Culinary Expedition
sadlystillnotsparky:
“No. No she hasn’t,” Ben snickered. “She hasn’t been many places at all, even on this planet, where people haven’t tried to kill her. Or, at the very least, take a candid holo which is basically the same for Jaina.”
His cousin photographed well, of course. She was every bit as hologenic as you’d expect from someone with her genetic makeup. However, she despised her image being taken for basically any reason. Even at her wedding it was a sore subject with her. And the holos she had endured had definitely been for Leia and Han’s sake.
“Everyone I know hates going to their home planet. Except Uncle Han. But everyone else,” he gestured vaguely, “so that’s definitely not a new concept to me. I’m lucky. This is my home planet, and I like it. But, I can definitely see how you would have some… conflicting feelings about it. Some of the stuff that goes on there is definitely horrible.” he stopped, suddenly realizing something, “Of course, you’re from here, too, I guess, so you probably like your home planet just fine.” She ordered for them, then, which was good. Ben wasn’t actually sure about the answer to the question she’d been in the middle of, anyway. He’d been to dozens of planets, but he didn’t know the exact number at all. He’d been young for a lot of them, but even the ones that he remembered were a lot to count.
Still, he wasn’t sure he liked the exchange of lekku gestures that went on during the ordering process. He figured that no small amount of it on the waiter’s part was probably derogatory. After all, he was definitely one of the only humans in the building. Plus, Twi’lek men were a bit notorious for not liking human men hanging around with Twi’lek women. Given the history there, Ben wasn’t even sure that they were that wrong to feel that way. Of course, he personally thought that the way some Twi’lek men had treated Twi’lek women wasn’t much better and was, possibly, even worse.
“Nice of you to be so concerned,” he returned with a grin. “Although, I definitely appreciate the ryl omission. I have a feeling that wouldn’t work for me at all.”
Seikira cackled at the idea of the battle-hardened hero Jaina Solo being distraught at the idea of being caught in a candid holo -- not that she was the only person Seikira could name who felt that way about dealing with the holonews despite having survived years of deadly battle and victories over impossible odds. Still, most of the other people Seikira could think of who fell into that group hadn’t literally grown-up under the prying eye of holotabloids and celebrity gossip. One might think Jaina would be used to it by now -- but perhaps it was exactly that familiarity which inspired her dismay.
Her laughter faded with a last contemplative chuckle as she pondered Ben’s statement about homeworlds. “That’s interesting. I never really thought about it like that.” She was now, though. “I wonder how common that situation is.” She grinned at Ben. “I’ll have to start asking the folks I know, get a list together. For starters, I know that mom doesn’t hate Bespin, although she does get antsy being there for too long -- but that’s because she finds it cramped. She’s not used to living in small spaces like that anymore.”
Not that the family apartment on Coruscant was particularly spacious -- only the obnoxiously rich could afford spacious accomodations on the crowded city-planet of the galactic capital -- but small spaces on Coruscant were different from small spaces on Bespin. Bespin itself -- the city, at least, which was the only habitable place on the swollen gas giant -- was small, so the space around the space you were in was cramped, too. Coruscant on the other hand was divided into billions of cramped and crowded little slivers, but the city itself was enormous enough to encompass nearly the whole world. A being could walk from one end of Bespin to the other in less than two time parts, and that at a sedate pace. There was no surfeit of space on Coruscant; the city often seemed to go on forever and in a way, it did. There were no boundaries to the city of Coruscant, because the whole planet was the city. You couldn’t ever reach the end because it circled infinitely back on itself forever.
“But you’re right,” she said to Ben, pulling her thoughts back to the present, “I certainly feel like Coruscant is my home, even if Ryloth is my homeworld. And yeah,” Seikira grinned, “I like it here just fine. The company’s nice, for one thing.”
She smirked at his thanks for her discretion in the night’s food choices and said, “Well, I kind of figured that drugging the son of the Grand Jedi Master would fall into the category of ‘mistakes you only make once,’ so I think I should save that for some time when it’ll be really worth it, you know?” Not that Seikira had plans to drug either of them for any reason -- but it would have been funny (and terrifying) to have realized too late that she’d forgotten to absent the ryl from their dinner. Thank the Force her mother was human too, and she was used to considering the non-Twi’lek palette or she probably would have forgotten.
And then she probably would have had to fling herself out an airlock or something.
