Private Putting on a Face

[Corazona von Ascania]

"Oh, you've such lovely hair!"

Cora stood behind Colette, who was seated in front of a large, mirrored dressing table. Given the size of Padawan dorm rooms, it was anyone's guess as to how such a sprawling piece of furniture managed to fit.

How Cora had dragged Colette into her room was less of a guess. The young noblewoman had a way of being politely persistent.

"Perhaps I could curl it, but I must tame that frizz, first."

Hands falling away from Colette's dark locks, she began rifling through the expensive hair products and cosmetics cluttering the table's surface.

"And your face is a blank canvas! Er, not that it's not pretty. You're quite pretty on your own, but as a Padawan of Master Noble, you'll be representing the Sword of the New Jedi Order. Thus, it is my duty to make you look polished."

That wasn't entirely true. Or even remotely. Still, she spoke with knowing authority.

Cora just wanted to play makeover.

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

This was… Not familiar. Cora and Colette had met in the hallways and knew each other mostly because they shared a master, but that was where most similarities ended. If Cora was a rose then Colette was an oak tree, which was to say that while Corazona was a woman that took care of her appearance, Colette was a lot more of a ‘let it grow and whatever happens, happens’ kind of person. It was a crash of worlds, and it was all going down in a cramped room in the Temple.

How had she ended up here? Well, it wasn’t exactly by choice, but Colette made do. It would be good to make some more friends, and especially friends with whom she shared a master. Cora complimented her hair, and Colette gently bowed her head with a smile.

“Thank you,” She laughed nervously. “I think.”

To Colette it almost felt weird to even see herself in the mirror. Was it really so important to care for your appearance? Wasn’t it enough to just clean up and then call it a day? And more than that, wasn’t it more honest? Still, it seemed Corazona was quite happy with the chance to play around with Colette’s hair and she supposed that even if it wasn’t as fun for Colette herself there was still some matter of fun involved in the whole thing. If not for the change in look then at least for the vanity that Cora would try to push on her.

“But as a representative of the Order, shouldn’t we be acting as ourselves instead of this facade we plaster onto our faces?” Colette asked almost as if to poke Cora straight in the heart. Figuratively and verbally, of course. “I feel like I’ve had this conversation with others as well.”

As a matter of fact,

“Next up you’ll say something like how we should look our best to prove we are the best, right?”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora had taken to running a wide-toothed comb through Colette's hair. When it snagged a tangle, she yanked sharply, all while smiling pleasantly at her guest through the mirror.

"Facade? Goodness, no! There is certainly no harm, and everything to be gained from looking like a more polished version of yourself."

Placing her hands on either of Colette's tanned shoulders, Cora leaned closer so that her face hovered next to the other girl's.

"I believe the phrase you're looking for is look good, feel good."

Offering Colette another sweet smile, she placed the comb onto the dresser and stepped to the side to plug in a slim electrical device that looked like a pair of flattened, metallic tongs. Next, she reached for a spray bottle and stepped back behind her prey. No curls for her.

"Training your mind and body is all well and good, and should certainly be a priority for any Jedi." As Cora continued, she misted Colette's hair with the floral smelling water.

"Jedi are also diplomats just as much as they are symbols of justice and peace, so presentation is important."

Her polite smile almost turned wry as she combed the heat protectant through Colette's dark locks. Many Jedi shared Colette's views, which she supposed was easy when everyone was young, fit and attractive.

Cora just held herself to a different standard.

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

Ow. Ow. Ow ow ow. Colette could feel the way her hair shrieked in pain with each stroke of the comb. There was really no telling what that was or how long that these strands had been bunched together, but given that where she was from didn’t put much stock in beauty it was fair to assume a long while. Colette liked to tie her hair up every now and then, but as far as combs went she had never really owned one of her own.

A confused sidestare shot at Cora as she leaned in next to Colette and gave her idea of a correction. The tanned teenager would not pretend to understand it, but she also would not shun this ideal Cora seemed to hold. They were from different worlds both literally and figuratively and it was showing.

“Is that…” Colette sniffed. “Lavender?”

There was an unexpected raise of Colette’s brow. Looks weren’t that important, but even she had a hard time denying that smelling nice was, well, nice. Sweat and other smells had a way of affecting people in a more vivid way than looks did. You could look away from an appearance, smells weren’t quite so easy. And even still it was not something that she would actively seek out and apply to herself, but it felt like a strangely accurate choice of scent.

“I love lavender” She then sniffed again. “And I mean, I respect what you are saying, but I also never really grew up with this idea.”

“We did have beauty standards, I guess. But we never had the resources to soak our hairs in lavender water, or ensure that our clothes were as intact as the day they had first been worn.”

“Where are you from, anyway?” Colette asked and began to turn towards Ascania was quickly stopped. “Sorry.” She apologized and turned back, but not without keeping the thread going. “You look too refined to be from some ‘backwaters’ planet out there like me.”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"That is lavender." Cora confirmed, taking care to control the note of surprise in her voice. "I love the scent of lavender too," A fond smile softened her expression as she combed the perfumed water through Colette's hair. "I find it very calming."

Strange how the mutual recognition of a pleasant smell seemed to form the vaguest of links between them.

"I'm from Ukatis, though I can imagine that probably haven't heard of it." The comb paused as she'd started sectioning off dark tufts, pinning them up with large clips. "Not because you're from a 'backwater' world, as you've put it. Ukatis may be in the Inner Rim, but I suppose it's largely unremarkable by most galactic standards. Not as modern as places like Coruscant and Naboo, but home nonetheless."

There was, perhaps, a defensive thread woven into her words. Cora's bravado had been humbled somewhat since she'd joined the Jedi, and perhaps she was still bitter that the Alliance's only taste of her homeworld had been her disastrous engagement party.

"My father is a Viscount, so my preferenes are a bit more…"

Holding the hair straightener aloft, Cora waved the device vaguely in the air before giving the metallic plates a test clack.

"...cultivated than the average Jedi."

With a comb in one hand and the straightener in the other, Cora gently clamped the device onto a section of Colette's hair and guided it down with the comb. Slowly, steadily, expertly.

"Where do you hail from, Colette?"

There was a genuinely curious lit to her tone as the blonde Padawan worked another lock of Colette's hair with the straightener.

"If you have access to lavender, it can't be all that bad."

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

Ukatis… Nope. Never heard of. Colette added it to the growing list of planets she would have to read up on and smiled along as Cora talked about her home. And from the way the she talked it was clear that she allowed herself perhaps a bit more of a high opinion on her own heritage. Colette supposed it came with being a Vile Count’s daughter. To that end ‘cultivated’ was certainly a word plucked from the bunch with great care.

And then… It was Colette’s time. How many times had she had to tell this exact story, again?

“I don’t know.” She said and began to reach for her neck to scratch it in embarrassment. Except there was a hot tong there that made the whole room smell of lavender and wet hair. Fascinating. “We never had a name for it. The story is that it used to house a big ‘coaxium’ depot before a great illness — the, uh, Gulag Plague I think you call it — forced us to adapt to life there.”

“My people are the remnants of that, I guess.” She wanted to shrug, but yet again there was a hot tong there, and that was beside the way that Corazona kept pushing and pulling her head into the ‘correct’ position over and over again. “I grew up in the desert of my world, where water was rare. Lavender grew closer to the forest regions which we only ever really visited for, well… Marriage, I guess.”

“I’ve only really smelled it he few times I, ah…” She cleared her throat. “Uh, stole it from the wedding bouquet as a child.”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"You don't have a name for your own home?"

Over Colette's shoulder, Cora frowned into the mirror as she guided another straightened lock of hair gently back down. It was one thing to be unaware of your origins, but to have a home and not call it anything?

Curious, she listened while unclipping another section of hair and running the comb through it.

Cora's heart leaped into her throat at the mention of marriage. A year ago, she would've smiled blissfully at the conjured image of her in a white dress next to a dashing groom.

Now it filled her with dread.

Still, she smiled. It didn't quite reach her eyes.

"Your people use lavender in wedding bouquets? What a lovely tradition. I don't blame you for stealing a spring when no one was looking."

That thought did ease a genuine giggle from her as she worked the straightener through Colette's hair.

"How'd you end up with the Jedi? Picked up by a wandering Master? Took a shuttle to Coruscant for a better life?"

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

“Something like that.” Colette exhaled as she began. “A traveling knight called Trent Keer found me while seeking out the old coaxium stash that was rumored to have been on my planet. He ran the tests and offered to bring me along. My tribe said yes, and now I’m making the most of what I can with this opportunity so that it’s not wasted.”

“And, to answer your question about my home…” She looked at Corazona in the mirror to take in her response. “For us to give it a name would be like me walking into Master Valery’s room and naming her children.”

“We are on that world, but we are not of it. Our presence was parasitic and we reached a point where we realized that we could either make that a good or a bad thing.” She then looked at her hands. “It’s why I struggle so much with Coruscant.”

“... The people here decided to kill their host.”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora divided her attention between Colette's hair and little glances at her face through the mirror as she listened. As the straightener worked through dark locks, she nodded.

Her story was in line with many of the Jedi here. Some were scooped up as babies, too young to remember any home that they might've had. Others, like Colette and herself, were discovered well into their teens.

A phenomenon that seemed to be well accepted in Jedi-aligned spaces. Major galactic powers took in Padawan learners of all ages, whereas some smaller conclaves still only accepted very young children to be trained.

Cora pulled the straightener away from Colette's hair, thin blonde eyebrows rising.

"Kill their host? Are you calling Coruscant dead?"

She frowned at that. Not because the idea was offensive, but because it was new and startling.

"Sooo.... you don't like holotvs and refreshers and whatnot? Do you have a holophone?"

Cora's tone had a curious lit as she clicked the straightener off.

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

Colette gently nodded her head at Corazona’s question. Yes, Coruscant was dead and it was the people that turned it into an infinite cityscape that had killed it. And then, she laughed for a moment as Cora continued.

“No, I love refreshers and working plumbing. And yes, I do have a very basic phone.” Colette reassured her stylist but very specifically left out the holotvs. “The amount of water we have here is nearly infinitely greater than I grew up with.”

“It’s just that…” Colette exhaled out of weariness and shook her head. “Coruscant has nothing about it that brings life. The animals all live in cages. The mountains are covered in buildings that put them on display as novelties. Plants are put on life support in specialized trays. Water is recycled from what has already been used or brought in from other planets. The very air we breathe is recycled through expensive machines that mimic what a tree could do for free.”

“Coruscant is a bloated corpse and its inhabitants are the maggots trying to push the limit of how much of the putrid flesh they can consume before the whole thing collapses on itself, and it’s not getting any better. People aren’t just abusing the planet but each other as well.” Colette grew clearly agitated. “This concept of wealth is poisoning their minds. They just yearn for more and more of it while growing fatter and fatter off of work that wasn’t theirs while those who actually did the work starve.”

“Crime runs rampant the further from the sun you get. The further into the corpse you dig, the worse the conditions get.” Her agitation turned into anger. Her hands balled up into fists. “And the leaders are more talk than action. They serve themselves, not the people. I would be surprised if any of them are even in touch with those that give them power.”

“So yes,” Colette weeped. “I HATE Coruscant. It’s a monument to EVERYTHING I was told to avoid at home.”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora watched Colette's ire grow as she ran pale fingers along the crown of her head, rearranging the other Padawan's now straightened hair.

Colette had a lot to say. She made a lot of points, too—some that Cora could even agree with. Despite her pompous air, the Noble was from a farming community and understood the importance of caring for the land you live on. An industrial creep was making the already difficult soil even more unworkable, necessitating Alliance intervention for food staples.

"Leaders should protect the interests of those they're representing." She agreed breezily, meeting Colette's anger with a quirked brow. The blonde reached for a metallic can that rested on the vanity, shaking it in her grasp.

"If you hate Coruscant so much, then why are you still here? Oh, close your eyes."

With a wave of her arm, she misted the hairspray liberally over Colette's hair.

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

The eyes closed, head tilted in slight frustration in response to the question. Colette’s brows furrowed for a moment as she tried to find the most succinct way to put it before she promptly gave up.

“Don’t take offense to this, please,” Colette began and hoped it would be enough. “But that’s a stupid question, Corazona.”

“I am here because of what I hope is the same reason that you are here.” She sighed. “I have a gift that many don’t have. I owe it to the people around me to explore that.”

“... Uh, just to be clear… I mean our force sensitivity.” The brunette cleared her throat for a moment. “The amount of good I can do as a Jedi is bigger than the good I could do if I had stayed at home.”

“I mean, sure, the tribe could do with more bodies, but…” Colette frowned. “There are more tribes out there in really big need of people like us to guide and defend them, if they let us. To only help one of them would be wrong.”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora did take offense to that, actually. Her lips curved downward into a tiny little frown as her fingers smoothed down the flyaways where Colette's hair parted.

"If you truly meant not offense, then you'd find a tactful way to phrase your thoughts."

Her hands drifted away from dark hair to rest them at her own hips.

"Being rude doesn't add much to a conversation, you know."

Despite the way her face scrunched in disapproval, Cora let the rest roll from her shoulders now that her piece had been said. Colette was not the first blunt Jedi she'd met, and she certainly would not be the last.

Stepping around the chair, she slid a vanity drawer open and rummaged through a collection of cosmetics.

"That is noble of you," The blonde agreed. "Once you complete your training, do you intend to go back to your people and lead them?"

She turned now, holding an eyeliner pen. Her other hand seized Colette's chin, tilting her neck upwards. Cora suppressed a giddy smirk as she brought the pencil uncomfortably close to Colette's face.

"Keep your eyes open, and try not to move."

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

Wha- but- no! Colette hadn’t meant offense at all, and she truly had given it a shot to be more diplomatic about it. Her brows furrowed for a moment, her eyes widening as her lips sunk into an apologetic frown.

“No, I am—” She stammered. “I am not a good speaker.”

“I’m sorry, Corazona.” Colette added. “Really.”

As they went on to discuss their motivations and plans once training was complete she couldn’t help but tilt her head in confusion though. To Colette it had seemed like being a Jedi was more of a constant training thing. More of a life than an education, so to speak.

“No, they have an eld—” Colette tried to speak, but then Cora decided to lean in and… Poke her eye or something with a pencil? “They have a—”

Colette’s eye twitched at a rapid pace as she struggled to keep them open. No sooner than she got it halfway open it was as if every single muscle in her face pushed to keep it closed. As the pencil got closer, Colette’s eye began to struggle to find a good…

“Ow!” Colette hissed as she fought every fiber of her being to pull back from the pen that had just managed to poke her eyeball. Water began to pool along her eyelid as they tried to wetten the increasingly dry surface of her eye.

“Do people actually do this on the daily?” The tribal whined. “It seems… Frustrating.”

On this, Colette felt like she was starting to speak from experience.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Oh.

Okay, maybe Colette hadn't meant to be rude on purpose. Her shock and apology were genuine enough to have Cora blushing bashfully.

Be gracious, She reminded herself. You are a Lady.

"Oh, dear. It's alright, Colette. I can't fault you for not being raised to the same standard of manners as I have been."

Her delicate smile was honest enough, and she wasn't trying to admonish the other Padawan. Not anymore, at least. Diplomacy was a skill, one that Cora herself apparently had yet to Master.

She did cringe though, when the tip of the pencil found itself at her victim's sclera.

"I said don't move!" She chided, swiping a tissue from the box on the window sill and handing it to Colette. As the girl wiped at her eye, Cora frowned at the pencil.

"Oh, you get used to it. Eventually, the nerves in your eyelids will die and you'll barely feel a thing." She expressed this thought absently with a wave of her hand, and perhaps it was difficult to tell if she were being truthful or simply exaggerating for effect.

"How about we just try on your lower lid this time?"

Cora was already straddling the chair, one hand forcing Colette's head back while her thumb pulled the skin around the outer crease of her eyes taut.

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

The tissue burned against her skin, but not as bad as the black dot that felt like it rested upon her eye. “Sorry!” Colette apologized yet again at the behest of her makeover expert’s frustrated remarks.

“I don’t want to get used to this.” Colette then said and scrunched her nose in disdain for the idea. “Numbing your nerves sounds like a bad idea.”

She sighed. At least there was no denying that Cora knew—

For a moment Colette’s eyes went wide open, but only one of them closed. Cora’s thumb pried one of them open with her thumb as the small pen attacked the top of Colette’s eyelid. She could have sworn this was what it felt like to smear fat and soot in your eyes. The tickle of the pen felt as unnatural as it truly was. Yes, of course Colette’s tribe was aware of cosmetics but those weren’t exactly every day occurrences as much as celebrations. Say, for example, marriages. And even then, showers were a luxury. To waste water on something because you ‘messed up one of the eyes’ was not a valid excuse to have one.

“You certainly know,” Colette grunted as Cora pried the other eye open and got to work. “What you are doing.”

“I take it make-up isn’t a… Marriage thing for you?” Colette laughed. “I haven’t—”

“My time never really came around for that.”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

There was that word again. Marriage. It never used to make her skin crawl, and now Cora struggled to hold back a grimace.

For just a moment, she lost control of the eyeliner pencil. It went streaking away from Colette's lid, drawing a haphazard, dark line from the corner of her eye up to her temple.

Cora did grimace at that, flushing briefly in embarrassment from her mistake.

"Goodness, I'm sorry about that." And just when Colette had said that she knew what she was doing, too—nevertheless, Cora huffed and soaked a cotton pad in eye makeup remover and went to work dabbing at the mess she'd made.

"Noblewomen of Ukatis' court are expected to look their best at all times. So yes, cosmetics are certainly a part of our daily routines. For marriage...well, things just get more elaborate."

The cotton pad wiped over Colette's skin and she applied a bit of pressure to scrub the mark from her skin.

"Your time? You can't be older than me, I'd imagine." She frowned. "Do girls get married that young where you're from?"

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

It felt like having an unusually fuzzy dog tongue lick your eyelids clean. The faulty line was removed, but the visual in her head was enough to make even Colette shudder for a moment. Dogs were cute, but eyes were eyes and dogs were still riddled with bacteria that was best kept away from your eye unless you wanted a nasty infection.

"Sounds like the noblewomen of Ukatis should tell their men off and live how they wish." Colette muttered under her breath as Cora explained the situation with cosmetics and how caking it upon their faces was just part of their daily lives. Well, maybe not quite caked, but Colette didn't mind taking some liberties with her interpretations. She most certainly felt like half of a cocoa-flavored biscuit by now, and they hadn't even gotten halfway.

A long sighed blew through Colette's nose as she thought about the whole marriage thing.

"Well, marriage might be the wrong word. Since we live in such small groups — most of us being in the handful of dozens at best — our elders arrange 'playdates' between tribes where we are encouraged to 'find a friend' so to speak." She scrunched her nose in disgust yet again and shook her head. "Something about keeping our culture alive and our blood pools from 'getting tainted'. It's not necessarily a love thing as much as… I don't know. Necessity?"

"Except this 'necessity' only ever really applies to the women in our tribes it seems like. Growing up I always seemed to notice that it's always we who have to jump to the other clan. It is always we who are put in charge of the children, even if we are promising scouts or warriors." It wasn't something that Colette particularly liked with her people and it showed. Her teeth were grinding by now, her mouth fidgeting from side to side between her words as she thought of what to say. "For every man who wants to move we have ten women who have been raised from childhood to accept this as an inevitability, it's disgusting."

"Last year one of the boys from one of the forest tribes tried to put his hand on me in an effort to sway me. I had heard him boast earlier about how he was going to 'tame that beast' to the others." The roll of her eyes said enough about her opinion on that. "Well, knowing this, the second that his arm reached around my waist and he tried to place his lips on my cheek was the very same moment that I rubbed his face in the dirt."

"Told him then and there that if I ever so much as heard of him referring to women as 'beasts' or glanced inappropriately at someone ever again that he'd see the dirt again, but that next time they'd have to dig him out of it instead."

"... Needless to say the elder of that tribe didn't quite like the way that I handled his son and I was banned from ever setting foot within their camp again. Turns out later that his friends must have got the message too, because during the next meet up at another tribe there was barely anyone that even looked at or approached me. Which, you know… I'm okay with that."

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"The men?" A thin blonde eyebrow arched as her lips tilted wryly. "I doubt you'd be able to find a man on Ukatis who knows the proper difference between rouge and mascara."

Maybe Colette wouldn't know the difference either, but that was excusable because she was a tribal peasant.

"It's the women who will talk if your hairstyle is out of fashion, or if your cheeks are too heavily blushed."

The women of court, no matter how sweet and docile they appeared, could be even more vicious than the men. Battles were fought with pleasantly snide comments, giggles behind the cover of a decorative fan that spread rumors like disease.

As she worked the tip of the eyeliner pen along Colette's lash line—stopping every so often to tidy the smudges with the wetted edge of a cotton swab—Cora listened to her views of marriage and child rearing. It was startlingly similar, at least in core values, to how things were done on Ukatis.

"Tame the beast?" Cora's brows lifted, a thread of disgust weaving into her tone. "What disrespectful language! I would've struck him as well."

Despite rigid decorum, few on Ukatis would fault a Noble Lady for slapping a man for untoward behavior.

"Foolish boys aside, it sounds as if your tribe holds childbearing in high regard."

Tilting Colette's head to the side with a gentle hand at her cheek, Cora nodded in approval and capped the eyeliner. Her victi—guest was given a few moments of reprieve while she had her back turned, rummaging through the top drawer of the dresser.

"Ukatis is similar, at least in that respect. I'm actually the eldest of eight children. Motherhood is held in high regard where I'm from."

She frowned for a brief moment at the thought of her own mother. Pale, sickly, always with a faraway look in her eyes.

"Is…marrying into another tribe really that bad? Sure, you have to leave your home but…you can visit, right?"

There was a hopeful note in her voice as Cora tried to rationalize the traditions of a culture she barely knew of.

"Okay! Pick one."

Spinning on her heel, she displayed an eyeshadow pallete with a dozen colors to Colette. The top six were bright jewel tones, while the bottom row were more earthy nudes.

"Or a few, if you can't decide. If not, then I’ll pick.”

That was a threat.

Colette

 

[Colette]

Corazona von Ascania

Everything about so-called 'refined' society struck Colette as immensely backwards. Which she found immensely amusing since the looks that others gave her hadn't exactly passed her by unnoticed. It was more a matter of Colette not giving a damn about their deluded sense of superiority.

So rather naturally when Corazona started to talk about how women tore each other down over such superficial issues as what they wore on their body or face she struggled to keep her face from drooping into an utterly disgusted scowl. Because disgust was just too apt of a word for what she felt in that very moment.

At least it disappeared as they moved on to other topics. Ones that Colette could relate to on a personal level.

"My people held survival in a very high regard." Colette corrected Cora. She would follow up, but there was a choice to be had. The earthy and rather tasteful so-called 'nudes' appealed even to Colette, but there was also no denying that the bright jewel tones had some appeal as well. "The blue one, and that darker brown one maybe?" She said and shrugged. What was color theory anyway? "So it's like—"

She sighed, again.

"We are a people in constant motion, right? We could meet again, but it would mean a lot of organizing and effort just because I get homesick. And then, if not that, we would only ever meet by accident — and then that would be a wild shot in the dark."

"I don't want to marry, I don't want to settle down." Colette frowned. "I want to wander and discover amazing sights. I want to see a literal star be born, I want to observe oceans so deep I can swim through the center and come out on the other side of the world."

Deep breath, long exhale.

"I refuse to follow anyone's heart other than my own, and that's my right. To hell with anyone who can't keep up."