RECORDING STARTED

LOCAL TIME: 01:23

GALACTIC LOCATION: CORONET CITY, CORELLIA

Kriff this, how do I turn the location feature off?

Ranni, Ranni, Ranni...you must be waiting for me at our secret place and I'm light years away - which is not a metaphor by any means, but how could you know? We always tend to think the worst about those we love, especially in a relationship like yours and mine, where we always had to be so secretive in a world where secrecy has become the breakfast, lunch and dinner of champions. Maybe even a twenty-three hundred snack, one of those dehydrated, vile rice crackers that I don't think anybody actually likes. That said, I was offered a bunch of those with some sort of a slightly spiced tea.

I know, I know, Ranni, I said spiced tea. I never learn. And I'm starting to feel slightly shaky, because I don't have any of the you-know-what with me. Ironically, the ship that smuggled me to Corellia was carrying spice, in the same hidden compartment that I was hiding. Imagine that! The emotional torture of the credits I paid to be taken here, and then some! Not to mention that it was the dirtiest ship I have ever seen. Are all interplanetary vessels like this? In that case, I am going to crawl into a corner somewhere and never leave.

I am inclined to say that, if you were subjected to all I will be subjected to - from the destruction of my person that I have to go through willingly, to the destruction of my person on THEIR behalf - you would have reached for spiced tea, too. And yes, I reached out to it to enhance my artistic capabilities in the cold and grey world we live in, but that was my decision and nobody else's.

By tonight, you will be angry with me. I can totally see you with that hateful neighbourhood girl. She will complain about her deadbeat boyfriend who has not graduated yet and who parties hard at whichever cantina they had not kicked him from yet; and you, you will complain about me and express your concerns about so many women whom you saw as a threat. Then you will be making all these vague guesses about how I eloped...AS IF. As if I was allowed to marry in the first place...good joke, Ranni, will you tell me another, please?

By the time her boyfriend calls her over and wonders if she was cheating on him, you will both have resolved to never ever trust men again and never ever have children. And I know beings like her: she will eventually have a child with that deadbeat. You...I cannot see that happening. You're too hostile to be in a relationship with anybody other than me and not the type to jump into the arms of whoever comes along next, like your sister did. I can see you as a leader. I can even see you becoming one of THEM.

Wait, are you actually one of them and you never told me about it?

Kriff you, Rani!

Whom am I kidding? I love you. We were never a perfect match, but I love you. I wish I could have left you a datacard or one of those handy cubes, but had I done so, they would have been able to trace me. They eventually will - they can find anybody, in any place. But I would like to live for a couple more years.

I'm a new person. Whatever that means. I have a new life and I am not looking forward to it. I don't even know what my profession will be. I was not schooled for useful things like you and your very important friends.

Please, pat those perky twins for me. And by "perky twins", I mean your niece and nephew, not what the neighbour thought that one time when she slapped me upside my face. But I don't hate her, or her controlling boyfriend. I don't hate your family. I don't hate anybody...

...but I do hate myself. Sometimes. Tonight.

Now I need to think of how to rely this audio recording to you. And I apologise for the noise behind me - there are some large furry creatures that communicate in weeps, meeps and yelps and I can't tell if they're fighting or not. This place is full of creatures I have never seen and tonight, I have to sleep among them, as they're rolling drunk on the cantina floor; as I am not in the right state of mind to be looking for an apartment.

LOCAL TIME: 01:42

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