openish | to describe my mother would be to write about a hurricane

[imahologram]

Who: Leia Organa imahologram, Kylo Ren outer_space, Han Solo straightouttacarbonite, and YOU. If you want. ♥
When: May 18
Where: The open prompt is at the bar. The closed ones are in navigation and at the Falcon.
What: Fallout from the holo Leia received in the mail today. Two closed prompts and an open one.
Warnings: Spoilers for The Force Awakens.

for Kylo Benben
She knows what's going on before the little boy in the holo says more than Hi, mom, it's Ben. Perhaps she's always known. His interest in her, in her ability to use the Force, and his disdain for Han have never seemed in proportion. There's something personal in both of them, the strange, coy way he approached conversation as much as the biting frost of his anger.

This might be someone else's, she tells herself nonetheless as she watches. She wants that feeling of recognition to be wrong--she hopes it is--but the details only keep stacking up. An uncle called Luke. Jedi training. The meditation tricks Leia's brother employs for himself. And those dark eyes that seem to come straight from her face. The nose, unquestionably Han's.

(She has no explanation for the ears, but she can't help but feel an affection for them that seems borrowed from a stranger.)

If this isn't their son, she'll eat her blaster, piece by piece. And that leaves her shaken, staring at the space the holographic image was long after it flicked off. Her apparent adversary, the unhinged bane of Han Solo's existence, is their child. Whatever it is that's brought him to this point, they must have had a hand in it.

To lie to her, though--a lie of omission counts, in her book--and to speak to her as a stranger when she's his mother...to call it anger is to miss the empty ache, the insult, the amorphous sense of betrayal. She's a panoply of hurt.

She finds him in navigation, and they're both fortunate there's no one there to hear her snap, "Ben!"

for Han Solo

"Meet me at the Falcon." Leia spits the words into the MID, insistent and clipped. "It's important."

In a better mood, she might not order him around quite so remorselessly--but in a better mood, she wouldn't have to. She stalks through the corridors of the Moira until she comes to the cargo bay. The speed of her footsteps picks up as she nears the Falcon. That bucket of bolts is a more welcome sight than just about any she can think of just then.

OPEN - ambiguously set throughout the weekend as needed

Leia hasn't needed a drink so badly in a long, long time. The bar on the Moira isn't exactly ideal--it's public, for one thing--but she's not convinced she wants to use her small store of Alderaanian wine on family problems. (And, if she's completely honest with herself, she's also not convinced she wants to be alone right now, anyway.)

If someone should happen to sit down beside her, she'll give them a humorless nod of acknowledgment. No real smile, but there's no animosity to the way she asks, "What're you drinking?"

Comments

[imahologram]

"Lando." She still has her cocktail, a colourful but not entirely accurate attempt at a cometduster, in her hand as she looks his way. The look on his face is surprised, but there's a lightness there that's hard to settle next to her own dark thoughts. "I don't believe you have, either."

A large part of her would like to send him on his way, to whatever good-humoured debauchery he's looking to experience, but the longing for someone to sit with wins out. She pats the seat beside her, a silent invitation.

[entrepreneurism]

As much appeal as good-humoured debauchery holds for him, Lando's not one to turn his back on such an invitation. He's perfectly aware that he's fairly far from being her favorite person, and he'd certainly prefer for them to be on better terms - it felt as if he'd made some progress there, even, just to wind up here and have it forgotten.

Besides, it really does seem like she could use the company. So, quietly, he offers a moderately earnest, soft smile and takes the seat, pausing a moment to order his own drink - a deep golden liquor from some system he's never heard of, but which has rapidly earned his favor on this basis alone - before turning to her. "What brings you here this evening?"

[imahologram]

"It's a long story." Probably not one she ought to be telling in public, either. (Does it matter if she tells Lando? It seems like something for Han to do--Lando's his friend, when they're on friendly terms.)

Leia sets her drink down on the bar, doing her best to straighten up from the slight slump her figure has taken on. This isn't her first ersatz cometduster, and she's weary with the events of the day anyway. "What about you?"

[entrepreneurism]

A long story that, evidently, she is not currently inclined to begin telling. His curiosity with the matter is indicated only by an arch of a brow, one that smooths out after a moment as he reclaims a more neutral smile. Perhaps he'll hear from Han, perhaps not, but whatever it is, pressing directly has never been his style anyway.

With the question turned back to him, he lets a shrug gently roll through his shoulders. "Oh, I stop in from time to time, pursue some conversation, forge a few connections. We all have to unwind somewhere."

[imahologram]

How can she explain this, anyway? Where does she even begin, to Lando, in public? Well, to start with, there's a man. Not Han--not like that--

Not like that, indeed. Leia nods, taking a sip of her drink. "This is the first time I've tried unwinding here. It's not bad."

She's used to thinking of Lando Calrissian as someone so slick that he can't be trusted with a drink order, let alone the truth. That impression still lingers, but there's something about him here that seems almost honest. Maybe living without the Empire pitting them against each other makes a difference.

"What have you been up to?" she asks. "When you aren't here."

[entrepreneurism]

"I've managed to unwind in far more questionable locales." Said with a light touch of knowing humor, since he hardly expects that to come as a major revelation.

He considers the question over a sip of his drink, after which he gently swishes the liquid n the glass with a loose, circular roll of his wrist.

"Why, my transporter work, of course. Just doing my part to keep the ship running." The winning grin there, of course, rather heavily points to the fact that there is clearly something beyond that, and more than just the idle flirting and networking he so fondly pursues.

[imahologram]

"I never doubted that." Bad news makes strange bedfellows, so to speak, but Leia's starting to settle into talking to Lando. Not with the polite false front she'd shown him on Bespin--as herself, or something closer to herself, at least.

"That's it, huh?" She's not smiling, exactly, but she's looking over her drink at him with some interest. "You don't seem like the kind of person who does what he's told and goes to bed early."

[entrepreneurism]

The are those subtle differences to their conversation, and not just on her side of it. While he's certainly not about to abandon his panache altogether, there is far more of him in his words, more substance and less flash.

"I don't know where you'd get an idea like that," Smirking, he lets out a soft chuckle, "Of course, I do have a few independent projects underway, keeping busy... Han didn't mention our little trip, did he?"

[imahologram]

"Your trip," she repeats, raising a brow. "It must have slipped his mind."

And at the moment, she can't really fault him for that. Finding out he has a son who not only hates the sight of him but murdered him is the kind of news that overshadows everything else. Including--maybe especially--plans made with Lando.

She nods her glass in Lando's direction, gesturing for him to go on.

[entrepreneurism]

He wouldn't have really expected it to come up, exactly - and he doesn't even know about anything else going on, let alone anything that major. But this sort of thing is probably a decent enough distraction from what seems to be a pretty lousy mood.

"Well, we picked up a couple of things, brought them back with us... a dealer droid, for one. Thought it might come in handy on those longer stretches between stops."

[imahologram]

"We could fit a dealer droid in the Falcon," she says, letting herself imagine it. Lando, Luke, Han, and her--they could make the journey, if they could find their way across galaxies. The Falcon is a small ship, but she and Han had found a reasonable amount of privacy when they flew with Chewie and C3PO, and Lando and Luke are a lot more discreet than Threepio. And the thought of nights playing sabacc together, or teaching them Alderaanian piquet, is a lot more fun when they'd be flying toward home.

But then Ben's specter, thin and dark, looms at the edge of her mind, and she shakes her head. He can't be left behind, even if she doubts he'd agree to come willingly. She takes another sip from her glass. "There's just one problem. We don't all come from the same time."