slaughterhouse five.

HOMERIC EPITHET.    You are earth-moving Charlotte Reynard. Homer used this epithet to refer to Poseidon. Earth-moving Poseidon is the god of water, earthquakes, and horses for some reason. He’s best known for spending ten years being mad at Odysseus, and that one time he lost the city of Athens to Athena and became quite salty about it.

FATAL FLAW.    Your compassion.  Bottom line: you’re TOO NICE, and this will inevitably spell out your doom. You might meet your end by sacrificing yourself to save another, or—even more likely—you’ll happen across some individuals of questionable character who will take advantage of your niceness and lead you to ruin. Either way, it’s not looking good. You need to be meaner. Maybe scream at a small child or leave a bad tip at a restaurant or something, I don’t know. I’m trying to save you, okay?

GREEK MYTHOLOGICAL DEATH.    Wearing a wedding dress that is on fire.  You might be wondering why you would do such a foolish thing, and the answer is you're going to get on the bad side of Medea. Why would you ever get on the bad side of Medea? She doesn’t care about anything, least of all you. It all starts when Medea’s dude-lover, Jason, abandons her to be with you. So instead of having anything even resembling a calm, reasonable reaction, Medea responds by giving you a cursed wedding dress that catches fire as soon as you put it on. Some sources say the dress was actually coated in poison. Either way, I think you’ll agree, it’s not good.

CHARLOTTE SKYWALKER.

The word was a weight tied around her heart, sinking it low in her chest. She could feel Lottie’s eyes on her, boring into the side of her face – but more so, she could feel the cold creeping up her spine. It took all of her strength to keep her face even and unaffected, but she knew she wasn’t wholly successful; she hadn’t even let herself think that word in years. “ A diplomatic mission, ” she parroted, as lightly as she could.

          Rosalie could have laughed. What reason other than a cruel joke played upon her by the Force could the Rebellion be making colloquy with Corisdor? His world. Returning to the forests of Endor had been difficult enough, as victorious as she had left them either time. But now, the phantom aroma of lemon trees whispered at her nose, and threatened to take her balance.

          “ That must have been exciting. ” The thought of Luke and Lottie walking where he’d walked, where he’d made her walk, living in his shadows, made her stomach dip. “ What was the purpose of this mission? ”

So it was true. Part of it, at least-Rosalie’s face betrayed her connection to Enric, her tight smile and brief flash of panic in her eyes, the way her jaw tightened when she spoke, syllables clipped, all gave away what should have been obvious. She felt guilt rising in her stomach; whatever Rosalie had experienced, it was clearly hell compared to the easy, almost relaxing mission they were given.

“We were meant to talk with their leader, Prya Erantes. She wanted to offer help to the Rebellion-money, supplies, people willing to train as soldiers, you understand-and in return we gave her knowledge of the rest of the galaxy and medical help. To be fair, Luke did most of the heavy lifting-I’m no good with diplomacy or whatever on a good day, and for some reason a lot of people were really afraid of me-Prya said it was my hair color.” She twirled an absent strand of her hair. She knew exactly why, of course-her hair was eerily similar to Enric’s, and Prya’s, as if it lost it’s red-gold luster and faded to an orange, a poor man’s imitation. 

“Already hurts like a bitch.” Words muttered from behind clenched teeth and a lower lip worried between those teeth. “I’ll manage, just—”

Skin tugs, thread catching momentarily as it pulls the gash closed, “—get that patched up, if you don’t mind.” Probably better if she saves that drink for when she’s not trying to murder whatever her hands come in contact with as a coping measure.

“You’re lucky. This is a scrape, not a life sentence. This could have been much worse. Everything could have been much worse.” /p>

She looked around at the other medics, hurrying but not rushing to take care of patients from the most recent Rebel mission that took a wrong turn.

“Which part of here do you mean?” Any way it goes, it was gonna be a long story.

“Besides, I could ask the same of you.” That Skywalker kid, Ahsoka thought he had potential. Someone had to relight the flame, and she already knew it was not her destiny to lead the Jedi into a new era.

“Y’know, here. The Rebellion. The state of being alive. Pick one.”

Pazima was brusque, as usual, but genuinely interested-Force users were rare, Jedi (or at least, supposed Jedi) rarer. If this woman was who she claimed, well, that certainly interested the assassin.

Rosalie smiled softly, gloved hands clasped in front of her, as her eyes followed the path of Lottie’s. Up toward the fruit of what she’d been working for since the day she stepped foot on Alderaan for the first time in a decade – since she first lay her name in ink upon the declaration. Those twenty-some years lay heavy on her, but a lightness came to her chest whenever she allowed herself to take it what they had given her.

          “ I know condolences are the last things you want, but I am sorry. ” She took a deep breath, shaking her head almost imperceptibly. “ Sorry we couldn’t help you get out of there sooner. And that we never gave you ample time to recover. ” Not necessarily physically.

          Refreshing her expression, Rosalie gave another shake of her head, this time bringing about a fresh interest in her eyes. “ But I’m sure whatever tales you have to tell from your trip are far more happy a discussion. ”

“Don’t be sorry,” Lottie insisted. “I made it out and I’m doing fine, really. I had plenty of time to recover. When I was reported missing, I was really helping Leia and Luke out on Tatooine-they were kind enough to just let me hobble along and deal with my own shit instead of sending me out to the Alliance immediately.”

“My trip?” Lottie laughed, fingers brushing against a white railing, her mind reeling to try and find an acceptable way to describe her recent, tumultuous life. Marriage and currently secret pregnancy aside, how did you bring up the fact that you spent months on Enric Kelrian’s planet to Rosalie Seeker? Of course, she didn’t know it was her who killed him, but how many humans matched her very specific facial features?

“Well,” Lottie began with a long sigh, raising her eyebrows. “I was only on Endor for a few days, really, before I was whisked away, and-well, Rebels are nothing if not gossips, I’m sure you know all about exactly why I left for two weeks. In any case, we were back for about five days before Luke and I were sent on a diplomatic mission. To Corisdor.”

“ All right, y’know what, take a break from bein’ a jackass for two seconds, huh? ” He chuckled good-heartedly, swatting at Lottie’s shoulder. “ Not everyone could go to the ballet on a lovely Friday night, all dressed to the nines with the family, okay? We never got up to that fancy shit. ”

Caution tempered the next words from the former Jedi’s mouth, years spent avoiding the Empire’s Inquisitors making her careful of anyone prying too deeply into her identity. “You’re… not wrong.”

Technically speaking, there weren’t any more Jedi. Not in the sense of those who protected the Republic; they had died in the Clone War, or just afterwards, with the Purge. She had left before, anyway, never completed her training. Could she rightfully call herself Jedi?

“The kid who took out the Death Star?” Ahsoka asked, mirth coloring her voice for a split second, “Yeah, maybe.”

“Yeah, him. That’s what the Empire says, at least.” Pazima’s voice leant heavily on the word Empire, the same bitterness present in her voice as many of the veteran Rebellion fighters.

“Ooph, whatever gave you that idea?” Iaera hissed under her breath, fingers knotted into one another. Her Jedi training had only gone so far, and she was exhausted after the last forty hours out. Figures the Empire would’ve been tipped off about this hit–but it was okay, her team got out with the cargo and she got out okay. Well, as okay as taking a nice seeping cut could be considered okay, but… alive counted, didn’t it?

“I’ve seen some scrapes today, but this one certainly takes the top prize. Congrats,” she said dryly. She looked up at the Twi’lek woman when her breath hissed, the needle connecting her torn flesh together.

CHARLOTTE SKYWALKER.

“ What a sight for sore eyes. ” Confectionery sweetness laced Rosalie’s voice with affection. Keen eyes traced over the girl’s features, inspectorial. Word traveled fast, especially to her – but she decided not to contribute just yet.  “ You honor me; I’ve missed you, too. I wish I could have caught up with you on Endor – such a wonderful time, we should have spent more of it together. ”

“Me too-but I’ve been so damn busy, I swear, you escape from prison and they reward you by clogging you with meetings and missions and shit. Even on Endor-when I wasn’t at the med bay I was at psych evals, or debriefings, or taking care of Luke, or passing out from exhaustion. Honestly, I haven’t had time to really think about-any of this.” Lottie gestured to the sparkling new building around them, her large eyes scanning the interior of the newly established, permanent base of the Alliance. 

“The Empire couldn’t wipe all the Jedi out, you know.” The look the togruta gave the other woman could’ve stripped paint from durasteel–and belatedly, a frown followed, “What gave me away?”

She was certain she hadn’t left her lightsabers on her belt this time.

“I’ve heard of you-the Togruta Jedi-I just assumed it was you. Am I wrong?” Pazima’s eyebrow cocked again. The assassin was characteristically perceptive, perhaps not as much as her baby sister, but the special few blessed with the Force tended to give themselves away to a trained eye.

“ Pretty fucking uncultured, actually. I mean, okay —- one time I went to my baby cousin’s ballet recital. By baby I mean she was like…ten? So she was pretty advanced. ”

“Long time, no see!”