There was a fraction of a second when her grip on his wrist, her invocation of his name, set off some old alarm - a signal tripped that raised a line of defense he rarely used. There were so few people in his life whom he didn't know, and intimately, and the ones among that unfamiliar set who used his first name were always, always trouble. But in half a second, it passed. He let out a rush of breath through his nose, his smile spreading closed-lipped up one side of his face, and he flattened his hand against his knee, watching the dragon with more than a glint of enthusiasm in his eyes. "I guess," he said, slowing his breath so his pulse would slow, too, moving not a muscle. "You could say that."
It wasn't the First Order. Or - it was, everything was. They were what he fought against, to return the galaxy to the generation who had won it for him. They were the ones who had destroyed the world that was his only home away from home. They were the ones who had incinerated all his friends and colleagues and fellow soldiers stationed in orbit. The last best hope for peace had died with the exercise of their superweapon. But that wasn't why he was upset now; that was why he was always grieving, always angry. This ...
The First Order was threatening something new, now. He didn't even know how. But with their increasing presence, he knew that they were. And he knew he didn't want to lose any more.
"There are people here I love," he said, quietly, evenly, watching the dragon extend its little neck to sniff - pull away - and sniff again, inching its feet towards the edge of its palm. "People they've hurt before. I can't let it happen again. Most of my friends - my friends are dead, because of them. My mother died to kill the thing they're fighting to revive. My father gave the better part of his life. But I wonder if -" He stopped, his grin breaking full out across his face, as the dragon finally seized up the shrimp in his had and retreated at once to the safety of its owner's knee. There was something about people who trusted one another, who preferred one another so openly and so implicitly, that automatically made him warm to them - even if it was only a pet and its master, anyone who would inspire or experience that bond struck him as being inherently good. As having the warmth and the strength of heart that meant they could weather all things together. "Good," he murmured, as the dragon tossed the shrimp up in the air to crisp it. He nudged BB-8 back with his ankle as he edged forward. "Good."
"I wonder if any of it will matter." That was the crux of the problem. "They'll say the right things. They'll avoid pissing off the wrong people. They'll lie low. And it'll just ... go away." BB-8 finally broke forward, extending a scanner up to pass along the dragon's little body. "It won't matter what they did to me. What they did to anyone. Everyone will decide, well, that was there. And it'll disappear. And it'll happen again."