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“Help me, Luke Skywalker. You’re my only hope.”
“Sorry, old friend. You’re on your own this time.”
Elzarynn Banix buried her face in Luke’s shoulder and groaned in agony. “Come on! You have to come with us! He’s going to drive me up the wall!”
Luke continued his morning levitation without so much as a backward glance, the unmovable bastard. Sure, he could block out the hustle and bustle of a Coruscant docking port without issue, but that didn’t mean he was allowed to block out her.
“I didn’t twist your arm on this,” he pointed out serenely. “You’re the one who promised to wear a dress.”
“He did the Porg Face at me!” Elzie exclaimed. “I was powerless to resist. It was emotional blackmail, pure and simple.”
“I thought you liked wearing dresses. You couldn’t stop talking about the one you picked out for mine and Leia’s last birthday.”
“That dress was comfortable, Luke. Fancy, formal dresses are not comfortable. They’re too tight, they have all this stuff down the front, and half of them itch like hell.”
“I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you think. Brakiss may be fashion conscious, but he doesn’t want you to be miserable. Just tell him what you want, and he’ll track it down.”
“Ready to go?”
Brakiss came bounding down the ramp with far too much spring in his step for this early in the day. He must have been up for ages already.
“What do you mean ‘ready to go?’ The boutique doesn’t open for another hour.”
“I know. We’re meeting the rest of the gang for breakfast at Novla’s.”
“There’s a gang?”
“Lando, Mara, Leia, and Jaina. Apparently, everyone but Leia waited until the last minute.”
“Wait. This is a setup, isn’t it,” said Elzie, narrowing her eyes. “You’re all ganging up on Jaina and me to make us wear something froofy.”
“Pretty much,” Brakiss agreed with a grin.
“Why aren’t you fussing over Luke’s outfit? He’s the one you’re actually gonna marry.”
“I don’t have to,” said Brakiss. “Luke makes anything look good.” He skipped up his fiance and kissed him quickly on the cheek. Luke blushed a little, and his meditative levitation wavered just a hair. Oh, sure, for that he’d lose focus.
“Well, that, and Leia’s already picked out my suit,” Luke added with a cocky grin. “Somehow she’s certain it’s perfect, despite apparently not having seen yours yet.”
“We may have talked aesthetics a bit over dinner a few times,” Brakiss admitted.
“What did you do, inundate her with that flowery “Inspiration” datapad of yours?” asked Elzie, rolling her eyes.
“She’s the one who helped me get that started.”
“Of course she did.”
“Come on, hurry up. I want to get there before there’s a line at the pastry counter.”
Luke released his cross-legged pose and floated to his feet before pulling Brakiss into his arms and kissing him tenderly. “Now, don’t exert yourself too much. You’ve still got a ways to go before you’re fully recovered.”
“I’ll be careful, love,” Brakiss promised, gazing lovingly into Luke’s eyes. “We’re only walking a short distance, and I’ve got a stim in my jacket for emergencies. If I start to feel dizzy or anything, I’ll sit down.”
“Thank you.” Luke ran his fingers through Brakiss’s hair, leaving it slightly mussed compared to how perfectly it had been set when he appeared. Brakiss didn’t seem to mind. “I love you.”
“And I love you.”
“Blehhhh,” said Elzie, sticking out her tongue. “Alright, let’s get this over with before I die of a cuteness overload.”
✦❘༻༺❘✦
The lighting in the boutique was giving Elzie flashbacks to Tatooine. There was no reason for it to be this bright indoors. Not unless you were performing surgery or droid maintenance. The boutique’s wall paneling was crafted from shimmery synth-stone, designed to mimic the whitest marble imaginable. Every window arched from floor to ceiling, as did every mirror. Elzie didn’t think she could find a shadow in the place if her life depended on it.
Fortunately, while bright enough to blind a bantha, it was nowhere near as hot as Tatooine. The temperature was as precisely neutral as anyplace Elzie had ever been, at least for most humanoids. She’d noted a few of changing rooms at the far end were climate insulated as she walked in, probably for species with different body temperatures.
The décor was mostly swaths of shimmersilk near the ceiling, and holographic flowers along every wall. There were clusters of plush seating near the changing rooms. Every square centimeter of the floor was blanketed by pastel gray carpeting. Apart from that… an absolute avalanche of clothes. Just rack after rack after rack. They were beautiful, Elzie had to admit, but she would prefer to keep them right where they were.
Brakiss was in paradise. Elzie distinctly saw him fighting not to clap his hands in delight as they entered. It was hard to hate anything that made his eyes light up like that.
Alright, whatever. My two best friends are getting married. I can handle one day of dumb fashion nonsense if it’ll make them happy. Not that Luke cared what she wore. But he did care that Brakiss cared.
Still, when she locked eyes with young Jaina Solo on the other end of their group, and the two shared grimaces of annoyance and exasperation, she felt perfectly justified.
Leia used her natural charisma and definitely not her social standing nor understated Jedi powers to get them instant attention from the staff. Elzie jumped a bit when she heard Leia refer to “the Banix Skywalker Wedding.” Brakiss had been using her surname in formal settings for years now, but that was still a weird phrase to just hear out of nowhere. But it did make Brakiss glow like a lightsaber, so she wasn’t complaining.
They were led to a semi-secluded alcove with two adjacent changing areas and a truly enormous spread of previously selected garments to choose from. Colors were more limited back here; apparently, Brakiss or Leia had already informed the boutique of the wedding parties’ chosen pallets. But that was perfectly fine with Elzie, if it meant their options were narrowed down without her having to do anything.
Leia and Lando already had Jaina locked between them at one rack. Mara and Brakiss looked about ready to flank her the same way. Elzie dug into the nearest rack of dresses to make a show of being cooperative.
“These seem nice,” she said, hoping she didn’t sound as doubtful as she felt. She noticed a charcoal dress that looked simple enough from the side, and reached for it to get a better look.
“Wait, not those,” said Brakiss. He took her arm and led her over to a smaller rack that was exploding with deep, rich green fabric. “I’ve had these set aside just for you.”
“You’ve got a real obsession with getting me to wear green,” she remarked.
“It looks nice on you!” Brakiss declared. “You wear too many neutrals. You should make a statement now and then.”
“Says the man who once spent six years in nothing but black and silver,” Elzie retorted.
“Hey, black and silver makes a statement,” Brakiss shot back.
“Yeah, a tacky one,” Mara mumbled with a smirk.
Ignoring the jibe, Brakiss grabbed the first dress off the rack and held it in front of Elzie while he stood behind her. “Lando,” he called. “Back me up. This is her color, right?”
Lando glanced up from a shimmersilk suit he’d been eyeballing and gave Elzarynn an appreciative nod. “Oh, I’d definitely say so.”
“Besides, my suit has green accents, and I want us to match,” said Brakiss. He turned them both around to face one of the seven full-length mirrors they apparently needed. “You look great, see?”
“All I see is about a million ruffles that are going to get squished as soon as I sit down.”
“Hm, yeah, that’s fair.”
Brakiss set the ruffly nightmare aside and turned back towards the rack. To Elzie’s surprise, he called for Mara to come help him.
“You guys are working together on something?”
“My assistance was requested in this delicate matter,” said Mara. The smirk on her face had her looking like a jungle chau in a tub of blue cream. “Brakiss mentioned you prefer to dress for comfort.”
Elzie raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“Assassin dresses are extremely comfortable.”
Elzie clapped her hands and grinned. “You have my undivided attention.”
Mara removed a slinky, strapless number and eyed it hungrily. “Although, I am a little put out. Green also happens to be my color.”
“You have plenty of colors, Mara,” Brakiss replied, a little testily.
“Well, you’re more than welcome to that one,” Elzie said, wrinkling her nose. “I’m not really comfortable showing my scars at this thing.”
“Noted,” Mara replied, placing the dress on her own To Try pile.
“What about this one?” asked Brakiss. The dress he held up wasn’t quite so fluffy. The skirt looked to be about a dozen layers of extremely thin gauze, which looked like it might rip if she stared at it too hard. But maybe it was tougher than it looked. And it had long sleeves.
Unfortunately, as Elzie discovered in the changing room, those sleeves were very tight, as was the bodice.
“You look beautiful!” Brakiss exclaimed happily as she stepped out from behind the curtain.
“Yeah, but… I am still playing your reception, right?”
“Of course!”
“There’s just no way I can strum a taikar in this,” Elzie said apologetically. “I don’t have nearly enough range of movement.”
Brakiss tilted his head, frowning in disappointment. “You could manage a hallikset in that, though, right?”
Elzie put her fists on her hips and scowled. “I am not depriving my best friends’ wedding of real music for the sake of some shiny sleeves.”
“Here, here!” called Lando, who had fantastic taste in music, no, really, she’d always said so.
“It’s alright,” said Leia in a tone she must have once used to soothe crying babies… or possibly bickering senators. “I’ve booked this place until lunch. We’ll take all the time we need to get everyone the perfect outfit.”
Elzie and Jaina locked eyes again, this time trading painfully false smiles.
“Yaaaay,” Jaina sighed.
Perfection turned out to be even harder to track down than the word suggested. Elzie tried with all her might to be accommodating. She really hated making Brakiss unhappy. But dress after dress hit the reject pile over some flaw that she couldn’t work with. Trailing sleeves that would get caught in her taikar strings. A neckline that required her to keep her back perfectly still to avoid indecent exposure. Bodice ornaments that were incompatible with her instrument – ruffles and bows that would get flattened by the taikar’s significant weight, or gemstones that would scratch the finish. Not even Mara’s laser-focused eyes could find the right garment for the job.
Elzie was becoming depressed. She had thought not caring what she looked like made her easy to shop for. She was willing to wear anything, even if she privately thought it was hideous, if it made Brakiss happy and didn’t keep her from doing what she wanted to do. But apparently that made her too difficult to please. Even Jaina had a top three by now, while Elzie had not found even one dress that met her needs. Her feet hurt from hours of standing, her back and arms hurt from hours of dressing and undressing, she was starting to get a headache from all the light, and worst of all, she was mad at herself.
“Does it really matter what I look like?” she finally asked, hoping she didn’t sound as whiny as she felt. “I’m standing behind you the whole ceremony. You’re not going to see me.”
“Of course it matters,” Brakiss objected. “You’re my Best Lady. We’re going to be standing up there together right from the start. I want us to coordinate.”
Elzie sank into one of the plush chairs, as limp as a wet rag doll, and groaned. “Why is being a piece of scenery so hard?” she moaned before she could stop herself.
Leia, Mara, and Lando all offered sympathetic encouragement. She’d find the right one. She just needed to take a break. Why not let Mara use the changing room for a while, while Elzie sat back and rested?
Brakiss was strangely quiet. Elzie pulled her head up off the back of the chair to see him staring at her with a look of contemplation and concern.
“They’re right,” he said at last. “Take a break for a bit. I’ll be right back; I’m going to go talk to one of the attendants.”
Elzarynn sighed, turned her head towards the ceiling while Mara worked her way through her selections. She didn’t look up, even when she heard a victorious “This. This is the one,” followed by approving sounds from the rest of her companions. She only knew it wasn’t the green one because she spotted a droid scooping it up out of the corner of her eye.
She wasn’t trying to be hard to work with. It’s just… music was her love-language. If she didn’t get to play for this, then she wouldn’t even feel present. But apparently it was more important to Brakiss that she look shiny and pretty for a bunch of guests she barely knew and probably wouldn’t ever talk to.
“Hey.”
There was a gentle tap on her shoulder, and she looked up to see Brakiss peering down at her with a small, hopeful smile.
“Come on, I think we’ve got something.”
Elzie rose, trying to ignore the soreness of her body, hoping it wouldn’t goad her into making this outing even less fun for her friend. She made up her mind right then, that whatever he handed her, she would take it. Even if she’d have to play a dumb hallikset for the whole night.
Brakiss had a few articles in his arms when she got to the change room curtain. To her surprise, they weren’t even all green.
“I know this doesn’t excite you the way it does me,” he murmured, more to the clothes than to her. “And, you’re right; I’m not going to be looking at you. Once Luke appears at the other end of that aisle, I’m not going to see anything but his face until the toasts get started. Maybe not even then. But it would still mean a lot to me if we were making a statement while we were up there.”
“Okay. I just… I’m not sure I understand the statement.”
“That we’re family. That you’re my best friend. That, besides Luke, you’re the most important person to me in this galaxy.”
“… Oh.”
Brakiss glanced up and smiled, beaming brightly even through a world of pain that still lived in his eyes. “I owe this day to you, Elzie. You led me by the hand from the worst, darkest day of my life, all the way to the happiest. Without you, I would be dead right now… if not in body, then certainly in spirit. I don’t have the words to tell that to the whole universe. So this is me trying to show it. But I never meant to make you feel like mere scenery.”
Elzie didn’t have words either. She just grabbed the pile of clothes out of Brakiss’s arms and dumped them on a nearby seat so that she could fling her arms around him. They held each other tight for a long, tearful moment.
“I promise, if this one doesn’t work for you, I want you to wear anything you want out of your own closet,” Brakiss whispered. “Nothing’s as important as having you at my back for this.”
“Okay,” Elzie replied, trying not to sniffle too much. She let go of her best friend with some small reluctance, and took his selections into the changing room.
✦❘༻༺❘✦
It was perfect.
A simple, smocked bodice in a pale cream that made her skin glow. It was decorated in a smattering of the tiniest forest green beads, scattered like shooting stars running from her throat to her waist, adding sparkle without risking getting caught on anything. The smocked fabric was flexible – elastic, even! – and Elzie could rotate her body any which way without discomfort or losing the fit. It was actually a two-piece garment, cunningly disguised as one. The skirt faded from the same cream as the top into that dark green that Brakiss loved to see her in. The beading got denser as it made its way down to the hemline, giving the skirt a great deal of added weight that made it move in interesting ways around her ankles. Though sleeveless, the ensemble came with elbow-length gloves in deep green that covered her scarred arm quite nicely. They wouldn’t inhibit her playing at all, as each simply ended in a point that looped around her middle finger without covering her entire hand. The gloves were beaded to match the skirt, but not on the underside of her arms, so there was no chance in them being damaged by a string or scratching the finish on her taikar.
“You look amazing!” Leia cried. Lando and Mara offered similar compliments, and even Jaina looked impressed.
“Well, is that the one?” Brakiss asked with a grin.
Elzie held up a finger for him to wait. “One final test.”
She took up a position between three angled mirrors so she could get a good look from every angle. Then, with the practiced grace of someone who’d put every skirt they owned through the same paces, she spun a quick 360 degrees and froze in place. The skirt flared out around her knees as it followed her movement. Inertia carried it a full turn around her legs, the added weight of the beads allowing it to keep the full height of the flare, before it closed up with a satisfying clink and then fell beautifully back into place.
Elzie turned and gave a graceful bow to her friends, who were clapping and cheering at the successful spin test. She gave Brakiss a huge grin as she declared, “We have a winner!”
Everyone gave their selections to the attendant droids for final alterations, then stretched out their weary muscles and breathed huge sighs of relief. Even Leia, who’d had her dress picked out weeks ago, looked like she was feeling the fatigue of the adventure begin to set in.
“Alright,” she said when they were all back in their street clothes. “I think we all deserve lunch, and at least one of us needs a nap.”
“It’s me,” said Elzie, stretched her arms and back. “I need the nap.”
“She said at least one,” Jaina pointed out. “So, you’ll have to share.”
“No way, kiddo. Get your own nap.”
Brakiss took Elzie’s arm as they headed towards the corner. Elzie watched him carefully; he looked tired, but not the kind of tired that meant his anemia was giving him trouble. Still, she didn’t remember him sitting down once the whole time, so she resolved to keep an eye on him until they were home.
“I really appreciate how hard you worked today,” he said softly.
Elzie blushed and squeezed his hand. “Anything for my best friend.”
“So, what were you planning to do with your hair?”
She gave him a sidelong glare. “Um, exactly what I’m doing now, because strangers touching my hair is how fingers get broken.”
Brakiss grinned down at her hopefully. “Leia’s not a stranger, though, right?”
“No,” Elzie sighed with exaggerated reluctance. “Leia’s allowed to touch my hair, it’s fine.”
“Oh, good,” said Leia, coming up behind them. “I’ve always wanted to see what you looked like properly styled.”
“Just don’t put anything sticky in it,” Elzie told her. “And no makeup. I draw the line at weird stuff on my face.”
“Can I draw that line, too?” asked Jaina.
“Jaina…” Leia sighed.
“What? I don’t like stuff on my face, either.”
“Unless it’s engine grease, apparently.”
“I guess you and I will just have to content ourselves with being the real beauties at the ball,” Mara told Leia with a wink.
“Besides me,” said Brakiss.
“That’s right, ladies,” Lando added. “You know it's bad manners to outshine the blushing bride.”
“See, that’s why I like you, Lando,” Brakiss replied. “You’re a man of class.”