databases

Entry tags:

i.

It's been a long time since Leia's been this inconsolable. Things don't usually get to her – not visibly, anyway – but she's rattled to the core when she bursts into the Twilight's cockpit with a dramatic sort of flare that she can't help in this moment. She managed to keep her emotions steady and under control on the way over here, but the dam that was holding them back has now burst. Leia's furious, and wounds that were never fully on the mend feel like they've been ripped open all over again.

Most of all, she's hurt. Anakin's words stung, and she's mortified he would even imply such a thing.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

There isn't much time for a reaction. However it is he feels about her father, whatever suspicion and caution there is exists for Vader. Even on Bakura it had been the Skywalker in her, not the Vader, he'd tried to remind her of. Something more of Luke, of someone neither of them had known until now.

"Wouldn't be here if I had a problem with it, sweetheart." Han squeezes her hand and smirks, giddy and stupid and insufferable. "Though I gotta say I liked the sound of 'Leia Solo,' too."

Not a proposal, of course, but if they're being honest...

"Oh, don't you start with that, too."

She plants the hand he's not holding on his chest and gives him a light, playful shove.

"Some women may wait until their wedding nights to let a man take their hair down, but we are not getting married."

Han just laughs and settles back on the cot, resting on his elbow as he looks up at her.

In some other time with some other version of events about to transpire there might be princes and kings chasing her down, but if she wants him, wants him, then Han figures he's already got the winning sabaac hand. He's just got to wait for all the other players to fold.

"Anything you say, highness-ness."

Except, wait... "Who else started that? Luke?"

Just as playfully as before, she smacks him again, sitting beside him as best she can on the cramped cot.

"Don't call me that. I'm not a princess anymore." Unhooking her lightsaber from her hip, she looms over him, dangling the pummel from her fingers. "Or do you need a reminder?"

As for who said something even remotely on the subject of her marrying him— "It's not important."

The amount of hair that falls over them when she leans in is astounding, and save the odd strand persistently trying to get into his mouth, Han can't say he dislikes it. Very much the opposite, actually.

He eyes the pummel and then gives her that same look he'd had in the circuitry bay after evacuating Hoth.

"Okay, Leia. How about you remind me of something else?"

"Like what? This—" The tip of the lightsaber's hilt is pressed against the underside of his chin, faux threateningly. "Or—"

For a moment, Leia ignores the constant thrum of Force-sensitive minds looming at the edge of her awareness. The lightsaber drops to his chest, rolling off both him and the cot. It clatters to the floor as she presses a firm, quick kiss to his lips.

"Or something more like that?"

His hand has already gone up to skim past her ear and cradle the back of her head, fingers tangling in the hair at the root for the first time he can remember.

"Now who's the scoundrel?" Muttered low as he pulls her back down for another kiss.

She'd insist that the scoundrel was still him if he left her room to answer, let alone breathe, before claiming her lips again.

Leia wilts atop him, barely having the presence of mind to push her hair back out of the way as best she can without moving. She really ought to replait it, but that would also require moving. Right now, that's the last thing she wants to do.

No, moving is entirely out of the question. He keeps his hand on the back of her head, careful not to pull her hair when pulls her down with him so he can lay flat on the cramped little cot they're on.

As far as he's concerned, any Jedi eavesdropping can go ahead and get spaced along with Mon, the rest of High Command, and every prince or king that thought they could take this from her. This moment, this small happiness. It's selfish and possessive, but this is his.

It hasn't quite been a full day since Leia came to him upset over Certain Things That Were Said when Han starts making his way out into the Temple to look for Anakin. Not angry, really. It's hard to be angry after getting tangled in Leia's hair, but there's still the definite sense that he should say something.

That he should make things clear. Help by doing something other than what he's always done anyway, and while telling other people what not to say isn't really a game he knows how to play, Han is willing to give it a shot if it'll keep tensions down.

For once, Anakin hadn't gone skulking off to Padme in response to upsetting one of the kids ~~again~~. Mostly because he knew, he knew exactly what she'd say to him and he didn't really want to hear it.

But that does mean he's actually in the Temple when Han goes looking for him. Not that it's easy to find him, the Temple is a big place and Anakin is not in any of his usual haunts so he'll have to go looking around for him until finally an initiate hears him asking and tells him the 'Master Skywalker' was seen heading into the Room of a Thousand Fountains.

No one tell Obi-Wan that his wayward former apprentice went there seeking some equanimity, okay?

Still, that's where Anakin can be found, laying on the ground in a semi-secluded nook, staring up at leaves overhead. ~~He'd tried meditating, but it hadn't worked so he settled for thinking while lying still.~~

Logically, it makes sense to have the Temple be so large. There are, after all, a lot of Jedi in this time. A lot of things they need to do that they apparently can't do anywhere else on Coruscant. Still incredibly annoying when Han winds up wandering around for a little over an hour before finally getting pointed in the right direction.

What kind of name is 'Room of a Thousand Fountains' anyway? Sounds like the title of a bad holonovel.

And this is what he finds. It's hard to believe (and maybe he really should stop making these kinds of comparisons, no matter how automatically his mind seems to supply them) that the man laying and staring at leaves is the same one that ends up behind a mask menacing anyone. Right now he looks like all he's menacing is whoever's job it is to cut the grass here.

Han approaches slowly anyway, stopping off to the side to cross his arms. "Practicing your Jedi napping skills?"

It's actually a pretty literal name and not as metaphorical as the Jedi sometimes get, though Anakin has never actually tried to count the number of fountains and waterfalls in there.

At Han's words, Anakin shifts a little to look up at him before rolling his eyes. Figures. Still, he pushes himself into a standing position readily enough, brushing off some wayward bits of grass as he does so. "You'd be amazed at how handy those skills can be. Out for a stroll?"

"Looking for you, actually." Casually not mentioning how long it took him to get here, though. He doesn't want his navigational skills being insulted at the moment. "I wanted to talk to you about Leia."

It is very obvious, though, what that means, if not solely from the context of the last day or so then from how Han shifts a little uneasily from one foot to the other.

Of course he wants to talk about Leia. "And what, precisely, do you want to tell me?"

Hey, he did find a little of that balance he was looking for out here but that didn't mean he was going to make it easy for Han.

Who needs easy when you're displaced in time and surrounded by fountains?

"Hey," he says with a sweeping gesture at himself, "I'm trying to help you out here. I figured maybe you didn't want to set her off again, but if that isn't the case..."

There's another sweeping gesture before he stops and shakes his head. Maybe all these Jedi fountains were having an effect on him, and when he continues his tone is a lot less abrasive. "I'm not looking for a fight."

"You're not looking for a fight," he says, "but you came here to tell me I was wrong, anyway. Don't you think I know that?"

Well, he knows he went about expressing what he was trying to tell Leia all wrong. Or maybe it wasn't something he should've been telling her at all. But either way, he doesn't plan on involving himself in any discussions related to Alderaan in general or Bail Organa specifically in the future.

That may or may not be the lesson he should have learned.

This is certainly off to a great start, like most of his conversations with Anakin. Han sighs and fights the urge to roll his eyes or make a face, because he's doing this For Leia, and maybe if they're going to stop acting like riled banthas tromping through a market he ought to go first.

"No, I told her you probably did. Still think it'd help if you knew why you were wrong, though."

And really, if Anakin wants a master class in arguing with Leia without her hating you after, Han is the resident expert.

Back off, Anakin, he can almost hear Obi-Wan telling him. He just wants to help.

Sighing, Anakin does indeed take a step back, moving to sit down on the alcove's actual bench and waving for Han to join him should he feel so inclined.

"Enlighten me."

He sits, still tense but for other reasons. Helping Leia is all well and good, but talking about her like this does feel a little like sharing secrets he shouldn't, even if it does make things better.

Not like it would be the first time she'd be mad at him. He could handle it.

"You know, you've got the Force and whatever that does between you. Which is," and he almost has to force the next word out, "great. But you don't end up the Last Princess of anything without it leaving a mark. A lot of marks."

He raises an eyebrow at the great, the corner of his lips twitching in suppressed humor.

"I wouldn't know, I've never been the Last Princess of anything," okay, maybe the humor wasn't so suppressed after all. "But I understand what you mean, I do. Loss is...hard. It stays with you. I've never lost a planet," and he wouldn't shed too many tears over Tatooine, "but I've lost enough to know that."

Han wonders about that comment on loss for a moment, but doesn't let it distract him. There's time for it, but then he'd lose the point of all this.

"Yeah, it does. Multiply it, though, and add being the one taking responsibility for all the survivors, everything that was left... We came across an Alderaanian patrol ship once that'd started working as pirates." He shakes his head at the memory, not quite absurd and not near long enough ago to be entirely comfortable. "Almost got herself killed trying to get the ship and her crew out of that mess."

So apparently survivor's guilt was genetic too. Wonderful.

Part of the problem, he starts thinking, is that the whole issue in their conversation had started with Anakin taking exception to what he'd seen as a frivolous Alderaanian custom forced on Leia as a child (wearing hair extensions just for the look of it? He still thinks it's ridiculous). But, he guesses, she'd seen it as more of an attack on something she cherished and would never get back. The difference between them was that he'd done everything he could to divorce himself of the slave boy from Tatooine. There were no customs there that he'd wanted to hold on to, not really.

"I was thinking a moment ago that if Tatooine were blown up by someone, I'm not sure I'd shed any tears. I don't have the same attachment," woo for one attachment he doesn't have, "to my home planet that Leia does to Alderaan. It doesn't mean the same to me. Obviously, it's different for her. To be honest, I still think the hair thing is ridiculous, especially for little girls. But, I don't make a fuss about everything Padme does for Naboo," and in a way, quite a lot of their custom and ritual seemed similar, "so there's that. It's just that...what she told me? Felt more like the Organas at least in that instance cared more about appearances than about the little girl they were raising. My little girl," so there was some possessiveness to it. "I didn't like that. I don't."

Survivor's guilt and a temper, among other things Han isn't about to mention no matter how many Jedi fountains he's surrounded by.

"You don't have to like it."

Which is an understatement, and there's a bitter edge to it he really wished hadn't come through in his tone. Customs and culture are different for every species, every planet. Han has seen his share of weird on that front, weird and disturbing in some instances, enough that anything about hair and appearances was small stakes. Anakin's little girl (and isn't that still completely odd, even now) wearing a hair piece is the least of his worries.

"Trust me," and that little edge is still there, "there's plenty I don't like either. Including, apparently, certain obligations to carry on a royal line."

Well, that managed to be a distraction.

"A royal line?" Look how he actually refrains from adding that doesn't exist anymore. Though really in this case...it still does. Just not with Leia.

Threaded | Top-Level Comments Only

Page 3 of 5

i.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

for the talking-tos with anakin

dun dun dUN

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject