Chapter Text
“Redemption”
The grand canvas, one of dozens in the Skyway, looms amid its peers, a void of stormy blue and brutal grey that not even the noonday sun can brighten. Red and green slash across the canvas, eerily lifelike in their portrayal of plasma bolts. A stormtrooper, no more than a few violent swipes of white pigment, drags an enemy to some semblance of safety. There’s something almost visceral about it that makes him uneasy. What could’ve driven the Trooper in the painting to make such a choice. Family? The enemy he drags off is armored, too, and the familiarity of its shape sends a shiver up his spine. He looks at the title card again, this time seeking out the name of the painter.
N. Tacsch - 1ABY. Mandalore.
It…explains more than he cares to admit. And sparks a dormant anger.
It is a harsh painting. Messy up close, but if one takes just a half-step back, the detail reveals itself. An odd trick of perspective, like most things are.
The carpet does little to mute the sound of boots and the soft tink of metal on metal and it grinds on his teeth. The cavernous hall makes sure that each step is heard, no matter how hard he tries to stay silent. But still, the sound barely carries more than a few feet, swallowed up into silence like the Tacsch paintings swallow up light.
“A fascinating composition, to say the least.”
He stops, hand resting on his belt.
Ready, always.
“I wouldn’t know.” It isn’t his wheelhouse, not even slightly. Art isn’t something he’s ever given half a thought to, let alone tried to interpret.
“No, I suppose not. But you must admit, this one does evoke rather significant emotion.”
He turns, making too much noise for his comfort, until the edge of the second painting comes into view. “Fascinating” isn’t the first word that leaps to mind. Overwhelming, perhaps. Poignant.
“Benevolence” reads the title card. He thinks he read it wrong.
The Emperor, in the same haphazard style of the first painting, atop a throne made of helmets and lightsabers and skulls of all manner, draped in a cloak that is no doubt meant to be stitched from the common person’s clothes.
It’s out of place.
Just like them.
“I’ve read about you,” the first begins, level and evenly paced. It’s a struggle to keep his unease from seeping into his voice. “I’m surprised they let you off your leash.”
The second man simply laughs. It is a genuine noise, the sound caught somewhere in his nose, and reeking of passive arrogance. The first knows the sound well. He makes it often.
“What our dear Chancellor Mothma doesn’t know won’t hurt her.”
“This seems like something that could hurt.”
“Perhaps.”
His eyes have yet to leave the painting of the Emperor. They trace over each wild swipe of color, taking in the terrible grandeur.
“But perhaps not. This is…strategic. And promises mutual benefit. Assuming you are successful, of course.”
The other says nothing. The yellow eyes that have been painted pierce clear through his armor. His visor picks up the little details as before; the raised texture in the paint, the chemical makeup of the pigment and three possible movements that the artist could’ve followed. He barely registers any of it. It’s not important to the conversation.
N. Tacsch. 7 BBY. Mandalore.
Once, the first reckons, is a single point in space and time, with no evidence to correlation or causation. A coincidence, at most. But twice…twice, and it becomes a pattern. He cannot recall ever learning of a Mandalorian who devoted the sort of time to the arts that these paintings must’ve taken. Let alone the years it must’ve taken to develop the skill necessary.
In the space between it all, he struggles to understand why the New Republic would choose such a…counterintuitive set of paintings for their gallery. Especially such a prolific gallery. Or so he’s been told.
“I don’t work for Imperials,” he says cooly. “Why should I trust you?”
The man simply shrugs. “You would not be here if you did not intend to take the job.”
“You’re not exactly who I was expecting.” But what was he expecting, exactly? He’s not sure. “I could walk out of here at any moment.”
The other holds out a hand, ignoring the first. A little holo bursts forth from the puck in his palm.
“A face and a name is enough, is it not?”
The first takes in the holo. The face is nothing special, the type that has a tendency to blend into the background wherever it is. A wide nose, high cheeks… perhaps the closest things to defining features that he can see. The hair too, would be of no help. In the holo, it’s tied into a bun that looks painfully tight. How many times have marks almost away slipped right under his nose when they wear their hair differently? The woman in the holo looks like any one of a hundred dozen Imperial officers he’s seen over the years. A name and a face…it’s only just barely enough. But he’s done more with less.
The name is nothing he’s ever heard, either, but something about it makes his teeth itch.
Annour, Vea’h. Low ranked, most likely, no one who can possibly be important. Not to this level, at least.
But he’s been wrong before. Very wrong.
He snatches the puck from the other’s palm, feels its weight in his own, pockets it.
“Last known location?”
The man says nothing. He brushes an invisible speck of dirt from his dark sleeve and straightens his cuffs, uninterested.
“I believe you said this was enough,” he says cooly. “Or did I hire the wrong Mandalorian?”
He does not dignify the other with a response.
The Mandalorian simply turns on his heel and leaves.
He can’t get out of that damn gallery soon enough.
· · • • • ✤ • • • · ·
Nantel looks out over the sprawling grasslands, the wind dancing through each blade like waves on an ocean she can't remember. It pulls through the curtains of the studio, pale lace lapping about lazily. And the sun, too, catching in the bits and baubles of glass and shells and crystals she's collected over the years, strung together in just the right way to cast rainbows along the paint smeared floor. Those beautiful, delicate swipes of color contrast wretchedly over the canvas propped up opposite the windows and the setting sun. Where she sits, perched, one knee hugged to her chest and the other dangling from the stool, it isn't so apparent. But it's there, she knows it.
The palette knife cuts a sharp red line into the canvas, like a horrid new wound opening. Good. Fitting. Her grip shifts and another cuts along a new angle. Nantel tucks the handle between her teeth and takes a brush from her hair. Its handle is bent from use, curving perfectly in her fingers like it was made just for her. A few more swipes of paint -red here, a green there, another blotting of grey- and she settles the palette on the cart beside her. Slowly she unfolds herself, tattered joints protesting the movements. Yes, like this she can see the irony.
In the warmth of her studio, the canvas is a wretched void of death and anger. She never lost count of the thirty-three TIE Defenders swooping about the expanse of linen, nor the eighteen Gauntlets that tried to counter them.
Nantel never truly forgot who won that battle. None of them did.
Fitting, then, that she still stood in the middle of it.