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06.21.31 - pennie re-enters the narrative

Connie and Ginnie Pentarra were not my favorite people in the galaxy. They had never tried to kill us like Pennie had, but they displayed more ordinary manners of cruelty. Connie was pretty much your typical mean girl, which I guess they have in the Outer Rim, too, and Ginnie wasn’t mean but she wasn’t nice either—her general refusal to care about anything was often just as bad as unkindness.

But they were Fannie’s sisters, so I could handle their nastiness. After all, I had been pretty nasty at various points in my life, so I couldn’t judge Fannie for still loving them. Not when whatever compelled her to do so was the same thing that drove her to still love me, too.

All the same, I thought it was pretty bad that they hadn’t reached out to Fannie all this time. It had been almost six months since she’d been banished from their home, and they hadn’t even bothered to check on her.

But, as it turned out…Connie and Ginnie had a pretty good reason why they hadn’t been able to find time to call.

“Pen’awen has gone mad,” Ginnie told us, with her usual straight-faced expression.

Fannie and I exchanged glances.

“Well...she’s always been mad,” I said pointedly. “In both senses of the word.”

“Ginevrah means that Pen’awen has gone insane,” Connie repeated. “She is no longer sound of mind.”

“That has also always been true.”

“Ben, stop,” Fannie murmured. “I—I think they’re being serious.”

“Well, so am I—”

“Ben!”

“Pen’awen has lost the ability to care for herself,” Ginnie said. “It has fallen upon Coneeyla and I to act as her nurses.”

I quit joking around, then. They really were serious.

“But…what about your mom?” I asked. “She’s not helping you take care of her, too?”

“Our mother does not understand that Pen’awen has entered an altered state,” Connie said with a tired bitterness. “She believes her to be possessed by evil spirits, and will not go near her.”

“But where is Bunnie?” Fannie cried, lurching forward. “Where is she?”

“‘Bunnie?’” Connie echoed.

“She means Pennie’s kid,” I supplied anxiously. “‘Bunnie’ was the name we gave her.”

“They mean Lo’ruhamah,” Ginnie said to Connie.

“Ah…Lo’ruhamah,” Connie repeated.

“What?!” Fannie shrieked, so shrilly I jumped in my seat. “Lo’ruhamah—surely that is not the name Pennie gave her!”

“Fan, calm down,” I said quickly, placing my hand on her thigh. “Pennie had the right to name her kid whatever she wanted. It’s not that bad a name, is it?”

“Ben, you don’t understand,” Fannie said, her eyes wide. “Lo’ruhamah—it means ‘unloved.’ Pennie named her daughter ‘Unloved.’”

Oh.

That was a bad name.

I turned back to Connie and Ginnie, narrowing my eyes.

“Where’s the kid,” I asked quietly.

Neither sister spoke.

“Well?” I demanded.

Connie set her lips in a straight line. She looked at Ginnie.

“…We don’t know,” she said at last.

Fannie uttered a weak cry.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” I snapped. “How could you not know?”

“We just don’t know,” Connie replied harshly. “The child was already gone when we found Pen’awen.”

Fannie’s breath became more audible as she trembled and fell forward, clenching her fists around her skirts.

“We first discovered Pen’awen’s decline when a stench was reported in the far end of the hallway,” Ginnie said stoically. “No one had seen her in the two weeks after you left Ryloth. We thought she had died.”

I felt sick to my stomach.

“Ginevrah and I resolved to enter the room together,” said Connie. “It was locked. We did not have Fa’nakhra’s light sword, so we had to axe in the door.”

“Pennie was not dead,” Ginnie said, “but there was blood, filth, and refuse around the room, and Pen’awen lay there on the ground.”

Fannie lifted her head, looking pale. “But where was Bu—where was the baby?”

“The child was nowhere to be seen,” said Connie. “We thought perhaps Pen’awen had killed her, but there were no remains.”

I felt even queasier.

“...What about the blood?” I asked.

“It was Pen’awen’s,” said Ginnie.

“How could you tell?”

“Because it had dried in streaks down the inner sides of her legs,” Ginnie said, in a way that only Ginnie Pentarra could say that sentence.

Then I really did almost throw up. I found the wastebasket under my desk with my feet and pulled it closer just in case.

“But the baby,” Fannie whispered. “You couldn’t find her?”

“We searched the entire house and the entire grounds,” said Connie tiredly. “But we could not find the girl. We asked the servants, and they knew nothing. We asked Pen’awen, when she could speak…but she does not speak as one who is awake to the world.” Connie paused. “And we asked our father. He provided no information.”

“Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any,” I said darkly.

“Whether he does or he doesn’t, there is no way for us to obtain it,” Connie said thinly. “So we abandoned the search for Pennie’s daughter. We had no choice. We had no leads. Tollah alone knows what happened to her.”

Fannie began to chant dazedly. “The Force is with me, the Force is all, the Force is through all...”

I reached blindly for her hand. I hadn’t exactly seen myself as Bunnie’s dad, not in the way that Fannie had seen herself as Bunnie’s mom. But I could certainly remember how it had felt to hold her in my arms…the way her tiny fist had curled around her finger…the flower-petal softness of her skin. The little dimple under her lips as she had hiccuped, and the fine lashes fluttering upon her cheeks as she had slept. For something to have happened to her, and to not know what it was...to not even know if she was alive, or in what manner her life had been snatched away...it was a horror that settled deep in my stomach.

...And Pennie. I couldn’t help but feel awful for her. “Madness” wasn’t exactly a psychiatric diagnosis, so I couldn’t be sure what had befallen her...but I thought about the terrified young woman I had held close to me in December, who had already been so frightened and helpless (and, yes, dangerous) even when she had still been in touch with reality…and could not begin to imagine what she was going through now. I had never experienced psychosis, if that was what Pennie was experiencing, but I’d definitely had my fair share of adverse psychological states. Mine had never lasted longer than a few hours. To be stuck like that for days...weeks...months...

An involuntary shudder rippled through me.

“But in answer to your original question, Fa’nakhra,” said Connie softly, bringing me back, “Ginevrah and I are willing to attend your wedding. We do not approve of your mate—”

“Coneeyla does not approve,” corrected Ginnie (which, mind you, did not mean Ginnie approved of me, only that she didn’t disapprove)—

“—but given the things that have happened,” Connie continued, ignoring her, “I think it is important for the three of us to stay as close as we can while we may.”

“Thank you, Connie,” Fannie mumbled, still rocking slowly in her seat. “Thank you both.”

“But,” Connie added, “if we do come to see you…we will have to bring Pen’awen.”

Fannie stopped rocking.

“She cannot be left alone,” Ginnie explained. “And there is no one here who would take care of her.”

I stared at Connie and Ginnie in disbelief.

“...Well, that, uh..complicates things,” I said. “I don’t, um...really think Pennie should…be present at the wedding.”

“Perhaps one of us could stay behind to take care of Pen’awen,” Ginnie suggested, “and the other sister could attend the wedding. Then at least one of us could come.”

“Yes, we could do that,” Connie agreed.

All four of us were silent.

Then we all looked at Fannie. It was kind of her choice.

Fannie looked at each of us in turn, her brown eyes wide.

“Well, I...” she began. But whatever she was about to say was cut short.

“Fannie?”

Fannie froze.

So did I.

I knew that voice.

“She’s awake,” Ginnie murmured to Connie.

She.

And suddenly Pennie Pentarra came tumbling into view.

Only...she didn’t. Because whoever this was, she was not the Pennie Pentarra I was familiar with.

“Fannie!” Pennie cried again, a huge smile on her face as she pushed past the other two and filled the hologram. I jerked backward on instinct and threw my arm in front of Fan, as if to protect her from the mere sight of her sister. Fannie and I glanced at each other, scared and stupefied.

I had never heard Pennie call Fannie by her nickname before. I had never seen Pennie smile like that before. She was bouncing up and down and speaking excitedly in Twi’leki, and though I couldn’t understand her, amidst the waterfall of speech I heard her say the words “Jedi school”—and Fannie looked like she’d been hit by a stun ray.

“...I-I don’t go to the Jedi school anymore, dear,” she said, nearly losing her voice on her last word. “I...finished my training years ago, remember?”

Pennie didn’t respond. She had turned to look at me, and tilted her head.

I stiffened up. I could still remember the way she’d looked at me from every moment on after she and I had ended things—with a hatred so intense, there’d been almost a glee to it. But Pennie’s face was blank as she looked at me now. She turned back to Fannie and asked her a question, throwing her finger out toward me. Fannie looked pale.

“...Th-this is Ben, sweetie,” Fannie said, with trembling kindness, the kind I knew she resorted to when she had nothing else to grasp for. “Do you...remember him..?”

Pennie stared at me, and I stared back, terrified she would remember me, and everything that had happened between us. But Pennie only shook her head. And then she beamed wide, and started talking animatedly about something else.

Fannie interrupted her.

“Pennie, dear, where’s your child?” Fannie asked, the sweetness of her voice stretched thin. “Where’s your baby girl?”

Pennie’s blank expression came back. Connie looked tiredly at Ginnie.

“Your…your daughter?” Fannie tried again.

Then Pennie’s face lit up, and she rushed out of view. Fannie and I looked at each other. A few seconds later, Pennie returned, rocking something in her arms, and Fannie and I leaned forward to see what it was. Pennie held it up.

It was not a baby.

“Yes, dear, that’s the...that’s the little dolly I made for you when you were six,” Fannie said faintly. “Where’s your real child, sweetie? The one you bore?”

Pennie stared at her, her eyes round as moons. I couldn’t remember ever seeing Pennie’s eyes so open—I was so used to seeing them in a half-lidded squint. Now that they were open, I could see how much they were like Fannie’s.

“Do you...remember you have a daughter?” Fannie faltered.

Pennie’s expression did not change. After a moment, she seemed to get bored of the conversation, and wandered away, humming to herself.

Fannie looked at me desperately, at a complete loss. I slowly turned back to Connie and Ginnie.

“...Is this how she is all the time?” I asked.

“This is how she has been for the last three months,” Ginnie said. “But what you have witnessed is a great improvement. When she first regained consciousness, she was violent and vulgar and screamed incessantly.”

“Yes,” Connie agreed with a harrowed groan. “We had to restrain her at first. At least now she is manageable, and merely irritating.”

“She seems to behave like a child,” Fannie said uncomfortably. “How old does she think she is?”

I had the same question. Pennie and I had…kind of…slept together in December. Sort of. Whatever we’d done, we’d done it more than once. She had been twenty then; she was twenty-one now. Watching her act like a little kid, and being able to remember the nights I had spent with her...it made me feel very weird and very gross.

Connie turned and shouted off-view. “Pen’awen!” she bellowed. “How old are you?”

Silence.

Eventually, Connie turned back around.

“She’s not answering,” Connie told us. “She doesn’t always answer when you speak to her. Also, Ginevrah—” She switched to Twi’leki to talk to Ginnie, and jerked her chin backward.

“Yes, I will take her,” Ginnie said, rising. “Pen’awen!”

“Take her where?” I asked uncertainly.

“To the bathroom,” Fannie whispered to me. “Connie asked Ginnie to take her to the bathroom.”

I blinked.

“She can’t even do that herself?”

“Whether she cannot or will not, it is easier for us all when we manage it for her,” Connie said dryly. “You remember, Fa’nakhra.”

“Yes, I remember,” Fannie murmured.

Connie fixed her eyes on me again. “It is just as we told you, Ben Solo. Pen’awen has lost the ability to care for herself. Did you think I was exaggerating? Do you really think I would stoop to this level of humiliation, if I had any choice at all?”

Normally, I would categorize that remark as Connie being mean. She had told me herself she didn’t like her sister. In fact, she had gloated over Pennie’s self-destruction, seeming to find a sadistic entertainment in it. But now Connie just seemed...tired.

And it wasn’t as if anyone was forcing her to take care of Pennie. The girls’ mom had removed herself from Pennie’s life entirely. Connie could have done the same.

I thought about the day after the gentlemen’s banquet, a year and a half ago. How Connie had spent the entire day by Fannie’s side. And how she had thanked me for saving Fannie—twice—even though she had spoken cruelly to both of us during the trip, and continued to do so afterward.

“...You love your sisters a lot, don’t you, Connie,” I said quietly, and Connie jerked upright as if she’d been caught in a crime.

Slowly, she melted back into a neutral state.

“Love has nothing to do with it, Ben Solo,” she said emotionlessly. “They are my sisters. That outweighs any feelings I may have or lack.” She glanced backward, in the direction Ginnie had gone. “Yes, I used to be able to deride Pen’awen for her foolish choices, back when she was capable of making them. But...now that she cannot make her own decisions anymore, there is nothing left for which I can mock her.”

She sighed and shook her head bitterly. “I have not been able to sleep with a man, since I became my sister’s nursemaid,” she grumbled.

…Which, knowing Connie, told me that she really did love her sisters.

After a minute, Ginnie returned and sat down, and Pennie bounded afterward and flounced into her sister’s lap, giggling. For once, Ginnie’s expression shifted away from its usual flatness—she looked physically uncomfortable, but also unwilling to exercise her agency. She sat perfectly still and straight as a board, and Pennie’s face obscured hers—Pennie wasn’t a kid, after all; she was shorter than Ginnie, but not by much.

Connie seemed to pick up on Ginnie’s discomfort, and, to my surprise, rushed to her aid. “Get off your sister, you worm,” she barked at Pennie. I flinched, but Pennie seemed unfazed. She slipped down into the space between Connie and Ginnie, singing a nonsense song to herself.

“Connie, you shouldn’t be so unkind to her,” Fannie reprimanded.

Connie scoffed. “Why should you be so concerned? She has hurt you the most out of any of us.”

“Just because she has hurt me doesn’t mean that anyone should hurt her back,” Fannie said quietly.

I found I couldn’t take my eyes off Pennie. Her behavior was incredibly unsettling. She was a fully-grown woman, even if she was only New Republic drinking age, and the signs of her recent pregnancy were still visible on her—the altered shape of her breasts and the dark lines on the loose skin of her stomach. To see her acting like a child...it just looked wrong.

Pennie pointed at me again and spoke, and I reeled back like I’d been shot. It didn’t seem as if she recognized me anymore, but it still felt unsafe to be the object of her attention.

“She says you’re staring at her, Ben,” Connie said.

“S-sorry,” I said, trying to look away. “She, um…doesn’t speak Basic anymore?”

“She understands Basic,” said Ginnie. “But we have not heard her speak it. It seems her mind is smaller than it was before. Two languages is too much for her now, and Twi’leki is the language we all learned first.”

Pennie looked to Fannie and pointed at me again to say something. I really wished she’d stop pointing at me. I also wished I could understand what she was saying. I knew there was a translation feature on the holocall software somewhere; I just had to hope Fannie’s holopad wasn’t too old to handle it. I propped the holopad up against a mug on the desk and tried to get it running.

Judging by Fannie’s response, Pennie must have asked her who I was. I wondered if she had asked who I was in relation to Fannie, or...if she had simply forgotten about me already in the time Ginnie had taken her to the bathroom.

“Ben is my mate, dear,” Fannie replied reluctantly.

Pennie said something else and cocked her head.

“Well…no, dear, he isn’t,” Fannie said, embarrassed. “He…he is a human. But…it is still okay for me to love him, and I am about to marry him very soon.”

Pennie’s eyes grew wide, and she was silent for a while. For a second, I worried she had finally remembered who I was...but that was not the case. The translation subtitles went up just in time for Pennie to ask, in a faltering little voice:

...But once you are married, will you ever come back home?

Fannie drew in a sharp breath, her eyes filling with tears (so we really were on a running streak of Fannie crying every day).

“N-no, darling, I can’t come back home,” she stammered. “I’m not allowed.”

Why not? Pennie asked.

Why not, indeed. I had a flashback of the trial on Ryloth, when Fannie and I had been dragged by guards before Ruut Pentarra’s throne. I remembered the look of maniacal relish in Pennie’s face as she had stood by her father, cradling Bunnie close to her, and Pentarra had told Fannie she could never return home. Fannie had screamed and cried and reached her arms out toward the baby, and Pennie had laughed and laughed, telling her she would never allow her daughter to leave the walls of this house, and never allow Fannie to re-enter. I had clutched Fannie close to me as she’d sobbed…and as I had looked back up again, Pennie had turned to me and given me a smile so malicious I sometimes saw it in my nightmares.

But Pennie was no longer interested in me at the moment.

Why can’t you come home? Pennie asked her sister again, like a little girl asking why the sky was blue. Why not?

Fannie’s lower lip trembled, and tears spilled from her eyes. “Because, dear, Father will have me killed if I return.”

But Ruut Pentarra was not the one who had wanted us dead. “I will have you killed if either of you ever return,” Pennie had crooned. “The only reason I do not give the order now is because I know Fa’nakhra will suffer so much more if she lives. Say goodbye to my child, dear sister! Say goodbye! May you spend the rest of your days in torment, knowing who she has for a mother!” And she had lifted Bunnie’s little fist and waved it at us as the guards had seized us again—Fannie screaming and sobbing, me cussing and kicking.

But why will Father have you killed? asked Pennie now. Why can’t you come home?

The mention of execution did not bother her. She simply wanted to know why her sister could not come back.

Fannie parted her lips and made a small noise, but no words came out.

Why can’t you come home, Fannie? Pennie repeated. Why can’t you come home?

“...I...I don’t know,” Fannie said finally, staring at her sister in anguish as the tears continued to fall. “I don’t know, darling; I just don’t know.”

Pennie frowned, lifting her doll to her mouth and chewing on one of its lekku. It looked like a very old doll, and it looked like it had been chewed on a lot. She finally pulled it back out of her mouth to speak.

…Can I come and see you, then, Fannie? Pennie asked. Can I come and see you get married?

Fannie whimpered, speechless. She turned to me, desperation in her eyes.

I looked at her, too, then slowly turned to Connie.

“…How sure are you that Pennie isn’t just faking all of this?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

“Ben,” Fannie choked out. Connie half-blinked.

“No—seriously,” I insisted. “Connie, you know what she’s capable of. What if this is all just some elaborate stunt to...to crash our wedding or something?”

Ginnie squinted skeptically. “You believe, Ben Solo, that she would spend five months feigning madness to such an end?”

“I honestly believe Pennie Pentarra would do anything,” I said frankly.

Once again, we all fell quiet...except for Pennie, who babbled incoherently to her little doll. The translation subtitles were unable to pick up anything that made sense, but a few words managed to make it through: “special,” “favorite,” “playtime,” “secret.” She smiled at the doll and made a shushing noise with her finger to her lips, then dropped her hands into her lap as her face went slack—and then she lost all signs of awareness, staring off into space.

My heart grew heavy. I thought about the time she had cowered and cried in the corner, and I had gotten down on my hands and knees to approach her.

“No, no, no, no, no…!”

“Pennie...it’s just me. It’s Ben. We’re safe in our room. It’s only us here…”

“...I agree with Ben,” said Connie at last, and I shook away the memory. “Pen’awen is a desperate person, and has been for some time. Perhaps she does yet have her mind, and is simply choosing not to exercise it. In which case…I would kill her myself, if such a thing ever came to light, as I have taken upon myself great personal costs to…” She suddenly looked down at Pennie, who was still staring at nothing, and wrinkled her nose in disgust.

Ginnie looked down too, then stoically reached off-view and pulled Pennie’s hands out of her lap. I have told you, Pen’awen, she said in Twi’leki. You must not do that in front of others. It is considered inappropriate.

Fannie and I exchanged mortified glances.

Connie scoffed and rolled her eyes. By Tollah’s lekku, she muttered under her breath. Even with the mind of a child she’s a whore.

“Connie, please,” Fannie said, sounding hurt. “Please don’t say such things. That is a truly horrible way to speak of her. I really don’t think she is in control of herself.” She hesitated. “Besides...Ben can understand you. He just put on the translations.”

“Oh, I assumed he had them on from the beginning,” Connie said brazenly, turning to me. “So then, Ben Solo, you did not hear what I called you when you first announced you were marrying my sister?”

“No,” I said indifferently.

“Shall I repeat it?”

“No,” Fannie and I said at the same time.

Connie looked disappointed.

“Fannie,” said Ginnie, and we both looked at her. It was unusual for Ginnie to initiate communication—usually she was only responding to or adding onto what someone else had said. “If Pennie retains this state a moon from now, you may want to take the chance to see her. We do not know whether she will decline again and become hostile.”

And if she does, Connie muttered, I will put her down like a rabid animal.

Fannie shot her a stern look.

Still…I thought I caught a glimpse of fear in Connie’s eyes.

Fannie looked away from Connie, then down at her knees, twisting the ruffles of her skirts with her fingers. After a minute, she looked up again…and asked maybe the craziest thing she could have possibly asked.

“...If you brought her here...Ginnie, Connie...” she asked quietly, “Do you...think she would be well enough to stand by my side at the ceremony?”

Connie and Ginnie exchanged glances. My mouth fell open.

“Fannie,” I said sharply, shaking my head. “No.”

Pennie still seemed unaware we were talking about her. She leaned her head against Connie’s shoulder, and Connie tried vainly to shrug her away.

“Why not?” Fannie said, her voice shaking a little as she looked at all of us. “She seems harmless enough.”

“Yes, so long as she can keep her hands where they ought to be,” Connie muttered.

“Fannie, you’re crazy—you are actually insane for this,” I said, chopping the air with my hand emphatically. “We can’t take on a risk like that! It’s enough of a risk to let Connie and Ginnie bring her to the wedding at all—someone else will have to keep an eye on her while they’re standing up there with you, you know.”

“Not if Pennie stands with them,” Fannie insisted softly.

“Are you kidding me?” I cried. “She could ruin the wedding! Worst case scenario, she’s faking this whole thing and has some evil scheme she’s been plotting up this whole time. Second worst case, she really is mentally ill and has a meltdown and ruins the wedding that way. Third worst case, we just have a woman with the mental capacity of a toddler in the wedding party, and it’s really, really weird and awkward for everyone.”

“She can’t help what state of mind she’s in,” Fannie argued. “And people have children as part of their weddings all the time.”

“But she’s not a child!” I said. “She’s a mentally unstable adult who has literally threatened to kill us while she was still in her head. So who knows what she could do now!”

Fannie was silent.

Then she turned to Connie and Ginnie.

“...Perhaps you and Pennie could come a week before the wedding,” she told them. “I could watch over her for a while, and give you both some rest. We could observe her during that week, and if she still seems subdued…then perhaps she could stand with both of you at the wedding.”

“Fannie, you’re insane,” I said through gritted teeth.

Fannie turned to look at me. “Ben, you have said that to me for many reasons as of late,” she said tersely. “By now, I am quite used to you telling me I am out of my mind because you disagree. The statement is beginning to lose its weight.”

“Well, Fan, I really mean it this time,” I snapped. “This is crazy. This is bonkers. This is the worst decision I have ever seen you make. Look, I know how much you love your sister and wish she could be at the wedding, but this is—I’m sorry—this is stupid. You are being stupid.”

Fannie glared at me.

“Ben,” she said, softly but sternly, “I would like my sisters to bring Pennie here. And, if she seems placid enough, I would like her to stand with me at my wedding.”

Oh, so it was her wedding.

“Really?” I snapped. “Really, Fan? You want the girl I basically cheated on you with to stand next to you at your wedding?”

“She’s my sister, Ben,” Fannie said, becoming angry. “Of course I want her by my side at my wedding. It’s not my fault you decided to do with her what you did!”

“Oh, yeah? What about all the stuff she did even before that?” I argued. “What about how she drugged you and put you in that stupid costume and tried to pimp you out?”

“You didn’t seem to still be holding that against her when you decided to sleep with her,” Fannie said darkly.

Ginnie remained impassive as always, but a slow smile spread across Connie’s face. She was eating this up.

...Which annoyed me so much, I quickly reined myself in.

“…You’re right,” I told Fannie sullenly. “I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, come now, Solo, where is your spine?” Connie jeered, trying to rile me back up again. “You would fold before a woman so easily?”

What a parasite she was! I whipped around and called her something I shouldn’t have, and Connie immediately looked to Fannie, performing deep emotional injury. “Did you hear what he called me, Fa’nakhra?” she pouted.

“Yes,” grumbled Fannie. “Next time, try not to deserve it.”

My jaw dropped, and I threw Connie the smuggest look I’ve ever worn in my life.

“Oh, stop it, Ben; be nice to my sister,” Fannie said, exasperated.

Connie hurled back a real squinchy smile.

“Fa’nakhra has made up her mind,” Ginnie said solemnly, bringing us back to the subject at hand. “Ben…would you like to contend again? Without simply insulting Fannie’s intelligence or sanity?”

“Thank you, Ginnie,” Fannie murmured.

I sighed.

“...Well, I think I’ve already made every argument I can,” I said. “It’s just...I’m already stressed out of my mind making sure the wedding goes okay. And bad things always seem to happen to me. I just don’t see how this could possibly not end up in total disaster.”

“None of us know what will happen,” Ginnie said simply. “You are correct to assess a significant risk, but Fannie is willing to accept whatever risks there are.” She looked at me pointedly. “So…do you support Fannie’s decision, Ben Solo? Or do you veto her resolution? The final say is yours.”

Ginnie looked at me, waiting. Connie looked at me, too. And then, so did Fannie. All three of them looked at me—Pennie was the only one who didn’t. She had dropped her head into Connie’s lap, and seemed to be either asleep or just bored.

I looked back at all of them, perplexed.

“...I have the final say?” I echoed. “But…why?”

“You are her husband,” Ginnie said, like it was obvious. “Or you will be, soon. You are the head of your future household. Therefore, the final decision belongs to you.”

I looked at Connie, bewildered, who—for all her nastiness—stared expectantly back at me without a hint of irony. I turned to Fannie, thinking she’d protest, but she only watched me solemnly and waited for me to speak. I looked at Ginnie again, whose gaze was piercing, though I don’t think she intended it to be.

I began to feel uncomfortable. I had no problem opposing Fannie when she and I were on equal footing. She and I had fought about a lot of other stuff until we’d worked things out in the end (although, now that I thought about it, she usually had let me determine our final compromise). But this time she had said her piece, and now she was leaving it entirely up to me—and her sisters also seemed to think it was up to me—and it just—it just—it just didn’t feel right. My palms began to sweat and my knee began to bounce rapidly up and down.

“...Well, okay, sure, but we don’t…” I stammered. “I mean, I think I know where you’re coming from, but we…” My gaze bounced between the three of them.

“…Fannie and I are peers,” I managed at last. “She and I make decisions together. Neither of us have the final say. I-I-I don’t think that I specifically should have any sort of...”

“Ben,” Fannie said quietly, and I turned to look at her. “You have already heard my opinion. I will not change my mind. I submit the final decision to you. Do you agree? Or do you not?”

They all continued to look at me.

“Well, no, I...I don’t agree,” I said, feeling my heart start to rise in my throat. “But I...I...I don’t...” My voice shorted out on me and turned into kind of a squeak.

“...What are we going to do, Ben?” Fannie asked softly.

They were all staring at me. I began to feel, not only nervous, but scared...though I couldn’t place why.

Another minute passed.

The women began to prompt me.

“You seemed quite adamant before that you did not want Pen’awen at the wedding, Ben Solo,” said Ginnie.

“It is well within your right to disregard Fa’nakhra’s wishes, if you think she is being foolish,” added Connie.

“I trust you, Ben,” Fannie said simply, her gaze resolute. “You have heard all I have to say. We will do what you think is most wise.”

I looked down at the wastebasket between my feet, beginning to panic. Why was it up to me? Sure, I had argued against Fannie’s ideas, and I had called them stupid, but if we were going to go with my ideas I wanted it to be because Fannie was behind me, not because she was under me—or—or—or whatever this was—

Ginnie cleared her throat.

Connie’s eyelids lowered.

Pennie lifted her head sleepily.

“Ben,” Fannie murmured.

My blood was pounding in my ears. I couldn’t take it anymore.

“We’re gonna—we’re going to do what Fannie wants to do,” I blurted out finally—then shut my eyes and dropped my head into my hands, panting for breath.

If anyone thought that was weird of me, they didn’t make any comment on it.

“Then it is settled,” said Ginnie.

“We will come in two weeks’ time,” said Connie. “And bring Pen’awen with us.”

“And Pennie will stand with you both at the wedding, if she is able,” said Fannie.

Pennie yawned and said something, too, but I don’t know what.

My shoulders heaved as I stared into the wastebasket below.

The rest of the call was a haze. I couldn’t wait for it to be over. The sisters all caught up on how they had been doing besides the Whole Pennie Situation, and Fannie shared with them about the darkness that had come over her. Connie and Ginnie listened, and for a while, I almost began to believe they were capable of unsullied support...until Connie made a rude remark about Fannie’s weight, which she had almost gotten through the entire call without doing, and I threatened to strangle her through the hologram, which I had also almost managed not to do. It was at this point that Fannie hurriedly initiated goodbyes, and brought the call to an end.

“You really need to try to be nicer to them,” she told me as I powered down the holocam. “They will soon be your sisters, too.”

“But they’re not nice to you,” I mumbled.

“That may be so,” Fannie acknowledged with a sigh, “but at the same time...I cannot deny the sacrifices they are now making for Pennie.” She shook her head. “…I still can’t believe Pennie will be coming here. I had prepared myself never to see her again.”

“…Well,” I said with a numb sort of irony, “you did say you wouldn’t feel right having Connie and Ginnie at the wedding without Pennie.”

“And you said you wanted to know what she was like when she was a child,” Fannie added with a humorless laugh. “She wasn’t quite like that. She is very obviously unwell. But…she is far more like her younger self now than I have ever seen her in recent years.”

She sighed again and leaned into my chest. “Oh, Ben…why do strange things keep happening to us? And…for goodness’ sake…what in the stars happened to Bunnie?” She hid her face in my shirt.

I didn’t know what had happened to Bunnie…but I had some guesses. Or maybe they were more like paranoias. I was too afraid to really think about it.

“I’m used to strange things happening to me by now,” I said instead. “And I guess you’ve had a lot of strange things happen to you, too.” I exhaled deeply and squeezed her tight. “At least now we can face all the strange things together.”

“Or, perhaps…by joining our fates…the two of us will now experience twice as many strange things as we have before,” Fannie murmured.

Now that was a terrifying thought.

Force, I hope not. I don’t know how much more of this I can really take.