#jezzi

"What To Find In Lost Places"

This was the third time Brasso reminded Bix that her porridge was getting cold.

“Eat up, Bixie,” he said gently, using the old nickname from when they were so much younger. He was already a young man when Bix was but a little girl, but she and Cassian would bother him every now and then. Brasso was one to keep Cassian out of trouble, and much to no avail. They still had each other as children, and Brasso had called her “Bixie.”

She loved it when she was eight. Many years had passed; Bix had scoffed at that name even when Brasso sparingly used it to give her a bit of brotherly affection. But now… now, Bix seemed to delight over it. Her eyes would beam up when Brasso called her “Bixie.” Little Bixie at eight years old.

The Bix now, however…

She was so much transformed.

Brasso had to hold all the rage inside. He was very good in doing that. He was not to quick to anger, as if his large frame absorbed all the vitriol of the galaxy and transmuted them into the work of his hands, the preoccupation of his spirit.

Bix was huddled in a corner, wrapped in a comfortable shawl Jezzi had saved credits for; it was as if the large, motherly woman couldn’t stand the sight of Biz’s body gone frail, shivering even at the humid climes of the Gangi Moon.

Gangi Moon… Had it been four months already since they escaped the Imperial onslaught on their dearest homeworld, Ferrix?

Four months, and yet Bix remained more or less the same. She didn’t get worse—that was the light at the end of the momentary tunnel. More and more tunnels bled through one after another, and Brasso had promised Bix as well as Jezzi and Beemo, who helped oversaw the girl’s recovery, that it would be one step at a time. One little step… and Bix would one day be her old self.

However, Bix’s “old self” may have regressed too far.

She seemed content, in a way. She hadn’t fallen into fits and spells of acute disassociation and weeping, or sat there in prolonged catatonic states, as was her way a few days after their stealth arrival and settling in.

Bix was huddled in a corner now, but she was smiling a smile so sweet, Brasso felt tenderness lance through his heart; and yet he knew that this was not Bix restored to her full faculty.

She smiled and giggled as she talked at the scurriers on her lap, small rodent-like creatures that hopped on two legs. She cooed as she let the tiny beasts eat from her fingers. Their noses wiggled, and every wiggle drew out a bout of laughter from her.

“What is it?” Bix happily addressed the three scurriers as they sniffed at her hands. “You want more? I can get you more!”

Bix effortlessly shifted out of her crouched position as a hand reached out to the bowl of hot oatmeal and berries on a low table beside her.

Brasso sighed. He quickly reached out himself to still the bowl, preventing Bix from taking it.

The girl looked up at him, upset. She frowned like a small child.

“They’re hungry, Brasso,” she insisted in a thin, weak voice.

“And you’re not?” Brasso countered. “The oatmeal’s for you, Bixie. Been telling you that for the past ten minutes.”

His timbre remained robust with compassion despite the reprimand.

“Not hungry,” Bixie argued, petulant. “But they are! Let go of my food. It’s my food to give, Brasso.”

Bixie reasoned as though she were eight. She acted as though she were eight. She argued like a little child, again and again whenever she could. She was usually pleasant when left to her devices, but this was an instance when she showed some resistance.

Brasso didn’t want to bring out the big blasters. “If you skip this meal again, I’ll have to tell Beemo. You wouldn’t want Bee to be sad, would you, Bixie?”

Brasso was nineteen again, arguing with eight-year-old Bix. The large man even expected Bix of today to stick out her tongue at him and stomp her way back into the corner.

“Fine, I’ll eat,” Bix relented. Her eyes were so full of entreaty; Brasso had to relent. He sighed again, let go of the bowl, and the girl snatched it up quickly.

Then, like a defiant toddler, she dumped most of the contents on the floor for the scurriers to feast on as she picked on the berries at the side.

“See? I ate!” Bix was looking half-querulously and half-triumphantly at the bigger man.

“That’s very funny,” Brasso challenged the girl good-naturedly. “Half the bargain, then!”

Bix was protesting as Brasso took out a tiny comlink used to contact Beemo or anyone within close range of the premises. “Bee, please get over here. It’s your turn to watch over Bix, all right?”

“Wh-what's the m-m-matter?” came the worried stutter of the droid from the device. “I-is Bix o-okay?”

Brasso could hear Jezzi argue with Wilmon in the background over rusty ship parts. It seemed that Beemo was there to help facilitate on those matters as well.

The man smiled wanly yet fondly. He could almost hear B2Emo’s circuits rattle in confusion as Brasso dropped the comms as the droid wheeled his way through a door, swishing open with a creak.

“I hate you, Brasso,” Bix mumbled—again, like a small child. The weight on those words had whimsy. Had it been said by a fully-grown Bix… Brasso willed not to lose thought over it.

“I-I’m here to help,” announced the droid eagerly. “D-do your shift of the chores, B-Brasso.”

“Thank you, Bee,” said Brasso as he brushed his hand over the droid’s head in passing.

~~~

“Brasso—I need a hand. Can you pick up those balance turbine components from Langerly’s? Shop’s about seven blocks down. Couldn’t get Beemo to do it, bless him. And Wilmon here’s helping me keep inventory…”

Jezzi was frazzled. She had shared a trade temporarily with Maarva Andor when they were young girls, and that was scavenging ship parts and determining the useful ones from the real junk. The Breon Drayvan starship transport had finally taken its last sputter as they landed on Gangi Moon, four months prior, until it was cold and dead.

Since then, Jezzi had been getting the parts on the sly by disguising her business with that of any ordinary scavengers’. There were plenty on Gangi Moon, and while it had taken them to assess trustworthy neighbors from the tricksters, most of its citizens couldn’t care less.

It was as if this world had deliberately numbed themselves from the rest of the galaxy—has no one heard about the Ferrix insurrection? There had been a planet-wide lockdown for months. They could still be on lockdown…

Or, Brasso decided, Gangi Moon was genuinely oblivious and were simply carrying on. He hadn’t spotted any Imperial outposts or guards stationed, and he wondered how long had it been this way, if it ever had become Imperial-infested at all.

“I got you, Jezzi,” Brasso acknowledged the poor woman’s request. Before he stepped out, he managed to catch a glimpse of Wilmon not doing inventories as Jezzi supposed, but the boy was wrapped in his own work, his ear trained very close to an improvised transceiver. As far as Brasso knew, Wilmon had been picking up nothing but static, when the youth wished to catch a stray wave of news coming from Ferrix.

Or even… from Cassian, if that was possible, after all the trouble.

The boy’s face showed otherwise. It was a neutral mask, his eyes glassy with glimmers of exhaustion not of the body, but of the mind.

The man knew better than to interrupt Wilmon in his work, so he stepped out into the warm, bustling streets of the district.

Gangi Moon wasn’t a place where one can afford true isolation, if they were to go into hiding. Rather, it was too congested for such a small place—there would be chunks of city, then chunks of barren lands in between where anyone risked exposure to the moon’s natural predators. One advantage in this scenario was that it was always busy—busier than Ferrix, Brasso realized, on its busiest day—that everyone blended into one vortex of constant activity. Faces blurred, voices cackled all the same. Many eyes were bare but many also kept their secrets and remained so.

Brasso felt wandering hostility every now and then, and was on high alert on most days. He and Jezzi would take shifts in watching their rundown, temporary abode at night. All the residences on this district were built from mixed of durasteel and other cheap metals, interspersed with a local clay-like material.

Wilmon could have been as good help as any with the shifts, but the boy seemed no better than Bix, in a manner. He was distant when he wasn’t obstinate over finding a way to clandestinely scoop up news from Ferrix. The youth was astute and knew his way around circuits unknown to Brasso, so he let Wilmon be.

“Wil—are you gonna be alright?”

“Bixie… try to get some fresh air, please? Do it for Beemo and me.”

“I know, Jezzi, it’s just a little fire. The house wouldn’t burn down in a jiffy.”

“Bee, help me keep an eye on Wil.”

“Bee, help me keep an eye on Bix.”

“Bee, Jezzi’s gonna need you to hold up the clamps so she can fix your charging port, okay?”

Brasso stumbled as he walked; he grew a little faint at those words he’d repeated towards the ones he cared about deeply in their small space on Gangi Moon. He’d never figuratively stopped to think of what he could possibly feel, if his health was the matter, if he himself had slept or eaten or breathed in fresh air.

Midway his trip on the chaotic streets, Brasso took a moment to sit down. There were stray benches on the sidewalks, smokey and grimy from continuous industry. It was like being on the shipyards day in and day out with but a tiny gleam of clean water and clothing when it can happen.

He breathed deep, let himself calm down.

When he reached Langerly’s shop, the old Mon Calamari was transactional but did inquire about Jezzi with a twinkle in his eye. This lent humor to Brasso. Ever since Brasso begrudgingly admitted that he and Jezzi weren’t a married couple, Langerly had become a bit more pleasant towards Brasso, and more so towards Jezzi.

There were still the usual things happening in unusual times.

~~~

The night was thick with the customary quietude.

Brasso was upon the table, drinking a steaming cup of caf, his eyes distant. Jezzi was finishing some cake by the kitchen, still annoyed (but blushing) that Langerly forgot three more components, which would encourage Jezzi to fetch them herself the next day.

Bix was still in her little corner, the scurriers asleep on her lap, their bellies full.

Bee was snoozing restlessly on his makeshift charging port, rattling idly in droid-dreams.

Wilmon was still by the rickety transceiver, except he’d moved his work openly upon the table where Brasso sat on for anyone to scrutinize.

The boy’s face remained determined—that expression had practically stamped itself on him. His ear was close to the device again, picking up the tiniest spark of sound.

“Nothing,” Wilmon suddenly spoke enough for Brasso to abruptly finish his empty ruminations. “Four months.” Wilmon hid his disappointment in vain as he tossed a chunk of wire on the table. The youth’s expression changed, for once. It looked so lost.

It only took Brasso a second to glimpse Wilmon’s changed mood before he trailed his eyes to the distance again.

“Then they could still be on lockdown,” whispered the man, somberly, ponderously.

“Nothing on Cassian, either,” Wilmon admitted. “I know you and Bix and Beemo have been waiting… I… I don’t want to let you down… after all that… I was…” The youth stumbled quiveringly in his words.

“Stop right there,” Brasso scolded the young man in his gentle, low voice. His eyes looked hard this time. He leaned close to Wilmon. “Stop feeling sorry for yourself, or being so damn apologetic all the time. It’s not your fault. Your old man would’ve said the same thing. You did what you thought was right back on Ferrix.” Brasso’s voice nearly broke. “Maarva would’ve been proud, don’t you know that, Wil?”

All that Wilmon could do was stare at the useless transceiver. The boy looked so helpless. Brasso was about to lay a hand on the boy’s shoulder when Bix had the mind to share her cares…

“It’s my fault, Brasso,” she said remorsefully. Brasso reddened as he turned to her upon the cot on a corner, wrapped in Jezzi’s shawl. His small outburst must have wakened her, but then again, Bix may have already been aware of the conversation and listened in.

“What is, Bixie?” Brasso had approached her slowly. He was by her cot-side.

“Cassian,” she whispered. “Cassian. He went back for Maarva, but he also went back for me. I-I didn’t tell them anything, I promise! Swear on my brick—I didn’t tell them anything!”

Swear on my brick was an expression, similar to how off-worlders say swear on my grave. To have Bix say that had monumental gravity to it. The girl, after all this time in her journey to heal, kept that weight tightly upon her shoulders. The scurriers which piggy-backed on Beemo one day had brought her distraction and joy. It took her out of her dark rut for a while, but tonight it seemed to resurface.

“I know you didn’t. No one ever believes you did, Bixie,” Brasso soothed. He’d taken Bix into his beefy arms and the girl lay her head on his chest. “It’s not your fault, either. Maybe Maarva would’ve thought different—she said we’ve been asleep for years. Ferrix has been asleep for years. Do you know what that meant, Bixie?”

The girl held onto him but didn’t respond.

“What you did, what Wilmon did—it was a long time coming. Cause and effect, Bixie. Like in your old lessons in school. The Empire had been stepping on our backs for too long. What sacrifice you did for Cassian was worth coming back for, if ever you were left behind.”

He felt hot tears seep through his thick shirt. He patted Bix’s back as she sobbed ever so quietly.

It’s not your fault.

It was the same thing he’d told Cassian when they quickly met at the tunnels on Ferrix. He had wrapped Cassian in his arms just as he held Bix.

Brasso leaned against the wall where Bix’s cot lay. He sat there for long moments until the girl ceased her weeping, until Wilmon quietly returned to the workshop, until Jezzi announced her shift for the night as she made herself more caf.

Brasso had always understood, but he’d kept the reasons at arm’s length. He’d lost himself in the struggle, but as the night wore on and the bustle outside lessened a fraction, Brasso found a moment’s peace.

After four long months, he’d fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep.