Chapter Text
13th Day of the 4th Lunar Rotation, 1111th Year of the Skaian Era
There was chaos as the news of the approaching armies of the Alternian Empire reached Skaia's capital city, located on the moon of Prospit. Jade's face was grim as she heard her grandfather pouring over battle plans and methods of sabotage and espionage. As the king, he was no stranger to intergalactic war, but Skaia had never faced a foe like this before. It seemed insurmountable - but Jade had faith in her people and her planet. They'd find a way out of this. She wracked her brain to think of how she could possibly use her influence to help. Could she help to fund some evacuations? Speak to the troops? Perhaps she could invent something useful, if they'd just give her the chance...
It was a shock, then, when the king turned to her and said, "We need to hide the princess away."
"What?"
"You are the next in line for the throne, my girl! You will become a prime target for Her Imperious Condescension. If she can capture you, she'll have our forces demoralized, and we'll be at a loss to stop her."
"But-" Jade started to insist. She wasn't given the room to speak.
"If you're hidden away somewhere, then she'll waste time and effort to find you. That gives us an opening." He nodded to Roxanne, the head engineer and the mother of Jade's fiance. "Get the golden ship ready, would you? And generate a random set of coordinates for the warp drive. If we don't even know where she's been sent, then there's no shot of Alternian forces sniffing her out."
"Of course," Roxanne said with a bow. "It will be ready in fifteen minutes."
"Good."
"Wait!" Jade's heart began to crash against her rib cage, desperate to get out. "You can't just- just send me away! I need to be here for our planet! I can do something, I can-"
"You'll be serving as an invaluable distraction, and it will be a weight off of all of our shoulders to be assured of your safety." Her grandfather clapped a hand over her shoulder - usually, his hand on her shoulder felt comforting, protective. Now, it just felt demeaning. "Strider, help her pack, would you?"
Dave perked up. He was a part of the war council, but he wasn't a senior member yet, even if he was engaged to the princess. As he walked up to her, Jade realized that they would have to postpone the wedding. Every bit of this was painful, and though Jade wouldn't dare compare the threat to her people to the threat to her nuptials, this blow felt like the most personal. She'd known Dave her entire life, dating him since they were sixteen, engaged since they were twenty-two, and they were supposed to be wed next year at twenty-five. It felt like she'd been looking forward to this from the very day she was born, and now she'd be waiting even longer.
"Hey," Dave said.
"Hey," Jade said.
They stood in silence for a moment that felt like an eternity. Dave finally reached out to take her hand, squeezing it. "You'll get through this," he assured her, pulling her along the hallway towards her bedroom. "My folks've been working on that gold ship for ages now. Full self-sustaining system, tons of cloaking, and it's got some pretty nice digs, too. There's a garden? I know you like to garden."
"But I don't care about being safe!" Jade insisted, though she allowed herself to be pulled along. "I want to be here for my people."
"I care about you being safe," Dave countered. "Does that count for anything?"
Jade huffed. "Well, I care about you being safe," she countered. "Does that mean you'll be on the ship with me?"
She knew the answer already, but Dave confirmed it with an apologetic grimace. "I gotta be here, Jade."
Jade hated that Dave had to be here, but she didn't. The final decision was all down to her grandfather - even though Dave was her future husband, Jade couldn't keep him with her.
"Come on, don't make that face, Jade. It's gonna take a load off of my shoulders knowing you're off safe somewhere."
"Well, think of the load that will be on my shoulders, knowing you're not safe at all!" Jade insisted. She could feel tears starting to well up, but she willed them away. Dave flinched back a little.
"I'll be fine, Jade. I'm resilient. Like a space cockroach. You know, you get one of those buggers on a ship and it's like, goddamn, time to go kill this bug, but no matter what you do the damn thing just keeps coming back. That's me." He must be able to tell that she's not finding this any more comforting, so he says, "Let's just focus on making sure you got your favorite shit with you. I'm hoping that this is a short trip, but you never know. Gotta make sure you get your daily dose of cute animal plushies or you might just wither away. We can't have that."
Jade accepted Dave's help as they scoured her room together for every sentimental object she owned. She made sure to get the plush toy of her childhood dog, her copies of her favorite books, all of her favorite articles of clothing... and then there was the trunk.
It was an ugly, worn thing, meant for a child's bedroom. It was also the first place that she and Dave ever kissed, when she smuggled him into her bedroom for one rebellious night as teenagers. They'd sat on the trunk, because sitting on her bed felt too rebellious, they'd talked for hours, and at some point their faces got so close that it felt sillier not to kiss than it did to just close that extra distance. Since then, it had become the place where she stored everything he made for her - goofy love letters, his horrible drawings, photographs he'd taken, photographs she'd taken of him, the physical records of his music. They'd even carved their names into the back of it, like she heard some couples did on trees planetside.
"This too," she said. "If I can't take you with me, then I'm at least taking this."
Dave's gaze went soft in that subtle way that it often did around her. "Don't worry. I've got it. What good's being a trained soldier if I can't even lift up a piece of furniture?"
Jade carried as many things as she could in her arms, and they managed to stack a couple of things onto the trunk so that Dave could carry just a little bit more. As they made their way towards the dock, they passed a number of people running by with purpose. Jade wondered if they were helping to gear up the ship, or if battle was even closer than it seemed.
The ship that Jade would be on was massive - seemingly large enough to hold a hundred people, though Jade knew much of the square footage was reserved for keeping her alive in space indefinitely. They walked past Dave's parents doing some of the final preparations and Dave drifted over for reasons she wasn't sure about; she followed him anyways.
"Prep going well?" he asked.
"Yes!" Roxanne said. "All of the life support systems are up and running, and- the ship's AI is fully functional, right Dirk?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Hal will take care of everything. Just think of this like a vacation, princess."
Dirk was lucky that Jade's arms were full, because she wanted to smack him. She noticed Dave's gaze pointed intently somewhere, and she was about to ask what was going on, but he abruptly turned and walked off.
"Time to get Jade all loaded up, then," he said, nodding his head for her to follow. Jade did so, walking with him onto the ship itself. The inside was decked out for royalty, bits of gold trim all over the place; Jade couldn't help but feel as though the effort to decorate this place could have been better spent elsewhere.
Dave set down the trunk, and Jade set down her stuff as well. There was no way he was leaving her without a hug. She turned to demand one, though before she could demand anything, his arms were already reaching out for her, pulling her in close. She buried her face against his shoulder, taking a deep breath. She didn't know when she'd next get to do this, and she didn't want to forget what it felt like to hug him.
"I saw the random coordinates they're sending you to," Dave mumbled as though he was trying to hide a secret, his breath tickling the shell of her ear. "Got 'em memorized."
"What?"
Dave pulled back so that he could look at her properly; underneath them, the engines of the ship began to roar to life. "I'll come to get you once this blows over," he promised. "As soon as the batterwitch is dead, I'll be there. Wait for me."
Jade kissed him and prayed that it wouldn't be for the last time.