CONTENT: Creepy Twins (™), YN’s long and confusing history with the Jedi Order, vague mentions of blood and/or death, Order 66, implied … things, YN is a coloniser I’m sorry
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Has anyone else ever noticed that the only human/non-human relationships we see in SW are male human/female non-human? I’m serious. Name one (heterosexual) relationship in SW where the non-human is the guy. Do it. Tell me one.
Anyway, your favourite monsterfucker is about to change that. You’re all so welcome for this.
George Lucas didn’t count on a woman with a dream being reallyyy down bad for the semi-racist green guys that love money and have really stereotypical Asian accents. Cool.
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There is no such thing as a cold morning on Lothal. It is cool often, especially just before dawn and just after dusk, but never cold. Not cold enough for winter clothes, at least.
It is a dust planet, the shipment yard of the Empire. Truly, Lothal does not have a lot to offer.
One could visit a hundred planets just like it, perhaps even a thousand. Planets where winters are made of volcanic ash, where water is naturally present on the surface. And instead, you are here.
A desert sun is rising - The days at the start of the year are shortest, and so you are well through your morning routine with no daylight. Red light touches red fields, and one by one the lights begin to turn off. Not many can afford electricity in the daytime.
You stand, you stretch, and you pull open the shutters. A dust screen stays between you and outside. You live high up enough you are at no particular danger to a sandstorm, but you are no risking it.
A panel in the kitchen beeps. Nothing immediate, a reminder for produce. The twins will eat anything they can get their hands on, and melon has been their most recent target. You will take them later, when the markets open.
You are not tall enough to press the door lock on your own - There is a plastic stepstool for you to do so, which moves from the kitchen, to the door, to the storage closets as you see fit. You have been offered multiple, ones of stainless steel and ones with droid technology that follow you about. But you like this one. Besides, not everything needs to be a droid.
That is true as you stand over the stove, flipping a griddle pan which in some other apartment is done by a red and white machine that beeps. But you know too well what the children like, and that is something a droid cannot be programmed to do.
Stars for your son, named for the great sun of your home system, crescent moons for your daughter called after the sky. They will not eat them in any other shape. One likes blueberry preserve, the other eats her breakfast plain with bare hands, like some sort of animal.
The door panel bleeps out that little tune you set it with, and the dim lights brighten. Morning. When you turn your back to the hallway to check something and turn back, there are twins sat at the breakfast table, looking up expectantly. You start.
“Gods! You two are creepy, you know that?”
Your daughter pouts. Fake.
“That isn’t nice, Mummy.”
“Yeah! You can’t just call us creepy.”
“I’ll stop when I see progress. Creepy twins.”
A pink plate for your son, a white plate for your daughter.
“Where do you think? He’s at work.”
“Why did he leave so early?”
“He didn’t leave early, you just got up late.”
The children do not do much very early in the morning. They are old enough to dress themselves, provided you lay out their clothes, and old enough to go off by themselves for a bit and play. Some mornings they have school, but this is not one of those mornings.
A panel beeps and turns blue. You reach for your shoes.
Your son appears with his rainbow snake toy. His sister is nowhere to be seen.
“Where is-” You look behind you, no child. “Híma? Asa, where is your sister?”
“Did you put your sister in the washing machine again?”
You sigh, sliding open the door into the laundry room. You open the hatch, and your daughter’s head pops out,
“Every damn time! One day I’m going to wash one of you by accident, you know.”
Your rings are sitting in the dish beside the door. You put them on, grab yourself a scarf and wrap it over your head.
The path to the markets is largely straight. You know it well. One child on your hip, another holding tightly onto your hand. You reach a checkpoint, and plop Asa down.
“Good morning.” Says the officer - Young and red-haired, he bends down slightly, “Good morning, Asa. Good morning, Híma.”
The children want to give him their cards themselves, and so you hand them out and take them back again. He doesn’t scan them, he lets you through the office block.
“Ah. I see, I see. Have fun.”
You smile, he watches you go.
“Mummy it’s my turn to be carried.”
Híma insists to be lifted, and you oblige. It is her turn.
The markets are no different to usual. Most of the shops are little, nomadic stalls which appear and disappear every so often. You recognise the faces, and what they sell - Who sells fruit, who crafts weavings, who you can pay to read and write letters for you. It is a small mercy you are literate. The children are learning, and that means stopping at any reasonably large sign.
“Store, hon. The E is silent.”
“I know, but I didn’t make Galactic Basic. It has silent letters.”
You bring them into one of the few stores permanently there. A small bakery. The twins get a cake and a strawberry twist. They will each eat half of one and then swap, because Híma does not like cake, and Asa does not like strawberries.
“What did you get for Papa?”
“I bought a box of pralines.”
“Ooh… Chocolate! Can we have some?”
“They’re grown-up chocolate. You can try it, but you might not like it.”
You are walking down a quiet lane, the light is dim under the roofing of houses and small businesses. Asa pulls quietly on your sleeve.
“There’s a man following us.”
You tilt your head just slightly, to pretend you are fixing your scarf. About your age, perhaps slightly older. Dark hair, an orange pilot jacket. Your face catches the light, the man stops. He calls your name. You turn slightly, the children are behind you.
And he runs to you, quite suddenly. You step back. The man stops.
“I thought you were dead. You never reached out. We called for any survivors, we need all the help we can -”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Kanan.”
“I hope you aren’t going to incriminate yourself. That wouldn’t be a smart thing to do on an occupied planet.”
“No. It wouldn’t.” He sighs, “You have kids.”
It is at this point Asa, ever the bold of the two, creeps out from behind your legs and stares up at the stranger. Kanan, to his merit, bends down and speaks gently.
“Hello, young one. What’s your name?”
“... Asa. And that’s Híma. She’s my sister.”
You run a hand through his hair and push him back slightly.
“They’re good kids. Well-spoken. How old?”
You smile thinly. There is not much else that needs to be said.
“Are you with good people?”
He laughs, he moves on his feet,
“Depends on your definition. They’re - Simple folk, but honest. We have a ship.”
“... What about you? What have you been doing since-”
Híma pulls on your skirts, you lift her back up and balance her on your hip.
“Not much. What’s it been now - Ten years?”
“Fif-” Janan coughs weakly, “Fifteen. And a half.”
“Gods… The time has gone, hasn’t it?”
You say your goodbyes and leave quickly. Your husband comes home at usual time, and nothing is said for your encounter. You take the cats downstairs for a dig in the yard. You can sense him before he makes himself known, a perk of the Force.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
“You shouldn’t be on the grounds of an Imperial base.” He jumps from nowhere, stopping just short of you, “What are you doing in a place like this?”
“My husband is stationed here. It was that or the children grow up without their father. And I would not have that.”
“You could. Wouldn’t you rather the children grow up free?”
“Free as you? Running from the law? From the Inquisitors? You know what they do to our kind, you know full well what Force Sensitive twins would be used for.”
“They are already being used.”
You call the cat over and pick it up,
“Are they? Or are they young little children with a mummy, and a daddy, and their pets?”
“How many little children did the regime kill?”
“I don’t have time for this. I will not live with the guilt of something I had no control over. I was nineteen, I was barely out of the Padawan centre. What could I have done?”
Kanan steps closer, and you step back.
“At least tell me how you survived.”
“One of the Temple Guards,” You say quietly, “He led me out a passageway. He burned my robes and put me in a droid taxi. I went to the port.”
“Where did you go from there?”
“It was the first ship I could buy a ticket for.”
The cat is bored, she wants to go down again. You put her back on the grass and she lunges for Kanan. He lifts her, and she relaxes. The cat is dramatic, and lazy.
“A Guard. I didn’t think any guards survived the initial phases.”
“Some did. Mine did. My Satellite.”
“You sound like you knew him.” He looks up suddenly, at you. “You didn’t.”
“We were bonded. They say it’s folk tales, but it’s real. I fell one day training, and he came over and took my hands, and I felt it. It was like - A sun collapsing in on itself - Endless rotations of an endlessly dying planet - Beautiful, and terrible, and nothing, and everything - Love. That’s what it was.”
“And you think that stops anyone? Anakin Skywalker was fucking that awful little diplomat and we all knew it! Dooku, you’re too young to remember when Dooku served, but he constantly had pageboys around him. What do you want me to say, Caleb Dume?”
“I want you to admit you broke your vows. And don’t call me that name.”
“Fine. I met that Temple Guard after hours, and he used his powers to open the gates into the city. We went out, we drank wine, and we made love under the stars under the dome of the Observatory. Is that satisfactory?”
He breathes out. A sigh, if anything.
“Where did you bury him?”
Kanan jumps when you laugh. You snort.
“Gods - You’re too funny - He survived. He was - is - An excellent swordsman. Better than you, better than Skywalker was. And I’m not just bragging because he’s my husband, he is very good.”
“How has a Temple Guard- No! No- You don’t mean- You can’t mean- Tell me it’s not what I think it is.”
“Correlation doesn’t equal causation. Most of them are young, or still in training.”
“Three hundred and ninety seven.”
“It’s not like that, he’s Pau’an.”
“That’s why the kids have those markings. I thought those were paint.”
“They are. It’s a - Semi-religious cultural thing. It’s their equivalent of a surname.”
“I didn’t think the Imperial Office hired Pau’ans. There aren’t any except-”
A pause. A short, painful, pause.
“Just tell me. Tell me what I know.”
“My husband is the Grand Inquisitor. He is a reformed Jedi who hunts his previous brothers for sport. And he’s going to kill you.”
“I do.” You say it so simply you could be remarking on the weather, “Divination. My Mastress was particularly good at it. It’s not hard to learn.”
“How can you live with yourself? Tell me you’re tortured by that knowledge, tell me something that makes me think you aren’t affiliated with the Sith.”
“Because doing that would incriminate myself which would put my husband and my children at risk. I no longer associate with the Jedi Order, or with Jedi.”
“Your husband kills your friends, your brothers and sisters. How many has he struck down? A dozen? Two?”
“I want you to hurt! I want you to feel some guilt for our way of life being destroyed! Torn apart by men like him.”
“Because you are? Because you can’t live with yourself? I am sorry you live such a miserable existence, alright? I am, truly. But some of us moved past it! Some of us evolved!”
“Evolved for a comfortable life.”
“And what is wrong with that? When my options were death, or a life on the lam? Yes. I chose a life with air conditioning units and croissants! And what’s it to you? In no way does it affect anyone else, Jedi or not!”
You turn your back to him, the cat follows.
Sharp teeth graze up your neck. You are too distracted to do anything other than trail your nails up his back.
“The fence in the yard is too easy to climb over.”
“Mh- I will get it reinforced. Now-“ And in a moment he is atop you, “Would you care to discuss business somewhere more … comfortable?”
“You can discuss business as much as you’d like.”
