say you have a little faith in me Who: Hannah & Dee What: Dee makes a long-awaited stop. When: Evening. Where: Naboo, outside the refugee village Rating: PG-13 cos swearing and a little violence.
Four bars had come and gone, and signs of Hannah -- though not Hannah herself -- had been in each one. Dee was not surprised to note that her friend was banned from nearly every establishment she visited, only that the bans had been put in place so quickly. Either the tolerance of Naboo bartenders was far lesser than that of the ones in Palisade, or Hannah had been using them to take out all her frustrations at finding herself in uncharted territory. Either seemed a likely option.
At the fifth Dee heard a commotion at the back of the room. She wended her way through the tight crowd, her black cloak and unmarked face helping her to blend in among their number. She touched her cheek, suddenly self conscious. She paused at the edge of the tightly-packed gathering, peering over shoulders to see her friend in the midst of a rousing game of darts. Or more accurately put, knives, thrown at an old Dejarik board mounted onto the wall. By the looks of it, Hannah was winning.
One eye partially closed, tongue sticking out of the side of her mouth, Hannah held the knife by its tip as she made ready to throw. Her opponent, a sour faced bothan, stood to one side with his arms over his chest. Hannah lifted her arm and threw, striking the board dead center. The crowd threw up a cheer, raising and clinking glasses, but the bothan was not so easily impressed.
"You cheated," he accused her, arms falling to his sides to make hands into fists. Hannah shrugged at the humanoid, palms up.
"And how the fuck did I do that?"
"Fuck if I know, but that's the fifth time you've gotten a bullseye. No one's that good."
Hannah grinned, glancing back at the crowd. She jerked a thumb in their direction. "They seem to think so." The crowd answered with another cheer, clearly glad to simply be drunk and have a source of free entertainment. "Besides, if you can't prove it, whadda gonna do about it?"
In reply, the bothan pulled out another knife, this one far larger and more cruel looking than the simple scaling blades that had been used in their impromptu game. Hannah's grin tempered, but did not fade, though she did hold her hands up in front of her in a peace-offering gesture.
"Calm your tits, you don't have to pay for my drinks?! Godsdamned but you are a sore loser, you dickwad!"
Hannah's lame attempt at a peace offering did little to soothe the bothan's wounded ego, and he charged forward with his blade. Someone in the crowd screamed, and the scene erupted into chaos.
"Gods damn it," Dee muttered. She swept her black cloak off, tossing it aside. Her hands moved up to her hair, quickly binding it into a massive ponytail atop her head. Then she leapt into the fray. She knew well what would get the attention of her sister.
"To the slaughter!"
Her fist connected with the bothan's meaty jaw. Something cracked in her hand, but she pushed through, completing the punch with all the strength of the Force she could muster. The bothan's jaw dislocated; he staggered, but did not fall.
Hannah had been busy shoving another humanoid out of the way -- if anyone was going to get stabbed, she'd take the blade -- but then Dee appeared, and her eyes felt like they were going to pop out of their sockets.
"Dee... What the fuck?" Hannah was momentarily distracted by her friend's sudden appearance that she was smacked in the face by a flying bottle, but she recovered, dropping down as others shoved their way past her and bottlenecked in the doorway. The bothan Dee had punched was turning on her, raising the knife and bringing it down in a slash. Hannah immediately whipped out one of her wands, muttering a spell under her breath that had a giant, transparently pink hand blossom from its tip. The hand surged forward and grabbed the bothan's arm, leaving him struggling in place.
Dee ducked beneath the upraised arm. She unsheathed the dagger nestled at the small of her back -- a reminder of Betty, in addition to being far less noticeable on Naboo than her traditional shortsword. She buried the blade to its hilt in the bothan's belly, sweeping the blade in a wide slash as she turned. A circle opened up around her. She took the chance she was given and darted to Hannah's side.
"We have to get out of here," she said, as low as she could manage and still be heard. She wrapped a hand around Hannah's arm and pulled.
Hannah had no choice but to follow, not that she was going to complain. Her mouth was left stuck in a small 'o,' her throat full of questions that would have to wait for a moment as Dee pulled them both through the portal. It deposited them out in the street, perfectly exiting from an alley that wouldn't make them look too out of place amid a town built to house strangers from other galaxies. Hannah jerked her arm from Dee's grasp, rounding on her friend.
"OK, seriously...what the fuck? You leave me hanging like that, and then come sweeping in the middle of a perfectly good bar fight and ruin my entertainment? Did this universe brainwash you or something?"
"It's good to see you, too," Dee muttered. "And you're welcome." She folded her arms across her chest, one hip cocked as she regarded her friend. "I came as soon as I could, I promise. And clearly I was right to be worried about you. You're already making quite a name for yourself around here. Before too long you'll be attracting all kinds of attention…"
Hannah waved a hand in the air, followed by a shrug. "You left me to my own devices, and I warned you. But..." She calmed, a smile curving half of her mouth. "I'm relieved to see you in one piece. Are you going to tell me what you were up to, or am I going to have to drag it out of you?"
"Probably the latter." Dee chuckled. She took a step closer, and swept Hannah up in a quick, tight hug, which the elf returned. Then she took a step back, her hands resting on Hannah's shoulders. "I can tell you this much. I've found someone who can help me kill N'Rygoth. And Kiah brought the mask through when he came. This might be everything I need, Hannah."
Hannah sighed, looking a little resigned. "I saw him posting on the holonet, but I had no idea... I mean, none of that's good to us if we can't get it back home, is it? Who is it who can help you with N'Rygoth? Can they get us home?"
"Maybe. There's a lot she can do. Some of it… things I've never seen." She drew the ribbon from her hair, shaking out thick, curly locks. "N'Rygoth is transdimensional, Hannah. If I kill him here, it should kill him everywhere. I want to go home, too, but the chance to do this… I have to see it through. And I'm sure you could help. If you wanted."
The elf's mouth screwed up into a frown, hands rising to cross lightly over her chest. "Being evasive isn't the best way to convince someone to help you out. Is it this Issan woman?"
"Issan?" Dee blinked, caught off guard. Color rose to her cheeks. Her mind raced; there were few options as to where Hannah had learned that name, and already a sinking feeling had begun to stir in the priestess's gut. "Yes… do you know of her? I didn't think she'd met you."
"We haven't had the pleasure," Hannah replied. "Liriael told me about her. Some pretty shitty things, Dee, but considering what people say about me back home, I'm trying not to give them too much weight. I'd love to hear something from you that makes me feel like you haven't been making all the wrong decisions since getting here."
Dee's expression closed off. Better that, she thought, than anger; better to hide again than to ruin this first meeting with someone she'd thought lost to her. "Liri doesn't know the whole story," she said. "She says Issan is one thing, but I only know her as something else. Someone who kept me safe when the First Order found me. Whatever else Issan is, she's been a lifeline here for me."
Her dark gaze flicked away for an instant. The memory of their back-alley sacrifice and the spellwork that had followed were still painfully fresh. It troubled Dee, but she tried hard to focus on the good their craft had done. A mercy killing and the life of an ally saved; she had done worse in her years, she was sure.
"If you met her you'd see. You don't know Liri, right? But you know me. Have faith in my reading of her."
Hannah retained her silence for a moment, gaze tinged with sadness. Finally, she nodded. "Yeah, I do know you better, and that's what worries me. But you've been here longer than me, and I guess shit works here differently." She dropped her arms to her sides, relaxing.
"Okay, first thing's first, we're finding another bar and getting a drink because I am not drunk enough for this conversation."
Dee gestured to the dusty road ahead, but she did not move away from her friend's side. "Lead on, then," she said. "I'd almost run out of places you're still allowed. That last one was the extent of my knowledge of Theed's cantinas."
As they walked, she found herself drifting close enough to Hannah that their shoulders brushed. A keen sense of loss welled in her; she wanted to ask after Betty, and Vi, to know all she had missed since she had disappeared. Instead she only sighed.
"So… what else did Liri tell you?"
"There's a war, people are dying, nothing honestly all that different from back home," Hannah replied, not verbally responding to the physical contact but feeling reassured by it all the same. She spared Dee a sidelong glance. "She said you got someone killed. A friend of hers."
She directed them through the streets as though she knew them well; down a staircase and into an underground spot that she'd been introduced to a short time ago, though had never visited. They approached the door, allowing a brief amount of time for Dee to consider her words. The priestess looked visibly upset, though she was clearly trying to curb it; she stared down at her hands, her fingers twisting on one another.
With few credits to their name, they got into the speakeasy on the simple fact of their gender. Hannah immediately took the lead, taking them to a table that was out of the way. The whole bar was quiet, clearly for a different sort of clientele than Hannah, but the elf was glad to accept its option for the moment.
"Beer. I don't care what kind," she rattled off to a waiter that seemed to appear out of thin air before she could even take a seat.
"Same." If Dee could have willed the creature away she would have, but the waiter disappeared as quickly as he had come. She breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"Liri is right," she said. "Though I didn't mean to. The last time I was here, someone found me. I opened a portal to flee. I think he believes I caused the rift, or can control it, so ever since… they've been after me. Cassie got caught up in it. She had no idea where I was, but they didn't care. I thought keeping my distance from them would help, but..."
"It's not making a fucking difference. Nothing new, huh?" Hannah leaned forward, elbows on the table as her arms crossed. She adopted a sympathetic look. "It sounds like there wasn't much you could do. And not to sound insensitive but...shit happens. I'm just glad you're OK and you've made some progress dealing with this N'Rygoth problem, though that still doesn't solve how we're getting home. And we are getting home," she added, pausing for a moment as the waiter returned with their beers. She accepted hers without a thanks, swigging it almost the moment it came off of the tray.
"So," Hannah continued, once the waiter was gone again, "you definitely don't look like yourself. The new cult not into the face paint?"
"Not a cult," Dee said, though her tone lacked the certainty it had in years past. Her hands curled tight around her sweating glass of beer. "Kylo Ren saw my paint. It stands out here. I can't afford to be noticeable." She shrugged, and sipped from her beer. "And besides. What good is an outward sign of faith in a galaxy that knows nothing of it?"
Hannah gave a brief nod, another swig silencing her for a moment. "Kylo Ren? I'm guessing he's part of this Knights of Ren thing everyone keeps shoving in my face?"
"He's their leader," Dee said. "And the worst one of them by far, if the stories are true. But what do you mean, shoving in your face? They're not trying to... recruit you, are they?"
"No," Hannah replied, one hand rising and shaking in denial. "No, no, no. I just mean everyone's been pretty adamant about how fucking bad ass they are. I guess they've been making a problem of themselves, or just...scaring the shit out of everyone. I haven't heard of him, though. Just this Issan, and someone named Glasya. The latter being responsible for Liri's friend's death.
"Bilford Bogins this is worse than a dwarf family tree." She took another swig of her beer. "OK so...you're on the run from this Ren guy. And this Issan woman is helping you. What is she expecting out of all of this?"
Dee's brow twitched to a tight furrow. Hannah knew more than Dee had intended, and that -- and her own reaction to it -- troubled Dee. "She wants what we want," she said. "She wants to go back home. The Empire destroyed her people, and I am helping her rebuild from what is left."
Hannah adopted a look of disdain-tinged shock. "That's it? Dee, you're talking about this like it's a fucking walk in the park. What is home, exactly? A city? A planet? You sound like you've gotten way in over your godsdamned head."
Dee's lips pursed beneath her slightly wrinkling nose. "A planet?" She stretched out her hand, arm flat against the table. "Listen, though. It's not that bad. It's just a small group of women, all right? I've already learned so much here, and I think you could, too. Spellwork and healing magic like I've never seen before. My own work, but… amplified. And I believe in what she's doing. Think about Mage-U, Hannah. Think of how much you despise them. Imagine what she must feel. And I can help her set that right."
Hannah bit her bottom lip, frowning hard. She sighed and started rubbing her temple. "You know we have enough shit to deal with back home. I still have to get my dad... Out, not to mention whatever Vi and Betty are up to. We can't just hang around here for the rest of our lives, Dee."
"But we might be doing that regardless," she said. "People blink out of here and go back home all the time. But some of them come back, and most never leave at all. Shouldn't we make the connections we can, while we can? Try to build something here, so that if we must stay, or if we ever return, we have a foundation here. People who can help us."
The elf's jaw tightened, and she pushed back on the table, palms flat against its sides. "I'm not sure I like the way you're talking, Dee. Have you made any attempt at all to get back home?"
Dee worried at her lower lip. The sidelong cut of her eyes was more than answer enough, but she struggled to find words that might lessen the blow. A dusky flush crept over her cheeks. "I'm going to," she said. "I promise. But I have to see this through first."
Hannah's arms broke their support, and she stared at Dee unhappily for a few moments. Finally she rolled her eyes, her hand wrapping around her half-empty beer once more. "I'm so going to fucking regret this, I can see it already." She chugged the remainder of the beer, finishing it, and waving the glass in the air to demand another.
"Fine. So what does this mean? Do I get to meet her, or are you going to disappear on me again?"
The priestess breathed an audible sigh of relief. "I'll need to get back at some point," she said, "but I can talk to her about meeting. She's playing more than one side right now, and sometimes it's just me and Madalena. So I guess… both?" She gave a wry laugh, and hid for a moment behind her upraised beer. "But I swear, the minute I can, I'm working on a way home for both of us. Maybe together we can work something out. These spells may well be able to make a way home, especially combined with what you and I can do. I know they can be used to make artifacts. Recreating your mirror might actually be something to start with…"
The thought of recreating the mirror she'd been struggling with made Hannah's ears perk, but she made no reply until settled with her second beer.
"Liri did say she didn't think Issan was what she appeared to be," she replied, tipping the mouth of the bottle into her own. "I'm guessing this isn't related to her Knight of Ren duties?"
A shadow passed over Dee's face. "The spellwork certainly isn't. But I haven't asked her about the Knights outright," she said. "Though I know she knows the man who killed Cassie. Her family don't speak well of him, and I can't figure out how closely she really clings to them. She certainly saved me from Kylo Ren quickly enough to make me think she's not as bound to them as Liri thinks.
"But I don't know enough to say either way." She sighed. "I don't know if you've noticed, but people here feel very strongly about them. It's hard to know what's true and what's rumor, or worse."
"All I know is the First Order sounds like a huge bag of dicks," Hannah said. "You know they blew up a whole system for kicks, right? I sure as shit hope she's a spy or something, and even then." She shook her head. "Jumping galaxies just to get caught up in someone else's war. Guess this is a good time to tell you someone tried to recruit me to the opposing side."
Dee's brows sharply and quickly raised. "Opposing the First Order?" She blinked, letting beer distract her while she weighed her conflicting thoughts. "Speaking ideologically, of course, it makes sense. But…" She pressed a hand to her temple, rubbing at the headache that was desperately trying to come to the fore. "Are you going to do it? What… what would that even involve?"
"From what I'm told, blowing shit up," Hannah replied with a grin. "What else am I going to do while we're stuck here? You're off with your little witchy group. I guess I'll at least try to do some good, as far as good seems to go in this galaxy. It's better than being stuck on this little planet. The space ride just from the satellite station to here was something, but I can't wait to actually ride on a starship. Think we can magic one back with us when we go? Gonna save an assload of gold on ships. And no more walking!"
Dee could not help but laugh. "I would really like to," she said. "Can you imagine? Palisade wouldn't know what hit it. Tizzie would die." She shook her head, sighing down into her glass. "Be careful, Hannah. Please. Make sure that when we go home, we can go home together."
"Believe me, I don't plan on it being any other way," Hannah said, raising her glass with her usual tried and true devil-may-care grin. "We've gotten through worse, haven't we?"
She reached forward, looking to clink glasses with her fellow Queen. "To the slaughter."
Dee smiled in answer, merrily toasting her sister in arms. She downed her beer in a single draught, and found herself feeling more hope for the future than she had felt since landing on this far-off rock.