Boba looked at the little basket his parents helped him put together. It looked fairly simple. Some sandwiches, fresh strawberries, and chocolate cookies. Of course, Boba didn't neglect to pick some pretty flowers for Roya too. Even if Roya weren't a princess, he still wanted to make sure he greeted her properly. He was just glad he'd looked up what gifting of certain flowers meant in Roya's kingdom. The last thing he wanted was to accidentally give her funeral flowers or make her think he was asking her to marry him. No matter how hard he was crushing on her, he was way too young to be thinking about that.

"Do I look okay?" Boba asked as he looked in the mirror.

"You look great, Big Brother." Gabby said. "Just be yourself. Roya would have to be crazy not to love you."

"Your first date." smiled Padme. "It's so exciting. You're growing up so fast."

Padme gave her son a kiss in congratulations.

"Mom!" Boba whined. As much as he liked his mother's kisses, he didn't want kissing on his mind.

Boba was no expert on dating, and he wondered. Would Roya be expecting him to kiss her on the first date? He'd been so tempted to do so during their dance at the wedding, but he had enough self-control to stop himself before it got more awkward after Roya asked what he was doing.

He respected her personal space, Roya at least knew that, and that earned Boba some points on him being a good potential boyfriend.

Roya knew she was young, but she also knew what she should look for in a guy. Someone who was kind, someone sweet, someone who respected her and loved her as she was.

Boba hadn't given much thought to dating even after he got off Kamino. But when he watched his parents profess their love for each other at their wedding after he'd met Roya, he knew what he wanted in a girl. Someone who was lovely, someone beautiful inside and out, and someone who could maybe open his eyes to lots of new things like his sister and later his new friends had.

After researching her kingdom's culture, Boba learned that Roya's kingdom was one of the most beautiful in the galaxy. At their parties, they traditionally served dessert first. And they had all kinds of tasty sounding dishes like laddu, dosa, bhaji, masala, and jalebi. There were also a lot of different kinds of dances in the kingdom, and Boba even listened to some recordings of their traditional music. The kingdom even had some very exotic animals like mongooses, peacocks, and tigers.

Boba felt like he'd learned a lot from what he could find on the holo-net, but he only hoped what his adoptive father said about hands-on experience being the best teacher.

Boba soon met Roya at the park, where a blanket was set out for just the two of them while their mothers stayed at a distance where they could see the kids while also letting them have a little privacy for their date.

"These are for you." said Boba, handing Roya a little bouquet of jasmines.

"Oh, thank you, Boba." said Roya, taking in the soothing scent of the flowers. "They're beautiful."

Their little picnic seemed to go very well. They enjoyed a nice lunch and talked... well, Roya talked pretty clearly. Boba struggled to get a few words out before blushing again. But Boba did get to know Roya a little better.

Roya had a pet mongoose named Chiku and a baby elephant named Shanti, she played a musical instrument called the bansuri (a wooden flute), she loved cats, her favorite subject in school was art, and someday she wanted to start her own boutique filled with her original designs.

"You have beautiful eyes." Boba said as Roya batted her eyes a little.

"So do you." Roya said.

Boba blushed and laughed a little.

"They're the same as any clone." Boba said.

"Don't be modest. You may have the same face, but you're each your own person." Roya told him. "And I'm lucky to get to spend today with you."

"Huh... you're a princess. I'm just a regular kid who happens to have an adoptive sister who's also a princess."

"You're anything but a regular kid." Roya giggled. "I can tell by the way you are around your sister."

"Really?"

"Well, yeah. You make her laugh, she's always hugging you, and I saw when you shared a dance with her at the wedding. She obviously loves you, and you love her."

Boba blushed again. "How could I not love her? She's the whole reason I got a second chance, and my first real friend."

"She's you treasure. I feel the same way about my little sister Dahlia."

"She must feel lucky to have someone like you as her big sister. Smart, stylish, not afraid to speak her mind." Boba said. "You're pretty magical. Not just being half genie. What's that like, anyway?"

"Like being a whole genie, pretty much." shrugged Roya. "I gotta be careful around oil lamps, though."

"I thought genie enslavement laws were abolished."

"They were, but genies can still be trapped in lamps. In part to keep rogue genies in line. There are those who grant wishes willy nilly, and part of the rules of any genie is that they can only grant three wishes to a user. These days, genies can choose whether they'll grant wishes to someone instead of being enslaved. But the old rules still apply if by some chance they get trapped in a lamp."

"Wow... that sounds complicated."

"It's actually simple. When freeing a genie from their lamp, there are two ways to rub the lamp. If you rub it with your bare hands, it bounds the genie inside to you to grant three wishes. But if you rubs it with a cloth, it simply lets the genie out."

Boba was fascinated by what Roya told him about what genies were really like. They were definitely different from the ones he'd read about in some of the books he used to read on Kamino.

"Most ordinas think they know everything about Enchanteds, or magical creatures, as they call us, based on books written by ordina authors."

"Ordina?" Boba questioned.

"That's what we Enchanted call people without magic." Roya said. "I've heard there's actually an entire planet fully populated by ordinas. All of them human. And none of the animals speak or have bright colors like the ones we know. In other words, their world is kinda boring, but it's beautiful in its own way. The people just have to work hard for the things they want, just like we do here."

"Why don't they have magic?"

"Well, from what I've heard in legends, Enchanted used to roam about on that planet, until the ordinas attacked them and labelled us as monsters. They either wanted to get rid of Enchanteds or take our powers for themselves." Roya explained. "So, our ancestors erased any signs of Enchanteds ever existing there and fled back to the galaxy Enchantra, where our populations grew and grew. As far as the ordina planet knows, Enchanteds only exist in storybooks, movies, and children's imaginations."

"Wow. That does not sound like a world I'd wanna live in."

"One day, we might be able to rekindle with the planet. But the residents will need to prove they hold the proper morality to allow us to live among them peacefully as we once had."

After a while, Roya and Boba started walking together in the park. Boba knew a lot about Roya now, but Roya didn't hear Boba say a lot during their date. He mainly asked her to talk about herself. As touched as she felt that he was interested in her, she wanted to know about him too.

Boba hadn't gotten around to telling anyone about his past. If he wasn't because he assumed they'd read about it on the news, it was because he was worried people would judge him for it. I mean, would you want to tell someone you liked that you'd tried to kill someone, even if you felt horribly guilty about it afterward?

Can you feel the love tonight
The peace the evening brings
The world for once in perfect harmony
With all its living things

The two of them passed a lake where there were some ducks in the pond, and lily pads with lotus flowers floated. Boba saw them and thought of how he'd given Roya a lotus from Wysteria at the wedding before they shared their first real dance together.

Boba (in his mind):

So many things to tell her
But how to make her see
The truth about my past, impossible
She'd turn away from me

Boba then saw a tree branch close to where a lotus flower floated by and got an idea.

Roya looked away for a moment and thought

Roya (in her mind):

He's holding back, he's hiding
But what, I can't decide
Why won't he open up to me today?
Show who he is inside?

Roya suddenly looked as she heard Boba shout "Whoa!" as he'd been hanging on to a branch, trying to reach a flower, only to fall into the lake with a big splash.

Can you feel the love tonight?
The peace the evening brings

Boba popped out from the water with a lily pad sitting on his head. Roya laughed a little bit, and started to help Boba up, only to fall into the water herself. The two of them got out and both laughed as they were both soaking wet now.

But Roya snapped her fingers and made a big hair dryer dry them both off.
The world, for once, in perfect harmony
With all its living things

The two of them then started to play tag in the grass until they both started rolling down a grassy hill together, landing with Boba on top of Roya, the two of them laughing.

Can you feel the love tonight?
You needn't look too far

As the two of them were laughing, when Boba wasn't looking, he suddenly froze as he felt a pair of soft lips kiss his cheek.

Boba and Roya looked at each other and felt all kinds of things running through their heads.
Stealing through the night's uncertainties
Love is where they are

Boba and Roya were soon sitting again, this time holding hands.

"So, you know a lot about me." said Roya. "There's still a lot I don't know about you."

Roya knew at least a few things about Boba from the time they spent with wedding preparations. She already knew his favorite treat was cinnamon buns, his favorite color was blue, and that he was accustomed to being around a lot of water. But, she didn't know much about what he liked to do for fun or where he came from.

"Well... what do you wanna know?" Boba said.

"For one thing, do you have any favorite hobbies?" Roya asked.

"Um... I've always liked reading. And... I've gotten good at swimming and dancing too. And I've been looking into learning to play guitar."

"That's nice. Do you have a favorite book?"

"Well, right now I'm reading with Gabby. We're reading The Wizard of Oz. But when I was her age, my favorite book was called The Lion and the Mouse. That was how I eventually got my favorite toy, my lion Fuzzy."

"Do you still have that toy?"

"Sorta. I lost the old one. But when I got adopted, Dad made me a new one just like him. Gabby said he made her favorite teddy bear. He's pretty good at making things."

"What was it like where you lived before you got adopted?" Roya said.

Boba was afraid of that question. He knew he'd have to open up about his past eventually. But, he was worried that if he told Roya about his past, she wouldn't like him the way she did now.

"Well... what do you know about my past now?"

"Not much." Roya said. "I've heard rumors. A lot of them saying your father was a bounty hunter and that you were in the Battle of Geonosis. But, I don't tend to listen to that stuff. If it's too personal, you don't have to say anything now."

"I appreciate you saying that, but... I honestly worry if you knew everything, you'd see me differently."

"Why?"

"I'm not exactly proud of my past. Especially right before I got adopted."

Boba told Roya how back on Kamino, he led a pretty simple life. It was just him and his father Jango Fett. He didn't have any friends, he'd never left Kamino before, and his father was away a lot, but he was happy anyway whenever his father came home. All the while, Boba received training to be a bounty hunter like his father when he grew up. But then in an instant, everything changed when the Battle of Geonosis came about and his father died in front of him.

And then, Boba told Roya about how he fell in with a bad crowd and thought of nothing but revenge, and very nearly succeeded too.

"Believe it or not, it was Gabby who saved me." Boba said. "I saw it in her eyes that she was begging me not to do it. And something in me snapped. Before I knew it, I was saving the hostages and then Gabby saved me from the bad crowd. Next thing I know, I face the consequences, then I go to an orphanage, and then I'm adopted. I've grown a lot since then. My therapist has helped me a lot, and so have my parents and Gabby. Eventually, I was summoned to Equinaro to pick a horse, and I met Remix."

Roya was astonished when she learned Boba's full story.

"I get that you probably don't see me as-" Boba froze as Roya hugged him.

"Thank you for opening up to me like that." she said. "I'm sorry you had to endure such terrible things before you got adopted."

"Thanks." Boba said, relieved Roya didn't dislike him despite his actions in the past. "I still feel guilty about all that stuff, though."

"Who you were then doesn't define who you are now." Roya said. "No one's perfect. We all do things we're not proud of."

"I doubt you ever did anything wrong. You're so perfect."

Roya chuckled and said, "You weren't there that time I thought I could pull off the color chartreuse. It totally clashed with my complexion. No one can pull off the color chartreuse. It's just too snotty of a color, if you ask me."

Boba laughed and said, "I'm no fashion expert. I'll just have to take your word for it."

"I'd say blue is definitely your color." Roya said. "You certainly looked handsome at the wedding."

Boba blushed again.

But soon, their mothers called them to say it was time to head home.

"Well, this way fun." Roya smiled. "We'll have to get together again sometime."

"Really?" Boba said, smiling.

"You bet. I had a great time."

"So did I."

Boba was so happy when he got home that night.

Gabby giggled when she noticed Boba arranged the rice and veggies on his plate into a heart.

"I guess the date went well?" Carousella said.

"You have no idea." Boba sighed happily.

He lay down in his bed that night and cuddled with Fuzzy.

"It was amazing, Fuzzy." Boba said. "It went better than expected. Roya is the most amazing girl I've ever met. Well, one who isn't my sister anyway."

Boba sighed happily as he lay down on his pillow. Someday, he planned to officially make Roya his girlfriend. But he had to be sure she actually fell in love with him as much as he was with her now.

"I wonder if this is how Dad felt on his first date with Mom." he wondered out loud.

But, where the relationship would be ten years from not could wait a while. For now, Boba was happy that his very first date went well and couldn't wait to see where their second date would go.