Shoulda left the Rebels months ago. Don't know why I've stayed. Every week, I think, now's the time. Pack up the Falcon, tell Chewie to can it, and leave. Fly back into free space, into the only place I've ever felt like myself.
I certainly don't feel like Han Solo here. Han Solo doesn't take orders. He picks and chooses what he'll take on (sometimes with a blaster to his head but still). He doesn't do charity work 'cause he knows what a lost cause is and it ain't gonna be him. He has colleagues, clients and enemies. He doesn't have friends.
Friends are where it all goes wrong. Sure, they seem nice enough - ask you how you're doing, share a bottle of whiskey, care if you live or die. But then there's more. There's always more. Friends ask for things, friends want you to do favors.
"They're stranded, Han…" she said, "We can't just leave them there with no way to call for aid. All we'll do is make contact, set up a communication system then…"
I don't know how she does it. She isn't charming. Not like me. She's steely and bossy and thinks she's a damn hero. It's insufferable really. Wouldn't even call her a friend if it weren't for all the times she's saved my life.
Every week I tell myself I won't give into her. I remind myself that she's annoying and pint-sized and just plain exhausting. And I almost believe it until she crosses my path again. Then somehow every care in the world falls away except for the one that has to do with making Leia happy.
I must have a mother thing.
I snort as I adjust the ridiculous poncho she's put me in. I barely remember my mother. She died (or left?) before I was nine years old. Feel like I should remember more. Wasn't that young. But my life got pretty crazy for a while after and it seems to have scrambled what came before. I remember she was pretty. Red hair, bright like most Lothalians. And she was the one who gave me these eyes.
She wasn't a delicate woman. When her mouth was closed she seemed sweet and timid, but once she opened it you knew where she came from. She would curse and spit like the sailors she'd bedded in the brothel she came from. But she was kind, not two-faced like my father. She said what she meant and meant what she said. And late at night, after another hardscrabble day, she'd tell the best stories. That's when she was really beautiful, when her eyes got all twinkly and she'd share that hidden longing for magic I see in most women.
Don't see it in Leia. Wanted to for a flick. Maybe. But, she's all business all the time. And it's not even a good business.
"Remind me again how you're paying me?" I ask, slipping on the mask she's shoved into my hand.
She tenses and I can practically hear the crackle of her temper. I feel an answering surge of frustration.
"How many times do I have to remind you, I ain't in this for your revolution?"
"Or me?" Leia snaps, turning to pin me with that dark brown gaze. She has good eyes, I'll give her that. Deep, compelling, hard to sneer at.
But I make an attempt.
"That what you want, Princess? Want me following you around like a puppy dog? Like—"
I almost say Luke. But there's that friend thing again. Now it's messing up my zingers.
Still, it seems to snap her out of it. She recoils ever so slightly which puts me even more on edge.
"I certainly do not want that," she sniffs, "I just thought…never mind. We'll take a portion of the relief fund for your retainer."
She makes me feel so small sometimes. And Han Solo is not small.
"This thing doesn't run on dreams, you know? Or on hope," I purposely reference her rallying cry, "it runs on fuel. Fuel that's harder to get and more expensive than it's been in 20 years."
Leia glances up at me, and I feel my stomach knot up like it does around her. It's that mother thing. Makes me feel like a naughty little boy.
"I know," she says carefully, "and I'm willing to pay you, was planning to, but when you ask like that." Her nose scrunches up and the knots sort of dance into my chest. It's not a normal thing for knots to do.
"Yeah," I sigh, trying to release them. "Know I drive you crazy."
The side of her mouth quirks just a bit, and out they go. I feel back to normal except for that queasy feeling I get when I know she's won. I've prioritized her happiness once again.
"Alright, well, we'd better get going. Those transponders aren't going to deliver themselves."
Leia nods and slips her mask on as well. I can't help but feel relieved by the reprieve from her eyes. They peek through the mask but are shaded into an almost nondescript darkness. Nothing striking about those.
We both look ridiculous, her in a black witch's costume and me in a nerferder get up because of the holiday on which we've landed. The Night of the Veil happens once every three years on Lothal and causes general commotion on the planet. A three-day long festival encircles the day when the veil between this plane and the spiritual one supposedly comes down.
I pretended not to know any of this when the Princess briefed me, but the truth was I knew it well. Many of my mother's stories, the only things I remember with crystal clarity, happened during or around this day.
I'd almost told her when she'd mentioned this place. Felt it on the tip of my tongue. Of course, I bit down on that impulse. Can't be spilling my guts to every pair of pretty brown eyes, but I remember that 'almost' now as we venture into the Lothallian night.
Never told anyone about my mother. Told a few people about my father. Mostly other smugglers when I was starting out. He was both proof I knew the business and a way to show them I'd be better. Tore him down with all the berks that knew him.
But, never had a reason to talk about my mother. Doesn't really matter when she's gone and I'm grown. But I feel the strangest desire to talk once again. Almost a pressure on my tongue.
I open my mouth just as a streak of black dashes across Leia's feet. She squeals and jumps back, knocking into me. I reach down on instinct and steady her shoulders. The feel of warm skin through cheap satin almost singes my fingers.
"You okay?"
She lifts her hand to her chest then let's out a soft laugh. Something about the sound of her mirth and the feel of her skin makes my head swim. I step back and shake my head, searching for whatever it was that scared her. It's only as I almost give up that I see the little critter sitting on a fence post bordering the outskirts of town.
"What is that?" I say, squinting up at the small, squat beast with luminescent green eyes.
Leia catches her breath and looks to where I'm pointing.
"Ohhh…" she breathes, "it's a loth-cat. She's so pretty."
I frown as a foreign chill goes up my spine. I'm not one for superstition, too smart for that, or too old. But I can almost swear I hear my mother's voice in her rough Lothallian accent.
If their path be crossed by a loth-cat "Tis your true love you're staring at
She always swore that's how she'd met my dad. My good for nothin' father, selfish and shifty and stupid. But she loved him. Enough to make me almost believe in his goodness.
He was sitting in the parlor - at the grand piano - she'd said. And the madam's loth-cat - a rare, and prized pet to have on any planet - had jumped onto my father's lap.
"For a minute, I thought she'd claimed him for herself. But not in a mo' she glared right at me with them laser eyes and crossed straight to the floor. Knew he was mine right then."
She'd smile wistfully at that, sometimes straight my father, who was probably too drunk to notice.
Love made you do the stupidest things.
"Might want to keep going, Princess. Loth-cats are bad luck."
She peers over her shoulder at me, flashing a mischievous smile.
"How would you know?"
I squint at her. If I didn't know better, I'd think I saw a flash of magic behind that mask.
"Know better than you. How many folktales did your fancy tutors tell you?"
She tilts her head, "None."
"Well, then—"
"But the cooks told me plenty. And my chambermaid Giirta."
The loth-cat looks down in interest, it's tails twitching to and fro.
"Alright," I murmur, curious in spite of myself, "and what'd they tell you?"
Leia's mouth opens slightly then shuts right as the loth-cat meows.
"Nothing," she says, her voice returning to her normal alto timbre, "I don't remember anything about a loth-cat."
I am tempted to take her word on this. I should drop it anyway except…except…
I know her tells. I know when she's tired, her shoulders slump and that famous Princess posture goes straight to hell. I know when she hasn't eaten in half a day, her tongue's as sharp as vibroblade and quicker than my quick draw. And I know when she's stretching the truth, she bites her bottom lip.
Just like that she's doing right now.
"Never heard about them, huh?"
She shakes her head and makes a real good show of getting back on the road. Apparently neither the loth-cat nor I want this conversation to end cause he chooses that moment to leap off the fence post and onto my shoulder. The damn thing claws my neck trying to get a grip then leaps across my body and scampers into the brush.
By the time its over, I think I have aired out every Corellian curse that I know.
I finally look back at Leia to see her mask pushed up and those troubling brown eyes wide with shock. I touch my hand to my neck and circle back to a couple curses as I look at the bright swath of blood.
"Now that was bad luck," Leia said, voice substantially softer. She briskly moves into my space and reaches for my hand.
She clicks her tongue like a little matron and lifts her hand to my chin. I try to focus on the burn of the scratch rather than the brush of her fingers. It's just the damn nursery rhyme putting weird ideas in my head.
"He got you good," Leia says more soothing than serious. "Wait a moment."
She reaches down into the bag she's been carrying and draws out a small box. She sets it on the fence post, the same one the loth-cat just vacated, and reveals its contents.
"You brought a bacta kit with you?" I ask, unable to keep the shocked skepticism out of my voice.
She pins me with a look then lays out her supplies.
"I'm always prepared."
Something about her demeanor, the back to business air, makes me want to rattle her.
"I can tell you what it means," I say, smoothing out my tone to silk, "If you want."
For a moment I don't think she's heard me as she plucks something from the pile and strides purposefully towards me. It's a damp cloth that she dabs gently on my neck.
"I'm sure I don't want to know."
She circles back to the box and returns with a substance both warm and cooling.
"Oh I think you'd be interested in this one, Princess," I say, enjoying the way her lips tighten and her nostrils flare. I'm pretty sure she's blushing though it's hard to see in the bleached light of the moons.
She finishes molding the bacta to my neck then takes a step back.
"You're insufferable, do you know that?"
My answering smile is so big it threatens to displace her handiwork.
"Now, why should you say that?" I counter, "You don't even know what i'm going to say."
I'm pretty sure I've caught her now, but she parries as she always does.
"If it's coming out of your mouth, it's bound to be insufferable."
I throw my hand to my heart caught now in a full-on performance. "Now, is that a nice thing to say to the love of your life?"
Leia starts then stares for a long moment. I almost have enough time to regret the foolishness coming out of my mouth when she steps towards me one more time.
"Ah…right," her voice is more of a purr now, "I do remember something along the lines of…" she pantomimes a frown of concentration then recites as if by rote:
"If their path be crossed by a loth-cat ''Tis your true love you're staring at"
She's centims away, close enough to breath in.
"So it's you then?" She asks, eyelashes aflutter. "My knight in…tarnished armor?"
There's a hint, more like a hold-full, of challenge in her eyes. For a flick, I consider taking her up on it, dipping my head and taking those lips, nibbling them the way she had when she told her fib. Instead, I do the stupidest thing I can possibly do because, well, I'm me.
"Yeah, I'm the knight. And you're the Princess. Just like in all those stories my mama told me."
The word drops like a detonator into the silence of the night. Leia falters.
"Your…mother?"
I realize too late what I've done, ended the fun and ushered in something private and tender and painful. A new wound exchanged for an old one.
"Forget it, " I say, stepping back and turning to look at the town over the length of farmland field. "It's a stupid superstition. Let's keep going. We don't have all night."
For a moment I think she'll actually do it, actually listen to me for once. I don't know why that makes me feel s—
"Who was she?" Leia asks, almost like an afterthought, as she packs up her bacta kit.
I don't look at her, considering my options. I could shut her down, but we've got a long night ahead of us and I'd rather not do it in silence.
"She was a no one. Poor as dirt."
Leia listens for more. That tell is a tilt of her head. I look away, feeling the words rise in response.
"But she loved me," I can feel Leia's eyes on me, and for a moment, I hate myself. "She tried. S'more than I can say about anyone else."
I hear the song of crickedas seem to swell as Leia takes this in.
"She told you stories," she says finally as she slips the box back into the bag of transponders.
I want to shrug this off, go into my well-worn routine, but there's something about the still serenity of the night singing around us.
"Yeah," I say, letting the weight of some long lost thing settle in my chest.
"So, tell me one," comes Leia's voice, cool and clear.
I look over at her and she's already turned back to the road, her fingers toying with the edge of her sleeve. She's nervous too.
What's she got to be nervous about? I'm the one about to spill my guts.
And out they come, earnest and detailed and oh-so-embarrassing. She laughs and cajoles and clamors for more. As that phantom longing grows in my chest, rather than diminishes, I think once again, I shoulda left the damn rebellion.
But somewhere in the Lothalian night, there's a black cat that just might know better.