Saga "The Wrong Side of History" | Dear Diary Challenge 2018

IMOGEN'S BACK! Glad to see more of our favorite conflicted something-or-other maybe-agent.

As usual, I really love a good scenery tour and this was an excellent one! You captured the restless feel of the city and the river so well here and it made for a vivid mental picture as I was reading.

The mess of thoughts and feelings here is so well done; I can definitely see her feeling so overwhelmed that part of her just shuts down. Intense revelations and events can definitely be that way!

Some days are like that...

As much as the situation is serious, Imogen's snark is still along for the ride.

I wanted to know what was in there too!

Aah, bummer. (Then again, maybe there's more to boring rooms than she's giving them credit for.)

This was probably my favorite part -- so many layers to how she's feeling and how she KNOWS that it's not all logical.

That is definitely true, from a certain point of view. And I'm very curious whether it'll turn out to be a good or a bad thing, and if so, for who?

 

Findswoman: First of all…



*Insert Gene Wilder in Young Frankenstein gif here.*

Seriously, though, I’m delighted to see this back in action! We left Imogen at somewhat of a crossroads, between her Imperialized upbringnig as A TARKIN! and her first steps into Rebel double-agenthood. Her trudge home through those gray, dreary, eerily quiet city streets, and the thoughts that accompany her, seem fitting somehow to her new liminal situation as combined heroine and villainess; even once she’s home enough has changed within her that it doesn’t feel as much like home.

As she herself says, the rebels have gotten to her: and cynical and jaded as she is, she did not see whatever transpired at this latest meeting coming. Which is why she is now left alone and adrift in the direct aftermath during her numbed out dreamlike walk through the city, trying to figure out how to even think about what happened and where she is now and what will happen next.

The last paragraph sums up the crux of the situation: she knows she’s not responsible for what her father did, but the Rebels might not even consider that, and they have indeed already got her in their power, in a way. I hope that they, too, will “get all this figured out somehow.” I don’t say “I hope” with Imogen, though, because I know she will!

Intellectually, the rebel intelligence higher-ups know she's not responsible for her father's actions, or at the least are able to put that aside for the Greater Good. They wouldn't be trying to recruit her if that wasn't the case. But emotionally? She is his daughter, and individual rebels might not be so easily able to overlook that. That's all I can say for now, but all should be more clear in the next post. Which will be up quite soon.

Just as I know you’ll continue to do great work with this diary.

I will do my best. Thanks, and thank you as always for reading and commenting!

----------------------

Kahara: IMOGEN'S BACK! Glad to see more of our favorite conflicted something-or-other maybe-agent.

Yes, she's baaaack--and there's more to come. I have to say I'm still somewhat surprised readers like her, as I expected--when I was working the story out, and when I was readying the first post--that she would be a true Unlikeable (Female) Character. Especially for Star Wars. (And recently, I chanced upon a post I wrote in the 2018 diary challenge thread saying as much.) I guess this just goes to show I shouldn't attempt to predict this sort of thing.

As usual, I really love a good scenery tour and this was an excellent one! You captured the restless feel of the city and the river so well here and it made for a vivid mental picture as I was reading.

Ah, thanks. I was trying to have her inner state and the night outside sort of bounce off each other--as in how she feels reflects how she perceives the cityscape she walks through, if that makes any sense.

The mess of thoughts and feelings here is so well done; I can definitely see her feeling so overwhelmed that part of her just shuts down. Intense revelations and events can definitely be that way!

She is overwhelmed: you can tell when she's in a situation where her snark can't help her.

As the pop-intellectuals might confess to set the tone on the latest update in their public diaries: CURRENT MOOD: MY MIND IS A DEAD HOLOSCREEN.
Some days are like that...

And this is one of them.

I was tired, and then I was beyond tired.

CURRENT MOOD: ****ING ASCENDANT.
As much as the situation is serious, Imogen's snark is still along for the ride.

She still just can't leave that at home.

I didn’t stop, I didn’t dare to do so, but I let my pace slow until I could see directly inside. And it was as though my gaze swooped inside: so close I could see the details in the amberwood paneling, and the light glowing across it from the wall lamp burning under a milkglass shade.
I wanted to know what was in there too!

To be honest, the description makes it sound more interesting than it actually is. It's actually based off a glimpse I had into an office window high up on one of the tall downtown buildings in Minneapolis years ago, a glimpse that was more interesting than whatever the reality going on there was. Which was probably just someone working late before Christmas.

Aah, bummer. (Then again, maybe there's more to boring rooms than she's giving them credit for.)

Perhaps--but that would be another story.

I’ll get this all figured out somehow. Eventually. With enough time, once I learn to tolerate living with the knowledge I have now. But for now, at this exact moment, there isn’t one way I can look at this situation, and make it anything other than what I know it to be. It’s beyond mere reason. Reason has little to do with it.
This was probably my favorite part -- so many layers to how she's feeling and how she KNOWS that it's not all logical.

As you'll learn (and in the next post, coming soon now...), she's dealing with emotions here, emotions around a situation where the facts are plainly what they are--and no amount of pragmatic personal mind games can change that.

And now he’s dead, and they can only fantasize about taking him to task for all his sins, his one great last one in particular. But they can get to me. They have gotten to me. That’s the thing.
That is definitely true, from a certain point of view. And I'm very curious whether it'll turn out to be a good or a bad thing, and if so, for who?

That does indeed remain to be seen. You'll just have to wait and see how things shake out.

Finally, thanks so much for reading and commenting!

 

--------------

Since I have now had a few days to deal with the aftermath, I might as well write out all that transpired my last meeting with the local rebel operatives. (Per usual, I have seen one of them, my friend and quarreling partner Mellé, since then.) Confess all. Without pity, and with painful honesty. We met up at this riverfront cafe in the Methis District I hadn’t been to before. Only Suriel knew it, though he doesn‘t frequent it often enough to be recognized as a regular, and it is located across the city from our usual haunts. That was, of course, his reasoning for choosing it: no one would notice us. Let alone remember us afterwards.

When I made my entrance, I noted the strings quartet setting up their gear on the stage in the front picture windows. That explained the local crowd: all of them talking--endlessly talking and hahahaing with each other in their chosen groups. The air was cluttered with all their conversations, from the kaffabar line and wafting amongst the tables. I could hardly hear myself think, and I had to take a moment to get hold of my wits before I approached the bar line.

As I made my path through the shifting waves of people, I surveyed the room—and looked straight over at Suriel. He stood by the wall near the stage, leaning back with his shoulders just touching the garden marble pillar behind him, his hands tucked in his coat pockets. He hadn’t seen me yet, and once I was in position at the end of the line, I took that opportunity to observe him.

None of those around him seemed at all aware he was there. I didn’t see how that could be, because once I saw him, I couldn’t notice anyone else. He wore a long casually-slouching darkdrab raincoat and black workboots. Stylish but without being the latest fashion. He had his hair, an ordinary dark brown, ratted and rumpled and artfully touched with plum highlights. In this neighborhood, he knew it would stand out if he looked too plain.

Trust me, dear diary, he was anything but. It might have been his expression: his sharp black brows, and his mouth arched in wry watchful amusement, and his eyes—and I knew well that he was watching every person crossing through his vicinity—glowing with a blood-hot light.

The line shifted forward in front of me, and I turned away from him to move with it. When I gave in and looked back at the pillar, he was gone.

I didn’t know what was going to happen next. So I focused on following the line up to the counter, and then dictating my order to the person stationed there. Thus providing something I could do to earn my right to be there while I waited. Something to eat. Something to drink. While I awaited my beverage, I searched through the crowds for Mellé, but I couldn’t see her. The man stationed in front of me was talking on his comlink, and the very sound of his plump-deep smug self important voice made my teeth hurt. After only his first urgently uttered sentence, I was already in the mood to snatch the com out of his hand and assault him with it.

Thankfully, the service-droid appeared in front of me before I found out if I could actually pull that off. The man was still blabbing when I left, drink and pastry secured, into the crowds.

I was still searching out a place to sit when someone gave me a sharp knocking tap on my shoulder. Even before I turned to see him, I knew it was Suriel. He regarded me with a polite mask I couldn’t hope to interpret, and: We’ve got a table staked out. Feel free to join us.

Mellé was already in place at the table in question, one of the small round ones (intended for Couples in Love) near the back of the room. She had a mug of basic black tea and her latest knitting project in her lap, so she must have been there first, before I even arrived. I claimed the chair next to her, leaving Suriel to seek out an extra third chair from one of the other tables. When he did, he sat down directly across from me.

Which then left me in the direct sight of his intense burning-dark gaze. But I looked back at him with only a twitch of my eyelids in response. I took a deliberate bite of my pastry: and chewed it with the most thoroughbred ease, as though tasting the dark berry jam and butterstarch was all I had on my mind as I waltzed on through another day.

(Don’t ever look away from him, the memory of my father intoned. Anything less undermines your move. And this one will know it.)

So, I said, once I decided to speak, with a gesture in the direction of the stage, where two of the musicians were testing their instruments with a series of bird-shrieked plucked notes. I take it you’re both here for the show.

They received my message: Suriel only arched his eyebrows (wryly and almost too amused) but I could tell. Of course. It’s the most happening night of the week here for a reason.

The crowds might have come out for the live real music, but they were also there to socialize: when the quartet swung into their first number, they continued conversing without so much as a pause. Their voices (the constant staticdrone blahblahblah, broken with occasional laughter) obscured the music such that I never did get a clear impression of it. Along with the occasional percussive clang and grunt of dishes off in the kitchen, and the hovering cloudblur of cigaret smoke.

Suriel nodded towards the next table where one particular woman (a pasty dumplin’ with dust-brown curls and staring eyes that were technically the same color as mine) was crowding out the music all the more with her droning monotone—and at the cigaret in the long ivory theatre holder she held at attention. And that would be the other reason for this particular venue.

How thoughtful of you, I said. But I made no move to retrieve a cigaret, even though I had, of course, come fully armed and prepared with a packet in my bag.

Mellé had yet to speak. She seemed subdued, though more likely she was just resigned: after all, she has had multiple opportunities to convert me to the cause, and I have remained unmoved. So I figured she must have decided to let Suriel have his go at it.

How have you been, Mellé? I said, finally, turning my back on Suriel to face her.

She blinked to attention, and idly swished the tea in her mug. Tired. I was stuck in training all morning, and I have a meeting with my dissertation study group tonight. As in a few more hours. Sorry about that, but it just got dumped on me today, and the others can’t reschedule. So I’m afraid I’ll have to leave the two of you to your own devices.

Apology appreciated, I said (with an awkwardly dropped haha that still worked in my favor). I leaned back in my chair, and crossed my legs. Then we’d better get on with things.

Quite, Suriel said. But he didn’t then proceed into his opening volley. No: he turned his attention to his kaffa drink, as though he had all the time in space and existence, and I was left to follow his lead. I endeavored not to be aware of him as I focused on my food, and I think I appeared externally to be utterly nonchalant. I hope.

But I was taken aback when he did decide to speak again. So, he said—ever so casually, just wandering over to the point—Have you thought over our proposal?

Proposal. He made it sound as though we were into entering into business together. I arched my shoulder in a deliberate shrug, and: I’m here. Though honestly, I can’t tell you why I showed up. Curiosity? Boredom?

Whatever works. Suriel considered his word choices before he continued: This isn’t an easy life to take on. I won’t deny that. But there are times when there is an obvious choice between right and wrong. And I believe we’re living in one of those times now.

I’m not so certain, I said. Mellé sighed next to me, with a keylocking click of her teeth to go with her thrashing needles, but I know how to ignore that. The current regime might well be in the wrong. I don’t deny that. But that doesn’t then mean your alternative is the right one.

Mellé sighed, before lunging forward with her contribution: Maybe you should look at it this way. History as a whole tends towards justice. Even if you don’t want to believe it. This empire is like every other one before it. Eventually, it will fall. It’s in motion even now.

She had actually said something I happen to agree with. Wilhuff took his degree in history, but I had a few required classes of my own. What she said, Suriel said. He rattletapped his fingers on the tabletop. Absently, without realizing it was a tell. We’re just doing our bit to help it along.

I see, I said, or something equally meaningless. I did see--and I could hear what neither of them had spoken aloud, as if the words were hanging in the air: And we’re inviting you to be a part of it. This is your chance. To change the reality of the entire galaxy. To atone for your father’s crimes. Don’t you want to be on the right side of history?

They were waiting for me to make that next move: Yes, I see, I said. And you believe I know the right contacts to use in your fight.

We hear your brother Rohan is doing well for himself in the fleet, Suriel said. (Leaning back in his seat, slouching on his hips, his hot gaze pinned on me.) Every man needs a confidant, and I’m told pillow talk won’t do it for him.

Rohan and I are fifteen months apart in age, with my being the elder, and we shared the role of eldest once the youngest two showed up. But I haven’t spoken with him in months. Literally—and that was just because he happened to be in residence when Brienne called me. I was surprised they weren’t already aware of that. The alliance’s intelligence surely has the means to examine comlink records, especially given Brienne has only the most minor of security locks.

I gave in to a darkly amused chuckle. Well. If you think he talks to me, I’m afraid you are quite mistaken. My brother and I are not close. I’m not sure he’s close with anyone, and going by what he’s told me I think he prefers it that way.

Suriel remained outwardly unfazed. You never know. But that’s one example. You know more than a few other people in the right places. Such as the current governor.

He gave me a moment to let that one sink in. Obviously, someone (and I rather hoped it was him, and yes, fine, not just because I didn’t want any further agents involved in this situation) was getting the right intel.

Mellé took the opportunity to go for the moral approach: But you don’t need us to tell you who you know. This all comes back to your father. I shouldn’t have to tell you that he did so, so much harm to the galaxy. So much pain and suffering he can no longer be held accountable for. He allowed his hatred for non-humans--

It was time to remind her once again that while she never met my father outside of the newsflashes, I knew him--for whatever that is worth. My father didn’t hate “aliens,” I said. He didn’t care enough about them for that level of emotion. I doubt he gave them so much as a moment’s thought. They were statistics in a file for him. Nothing more.

She stared at me, taking refuge in the familiar glaring righteous sulk, and I went on: As for holding him accountable, I believe your alliance has already done that. If blowing him up wasn’t enough, I don’t know what to tell you.

Suriel didn’t so much as blink. Duly noted, he said.

The time had come when Mellé needed to excuse herself. As she explained it, while she rose up in her tall heeled boots, and was stuffing her knitting back into her shoulder bag, she was actually running a little late. Before she took off, she paused and looked back at me. See you later, Imogen, she said, and I answered with a half-wave of my fingers.

Then she was gone, and Suriel and I were left with each other. The noise of the crowd, and a brief breezy flute whistle from an ongoing solo on the stage, burst into the empty space. Suriel reached into one of the pockets on his coat, and extracted a candy tin of cigarets--

But I should probably come to an intermission in the narrative here. It’s the deadest black hour of the night, and I have been writing on this for long enough. I am now going to traipse off to my rest and shut my brain down for a few hours. The rest of it can wait.

*

To continue: Suriel lit his up his first cigaret of the evening. He ducked his chin down, the cigaret dangling from between his teeth, and lit it up with a flame-flower from his lighter. He took his time with his first exhale. Deliberately so, letting me know he wasn't going to offer me one. That was fine with me. I produced my pack, and lit my own first cigaret. As I smoked, I took him in. There is nothing else like watching a beautiful man smoke. I think it must be the overall contrast between the appearance and the action. He held the cigaret pinched between his sharp graceful fingers, and lifted it up close to his face, to his absurdly pretty rosered mouth. His lip paint only just barely smudged.

He had noticed I was watching him. Of course, he had. But he only arched his eyebrows before he said, with a little wave of his cigaret: Mellé doesn’t like smoking in her presence, so I held off for her sake. But now, well.

Oh yes, I know, I said. I admire your overall fortitude.

He slouched back in his seat again, and brought his cigaret up for another drag. The two of you seem to be quite friendly.

You could say that, I said. Or you could say that we know each other far too well, and as a result, we’ve wound up just stuck together.

He chuckled at that--and I am shamed to admit at how relieved I was to have amused him, instead of achieving the opposite effect. For once. I’m only just getting to know her myself. I suppose she has told you all about her droid rights campaign.

My expression answered him for me. I thought as much. She’s gone on for some length with me. He paused to take another drag off his cigaret, and exhaled it through his nostrils. Now, I certainly don’t believe in ill-treating them. Far from it. But if droids ever are free, it would be because people, because we, programmed them to be that way. I’m not certain that’s really freedom.

Reasonable point, I said. Have you shared it with Mellé?

She was not impressed. But since we’re on the subject of freedom. He leaned forward across the table, and once again, I could almost physically feel his intense examining gaze on me. But he had moved closer to me mostly for the sake of privacy, and he sounded only mildly curious when next he spoke. You don’t seem too impressed with us.

Well what can I say? I said. I smashed out my cigaret in a fainting hiss of smoke in the ashcup, and wasted no time before lighting the next one. I needed my nerves to be under the most absolute control. The stated goal of your organization is to restore the previous galactic government. It’s right there in the name. Now, I don’t know how old you are--

Old enough, he said. That is, I’m old enough to remember the Republic, even if I wasn’t quite old enough to really understand everything that went on at the end of the war.

Did anyone? I said, and he allowed himself to smile. But yes. I also remember the last years of the late Republic, and reasonably well. And I can tell you this much. It never even had to fall to become what it is now. They changed the name. That’s it. I don’t think that’s the sort of government an idealist would want to go back to.

You have a point. But let me put it to you this way. Suriel put out his cigaret into an ash smear, and took out a second one. The institution the Republic had become by the end was flawed, yes. To put it kindly. But the ideals it was founded on still have merit. And perhaps it is that ideal state we want to return to, and have another go at, rather than the actual Republic itself.

You’ve got me there, I said.

(My dear girl. You know better than that. My father’s voice echoed again in my mind, returning from the depths of the past. You cannot afford to show even the slightest hint of weakness with this man. Every word you speak must be correct.)

Suriel smiled again. He lit his cigaret with a flourish before lifting it to me in a salute. To our sad and filthy habit.

We smoked in silence for a few minutes, and I felt my shoulders slump, the muscles turning soft as I came as close as I can to relaxing. Then he spoke: Have you ever wondered how we came to meet up before? Not just once, but twice. And so perfectly at random. Since I can assure you I hadn’t any idea you would be around, and I’m sure you can say the same of me.

That was perhaps the last thing I expected he would want to say. It was always just that. Random coincidence, I said. What else could it have been?

You could say the Force had a hand in it, he said.

The chatterstorm had risen to an ever louder volume around us, and I was certain none of the people talking and talking and talking could have heard him say that forbidden word over their own voices. But I still examined the room to make certain the mood hadn’t changed before I responded. I rather doubt that. The Force doesn’t bother itself with the lives of people like me. Or you.

He shrugged. What do we really know of its ways?

This is your opening, my father’s ghost said. He’s almost gifted it to you. You need only take it to assure your position. Oh, and if I were you, I wouldn't wait on it.

I shook my head, and gave him an almost smile I had to hope discomfited him: That would be a question for which the answer no longer exists. I will let someone else deal with it.

As cynical as ever. But I expect nothing less, he said.

Let him see who you are in a way he shan’t soon forget.

Take control.

Finish this. Finish him. Do it.

And you know me so well, I said. You read the file before you came, I presume. Whereas I don’t think I know the first thing about you. That hardly seems fair to me.

He breathed out a cloudsmudge of smoke. What do you want to know? It’s not all classified information. I can tell you a few things.

All right, I said--and I began with the obvious first question, the one I was asked more than a few times during my time studying in Theed. Where are you from?

I don’t know how to describe the look he had then, let alone what he felt. Moreover, I don’t want to: thanks to my senses, the effect fairly punched me in the face. His mouth twitched into what almost (but only almost) resembled a smile. Then he answered me with one word. One name. That was all he needed. Alderaan.

Alderaan. The world he hails from, the one that is now obliterated, is Alderaan. My mind was blasted into an empty-blank white sky. I was left bereft of speech, bereft of the thought required to form the words for that speech. But then again, there was nothing I could have said during that moment that would have been of any use.

You asked, he said.

I opened my mouth, and I had to try twice before I could force my voice out at a volume he could hear. Yes. And you answered.

Somehow, through sheer force of will, I didn’t tell him that I hadn’t known he was an Alderaanian Survivor when I gave him the finger on the street. Of course, I hadn’t known, but that doesn’t matter. You’re supposed to just magically intuit these things.

Because the rebels might lie, the Organa princess in particular, but I know this much is true: my father gave the orders for Alderaan’s destruction. He ran that battle station, and it would not have happened otherwise. He chose it. He watched on as it was exploded into a tiny star.

Time continued to pass as I sat there without moving. Until I lifted my hand and dropped my smoldering leaking cigaret into the ashtry and smashed it out, leaving a stub large enough that I suspect one of the human workers filched it during closing time cleanup. Suriel finished his drink. There was nothing, not one thing, left to say at that point. Finally, he pushed his chair back, and rose to his feet. He shrugged on his coat. I watched him do this, my eyes ripped open, unable to look away however much I wanted to. But that was no more than I deserved.

It’s been an evening, he said. You’ll hear from me soon.

But why? Why do you even want to--work with me at all. Considering. Considering. He looked down on me and waited as I stumbled through that attempt at speech. I sucked in my breath and tried again. You have every reason to hate me--

I don’t hate you, Imogen, he said. His mouth flickered, and I could only flinch back in my chair, staring back at him as I recognized, too late, what he was going to say. I don’t care enough about you for that level of emotion.

 

Findswoman: Oof, zinged!

Crushed. Destroyed. Ended.

.Now I understand why Imogen was so distrait and preoccupied—to put it lightly—during her walk home. That was quite the bombshell—and I’m not sure if the bigger bombshell was Suriel’s revelation of his Alderaanian origins or the way he turned Imogen’s words (viz., her Very Correct Summing Up of her daddy dearest’s attitude toward aliens, in the process of correcting Mellé) back on her. Well, they’re both pretty huge bombshells!

It took me six years to get to this bombshell: so yes, I have known this the entire story thus far, through all of Imogen's previous interactions with Suriel. All I can say is that it was the meanest thing I could think of to do, and so I went with it. I did wonder as I prepared to post this update if it would have the impact I was going for--that it would make Imogen's reaction in the previous entry earned--as a true big deal and not a bunch of sound and fury signifying nothing. All I could do was cross my fingers and post.

So I'm glad to hear both moments were what I hoped they were. The first was the bombshell. The second was the finishing blow. And the worst part: Imogen walked right into both of them.

She is quite correct about her father, and both Mellé and Suriel realize this. Which irked them: they are both activist types, in their different ways--it's why they are in the rebellion--and activists deal with large emotions, with matters of love and hatred. They don't know how to deal with indifference. Which I am skeptical is always the opposite of love, rather than hatred, but in this case it is. When you hate someone, it may be in the most negative way, but yes, you care.

And it adds depth to Imogen’s character that, although gobsmacked by this revelation and maybe about to make some kind of change because of it, she still doesn’t fully feel able to trust the Rebels, and especially not that Organa Princess we all know—also the way her father’s advice about leading and dominating a conversation comes to her so easily even now shows just how much his ways have been ingrained in her, so that a change isn’t going to be the work of a few moments by any means. She’s got a lot of thinking to do, and I’ll be eager to see where that will lead.

She has been doing some thinking, as you'll see in the next post--though she is far from finding even one answer. I don't think she's quite gotten to examining Suriel's overall point, let alone figuring out what she's to do with it.

(Though when she says the rebels are liars, especially the Organa Princess--who she has never once met---she's quoting the Imperial line from the cleanup after the rebel victory at Yavin 4. I assume the rebels got some version of the truth out as best they could, and while she doesn't personally trust them, she knows Leia is telling the truth about what happened when Alderaan was destroyed, because she knew her father.)

As to Suriel, I hope you won’t take it amiss if I give him a hearty “you go, boy!” That one word, and that one retort, made his point more than perfectly—which in turn is ultimately down to your keen writing skills! Do keep it up.

Well, he "won"--as in, I described this scene to myself while I was working on it as two characters pulling one power play after another until one of them delivered the killing blow. So he's certainly earned it. Even Imogen would probably have to acknowledge him, from her crushed cabbage leaf state, with a "Well played. You got me."

Finally, thanks as always for reading and commenting!

 

-------------

Since then, life and existence have continued on. I suppose it says something about that inevitability—as well as my general lack of character and the black hole where my soul ought to be—that I have ceased to feel as I did during that long dreamwalk through the city. (Though that memory continues as a bruise-pain I try to avoid thinking on. I know I won’t be reading over my written account again.) Alderaan was only ever an abstract place to me. The closest I came to knowing it in reality was over a hololink channel. My father watched its destruction light years away from my life, and it was already over, finished, by the time I overheard the first rumors.

I don’t know quite what I’m attempting to say here. But finally: Suriel is the first Alderaanian, the only person from that lost world, I have met in the aftermath. That isn’t so surprising. Your average Alderaanian hasn’t any reason to take refuge here. It must be one of chance’s jokes. Oh yes, mere chance having a good hahaha at my expense. The Force has nothing to do with it.

(Whereas Suriel knew who I was before he even arrived on-world. I have to wonder if his handlers knew where he comes from when they gave him this assignment. Perhaps they did know. Oh I’m sure they did. But I should probably stop there least I become too paranoid.)

I haven’t heard anything further from him. Since I wouldn’t be so bold as to contact him even if I had the information to do so, I don’t expect I will see him again. I said as much to Mellé when we were having a “study day” at the library archives. My concentration had returned to its normal levels, and I was reading through an ancient Grizmalti novel recently gifted with a new translation, better than any done by any living being or droid before. Allegedly. She was marking up exams for the professor who she labors for as a teaching assistant.

She didn’t know he was from Alderaan. When I asked her what she knew about him, she said: Not much. Agents like him don’t risk getting personal. Why do you ask?

When I told her, she stared at me for a moon-eyed moment, her knitted heap dropped into her lap. The words frozen in midsentence on her pad screen. Then she said: Oh. Ouch!

But! I have to say it could have been so much worse: I could have made a pass at him, and then, then, oh too soon afterwards, found out what I know now. It’s due only to the whims of luck that I wound up dodging that blasterbolt.

Lately, I have been indulging in fantasies of escape. If I can’t get away from myself—from my mind and my franticwhisper thought voice--I can change my location. I can afford multiple options, but most often, I find myself thinking of the family retreat, the cabin that my ever so great grandfather made in the wilderness of the northernmost forests. It would take only a lazy two hour trip, and I would be there. There’s a township nearby, but well out of sight, if I should need anything, and best of all: No humans. No non-humans. No people.

There’s just one problem: my great-uncle Arik is ensconced in residence there, as he has been for the past sixty years. Even if he were willing to tolerate my company, there might not be enough room for both of us. Trust me, his snoring is the least of it.

*

Actually, it is a wonder that I remember the cabin fondly, so dearly I have been daydreaming myself there. Considering my first visit there: when I was seventeen, and Rohan was recently turned sixteen, and our uncle had us report for a rite of passage ordeal where we were to learn the ways of the wild. How to track game through hoofprint and scat piles. How to hunt. How to cut firewood. Neither of us had spent much time in the countryside before that, and certainly not in the true wild. But I left with the ability to build a fire, whether in a woodstove or the middle of a snowflurry. A skill I doubt I will ever have cause to use again, but still.

While he directed us in said arts, he would lecture on ad nauseam about The Ways of the Hunter. We soon figured he didn’t require any verbal response from us, so it was best to let him go on, and on, while paying him just enough attention to stay out of trouble. Which worked most of the time, but alas, not always. If he suspected we weren’t hanging onto every word he uttered, and therefore didn’t respect him, he would let us have it.

(He never struck me, but there were two times when, as he hovered in attacking me with his stale kaffa-dark breath, I feared he might. Just to make certain I knew he was physically superior to me in every way, and that he could literally kill me if he so chose. )

(While his voice boomed: Tell me, Little Miss. What’s got you all distracted from the present moment. Boys? Is it boys? Well, there aren’t any boys here.)

There were a few times when he got particularly worked up. The most memorable time was one night out on the ridgeside path, lit by the full white pearl moon, when he commenced to monologue about “Being One with the Forest-Cat.” That at least was entertaining. When he attacked the log pile, Rohan and I knew to just discreetly make good our exit.

Aside from his personality, my uncle also had digestive problems. The retreat toilet—sorry, I meant to write refresher—is a separate shack that was added on a few generations ago. Thanks to his guts, he would occupy it for long stretches, particularly during the night. The first few nights, Rohan and I would wait him out, watching for the tell-tale thread of light under the door to turn dark, before we rushed over. I learned I could survive two nights without a civilizing shower.

But on the third night, when the hour was dire and my bladder felt as though it were going to burst forth on its own, I gave in. I cringed with flushed-hot resignation as I followed my torchlight beam through the trees, and found the right private grove. But once I had done it, all that was gone. As it turns out, it isn’t hard at all to relieve yourself in the woods. Yes, even if you are a girl.

I can’t know for certain, but I suspect that is where I was at the moment in the senate when the Emperor officially christened the republic as the new empire: balanced in a squat down in the circle of old growth fir trees, while Rohan stood guard duty nearby. The ghostlight from his torch swaying up over the trees, and then back again, while the wind breathed in the branches.

Jennaria wouldn’t have her own time with our uncle, and I’m not certain why. It might have been my mother’s doing, or the old man himself. As for Wilhuff and Prunella, well: he finished one look at them that same year, when they were nine and seven adorable years old, and deemed them both to be unworthy of his time. An opinion he hasn’t altered in the years since.

If that had been my last time at the cabin, I would probably leave it behind in memory. But it wasn’t. The last time I was there was when I was twenty-nine, when I had failed to get that last chance of a job on Alderaan, and I was left with hours to regret every moment I had spent with Alcée. One day, as we walked along the ridgepath, my uncle pointed out how the retreat would be mine. Someday, years and years in the future, when I inherited it in my turn after my father.

It’s good to see you here again, he said. (Gruffly, staring off at the distant snow blanketed mountains just underneath the clouds.) Even if it is just because you’re on the run from some mistake you made with a stupid boy.

But instead of doing that a second time, I haven’t moved. No: I’m here in the city, in my flat, wasting time. I have wasted many an hour on this virtual farming game I downloaded off an ad-blast on a whim last week, growing and selling my imaginary crops on my imaginary green and happy happy farm where the sun is always shining with a gentlesweet glow and it only rains when you want it to. Of course, this gametime isn’t free. But I can afford to pay, and there is no one else around to judge how I have chosen to spend my allowance this month.

On that note, dear storytelling file, I’m going to stop writing. I’m out of words, and moreover: I have an imaginary burnt-red and white-trimmed barn to upgrade.

 

Findswoman: Wow, if Imogen Tarkin is at the point where she is spending significant wads of time on the SW universes’s equivalent of Farming Simulator Whichever Number It Is, that really says something! I get a distinct sense there is some escapism involved in her doing so, and that’s completely understandable given what she’s just experienced.

Oh, there is a lot of escapism involved here: she just wants to turn the volume on her brain down, at least for a while, and what better way than growing crops on an idyllic fantasy farm. (Where there is no bad weather/droughts/plagues of space!locusts, etc.)

And at least for now it is an easier and perhaps more practical option than going out to the family cabin (especially given Uncle Arik… I would want to give him a wide berth too). I guess we’ll see if she goes through with that possibility; maybe it will help her get closer to understanding the whole thing, maybe not.

Uncle Arik is not a people person. Shall we say. But given that he has to be at least in his early 90s, and he lives in a remote location, there may be an unsolicited on his part Wellness Check Visit coming up in the future...

I also have to wonder what Mellé is really feeling about Imogen’s story, too; in her typical optimistic way she goes immediately to “it could have been worse,” which may or may not be helpful to Imogen at that particular moment (even if she’s not necessarily wrong; I could see the whole thing be infinitely more awkward if some kind of romantic dimension were in play concurrently).

I think she was also stunned to learn he's Alderaanian--though, for obvious reasons, in a different way from Imogen. Since its destruction, Alderaan has become an important symbol for the rebels, and that extends to those Alderaanian alliance members who survived. And this is likely the first time Mellé has (knowingly, anyhow) met one of them.

I have actually edited the "It could be worse" bit to make it more clear that came from Imogen, not Mellé. I don't think it would even cross Mellé's mind that Imogen might hit on Suriel, whereas Imogen knows that she's perfectly capable of doing so. Like she says, dodged a blasterbolt on that one. "Awkward" would not quite be the word.

Great work as always bringing us into this conflicted character’s mind, and I’ll be curious to see where her ruminations take her next. In the meantime, I don’t begrudge her a nice hour or two to upgrade her barn!

Her mind can be an interesting place, and it's not always shock and awe in there.

As always, thanks for reading and commenting!

 

---------------------

The weather has turned this week, towards the merrytime of spring, and so today I dragged myself outside and went to the wallside gardens with Wilhuff. Though it didn’t start out on a happy note. Before I left my flat, I made the mistake of facing down the dressing room mirror to examine my outfit. That had turned out fine, but otherwise: I sank directly into a fit of crushing loathing. The one thing I can say is that while I have “filled out” in the years of my thirties, I’m still objectively slender. But the result is that when I turn into profile, I am a stick figure with the lump of my moonswollen stomach sticking out one side, and my ass barging out on the other.

Yes, yes, I know: I should have outgrown this years ago. But there I was, and there I am—determined to smack my stomach into line, even though I am well aware this is how women are naturally shaped, and I am normal. I knew that when I was sixteen, back in the days when I was too young for life, and it helped then. A very little.

I will say that I’m fine with my nose. I would look odd with a little sweetheart nose, so even if it wasn’t the nose I was intended to have, things did work out for the best there. That and my breasts. When I think back on all my woes over being too flat-chested, well; I could go back in time and punch myself a few lighting times in the face.

Meanwhile, the housekeeper was out in the sitting room with her mousedroid, so I needed to move on. I turned my back on my image, and put on these classic style antique darkglasses I got from one of my maternal aunts. I don’t tend to have any issues with sunglare, so I hadn’t ever worn them before. But today, I wanted the world dimmed down to a tolerable level.

Wilhuff is the prettiest of the five of us. The worst you could say is that his eyes are set perhaps a touch too far apart. But far from being a flaw, it only gives him a rakish aelflord charm. He is slender, almost whispy thin, graceful in a slouching dancing thoughtless way, with dark blonde hair, which he has bleached to a sunshine-yellow, and bluebell eyes. Even his nose is pretty. All of this is animated by his overall bright jangling aura. And no: it isn’t just the dreamdust.

So explain to me why he is so keen to take my picture. The moment we walked through the gates, he began fumbling in his frockcoat pocket, and I remembered, too late, what I should not have forgotten. He brought forth his holocamera. Ta-da.

There was no escape: the fevered-red eye of the camera had turned on me, with Wilhuff’s eye trained behind it, and he was capturing the first image.

When my glowering demeanor failed to affect him, I tried reasoning. It went the way it always does: Come on, Wilhuff, I said. Look at all this scenery. A bit of luscious green growing in the midst of the urban pavement. Take pictures of that.

Wilhuff was unfazed: I like to have people in my landscapes.

If you’re going to be like this, perhaps I will take your picture, I said.

Go ahead, Wilhuff said (while snapping another image of a dancing grove of frail chalkwhite barked aspens, and me standing in front of them). I don’t mind if you do.

But it was a pleasant day, and I was determined to live it. We walked on, taking the main path through the opening meadows. After those blatant opening shots, Wilhuff backed off: when I risked looking his way, he usually had his camera out at the ready, but it wasn’t always pointed in my direction. I took off my darkglasses, and the world burst into color, into emerald bright green grass and frolicking wildflowers and the trees crowned with fresh ruffled leaves. (Well look at that bit—perhaps I was a poet all along.) The wind brushed gently against my face, and I tried to focus on the scene, and the tumbling sound of the river.

And as we walked, I took the chance to ask him the burning-sore question crouched in my mind. One I knew he would answer. He’s the one person in our family I can trust to do so. Do you ever think about Alderaan?

Sometimes, he said. Rather difficult not to, I guess. I can’t say it has led to any life-shaking insights to offer you, though. Why do you ask?

A pair of little woodrose-cheeked kids were bounding towards us up the path, and I stepped to the side to let them pass. The mummy and daddy followed after, and when the mummy offered me an apologetic smile, I couldn’t arrange my face into the right expression. Though I did what I could. Then I spoke: I met one of the survivors recently.

His eyes widened, and he blinked. Oh. Ouch!

Indeed, I said, and my voice came forth as a limp scratched-rough whisper. Life is just a hilarious joke like that.

The wallside park must be the prettiest spot in this city. Every time I walk through its grounds, I wonder how it is that I had been away so long, and I resolve to change my habits. Which I never do—and but partly because there is no smoking allowed--but when I’m still in the moment, it seems possible. Thus it was today. All that walking I have done of late seems to have paid off: I don’t know that I lost any weight (though I like to hope so) but I had to focus on deliberately keeping my pace down, so as to actually experience the present. Soon, I lost track of Wilhuff when he stopped to take a few pictures, and I continued on.

As I wandered on, I took one of the hillside bluff paths sloping down towards the gleaming rushing silverblue river in the wall shadows—and that was when I saw him.

He stood looking down over the river. Casually, yet with command, his hip cocked forward. He was turned away from me, so I had only a profile glimpse of his face, but that was enough. Oh ****, he was gorgeous. He stood as though he was there for the sole reason of sharing his masculine beauty. He wore a slouching black country hat over his long tawny goldenbrown hair and a white gauze shirt with the sleeves rolled up, through which I could see a bleeding-heart tattoo gracing his upper back. His trousers fit him perfectly.

The truth is: I haven’t ever had a chance with a man like that. (Yes, dear diary—money only goes so far in what it can buy.) But I have lowered my standards, and it was enough just to be in his presence for a few minutes. And if he should turn out to be a twenty-two year old bebe, or if a girlfriend--or more likely, a boyfriend--appeared to join him, that would be of no matter. I wasn’t going to be so bold as to even initiate greetings with him.

As I made my way downhill, straight towards him, I waited and wondered if he would turn so I might see him fully, and know Suriel isn’t the only fine man walking this city.

Then he did turn, and, as you have probably foreseen: It was Suriel.

I came to a stunned stop, and I uttered one word (though mercifully not so that he could have possibly overheard me): ****.

There I was, exposed in full sight out in the open hillside meadow. But as Suriel scanned the area, he looked past me, and I didn’t sense a frigid change in his demeanor. It was all right. He hadn’t taken any notice of me. I took the first controlled step forward. Then another.

As it turns out, there are existent social rules, ones I know too well, to use for this the most awkward of situations: I closed my face down into a mask, narrowing my vision to what I saw ahead of me, so I would look as though I didn’t know he was there. I would pretend it was true. Thus sparing him the effort of either acknowledging me, or blatantly ignoring me, as I went past.

I should have known this wouldn’t work with him. Hullo, Imogen, he said--and at the sound of his voice I whirled about, struck back into alert life, to find he was watching me. He didn’t seem at all surprised as he tilted his head and: Imagine meeting you here.

I didn’t know you were going to be here! I said. Exclamation mark included.

He could afford to be magnanimous in his victory. He smiled: a slight dainty teasing smile that surprised me for the second time. Here I am. Presented for any of your stalking pursuits. That was supposed to be a joke, by the way. You can laugh if you wish.

Ha ha ha, I said. (Weakly: as his parting shot weeks ago echoed back in my mind, reminding me just how much I’m worth to him. Imogen He said, and said, taking my name and using it as a knife. I don’t hate you I don’t care enough about you for that)

He searched over the slope behind us again, and then returned his attention to me. I’m spending the day with my neighbors and their family. Or at least that was how it started out. I seem to have lost track of them a while ago.

Somehow, I managed to retrieve the right banal answer to give him: I’m sure they’ll catch up with you before too much longer.

Oh, no doubt. They know where to look. He approached me, closing the air between us, until he was so close I could feel his body heat, and his light wildmusky scent. I saw then that his face was pale with pearl dust powder, in an attempt to hide the mustard-smudge bruise smacked underneath his right eye. It’s been a while, I know. I can only apologize for that. I was working the protests in Eriadu City, and well. I was released from the law’s loving care not even two days ago.

He assumed I knew which protests he meant, and I did: They have dominated the news--not to mention Mellé’s rage--for the last fortnight. The Lord-Mayor sent out the army riot forces to control the ragged unemployed and their student allies. They sprayed pepper gas into the crowds, and as it all burst into chaos, they arrested as many as they could catch. According to Mellé, they used all the force they wanted: the arrestees were beaten, kicked, and blaster-stunned.

Oh. I’m sorry to hear that. The voice I produced to say that was nervously rushed and raised in pitch to a birdflute-squeak, so that I didn’t even sound like myself.

He smiled, and I saw a flash of the black hole where he had lost two of his upper teeth. No need for that. It wasn’t fun, but I can’t complain too much. Besides which, it’s a badge of honor to have at least one arrest in your pocket. Shows you’re pissing off the right people.

He examined me then for a long moment, and: You didn’t expect you would hear from me again. You thought I was finished with you. Didn’t you.

It wasn’t a question. Since he had correctly guessed what I have indeed thought, I said nothing. The rivernoise rushed into the ensuing silence. That was when Wilhuff rambled into view overhead, his holocamera at the ready in his hand. Imogen! he called, his voice bouncing about ahead of him as he took the path down the hillside to meet me, moving at a swaying trot in his tall-heeled boots. I thought I might find you over here.

I turned back to Suriel, and I can’t explain what inspired me to say: Do you mind if my brother takes your picture? He likes to have people gracing his landscapes.

He shrugged: but then, men don’t seem to be overly bothered about such matters. Feel free. Do you want me to take on a pose?

He was asking me, not Wilhuff, but Wilhuff answered as he stepped back, and lifted his camera into position: No, no, you’re fine as you are.

As his camera clicked, trapping the image of Suriel with the river behind him, I continued to speak: Trust me, you shan’t regret this. My brother is a professional at pictures. An artist. If he sells this one, we can even give you a percentage.

No, I’m not. She’s just having fun with you, Wilhuff said. He tucked the camera back into his pocket. I am but an amateur without any illusions of grandeur or skill.

As he spoke, I could hear the sound of approaching voices off on the path, announcing the arrival of Suriel’s neighbors. They soon came into view, the whole family: the leading couple who were Suriel’s friends, and three adorable aged children, with a solemn night-eyed older girl taking up the rear. The woman (short and swaying hipped with dark brown skin and amber sunlight eyes) carried a whicker picnic basket, and her husband (bread dough pale and of average height and looks) hauled the rest. The kids took off down the hillside in a leaping giggling run, and soon enough, there was a gulping splash as the first thrown rock hit the surface of the river.

Meanwhile, Wilhuff’s comlink had shrilled, and he had walked off down the path to conduct his conversation in private. Usually, he lets calls go and checks for messages later, but I could tell from the tone of his voice alone, not to mention his huskyflirting hahhaa, why he answered this time. I hope this does go somewhere for him. At the least, he’s flirting with a woman who isn’t a married lesbian.

It was past time for us to leave: already, I felt as though Wilhuff and I were intruders in a play, into a story, where we hadn’t any right to be.

As I turned to exit, Suriel said: We’ll talk again soon, Imogen.

But I don’t know how to contact you, I said.

Mellé does. Ask her. He looked back over the river, where the sunlight glittered in a path across the dancing waters. I like to come here whenever I have the chance. Usually in the mornings. I rise forth with the sun, and it also happens to be the best time. You should give it a try.

When I last saw Suriel, he was talking with his neighbors. His friends. The woman touched his arm—softly, briefly, her fingers oh as light as flutterbee wings—in a protective gesture, and the man nodded with her. Their voices floated up in the wind, and I identified their local accents. Then one of the children, a little girl, came running up to them from the riverbank, and Suriel leaned down to see what she presented cupped in her hands.

Before today, I had always imagined that whatever life he has in this city, on this world, had to be a solitary one. But obviously I was wrong. He has a life. A much better one than I can claim.

As we walked back through the park, Wilhuff spoke: Is he the Alderaanian?

It seems Wilhuff’s intuitive senses are working far better than mine. He must have been curious about how I met Suriel, and under what circumstances--but thank goodness, or something else entirely, he decided not to ask. I nodded, and that was the end of it.

*

 

Findswoman: Suriel’s back—already! I wasn’t expecting to see him back so soon any more than Imogen was. Maybe it’s a good thing, in a way, that she wasn’t alone on this walk; Wilhuff’s presence seems to have defused at least some of the tension, though by no means all.

Well, he did tell her at their last meeting that she would hear from him soon--and even after his parting shot, he still meant it. He was just delayed a little by spending a few weeks in jail. But yes, it was an awkward meeting in more than a few ways. (The fact that Suriel caught onto Imogen's severe trust issues so easily without her having to say anything isn't even the most of it, though it comes close.) Wilhuff did make a timely entrance there, but the tension still remained.

I have to say it was rather sweet in its way to see Imogen and hanging out with her brother and even taking part, at least to a certain extent, in his photography hobby.

Not willingly or happily, per se--but he's an unstoppable force when he has his space!camera out, and she realizes that.

Other than the bombshell encounter with Suriel, which I’m sure must have cast somewhat of a pall over the rest of Imogen’s day, it sounds like it was a very nice spring day both for walking and for taking photos, and the family who seem to be Suriel’s friends were clearly enjoying themselves—as was he. He does indeed clearly have a life, more of one than Imogen, and all that despite quite literally having no homeworld anymore.

It was indeed the best possible spring day, and Suriel was presumably spending it celebrating his recent release from jail with his friends and their family. It's a side of him Imogen hasn't seen before, or expected to ever know about. She doesn't envy him, precisely--but whatever she does feel, it leaves her off-kilter. He lost his homeworld, but he continues on living--and he has made a life, however temporary it might be, here inspiring rebellion on Of All Worlds Eriadu.

(Though it wouldn't have been easy for him to get to this point--on which there will be more later. To say more than that would be a spoiler.)

Definitely a stark contrast with the bleak, lonely existence Imogen leads despite being the daughter of one of the Empire’s most prominent military leaders.

Or perhaps it's because she's the daughter of such a prominent military leader. Though she's not completely alone--she does have her brother to hang out with, and of course there's her "frenemy" in rebellion Mellé.

Or will it be a lonely existence much longer, given that she has most definitely noticed Suriel’s physical charms? Definitely one of those things that make you go “hmmm”… that would certainly be an interesting “somethings-to-lovers” type of situation. I guess time will tell whether they go that route or not; for now, I’d say once again Imogen has some definite thinking to do!

"Something" would be right: they're not precisely enemies--she isn't in the military, or even a half-hearted imperial--but the fact that her father had his homeworld destroyed will be always be true and always be there. Clearly, she's attracted to him, and that was part of why she showed up at that meeting at the cafe. (Which is most unbecoming of a Strong Female Character, but then I never said Imogen was one.) But she doesn't dare to even think of a romantic/sexual relationship being possible with him. Aside from the obvious factors, there's no indication he finds her attractive at all. She finds it best, and safer, to assume he doesn't.

(And I don’t mind saying that I too have done that same mirror look, and now that I’m almost halfway through my quadragenarian years, that’s pretty much what I am seeing and feeling, too! )

The mirror is not your friend, and that's all I am going to say on that matter.

Finally, thanks as always for reading and commenting!

 

-----------------

As it turns out, Suriel resumed contact with Mellé two nights ago, just before the Force stepped in to reunite us. (Ha ha ha, just messing with my own mind there.) It had been long enough that she has been plotting out how the two of us could proceed without him. But her worries are now vanished. Moreover: he explained his absence to her, and she’s proud of him. Exceedingly proud. I think she is more than a little shamed that while he was out there in the fight, she was ensconced in the safety of the green walks and tall stone towers of the university.

All liberation struggles are connected, she informed me, in full on lecturing mode. This fight is larger than just defeating the Empire. That is just the beginning. We need to all remember there are others who are resisting forces we can’t even imagine. We need to be mindful of the privileges we have that they are denied, and when they need us, serve as their shields...

And so on, and etc. When she paused for breath, I said only: All right.

What do you mean by that? she said.

I mean. I took a drag off my cigaret to give her a moment to prepare. I hope you don’t prance up to one of the factory drudges to inform them how privileged they are. It won’t go well for you.

Oh, I’m sure Suriel won over a number of new rebels to the galactic cause while he was doing his time in the City gaol. I don’t see them joining the fight for free droids any lifetime soon. But I didn’t tell her this. She should have that figured out for herself.

When I told her about my encounter with Suriel, she said: I told you.

She did tell me, and more than once during the past several weeks. She reminded me that she hadn’t heard one word from him either. That Suriel has known all along—from the beginning and even before—who I am, and he still spoke to me. The only difference is now I know who he is. But everyone has their limits.

I have gone over the memory of that parting moment in the cafe too many times, picking it apart and examining it, however bruising the process is. And while I can’t say that I figured out what his point was, I know I said the wrong thing. The absolute worst thing I could have said. My one defense is that I didn’t know that—but once the words were spoken, and out in reality, it was too late. I’m just surprised that after all, he continues to be on speaking terms with me. As a whole, we are not a forgiving species.

After all, as I have learned the awkward painful way: it takes only one misstep, something as minor as a poorly chosen word, for people to be done with you.

Mellé does have his contact number. He only just gave it to her, and now I have it. Each digit landed like a stone sinking through deep water as I entered it into my comlink, and opened the connection, and waited: First, there was a cold black echoing silence, like the breath inside a locked room, and then a droid’s recorded voice intoned: Leave a message here.

Hello, I told the silence, and then was at a loss as to what to say next. Hello, Suriel. I’m going to guess that you recognize my voice, and know who I am. Well. Here’s the message. If you need me to help out with your dental work, give Mellé a ring, and she’ll pass it on.

Mellé snapped up her eyebrows at me, and: Was that some sort of code, or does he actually need to have dental work done?

Apparently, he hadn’t so much as mentioned his injuries to her. If I hadn’t seen him in person, I don’t suppose I would know either. It’s quite literal, I said.

She accompanied me when I made my first return trip to the wallside park. Though I chose my own preferred time: in the late inkblue evening hour Since the spring is in full force, the daylight was only just starting to fade when we arrived, but the masses had left. He wasn’t there. Nor had I expected he would be, but as we walked the paths to the river, I waited for him to surprise me. Each person I saw approaching could be him, until they came closer, and were revealed to be an elder gentleman out for his nightly stroll. When we reached the hillside where I had last seen him, an older couple with matching dustgrey plaits were watching the wood ducks riding the river currents.

But he had been there. As we walked past one of the forest routes, I saw a bright bit of candy trash in the grass by one of the benches. As I bent down, my teeth clenched on an irritated hiss, to pick it up, I saw it was in fact a jewel-painted rock. There was a tightly folded paper note, with a single identifying I, stuck to the underside. Of all things in this glittering fuzzy holo world, paper.

Mellé watched on as I hunched over the note to open it and find the message inside. I have it here with me, and so I don’t have to memorize it. I have been told there is a light, that you know where it is, and all you must do is walk in it. Care to discuss?

I don’t need Mellé to tell me that Suriel and I will meet again, and that it won’t be too long. I don’t know how I will get through another round with him, but I don’t suppose it much matters. He will make out just fine. Of course, he will. He has already won.

 

Findswoman: OK, yes, I have to agree that Suriel very likely has already won—not just in his cause being right, but he's won a kind of victory over Imogen too, though one that's understandably painful for her.

It certainly looks that way from Imogen's perspective. (Obviously, she doesn't know, and therefore it hasn't been in this story, how Suriel views the situation himself.) She has pretty well kept the upper hand in her relationship with Mellé--and thanks to her father's life lessons, she does think of every relationship as a power struggle of sorts--but with Suriel, it has been completely different. She has met her match, and the power game doesn't work.

I will be curious how their discussion about "walking in the light" will go—and I say that with the near certainty that one is going to take place within the next couple of chapters.

All I shall say for now is that is a good guess on your part. A very good guess, indeed...

In any case, I get the feeling that his tactics and manner may ultimately be more effective in winning Imogen to that light than Mellé's "full on lecture mode"; I too hope she doesn't do anything so silly as say something like that to factory workers!

Suriel does have a more flexible approach to winning over converts to the light of rebellion than Mellé--which is putting it mildly. Though I don't think even she would have nerve enough to lecture the factory workers to their faces.

Looking forward to that next fateful meeting, as always, and to seeing what develops with these two very different and complex characters.

Thank you, and thanks as always for reading and commenting!

 

-----------------------

It took them long enough, but Prunella made the space in her social whirl, and she and my mother were just here for a threeday visit. Wilhuff visited them in the City last week, but it had been over a year since I had seen them in person. They were waiting for us just inside the Ariandella Tower gates when we arrived at the wallside gardens. That was my idea, but Brienne backed me up, which explains why Prunella sniffed but the once before she went along with it. She stood next to our mother under the long-legged shadows falling from the towering ancient fir trees that were not even saplings when this section of the city was first built.

We did not have an emotional reunion, with dramatic touching tear-dampened greetings. Speaking only for myself, that isn’t in my nature. But also: it felt as though I had seen my mother and Prunella merely days before, instead of last year, and I think they felt the same.

I won’t pretend that I understand what my mother felt when she looked upon me, her firstborn. As I am utterly devoid of maternal inclinations, I can’t even imagine it. But I understand that she is fond of me, and not merely because I am a person she produced with her body. Yes, I’m aware that “love” is the word most people use for what they feel, and what they feel is what they think, for their family members. I prefer to use less dangerous terms.

She took in Wilhuff’s outfit of the day, with a fondly sighing smile, before she patted him on the shoulder. Then she examined me. Most likely to see for herself if I am indeed—as I have assured her over the distances—fine. She knows I haven’t been precisely thriving, but I’m at least fine.

My mother looked well. Which means she looks the same as ever, over a year after my father was blasted into stardust. (A phrasing I don’t use around Prunella.) But psychically, emotionally, she was different in a way I don’t know how to describe. Relaxed isn’t quite the right term.

My parents were around the same age, but she looked to be years younger—in part because her hair is still naturally brunette, with only a few silver needle threads, while my father began greying in his forties. I have noticed this with other older couples. Though of course, my parents were hardly together in the same physical space often enough to qualify as a couple. The Imperial Republic military is a demanding master to serve.

Prunella followed her lead. Well, well, Imogen, she said. It looks like you’re having a fling with Mater Nature. Just don’t follow Uncle Arik’s example too much, all right?

Too late for that, I said, and she decided to take it as a joke.

My two sisters and I all have deep voices, but in our own distinctive ways: Jennaria’s voice is a dominating cannon blast she uses as weaponry, whereas Prunella has a muddythick monotone, making her sound as though she’s in an eternal sulking pout. I know enough to not even attempt to describe what might be the quality of my own voice.

Then followed the usual conversation, most of which I can’t remember with any detail now. Most of it was on the personal, though Wilhuff did touch on the latest protest news. How we have been doing, and the activities with which we have been using up time. The condo I have yet to visit. As usual, I hadn’t much to share from my own life story—though today, that was both because nothing worthy of note has happened, and too much has happened that I can’t talk about. The reason why I needed to stop at one specific bonegrey bench overlooking the river was the least of it.

Thanks to her presence, Prunella shared the burden with me of being Wilhuff’s most favored pictural subject. As she shares my opinion on being the focus of the holocamera’s glaring eye, we were soon united in our resistance against his artistry.

Oh come on, Willi, she snapped, her eyebrows hunched down, presenting him with the image of her retreating back as we walked along the meadow path.

Wilhuff’s only response was an unrepentant snap of the camera, and even with her new shoes (grey silk with emerald-glass flowers and wood heels) she hurried up her walk into a charging march I had to work to keep pace with, and Wilhuff used to his artistic advantage.

Back during her most adorable years, Prunella was one of many girls across the wide galaxy who was said to resemble the political beauty Amidala. But aside from the same common lilyfair brunette coloring, which she has from our maternal side, she turned out to be a plain and sullen version of her at best. I don’t think she has ever quite gotten over it.

Just stop it, she said (demanded, rather) throwing her voice over her shoulder. Take a picture of, I don't know. A flower or something. Honestly, Willi. Why do you have to be like this?

Wilhuff shrugged, and I answered for him: He just does. That’s all there is to it.

Once he was behind me, I didn’t have to see and know what he was doing. I heard, or fancied I had heard, a few tell-tale clicks, but I could ignore that. Then my mother’s voice joined his, and I knew he would be distracted. Meanwhile, Prunella does not like to walk in reflective silence, and I still had conversational duties to fulfill while getting to my goal. Discreetly. And I knew the precise strategy to deflect her attention away from me:

So tell me more about your friends, I said.

Most people—and I don‘t hold myself exempt here—prefer to talk about themselves. They need but a little permission. Prunella was thrilled to go on about the current dramas with her womangang, most especially the ever yet glorious Juno. I had only to nod to show I heard and comprehended her while I guided her in the direction I wanted to go.

Eventually, she caught on, and snapped to a stop: Look, Imogen, she said. I know what you’re doing, and you’re not sneaking as well as you think. If you want to go somewhere in particular, let’s just go there. Don’t be weird about it.

We’re almost there now, I said—and we were. I had to control myself, my breath and the muscles in my legs, from charging ahead up the path when the bench came into view. My heartbeat hammered in my ears as I made my approach. But the note was still there, and untouched, on the under side of the jeweled rock. My fingers shook as I removed it. As before, it was marked with only the ambiguous sternly black lettered I.

Prunella watched on with a knowing smirk. I hope that’s meant for you, and not some local sixteen-year-old girleen. Even you’re not that pathetic, Imogen.

It looked like a smacknote: the sort Prunella and her gang left for each other, as had the girls I had known in school. The fact that they were writ on paper, or flimsy when there was no paper to be had, was part of the novelty. Alcée had been fond of them as well. And at the age of twenty-eight, I had received my first one from him, which he had hidden along the riverside trail on campus, near one of the shrines behind the library, where he knew I would find it.

Then she giggled. Prunella is reputed to be a single maiden, like me. But in her case, it isn't actually true: she was married to Lt. Dunlee, even it was for all of one year, most of which she spent living apart from him with our mother. No, more like all of it: according to the stories I've heard, she left their wedding suite in her sleep-rumpled gown, and went straight back to our parents' flat. The divorce was just a formality. Since then, she hasn't had so much as a hint of romance. Unless Wilhuff is right, and she is in love with Juno.

No, no, no. My apologies, she said. It had better be for you. And don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone about this. It’s your secret, and I respect that.

Why, thank you, Prunella, I said. Of course, I didn’t tell her that it was no smacknote: that it came from the hand of a man who might not hate me—of course, I am not worthy of that much emotion on his part—but who cannot ever love me.

Upon leaving the park, we went to the Lydian District for some shopping. That was Prunella’s idea, and Wilhuff happened to need a new pair of boots. He headed straight for his favored cordwainer, and Prunella and I followed along behind him at a more wandering pace, looking over the theatre sets in the shop windows. We both took in what this season has to offer without much interest. There wasn’t a thing there we couldn’t afford if we wanted it, and we both knew it.

In the end, Prunella bought two pairs of shoes. We had already gone over how she chose their flat in part because of the impressive walk-in closet with the second bedroom. Ha ha ha.

Our mother purchased a few trinkets for Erry and Saxi. (Yes, I do as a fact remember the nicknames of Rohan’s two heirs.) Wilhuff got his boots ordered. I left with nothing. As we returned to their rented speedster, Prunella was on her comlink, securing our reservation at that new restaurant Juno had been to the last time she graced Floreat with her presence.

They left this morning, only a few hours ago. Even though they have their pick of hotels, my mother and Prunella chose to stay in my guest room, so I haven’t had much time to myself. Wilhuff came over to join us for the last breakfast, for which I served an omelet with rosepink fish and blackberry cream muffins. Both of which I made myself while they were asleep. They all assumed the housekeeper was responsible, and I let them think that.

I was looking forward to the return to my usual solitary state. Where I wouldn’t have to talk to, or think about, another person for the rest of the day. But when the door closed with a hushed-soft glide, and they were gone, the flat was too empty. Too quiet, the silence ringing back at me. I turned on some music, a rambling spiky strings concerto, and paced into the kitchen. I ate another muffin. My comlink rang and I didn’t hear it until the final demanding screech.

I was about to take up the book I am currently reading, where I have Suriel’s missive still hidden between the sheets of the pages, when a knock came at the door. Prunella had left her shampoo in the guest fresher. Her voice still echoes behind her, and I have to admit. I’m sort of glad of that.

 

Findswoman: The family’s all together again! It’s been a while since that’s happened, I take it. Their dynamic is really interesting to note.

They're not quite all together: the other two siblings of the five, Rohan and Jennaria, are out with the fleet. But this is the largest gathering of Tarkins there has been in some time.

On one hand, they’re very much like an ordinary family in some ways, with the catching up, sibling bickering, memories of family drama (like Prunella’s brief marriage), left-behind objects, and shoe shopping trips. But on the other, it’s clear that the elder Willhuff’s legacy (if one can call it that) is hanging over them still.

The legacy does indeed endure--as Imogen has already showed, even though he was away more often than he was at home with the fleet, he ran his family in the same way he ran his star destroyer and his doctrine. It's only been around a year since he died, but the impact remains.

Plus, now they have, ir at least Prunella has, an inkling that Something’s Up in Imogen’s life. Details she of course wouldn’t know, but she can clearly tell it’s Something. And Imogen seems to make a point of showing that to her, in an indirect way; why, I wonder?

It wasn't so much that she wanted to show rather than tell Prunella that something is going on with her life as she realized she couldn't avoid doing so. She needed to find the message before someone else came across it (which is always a risk in a public place) and eventually, it would have stood up out more to Prunella if she had gone out of her way to hide what she was doing than to just do it. The end result is the same: Prunella now knows Something is up. She just doesn't know what it actually is.

(Or does she?)

But don’t worry, you don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to, because I am confident the story will!

Well, secrets have a way of leaking out: and since Prunella knows about the message (though not its contents) and Wilhuff has met Suriel. Well, they will have questions at some point. But that's all I will say for now.

So glad to see you back and keeping on with this story.

Thank you, and thank you as ever for reading and commenting!

 

[This next part will be split up into two posts due to length.]

-----------------------

Well, it is official: spring has been cancelled, and summer hath begun with a heat wave. I believe the newsflash term is “record high temperatures.” Since we are on an loyalist world, they give these in Coruscanti terms, not our own. But the precise digit is irrelevant. It’s bloody ****ing scorching hot. That’s all I need to know. Every time I have gone outside, I have regretted it. Inside the flat, the central air still works, so I am not actively sweating. But the aging system is being tested, and I can feel the sunlight crashing against the windowpanes. The door handle out front is so hot I am surprised it doesn't raise blisters.

I have endured thus far by moving only as much as I need to. I wear the few summerdresses I possess that cause me the least physical discomfort, and I have a floor fan installed in the sitting room to sweep the thick air back and forth in its breeze. Since my bedroom gets the most light, I have set up camp on the settee where I while away time on my virtual farmstead, harvesting my crops in the kind sunshine that never burns into my skin and my brain.

But at least it does cool down once night shows up: and once it is finally dark enough, I open the back windows, the only ones old-fashioned enough to open, to let the air in. It feels like slippery cool riverwater, and for a while, I can think again.

After the housekeeper and her sons left, I made an attempt to read a book. The first one in a number of days I won’t count up here. It was an effort, but after several pages, my eyes numbed out, and I couldn’t focus on the words well enough to read them as words. I gave in, and wasted away a few hours in deep rottenblack sleep. I woke up, but I’m still only half-awake. Hardly fit to dribble words in here, let alone take on any more intellectual pursuits.

Besides, come now: no one actually reads anymore. No need for that when we can have all the stories we need blasted straight into our eyes and brains in moving holo form.

But it could be worse, and I don’t need Mellé to remind me just how. After all, we both know who has the ultimate moral authority, having been orphaned in every way when he lost his homeworld and presumably, every single person he had ever known--

Can I blame that one on the heat? It’s worth a try.

In the last note I recovered, he mentioned that he’s had his teeth fixed, and I think—though I could be dead wrong—he thanked me for my concern. It ‘s hard to tell with poetics.

And on that note, I will cease writing here, and put this file away. Because it could be worse: it could be humid, the way it is in the City. Except of course, it’s winter there right now.

*

As I write here, it has been only minutes since Suriel took his leave. He does indeed rise forth with the first birdsong. When I got up to close the windows, I found him in the sitting room, where he stood at the front window observing the rawgrey sky above the neighborhood. Fully dressed and smartly prepared for life, his knapsack strap slung over his shoulder. Whereas I was still wearing that lilac blossom slip. The hairs on my arms bristled like straw in the new air, and I crossed them over my breasts. For warmth, and to protect the hollow space inside my chest.

[I just now read over that paragraph again, and the way I phrased it makes it sound as though we slept together. Trust me, dearest journal, that did not happen. The very thought: I slept alone in my bed, and he slept, when he was able to do so, in the guest room.]

He watched my reflection float up inside the glass before he turned back to the room, and back to me. Well, Imogen, he said (and I can still hear the echo of his voice saying). Thank you for putting up with me. And f you need help with that watch sneak, just give me the word.

I’ll consider it, I said, and then: Good luck.

I stood where he had and watched, hovering above the scene where I couldn’t be seen, as he walked down the front path, and then turned onto the pavement, and disappeared from sight. The watchman was no longer in evidence. I checked the perimeter, and the shadows in the garden trees, to be certain. But then, even he has to go back to his rented hole and sleep sometime.

*

But I should go back to the beginning, back to last night. Suriel arrived here at my flat while it was still light outside, though it was dulling into a soft dustblue clouded evening. It was end of another record hot day, of crushing scorched air, and it required all of my inner fortitude to trudge down the stairs, one step and then another, to the door. When he looked me over, I couldn’t get a read on him, making me feel all the more flayed open before him. My arms—and my upper arms in particular, which are nearly thick as those of the larder-maids in the old stories, are another one of my flaws—were bare in my chemise strapped dress, and my hair was wilted and sticky. My skin ached, and the muscles in my back had turned to wood after too many hours of lounging and virtual farming.

He looked good. Once again, he was dressed as a pretty boy in peace world artistic style. There were even blue summerlilies embroidered on his thin white shirt. But the effect didn’t soften him. Hardly: his eyes were the black of the midnight hour sky. Distant. Armoured.

He was here to speak with me, free of the limitations of a social setting. I had figured that much from the last rock message, which I had found only the day before: Your mind is a locked room, o my dove. Show me inside with a voice no one else can hear.

(This is it, I thought distinctly, with all my burnt-out wits, in the seconds it took to leave my flat and arrive downstairs. The end. I won’t have another chance with him.)

He followed me into my flat, and the door closed with a final secret-hushed smack. His boot heels smacked the floor as he crossed the sitting room to the windows, and I realized later he was checking the perimeter for dangers. Only then did he shrug off his bag and set it down. When he was finished, he turned back to me. With his full relentless attention. I didn’t know what expression I needed, or wanted, to show him. As a result, my face settled into a blank stone mask. I could feel it as it happened.

But it was clear that, as my visitor, he was not going to speak first, which meant I had to find something to say: Feel free to sit down, I said. Would you care for something to drink?

No, thanks. I don’t think that’s a good idea, he said.

He was leaning back on his heels, his thumbs tucked into his pockets, and he rocked forward towards me. Let’s get to it, Imogen. I think you know what we need to talk about.

And with that, I broke: It’s not my fault!

The resulting silence was as thick as glass. The only sound came from the fan breathing as it turned its head back and forth. He didn’t show it, but I could almost physically feel, echoing back in my own body, the stunned stiff muscles in his shoulders and back. Then he released his breath, and leaned back on his heels again. Should that mean something to me?

It should mean a very little something to you at the least. Because it’s the truth, I said. I am not responsible for what happened to Alderaan. To your homeworld. I did not do it. Now believe me, I am not at all claiming to be a good person. Far from it. But I wouldn’t ever so much as imagine destroying an entire planet. That’s on my father. He is the one who’s responsible.

I had to stop then, to take control of my spiraling whirling breath. Take control of myself. My legs were so limp that I gave in and sat down on the edge of the settee. The echo of my voice was still floating through the air, still vomiting what I had stupidly defiantly said.

He was waiting on my next move. And so I threw myself on his mercy. Such as it was, and however little I deserved it: This always comes back to him. My father, I said. Would you like me to tell you just exactly what sort of man he was? Will you hear me out?

Suriel watched me for another moment. Then he sat down on my leather armchair, the one from my grandfather’s house, where he could face me. He leaned forward. I’m listening.

So I began--with the story I have related before, confided in this file of silent words, about how I made my final hopeless attempt at an academic career when I applied for that research professorship on Alderaan, at the university in Aldera. Thane Luxianna College. I almost spoke the name out loud, but I hesitated too long. That place I had only known through fuzzy holo pictures: the cloudwhite towers standing above the campus in the dark forested mountains surrounding Aldera city, and the rapids wrinkled pale river rushing in its bed like another street.

This may be hard to believe, but it hasn’t always been my life’s ambition to be a useless slag, I said, with an arched shrug. Ha ha ha Of course, he could tell it wasn’t only a knowing poke at my own expense, but he went easy on me. His mouth softened, and he almost smiled.

It was the exact sort of position I studied towards for years, I said. The true scholarly life, the chance to develop your own ideas, and not just echo back the experts. To do your own translations. Hours to read, with only a chosen handful of students to guide. They made it clear in the listing that they openly preferred off-worlders, which was the one point I had in my favor. I was nothing if not from another world. So I went for it.

As I spoke, I looked him straight in the eye, never once turning from his gaze. I watched him back so closely I could distinguish between the blackholes of his pupils, and the darkest brown irises. But I couldn’t see inside to what animates him, to his consciousness, his self--or if you believe we possess any such thing, his inner spirit. He showed me nothing of what he thought.

I had to consciously turn my focus away from him, and back to the dream-fading memories I was recounting: Anyhow. That was the end of it. I didn’t get the position. I wasn’t ever going to. No doubt the very possibility must seem ridiculous to you.

I wouldn’t say that, Suriel said. From what I know of academe, if they had you for an interview, you must have been one of their top candidates. You had the same chances as the others.

That was all he said, but I could tell he was waiting--for me to arrive at the point, to how this all connected with my father: As it turned out, I never once even visited Alderaan. But if I had been offered that position, I would have taken it. I would have been there when--

When the Death Star emerged from hyperspace like an asteroid-moon, and opened its destroying eye. When my father gave the order I can almost hear You may fire when ready

It wouldn’t have changed anything, I said. He would not have so much as hesitated. That, you see, is for the weak-minded. He might have spared me a thought, but I doubt it. No, he would have thought only about making the Empire’s power, his power, clear to your rebellious princess. He would have accepted my fate as a collateral sacrifice. Such are the necessities of command.

My father believed in power beyond all such notions as right and wrong, and that power without the will to wield it, to control it, was worse than useless. He didn’t ever say as much, but he didn’t need to. He showed it.

My father had a heart: but only the physical one that pumped blood through his body, while his mind was a coldly pragmatic machine, ever calculating.

It didn’t happen, I said, and I felt my mouth twitch in an amused spasm. Well, obviously not. But I know what my father would have done as if I had myself watched it. Because he chose the Empire over us, before it even was an empire, a long time ago.

Suriel spoke: I believe you, Imogen, And yes, I know. I know you’re not responsible for what your father did. For ending my world. But sometimes, yes. It hasn’t mattered enough.

Well, at least I know you don’t hate me, I said.

I did my best to deliver that with the right tone: one that wasn’t too flippant, and yet showed none of how his parting retort, with my own damned words, has left a scar in my memory. I won’t go so far as to say that he wounded my feelings. Even if I had any right to be so wounded, so hurt, I can’t admit to that sort of weakness. Honestly, I don’t know how.

Suriel looked down at his hands, and his tangled fingers—finally snapping our shared gaze—and smiled ruefully and with a sighed exhale. And: I probably shouldn’t have said that, he said. I was lashing out to get my own back, and that isn’t how I want to do things.

I must admit I find that difficult to believe, I said.

A compliment? I’m flattered. But yes. He looked back up at me, and: When I answered your question and told you where I’m from, I was giving you a test. A test you couldn’t be expected to know about, and one I expected you to fail. No—I wanted you to fail. I thought you would respond with some tossed off sneering witticism. Something worthy of your father’s daughter that I could use against you. But you didn’t. And I didn’t know how to react to that.

But I did forget to apologize, I said. Rather inanely, I know, but I didn’t know what else to say. And it is a thought that has attacked me in the darkest night. Which I believe is the done thing.

Actually, I’m glad you didn’t, he said. I don’t usually tell people I’m from Alderaan. As you can imagine, it lands like a bomb in your average conversation. When I have told someone, or they already know, they fall all over themselves telling me how sorry they are. It hasn’t ever helped. It certainly doesn’t fix the reality the Empire gave me.

Would you have told me if I hadn’t asked? I said.

He shrugged. That I can’t say. But you did need to know. We are in the business of deceit, but there are times honesty is best. So in retrospect? I suppose I’m glad you asked.

Before I could think better of it, I asked another question: Did you lose—everyone?

Yes, Imogen, he said. Every single person I knew for most of my life. My entire family, my friends, even the most casual of acquaintances. They weren’t all mine to lose, I know. But now I’m the only person living who knows they ever existed.

He stared out past me for a minute, his gaze turning blank as he wandered his thoughts. Honestly, since we are being honest, I still can’t really believe it’s gone. That they’re gone. I went to see the graveyard myself, to make it real, to try, but--

He shook his head, and bit down into his lower lip. I don’t know how to explain it.

I had already stood. It took only one step, and I sank down onto the floor before him, onto my knees, my skirt slinking down about my ankles. Then show me, I said.

I can’t read other people’s minds. Thankfully so: I know enough to be certain I don’t want to see into the chaos of remembered images and inner monologue that make up the inner life of the brain. My own brain is all I can manage.

But I can know what they feel—and feel the echo of it myself. I could do more than that, but I learned the painful way to shut that down. It’s the only way I am even this sane.

When I was three or four years old, I could sense what people felt as though it was vibrating from them. There was this one time I can almost remember when I saw this woman sitting on a garden swing at the park, looking down at the ground, and the raw bleeding pain she was in. Obviously, adult emotions are overwhelming for a child of that age, and I didn’t understand, consciously, what she was feeling. I didn’t have a name to identify it with. But I felt it.

There wasn’t any way I could have prepared myself for what happened next. If I hadn’t realized that in the moment, I would learn, oh so soon, just how much I can’t imagine. Suriel nodded. There was a lightning-snap spark as he slid his hand over mine. He touched me, as I would not have dared to touch him. He opened himself to me.

 

Findswoman: I don't usually reply this quickly--and I want to assure everyone that I do not have a plan for dominion of the first page or anything like that--but I want to point out that this most recent post is the first half of a much larger scene. I have edited in an introductory note saying as much, but I should have done that when I posted it in the first place. I have also realized that I split it up at the wrong point, but oh well--there's nothing I can do about that now except forge onward.

Lesson learned: Don't post whilst in a fever-haze.

----------------------------

You’re very right, this definitely seems like a turning point for these two—even if they didn’t sleep together (and I can understand why not), the fact that Suriel stays the night at Imogen’s place definitely indicates that, well, at very least he considers her worth investing some time in. So he’s clearly at least somewhere past the “I don’t care about you enough for that level of emotion” level.

This is the point where the story turns--and since this is the first part of the scene-as-a-whole, the turning is still in progress here. Imogen might not have said the exact right things, or gone with the right story as she laid herself bare to him as human all too human. (Though given the situation, there was no one perfectly expressed thing to say, or story to relate.) But if they are to at all work together, they did need to talk. They needed to deal with the elephant lumbering about the room.

The very fact that they are able to at least begin sorting things out in the form a conversation is huge, and I must say Suriel acts with a LOT of class and dignity here by going so far as to apologize for his remark about “that level of emotion”—though another part of me feels he really doesn’t need to!

It's safe to say that Imogen didn't see that one coming.

As the author who creates all, I knew for years before I wrote it down why Suriel made that remark, and why he would later feel he oughtn't have said it. Before he headed to Eriadu, and made contact with "The Spawn of Tarkin"--which, spoiler alert?, is how the rebels he worked with referred to Imogen--his handler made it very clear to him that he was not to let his emotions get in the way of the mission. Which is the standard Suriel already held himself to. Essentially, he feels in retrospect that, however appropriate saying it might have been--and I have the sense that I don't consciously understand what I achieved with that line from Suriel, even though I came up with it and wrote it--he did so for the wrong reasons.

He also hasn't been thinking about it overly much. Given that he's been out protesting, got beat up, and served time in jail--he's had other things on his mind.

I did consider changing how Suriel addressed the line, but I didn't have anything in mind other than what I had already planned, so: I guess we can just say that once again, Suriel is ever magnanimous in victory.

I can well imagine that he gets tired of people saying “I’m sorry” to him all the time about his homeworld; given the magnitude of the situation I understand where that feels like too little too late. He’s confiding a lot in Imogen here, which I can also understand in a way; a person’s feelings about a loss of this magnitude aren’t always going to be rational and self-consistent.

This is the sort of situation where most people will feel they need to say something. But especially with the destruction of Alderaan--and I believe it is made quite clear that nothing on this scale, of the obliteration of an entire planet, has ever happened before--there isn't anything they can really say. Whatever tragedies they have personally experienced, there is no basis of comparison to draw from here. So they say they're sorry.

For that same reason, it's difficult for Suriel to explain what is has been like for him to experience that loss. It has been a year now, so he has found some way to process it as he has continued on living. But there will be more about this--and very soon.

Am I understanding aright that he is offering to take her to the Alderaan graveyard at some point? That could certainly be a mega turning point for her if so. And of course the touch of his hand is already a turning point! Even though I’m pretty sure I know

she'll eventually join up with him in some form (and the fact that I know that is not a bad thing at all—it means your story is a well-written and effective one!)
I still wasn’t expecting that kind of tender touch at that moment, any more than Imogen herself was.

All I will say for now (whilst whistling like that one emoji) is that hopefully this will all be made clear in the next post/part two of this one.

I know I sound like a broken record by now, but I am very eager to see what’s next now that this particular gigantic corner had been turned!

The next post should be up soon--since it is the second part of this post, I want to post them fairly close together. I still need to edit it, and I still have a cold, so: perhaps in another few days.

And can I just say how glad I am that you are continuing this story and visiting us here at the forums, especially with everything you’ve got going on.

Thank you, and thanks as always for reading and commenting!

 

After a few days and a bit, the promised second part. This takes up instantly after the end of the previous post.

*

The best way I can think of to show what experiencing such emotions is like is to compare it to music, to an instrumental work that speaks without words. Like such music, it’s difficult to describe. But given this is a journal, written for my own private audience, I’m going to try.

It began with a thunderstorm blow that left him stunned in the border floating between life and dream. But this was the hard truth of waking life, so he knew he was awake, and it was real. Too real: everything was suddenly too bright, the sunlight outside, the artificial lights buzzing screeching in the base, the colors all too much, too garish howlingbright and hard, an outright assault on the eye. This was reality now, and he had to live in it. It faded into a static numbness, of days like vast beige-bland desert hills that could not retain many memories. It was. He was. He existed as time continued, as days and then weeks ended, but that was the most he could do. In the midst of this time, there were random flashes of rage, of gnashing almost nauseated fury that exhausted him. And then, during the deadest night hours, there came came the bittercoldseething regret.

(He hadn’t cared enough about his life back home, about everyone he knew there, because his world had existed before he had, and would always be there--until it wasn't.)

But eventually, after enough time, if he felt anything, it was emptiness. Mostly: a blissful and empty void. He limited his thoughts to the alliance, and on his mission objectives, alone. It was all he had left.

When he was out in the field: as he sat at tea with a tightly chignoned and tight ass female officer of the fleet and played his part, or while he waited out in an evening autumn meadow with a fine lace of snow, the leaves copperbrown and dead on the bushes, he was beyond all fear, all shaking hopeful nerves. He had accepted what his ending would be. He didn’t care.

(His handler became concerned. We can’t afford to lose even one more of you, he said, and Suriel stared back and said, a point blank blaster shot, Joke’s on you. I’m already dead.)

*

Then it ended, like crash landing out of a dream. Suriel was clutching my hand, locking our fingers together, and I returned his grip so tightly I could only just tell his hand from my own. The fan purred as it swept its breeze around the room. My face was wet, and I was breathing in short tensed gasps. I was crying. My eyes were still leaking boiled warm raindrops. But it wasn’t the usual ordeal weeping is, because the pain I was experiencing was not my own. I looked up at Suriel. It was only then that I realized I had ceased to do so. His eyes were bruised with rotten rose petal shadows, and his mouth trembled as he attempted to school his expression. He failed. He cringed his eyes shut, and as I watched, tears bled down his face.

(Which shouldn’t have been possible, because men do not cry. They just don’t. Especially not this man: Suriel had remained outwardly composed and cool, in control, for over a year, and dealt with all that he had felt alone. And of all people, I hadn’t any right to see him this way. I almost turned my face away. Almost. I can’t say even now what stopped me.)

Suriel spoke first, his deep voice only slightly raspy: What would your father think if he could see you now, Imogen?

That answer was obvious: He would be utterly ashamed of me. I wiped at my face, and the glass-slick tears, with the back of my free hand. I sniffled. Ashamed, and disgusted. I don’t know if he would go so far as to disown me, but that would be for my mother’s sake.

Damn. Well, if it helps any, my da would be proud of you. He slid his fingers free from our joined grip, and stood. Slowly, stretching his back. I followed suit. On that note, I need a smoke. And I think I will take you up on that drink offer after all. If it’s still available, of course.

I did more than that. Thanks to the heat, I hadn’t eaten for most of the day, and I invited him to join me in breaking that fast. It was a classic spinster dinner: little sandwiches with bakery rolls, a bowl of red hayberries with a dainty sprinkling of sugar, and chocolate cake cookies. Which didn’t turn out too well, but Suriel ate three of them without comment or complaint. We ate at one end of the dining table—well, since I have it, I should get some use out of it. I lit a cigaret. My senses were still raw and bruised-sore, and I needed to decompress.

He observed me through the haze of his cigaret smoke. You’re an empath. He didn’t have to tell me that hadn’t been included in my dossier. Are you--

Force sensitive? Of course not, I said. If I were, I would have been another sad padawan blasted down with all the others twenty years ago. Provided I even made it that far.

Suriel nodded, and lifted his cigarette to his mouth again. After he exhaled a long breath of smoke, he said: That part of the war always got to my da the most.

As it happens, my father disapproved of the Jedi sending their padawans into battle. It didn’t help his ego that they outranked him, but it was more than that. He made his opinions clear to the Jedi, in person, on several occasions. I witnessed one of them myself. Yes, Suriel. I have met Jedi--though “met” mightn’t be the right term. I was introduced to Jedi. But that isn’t much of a story.

I thought about it for a moment, and: So no, I’m not force-sensitive. I was tested after birth, the same as you were, and I’m sure of it. I’m not even technically an empath. I can’t explain it. It’s just something I have always been able to do.

Thus said, we moved on to other topics. Suriel told me his flat block is inside the blackout, which has made living there nigh on unbearable. The landowner, who lives on a different planet in the inner rim, hasn’t responded in any way. Have you heard anything about this?

My housekeeper also lives in the blackout zone. That was the reason she brought her sons, who I hadn’t seen before, to work. She has to be twenty-five, but looks years younger: she has a splattering of acne, and she wears a series of little velvet bows tilted in her teased up hair. So I was taken aback to see her older boy has to be at least seven, and the other one but a few years younger. I had thought, or rather I had assumed, she had a pair of toddling babes.

The elder boy was a tired little old man. As in, he was the sort who was born without a sense of humor, as if he knew in advance he wouldn’t need it. He assisted the housekeeper while keeping one eye on his brother, and he took his duties seriously. The brother, meanwhile, chased the mousedroid all through the flat, and when he lost interest in that, exercised by jumping on the guest room bed.

I know enough. My housekeeper told me about it. While he was in midchew, I went on to say: So is your lot going to fix all that once you’ve reduced the Empire to rubble? Because I can assure you matters weren’t any different under the Republic.

Suriel held up a finger as he finished chewing, and then: I know. And to be honest, the high command are really only focused on the galactic picture. But I care. And trust me, there are wheels in motion here even as I speak. I learned a few tricks before I dropped out of law school.

Did you just reveal some personal information? I said.

I can reveal more, he said. It was the Queen Kitherina School at the main university. One of the best law schools in the whole damn Core, and I walked away. No regrets so far.

He finished eating another sandwich, and took a reflective drag off a fresh cigaret. To change the subject. I find it interesting that you’ve hired on a human housekeeper.

You mean, instead of buying a droid like everyone else? I shrugged. She needs the money, and she would prefer to earn it. And I pay her a very decent wage. It’s really not that interesting.

We’ll just have to disagree on that. You’re more empathetic than I think you realize. No force powers required. His chair squeaked against the floor as he leaned in towards me, and his knee brushed mine in the shadows under the table. The reflected lights danced in his eyes, obscuring his expression, but that wasn’t of any matter: I could feel his attention searching me. I waited.

You’re sure you can’t see a way to join us? he said. Not just through aiding and abetting. But to believe in our cause. And fight for it with us.

I’m sorry, I said--and it was the sincere truth. I was, and I continue to be, sorry that I cannot be what he needs. But no. I don’t think I can. I have done what I can to protect both you and Mellé this far, and I’ll continue to do so. But that’s all. You’re chasing after a fantasy. A dream of life you can’t realize even if you actually win out in the end.

My right hand was resting on the table, my fingers tensed up like viol strings—and once again, he took it in his own. His fingers joining with mine. Even though I haven’t ever much liked to be touched, I didn’t mind it at all. And oh yes--I know myself too well not to realize what that means. Dreams may begin as fancies, but they can inspire reality. It’s happened before.

You believe, Suriel, I said. That’s going to have to be enough.

Then I told him what I took too long to consciously figure out: I need to change my life. I just can’t--go on as I have been. But I don’t know if this is the way.

Oh, there’s nothing like a little light treason for that. He smiled, and there was a wicked teasing glint in his eyes. But more seriously. Look Imogen, I’m hardly an idealist. If I ever was, the service burned it out of me years ago. We do what we must here in the shadows, and we can‘t afford to be too high minded about it. Personally, I leave that to the high command.

So whatever works, I said, echoing back his own words.

Whatever works. He stroked the back of my hand with his thumb. If you can’t act for the alliance, if you don’t think it’s worthwhile. Then do it for Mellé. Do it for me.

He had said what he needed to, and after that, we drifted on to other subjects. Safer ones. He helped me clear the table, and tidy up in the kitchen. The kitchen that was probably larger than his entire flat, but he chose not to mention that. Outside, it had begun to rain, the overheated sky breaking into the rain of tears blowing against the windows in shivering trembling handfuls. It only lasted five minutes, and the brazen sunlight has returned with its heat. But the worst of the weather is over.

The hour was late, and it was a moonless dark outside beyond the lightglow from the windows. When I told Suriel he could stay for the night, I expected he would refuse. But as you already know, dearest journal, he did not. I think it might have been for my aging but working air system. I took only a minute to show him to the guest room and fresher. And while I felt painfully aware of my voice as I spoke, and every gesture I made, Suriel was at his ease in a way I have to envy. But then, as I have just last night learned, he has spent a few nights lying low in the catacombs. Not to mention his recent stint in the City gaol. He has obviously learned how to adapt.

Before I went off to my room to shut down for a few hours, I hesitated, and he said: Is there something else you want to tell me?

I know how this is going to sound, I said. Thus warning him, I suppose—but I can always blame that time of night when reality begins to blur. I lunged ahead, braced for whatever he might say. But are you—do you fancy men?

He arched his eyebrows. That was a bold one. But the answer is no—I only prefer women. Why do you want to know?

Because I couldn’t tell. Not that that means much, as proven by the past: I couldn’t tell with Alcée, even though I should have known straight away. (After all: no man that pretty or who could wear that shirt in public could possibly want to touch a woman in that way, but I had figured that since he was Hapan, different rules might apply, hahahhaha. Ha.) And honestly, this once, it would be easier if he did--and easier for me to just know now.

Um, I said—and that is a direct quotation, by the way.

But I think he had his suspicions, because he only nodded, and: Ah, that’s all right. Though I must say I haven’t ever had to come out as straight-edge before. First time for everything. He stepped back into the guest room doorway. And with that, goodnight, Imogen.

*

When I arose during the dreaming hours of the night, I found him back in the sitting room. I saw the orange stoplight glare of his cigaret first as my eyes adjusted to the gloom, and then I saw him perched on the courtyard side window seat. He had dressed down for the night, and his shoulders and arms were bare. (His rather impressive arms. He is much more fit than I had assumed, of the wiry understated sort. Yes of course, I noticed.) His eyes had a sharp ferociously intent glow, and it was focused on the scene he was watching outside below.

He spoke: Did you know they have a sneak on you? He’s been out there for almost an hour. He isn’t even that discreet about it.

Unfortunately, yes, I said. The watchman has had the sense to avoid me, so I have only seen him the once since I put him on notice. But he has approached the housekeeper twice in the past month alone. And that’s just what I happen to know about.

I filled Suriel in on the lamentable background, and: The watch has decided to once again keep a protective eye on me in this world of woe. Touching, I know.

As I spoke, I was made too aware that I was only wearing that lilac blossom slip. It isn’t transparent, but it is light and close fitting. Some women have the gift of keeping their earthly forms discreetly under control, but I have never managed it. I was only just dressed enough. If he hadn’t noticed, I knew. But at least I was wearing black stockings, so I didn’t feel too exposed.

Suriel shook his head. That’s one way of putting it.

He turned back to the window, and I came up beside him and followed his gaze down to the courtyard, to the watchman. The short little man in question stood blatantly out in the open, underneath the glow from the garden lamp posts, his hands tucked into his dingy raincoat pockets. His shadowed eyes were relentless crushing little black holes.

We’re having an amusing contest of the wills here, Suriel said. The watchman continued to observe my window, and Suriel, and both of us. He didn’t move. He didn’t so much as flicker his eyes in a blink. Who do you think will move first?

I don’t think he has a chance, I said.

Suriel laughed, and then: Thank you for that vote of confidence.

After I left him there, I returned to my bed. But I was fully wide awake, and I couldn’t find my way into the darkness of sleep. I tried. I turned back and forth, from one side to the other, while my mind rampaged. The bed was too big, with too much empty space. Worse still, the hole blasted long ago through my chest had begun to ache, and I didn’t want to know why. Eventually, I curled up on one side and listened to myself breathe in the dark. Eventually, I fell asleep.

*

He said: If you can’t act for the cause (for the rebellion, for the galaxy of which this world is one tiny speck of light around a tiny star) then do it do it for me.

You already know my decision, Suriel. I don’t need to write it down here, in blunt burnt-wood black type, to make it real, because this I will remember—and so will you.

*

Today was the day when I headed for the wallside park in the early morning hours. I won’t go so far as to say it is the best time, but it has a certain eerie quality. The light was a soft fragile grey, and the little brown-grey birds were leaping about in the tree branches. I should know what they’re called, but if I did once, I can’t remember it now. There were people moving about on their business, and the wind-blurred buzz from the speeders in the traffic lanes, but the only noise, above the human voices and engine snarls, was the birdscreaming chorus.

The park was as empty as I have ever seen it. I took the Flora Gate entrance to be certain of that, but there was no need. There were only a few other people in the distance. And one droid, a nanny-bot with glowing sapphire neon eyes trotting along with its charges. I didn’t even have to evade them. I only had to walk on towards my destination.

Suriel was sitting on one particular bench, looking down over the river. When he turned at my approach, his eyes widened. He hadn’t expected me to show up. Then he smiled: and I saw a glimpse of his younger sweeter self. Who, in spite of all the years and the rebelling, isn’t dead after all. Hello, I said. Fancy meeting you here.


--------------------------------