There's a spot on the hills near our compound where you can watch the two moons rising over Trikkan and our nearby star slipping under the cover of the horizon. There is always a brief and beautiful moment when all three are in a sort of sweeping line, and the sky goes all purple as our star reflects off of the lakes on Targon 6 and 7. It's the place I go to and the moment that I wait for when life becomes a lonely thing, when all the love and warmth I feel falls flat and I need to be alone to understand I'm not. There's me, and the Targon moons, and our star. And there is a purple sky that promises a warm night and a warmer day.

This is the story of a purple sky and three bodies passing through space.

Purple is the color of Jess's eyes. When he's serious, they look as dark and dangerous as twilight in the lowlands. When he's happy, they light up like the auroras on Targon 7. They were the first thing I noticed when we were children, dodging around the fields between our homesteads and playing pretend. If he cheated in a game that we'd completely made up, I made his purple eyes black. He never hit me back. He'd try to trip me and always fail. I used to think that I was faster than him; now I'm sure he was always ahead of me.

He turns from his post by the heater as I enter our home and his eyes flicker with warmth. "The lady of the hills returns," he laughs.

"Says the pilot." I roll my eyes and head for the kitchen, heaving the bag of crops from our hillside garden onto the table. I'd read once that altitude changed crop growth and taste, and I'm curious to try our first yield.

I feel him enter the kitchen behind me, his breath warm in my hair as he slides his sturdy hands from my shoulders to my busy hands. I struggle to focus on what I'm doing as he begins to kiss my neck.

"Jess Gravian," I sigh, "I'll never finish dinner if you keep that up."

His lips trace the shape of my neck and he gently tugs the sleeve of my grey tunic away from its place on my shoulder. This makes me shudder. My hands go limp on the counter and I can feel him fumbling at the toggles on my tunic. One is undone in a matter of seconds but it feels like years as he slips a hand underneath the worn fabric and begins to circle my breast with his finger, slowly, softly. My whole body shakes and I lean into him as his kisses become more bite-like and intense. Before I know it, we've become a dizzying tangle of soil-covered skin and half-shed clothes, Jess thrusting himself into the warm, willing place I keep for him alone as I balance on the edge of our table.

We take our dinner plates in our laps that night, dressed once again and huddled close on a rug by the heater as the spring rains of Trikkan pour over the darkened fields outside. We're almost silent, but for a few low chuckles as our eyes go from our food, which is surprisingly delicious, to one another.

"Two years since we paired, and you still blush after I've been inside you." Jess shakes his head and licks his fingers clean of the last traces of his meal.

"I think I'd been so used to loving you from afar that the thought of being so close to you now is scandalous," I reply after some thought. We talk more about the way we went from being childhood playmates to gawking teenagers, afraid of each other's shadows. Jess's playful banter and my sudden shyness. The circumstances that made us realize our lives and deaths were for each other.

The rain quiets as we steal into bed, warm in our homestead, a simple hut submerged in the soil of Trikkan. We face one another and our noses almost touch as our low voices plan the days ahead of us.

"Tomorrow's the race," I whisper. "Are you nervous?"

Jess laughs lightly, and his violet eyes light up even in darkness. "For what? I have nothing to lose."

"There must be some reason you and the other boys have gotten caught up with the x-wings."

Jess grows still and serious. "What if we're training?"

His tone takes me off guard. "For what?"

"The first order's started to inch towards our side of the galaxy," he breathes, "you never know when we'll need to protect our farms from all those white-armored monsters."

"Really?"

Jess takes a pause. Then he laughs.

I hit his arm playfully. "Jess! You had me convinced."

"I'm surprised," Jess sighs. "who would ever care about little Trikkan--" he mimics the tone of our childhood instruction droids-- "farming and fielding planet designed by the ancient ones for the most boring of the Galaxy's species?"

"Trikkan isn't boring," I scoff. "It has all sorts of secrets if you look beyond the surface."

"I know," Jess says, and this time I can tell he's truly sober. "I think you'd be blown away if we stepped off this planet for even a second. You've always been able to see things differently. You could make a difference where it counted."

Jess, my grounded and simple partner, has left me stilled in my spot. His words feel foreign, far more responsive to the wider universe than I've ever heard him.

He answers my stillness casually. "What have you got for tomorrow? I saw your notes on maneuvering in the lowlands."

I smile, and it comes through my voice. "Wake up early with me and you'll see."

"Absolutely, Mara."

Our breaths become even and the rain sings us to sleep.