And We Return To Stardust
Prologue
I'd been rolled into Headquarters, half dead; the lone survivor of my village of six thousand people. That was six months ago. People had been staring, pointing. Whispering among themselves. I remember wanting to die. I remember crying, struggling a bit. They had had to sedate me once I'd started to scream. General Organa's sad smile was the last thing I remember seeing before I faded into deep, drug-induced oblivion.
Today, I spend my time wandering around the hangars, repairing X-wings, cleaning toilets, hiding in store rooms. I meet General Organa once or twice a month, when she sends for me. She asks me if I've been keeping busy. If I need to see the doctor. If I need any medicines, if I've been eating well. Mostly we sit and play chess together. She never goes into specifics. She never asks about home or if I miss my mother or my best friend or my cat because she knows it's pointless. She knows exactly what it's like to lose everything. And so I know to never ask her why she's being kind to me.
I know people talk behind my back. They're nice to my face, always helpful and smiling but no one really knows how to talk to me without pitying me. Mostly they wonder why on earth Leia has taken such an interest in me.
My roommate Jess is the closest I have to a friend. And I'm grateful for her. She isn't always around; perpetually out on some mission or another. She's one of the 'most promising pilots in the Resistance'. Or so I've been told. Even when she is around she's usually off drinking or playing poker with the others on her squadron. She tried to get me to join them a couple of times. After I told her, a little irritably, that no way in fucking hell would a bunch of Resistance Commanders be okay with a random janitor joining them, she gave up. Still, she brought me a bottle and stayed up with me all night, recounting all that had happened during that night's game, and on their mission and what Garth said and how Riche had slapped him. It's become a bit of a ritual now. She makes me laugh.
And so, my life goes on. Even as my mother and my best friend and my cat exist only as a fist full of ash.