Kessel Run Week Ten Challenge: Write a story between 100 and 400 words, and include these three words: carmine, intoxicate, solace.

A/N: Thanks to Mira-Jade for coming up with the title for this one!

Etymology (Nadira Jade, Nakari, Kaela, and Ben Skywalker, Rylan and Valeria Jade, Alaine Vasseron, 30 ABY)

"It's made of bugs."

Alaine's tone was almost offhand. Valeria and Ben's reactions were not.

"Ewwww!" Standing unnoticed at the door, Nadira had to bite back a laugh at the horrified chorus.

"It is not," Kaela argued. "It's paint, it's made of—of paint."

"It is so," Alaine insisted. "I read a book last month about how pigments are made. Carmine red is made from the dried bodies of a type of insect."

"If Alaine says it, you know it's true," Nakari put in. Despite the blue eyes she'd inherited from her father, their eldest grandchild looked enough like her mother that watching her grow up was like getting to see the years they had missed with Mara. It didn't make up for the original loss, but it was an immense solace nevertheless.

Rylan didn't even look away from his painting. "You can always borrow Alaine's book, Kaela."

Kaela grimaced. "Why would I want to read about bugs?"

"Because they're interesting," Alaine said. "Did you know that there's a type of stink bug that's a delicacy in some parts of the forests of Thagawa—"

"They eat bugs?" Valeria's horror was even more comical than before.

"Lots of people eat bugs," Nakari said, turning back to her reading.

Ben's eyes were huge. "Stink bugs?"

"—and they can intoxicate the people who eat them," Alaine continued, unperturbed.

"They get drunk off bugs?" Kaela had clearly revised her interest in the subject.

"No, they get poisoned by them." Alaine turned her own attention back to Rylan's painting of a vase of red flowers, whose tint had sparked the whole conversation.

Kaela huffed. "You said 'intoxicate.'"

"'To poison' is a secondary definition of 'intoxicate,'" Nakari told her sister, still reading. "It's just kind of an obscure one."

Rylan paused in his painting to affectionately ruffle his younger cousin's hair. "Leave it to Alaine to choose the obscure definition."

"It's a good word," Alaine said, smoothing her hair. "Why shouldn't I use it?"

Kaela took a breath, and Nadira judged it a good time to intervene. "Darlings, Uncle Han and Aunt Leia and your cousins have arrived; come say hello and wash up before dinner."

She stood aside to avoid the ensuing stampede of the younger ones, smiling at the more measured pace of Nakari and Rylan—far too mature at sixteen and fourteen for such antics—and followed her grandchildren to join the rest of the family.