An Arm and a Leg: The Artist's Tale

An Arm and a Leg: The Artist's Tale

Author:	Astrid Meadows
Series:	Tales from the Outlander Club
Length:	6,800 words
Source:	AO3
Publication Date:	June 28, 2025
Timeline Placement:	22 BBY

Preceding:	Following:
"Greatest Gamble: The Podracer's Tale"	"Brothers: Joshua Jinzler's Tale"

"An Arm and a Leg: The Artist's Tale" is a short story written by Astrid Meadows. It was first published on June 28, 2025 as the twenty-eighth story from Tales from the Outlander Club.

Blurb

Oakie Dokes is many things: Swoken beauty queen, heiress to one of the largest schinga ranches on Makem Te, and the Uscru District's resident oddball. After spending her fortune on the high life forced her low, she found her true calling as an artist with a knack for the macabre and unhinged. Her pieces command a hefty premium at auction, but a pair of cons, believing her to be an easy mark, are about to find out her work really does cost an arm and a leg.

Plot summary

While ogling Zam Wesell's severed arm in the Outlander Club, Oakie Dokes is approached by the con artist Dannl Faytonni, still clad in a Republic Security officer's disguise. Believing Dokes to be an easy mark, Faytonni tries to convince her to finance a "special project" for the Galactic Senate rotunda. After Faytonni's associate, Achk Med-Beq, joins the pair, Dokes quickly determines they are trying to con her, and immediately begins planning to paint a new picture using their dead bodies.

The trio make their way back to Dokes' abode in the lowest levels of Uscru, where Med-Beq and Faytonni are immediately appalled at the sight of a dead and rotting Xisian leftover from one of Dokes' previous projects. When Dokes steps out of the room, pretending to fetch drinks, Faytonni and Med-Beq argue and makes plans to leave and pursue another target. In a fit of anger, Med-Beq knocks over Dokes' easel. When she returns to the room and becomes irate over the damage to her art, the pair attempt to flee. However, Med-Beq trips over the easel and Faytonni leaves him for dead.

After chaining Med-Beq to the ceiling of her studio, Dokes fetches a bolt gun from her room. Later, her Pacithhip landlord bursts into the apartment demanding Dokes pay her delinquent rent in full, narrowly sparing Med-Beq from a bloody death. After luring the Pacithhip inside, Dokes kills him with the bolt gun. She pushes the corpse next to the Zisian, sets them in an embrace, and paints while she forces Med-Beq to watch.

The next morning, Dokes and Med-Beq go to Ritzenbacher Auction House to put the painting up for bid. She also forced Med-Beq to summon Faytonni to the auction house. When the pair of con men link up again, they discuss plans to rob a dowager in the Senate. Hoping to rid himself and his partner from Oakie Dokes for good—and to atone for leaving Med-Beq behind—Faytonni also purchases the painting for himself, giving Dokes the patronage he originally promised her back at the Outlander.

Appearances

Arts & culture

• Painting
  • The Battle of Naboo (Mentioned only)
  • Dirt-Love
  • Fall of the Aristocrats (Mentioned only)

Characters

• Achk Med-Beq
• Dannl Faytonni
• Oakie Dokes
• Oakie Dokes' landlord
• Lunae Minx
• Unidentified Nosaurian receptionist
• Ayy Vida

Locations

• Coruscant
  • Ritzenbacher Auction House
  • Uscru Entertainment District
    • Outlander Club
  • The Gutter
    • Oakie Dokes' studio

Continuity

Faytonni referring to using spoons to "scoop [Oakie's] eyes out" is a callback to his fixation with the utensils in "Two's Company, Three's a Crowd," in which he hatches a plan to dig out of the CoCo Town Penitentiary using spoons.

The painting Fall of the Aristocrats depicts Dokes' take on the defenestration of Rylothi Senator Connus Trell, as seen in Star Wars: Bounty Hunter.

Behind the scenes

The story originally had a different plot in which Dokes gruesomely killed Achk Med-Beq after tearing his arm from his socket—something she still attempts to do in the final release. In this version of the story, Dokes' landlord did not appear, and she instead used her bolt gun on Med-Beq. After painting his dead body, the story ended with her watching the auction at Ritzenbacher's, and with Faytonni placing the winning bid on the painting to make up for getting his partner killed. Due to a continuity conflict with the webcomic The Clone Wars: Departure, in which Med-Beq and Faytonni encounter C-3PO and Jar Jar Binks during a similarly bungled con, the second half of the plot was changed. Meadows had rationalized killing off Med-Beq due to his absence in the opera house scene in Revenge of the Sith, which hinted at a potential "break up" between the two cons.

Likewise, the "dowager" Med-Beq mentions at the end of the story is a direct reference to the scheme he and Faytonni pursue in the aforementioned webcomic.

Most of Faytonni and Med-Beq's dialogues were swapped around to better match their characterization in "Two's Company, Three's a Crowd". In that story, Med-Beq is portrayed as the more intellectual of the pair. However, as Med-Beq was still attempting to woo Ayy Vida and Lunae Minx, Faytonni was the only one available to pitch the scheme to Oakie Dokes.