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The briefing room was devoid of pomp and ceremony. In its place was an afterparty worthy of the lower levels of Coruscant.
The force buzzed around the cocky, frenzied energy that pilots got in the aftermath of surviving a dogfight they shouldn’t have. The tang of carababba tabac hung low and was clogging up the air filters. Kyp’s Dozen passed around a bottle of Whyren’s Reserve that Veema had implied was unscrupulously requisitioned, and someone had rigged the PA system to play old Corellian classics; the same songs Jaina and her brothers used to groan and grouse over when their father would flood the Falcon with music during repairs.
Today it just sounded like home, and Jaina couldn’t help but chime in on a familiar verse here and there in her less than dulcet singing voice. The galaxy could rest assured that she'd never capitalize on her famous family name to launch a music career.
Amidst the flurry of chest beating and embellished torpedo anecdotes, Jaina sat crosslegged on the briefing table, taking it all in. She propped herself up with the heels of her hands, her flight suit unzipped to the waist. Her braid was coming undone, but she didn’t pay it any mind. A Rogue Squadron comedown looked nothing like this — all strict regulations and discipline. Jaina could handle that scene just fine. But this? Her eyes flicked to the lanky, dark-haired man across from her. This was more interesting.
Kyp Durron was leaned up against an old tactical wall display with his sleeves rolled to his elbows, laughing at something the Bothan pilot Tarc had said. Smoke curled from his fingertips and the gray plumes made him look even more dangerous than usual. Like he’d just hurled a shock of lightning from his knuckles instead of taking a drag.
Without much thought into her decision, Jaina stood and walked over, boots echoing on durasteel. Kyp noticed her coming but didn’t say anything. Just casually extended the cigarra toward her with two fingers like he was passing a hydrospanner.
She met his gaze over the burning tip and plucked it from his grasp before crossing her arms and angling the lit end towards the floor. “You’re going to die of lung rot,” she said bluntly.
He shrugged. “I already did. Came back a little meaner. Can’t imagine what it’d do to you.” She didn’t know if that was an allusion to his time in the spice mines or after Carida. Either way, it was delivered with a nonchalance that made her almost envious.
His Dozen had been watching the exchange with the anticipatory edge of seeing a buzz droid go toe to toe with a Star Destroyer, and at this comment they erupted into laughter. Like they’d been waiting for permission from their fearless leader to make Princess Jedi the butt of their ribbing. Jaina didn’t mind. With her tally in that last skirmish, she’d been the one laughing all the way back to the hangar to collect her winnings (Corellians, Kyp had intoned).
But Kyp didn’t laugh with them. He just waited, arms crossed, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“Breathe in slow,” he advised with an exaggerated reverence that reminded Jaina of Master Ikrit. “Or don’t. I’m not your Master.” She expected him to round that sentiment out with a yet, and when he didn’t, she squashed her disappointment by bringing the cigarra up to her lips. His green eyes held a slightly mocking spark so maybe that was intentional. It just made her madder. And even more determined.
She drew in too fast and coughed immediately — hacking so hard she nearly dropped the cigarra. The Dozen roared with cheers, half-drunk and fully entertained. This time Kyp joined in. Veema clapped her on the back and tugged her braid playfully, muttering something about it being her initiation ritual.
That seemed to be the dog-and-ronto show they’d all been waiting for, because once the raucous tapered off, they turned back to their drinks and the cycle of bravado resumed.
Kyp didn’t move and was still looking at her with that lazy, satisfied half-smile, head tilted back against the wall. She mirrored his posture — moving out of his line of sight, but close enough that their shoulders were brushing. There was a warm, kinetic energy coming off of him, through the Force and through his body heat.
Together, they chuckled as Chem took a swig of Whyren’s Reserve out of Tarc’s boot.
“Sometimes, when I watch them pull stunts like that, I get a real sense of what I put your father and uncle through,” the older Jedi observed wearily.
She raised a brow he couldn’t see. Somehow, the comparison between wholesale massacre and juvenile indulgence didn’t hold the same weight. He must have felt her skepticism through the Force because he snorted and shook his head.
She asked instead, “Does Uncle Luke know you litter the floor of New Republic bases with cigarra ash?”
“Jaina, every bad habit I’ve picked up pales in comparison to my bloodthirstier ones. He probably tells himself it’s a grounding ritual or some shavit — so he doesn’t lose anymore sleep over me than he already has. Very ancient Jedi practice.”
“May the toke be with you." In emphasis she took a second drag, this time slower and more controlled. The tabac settled into her lungs, strange and encompassing, thrumming like an old engine. It didn’t feel good, and it didn’t relax her, but it did center her. Chased out everything else — the weight of the war, her mother’s expectations, the precarious balance of being her twin’s counterweight. It did taste a bit like what she imagined sticking her face in a power coupling might, though.
Kyp pivoted and faced her. There was a touch of gray at his temples, the same color of the smoke that framed him. She hadn’t noticed that before. She’d never been this close to him.
“You’re a funny girl,” he stated flatly. “I cant decide if your scoundrel father would clap me on the back or box my ears for this.”
Jaina stood a little straighter under his scrutiny. “Then you don’t know him as well as I thought you did. Jacen and I pilfered some of Uncle Lando’s once when we were kids. Dad caught us and made us clean out the Falcon’s entire exhaust system just to remind us what real smoke tasted like. By the end we were begging for fresh air and promising we’d never touch another one again.”
For a moment, Kyp looked almost hopelessly fond. Of her father, the story, or maybe, and a treasonous worm of excitement squirmed in her belly at this, of her.
“They stuck me in the Kessel mines, and I still smoke — so that kind of exposure isn’t always effective,” he drawled.
She proffered the cigarra back to him, as if to say, Well, clearly.
He took it, ashed it, and held it between his parted mouth, still speaking intelligibly. “But at least now I get to control what goes in here.”
“Guess that’s the trade-off for having zero control over what comes out.”
She liked his bark of laughter — head thrown back, uninhibited. She noticed a welt on his neck, just under the jaw, where he must have nicked himself shaving.
“Pot meet kettle,” he said after a puff, drawing a line of smoke between his chest and her own. “You sure I’ve got anything left to teach you, Sticks?”
“Oh, you’ll think of something.”
Jaina plucked the diminishing cigarra from his fingers and swatted his hand away when he reached to take it back. He pouted like a child as she sealed it between her lips protectively.
What could she say -- the stench was starting to grow on her.