Work Text:
"You’re not much of a sound sleeper."
She never was, but she didn’t need to hear it when the Force is kind enough to distract her into a slumber, and certainly not from him.
"Said Gramps with a sore knee," she spit, drowsy-eyed. His clanking pace still ringing from the night before.
He pulled out a bundle of crimson. "Get changed," he continued as if the reply was non-existent, but getting accustomed to his new wrench, "We do have a factory to destroy." He slid down the ramp to leave her to reminiscence, as he would once merely a year ago.
She washed her face and turned to examine the dress. Gowns weren’t her style, but the loose robe reminded her of—home. This planet of all reminded her of her people. In less than a moment she readied herself to familiarize the surrounding—not that it’s difficult—for her training, or necessary—for she’d been here, in a different age.
The distant festival drummed in the shimmering dusk. She approached the other shadow, her new asset. They walked through the forest, into the fairground. It was a colourful city, and night befell as sudden as the apprehension that she’d never seen it at night.
To the left and right, she loathed to see ghosts of her face staring back at her, questioning her as if her nightmare still a shawl. If nothing, she felt more out of place than the red Zabark beside her. Hundreds of familiar faces resembling her own than the off-worlder, yet she felt exposed. No, there're no eyes on her except her own. His stare was forward and it marched on. Her private inspection had maimed the awkward silence between them. He started, "Feel anything? The one you trust to come for you?"
"If your intel is right, why would you trust anyone else?"
"You are hardly cooperative with that sulk among, your people." Again—
"For a ladybug man you seem to blend in the crowd well," the venomus lyric slipped past her tongue.
"For a zebra girl you seem exceptionally subtle," he hissed right back.
Her eyes narrowed. More instincts.
He allowed her. He had always been the patient reaper.
On the edge of town, the stream of festival-goers flowed uphill, towards the marble shrine. A cold shove on her spine pushed her out of the crowd. They picked the deserted path, towards the factory walls. Its four towers searched with piercing torches, but the pair's target remained a beastly corpse asleep, labourer-free in its belly.
"The disguise has served u—its purpose," she remarked, "Just follow my plan."
He unfolded his arms and said casually, "We’ve crossed their lines, let’s cross ours." The embroidered snake on his lapel ebbed with a wave of his hand.
She felt something crawling behind her. She was ready, fists raised, but only a few pocket charges darted from the bow on her back. The metal orbs snuggled through the air into his palm. "Take pleasure of a gift," he sneered.
The former Sith Lord levitated more charges and dismissed his control in a toss. They landed in her open fists from her slightest movement.
She decided a nod was enough and watched him disappear into a corner. Apart, they were like two daggers slicing through the machinery, colouring the structures red with bleeping explosives. She stopped at the mainframe for a final hope, anything from the family nevermore. Another false lead. She breathed in to catch her evaporating patience. The factory’s rotary fans hummed and draped her in mottled luminescence. Her pink sleeves greyed as she swept past the dusty machines. There’s no more point lingering, but her soles dragged, out of rhythm.
She found him at the rendezvous point. His fists curled in anticipation of destruction. He released his remote grip of the entrance at the sight of her. She turned and ran. She needed the rush. She needed to keep going. He slithered close by in a quick, steady pace. At the sound of the crumbling arch, a world collapsed. But oblivious.
As he drew so close his breathing was impossible to block in her ringing montrals, she snapped, "What are you waiting for?"
"Presentation," he answered, "is what makes a hero." He unfolded a satin fan and gestured to the shrine stairs.
They stood on a hill on a moonless night. Seated across the lawn were spectators for the fireworks. He rattled the detonator as the first neon blossom bloomed in the sky. The slumping factory ignited like a reflection.
"Are you impressed, Lady?" he probed.
"Reminds me of that time in the rain," a smile stole a kiss at just the corner of her lips. "He'll love the colours."
"I do, enjoy the sky a-lit," his gaze returned to the distant darkness.