#ploduch

“Please tell me this is not about yesterday’s discourse.”

And it was indeed about yesterday’s discourse that you’ve found yourself feeling ‘severed from cromulency’ as he had eloquently stated. It would have been apropos to succumb into ‘a mood’ had ‘cromulency’ actually existed in the books, but a play on linguistics to lighten the mood is so very and innately Plo Koon that any attempt to sour yourself failed. 

You’ve known for centuries that behind the rebreather and the goggles, he was so damn—well proud of that joke that the creases on his face were a compound of both tense and lax. He didn’t laugh, but the very overture of his symphonic voice laced with an effervescent tune was enough to give it away. 

Oh, and the elbow nudge that was always quite comical even for himself. He’s expressed his dislike towards it; how very not-Plo Koon it is for him to do and yet, here he is — nudging his elbow onto your side as if silently egging you to burst into a fit of laughter.

You would’ve — of course with all the love you hold for him and him alone, but today was the day of fuck-all because he should’ve answered it correctly. 

“It’s still me but like… In a teeny, tiny, worm’s body.” Came your bone of contention. “You know what? Okay. Okay. Okay. What if I was clean? Like lab-grown clean, hmm? Not some slimy, under-bedrock worm in dirt.” You shuddered at the thought; to be covered in filth? Death would be more promising.

“You could also just be as you are now, little love.” 

Plo emerges from the quaint room adjacent to the bed in a rarity of blue. Cerulean tunic-like robes that pooled and dragged as he walked with the grace of a true Baran Do Sage about to zap the living daylights out of a runaway thief in Dorin. Trotting like a majestic, seasoned, stallion with absolute panic in his eyes as he turns to realize that you have still not donned your custom rebreather while Dorin gas heavily permeated the air-tight quarters.

“But why not though?!” You bleated, brows congregating in complaint as Plo settles on the bed where you’ve made yourself quite comfortably sat. 

For someone as fearsome as him, having even merited high reverence from the likes of the Grand Master himself, Yoda, and a few adversaries he’d have either done battle with or have known of his prowess, Plo had never once cut you with his talons or held you in such a manner threatening to the pristine state of your skin that bruised even at the slightest of bumps. In fact, the custom rebreather has a higher chance of leaving darkened welts under the grove of the mask than Plo’s talons with how it would lock onto your skin since your anatomy provides little to attach it to. 

You watched him arduously detach and reattach the mask over your face until it was canted enough to situate over the lower chambers of your face. He’d veer his head periodically as if to address you in silence, asking if there were any discomfort in process of — to which you responded with soft ‘Nhn’.

Placated by the fact that you are now masked as he was, Plo takes his place beside you on the shared cot, draping both your legs under the covers. With a datapad in hand and his claws tapping and gliding over the screen, he pulls up a schematic of the rebreather that now clung to your face. 

His talons lingered for a moment and you swore on all things of great value to your existence, that he smiled a little too dotingly at the fact that you’ve actually done well in crafting one for yourself. It’d be an understatement to say that he even caressed the screen with such a delicate touch before closing the tab to pull up something in relation to the GAR. 

Plo had not given any comments about it, even upon close inspection that you’ve matched your self-made antiox mask against Dorin gas in the same pattern as his — his lineage, his family, his ancestors of Koons. You’d think you’d have room within your soul to wonder if your self-made rebreather is Kel Dor - approved, or at least Plo Koon - approved, but you knew it was. It probably isn’t as durable as Plo’s, but the gesture alone speaks volume — or at least that’s what you could come up with each time he’d get a chance to hold it. He’d do so with so much care that part of you believed it was shit to begin with that it’d crumble between his large hands.

At times he’d remind you to clean it, not that he needed to. He’d talk about certain parts of the rebreather native to himself at random as if dropping hints on how to further upgrade your own mask without overstepping as you have ‘vehemently’ insisted that this was your personal project to perfect. Even so, you appreciate every obvious hint that included a hand-written note on where to find it, tucked in pockets of your clothing.

“That’s just mean, Plo.” Huffing as you folded yourself onto the bed, back turned as you hauled the covers over your frame angrily. You began grumbling, only to squirm under the weight of his touch along the contours of your side and defensively toss yourself away. 

“Why must you always torment yourself with queries you already know the answers to?” Resigned, Plo leaned firmly against the headboard and left the datapad idle over his lap. “Are we not past that at this point, my sweet?” 

You continue to grumble under your breath, rolling your eyes even and standing on a defiant ground —taking a moment before your cheeks have turned to cerise hue.  

“It’s a thing that you’re supposed to ask someone… y…you like.” And before Plo could put a word in, you pulled the magazine from under the bed and showed him the marked page of two earthling lovers and their 1000 questions of professed love.

“My darling, what we have is not something undercut as ‘like’. Am I loved less today than yesterday?” 

You wanted badly to say ‘yes’ to that for the sake of banter, but the genuine worry in his voice reminded of the peculiar situation that you and Plo have; a not-quite lovers, not-quite exclusive, not-quite looking for someone else, and not-quite permitted but somehow accepted kind of setup. Evenly perturbed that he might take it to heart, you thought well of your next response — the make or break of all responses. 

And with a steady heart determined to not only preserve love that transcends beyond realms of tradition and normalcy, unbridled by any word of law or doctrine, you scour the depths of your existence to offer yourself in complete surrender — to bear him words that would solidify the unbreakable connection that spanned the entirety of your respective lives. 

“Yes. You are loved less today than yesterday.” And so you speak, now propped on your elbows.

“Quite a dilemma.” Replied the ever-resigned Plo Koon, gaze scanning the contents of the magazine and nodding curiously before turning back to his datapad. 

Sensing your disappointment as you slowly lowered the magazine and dropped it onto the floor by your side of the bed, Plo turned his head to address your tantrum-stricken visage with a palm that had engulfed the entirety of your face. 

You utter a lengthy whine with apologetic and impatient undertones that did very little to deter him from having his attention drawn once more to the device. 

“So you really won’t love me if I was a worm, then?” 

You’ve started to take this little game of ribbing to heart given that you’ve had a long day and sometimes, all you need is for Plo to be a little less unhinged on the proper side and more clement to silly whims of the heart.

You hear a daunted sigh as the massive hand of your beloved Kel Dor retracts to his person; as if you were so much in the wrong you’ve upset Plo Koon to a degree that is most unfavorable for you both.

“My little wonder, just as I would tread the path of the Jedi once more in another life, I would not indulge in the slightest of change, for it is that consistency and restraint that had led our courses to cross. It is that same resilience to the unearthly call of pleasure and attachment that has allowed me to not only bear my heart and soul to you, my sweet, but to shake the very core of my devotion for the Order and its teachings. I do not just ‘like’ or ‘love’ you, my precious one — I simply am one that is yours as I am in the Force. I can only hope that is more than enough.”

Plo takes your hand into his with an attempt to reassure your worries with a gentle squeeze. And even behind the protective goggles, you knew within you that those silver eyes of his bore so much gratitude for not only the presence of your company, but the existence of you in his life as he would often remind you of.

You smile, reaching up to his face with a freehand, tracing the intricacies of the metallic contraption that sustained his life outside Mother Dorin’s familiar embrace. And in that moment with such tenderness in your voice, you simply could not help yourself but bestow upon him the honesty that burns with your heart — and you so you speak.

“So you would still love me if I was worm, Plo?”

And with unmatchable enthusiasm, he replies.

“No. I will most certainly not.”

~ Fin

The thing I said I did a thing ago.