drinking Corellian alcohol with a Corellian confidante.
One whom he shows no signs of being perturbed at all by, even when she makes coy mention of his blaster. She knows the streets, this Qi'ra does, and he respects that. What he does do is play a hint more of the clown for her with a choice look downwards once the booze has cleared his nostrils out of its acidic burn. "Mh? This? I suppose it is a sop to practicality -and- style. Not all of us have your blessings." Another compliment and it's slashed at her as his eyes dart back to hers, the eternal moorings he seeks when after...something. Nothing? He's not sure he could say himself. 'More' shall have to suffice.
And more he seeks as she finds support on the railing. Colo does likewise, shifting his trim, taut frame to join hers in an intimate brush again. This time, the elbow of his jacket breezes against the flesh of her forearm with a whisper of silkweave fabric. Up close, the smell of their drinks mingles with his cologne, the natural odor of Nar Shaddaa, and whatever it is they're pumping out onto the balcony these days. Lilacs? He can't place it. It's nice, but not so nice as being able to speak conspiratorially with her after he's had a good, long look from the shape of her heels to the cut of waist and beyond, towards the mature, age-defying visage aloft.
"Never," He assures, answering the challenge with the best weapon he knows: truth. "After Corellia, I spent years here, ekeing a living. The moon's got its share of fools and I joined in with 'em. Scraping up from tradesmen, smugglers, shavitheads that think they can rake a young man for credits over sabacc. Ya learn how to spot 'em, eventually." A shrug comes and he sips his drink to wet his lips for the next portion. Throughout, his voice is soft, companionable, soothing a wounded deer with a promise that he means no harm as he releases her from the trap, yet looks out over the city below. "I got lucky not to overdose on years of glitterstim before I met my wife." It's a thermal detonator in some conversations, yet Colo is utterly unafraid to state it.
"Worked past the armor, found my way to what was beneath. Well, mostly. Still chipping away at times, I think." He chuckles but briefly at his own self-deprecation, then continues. His empty hand gestures gently at the skyline. "The short version is I found someone who's her own woman and who knows enough of herself to understand what freedom means for us both. We do our own thing, yet come together when time and the galaxy permits us. It's that independence that...well. She, ah...worked me over to takin' the Kora Clan oath. Coming up on fifteen years now. Wouldn't change...most of it." Again, he jests, but with the truth.
Colo's eyes seek Qi'ra's again thereafter, searching for thoughts. "I think that's why I keep feeling myself drawn to that type. I can't enjoy myself without knowing there's a fire in my companions, too."
Wife.
That word -- that symbol -- is a thermal detonator in some conversations. But those conversations deserve to be detonated. Often, the earlier the better. These were the conversations that were being had for the 'wrong reasons' -- the conversations where someone was searching, but not finding what they were looking for. Conversations that revolved around one singular goal. Conversations that, in and of themselves, had no depth or resiliency. If the word 'wife' detonated the conversation, the other person only cared about themselves, anyway.
Qi'ra was not looking for love. She did not pursue conversations for the purpose of determining if someone was 'available' for marriage. She'd never in her life had those sorts of mundane conversations (not, at least, for any legitimate purpose). Marriage had never been in the cards for her, and she'd accepted that the day she'd been physically drug away from Han Solo. She'd accepted it again when she left him to take over as the leader of Crimson Dawn. Again the day he married Leia Organa. And again the day he'd been killed. And even that was twenty years ago.
There were murmurs twenty years go that she'd taken the surname of Solo. People began to wonder who killed Qi'ra's husband. Connections were made. Information was bought and sold. Using his name had paid off in getting to the bottom of what had happened. Eventually, she'd confronted Han's murderer. Then she'd dropped the facade and gone back to just Lady Qi'ra.
But wife was not something she would ever be. Maybe it was something she had never been capable of being. Mother, yes, certainly. But not wife.
The fact that he spoke about his wife didn't change her posture or make her recoil. It didn't alter her tone or the way she looked at him. After all, good men deserved wives -- or husbands, according to their own choosing. Partners, in any case. Someone to rely on. Someone to trust. It certainly wasn't surprising that he'd chosen one.
The story he shares, in fact, makes her smile with the fondness of memory. Two people, in love, coming together when the galaxy permitted it rang particularly true, and that much was apparent in the twinkle of her eye.
"There are times that I envy a simpler life that didn't involve so much independence. I used to..." Her voice trails off, and there's a little shake of her head as she turns to look back out over the skyline.
'Smile.' That's the word she'd imagined every time she pictured herself off with Han on some adventure. It always made her smile. She'd told him that, and the next time she saw him, she was stealing his carbonite-encased body from Boba Fett and auctioning it off to start a war between the Empire and the Hutt Cartel.
"Love can be hard when you each have your own lives to live," she says. A moment silence hangs after that, a soft laugh escaping her lips, instead. "And in my experience, it takes a strong man to be capable of living up to the expectations of that kind of woman."
Her eyes turn back. Appraising, and mildly challenging.
"Kora. She must be a remarkable woman. And if she's willing put up with you, you must be doing something right." Her eyes sparkle with that taunting playfulness, one Corellian to another.
It's a test. Colo's not the sort of man who tests frequently. For one, he despises it; it's the sort of thing that people who enjoy setting up others for failure get their kicks from. The sort of spineless womprats that can't bear someone having an independence of mind or body that doesn't orbit about them. Perhaps at one point, in his teen years, Colo's galaxy had orbited him. He's long since grown up, eschewed those silly, petulant notions.
And so his tests are rare things and powerful ones at that. There will be no blame if Qi'ra calls the conversation to a close there and then. Why wouldn't she? He, a married man, has been openly flirting with the most dangerous woman in the sector, perhaps the moon. She has every right to send him packing after daring to get her to laugh. To smile.
He gets her to smile again in the wake and braces not for impact, but for derision, for laughter that says something sardonic. An 'of course!' before she slaps her forehead. None of it comes and instead he's given every more reason to drop whatever pathetic defenses he's had up since he gave his opening line-that-wasn't-a-line-but-maybe-was. Colo, precious Colo, smiles more widely by the moment at such a response though when she looks away he cannot help but nudge closer until not only their forearms are connected, but his hip to hers. It's intimate, perhaps offensive. He doesn't give a rekk.
"Near impossible. It almost didn't work out. She got banged up real bad one mission," He explains with no joy whatsoever. "Lost out on Kuat, some Sith/Rebellion scuffle she wasn't even mixed up in. Easy bodyguard work, right? Building blew up around her. News blackout. I lost my mind for a week, I think. They managed to pull her out of the rubble and charge me the price of a freighter for the trouble. We had a fight, I..." Here, Colo has no pride, only sorrow for time lost. "Mh. I left her for a month before I came crawling back. Would you believe -she- apologized to -me-?" He ventures, laughing sadly with the burn of memory. "Love...That's love, right?"
He knows the truth of his rhetorical and doesn't belabor it, save for one comment. "Just as I know love is that we're confident enough our bond lasts despite distance and despite what -some- -sentients-," He remarks, acidly, "Might consider indiscretions. Our independence lets us take friends, dalliances, even lovers where we may." Colo shrugs, simple as that, and knocks back another draw of his drink. Swallowing, he adds with a more self-amused tone: "Rekk 'em. We know what we like, want, love."
And so, with his monologuing answer that waxes more than a touch philosophical, Colo meets the challenging eyes head-on again. "So, yeah. She's remarkable. She puts up with me. And I with her." Here, he leans in, daring Qi'ra to let him get closer. "Guess I'm doing something right."
A lifetime ago, Qi'ra might not have understood what an eligible woman inviting a man to chat in private implied, what asking him to stay longer revealed about her intentions, or what implicit offer was made when she didn't move as he opened up about his marriage. But she wasn't a child, anymore. She hadn't been for a very long time, and these dances weren't unfamiliar. She'd had every opportunity to signal him to stop, to call off their balcony rendezvous herself, to go back to the pile of responsibilities that came with running her little syndicate -- a pile that was growing from neglect as she watched him move closer.
And so that touch is intimate, yes. But not shocking. Not offensive. She was playing her own part in this dance they were doing -- not pushing. Offering. Offering another five minutes of her time each time she decided to stay. Offering more trust every time she didn't move away from his advance. Offering a chance to explore something together in territory that was unfamiliar to her -- a chance for him to show what kind of man he was when she allowed herself to be soft and vulnerable, even if she was never truly vulnerable.
She listens quietly to that story about his wife, her lips set in a line of sincere absorption. Then there's the mention of apologies made, her to him, and she smiles again but she makes no comment. She was prepared to allow the conversation to turn and linger where it may. To his wife, if he wanted. To his children, if he had any. To his happy, successful life. She would have listened. That much is clearly spoken in her eyes. She would not have endured, but been genuinely happy for him. And then, once they'd said their goodbyes, she would have taken this moment of humanity and used it to remind herself that there was more to life than lying, stealing, and backstabbing.
As it turns out, the conversation becomes an explanation -- a telling, truthful enough from what she could tell, of his chosen lifestyle.
Did he notice she was barely drinking her whiskey? Did it matter? She still held the drink with the practiced ease of a lifetime alcoholic, but she hadn't once taken a sip since that initial toast.
When he leans even closer, her smile draws wider, flashing more of her perfect teeth.
"You /do/ have a type," she observes, amused by the observation, but not taunting. She wasn't pulling away. Nor was she leaning back in save for for one, little gesture -- a tilt of her forehead towards his, one that almost looked like an acceptance of his approach. It's slow. Affectionate.
'I see you. I understand you,' it seemed to say.
And then she's turning back to the skyline. Rejection, for certain, but not a complete withdrawal. She didn't even pull her arm away from his, or her hip.
"Personally, I haven't had the inclination for lovers." A small, almost sad curl of her lips. "Unlike my predecessor. Liabilities. Vulnerabilities." A pause then. She didn't even look back over. "I'm sure you can imagine."
So accustomed to falling into the patterns of his antics as he is, Colo doesn't even recognize what he's doing at times. How he comes off is exactly as Qi'ra reads him: a man seeking, if not exactly finding, companionship. What shape that might take lies mostly in her hands. He leaves the controls where they belong, in the party that's guarded, careful, less open than he, and rightfully-so.
For all her openness, Colo respects that she doesn't simply cast caution to the wind. They've known one-another less than an hour despite the decades of mutual experiences. It builds a bridge that he can see is little more than a tight-rope, to be sure, but a bridge it is. Perhaps if he keeps at it, they might be able to meet somewhere along its treacherous middle.
And there it is. Meeting. Accord. All at once, she smiles at him so perfectly he's drunk off more than the booze he's been carefully picking at. Her expressiveness and attentiveness either are an expert act or the guards have dropped in part--either way, it's tonic for what ails him. Colo drinks it--her--in and meets the tilt, threatening to coalesce and only breaking when she calls retreat...or advance in another direction?
Again, he cares not. They understand one-another. This is why, though she now denies him her look, he keeps up close and continues to enjoy the sample of warmth that escapes one body's clothing to seep towards that of the dress-wearer. "I respect all inclinations. Especially those that are...mh. You have responsibilities that I cannot even dream of. A weight I'm not about to haul, though I've been known to wield a good pick-axe." Yes, he can imagine.
And imagine he does: "It's been wonderful to meet you, Qi'ra. Do ya mind if we just...enjoy the view a while more?" Colo offers no insight into which view he means. Likely? Both. His eyes still haven't left her, rejected though he's been.
What most men don't seem to realize is that much of time, a woman engaged in this dance is just trying to feel safe -- testing, sometimes without even meaning to, to see what will happen when she signals a stop. Will he beg? Will he get angry? Will he push? If she can't trust him here on the balcony in front of her guards, if he doesn't respect her /here/ , what hope would she have of earning his respect later, when her dress was on the floor of her suite and the two of them were alone? She may not be as vulnerable as most women, but why would she put herself in that situation unnecessarily?
But there's no begging. No anger. No pushing.
There's understanding. Acceptance. And a respectful request for a middle ground between complete acceptance of his desires and absolute acknowledgement of her fears.
Maybe it was for that reason, or maybe it was the heat of his body, that drew her closer. Her arm shifted away from the balcony railing, slipping under his to tuck herself in against his shoulder. Her fingers gently curled around his bicep, clinging, and her eyes finally turned back to meet his.
"I'd like that."
Trust -- real trust -- was not a short road. It wasn't earned in an hour or a day.
But it was possible, in time.
