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Ouanii would be hard-pressed to choose a favorite Gaya song.
“Coaxium” would be the obvious choice, and it’s what she often says if someone won’t take “I don’t have one” for an answer. That’s the song that changed her life twice over – once when her cover of it went viral on the holonet, and again when Gaya herself heard Ouanii playing it on that street corner near the concert hall back on Rodia. But as much as she loves “Coaxium,” there’s nothing like the beautiful sweeping notes of “New World,” which make Ouanii feel like she’s flying on the sound waves she pulls up from the lumosynth. And then there’s “Rockstar Queen,” which puts a skip in her step every time she plays it, even if she’s exhausted at the end of a long set, and “Oola Shuka,” which transforms any room into a celebration.
So, she doesn’t have a favorite Gaya song. But if someone were to ask about her favorite part of performing with Gaya, Ouanii would immediately think of a moment near the end of “Poverty of Love.” There, at the height of the song’s emotion, Gaya stops singing. The superstar draws back into herself, and Ouanii pulls the volume down to a cool, steady chord. With the audience’s thousands of eyes trained on Gaya at the front of the stage, it must seem to them like the accompanist in the shadows isn’t doing much. But Ouanii knows how much work, how much artistry, goes into holding that mood at just the right place; sensing the best moment to improvise a brief, soft melody over the constant, thrumming foundation; creating the perfect atmosphere for Gaya’s poem.
Ouanii adores the poem. Gaya rarely ever recites it in the same way twice. She finds what feels right for the moment, for this specific performance, just like how she encourages Ouanii to find what feels true for her on that night and put it into her music. Sometimes it’s a loud, powerful, defiant recitation; other times, it’s a whisper that only reaches the ears of the audience with the grace of the microphone. Gaya recites the poem in Twi'leki, usually, but sometimes in Huttese, and sometimes – most rarely – in Galactic Basic. The exact words change in translation, of course, but the content is always the same.
“I can translate your wishes and woes in ten different alien tongues, but no one speaks my love language,” Gaya says, and Ouanii feels the poem embrace her heart. “Are there ultraviolet rays in my skin? Are there radioactive waves in my kisses? Is my heart out of orbit?”
Gaya and Ouanii have often spoken about the meaning of her songs, how each lyric comes from a piece of Gaya’s past or a hope she has for the future. It’s important for Ouanii to understand, if she wants to tell Gaya’s story well – and she does. Ouanii constantly strives to be the perfect accompanist to the intergalactic superstar. But she’s never felt the need to ask Gaya about the poem. Ouanii already understands what it means to feel that she is out of orbit, to feel like no one speaks her love language.
Her love language, if she has one, is music. Though it might be more accurate to say that her love is music. Ouanii likes men as much as any other heterosexual female Rodian would, but they’ve never been as interesting to her as her music. As a teenager, Ouanii’s romantic crushes were few and far between, to the point where she’s considered that she might be greyromantic, but she never thought about it much. Her brain was too full of chords and melodies, and her schedule too full of ketasiik practice, to spend time or thought on dating. Her peers seemed to understand this about her. She was popular, sure – her classmates were always asking her to play their favorite songs – but it was a very rare thing for a boy to ask her out. They just didn’t pay that kind of attention to her.
Ouanii was fine with that. It meant she had more time to devote to her music.
These days, as Gaya’s accompanist, Ouanii finds that people rarely pay any kind of attention to her. The audience cheers when Gaya calls out her name at the end of the show, but when it’s time to sign autographs, everyone clamors for Gaya’s. It’s how it should be, Ouanii thinks. This is Gaya’s show, Gaya’s tour. Ouanii’s job is to support Gaya. She doesn’t know what she’d do with that much attention, anyway. It’s nice that she can focus on packing things up after a show, and then relax at whatever afterparty Raithe has found for them, while Gaya thrives in her eternal spotlight, fielding the affections of her fans.
Ouanii is standing at the bar, struggling to read the flickering menu on the wall – it must need a new power cell, or at least a good smack from the small metal hammer lying on the counter – when a hand gently rests on her shoulder. She doesn’t immediately turn around, assuming that the person behind the hand is just one of those guys who thinks the polite way to walk past a woman in a crowded nightclub includes purposefully touching her. It’s not worth reacting to.
But then a voice says, “Excuse me,” in rough, low Rodian, and Ouanii is surprised enough to hear the language that she turns around.
It’s a male Twi’lek with green skin – a similar shade to her own. He’s a little taller than her, and probably a little older, too, but she’s always had a hard time telling how old aliens are. Rodian features make more sense to Ouanii than the smooth skin, white-edged eyes, and wide toothy mouths of “humanoid” species. After a year of working with Raithe, though, she’s gotten pretty good at deciphering his many different facial expressions.
The Twi’lek smiles at her and withdraws his hand.
“Sorry to bother you,” he says – or, it’s probably what he meant to say. He mispronounces the Rodian words so badly that it sounds more like “sorry for your footprint.”
Ouanii chuckles a little. “I speak Huttese, too, if that works,” she says in Huttese, “and I can understand Basic just fine.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” the Twi’lek says in Huttese, his eyes and grin widening in a childlike way that makes Ouanii want to laugh again. “I had to try, right?”
She nods. “It was a good try.”
“You’re Ouanii, aren’t you? The lumosynth player.”
That’s three unusual things in less than ten seconds. First, the sound of her native tongue, butchered though it was. Second, someone outside of Rodia knowing what a lumosynth is. Third, that same someone referring to her as the lumosynth player, instead of the much more common, Gaya’s accompanist.
It’s not that she doesn’t like being called Gaya’s accompanist. Far from it – Ouanii loves her job. But there’s something about being referred to as her own performer, instead of as an accessory to Gaya, that piques her interest.
“That’s me,” she says. “Who are you?”
He holds out his hand for her to shake. “I’m Warak. It’s an honor, truly. I was at the show tonight – you were amazing. I’ve never had the chance to hear the lumosynth performed live before. It’s enchanting.”
His hand is warm in hers.
“I’m surprised you know the Rodian name for it,” Ouanii says. “I mean – that’s not a comment on your language skills. People usually just call it, ‘the thing with all the buttons and lights.’”
“I like to do my research.” Warak glances over her shoulder, looking towards the bar. He doesn’t seem to realize that he’s still holding her hand. “Have you ordered anything yet?”
“No, not yet.”
Before Ouanii can figure out how to politely pull away, Warak looks down, visibly notices their hands, and drops hers.
“Sorry,” he says. “I’m not the best with boundaries.”
“It’s fine.”
“Let me make it up to you.” Warak waves a hand at the menu screen. “Let me – Let me buy you a drink.”
Has anyone ever offered to buy her a drink before? Gaya has perfected the art of gracefully turning down such offers, with a smirk on her lips and a “Gaya special” already in her hand. Is turning Warak down the right thing to do? If so, how should she do it? There’s no such thing as a Ouanii special; no food or drink is dedicated in her honor. But she doesn’t really want to turn him down.
“Am I being too forward?” says Warak. She’s taken too long to respond.
“No, no, not at all. I’d love a drink.” Ouanii looks up at the menu again, but it’s still incomprehensible. “I have no idea what they serve here.”
“Yeah, this place is kind of a dump.” Warak’s lekku shift on his shoulders as he looks around at the chatting, dancing, laughing crowd. His eyes flicker towards her. That’s the interesting thing about Twi’lek eyes, and any species whose eyes show their whites – you can always tell where they’re looking.
“It’s too noisy here anyway,” he says. “Want to go somewhere else?”
Ouanii never got too many “stranger danger” lectures as a kid. Her parents were more likely to encourage her to put down her instruments and have a normal night out with friends, for once, but she was never interested.
She can still feel the warmth of Warak’s hand on her palm. She flexes her fingers, but that doesn’t get rid of it. She doesn’t really want to get rid of it. And there’s something about how he’s looking at her. How he sees her. He came to Gaya’s show, but he saw her.
“Let me check,” she says. “Gotta make sure we don’t have anything scheduled later.”
She knows they don’t. Ouanii never forgets her schedule. Regardless, she nudges her way through the ever-shifting crowd. She’s not sure where Gaya is, at the moment, but she finds Raithe at a table in the corner, sabacc cards in hand and a tall pyramid of credit chips stacked in front of him.
Gaya’s manager is relaxed tonight, leaning back in his chair and laughing at his opponents’ confusion. This game is pleasure, not business. Not that Raithe would tell Ouanii outright if he had any business to attend to tonight. Ouanii has figured out by now that there’s more to Raithe and Gaya’s work than music and tours. There’s something they never talk about in front of her. She’s still involved, in a way, in whatever it is; sometimes, when they’re at a party like this one, Raithe will ask Ouanii to help him find new friends to be a part of whatever he’s working on – skilled, clever people, team players, eager to step up and be a part of something. Ouanii is happy to help, when he asks. She doesn’t need to know what it’s all about; she just wants to be a part of things, and it’s the least she can do given how much Gaya and Raithe have done for her. But Raithe hasn’t asked her to find him any friends tonight. He raises his eyebrows at her as she approaches.
“There’s this guy,” Ouanii says. “He wants to take me out for drinks.”
“Does he now?” Raithe glances at Warak without turning his head, and an impish grin spreads across his face. “Wait, are you asking for permission? Is this checking in with Dad?” He elbows the sabacc player next to him, who has very few credits on the table and a sour expression. “Aww, they grow up so fast!”
Ouanii tries to be indignant at his teasing, but she fails. Raithe can always make her laugh. “I’m not asking! I’m telling. You know. So you don’t think I’ve been kidnapped or something.”
He waves her away, already turning his attention back to his cards. “You go on and have fun. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down at all!”
Warak meets her at the door. His speeder, a sleek green two-seater, is parked in the alley behind the bar. Ouanii tilts her head back as they dart through the city streets, enjoying how the breeze feels in her hair. This is a temperate Mid Rim world, with clear skies rendered starless by the neon lights on the buildings around them, though one bright purple moon holds court high above.
“This is amazing,” she says after a few minutes, holding her hands up toward the sky. There’s something freeing about an open-air speeder. Gaya always rides in enclosed vehicles, for anonymity and safety.
“I’ll say,” says Warak. “I’m going out with a superstar!”
Ouanii beams, letting his praise wash over her like the cool night air. A superstar. Gaya’s the superstar; it’s her music, her fame, her name on the posters. It’s a novelty to have this kind of attention from someone, and a pleasant surprise to find that she likes it. She doesn’t necessarily want a crowd running after her wherever she goes, but from one person… From this person…
Warak takes her to what he calls his “favorite hideaway.” The lights are lower here than the previous bar, with more booth seating and a lot fewer people. A sport she doesn’t recognize is playing on a screen over the bar, the volume low enough that she can tell the commentators are speaking Basic, but not what they’re saying. This is a much better place for a conversation. Warak really must want to get to know her.
She tries to get to know him, too, while they wait for their drinks (“It’s called a Pod Chaser,” he says as he waves the bartender down. “You’ll love it.”). He answers the basic questions – his parents left Ryloth when he was little, and they moved around a lot. He’s a pilot-for-hire, now. He doesn’t often make enough credits to spend on concert tickets, so tonight was a lucky break. “In more ways than one,” he adds, taking his glass from the bartender and tilting it towards her in a toast.
He keeps turning the questions around onto her, though, clearly more interested in listening to Ouanii talk than in talking himself. Where’s she from? What’s her family like? How did she get to perform with Gaya?
She answers him – her parents are both Rodian, though her mother grew up on Felucia. Her father, in his unending patriotism, encouraged her love of Rodian music, but she’s learned all kinds of instruments and styles over the years. Meeting Gaya was her own lucky break, and she’s put in the work to keep it.
“What’s it like, working with her?” Warak asks. “Is she intimidating, or…?”
“Of course she is. She’s Gaya.” Ouanii shifts her glass towards the edge of the table. She’s taken a few sips, but it’s not her kind of flavor. Fortunately, Warak doesn’t seem to care whether she’s drinking. His eyes have been on hers this whole time.
“But it’s not in a mean way,” she continues. “Gaya knows she’s amazing, and she knows that everyone knows she’s amazing, so she owns it. And that’s hard to stand next to, sometimes. Like, I know I’m good. I wouldn’t be performing with her if I wasn’t. But she’s… She’s got years of experience, and she has that incredible voice, and she knows what she’s doing… But it’s not like she’s holding it over my head or expecting me to try to be like her or anything. She wants me to be myself up there, when we perform. She wants me to bring what I have to offer to her show. She’s encouraging like that.”
“She’s brought you up to the stars, right along with her.”
“Yeah, I guess she has.”
“What’s it like, stardom?” Warak leans forward, putting his elbows on the table. “Traveling the galaxy in luxury, staying at the best resorts – I know you’re not staying anywhere near that dive I picked you up from. You deserve better than that.”
“Oh, I can sleep anywhere,” says Ouanii. “It’s not like I was rich, growing up. And Gaya can make anywhere feel like home. She brings everything she needs with her.”
Warak laughs. “Oh, yeah. We’ve all seen the holos. That tower of suitcases – she’s gotta have a big bedroom wherever she goes, to fit all of that. Is her room bigger than yours?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” Ouanii rubs her thumb across the back of her opposite hand. “I don’t really think about it.”
“I bet it’s just as grand as hers. Or it should be. You’re just as much of a star as she is.” He looks down at her hands on the table for a moment. “How about we get out of here, and you can show me where you’re staying?”
Oh.
“I’d rather hang out here, if that’s alright,” she says.
“Aw, come on.” He puts his hand on top of hers. “Let me see what a superstar’s bedroom looks like. Maybe we could take a peek inside Gaya’s – see how it compares?”
It’s not that she wants to push him away. He’s been nothing but sweet to her; she’s having a good time. So she forces a laugh, doing her best to adopt the teasing tone she’s heard Gaya use before on fans who ask for a little too much from her.
“What do you want to see our rooms for? We literally just met.”
“Hey, now.” His hand presses down on hers, warm as before and now a little damp from condensation. “Don’t you like me?”
“I… Sure, but…”
“Then prove it.”
It shocks her into silence, but only for a moment.
“No,” she says. “Thank you for the ride, and the drinks. I should get going.”
She tries to stand, but his hand shoots forward, clasping around her wrist. “Tell me where you’re staying, and I’ll take you.”
“I’d rather walk.” She glares at his fingers, at his grip that tightens as she tries to pull away. She braces herself against the table with her free hand. “Let go, Warak.”
“What, you think you’re too good for me?” He’s half-standing now in his effort to hold her still, the two of them bent over the table. “You little schutta – you think I actually liked you? Who would even look at you, with Gaya standing right there?”
“Kark off,” Ouanii hisses. She looks at the bar, but there’s nobody there. The two of them are the only ones in the room. Where’s that bartender?
“I was only talking to you to get my hands on Gaya’s underthings, anyway. Do you know how much they’d sell for on the holonet?”
Ouanii jerks to the side, grabbing her drink with her free hand and dumping it on his head. Warak lets go of her wrist, slapping his hands over his face, and she runs. The door slides open a little too slowly, and she whacks her elbow against it as she flees into the night.
She stops a few corners away, her back to a wall. She waits, holding her wrist to her chest, listening to the late-night traffic, until she’s sure he’s not following her.
Rodians don’t cry often. Their eyes are well-adapted to filtering out irritants without resorting to tears, and there’s a vicious stinging that accompanies tears when they do appear. Ouanii focuses on getting her breathing back under control, forcing her hands to stop trembling, willing that sharp pain in her face to go away. It’s just fear she’s feeling. That’s all. Nothing else. Just the fear from narrowly escaping assault. That’s all it is.
Isn’t it?
She’s never felt a “need” to be partnered, not like her classmates who were always going on dates, who had a new person to obsess over every month. She’s never wanted anything like that. So why now does she feel like she’s been dumped out of the back of a speeder? She doesn’t need that man.
But it had been nice – it had been wonderful – to believe that he wanted her. To believe, for just a couple hours, that someone had come to Gaya’s show and instead seen Ouanii.
“I’m such a…” she says, but she can’t think of anything harsh enough to describe the depths of her stupidity.
Ouanii walks back to the hotel. It would be faster, and probably smarter, to use her datapad to call for a ride. But she doesn’t feel like getting in a speeder with anyone, right now, and she’s good enough at finding her way back to places she’s been. No one tries to talk to her, not on the street nor in the hotel lobby. She just looks straight ahead and walks.
She takes the turbolift up to the right floor. Raithe is in the hallway outside their suite, talking to someone via his earpiece. He cuts off that conversation and looks her way.
“So, how’d it go?”
She just stares at him, a new kind of exhaustion settling into every limb.
“Oh.” For a moment, the fast-talking scoundrel seems unsure what to say. “Uh… Do you want him dead? Because I know a guy.”
He’s probably joking. Probably. Ouanii doesn’t have the energy to laugh. She walks past him into the suite, but she can’t even make it all the way to her bedroom. She ends up standing with her forehead against the wall. The cool, pale plaster fills her vision, providing small comfort to her skin.
She should consider herself lucky. Lucky that Warak gave up the game so quickly, lucky that she had enough sense not to bring him to the hotel, lucky that she got away before he did something worse than give her a sore wrist. But she doesn’t feel lucky. She doesn’t feel like she’s falling through clouds of blue twilight, either. I finally get closer, then it’s already over… Gaya makes heartbreak sound so beautiful, when she sings about it.
Does this even count as heartbreak? What was there to like about Warak, besides that he seemed to like her? That wasn’t nothing. It had turned out to be nothing. But just a few hours ago, it had been more than she’d ever expected to find.
A light step on the carpet next to her. A purple figure in her periphery, leaning against the wall.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
She doesn’t. She does. She wants to forget it ever happened. She wants to remember, so she never makes the same mistake again.
“I was stupid,” she says. “Stupid to think he liked me. Stupid to think anyone would.”
“Is that your voice, or someone else’s?”
What does that matter? “It’s true,” says Ouanii.
Gaya exhales softly, a calm, all-knowing sigh.
“I’m sure it feels true.” She leans closer, their heads inches away from each other against the wall. “But I know you better than that. I know that you know what you’re worth.”
“He just wanted to use me to get – to get at you.” Ouanii’s hands curl into fists at her sides. “I thought he saw me. I thought…”
“You deserve someone who sees you.” Gaya’s hand touches her shoulder, briefly and gently tracing a circle on her upper back before withdrawing again. “Don’t you forget it.”
In the morning, they’re gone, off to another world, another concert. Things are always different and always the same, on tour. Ouanii buries herself in routine, wrapping set lists and tech checks around herself like an EVA suit, thin but effective protection against the void of anger and self-deprecation. She does her best to forget about the crowd, to not think about what they think of her, how they might be planning to use her. From the center of the stage, with the lights in her eyes, the audience is nothing but shadow and noise. Ouanii is well-practiced at losing herself in the music, in trusting her lumosynth to bring her back to life.
And everything is normal, as normal as life touring with Gaya ever is, until they play “Poverty of Love.” Until they reach that point of heightened emotion, and Ouanii holds the atmosphere in place, and the audience holds their breath in turn.
Gaya looks out over the crowd, and her silence lasts just a little longer than usual. From behind, Ouanii can’t see the look on her face, and she has just enough time to think is she alright, is something wrong, no, trust her, before Gaya speaks.
The poem is in Huttese, as it often is. But it’s not the poem that Gaya has recited before.
“You claim I do not shine,” she says, her voice echoing through the concert hall, “and your words prove you are not worthy of basking in my rays. I am waiting for the one who sees the sun I truly am. For I am power, I am glory, I am starlight… and he, and he alone, may share my orbit.”
There’s always someone with their datapad out during a show, always someone ready to snag the next viral video. An hour from now, the holonet will be wild with speculation. Why the new poem? What does it mean? What is Gaya speaking about – who’s the “you,” and who’s the “he”?
No one will ever guess correctly, and Gaya – eternally and proudly unhelpful when it comes to fan theories – will never recite this version of the poem again.
But Ouanii knows just enough about poetry to know that the “I” is not always the speaker. She knows what it is to devote yourself and your art to telling someone else’s story. But it’s never been her story before. No one has ever put Ouanii’s life, Ouanii’s soul, into language.
It’s a good thing Gaya never does encores, because Ouanii spends the few minutes remaining in the performance trembling, overcome with something more potent than stage fright.
Singer and accompanist step offstage, where thick black curtains muffle the thunderous applause. As soon as they’re out of sight, Ouanii turns and wraps her arms around Gaya, burying her face in her shoulder. Gaya embraces her in turn, and Ouanii doesn’t mind at all the way her face burns as they stand there in the darkness for a long time, without need for words.