Han was grumpy and Leia was gloomy, and Luke suspected it had something to do with the upcoming holiday.
The Fete season was celebrated all over the galaxy. It was so ancient no one remembered why it was associated with cold weather, bells or birds, but no matter where a person lived, mittens hung in windows and beings ate a local version of red baked sugar berries. The images were completely foreign to a boy growing up in a desert, but Luke didn't think anyone on Tatooine had felt excluded. It was a lovely time of year, his favorite holiday. When he was a boy he loved getting gifts but when he got older he loved the decorations, the feeling of goodwill, and caroling in a crowd even more.
Luke had a gift for Han and Leia in mind. He would make them participate. Especially Leia. Luke had been respectful, afraid even, of her grief. During the time he had known her he had watched the corners of her mouth turn down, watched her retreat more and more so that joy seemed to shrivel in her. It upset him. She may have lost Alderaan, but she hadn't lost the holiday, and he wanted to show her that.
"I'm not in the mood, Luke," she had grumped at him.
"I know. Who would be, here? Hoth's frozen all our good feelings of the holiday away."
"It's not Hoth-"
"You've got to remember, Leia," Luke said with an intensity. "Otherwise, what's the point? What's the point of even Hoth?"
"The answer is not fete season."
"It is. You'll see. It was my aunt's favorite time of year."
She resisted him for a while, but stories of his aunt pretending it was winter in the desert weren't enough to charm her so he fell back on the war.
"Morale's pretty low," he mentioned to her. "If we had a fete party-"
"Oh, not this again."
"It'd do a lot to lift our spirits."
"We don't even have mittens," she argued. "We have gloves. There's no berries on Hoth. No birds."
"There wasn't on Tatooine, either," Luke replied, "and we still celebrated."
She scowled, but she was listening.
"Come on," Luke riffed, "mittens? On a world with two suns?"
Her face softened a bit.
"My aunt used to tell me it was so the Spirit didn't get sunburnt when he left the gifts, since his skin was sensitive."
He got her to laugh.
Han, too, seemed put out by the idea. "You're too old for this," he told Luke when he brought him a list of things to get while off on a smuggling run.
"No I'm not. Who's too old for Fete?"
"How about any five year old?"
"So you've been greedy all your life," Luke concluded.
"Huh?"
"You think it's about the gifts. About having the money to buy something."
"It ain't about caring, I can tell you that."
Han was stubborner than Leia in general, and Luke surmised it was something other than grief that had turned him against the holiday. "Just get the stuff," he ordered Han in a no-nonsense manner.
"I won't have time for this shit, kid. I'll be dodging Imperials."
"I heard you brag no one would know you were there."
Han shifted gears. "If this is a surprise everyone will get something but you."
"I'm playing Spirit," Luke clapped his hand on Han's shoulder. "And you're my Sprite."
The lack of credits to spend on decorating Echo Base was discouraging if he thought about, but Luke soldiered on.
He unburied the pile of of scrap metal left outside the hangar under a mountain of snow. These were discards from the base's construction, and he brought pieces back each time he had patrol on the tauntauns.
"What are you doing with all this?" Wedge asked him, but Luke wouldn't tell him.
He went to Supply but all they had was forty pairs of gloves. He didn't have the time to sew red berries on them, so he went back to supply and got a box of hex nuts, the smallest size available, spray painted them red, and glued three on each glove.
C-3PO downloaded A Sprite's Fete, Luke's favorite singalong carol, and printed one hundred copies, just in case.
Han came back with sugar, flour, synthetic oleo and-
"Anarice?" Luke read the label on the bottle of extract.
"Don't complain," Han said.
"I'm not," Luke said with guileless eyes and fighting a grin. It was a very distinct flavor, and his aunt hadn't liked it, but he knew it was a Corellian tradition.
The Fete Spirit was magical, of course. Luke thought the Force was, too, but he didn't have enough training to make it happen. Leia found him sittling glumly by himself in the mess.
"What's the matter, Luke? You look like someone popped your balloon."
"Huh?" He lifted his head, the expression making him think of childhood. "Is that what you said on Alderaan?"
When she looked puzzled, he said, "On Tatooine we say the wind blew sand on our lollipop."
"Oh," Leia understood and smiled sadly. "Ways to express disappointment. Yes. You look disappointed."
"Discouraged, more like," Luke said glumly. "I wanted to bake sugar berries, but the droids won't let me schedule the kitchen. Back home, I'd let the suns do the baking. Here, I don't know what to do."
Leia had an easy solution. "Use a no-bake recipe."
"Will it be good?"
"I don't know about a sugar berry recipe, but others I've tried have been delicious. You just need a spot with lots of counter to make it if the droids won't let you use the kitchen."
Luke felt his spirits lift. "How about the Falcon? When's Han got patrol?"
Leia had a datapad with her at all times to keep up with scheduling and events. "Tomorrow afternoon. We'll have to be quick. He won't like us making a mess in his ship."
"You'll help me?"
"Sure."
"What if he finds us?"
"I'll keep lookout. If he comes, I'll... flirt with him or something."
"Oh, that'll distract him for sure," Luke said happily.
"What do you got for clothes?" Luke asked Han. "I want to dress like the Spirit."
Han rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Then he deadpanned, "Nothing."
"Oh, come on. Mind if I look?"
Han waved him away. "Help yourself."
Han did have close to nothing. Luke could pull off dressing like the Grim Reaper maybe from what was available.
The Spirit was fat, bearded (damn, Luke could have stopped shaving weeks ago to prepare!), he wore mittens and a red hat, a bell necklace, and a bird on his shoulder.
Luke found Han in the lounge, sitting at the dejarik table winding his red blood stripes into a peaked spiral.
"Thanks anyway," an empty-handed Luke told Han. "What are you doing?"
Han finished dabbing glue on the end of the fabric. "Making you a hat." He wiped his fingers on his pants, all blue, unstriped.
"You ruined your Bloodstripes," Luke said.
"S'okay. I got yellow ones. Oh, and hey," Han called after Luke's departing back. "Was it you that left something sticky all over the counter?"
"Must have been Leia," Luke half-lied.
Spirit's Day was the culmination of the fete season. Luke got up super early and set up his festivities in the Command Center at the shift change. He had the no-bake berries on trays at work stations, the gloves hung in a garland across the entrance, and primitive sculptures of birds he had made from the scrap metal. His aunt had nineteen birds; she began collecting them the year Luke joined their family, and Uncle Owen got her a new one each fete season.
He wore Han's Bloodstripe hat, a knotted necklace of washers, a blob of sunblock on his nose, just like the Spirit of Tatooine, and a small metal bird perched atop his shoulder. Hopefully his artwork would stay up. It was only supported by piercing the fabric through with a sharp rod.
He opened the intercom. "Yellow alert," he spoke into it, and cringed. This was going to maybe get him into heaps of trouble. "Yellow alert. All personnel report to the Command Center immediately.
General Rieekan was the first to arrive and fairly skidded into the Command Center. "Skywalker?" he demanded. "What's the meaning of this?"
"Happy Spirit's Day, General."
General Rieekan looked around, slowly taking it in. Then he smiled. "Look what you did to the gloves."
"Yes, sir."
"Have everyone wait. I'll be right back."
Rieekan returned shortly, skidding again eagerly into the room. "Everyone grab a glowrod." He watched as members of Echo Base quietly came forward. Many were sleepy; most were smiling.
"We're going to have to pay for these," Rieekan told the assembled crowd. "Unauthorized use of base supplies. And the gloves and the nuts and washers. Someone take a collection up for Skywalker." He looked around. "Princess, turn the lights off, will you please? Anyone need the lyrics? Yes?"
Leia helped pass around the music sheets and General Rieekan gave the order. "It's a waltz. One, two, three-"
"Fete Day, Fete Day, everyone stay for Fete Day," voices floated up from the darkness.
Wedge kissed Luke on the cheek. "Good job, Boss."
Luke smiled. He was exhausted. But Han had a really nice baritone and Leia's voice was higher than anyone else's.