— hope.

“it does sort of make me want to laugh. i guess that isn’t bad though.” she smiled, beginning to see what the appeal of the holiday was. her question throws rey off completely, however. “hmm? what? oh, no. me? no. no. i wasn’t going to buy anything.”

“Hm….” Han listened to Leia before nodding slightly, cleaning his hands on a cloth before getting up to move over to her. Personally, he was never the man for fancy things, that should have been clear already since the New Year’s Eve ball. It just felt to Han like he needed to play some sort of role then to fit in.

“You know I am not really the type for such places, right?” He mused, a smirk on his face was ge grabbed Leia’s hips to pull her close. “But if ya wish. Your wish is my command, so if ya want to have a fancy diner, we’ll have a fancy diner. How does that sound?”

“A kiss, or a kiss onto the cheek, or a hug… whatever you feel comfortable with! No one is going to be forced to do anything here, of course!” Lucy just thought it would be a good thing to collect money for the foster home, so she was maybe a little too enthusiastic about it now and then.

“Hm,” Cassian nodded quietly. No one I have met here so far has heard about the empire, it seems, so I assume that you are right here, princess.” And still, he was wary. Maybe a natural reaction when growing up in the middle of a war a whole galaxy was involved into.

“And what…” scratching his chin, he started to search for the right words once more. “I just wonder, what am I supposed to do here, then? Like, right now my days are filled with nothing. And that is… odd. Something I never had to deal with before in my whole life.” He had always been way too busy surviving somehow, after all.

naturally, they both had doubts. it was simply the environment they had grown in, perhaps, that had given them a distrust to the idea of PEACE. but simultaneously, it was an idea leia had loved. she could never feel it whilst her home galaxy, her home planet, remained ravaged by war, but she could nevertheless widely admire the feeling to stand on a planet without threat.

        When he’d finished singing, Gavroche had begun to bundle himself up with various scraps of cloth and clothing he’d gathered. It wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, but honestly; he’d called worse places home. His missed his friends more than he could imagine, he wasn’t sure how they would even react if they did see him now. He was almost startled when he heard the voice, but regardless of how he was feeling, a familiar smile found it’s place upon his lips. “Thank you, Mademoiselle.” Something about this woman screamed regal, or royalty, but it wasn’t a BAD thing. He liked her, even though he didn’t know her. He could already hear  Grantaire’s voice yelling at him for being so trusting to strangers. He nodded his head as an answer, shuffling up just slightly for her to sit down, but he removed the cloth from his legs, laying it across the floor so she didn’t have to sit on the cold pavement. “I’d be delighted if you would join me, Miss.”

“Ya know, maybe….” It did not happen often that Han was in the loss of the right words. But right now such a rare moment seemed to happen. He was staring into Leia’s eyes, and his mind was racing, and it took the captain all he had not to start to ramble now and to sound as cool as he usually did.

“Just mean, if ya feel ya can do more than cope one day, we could maybe go…. ya know, onto a date? Maybe?”

Han had liked Leia for longer already, and he has also already planned to tell her, back home, for many times. But it had never been the perfect moment. There had alsways been someone to fight with. Someone to rescue. And then they had been landing here on this island. And Leia had obviously forgotten everything about him.

“Yeah… because you could have slapped me and kicked me out then,” he grinned sheepishly. “So… does that mean ya will allow me to keep ya company more often from now on? Like, not talking about miving in. Just spending time together, and stuff.”

their experiences of each other were still so different. leia had begun to accept that this planet, this island, had stolen a part of her life from her, and with it some of the most important people it seemed she would ever know. her memories of her time with han before this planet were barred from her, left only with a lost connection somewhere in her mind. and yet somehow they had met in the middle; his complete knowledge, her apprehensive unfamiliarity, and in the centre of it all two people who knew that here, with each other, was where they belonged.

Someone obviously called this ‘guilt of the survivor’, and Cassian really couldn’t describe it any better himself. It expalined everything he was feeling down to the core already, after all. And, maybe it would continue to feel like this for a while. Maybeit would get easier at some point. Maybe not. he could not know. Right now Cassian was pushing himself from one day to the next, wodnering what to do with a life he wasn’t really meant to have anymore at this point.

“Thank you for your kind words, princess,” he still said, knowing she deserved to know he was really grateful for her help. It was just hard to accept it, after all. “I am sometimes trying to tell myself the same, I just wonder…. do you think it would be possible for me and Jyn, to, well, maybe…. have some sort of normal life here on this island? At least for a little while?”

❝ OF COURSE. ❞ without hesitation, leia presented her answer to him. it was a mindset she couldn’t understand herself: she had left her mission incomplete, and the rebel heart of her ached to return to the place she felt needed her the most. but cassian and jyn had completed their mission, their part in the salvation of the galaxy, and damn, leia felt that they deserved reward for it. reward that she, even as a princess, could not give them. perhaps a life, together, was what they were ultimately owed.

“ you would ? that sounds absolutely wonderful. ”

anywhere that wasn’t the isle sounded like heaven. even this island, no matter how cursed they called it was already heaven to her. food, warmth, shelter, now if she could just get rid of the guilt that ached her heart at the thought of betraying and leaving her mother, she’d be set. it’s not as if she had anyone else but her mother tying her to this world. she’d been stuck in her castle for so long that her old ‘allies’ were barely a connection. once she can get over being a disappointment yet again to her mother, who only loved and cared for her to the point of trying to make her perfect enough to fit in auradon, she can go anywhere with no worries.

“ correct me if i’m wrong in understanding but they can control any type of force, like gravity, normal, air resistance, etc. force, or is the title defining something else, maybe a mystical force ?… it doesn’t sound like a myth. ”

there’s the normal scientific forces that can be controlled via spells and potions but there are also mystical forces that can be used by fairies, witches, and the like to create magic. either way was real in her world and she could barely think of one surviving without the other. since scientific forces can’t be non-existent, then mystical forces wouldn’t be either, they just often had different ways of showing itself. 

a soft giggle escaped evie’s red lips, ending up with a small yet thankful smile. no one’s ever said that to her and it felt as though she was gaining a friend for the first time; at least in her current set of memories. 

“ i’d love to. i just… i don’t think i’m trustworthy enough. i’m… well, i’m… ”

stop stuttering

“ i’m considered a… villain… back in my world. ”

❝ SURE. you’d love alderaan. i’m a little BIASED, sure, but it’s got the most AMAZING culture, and creativity. and the SCIENCE !! oh boy, we may have just met, but i think you’d work some WONDERS in our labs. ❞ leia had felt the need to proclaim the marvels of her planet a little more recently. perhaps it was something luke had said, something which, to her horror, hadn’t shocked her as much as she felt it should have done. if she just kept speaking of it in the present tense...  ❝ there’s just... something about it. maybe that’s just how a home feels, but... i don’t know. it captures even the cynical hearts. ❞

she nodded in response to evie’s question, her mind flowing back to the stories her father had once told. she had never been the most knowledgeable about the subject - even if it wasn’t a MYTH, the jedi had been lost before her birth, and as such she could hardly claim expertise.  ❝ BOTH, i think. they can... float things, that sort of party trick stuff. but they also have this profound connection to the universe, to its people. i always thought it sounded to mystical to be true, but it has fascinated me. more so now, for some reason. ❞

her lips fell to a frown, and leia held this expression as long as her new friend spoke. she could quickly sense the difficulty evie felt in her admission, and a gentle hand soon reached to offer both comfort and encouragement. it was quick to shock leia - not through concern, but through the incongruity between the implications the world held for her and the girl she was quickly getting to know. ❝ — our worlds must have pretty opposing ideas of what a villain is. i’ve met my fair share of them - hell, we’re fighting a WAR against them back home. you’re the opposite of the ones i know. ❞ the princess considered herself a good enough judge of character - diplomats had to be, she supposed - to make this determination, and held it with a conviction. what sort of a world must this girl have come from ??  ❝ i can’t see how anyone like YOU could be the villain of a story. that’s the sort of thing only the empire could say. ❞

“I know.” There was no way to tell if those words were pointed at Leia stating that he was insufferable. Or about her statement that she did like him. The kiss had been short, but still long enough to make his heart race, and it took Han a lot to still keep up his usualy, cool behaviour in front of the princess now. “I like you too,” he mused, gently pushing some strands of hair out of her face.

It was so frustrating dealing with it all. How could she possibly not believe him? He had given her as much little known information that he could and she didn’t once question how or why he knew it or what could be true because she he knew it. It reminded him of his confrontation with Anakin, he heard nothing but denial of him nor a single wonderment of the truth. It hurt him and honestly it was starting to affect him in a negative way, a way he wasn’t proud of. He didn’t like feeling so unbelievably hopeless and each time he thought maybe something was going to come to pass, she once again is insistent on not being his sister. He sighed again. He had just started to get to know her as his sister and now they were strangers all over okay. He might as well not exist to her at all. It might be better for him at this point and his mind thought back to Cassian and how he wanted to forget. He would be lying to himself if he hadn’t contemplated the same thing. It might be easier for him but then that would turn him into a person he didn’t recognize. He had to remember, it was his job to, he had to stay strong for Leia especially memories of him or not. 

“You don’t even want to entertain the thought it is true for just a few minutes?” he probably sounded desperate and it was humiliating but he wanted and needed his family now more than ever. There were days when he felt he wasn’t strong enough to deal with all of this on his own. He wanted to hug her, kiss her cheek, protect her from the world as her brother. He spent the first 23 years of his life not knowing about his sister and after he got one, he lost her before they were really able to get to know each other as siblings. Maybe losing her was dramatic but it definitely wasn’t the same but like he encouraged himself it would be just like when they first met on the Death Star they were friends first and could be friends again. 

“There is nothing wrong with wanting to get home.” He explained softly, “though I am not sure that is a possibility. This is your home now. I wish there was something more I could do.” He sighed in frustration. A big part of this situation for him was the fact he simply just felt helpless. He didn’t know what to do and he hated feeling helpless. He hated feeling as if he was simply just useless. Maybe she didn’t need him maybe this all happened for a reason. Nevertheless, he did love hearing her say his name, it brought him back to old times and good memories, he smiled. “You aren’t alone here, Leia, brother or not, my sister or not we still have each other and we are still from the same galaxy that has to offer some sort of comfort, right? Do you really feel alone here?” He asked softly, not enjoying entertaining the idea that she was feeling as lonely as he was. Something he wouldn’t want to admit. It was something he held in in hopes no one would notice. “She’s not in my head! Stop saying that. If we are going to be, what I hope to be friends, we should respect each other. I will respect you aren’t my sister if you respect the fact she isn’t some girl in my head that I made up, deal? I am trying really hard to accept this situation here.”

❝ i want to, luke. believe me, i wanna. ❞ it wasn’t a lie. various vantage points of her personality fell upon the situation with an intense desire to gift him her belief, to sit beside him and listen to him talk about the sister he believed she was. a deep empathy always had run through her, but never before had her heart broken to such a degree for a STRANGER, and she could grant to him that somewhere, it did indeed feel like she had known him for longer than she knew she had. but memory acted as her barrier; there was nothing of him in her mind, no matter how hard she tried to reach for it. for someone who held the importance he claimed, the importance some deep part of her claimed on HIS behalf, she couldn’t imagine what power could possibly have lost the presence of him from her thoughts. a hand reached for his arm, offering him the comfort she couldn’t give to him in words. ❝ i’m sorry that i can’t get it into my head. hell, im trying !! but we’ve never met. i know i’d remember you. OF COURSE i’d remember you. ❞

the thought of this, her place here, becoming permanent quickly shocked her, and she shook her head in an instant to dispel his suggestion. ❝ no. no, there’s gotta be a way out. there’s always gotta be a way. we’re gonna make it home, okay? ❞ the WE escaped her naturally, giving them a solidarity which comforted her a little more than she knew how to explain. He was right, of course. his very presence was a comfort, if only because their story was more similar than that of the others here whom she had met. a loneliness had always underlied her, but never once had it felt so present as it did here. she always had been adaptable, but external ability could only hide her true feelings for so long. it seemed as though HE could see through her almost instantly. ❝ of course it’s a comfort. i... like this place. i think i like it. but it’s so unlike everything i know. ❞ she slipped into a gentle laugh. ❝ hey, i think you’re the only thing that doesn’t. ❞

❝ i didn’t mean it like that. i can tell you haven’t made her up, clear as an alderaan sunset. but you’ve got this… image of her, memories. we keep them, of the ones we love, we never let them go. ❞ she kept them, she always did. so why did the very idea fill her with an intense GUILT she couldn’t put her finger on? ❝ i’ve heard this place does funny things to you. maybe something’s just got crossed somewhere with one of us? ❞