Zarabelle wasn't her usual cocky self as she walked through the temple with Ben. Part of the reason was because she was admiring the beautiful stone structures that surrounded her as they walked through the marble corridors.
But the main reason was because she couldn't quite figure out Ben Solo. He was incredibly difficult to read. He had been fairly apathetic about her presence, but he hadn't been rude about it. Although Zarabelle loved getting under people's skin, it was only in situations she felt it was required. Ben Solo had not done anything which deserved the good old negative treatment from Zarabelle Penthurst.
Ben Solo was normally a fairly quiet and reserved young male. Growing up he used to be loud and lively, mainly because he used to spend more time around his father due to his mother's busy senator schedule. But as he got older he felt a strange disconnect begin to grow inside him. He began to feel out of place, like a stranger in his own life. He knew this is why his parents had sent him to train under Luke. They had never explicitly stated this to him, but it was pretty obvious they feared he would fall to the dark side of the force.
Ben didn't want to fall into darkness. He just wanted to feel like he belonged somewhere again. And something inside him was stirring in Zarabelle's presence. It was like he was sensing she could bring peace to his turmoils. He had felt it the first time he saw her video chatting to her brother, but the feeling was growing even stronger in person.
"So, what's your deal?" Zarabelle asked Ben as she studied his form whilst they walked.
"Excuse me?" Ben asked her in disbelief as he stopped in tracks. He didn't know whether to be amused or annoyed.
"I dunno. I'm normally good at reading people. But you're different," Zarabelle shrugged "Can't decide whether you're moody, or shy, or maybe just the strong silent type."
Ben found himself shuddering as 'strong silent type' rolled seductively off Zarabelle's tongue. She wasn't the first girl to flirt with him in his life, and as such he was fairly immune to girls showing him interest. But Zarabelle definitely had a hold over him.
"Does it matter?" Ben scoffed in an attempt to try and hide the growing feelings he had for Zarabelle.
"'Spose not." Zarabelle shrugged, thinking she had touched a nerve.
The two were silent as they walked alongside each other. Ben looked sideways to see that Zarabelle had lost her playful and cheeky demeanour, as she was walking silently and looking down. He suddenly felt very awkward. He didn't want to make her feel bad, but he also didn't want to appear weak.
"It was interesting seeing your mother. Chaz has told me quite a bit about her. He's also told me about your disdain for her." Ben spoke up with a small smirk on his face.
"Yeah… I could spend hours talking about this, but I'll spare you the long lecture." Zarabelle weakly smiled. She loved every chance she could get to complain about her mother, but had learned a long time ago others didn't appreciate hearing her long and tiring rants.
Unfortunately for her, that's what Ben was trying to draw out of her as they both walked through the airy and echoing corridors.
"No need for the lecture. Chaz has told me quite a lot about her. That he feels she is insufferable. And to you she's…" Ben started, in hopes Zarabelle would finish his sentence.
"...just an idiot." Zarabelle finished with a weak smile.
"I see." Ben responded, as he gave up on trying to get Zarabelle to open up about her hatred of her mother.
The two continued to walk in silence through the corridor, their footsteps echoing off the marble and high ceilings were the only sounds to be heard.
"What about you? Do you get along with your parents? Your mother is Senator Organa, right? She's a bit of a hero to me actually." Zarabelle asked, in an attempt to break the awkward silence building between the two.
"Really? Why?" Ben asked quickly, stopping in his tracks to do so as he raised an eyebrow.
It wasn't unusual for people to see his mother as a hero. He had been told numerous times how many people believed his mother was heroic for her efforts leading the Rebel Alliance through many battles. Even now she was still using her senator duties to ensure she could smolder any ashes of the Empire rising again.
But Zarabelle Penthurst wasn't one to be impressed easily. It actually disappointed him to hear she echoed the sentiments of many people around the galaxy. He had hoped she had a bit more substance.
"I dunno. It's because she went against everything she was supposed to do. It would have been easy for her to ignore the happenings of the galaxy and to shun her father, I mean your grandfather's, efforts to restore peace. She could have just found some nobleman to marry and popped out kids in a blissful but ignorant civilian life. But she decided to say 'screw it' and did what she wanted to - including marrying an incredibly questionable man." Zarabelle went to explain.
It took Ben a moment to digest what Zarabelle was saying, but then a smirk grew across his face. Zarabelle wasn't one of the many people who thought his mother was a hero for bringing peace. She admired his mother only because she dared to challenge authority. The quip about his father certainly wasn't lost on him either.
"Bail Organa actually wasn't my mother's father." Ben responded with matter-of-factly.
"He wasn't?" Zarabelle asked as she raised her eyebrows but then a grin appeared over her face "Quite scandalous."
Ben then admired the pretty girl's face as he began contemplating whether to go further down the rabbit hole and explain the full story to Zarabelle. He was incredibly attracted to her and wanted to give her clearly what she was trying to get from him - a proper explanation about his revelation. But he would be betraying his family's best kept secret if he complied.
He couldn't help himself. Zarabelle seemed to stir emotions inside of him that he had never felt before. He felt he needed to give her precisely what she wanted.
As he opened his mouth to explain to her who exactly his grandfather was, a booming voice was heard behind them.
"Ben! What are you doing with that outsider?"
Ben and Zarabelle quickly turned around in fright and saw an unimpressed Luke Skywalker standing behind them.
"Uncle Luke, it's visitation day. I was leading Zarabelle here to Chaz, her brother." Ben quickly stated, his dark eyes not meeting his Uncle's blue eyed piercing gaze.
"Gee whiz, the Luke Skywalker. You're not as tall as I pictured." Zarabelle mused, which caused Ben to choke back very obvious laughter.
Luke looked at the girl with displeasure. Whilst he wasn't too hurt by her small insult, he was reading her demeanour. She seemed harmless - just an angsty girl in early adulthood. But his instincts were still rising deep inside him. He sensed darkness brewing and every being in his body was calling out to remove this girl from Ben's company. Pronto.
"Ben. No guests are permitted to enter sacred parts of the temple. It's Jedi only." Luke strongly warned Ben.
"That message was never conveyed to me." Ben responded in a matter-of-fact tone as he stared down his uncle.
"Well...er...that should have been obvious!" Luke spluttered out in defense.
"Hey, I'm willing to abide by the rules in somebody else's home," Zarabelle quickly piped up as she showed her hands to show mock surrender "I just want to find my brother"
"Back to the visitation area. I'll send Chaz down," Luke stiffly stated but became firmer when he saw Ben making no attempt to move "Ben, go NOW."
Ben rolled his eyes as he muttered an insult under his breath, but used the opportunity to make direct contact with Zarabelle as he placed a strong arm around the small of her back in order to lead her back down the spacious corridor.
Zarabelle let out a loud gasp at the unexpected contact and the fact she could swear that his touch brought a warm, tingly sensation where his touch lingered on her back. Zarabelle's sultry noise made Ben smile in triumphance.
He purposely left his hand touching her back as he directed her back towards the visitation area. Zarabelle purposely made no attempt to remove it.
"This is Commander Dameron of the New Republic, requesting instructions on where to land, ship's details should be able to be found under my name." Poe Dameron confidently declared over his radio system.
"Er, hi Commander. We've had a few people from the New Republic land in Whitefield over the past day or so. Is there some kind of conference being held here? Whitefield Town Hall is a lovely place, I'm sure what's where it would be." An older feminine voice came over his radio.
Poe shot his radio an odd look (as he was unable to shoot his displeased look towards the stranger he was speaking to) and then rolled his eyes dramatically as he looped his ship around in order to line up his landing again, as the idle chit-chat from the air traffic controller had caused him to overshoot the landing runway.
"Awaiting instruction on which runway to land on." Poe spoke up, slight annoyance evident in his voice.
"Oh, right. Hmm...let me see." The woman mused, making 'err' and 'umm' sounds over and over as she was deep in thought.
Poe once again rolled his eyes as he was forced to once again do a loop with his ship in order to line himself for a proper landing due to the woman's slow timing.
"Runway three looks clear. Oops, no wait, we have a heavy ship approaching. Can you see Runway six from where you are?" The woman asked him.
"Yeah, I can. Runway six currently has a ship taxi-ing to the terminal. It's clearly taken." Poe responded aggressively. Poe was normally a fairly happy go-lucky person, but he wasn't a fan of this air traffic controller who clearly wasn't very good at her job. Her slow reaction time and ditziness could kill somebody.
"Right. Well um...can you go into a holding pattern until it becomes free?" The woman nervously asked him.
Poe let out an aggressive sigh. On New Republic bases he knew all the air traffic controllers and could choose which ones to radio into to avoid talking to anyone incompetent. But this was a commercial and civilian airport on a planet he had only ever been to once, and thus he didn't know anybody.
Except for one. He didn't know how truly competent she was, but he realised anybody had to be better than this moron he was currently talking to.
"Hey uh, is controller Penthurst around?" Poe radioed the woman.
"You mean Zarabelle? No, she's on her lunch or something. Do you know her? She's a sweet girl." The woman happily babbled through the radio.
Poe let out a snort upon hearing the woman's words. Belle, sweet? Yeah right.
Poe noticed on yet another loop around waiting for landing that there was a runway made of dirt to the left of the airport. It didn't have any landing crew or lights, but Poe was experienced enough in rough landings to not require any of that fancy rubbish that inexperienced commercial pilots needed.
"Hey, what runway is the dirt runway?" Poe asked the air traffic controller curiously.
"It's not a runway, it's-" the air traffic controller tried to explain, but she was cut off promptly by Poe.
"-yeah, just mark down that my ship is approaching landing on that runway, taking final approach." Poe cut her off and quickly turned off his radio before she could protest.
Poe had to loop his ship around one last time in order to successfully line his X-wing up with the dirt trail for a smooth landing. Deciding to showcase his skills to those below, he looped by dramatically pulling his ship back so it travelled upwards with its nose in the air. He then continued to pull the ship back further so it turned him upside down for a brief moment, before he effortlessly completed his loop-de-loop and navigated his ship downwards, lining it up with the dirt runway and with only a few bumps, he glided his ship to a stop.
It was then he turned his radio back on, and this time a male was harping over the radio.
"Can the gentleman flying the T-85 X-Wing please make contact. Immediately."
"Way to go, Poe." Poe's tanned blonde short haired team member scoffed sarcastically as she rolled her dark eyes.
"What was I supposed to do, Kare? Just keep looping around aimlessly until I got struck by another ship? That air traffic controller was an idiot." Poe hissed towards his subordinate.
"You probably could have handled it a bit better more diplomatically than the way you did, bud." Iolo, another member of Poe's team grinned, but gave him a big pat on the back to show he wasn't annoyed as their female team member.
The four members of the Rapier Squadron were sticking out like a sore thumb. They were sitting with their orange jumpsuits outside of the spaceport manager's office, cradling their white New Republic helmets in their arms. The people of the airport were scuttering around them, giving strange looks as they passed by.
"So what are we going to do about this? Surely there's something that can be done." Muran, the last team member to speak, asked Poe curiously.
Poe sighed as he ran a hand through his dark slightly curly hair. His hotheadedness of landing his X-wing on a non-runway without permission had gotten his entire team in trouble. He was the last to land of his squadron, but as soon as he touched down he, alongside his entire team, were asked to report to the spaceport manager's office immediately. The ground crew who escorted him mentioned apparently they were in big trouble.
Whilst he had no ties to the commercial spaceport and he didn't report to them, he did report to the New Republic. The New Republic now relied on Whitefield City spaceport as a base for their fleet due to recent pirate activity in the planet's system. If Whitefield City tugged back the welcome mat, that would be deemed the Rapier Squadron's fault.
He had to make this right.
Poe was brought back from his thoughts as he watched Iolo grin and nudge Muran, nodding his head towards something in the distance. Kare scoffed as Poe's eyes trailed to who Iolo was gawking at. He saw a highly attractive flight attendant draped in the impressive Whitefield City flight attendant uniform which was form fitting and brightly colourful. She had beautiful olive skin, long legs and bright honey coloured eyes which matched her dark hair.
But Poe was looking at her for a different reason, as a plan formed in his head.
Without missing a beat he quickly got up and ran after the woman.
"Hey! Miss, hey!" Poe quickly called out as he raced to catch up to her, ignoring the laughs coming from Iolo and Muran, and the groan coming from Kare.
"Er hi, can I help you?" The woman asked, looking a little uncomfortable with Poe charging after her.
"I need to ask a huge favour. Can you please go to the flight control room and ask for Zarabelle Penthurst. I need to speak to her, urgently." Poe quickly blurted out.
The woman raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow as a grin formed over her face.
"Friend of Zarabelle's, huh? She's off today, she's actually gone to visit her brother on another planet. Does she know you're here?" The woman asked curiously, her demeanour relaxing once she realised that the man speaking to her wasn't trying to flirt with her.
"Um, no. I was just passing by and thought I'd say hello." Poe responded, his shoulders slumping as he realised he had exhausted his one and only plan to save the day.
"See to me this behaviour exhibits that you're potentially stalking her." The woman grinned as she crossed her arms in a judgmental manner "You've shown up out of the blue to see her, and you're trying to rope others into getting her for you. Trust me, I've had enough stalkers to see this."
Poe went to angrily respond. He didn't appreciate the conclusion this woman had jumped to, and feeling very annoyed about today's turn of events he had a lot of frustration building up inside of him. But lucky for him his team members had heard this entire conversation and one in particular had met Zarabelle the last time they were on this planet.
"He's not stalking her. Look, honestly, we're members of the New Republic. Poe here, being a bit of an idiot, completed a landing without permission and has now landed us in hot water. Zarabelle is the only person he knows and was hoping she could help us. He knows her from last time we were here." Iolo quickly explained.
"New Republic? Wow, that's quite noble." The attractive woman purred towards Iolo in praise. She seemed to be quite a lot more receptive to Iolo than to Poe, so Poe shot him pleading looks in hopes Iolo could convince the woman to fix the situation for them.
"Yeah. If you could do something, absolutely anything, to help our case it would mean the world to us." Iolo sincerely stated.
She chewed on her lip for a moment as she stared into Iolo's odd coloured eyes. Normally it was Poe the squadron leader who was overly confident and charming in order to get what the group needed. But today was Iolo's time to shine and he was milking it for all it was worth. Plus it was working in his favour as it was impressing the very attractive woman before him.
"Alright. The spaceport manager has had a bit of a thing for me for a long time. Let me see what I can do." The woman concluded. She made a hand gesture to indicate "just a second" as she confidently strutted into the office next to where the squadron were seated.
As soon as the door was shut Kare gave a small slap to Muran's head who was seated next to her. She then got up from her seat and did the same to both Poe and Iolo.
"Ouch, what was that for?" Poe glared as he dramatically rubbed his head where she had made contact.
"That's for being idiots around a hot girl!" Kare hissed, clearly unimpressed.
"I wasn't being an idiot around her. I was strategically using the resources at my disposal to cleverly weasel out of our current conflict." Poe defended.
"...yeah, me too. My resources being my great body and great looks. Did you see me go? She's an absolute stunner and yet she still fell for it. I'll definitely be asking for a date when this is all over." Iolo cockily joked.
"Yeah, that's if we don't get booted off this planet." Kare said through gritted teeth.