Four Life Days

by corellianred

Life Day - on every world that celebrates it, the holiday takes a slightly different form. But everyone seems to agree on the basics: decorations, gifts, and feasting, and most important of all, the idea that no one should spend it alone.

Hello! I am fascinated by the Star Wars idea of Life Day, but sadly I only managed to have ideas about something to write for it after Christmas. But let's not allow something as silly as the wrong time of year get in the way of sharing it with you!

This story touches on how Zabrak smuggler Trin ai Kari spends four different Life Day holidays.

#

It started out with the Wookiees, of course, who have been celebrating Life Day for millennia.

But no one seems to know for sure when it spread out from Kashyyyk and into other cultures. Some say that Wookiees who had left their homeworld to settle in other planets had begun to share it with their newfound communities, in the tradition of welcoming neighbours and friends into their homes. On planets like Corellia, Nar Shaddaa, or Coruscant, where thousands of cultures and species each celebrate their own feast days and holy days, it seems only natural that such a day would become popular with more than just the Wookiees. And what better tradition to share than the central messages of Life Day — hope, gratitude, love of one's family and friends?

Of course, on every world that celebrates it, the holiday takes a slightly different form. But everyone seems to agree on the basics: decorations, gifts, and feasting, and most important of all, the idea that no one should spend it alone.

#

Iridia
5 BTC

In the nights that lead up to Life Day, it is tradition for each household in clan Lath'ya to hang paper lanterns at a home's front door, in gratitude for everything that has happened over the past year. Neighbours mingle in the streets, visiting each others' houses, admiring all the beautiful lights — indeed, some streets will compete to see who can create the most elaborate displays, drawing admirers from surrounding neighbourhoods and establishing friendly rivalries spanning generations. Families with new babies plant tree seedlings at sunset, hoping that the fertility that's come into their lives will also pass into the soil. Newly married couples hand out fragrant, fresh-baked ruku'a cakes to symbolise the warmth and hospitality of the home that they've begun to make together.

But Life Day is for remembrance, as well as celebration. The households with blue lanternsare the ones where someone has died — blue being the traditional colour of Nath, the steward of the Underworld, to thank him for guiding a loved one into his home. It is considered a kindness to bring some small token when you visit these homes, and to share a memory of the person who has died, in order to show the bereaved that the clan is still there, and will always be there.

Trin sits on the long, low bench in the front of their new home, her knees drawn up under her chin, and watches her father start to light the lanterns outside. This is the first Life Day they've had with Bes Kari's clan — the first one spent with so many people around, so many distant cousins and vaguely related kin she'd never met till just a few months ago, a whole city devoted just to the people of Lath'ya'ru. This time last year they'd been living in a colony of just a few thousand, and her mother had been making mint tisanes and decorating the house.

But now, blue lanterns — a string of them, in a trail from the street to the home.

Her father keeps lighting them one by one, his shoulders round, his thoughts obviously elsewhere. She can tell that he's been crying; she can always tell, his red-rimmed eyes a giveaway. He does it when he thinks she won't notice, because he's supposed to be the strong one.

Trin jumps off the bench. "Can I light some, lorin?" she asks, and he looks over with a half-smile. "Please?" she adds.

"Alright. Careful, though." He hands her the long-handled lighter and watches her closely. Each lantern has a candle tucked inside, and she's so careful not to jostle the crinkly paper coating as she pokes the end of the lighter in towards the wick. It takes just a second to catch, and then to glow brightly, and she turns to her father with a delighted grin.

"Look!"

"Did you make a wish?"

"Oh." She looks back into the lantern's blue glow, but nothing much comes to mind, except how much she misses the taste of her mother's tisane. Does Nath listen to the wishes of little daughters, once his work is done? Do the ancestors?

"Does it even work?"

"Does what?" Bes asks.

"Wishing on lanterns," she says.

"Of course it does." He kneels down, the better to match her height. "How it works is that you take a moment to look into your own mind and learn what you truly want. When you know that, you can start working towards it."

She sighs, a little disappointed. "I didn't think it was magic."

He rubs her shoulder affectionately. "You know, you are getting so big."

"I will be as tall as you soon," she says, and she lifts her chin and bounces on her toes, the better to see what it might be like.

"Not too soon, I hope," he tells her.

#

Mos Ila, Tatooine
8 ATC

Trin thinks it's kind of funny how Jaka Xoth always seems to find a bunch of jobs for her to do every time she comes back planetside. "Since you're here," he always says, as though hauling that old starship of his everywhere wasn't work enough. But of course she never refuses, because she has a big soft spot for that old scoundrel, and somehow her bar tab always has a way of being smaller than she'd figured it would be. So now she's perched on the old repulsorlift platform he usually keeps around for hauling big kegs of the frothy stuff into his cantina, hanging holowire from the ceiling.

"I don't get it. Just cause Coronet City's in winter when Life Day comes round," she says, "shouldn't mean the rest of us have to get all excited about snow."

"Ah, it's just a bit of fun," Jaka says from the other side of the cantina, and reaches up to stick another one of the little glitter-plas snowflakes on the edge of one of his bar shelves. "Besides, half the people who come into this town will live their whole damn lives not even knowing what snow looks like. It's a novelty for them. A bit of magic, even."

"Oh yeah?" Trin loops more of the wire around a little hook in the ceiling. "All the kids of my clan did res'Selenoren halfway up this enormous mountain in the north. We spent ten days camping out up there. I got to see enough of the real stuff to last me a lifetime and believe me, that ain't magic."

"Maybe next time you're there you can bring some back in a cooler for me," he smiles. "I think I've forgotten what it looks like. You're going home for Life Day, right?"

"You can make snow in your water reclamator, can't you?"

"Don't change the subject."

Fine. "Um, I haven't really decided."

Jaka makes a loud tsk. "Your poor father, Trin'le."

"He'll be with the clan. All those cousins, you know the deal."

"And not with his only daughter?"

"Sure, so he can lecture me again about how I'm wasting my life flying freighters? No, thanks. You're not supposed to spend Life Day fighting with your elders." She catches herself before it turns into a full-blown rant. "It's just… hard, you know?"

Jaka sticks another glittering snowflake on the wall, conveniently obscuring a scrape gouged into the wall by some careless patron's armour. "I know. Just don't let it turn into forever."

"I'll give him a holo-call. Promise." She keeps unspooling the wire, threading it onto the little hooks in the ceiling, and tries to ignore the guilty little pull in her gut. "Anyway, what are you doing?"

"Me? Oh, I'm opening the cantina…"

"On your own?"

"Sure," he shrugs. "Should get about fifty customers, all up. I've got this guy from the hunting lodge bringing me a whole side of bantha."

"I can't believe you just gave me an earful about how to spend Life Day, when you're going to spend it alone."

"A cantina full of paying customers isn't really alone."

"It's not really company, either. You got anyone else working?"

"Just me and the droids."

"And you're cooking a whole side of bantha?"

"Maybe two. You should see this steak rub I've been making for it."

It's going to be insane. His droids are next to useless. "You're going to need someone to help you tend bar," she says.

He looks up at her with his most brilliant grin. "Did you just volunteer?"

"Looks like it."

"Hm." He plays it cool, but the expression on his face says otherwise.

She's run out of wire, and the ceiling's pretty much covered; with a toe she nudges the control on the platform to bring it back down to ground level. Jaka gives her handiwork a quick inspection, then flicks a switch on the wall — and then the holowires come to life, producing tiny snowflakes that drift down a little way before they disappear. When the place is full of patrons it'll look just like they're standing in a light snowfall.

"There you go,"Jaka says. "Snow in the middle of Mos Ila."

He's right, Trin thinks. It's kind of… magical.

#

In orbit, Coruscant
10 ATC

You know you've got to make space for a bit of downtime when even the ship's droid starts making wistful remarks about the last time it had its motivators serviced. Coruscant's the obvious choice, even after endless weeks being stuck in the underbelly of Nar Shaddaa. As soon as they come out of hyperspace and are parked safely in a holding orbit, Trin calls the holofrequency for Darmas Pollaran's suite down at the Dealer's Den.

He picks up in a minute or so, unusually quick for him — not a hair out of place, his smile at the ready, the whole thing. The holo tells her the local time down there's mid-afternoon; he must be getting ready for an evening at the card table.

"Hel-lo, Captain," he says. "Such a pleasant surprise."

"Just dropped into orbit," she says.

"And you called me first? Of course I'm honoured, but I'd never picked you for the sentimental type."

"I'm actually calling to ask you a small favour, if you can," she says. "I'm looking for a few suites for me and my crew. Got a new Wookiee pal, too, so one of 'em's got to have a pretty big cot. Reckon you can help me out?"

"Let me check the bookings…" Darmas says, and consults a datapad. He doesn't work for them — at least, not officially — but when he's bringing in half their business on the strength of his sabacc reputation, it shouldn't be a surprise that he can access that kind of information from the cantina's databanks. "Why, it says here that all the suites are booked solid. Life Day parties, you see…"

"But Life Day isn't for another two weeks."

"Yes. Ridiculous, isn't it. We've had decorations up for days." Darmas' image flickers ever so slightly in the hologram that hovers just a couple of feet away. "They seem to get earlier and earlier every year."

"You know I like parties," she says, "but that's over the top."

"Ah, yes, but also a great deal of fun. There's something about the season that brings out the reckless and the silly in all of us."

"Even for you, Darmas?" Trin asks, and he flashes her a grin in reply.

"I hardly have time to be silly or reckless," he says, "what with all the increased interest in the sabacc table." He leans forward with an expression that Trin can only describe as mischievous. "You know, I booked a couple of spare suites over Life Day, just in case. If you don't already have plans, I'm sure we can… work something out."

Over in the co-pilot's chair, out of the holocamera's field of view, Corso rolls his eyes so hard she can practically hear it.

"I'll have to get back to you on that," she says, being sure to add a hint of sweetness in her voice.

"Be sure you do, my dear," he smiles. "Now, I hope you'll forgive me, but I have someone waiting. Do keep in touch."

"Right. Be seein' you." Trin thumbs the control and Darmas disappears.

"You're not seriously considering that?" Corso asks, the second the signal's gone.

Trin gives him a sidelong glance. "He really gets to you, huh."

"I just … I can't help feeling he's got this angle."

It's not the first time Corso's said that. The first few times she thought he was just getting all funny over the way they talk to each other, all hey handsome this and my darling that. It means next to nothing, of course. She knows Darmas is like that with everyone, and she's not above using a little flirtatious banter with people herself. It's just how you gotta get stuff done sometimes, and Corso's just going to have to get used to it.

There really is a certain kind of grease-ball feeling about Darmas Pollaran, though. It's the kind of flip arrogance that comes with being the biggest swamp shark in his murky little pool. Thing is, if she never dealt with scumbags, sleazes and jerks, she'd never get any decent paying work at all — and she's worked with worse than Pollaran. He's delivered the goods so far.

"Thought you two were buddies."

"Ah, he was always Viidu's pal. Me, I'm just a hired gun." He stares glumly out the viewport, toying with the thin leather tie that keeps his hair off his face, one foot propped up on the console.

"C'mon, Corso. You're more than that."

"Sure, I can also mix a mean Cyclonic Highball. The trick is to go easy on the gin," he says, though his heart's obviously not in the joke.

"You kidding? That's the best part." She picks herself up out of the captain's chair and leans on the console, the better to try to read his expression. "Something else is bothering you, huh."

"I was just gettin' to thinking about Rona. Aren't you supposed to spend Life Day with people you care about?"

Eda'linare, that Rona. Corso's cousin is a real mean piece of work, a little gang-banger wannabe. Trin doesn't know why he'd bother, but family's family, right? "You know, if you ever want to go see her, just let me know and I'll take you right there. You can go any time."

"She doesn't want to see me. I sent her a holonet message."

"What did she say?" she asks.

He shrugs. "She didn't even open it. Probably just deleted it."

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks. I kind of expected it, though." He quits playing with his hair tie and crosses his arms in front of him, tucking his hands into the crooks of his elbows. "Y'know, I used to spend Life Day with Viidu's crew. And my family, before that…"

Oh.

She doesn't always think about it, cause he talks so rarely about what's happened to him in these past few years. It's easy to forget, in the face of his relentlessly cheerful behaviour, that this young man who's been following her around the galaxy now for a few months can do so because there's nothing left back at home to keep him planetside.

And Risha, so focused on Nok Drayen's treasure — Trin's not even sure whether she has a family member to visit, or any close friends, for that matter. Contacts, maybe, or 'business' associates. Not the kind of people you'd send greeting holos, or invite around for a roast dinner and a party.

And Bowdaar… they know so little, still, about their new crewmate, but she can guess at a few things. Has he even had a Life Day since being stolen into slavery? She wonders what kinds of entertainment Drooga likes to have aboard his pleasure barge for Life Day, and just as soon wishes she hadn't taken the time to think about it.

Corso's right. Life Day's supposed to be about sharing something with people you care about. And Trin's not sure how it happened, or even when it happened, but somewhere along the way that's what they've turned into.

"Do you want to come with me this year?" she blurts.

He looks over. "Huh?"

"Life Day. You and me, and Risha, and Bowdaar… let's dock the ship someplace nice for a couple days."

She loves the way Corso's whole face lights up when he smiles. "Really?"

"Sure." She leans over and spins up the galaxy map on the holoprojector. "We can go someplace sunny and stuff ourselves silly on holiday food. We've got a whole galaxy to choose from. All the bits that aren't being bombed out, anyway."

"You don't have someplace to go?" he asks.

"Sure, but…"

There's that guilty twinge, that pang of regret. The last time she spoke with her father was a terse ten-minute conversation over holo in some shabby cantina back on Carrick.

"Well, that's not important right now," she finishes.

Corso gives her a curious look. "You got a story to tell there, captain?"

"You pour me enough of those Cyclonic Highballs, you might get to hear it one day."

"I might hold you to that," he grins.

She turns the map around, highlighting sectors as she goes. Makeb, Ryloth, Manaan. Anywhere with bright sunlight and long, tall drinks, anywhere she can give her new friends the gift of just a few beautiful days.

#

Port Nowhere
13 ATC

There's a party aboard Port Nowhere.

Well, there's always a party aboard Port Nowhere, because that's the kind of place you're dealing with when you dock your ship at that station. But this party's a Life Day party, and the place is even more boisterous than usual. Trin shoulders her way through the crowd, each step bringing her up close with another smiling stranger, carefully making her way up to the prominent, U-shaped central bar till she finally spots a familiar face.

"Haven't seen you in awhile," the old Devaronian barkeep says — he must be right, too, cause she's forgotten his name. Zhaff… something with a Z. Zekk? "You sure picked the right day to dock here. Drinks are on the house all night."

"Oh yeah?" Trin hops up on the bar stool and looks around at the heaving mess of patrons. They seem relatively well behaved, for the most part. "Good crowd."

"Security's been throwing out the losers. What'll you have?"

"Surprise me."

"Heh. Old Zefi's gonna surprise you, alright."

Zefi. Right. She has got to pick up her names and faces game.

Zefi starts picking out bottles from the racks above his head. "So, you heard about that guy called the Voidwolf? He's gone, they say," he continues. "Some new boss stepped up. Called the Voidhound."

Trin arches one smooth brow. "The Voidhound, huh?"

"I know, right? Kind of a mystery." He has to lean right in to be heard over the laughter and general racket.

"What do you know?"

"Some say it's just one guy, some others reckon there's a whole crew behind the one name. Whoever it is, they sure aren't messing around, cause they got Rogun the Butcher minding the shop for 'em… say, didn't he have a bone to pick with you?"

"Me?" That got around? "Uh, once? Don't worry, we got it all sorted out."

"I figured," Zefi says, and shows a mouth full of pointed teeth. "You wouldn't have made it two steps on board this station if he was still looking for you. Anyway, now you know who's picking up the tab. Good PR move, if nothing else."

Then he hands over a tall flute of something fizzy and mint-green, and Trin gives him a little toast in thanks. It smells kind of sticky, and potent, and she holds it carefully so as not to spill it on herself as she makes her way round to the VIP room.

There's tough security here: a huge Twi'lek man, arms folded over a barrel chest, backed up by a couple of droids. Some kind of beam flickers over Trin's face as the droids check her out. They all wait for a tense second as he stares her down until the droid makes a little friendly tone. "Go in," he growls, though he obviously feels that things would be quite differentif it were up to him.

Whatever. She makes a mental note.

Rogun's so easy to spot at the back of the room, his height accentuated by his long, smooth Chagrian horns. She winds her way across the crowded floor to where he's sitting at the back, and when he sees her the hint of a smile crosses his face.

"How's it going?"

"Perfectly, of course," he says, and gestures to a seat in his little booth. "Happy Life Day, by the way."

"Happy Life Day back at ya." It's a great spot — slightly elevated, the perfect place to see and be seen, but far enough away to have a private conversation, and she remembers with a pang that the last time she'd sat in this booth was this one time she'd come to visit Darmas. It still smarts to think about how she'd been suckered, how all of them had been.

Except Rogun. And she'd never have thought it could be this way, but she's glad she's got him on her side, now.

He slides into the seat across from her. "You want to see the tab?"

"How bad can it be?"

He hands her a datapad — no comment — and waits for her reaction. Drinks bill, food, security, entertainment, hangar fees, the usual unavoidable bribes. The figure at the end of it all has six digits.

"Wow." She gives it back.

"You did ask for something impressive."

"And you've delivered, Rogun. Worth every cred." The old barkeep was right, after all. There's only a few ways to get people talking about you, and not all of them are nice.

Which reminds her…

"So. Void… hound?"

Rogun peers down his nose at her. "You don't like it?"

"Well, I don't hate it." She takes another sip from the drink and wow, Zefi really knows what he's doing here. "I've always been kind of attached to 'Ace.'"

"Ace. Ace?" He laughs his gritty laugh. "Fine as a star fighter pilot, yes. But not here."

"Yeah, I get it. I just… Voidhound seems like someone else, you know?"

"That's good. You want that." He gestures to the doorway, out past the VIP area into the main cantina. "Most people out there… the Voidhound to them is some mysterious individual, or individuals, no one knows who, who knocked over the biggest baddest guy in the game and took all his toys. Right now they're having the best party of the month on the Voidhound's credits. And when they think about you, they might know you're that captain who does a bit of contraband, and some of them might even have heard you had this lucky break with some treasure one time." He takes a swallow of his own drink, some golden substance the colour of wine, but not the consistency. "It won't last forever. People are going to figure it out. But the longer you can keep those two things apart in people's minds, the longer you can keep your life uncomplicated. Leave the showy stuff to the Hutts. Everyone who counts… we know who you are."

Everyone who counts. She looks around the lounge, her eyes settling here and there.

Rogun's captains and their crews, all shapes and sizes and species and genders, all happy to put aside their little grievances and rivalries for a few days.

There's Bowdaar, the centre of a big, convivial circle, everyone wanting to spend a bit of time with him on what's traditionally a Wookiee holiday.

Guss Tuno, gesticulating as he tells another one of his stories — the ones that you know are only half-true, but you're never really sure which half, and it probably doesn't even matter since they're so damn entertaining.

Akaavi, nestled in the back of another booth, with Ivory right beside her, laughing together at some shared joke. Neither of them's fessed up to any personal entanglements yet, but their body language gives it away.

Even C2-N2, with his giddy walk, holding up a holoprojector in front of a couple of Rogun's favourite gun runners. It's Risha on the other end of the holo, calling from Count Rineld's flagship halfway across the galaxy. Looks like she's cutting a deal in the middle of a party. Figures.

Privateers, mercs, info brokers, smugglers, slicers. Everybody who counts, all in the one room…

Well, almost everybody. Trin glances at the little chrono she keeps in her pocket. She promised she wouldn't be too long.

"I can't stay," she tells Rogun. "Sorry. Got a date."

"Pity. It's just starting to get good."

"Next time you won't keep me away, believe it," she tells him.

He sees her off with a heartfelt embrace, the action drawing a few curious glances from some of the people she doesn't know too well. Maybe that whole story about the blasters got a little further around than she realised. "You fly safe," he tells her, firm and quiet in her ear.

"Same to you, Rogun."

She downs the remains of the drink in one probably ill-advised swallow and winds her way back out through the crowd, back out into the rowdy main bar, out past all the darkened storefronts and down to the hangar deck.

There's her ship, all aglow in Port Nowhere's soft golden hangar lighting. More bumps and scratches than before, more carbon scoring here and there, a few mismatched paint jobs on panels where Risha's installed new gear, and every scuff and ding on that hull says to her you are home.

Corso's sitting cross-legged at the top of the loading ramp, surrounded by rags and tools and a drop sheet covered in blaster parts. He's completely absorbed in what he's doing till her boots hit the metalwork. "How's the party?" he asks with a smile.

"It's great. You sure you don't want to drop in for a little while?"

"Maybe next time."

Trin sits down alongside him and picks up one of the parts off the drop sheet. It's a type she hasn't seen before — like the barrel from her Black Nebula blaster pistol, but lighter, maybe more silvery. Guess Bowdaar's been busy. She pokes the tip of her finger into the opening.

"Careful," Corso says with a laugh, plucking it out of her fingers with one hand and catching her around the waist with the other. "I just cleaned all those."

"Sorry." She gives him a kiss hello, tracing his jawline with the ball of her thumb. He smells like blaster grease, familiar and warm.

"Well, when you put it like that, I guess I forgive you," he says. "Everything's good back there, right?"

"Rogun's got it all under control. We're free to go."

"Free to go," he echoes. "How long?"

"Twenty hours, direct to Iridia." Trin checks her little chrono again. "If we go right now, we should get there just in time to help my father light the lanterns."

Corso returns her kiss, a quick brush of his lips against the middle of her forehead, his hand still warm around her waist. "And what are we going to do with almost a whole day to ourselves?"

"I'm guessing you have some ideas," Trin says, "but sometime between here and there, I've got to show you how to bake ruku'a cakes."

#

A note on timelines:

Year 10 after the Treaty of Coruscant (ATC), or 3643 BBY, is when the game plotline seems to begin for most classes — and almost certainly for a Smuggler, since this is the year that Wookieepedia says Viidu died. The Rise of the Hutt Cartel campaign (Makeb) occurs three years later. So says the canon, anyway, and I figure more anal-retentive nerds than I have fact-checked that, so that's what I'm going with.

Getting close to the end of 10 ATC seems to be an appropriate time to have been to Nar Shaddaa, meaning that we have met Bowdaar, but not yet have met Akaavi (and of course Guss). I feel a bit bad for not having written much of anything about these two yet, but soon, I hope.

I totally ship the crap out of Ivory and Akaavi, by the way. Sorry not sorry.

And on culture:

In Zabrak culture, res'Selenoren (literally, and simply, 'the Challenges') are the rituals that all young Zabrak must undergo to be considered an adult of their clan, and to be eligible to wear markings on their face. The form these take would generally depend on the culture that the young Zabrak was raised in. In the older, more traditional colonies these may take the form of physical and academic challenges, as well as a group activity — such as a long trek or a hunt — that demonstrates clan cohesion and social maturity. In a more progressive community such as those found on Coruscant or Nar Shaddaa, where lifestyles are less traditional, the challenges may be as varied as the successful completion of a school examination or a sporting achievement. And on Iridonia, as with most things on the homeworld, res'Selenoren are strict, difficult, and closely watched by every member of a clan.