Work Text:
She is forgetting her mother and her father and she does not know what to do.
She used to be able to see them when she was younger. The antique merchant who looked like her father. The farmer who sounded like her mother. But now, she is ten years old and she can only see them in her dreams.
She decides that this is because Luthen and her have pretended too much. And that she must stop.
-
She tells him that night at camp. Twelve hours before their shuttle to Uxetan.
She will not pretend to be his family there. She will be something else.
They discuss this further and the options appear to her like a menu. Friends. Business partners. Colleagues. Neighbours. She wants to say strangers because that is what they really are. But the truth is not useful. So she does not.
They finally land on master-apprentice. After that, there is nothing else to talk about.
*
There is something else bothering her too. A tickle down her throat and a cough she hides.
She knows what her mother would say. Honey and hot water. She knows what her father would say. Sleep.
But they are not here. Here, there is only Luthen. So she sits by the fire, she crosses her arms, and she scowls into the flames.
-
She watches a documentary on Uxetan in the shuttle. There is a capital city. Samqa. And then there is the city they want to go to. Boxara. Three hours away.
“…children are considered great gifts on Uxetan and treated with the utmost respect…”
She can feel a cough coming. She clamps her lips down.
“…trade routes which traverse the desert planet are said to contain anything your hearts desire…”
But it is not a cough. It is many coughs. She has to turn her head to hide them all.
*
She is seated, swinging her feet, while they wait for shuttle disembarkation. Her coughs have disappeared for now.
“Luthen. They like children.”
Because she knows Luthen has also watched the documentary.
“Yes. Their culture is nurturing and respectful.”
She hops off her seat and leads the way.
“So they’ll be nicer to us if they see me first.”
-
It is as the documentary says. Everyone smiles at her and treats her with courtesy. Only the customs officer looks at her papers and pauses.
“Off-worlder. Transiting to…Boxara City.”
“Uh-huh.”
“What will you be doing there?”
“Collecting a package.”
She looks the officer straight in the eye. They have a story for that package. It is a quartz which will be used to craft a special Vuazian ore. It will definitely not be used as a flint to craft a bomb. Or bombs. Luthen said they might have some leftovers.
But the customs officer isn’t looking at her. He is looking at Luthen.
“Keep an eye on her, will you?”
-
The windows in the spaceport are so big that she can look at Samqa City while they wait for their transit shuttle. She had been to deserts with Luthen and she knew what to expect. Sun and sand and smelly banthas. What she landed in was a city of steel and glass. There are buildings, taller than anything she has ever seen, roads wide enough for seven…no eight land cars, and town squares, so big that she could spread her arms in the spaceport and still not reach its corners.
The speakers around them blare again. A hologram of a man is overlaid onto the windows, playing over the view of Samqa City.
“There is no greater gift than our children. Every child, our planet’s blessing.”
She thinks. This is a better place than most. She wonders if they can stay here for more than two days. But they are on assignment, and she knows better.
-
They do what they always do when they reach a new place. They buy tickets to leave. Different days. Different times. Just in case.
Then, they trace the quickest route to their hotel on her datapad. They look at the passages around the hotel. They count the doors and windows.
“You build your exit on the way in.”
When they are done, the rest of the time is hers.
-
She does not want to spend that time with him. So she explores the city on her own.
Boxara is another city of glass and steel, this time, set within an ancient wall of brick and clay. There is an old fortress. Skinny watch towers. A street market. But she cannot see the desert. It is many kliks away, says the cafe owner, where she buys a cup of honey and hot water for herself because she wants her cough to go away.
But what surprises her most are the trees which line every road. They are green and golden and their leaves fall around her. Autumn.
She jumps. She plucks a leaf out the air. She turns it in her fingers. She smiles.
-
A stranger approaches her when she walks back to the hotel. A Trandoshan. He asks if she is alone, and she says that she is an apprentice and her master is waiting for her.
She has her hand around the little blaster under her jacket already. But all the stranger does is give her a communicator before backing off.
“If your master is interested in a sale.”
-
The merchant does not meet them in the hotel lobby like he promised. Instead, he sends a message to reception.
We meet tomorrow morning. Tonight, please enjoy our hospitality.
The message closes with two invitations to a dance.
Kleya scowls. The merchant is a liar. So why isn’t Luthen angry?
“He knows what the quartz can be used for. So he is watching us. To see if he can trust us.”
She looks about them. They are surrounded by children and families and spice traders. None of them look like the merchant.
“He would have sent someone else.”
She wants to find another merchant who isn’t a liar. But they have already paid this merchant half the purchase price, and that is half of all the money they have.
-
Luthen says they must attend the dance. They cannot risk disrespecting the merchant at this crucial moment.
Their receptionist is even more enthusiastic.
“These dances are…They are very…discreet. Not everyone is invited! It’s a great honour to go to one on your first night here!”
Yet the cantina in the invitation is tiny, so tiny that it does not have a bar. Or tables. Or chairs. Everyone sits on the floor, so close that their elbows and knees touch each other.
She takes a cushion and puts it between Luthen and her. She doesn’t want her elbow to touch his. What would her mother and father say?
*
They give her some beef and pumpkin dumplings and a drink which glowed green and purple. Even though she told them she wanted hot honey water.
The drink makes her cough again. This time, she can do it out loud and pretend it’s the drink’s fault.
*
“Here’s your performer for tonight!”
A boy. Younger than her. He is wearing a flowy scarf. Puffy pants. A long shirt with tiny bells tied to the end. The bells ring as the boy glides to the middle of the room. His scarf flies away. Hands rise and the crowd tussles for it. But why? Kleya bought a scarf just like that in the market today.
A woman wins the scarf. She sniffs it. The boy smiles at her and extends a hand to no one in particular. A man grabs the boy’s palm and kisses it. A third (a Rodian, but Kleya couldn’t be sure) rubs his hand down the boy’s back, against the top of his pants and…
It’s not something Kleya understands. So she doesn’t know why Luthen suddenly stands.
“Kleya. We’re leaving.”
-
“It’s what makes Boxara special! The child dances, and at the end of the night, they bid. The one with the highest price wins the child!”
Kleya doesn’t understand everything, but she understands enough.
And she is angry.
“The people in Samqa City don’t like it! I don’t like it! But what can I do!”
“Liar! You told us to go!”
“It helps us! Tourism! Revenue! How else can we pay Samqa City’s taxes!”
She wants to scowl and shout. But Luthen is louder than her.
“Your culture nurtures children! That’s what we were told!”
“Our children.”
Storm clouds behind Kleya. Luthen. He is suddenly big and scary again.
“What do you mean our children?”
“You’re…You’re off worlders. You…You don’t…You’re not…”
The receptionist fumbles again. Luthen, now thunder.
“Finish your thought.”
“You’re not us! The child dancers…they’re not us too! Some of them are bought in a special market. Or smuggled from...from…you have to understand! This is our culture!”
But Luthen isn’t looking at the receptionist anymore. Luthen is looking at her.
-
“We decided that I was going to be your apprentice.”
She is going to cough again, she can feel it. But she doesn’t care anymore. She wasn’t going to let him use that word.
“Apprentices can still be traded on the market! That’s why you were approached!”
“You don’t know that!”
Luthen hardens. And her options to fight him are closed off, just like that.
*
She does not dream that night.
-
Her face is pink when she looks at the mirror the next morning. Her forehead is very hot.
-
The merchant meets them after breakfast and introduces himself as a broker. Which meant he was a thief. Because brokers were just thieves who called themselves something nice.
Her turn.
“I’m Xet. He’s Alph. Alph is my…He’s my…”
Her throat is warm and sticky. She cannot bring herself to spit out the word. Eventually, she lands on another, just as difficult.
“Daughter. I’m the daughter.”
-
The merchant brings them to a warehouse. His warehouse he said. Filled with boxes and things and the merchant’s friend. A really fat Togruta. The merchant dumps a wooden box on the table and pries open the cover with a crowbar.
“Your stone.”
He runs his fingers along the edge of the dark quartz. She squeezes in to take a closer look. She didn’t care if she had a runny nose and her voice was now scratchy. She wanted to see.
“Hard edges. That’s good.”
She mimics his fingers and the way he taps the stone.
“It doesn’t flake. Do you see?”
“Uh-huh.”
Luthen weighs it in his hand.
Then he puts it down.
And Kleya knows something is wrong.
“This is half.”
“You paid half.”
“You were supposed to bring the whole stone. For final payment.”
“We will give you the whole stone. After payment.”
“I want to assess it now. Before we transfer the credits.”
The merchant smiles.
“Payment for the other half is not credits.”
Then, it wasn’t the box of quartz in front of her, it was Luthen’s blaster. And her hand was around her blaster too. Then the merchant’s fat friend pulled his blaster out and everyone’s blasters were pointed at everyone else’s and Kleya began to count the doors and the windows because they were definitely going to start shooting and Luthen and her needed to start running.
But then the merchant steps forward. Hands up. No blaster.
“Payment in information. Not credits.”
Luthen’s finger wasn’t on the trigger now. But his blaster was still up. So hers was too.
“What information?”
“Every city we have on Uxetan. Samqa City sends a representative. Centralised government they call it. I need you to go to our Samqa City representative in Boxara and put this in his office. A listening device.”
The merchant drops a stylus on the floor. It rolls towards Luthen.
“You do that. I give you the other half of the stone.”
“That’s not what we agreed on.”
“And yet. This is the price now.”
-
They didn’t really want to do it. Her, because she didn’t like dealing with liars. Him, because he didn’t want to get caught on a foreign planet. But half a day’s work was better than spending the last half of their credits. So they cross the road to the representative’s office, and they observe the crowd outside. Kleya weighs the stylus in her hand. It looked like the stylus for a datapad. Worked like one too.
“Stop wasting time, Kleya. Look at the doors. Find an entry point.”
She wipes her nose and goes back to looking for a side door. Maybe there would be a lock for Luthen and her to pick? But all she sees is a big blue door. The entrance. There was someone at the door. A secretary? Giving everyone queue numbers. And if she stood on tiptoe, she could see the representative behind the secretary. Whispering something.
And the representative’s daughter. Holding his hand.
-
Why did the merchant want us to do this?
She wanted to ask Luthen that. But her voice is so squeaky now. There is something embarrassing too. Just now, she coughed so hard that she felt like she had to pee. Or maybe she did pee. Just a little.
She was not going to tell him this.
So she follows him, looking for doors and mumbling about locks as her head grows heavier and heavier. She wished she drank some honey water this morning. But she wanted to dream so much that she was late for breakfast again.
Her head is so heavy now. Maybe the heaviest it has ever been. She wants to sit down. And when she sits down she feels so hot. So she rests her forehead against her arms. All she wants to do is sleep and…
“Kleya!”
The walls collapse. Her dreams take over.
-
Sunlight, forests, the cool breeze of home.
Mulberries and citrus. She is with her father. Because it cannot be Luthen who is picking her up, Luthen who is carrying her. Luthen’s shoulder she lays her head on.
Luthen was not soft. Luthen was a murderer.
*
“Please. Please. Please. She’s sick. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know…I don’t know what to do.”
There is a doctor in their village with a big blue door. Her father has carried her there. There is a crowd. They have parted to make way for her.
*
“I…I don’t…What do you mean this isn’t a clinic…We’re off worlders! How would we know the way to your clinic!”
Her father is arguing with the doctor. So angry and so loud. She puts her arms around his neck and squeezes tight. Don’t be angry. We’re home now.
*
Then the waking world intrudes. She is sitting in a room. There is a blue door behind her. The faces of a crowd outside, staring at her through the windows. The voice of a secretary at the entrance, telling them to move back and give her some air. Someone’s face is before her. The representative.
“I have a daughter around her age. She just left for school.”
Luthen stands behind the representative. Anxiously wringing his hands. She has never seen him do that before.
“Can you…can you write it for me? Directions to the doctor?”
He shoves his datapad at the representative.
“Of course.”
The representative pulls out his stylus and scribbles directions on the datapad. But Luthen is too anxious. His hand slips, the representative’s stylus falls. It smashes into the ground and breaks into two.
“Oh no…I’m so…I’m so…”
“It’s fine, sir. Please don’t worry about that.”
Luthen’s turn to pull out a stylus. Fresh from the merchant’s warehouse this morning.
“Take mine. I insist.”
The Representative takes the stylus and carries it back into his office.
Just in time for Kleya’s dreams to return.
*
“You’re a doctor?”
The forests of her home. The embrace of her father. Someone approaches them from the crowd. He is holding a bottle of medicine.
*
“I don’t…I don’t know how to give her the medicine.”
A clearing in the forest. Grass beneath her feet. She is sitting on a log. Someone is standing before her. Tipping something in her mouth. Something cold and bitter…
She shakes her head and clamps her lips shut. No, no, no, no, no.
Hey.
Someone else beside her. A hand on her shoulder. She leans into him.
Take the medicine. Get better.
So she swallows the cold and bitter thing. Because her father said so.
*
“Honey water. Yes.”
A burst of sweetness, like nothing she has ever had before.
*
“I’ll make sure she rests.”
Puddles are forming at her feet. She is running through them, hands spread, and she is sitting on the same log, her feet kicking against the water’s edge. She raises her arms and waits for her father. Because it is raining and he has to pick her up.
You should sleep.
No. She shouldn’t sleep. She should dance. That is what they always do when the rain comes.
So her father picks her up and she knows this because she feels his hand cradling the back of her head. He rocks her. Back and forth. Side to side. And now they are dancing and he is warm, so warm, against the rain.
She wants to cry, although she does not know why.
-
There is a moment before the world crystalizes. When she can lie in bed and think of her dreams the night before. There were soldiers who came to massacre her village. There was a fire. She does not like this dream. But the rooster will soon crow and she will be able to leave her tent to join her mother and father again.
But the world crystalizes. It always does. She wakes from her dream, and into her nightmare. A blanket. A bed. The hotel room in Boxara City. She is doubled up and coughing again. Her throat is scratchy. So scratchy.
Someone thrusts her pack at her. Luthen.
“Shuttle leaves in an hour.”
Their room door is already open. But she needs a moment to find something to cling to. The quartz in her pack clinks against a bottle of medicine.
Something happened. A…A…
“There was a…there was a doctor…medicine…rain...”
She squeezes her eyes shut. She wants to go back to her dream. To her mother and father.
They do not come. When she opens her eyes, there is only Luthen.
“Kleya, it’s as real as you want it to be.”
She coughs and coughs and coughs and decides, then and there.
“It’s not. Real.”
“So move.”
She moves.