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There is a bottle of nail polish weighing down the seam of Aayla’s pocket. It has a name all of its own: ‘Floor is Wet.’ It’s a joke, Aayla has determined. The color is meant to simulate a warning sign commonly set on recently mopped flooring in public buildings.
She’s never seen a sign like this, but she’s found a number of images of them online. They’re silly, stumpy little things, usually yellow-orange, sometimes yellow-green.
The lacquer in her hand is the color of a citrus that Aayla’s Master packs into jars with salt and savory-smelling leaves. Later, after the color has faded and the jars are full of sloshing water, he chops those sour-salty rinds up on a dripping wood block and adds the pieces to the thick, saucy dishes he makes for her when she comes to visit him and there is time to talk.
The color is of the fruit alone, not the pickles. Looking at it reminds her of summer days with open windows and humming electric fans. It should smell like the cold popsicle her Master puts on the top of her head, between her lekku.
It doesn’t. It smells like nothing. She hasn’t twisted the cap yet.
She doesn’t paint her nails. Some do—Anakin in particular likes to paint his nails black, hands and toes alike. He does it so that no one can see his discolored nailbeds. Grease and ink and metal are unkind to those fingers he has left. He paints them with his prosthetic hand, and it doesn’t shake.
Aayla has watched him do this a thousand times, but she herself only joins him every tenth or eleventh.
She holds the bottle now—bought with her own money, heavy in her own hand—and finally cracks the seal.
She lifts the brush and a heavy bead pearls on the end of it.
“No, Sissy, you gotta put down a white coat first.”
Anakin tsks at the state of her hands. Aayla cringes under his scrutiny.
“And you have to keep still until it dries,” Anakin says. “We’re going to have to soak ‘em.”
Her nails are ruined. The whole tips of her fingers are. The polish barely shows up at all on them, and where it does, it has turned green from the hue of her skin.
It is shameful. She ought to be the one teaching Anakin.
“Dip.”
The top knuckles of each hand are parked in a solvent on the cramped table. Anakin rummages through his bag until he finds a case that he keeps his hygiene products in. He spills them out all over the table and digs around until he finds his two black bottles and the handful of other miniature colors he keeps in there. One of them, blessedly, is white. The others are interesting—a neon green, pink, and orange. A dark blue with glitter in it.
She wonders if he got these from Padmé. They share their cosmetics, those two. Their earrings. Anakin wears his at the top of his ears and Padmé wears hers dangling down around by her chin and neck.
Aayla wonders if a piercing would suit her the way they suit Anakin and Obi-Wan.
“Out.”
She removes her fingers from their bath. Anakin sets upon them with a cloth. He rubs the old polish away, digging into the edges of her nails.
“Let’s try this one more time,” he says when he’s finished. He reaches across their three arms to pick the long foam file up from the line of supplies he’s made at the side of the table.
Aayla’s fingernails now are perfect ovals. They are true yellow, Floor Is Wet yellow. Anakin’s covered them in four coats of polish, including a clear top-coat that he says will keep the color sealed in and protected from her ‘brute strength and bullshit.’
They feel...oily. Slick. So so so smooth.
She likes them a lot, even if the color doesn’t suit her. It isn’t really meant to. She just wanted to—
Wanted to—
It’s silly.
“Why yellow?” Anakin asks as he packs his stuff away. “Gold or orange is better for you, no?”
“Just experimenting,” Aayla says. “Thank you for your service.”
Anakin rocks his stool onto its back legs and holds himself in place with the edge of the table. He’s waiting.
Sissy, he calls her, no matter how old he gets. The same goes for his meandering gaze; even as a little one, he was unhappy to leave her side until he was satisfied that she had gotten to say whatever it was that she really needed to tell someone, anyone.
“You’re taller than me now,” she points out.
“You’re stunted,” he says.
“Trauma will do that to you.”
“You should be taller. Why yellow?”
“What if I was taller than you? What then, hm?”
“Ahsoka will be in a few years here. Why yellow?”
“She will prop you up on her shoulder and carry you when you are a sad, old man.”
“Why sad?” Anakin asks.
Aayla pauses.
“Just a phrase,” she says.
“Why yellow?”
So insistent. He’s not letting her get out of this, is he?
“Because,” she says.
“Because what?”
“Anakin.”
“Sissy.”
“None of your business.”
“Bly wears yellow, too, doesn’t he?”
Aayla’s stomach drops. She would have taken ahold of the table to keep upright and stable if Anakin wasn’t right there in front of her, still rocking slowly on the last leg of his stool. Like a child.
He is still a child.
“I didn’t notice,” she lies.
“Rex told me that the Command Batch harasses him for it,” Anakin says. “They call him pretty and pretty stupid.”
Aayla’s jaw clenches.
“That’s rude,” she sniffs. “Bly is the most capable person I know.”
Anakin finally looks up at her.
“They’re brothers,” he says. “It’s a joke.”
It’s not a kind one. Nor is it funny. Aayla doesn’t like it.
“They’re just joking.”
She doesn’t care. Bly can be pretty if he wants to be. He can wear his nails lacquered. He can keep his face clean-shaven. She doesn’t mind. It’s nice to be with someone who takes such care in their appearance.
Bly, she’s sure, would love perfume. Something grassy and spicy placed right at the throat. She can picture him dabbing it on either side of the thick muscles in his neck.
“He is pretty, anyways,” Anakin says. “Real proper or whatever. He sits like Shaak Ti—you ever noticed?”
He—
He does, actually. No, Aayla hadn’t thought about it before. But now she’s reminded of Bly sitting next to her, ankles tucked up together, thighs relaxed but touching. He crosses his legs over each other, too.
It is wildly endearing. Aayla can’t not look at him when he does it.
She can’t think of any of her men that follow Bly’s example. He’s like that sometimes. Different.
His colorful nails are a part of the charm that he carries. He’s only recently started to wear them as they are—or maybe it is only recently that Aayla has noticed them. Bly tends to wear gloves indoors and out. Seldom are his hands totally on display.
But a few days ago, before they all set sail for Master Fisto’s mission, she had noticed them.
One yellow, one black. One yellow, one black. Bly’s nails looked perfectly set into their beds. He takes care of them like he takes care of the rest of himself. He’d laughed at a joke then and turned just in time to catch Aayla staring. Panicking, she’d told him that she liked his nails.
His smile fell away as rain cleans a window. The next morning, he was wearing gloves, and he didn’t even look when Aayla sat down next to him.
They haven’t talked one-on-one since they boarded this ship. Bly’s batchmates are here and they are, every one of them, ecstatic to be reunited. Even Obi-Wan’s Commander, who is known to be the most like the Commander before him in his stoicism, has buried himself in with Master Plo, Master Windu, and Master Fisto’s commanders. They’re all tucked away now in some tiny cabin, determined to share it despite their rank affording them more spacious accommodation.
If Bly’s brothers weren’t so cruel to him, Aayla would be happy for him, but as it is, she can only see them as bullies.
Anakin’s evidence bolsters her anger.
“You’re brooding,” Anakin says.
Aayla removes herself from her anger.
“I don’t like being contained,” she says. “Half of my men are going to be seasick on this damned ship.”
“Mm, I doubt it,” Anakin says. “They all grew up on the water. I think it’s us we ought to worry about.”
Bly does not make an appearance at the 327th-claimed table for the evening meal. Aayla decides not to read into that. She stabs at her lumpy food and shakes a foot rapidly so get the frustration out. Her medic huffs a laugh at her expense. She points at him with a spoon and resumes her shaking. Her medic misinterprets her agitation as overstimulation and offers her a downer.
She declines.
Over the heads of the others in the canteen, she spies shorn hair next to longer, silvering strands.
Commander Fox is known as one of the most handsome clones in the Coruscant Guard, as well as the most stressed out fucker in the whole GAR. He personally keeps the Chancellor’s schedule and it shows in the little patches of his hair that have sacrificed color for wisdom. This mission is practically a vacation for him.
Next to him is the back of Bly’s close-shorn skull. Aayla cranes her neck to see him, but he’s facing away from her, talking across Fox’s broad chest at Plo’s Commander who threatens him with an accusatory finger. Commander Cody shoves a hand under Plo’s Commander’s armpit so that he can add a vulgar gesture to his buddy’s accusation. Bly returns the aggression with two raised middle fingers. His profile, finally in view, seems to say ‘Oho?’
Fox shoves him to the side and sends him stumbling into the chest of Master Windu’s Commander, who is perhaps the most exhausted that Aayla has ever seen him. It appears that he is the most responsible of their batch, perhaps even the oldest. He rights Bly and gestures down the line at the others to stop holding up the line for food.
Bly grasps his shoulder and uses his order as leverage for better treatment from the others.
He’s not wearing his gloves. His nails are still painted, this time yellow, pink. Yellow, pink.
Aayla sits up straighter. Her own nails are slick and coated. She looks around to see where it is most likely the Command batch will park themselves. There is a half empty table on the starboard side that no one wants to sit at because it rocks. These guys seem like the type who would rather be annoyed than separated.
Perhaps she can...move a little closer?
Yes.
There is no harm in moving a little closer.
Anakin is sitting over there, anyways. He’s as good of an excuse as any. She slams a knee into the rickety table as she stands.
Anakin doesn’t even look at her as Aayla fits herself into the space between him and his Captain.
“You’re being obvious,” he says tonelessly.
Little Ahsoka blinks at her in shock across the table. She has both hands on a piece of jerky that her teeth can’t seem to tear. She can’t digest the rations designed for humans and near-humans, and Anakin complains about the other padawans sharing their snacks with her all the time. He’s convinced that she’s going to turn into a GI tract disaster any day now.
Aayla gives her the sweet biscuit that comes with the near-human rations. It is enough to distract Anakin for the time being.
Bly and the other Commanders have predictably occupied the rickety table. They have to arrange and then re-arrange themselves a bit until they’ve balanced the thing out. Bly chooses to sit on the table with his feet on the bench rather than the other way around. This is not apparently remarkable to the others. They’re busy arguing in their preferred pidgin language. Bly offers Fox his sweet biscuit. Fox takes it and stuffs it into Bly’s other elbow and carries on, on his way.
Aayla realizes her foot is shaking again. She turns to see Anakin, Ahsoka, and Anakin’s Captain all staring at her.
She clears her throat.
“Cold day today,” she says.
Anakin’s gaze snaps back to the Commanders’ table. She nearly seizes his head between her hands to make it face forward.
They are interrupted by a clatter and lo, Obi-Wan has joined them. He looks dead ahead like he’s moving on autopilot. Ahsoka moves to give him more room to sit and then gives him a little prompting tug that brings him back to the mortal plane with the rest of them. He fits his armored knees under the table and immediately gives Ahsoka the boiled sweet that comes with his plate of gray mush.
Anakin throws his forehead down onto the table and groans. Obi-Wan pets Ahsoka’s head and pokes at his meal.
“Every day is a living nightmare,” Obi-Wan says casually.
“Sir,” Anakin’s Captain agrees gently.
“Oh, Rex. I didn’t see you there. I have another sweet—”
“That’s not necessary, sir.”
Obi-Wan blinks like a stunned owl.
“Just take it,” Anakin mumbles into the table.
“Just take it,” Aayla echoes.
Rex is embarrassed to do so but follows the directive. Obi-Wan resumes human-like functions once his pockets are divested of snacks.
“Aayla,” he notices. “Fancy meeting you here. How are you? Where is the bastard who follows you places?”
He wants to know where Quinlan is. He always wants to know where Quinlan is. Aayla understands now more than she did as a child that this is a protective measure. Quinlan loves nothing more than he loves to make Obi-Wan display Inappropriate Emotions in the presence of others.
“He’s sleeping,” she says. “I think you’re safe.”
Relief falls off Obi-Wan’s shoulders.
“Wonderful,” he says. “Did you paint your nails?”
Ahsoka is awake now.
“Anakin did them for me,” Aayla says.
Ahsoka is urgently shaking Anakin now.
“A cheerful color,” Obi-Wan says. “Do you like them?”
“I do,” Aayla says.
“They match Bly’s,” Anakin grumbles.
Aayla does not land a fist against his unguarded head. She is benevolent and tender like that. Instead, she flicks her lekku over her shoulder and shrugs.
“We are a team,” she says.
Obi-Wan raises an eyebrow.
“Anakin,” he says.
“No.”
“Paint my nails.”
“No.”
“I wish for Cody to know that we are a team.”
“Cody doesn’t want to match you. Look how far he wants to sit from you. Release him from your claws.”
Obi-Wan rounds on Rex. Rex puts up a tray as a shield against his gaze. Obi-Wan half-stands to see over it.
“Cody would want to match with me, yes?” he asks.
Rex tips the tray back so that it almost covers his head.
“No comment, sir,” he says.
“Why would he not want to match?”
“I am not Cody, General.”
“It is this or a nose ring, surely he would prefer this?”
Anakin snorts at the idea of Obi-Wan getting a nose-ring. He still doesn’t know that this is one of the ways that Obi-Wan continues to treat him as a padawan. It is not unwarranted. Anakin is still technically of padawan-age.
“What are your feelings on nose-rings, Rex?” Obi-Wan asks. “Would you get one to match your general?”
Rex flattens himself further.
“I would rather not, sir,” he says. “Unless the General has thoughts about a lip or eyebrow ring.”
Anakin shoots up. His attention has never been more thoroughly contained.
“Get gauges with me,” he says.
Rex pouts as he thinks about it.
“Yeah, alright,” he says.
“FUCK yes.”
“I want gauges,” Ahsoka says.
Both guys look at her. Aayla sighs.
“We can’t get gauges,” she says.
Ahsoka doesn’t understand. She makes very pitiful eyes.
“But I want to match Rex,” she says.
And Aayla wants all these people to stop distracting her from what’s going on at the Command table. They don’t always get what they want.
“You need ears to have gauges,” Anakin tells her. “You and Rex can have matching bracelets.”
“Rex, match with me—”
“Rex, ignore her. We’re in this to win it. Gauges. You and me.”
“REX, MATCH WITH ME.”
Bly has been yanked off the table across the aisle and sat down on a bench. Commander Ponds ruffles his close-cropped hair and asks him something while pulling at Fox’s next. Bly leans an elbow onto the table and shrugs. Fox reaches across him and Ponds and steals Wolffe’s woolen hat, which he puts it on Bly sloppily. The whole unit looks at him, contemplating. Wolffe scoffs.
Bly peels off the hat and hands it back to him. He smooths a hand over his head. Wolffe gestures to his lips, which Bly takes a moment to think about. He smiles and holds up one of his pink nails.
Wolffe scowls and takes Cody’s datapad out of his hands and begins tapping on it himself.
“What are they talking about?” Aayla grumbles.
“Aayla has a crush,” Anakin tells Obi-Wan.
She ignores him now. Acknowledgement will incriminate her.
“I’m surprised, Aayla. I thought you were one for the ladies exclusively,” Obi-Wan says.
Aayla’s foot and knee are shaking again.
“She’s making an exception,” Anakin says. “But like, covertly.”
“If you keep talking, I will soon have a pickled tongue in my room,” Aayla snaps.
Anakin snickers. Obi-Wan leans a palm against his cheek.
“This is dangerous stuff, my dear,” he says.
“Pot. Kettle,” Aayla fires back.
There is a pause before horror overtakes her. She tears her gaze back.
“My apologies, Master,” she says.
“No offense taken,” Obi-Wan says coolly. “Although, in my experience, the best way to gather information is to pluck it from the tree of knowledge yourself.”
Aayla squints.
“What do you—”
Obi-Wan gets up and take a good handful of the back of her shirt. She realizes belatedly what is happening and tries with no avail to struggle against it. Anakin smirks and waves at her as she’s tug-dragged across the aisle without so much as a by-your-leave.
Obi-Wan is fearless. This is mortifying.
He sits down right next to Bly and smiles wide and charming and parks Aayla across from him.
“Gentlemen,” he says.
“General,” everyone choruses back.
Cody straightens up and holds eye contact with Obi-Wan.
“General,” he says last of all.
“Aayla and Anakin are again at odds, so I am sparing us the embarrassment of their arguing being made public,” Obi-Wan says cheerfully. “I hope you don’t mind the imposition?”
Fox throws a look into Wolffe’s face in silence. Wolffe doesn’t return it.
“We don’t mind, sir,” he says for everyone, even though Bly has looked away from both Obi-Wan and Aayla and is rolling the water around in his cup.
“Such kindness,” Obi-Wan says. “Cody, what are your feelings on nose-rings?”
Aayla covers her face. She can’t watch.
“Nose-rings, sir?”
“Yes. As in, would you get one with me?”
“Absolutely not.”
Hold on.
Aayla peeks through her fingers to see Cody lay both forearms on the table.
“No?” Obi-Wan asks him. “Not even a little one?”
Cody’s lips threaten to twitch up in the corners.
“No,” he says indulgently.
Obi-Wan pouts. Cody looks away with his nose all wrinkled up. It is adorable.
Aayla cannot speak or move. She cannot flirt. Repeat. She cannot flirt. Obi-Wan has shown her swiftly and thoroughly that this is a gap in her knowledge, and she appreciates him saving her from herself and she would like to go now, before she does something reckless and embarrassing like opening her mouth.
Please.
“Aw, Kote. Gettin’ shy,” Bly teases. “You’d look good with a nose-ring, vod.”
“I do not wish to be led by the nose,” Cody says. “If I am to be guided into place, I’d rather someone just call my name.”
Obi-Wan lifts his brow exactly one time. He and Cody’s eye contact is again locked into place.
Fox rolls his whole head in exasperation.
“I’m seasick,” he decides. “Good night, world. Hello, sweet death.”
“Seconding that,” Wolffe says, climbing out of his seat. “You stay here and make an idiot of yourself.” He pats Cody’s shoulder.
There is no reaction. Wolffe tsks and throws a hand up like ‘why do I even bother?’ He and Fox pair up to take their trays to the drop-off station. Aayla watches them go and turns back to see Ponds doing everything in his power to message them telepathically to come back and save him.
“Well, I think you’re busy,” Bly says, reaching over to take Cody’s cup. “We’ll leave you two alone to eye-fuck in public.”
“Get lost,” Cody snaps.
Aayla responds to the order before remembering that Cody isn’t her senior nor her officer. It’s too late, though, she’s already standing.
Bly gives her a knowing grin before taking another sip from Cody’s cup. He starts walking. Aayla follows.
“Can you believe them?” Bly asks out on the deck. “In front of everyone. They have no shame.”
The ocean around the deck heaves. There is a gaggle of padawans throwing small fish back into the sea at the same speed which the fish are sprayed back onto the deck. They shout in frustration while General Fisto watches on, calling encouraging words through the wind.
“It’s definitely something,” Aayla says quietly.
In agony.
“Cody’s fearless,” Bly says. “I wish I was like him sometimes.”
Aayla rips her gaze from the kids to catch the profile of Bly’s face next to her. His eyes tip downwards. His smile doesn’t feel like one. She tips her head in a mimicry of his.
“Bly?” she asks.
“You painted your nails.”
“What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”
“They look nice,” Bly says. “Do you like them?”
He’s not answering. Why isn’t he answering?
“What’s wrong?” she asks.
“You filed them and everything.”
“I didn’t,” she admits. “Anakin did them for me. I’m hopeless with this kind of thing. It was a mess. I didn’t put, uh, white down first.”
“No white?”
She peeks again and Bly’s giving her a surprised eyebrow.
“No?” she says.
“General.”
What is this judgement? Aayla never claimed to be proficient in all things cosmetic. She’s never been that kind of girl. Or woman. Or—whatever. She’s not good at this stuff.
“Did you do yours?” she asks.
There is a pause. Bly’s expression fades. He holds out a hand.
“No,” he says. “Wolffe did them this time. He hid my blue under a bed—something something warm and cool tones something something—I dunno. He’s got a lot of feelings about color combos. It’s easier to just let him have his way. I still get something out of it, you know?”
But Bly does do his nails. Aayla knows this. He does them himself when they’re deployed.
“Where did you learn to do them?”
“The holonet,” Bly says.
“Do you like doing them?”
“It makes the scream in my head die down a little.”
Oh.
“I didn’t mean to intrude,” Aayla says. “I just thought it was nice that we might—”
“Match?”
It is like a kick to the chest. Aayla hunches into herself.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I’ll leave you to it. I won’t mention it.”
“You’re okay, General. It’s just a thing I do. We all have our things to get through this war.”
Bly holds his hand up against the gray sky. It still throws a faint shadow over his face.
“This place reminds us all of Kamino,” he finally says. “Monnk’s the only guy having fun, I’m pretty sure.”
There is a peep of gold at the base of Bly’s neck. Aayla has always wondered where it comes from and where it’s going. She steps forward and holds her hand up next to Bly’s.
“May I say something, Commander?” she asks.
“Of course.”
Aayla takes a big breath.
“I don’t mean this in a weird way,” she says. “It is just something that I’ve been thinking of lately. It is a compliment.”
“A compliment?”
Bly takes his hand out of the sky and turns eyes filled with the reflection of turbulent water on her. This is not the place or the time. But he is so—
He is so—
“You’re so pretty, Bly,” she says. “With your nails and your tattoos. I—it’s beautiful. To see you.”
Bly’s eyes are enormous. Aayla has never seen this much of their whites.
“Sir?” he says.
“I am no Obi-Wan Kenobi,” she blurts out in a hurry. “Words do not come to me so neatly but—”
“Sir?”
“—I thought that I should tell you. Should anything happen to make you forget. You’re lovely. To me. To me, especially.”
A hand touches her cheek. She refuses to lift her face. She’s positively purple with embarrassment, and Bly will read into that more than he needs to. It will be a mistake. He will pity her when she should be the one pitying him.
“I appreciate that, General.”
She could slump with relief, but in doing so, she accidentally pushes her cheek right into Bly’s palm. She tears her head up just as he yanks his hand away as though he’s been burned.
They stare at each other.
Bly’s face is red.
Red?
“JUST KISS ALREADY.”
Wh—
“GET FUCKED AND DIE,” Bly hurls over his shoulder at Fox who responds by throwing his arms out wide in challenge.
Bly goes through a set of violent gestures that make Fox throw dismissive ones back at him. Regardless, he does leave the deck. Bly fumes in his wake.
Aayla can’t help but smile. No, not smile. Grin. Wider and wider.
Maybe a giggle escapes.
Bly’s fury snaps back onto her. He clears his throat about four times.
“I am—gonna go deal with that,” he says. “General. Sir.”
Aayla catches ahold of his arm.
“No,” she says. “Let it go. His suggestion is, ehm.” She clears her own throat. Bly stiffens under her hand.
“I—sir,” he stammers. Then winces terrifically to the side and carefully lifts his hands to close around her wrists. “I can’t,” he says.
No? Oh. Okay.
“NO. No. Not like that. I didn’t mean. I mean. I don’t—I don’t know how to, Uh. I d—fuck. I don’t know—fuck.”
Aayla does laugh this time, a real one.
“I’ll show you,” she says.
“Well no, now we can’t. The moment’s terminated. Dead on arrival. Can you believe him? I can’t believe him. I’m so sorry, General—”
“Aayla.”
“I’m so sorry Aay—woah, no. No, no, no. We can’t be doing that. Huh-uh,” Bly says.
He’s getting more and more worked up. The yellow on his face is the brightest it has ever been. Aayla would like to look at it forever.
“No first names?” she asks like a pout.
“Absolutely not,” Bly tells her.
She juts out a lower lip.
“No,” Bly tells her. “Nope. I’m—listen. There’s a lot going on with me, General. And it’s not good. I know it looks fine from the outside, but I’m defec—something’s wrong with me. And you’ve got enough going on without having to be involved with that so—”
“What’s wrong?” Aayla asks. “Tell me, what’s wrong. We’ll fix it. I’ll help you. I don’t care. It’s important to me. You’re important to me.”
“I can’t,” Bly says, holding her at arms-length without touching her. “I don’t know what it is. I don’t know how to stop it. How to fix it. But it’s just. I know it’s wrong. I’m. I’m sorry, sir. I thought I could—I’m able to do my job. I can work. I can fight.”
“Bly, what—”
“I won’t let it affect anything—”
“Bly, what are you talking about?” Aayla asks. “You’re not making sense. I don’t care if there’s something wrong with you. There’s something wrong with all of us, me included.”
“You don’t understand,” Bly says like he’s about to cry. “If they know—if anyone knows—they’ll kill me. They cloned me. Oh fuck, they cloned me.”
Aayla’s palms are so empty and useless. Bly clutches at his face, at his head like it hurts him. She doesn’t understand what he’s talking about.
“Is this about the nail polish?” she asks breathlessly. “It’s fine. I don’t think anything of it. I thought it was nice. I thought it was cute.”
“No. No, I can’t explain,” Bly moans into the space between his elbows.
“Okay,” Aayla says, flailing internally. “Okay, that’s okay. Hey, why don’t we just forget it? For now, let’s just forget it. It didn’t happen. Nothing happened.”
“I’m so sorry,” Bly moans. “I ruined it. I ruined everything. I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, hey. You ruined nothing,” Aayla soothes. “I overstepped. I put you in a position I shouldn’t have. It won’t happen again.”
Bly looks at her from between his arms. His eyes are raw and pink. Slowly, his fortress falls away and hangs limp at his sides. He bites a lip. Drops a tear.
“I’m sorry,” he says, voice barely there on the wind.
“No, I am,” Aayla says. “Let’s try this again. Just nice and simple. I like you, Bly. You are important to me. And whatever you choose to do is wonderful. I like to see you trying new things. Thank you for sharing some of them with me. Shall we put this,” she gestures between them, “On hold?”
Bly squeezes at his fingers in shame.
“Is that alright?” he asks.
“Of course.”
“Thank stars.” He deflates. She hums.
“You’re still pretty, though,” she says.
“Sir,” Bly says.
“I’m calls ‘em like I sees ‘em.”
“What accent is that?”
None. Aayla is leaving now. Her filter is faltering and she must escape before she does anything else irreparably stupid.
Good bye, sweet prince.
Aayla is going to go drown her flush in a hammock.