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Peace, as it turns out, is a fragile thing. Peace is looking at the scars left by war, and realizing that the land will never be the same, that the dead will not rise, and many villages are gone for good. Peace is looking at the carnage war left, and deciding to rebuild.
This is what Numa’s uncle decides to do. Nilim Bril is a practical man, and their village is nothing more than a ghost town now. Half of the residents died in the attack, including Numa’s parents, and he is left the girl’s sole relative and guardian. He won’t see her raised in the house she shared with her parents, in the bones of the life she once had. No one can learn to get over a loss when it’s constantly staring them in the face. So Nilim and Numa Bril pack up the few belongings they still have, and move to a different village.
They settle in, and Numa dreams of fire and the sound of bombs, of clankers and ruin. She dreams of her parents sometimes too, and she’s not sure which is worse.
She’s out exploring one of the caves near the village, using a branch she picked up as the way as both a cane and a lightsaber. She’s twirling it around, having a good time pretending to be a Jedi, and then she spots another girl, looking at her as if her lekku have started changing color. Numa sets down the cane, and her lekku curl in on themselves in embarrassment.
“Are you new? I’ve never seen you before,” the girl says. She’s quite a bit taller than Numa, and probably a few years older as well, maybe eight or nine. Her skin is as green as grass, and her eyes are a bright green too.
“I’m Numa Bril,” she says, trying to sound as though she hadn’t just been pretending to fight off seppies and sith lords.
“My name’s Hera Syndulla,” she says. Numa is all of six years old, but even she has heard of Cham Syndulla. He drove the seppies off Ryloth. He’s a war hero.
“Like the general?” Numa asks, and Hera nods slightly in agreement.
“Yes,” Hera says, “he’s my father.” And Numa knows that she is young, but she knows something about fighting for freedom. She knows something about soldiers. They might care for you, but they have to pack up and move when the war moves. She doesn’t mention it. Hera doesn’t dwell on the topic for long.
“What’s with the stick?” Hera asks, gesturing towards it.
“Um,” Numa says, the tips of her lekku curling in even tighter, “it’s a lightsaber.” Hera looks at her for a moment, and Numa nearly curls into a tiny ball of sheer embarrassment. This girl is older than her, and seem seems amazing and cute and Numa really doesn’t want her to think she’s just a silly little girl. Hera breaks a branch off the wall of the cave, and holds it in front of her like a sword. She grins and swings it swiftly.
“Are you gonna fight me?” Hera asks, and Numa laughs as she swings her own branch, blocking Hera’s blow from above.
The two slip into a friendship quickly and easily, the way that children often do. They start off by simply meeting up in the caves, but then they meet at each others’ houses. Soon enough, they’re knocking on each others’ doors at all hours and know exactly where the hidden key to the other’s house is. Numa is nine and Hera is eleven, and it seems as though they have always gone on like this.
Numa knows that the door is unlocked, and it’s really not worth waiting at the doorstep. She knocks, and lets herself in.
“Hera,” she calls out.
“Living room,” Hera says in return, and Numa rounds the corner into the small living room.
It doesn’t look all that lived in, but then again, Hera’s normally the only one in her house. Her father is always out on some military campaign or another. Hera’s sitting on the couch, flipping through some book, but she lies it on the ground when she spots Numa.
“I wanna show you something,” Hera says, gesturing to a spot beside her on the couch. Numa’s not sure what the big fuss could be about, but she sits down beside Hera.
“Alright,” she says, “what is it?” Sounds come out of Hera’s mouth that Numa doesn’t understand and they aren’t accompanied by any discernible lekku movement. Numa is a little, or a lot, weirded out.
“What was that?” Numa asks in Ryl, like any sane Twi’lek would.
“I just wanted to try out my Basic,” Hera says, a little grin crossing her lips, and thankfully, the lekku movement that always companies those words.
“You’re learning Basic?” Numa asks skeptically.
“Yes,” Hera says, tilting her Lekku in a questioning manner. She doesn’t seem to understand why Numa is confused.
“But why?” Numa asks.
“Most sentients don’t speak Ryl,” Hera says, as if it’s obvious. She stretches out a bit on the sofa, and lets her head rest against the top. Numa remembers learning in class once that most species can’t even learn Ryl properly, because they can’t understand the subtle lekku movements that distinguish certain words, but she doesn’t understand why that would mean Hera needs to learn Basic.
No one moves to Ryloth, and few ever leave. Few Twi’leks on Ryloth speak anything but Ryl, and the ones that do are mainly military members, traders, and Twi’leks who plan, foolishly, to leave.
“You want to leave Ryloth?” Numa asks, and she realizes, suddenly, that the idea had never even occurred to her. Numa doesn’t understand why Hera would want to leave, why she’d even consider it. Things never go well for Twi’leks who leave Ryloth.
“I want to see the stars, Numa,” Hera says, staring up at the rock ceiling. Numa doesn’t understand. She doesn’t want to see the stars. She just wants to see Ryloth safe. Let someone else worry about the rest of the galaxy.
“You wanna see the stars?” Numa says, “Then we can just go outside.” Hera laughs, but it’s not a laugh that comes completely from thinking a joke is funny. It sounds awkward, a little stilted.
“You know what I mean, Numa,” Hera says, with a little edge to her voice. They sit in awkward silence for a few moments, and it’s one of the first times that has ever happened to them. The only time they were reduced to awkward silence before was when Hera asked about Numa’s parents. She doesn’t want to suffer through something like that again, so Numa changes the subject.
“We could look for scraps to salvage,” Numa suggests. Hera likes getting her hands dirty, seeing what she can build from the broken parts left by the seppies.
Hera picks the book up and says, “Numa, I really just want to practice my Basic.”
“Oh come on,” Numa says, “let’s go have an adventure.” On Ryloth, she doesn’t add. She wants to prove that worthwhile things happen here, that someone doesn’t have to leave to feel fulfilled. Hera sets down the book.
“Alright,” she says, “let’s do this.” And they go on their adventure, telling stories and laughing until Hera finds an actual droid she wants to try to salvage. It’s a rusty old astromech, but it catches Hera’s attention and Numa’s not about to say something bad about it. It’s not as though any droid could be worse than the clankers. She drags it back, and names it Chopper before she can even get it running again, and Numa thinks that, perhaps, she won’t have to worry about Basic for a little while. Hera finally gets the droid up and running, and Numa thinks that it might be evil. And then, Hera starts up learning Basic again, and Numa’s fears reignite along with a new conflict.
A few months later, Ryloth is occupied again. They drive the seppies out again, but they come back. And then they get rid of them, and they come back. It becomes a never ending cycle of occupation and liberation, war and tentative peace. And Numa wonders if this is the way that the world will be forever and ever.
Eventually, they drive them out again, and their freedom lasts months and they can’t see any new threats of occupation on the horizon. They hold a large, village celebration in honor of it. Numa is thirteen, and Hera is fifteen and the world feels like it might finally be falling back into place.
Almost every Twi’lek in the village is dancing in a circle, a bonfire blazing in the middle. The atmosphere is happy and hopeful, perhaps they have driven them out for good this time. There is, of course, one Twi’lek who is not dancing, the one that changes it from “every” to “almost every”. Hera is sitting on a log, looking as though someone canceled Life Day, and Numa won’t have any of it. She doesn’t know what Hera’s problem is, but she’s sure that the moment that she’s twirling around in a circle with her people, celebrating their victory it will evaporate. Numa runs over to her friend, and grabs her by the hands, trying to ignore the way her heart speeds up at the contact.
“Dance with me,” Numa says, breathlessly, trying to drag Hera off into the circle of dancing Twi’leks. Hera mumbles something, and Numa can’t hear it over the music.
“What is it,” she shouts, “Hera- I can’t hear you.”
“This isn’t permanent,” she says, loudly, and she articulates every syllable and accents them with extra large and obvious movements of her lekku.
“What?” Numa asks, dropping Hera’s hand. Whatever she’d been expecting Hera to say at a time of celebration like this, that wasn’t it.
“Numa,” Hera says, “what my father’s been doing- it doesn’t work.”
“What do you mean?” Numa asks. Hera is the only one seated, and the whole atmosphere of the room is suffering for it. Someone, Cham’s daughter nonetheless, is not sufficiently joyful about the recent liberation. It takes away from the hope that this one will be permanent.
“We didn’t fix the problem last time, or the last time, or the last time,” Hera says, lying back on the bed, “we got the seppies off Ryloth but then we just… stopped . Of course they came back. Until this war is over, Ryloth will never be safe.”
“I don't understand,” Numa says. It hasn’t worked yet, but Numa knows that it if they stop fighting then it never will.
“We can’t just free Ryloth,” Hera says, like freeing Ryloth is nothing, like it doesn’t matter at all, “we have to end the war, or it won’t ever stick . Ryloth won’t stay free.” She sounds as determined as her father at a freedom rally, and Numa realizes disagreeing with her at this point would be like getting into a fist fight with a wildfire.
“Ryloth is free for now,” Numa says, “can’t we just celebrate that?” That’s all she wants, desperately, is to celebrate the fact that Ryloth is free at the moment. Maybe it won’t be in a year, or maybe even in a month, but right now things are looking better.
“Alright,” Hera says, rolling her eyes in fond exasperation. She takes Numa’s hand, and the two start to dance. The room immediately livens, and for a moment, they are the only sentients in the world.
The victory can’t last. Victories on Ryloth never last, and soon after they finally rid Ryloth of the seppies for good, the Republic becomes the Empire. Then, there is no escape for anyone. At least, for anyone who didn’t want to leave Ryloth in the first place. Numa is thirteen and Hera is fifteen, and she tries not to worry that she’s going to lose her friend forever. She does not have time to worry about it on top of everything else that is going on.
With the new Imperial laws and regulations and the new war for Ryloth flaring to life around them, she doesn’t have all that much time to worry about Hera leaving. All she’s got is a basic understanding of Basic and a half feral astromech. That’s not enough to get off planet, until, of course, she acquires a ship.
Hera knocks on her door one day, and Numa exits her house. She’s greeted by the sight of a spaceship.
“You’re leaving, aren’t you?” Numa says numbly. Hera doesn’t even need to speak for her to know that it’s true. Numa supposes that she should be grateful that Hera even is even bothering to say goodbye. She could have left without coming back. She’s got a ship, and she speaks enough Basic to get by. Hera can leave. That doesn’t mean that she should . That doesn’t mean that Numa wants her to.
“I can’t stay,” Hera says softly, turning her head towards the ship. And Numa thinks about how Hera has always wanted to see the stars, thinks about how she doesn’t think that her father’s campaigns work and now he’s starting a new one against the Empire. She has seen this coming for years, and she should not be shocked, but the admission still feels like a punch in the gut.
She can feel some sort of retort building within her, but it just comes out as a muffled little squeak.
“Numa,” Hera says with a soft, sympathetic tone. She engulfs Numa in a hug, like a mother, or a sister, not a lover, and Numa can feel a sob escape from her throat.
“You could come too,” she says, and Numa laughs bitterly, some of the sound getting caught in her grieving throat.
“I can’t leave,” Numa says, the words catching in her throat. Everything and everyone that she’s ever cared about are on Ryloth, her uncle, her people, her parents’ memory. She can’t just leave it behind because Hera wants to go chasing stardust. Ryloth is her home, the only place that she can truly be herself, and Numa won’t give that up for anything. She can’t even give it up for Hera, and the flickering possibility that someday, she might love her back. Hera squeezes her a little tighter, and then she lets go.
“I’m sorry, Numa,” she says, but Numa knows that she doesn’t mean it. If she meant it, then she wouldn’t be leaving. Numa doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t think that she can as she looks at Hera one last time. She looks so much like that girl she met in the caves that day, but so different as well. She’s not the same kid that played lightsabers with her without question. Hera glances at her ship, and then looks back at Numa. Both of them know how this will end.
Hera turns to her one last time, and says the phrase that can mean “goodbye” but also “we’ll meet again”. Numa forces down her feelings, and every last bit of pride and says it back. Then, Hera turns away and walks towards her ship. She walks up inside of it, back turned on everything that she ever knew. Then, Numa watches Hera fly away through teary eyes, and wonders if the stars will be worth all of this trouble.
Cham Syndulla, without his daughter who is already long gone, tries to increase the size of his little Rebellion. It is harder to find people to fight against the Empire than it was to fight against the Separatists. Many people view the Empire no differently than the Republic, but the Empire is not like the Republic, and wishes to subjugate Ryloth the same way that the separatists did. Numa joins up, and learns how to fight. There is nothing more worth protecting, worth loving than Ryloth and its people, and she does not understand how Hera could not see that.
She dedicates her life to freeing Ryloth, and she hopes that Hera likes what she dedicated hers to. She doesn’t think that the stars could ever compared to their little hunk of rock.
Years and years later, Numa finally meets Hera again. She is running a mission for a rebel cell, and it makes Numa a little bit angry. Even after leaving, Hera ended up fighting the Empire. She could have done that here, from Ryloth, and gotten far better results. But apparently, seeing the stars and befriending humans was more important than her people. She talks to Cham, and tells him that she might be able to get through to her, to convince her to rejoin their cause. She doesn’t really think that she will, but she has to try. For old time’s sake, for Hera’s friendship, for her own feelings, for Cham himself. She can’t let this moment pass without at least trying to get through to Hera.
“Try, Numa,” Cham tells her, “but I doubt you will get through to her. Hera’s head is as hard as a rock.”
“I already know, General,” she says, and she does. She knows it more than anyone, but there’s a part of her that hopes that she can get through to her. She knows how just their cause is, and if Hera cannot see how much more important Ryloth is than flying around the galaxy, then there is no hope for her. And, a cruel voice whispers, there is no hope for you either.
“Numa?” Hera asks in Basic, using a mid rim accent that sounds so wrong in her voice. She sounds almost concerned, and a little bit of hope surges through Numa. She remembers when Hera left, remembers how she said “we’ll meet again”, but another part of her whispers that it could have meant goodbye too.
“Yes,” she says in Ryl, because she could never speak to Hera of all people in Basic, no matter what, “it’s me.”
“How have you been?” Hera asks, switching into Ryl that sounds almost uncertain, unpracticed at the least, “Numa, I haven’t seen you in ages.”
“Yes,” Numa says, her voice thick with her newly dredged up grief, “you haven’t.” And Hera’s face falls and her lekku begin to droop.
“Numa,” she says, “you know that I couldn’t stay.” Numa knows that, but she also knows how it hurt her, and how it hurt Hera’s father too. She knows what Hera’s abandonment did to their entire village. It cut recruitment numbers in half. If Syndulla’s daughter didn’t even believe in his movement, then why should anyone else?
“You just left,” Numa growls in Ryl, “you left Ryloth, and your father-”
“Numa-”
“And you left me,” she says, and her voice cracks and she feels weak and pathetic and angry, and bitter tears prick at her eyelashes.
“Numa,” Hera asks, “I don’t understand what this is about?”
“You left, Hera,” she says, “to- to join some other rebellion, with humans .” The only humans that Numa has had close contact with before were clones, and they were good men, exceptional soldiers and people. But one of them still called her a tailhead, and that’s coming from the best of them. Humans are prejudiced to a fault, and tend to view Twi’leks as slaves and sex symbols. She can’t believe that Hera has chosen to associate with them over her own kind. Hera glares at her, and her lekku flare slightly.
“I don’t understand why you’re so angry,” Hera says, and her lekku move to show her confusion. It’s like a punch in the gut. Hera doesn’t understand why Numa’s so upset about it because it was nothing to her, she meant nothing to her. Suddenly she’s fourteen again, and the love of her life has decided to leave her for the stars. She had thought that she might be able to talk some sense into Hera, make her see reason. She realizes now that she deluded. Hera doesn’t even realize how much she meant to Numa, and doesn’t care for Ryloth. She only cares for her crew and her rebellion. She certainly doesn’t care for Numa.
“I’ll just- I’ll go,” Numa says, switching to Basic to avoid the intimacy of Ryl.
“Numa,” Hera says, biting her lip. She looks like she wants to say something, to explain, but the damage is already done. It was done long ago.
“Goodbye, Hera,” Numa says in her highly accented Basic. She can hear Hera trying to say something else, but she’s not listening. She doesn’t honestly care what it is, nothing will undo what’s been done. Numa turns her back on Hera Syndulla for good.
She will follow General Syndulla’s orders. At least he cares for Ryloth. The same cannot be said of Hera.