𝕮hapter 𝕿wo.
— Safe Passage —
· 𖥸 ·

❪ 0 BBY · Jedha City · Jedha ❫

· · ───── ·𖥸· ───── · ·

ELARRA'S HEART GAVE a heady jerk with each beat. Every step she took across Jedha City's markets brought her closer to salvation, towards security. Towards freedom. Above her, the sky, a pale sapphire with new birth and still washed over with the last traces of gold in the east, blanketed the city below with muted protection. Elarra knew she was not safe here. She had a strange feeling deep in the pit of her stomach that told her she wouldn't be safe for a long time.

She pulled the sand-coloured cowl draped across her shoulders tighter against her body, fingers curling in the course weave roughly. Broken fingernails scratched against the garment, and Elarra swallowed down the small pinpricks of pain her motions caused; she took another few steps forwards. Ahead of her, the rocky cliff that housed the Jedi Temple lay shrouded in copper and shadow. Something about the structure made her throat tighten with trepidation, but she swallowed it down like it was nothing more than a pill and continued onwards.

Eyes cast towards the ground, whorls of titian sand fluttering about, she slipped through the never ending crowds. She didn't look back once as she continued her journey; didn't snatch a look over her shoulder to spy the mother and son who'd helped her; didn't trace over the domed roof of the motel that still held her meagre belongings. Looking back into the past wasn't going to save her—finding those smugglers would.

Or, a tiny voice whispered poisonously, they'll kill you before you can even open your mouth.

All she had now was money. And not much of it.

Suddenly a small Zabrak girl slammed head-first into Elarra's chest, and the former senator gave a yelp of shock at the impact. Briefly, the wind was knocked from her, and she scrabbled for breath, hazel eyes blown wide and innocent. In front of her, the child gazed up at her with huge blue eyes. "I'm s-sorry, Miss," she breathed, scuttling away before Elarra could voice a reply. As she disappeared back into the mass of bodies Elarra's hands refastened her cloak, heart thumping with the resounding abrupt nature of the incident.

Something was wrong.

Her brows furrowed, her lips pursed. One hand went to her pocket, where she kept some of her credits, and her fingers groped at an empty space.

Oh, gods, no.

She'd been pickpocketed. Somewhere in the crowds, nearly half of her money had been snatched—right under her nose. Pinching the bridge of her nose, Elarra cursed under her breath, colourful expletives that burst into rainbow above her head. And then it clicked: the little girl. It was deliberate, she realised. The child had slammed into her for easy access to the credits, and had promptly taken off with them. And yet, despite the anger, Elarra's heart softened at the thought. That child had been dressed in rags. Dirty, ripped rags. The young woman knew that those credits, no matter what she was planning to use them for, would be in better hands with someone who truly needed them. Plus, I've got more. I think.

And at that moment (rather poetically, she thought), Elarra felt a swift hand dip into her other pocket.

"Hey!" she yelled, whipping around to see a helmeted male sprinting away from her—with a handful of her credits. She was about to give chase when she spied the tops of white helmets scattered amongst the throng of bodies, and she inhaled shakily. "Oh, shit."

And so, with clenched fists and narrowed eyes, Elarra turned around and kept walking.

· · ───── ·𖥸· ───── · ·

The Temple was beautiful. It was ethereal, standing above the city beneath like a deity coming to rest. Shadows stretched across stone; they arched their backs lazily, yawning like felines as they watched all that went on around them. When the sunlight strayed just a little too close for comfort, they crawled away, disappearing into the darkened entrance of the structure. Elarra stopped for a moment, out of breath from the climb up the cliff, and simply gazed at the Temple, eyes skittering over the sharp lines and gentle curves of the pillars at its front. For a moment, it was almost as if the forgotten relic was whispering to her; she thought she heard voices of those long lost reaching out...but if she focused all she found was the calling of the wind as it slid through her hazel hair.

She had been climbing for the better part of an hour now, and had long since shrugged off her hood to allow her some reprieve from the stifling heat. A voice within her snarkily commented something about Tatooine being even hotter than Jedha, but she ignored it with a roll of her eyes, instead casting her gaze towards the horizon.

And there it was.

Sitting like a bolt of starlight amongst darkened space, the freighter that caught her eye was still and silent.

And it looks like utter crap.

Circular and flat, the cream vessel was an unusual design. Most definitely Corellian—that much was obvious. The original craftsmanship had obviously been of a high standard, but now the ship was covered in mismatched panels and was streaked with oil, dirt and grease. The cockpit, glinting in the sun, protruded from the right hand of the freighter, and at its front the ship had an almost prong-like appearance. Distinctly, Elarra wondered whether something had once filled the gap between the two extensions, but she shook her head and focused on spotting the crew; she could gripe about the appearance of the thing later.

There. A woman of a similar age to Elarra was leaning against the extended boarding ramp, arms folded as she seemingly conversed with a towering, brown-furred Wookiee. They seemed to be unloading a few crates from the ship's cargo hold, but from where she was standing on the rock, Elarra couldn't make out many details about the two crew members or their quarry—

Make that three crew members.

A male sauntered out of the ship, wiping his hands with some sort of...rag? I really need a better vantage point, she cursed, leaning forwards and narrowing her eyes fruitlessly. She could hear him call something to the Wookiee, who responded with a wordless growl and a threatening motion, and the man backed away, hands held up in surrender.

All in all, not what she was expecting. But it would do, she supposed.

Elarra began descending the copper cliff, following the rough-hewn trail that led towards the freighter and its occupants. She drew her hood back up, her heartbeat flitting between rapid and painstakingly slow at a dizzying pace. Every step of the way she watched the smugglers below with eagle eyes, irises gouging hooks into the way they moved, the way they acted, the soft echoes of their voices that flew towards her on feathered wings.

She kept behind the cover of the rock piles and spires the entirety of the way down, padding towards the freighter with all the elegance of a feline chasing shadows. And the closer she stalked, the clearer the clatter of crates became; the nearer the cadence of voices sounded. To Elarra's exhausted ears, those voices sounded as safe and warm as a mother's lullaby—she wanted to reach out for them, wanted to run their words through her fingers like golden silk and never let go.

"—that crate goes over there, Chewie."

A growl.

"Yeah, yeah, give me a break, pal. Just help her move the crates, will you?"

The woman's voice sounded now. "Hey, you can help me move the damn crates, too, Solo."

"I prefer watching, sweetheart."

"Come help me or I swear to the gods—"

"You'll what?"

"I'll call one of Jabba's pet hunters to shove you in one of their cages and cart you back to Tatooine, you insufferable piece of bantha crap."

Tatooine?

Elarra peered over the rock she was currently concealed behind, watching the male smuggler—Solo, she recalled—swagger towards his female companion and eventually assist her in shoving the rest of the crates onto a hover-pallet. The chestnut-furred Wookiee gave a snicker when he saw his colleague swiping the rag over his face, scowling, and the man raised a threatening finger at the creature in a hey, watch it motion.

And then the rocks beneath Elarra's feet gave way.

She managed to quell her growing shriek of alarm and clung on to the spire in front of her with everything she had, but still a few pebbles skittered down the small slope and landed directly at the female smuggler's boots. The ex-senator's eyes blew wide, and now she was cursing herself. Oh no, she breathed. Oh, stars, no.

The woman paused stacking crates and whipped around, her eyes narrowed. Dark eyes, Elarra could see now. Dark, angular eyes, golden skin, and a cascade of silky onyx hair that tumbled in a braid down the length of her back. The woman's hand, adorned in an obsidian fingerless glove, was anchored at her hip, gripping the butt of a nasty-looking pistol. Meanwhile, her two companions were arguing about something; she snapped her fingers sharply, never looking away from Elarra's direction, and they instantly quietened, sharing a confused glance.

"Hey, sneaky," the woman called, accented voice as hard and lethal as the rocks Elarra stood on, "give it up—I know you're there."

Now the other two had blasters drawn, and Elarra's fear was choking her with ashen hands, fingers tugging at her windpipe mercilessly. She exhaled shakily before releasing the rock spire and shuffling the last few steps down the slope—and now she was in full view of the trio of smugglers, all of whom watched her with slightly widened eyes and subtly raised brows. To the side of the female smuggler, Solo's head canted slightly, a strange expression on his face. "Well, well, well." A smirk. "Look who it is."

"A senator," purred the woman, now folding her arms across her chest, blaster forgotten. "Last I heard, you were being hunted down."

They'd recognised her. Of course they'd recognised her. Now, Elarra would have given her right hand for a blaster of some sort—but the only weapon she had was her voice, and a mighty weapon it was.

"I'm not here to cause any trouble," Elarra began, tugging off her hood so that they could clearly see her eyes. She thought she saw a spark ignite in Solo's gaze, but it was gone moments later. Instead, his own eyes, a blue so dark it could be brown, narrowed a fraction, and the crooked smirk scrawled across the quirk of his lips only widened. Elarra had the distinct urge to slap the look off his decidedly handsome face.

"Well, sweetheart, you're here for something," Solo drawled, still aiming his blaster at her forehead. "Care to explain why you were hiding behind a pile of rocks?"

"Yeah," the female smuggler chipped in, a manicured brow raised. "Fill us in on that part, senator."

Elarra's fists clenched. "First of all," she began, and dammit, she was using her Senate Voice now, "I'd appreciate not being called 'sweetheart', Mr. Solo." At the stunned look on Solo's face, she barrelled on, "Secondly, I'm no longer a senator, and should therefore not be addressed as such, ma'am." She turned her hard stare on the other woman, whose full lips turned up at one corner in amused respect.

The Wookiee gave Solo a look before shrugging and lowering the bowcaster in his large hands. Good, they weren't seeing Elarra as a threat. At least, not yet. At the prompt Solo also holstered his blaster, but remained staring at Elarra in a suspicious manner. "You haven't answered the question," he said slowly, copying his female colleague and folding his arms across the front of his dark jacket.

Elarra sighed softly and focused on keeping her hands anchored by her sides. "I heard that there were smugglers in town," she told them truthfully. "I came to you for passage—I was told you were headed to Tatooine."

Solo was still glaring at her. "Yeah, we are headed to Tatooine—right back to Jabba the Hutt." A pause. "And Jabba's a guy who'll shackle you up in chains and sell you to the highest bidder the moment he lays eyes on you."

"The bounty on your head is very, very high," the woman added, and there was a look in her eyes that Elarra didn't like one bit—a look that sparkled with mischief and scheming audacity.

"I'll pay you," answered Elarra, her words sharp and clear. "I've got money."

"You'll never be able to pay us enough," Solo retorted slowly, as if speaking to an idiot. Elarra felt vaguely irritated by him. "Technically, Your Ladyship, we'd be better off handing you over to the Empire."

Elarra considered, weighing up her options. And then she saw what was in the crates, and a smirk curled her petal lips dangerously. "You mean you'll hand me over to the Empire," she repeated, even slower than Solo, "and then what? Let them know that you're transporting illegal spice shipments?"

All three smugglers' faces drained of colour.

"Surely that won't end well for you," she went on, unhurried and nonchalant. "If you'd like, you can hand me over right now—there's a squad of stormtroopers in the city. Why don't you call them down here and get it over with?"

The female smuggler's jaw feathered, and she turned to face Solo. "Okay, she's good." The woman turned back to Elarra. "You're damn good, lady. I respect that."

Elarra smiled, and it was an expression borne of flaming roses, of fractured moonlight, of poison-laced innocence. It was the smile she offered to senators she'd just bested in debate—a smile despised by those on its receiving end. "So," she tried coolly, "you'll reconsider my offer?"

"I'm not a taxi service," Solo snapped, running a hand through his unruly chestnut hair in exasperation. "And I sure as hell don't ferry wanted women across the galaxy."

"I'll make it worth your while, Mr. Solo."

The Wookiee murmured something, jerking his chin at Solo, who visibly considered. "Yeah," the smuggler uttered, "I know she's probably well to do, Chewie, but there's a bounty—"

A roar of irritation. The hulking creature leaned close to Solo, staring him down, while the female smuggler rolled her eyes and gave Elarra an amused grin. Behind her, Solo barked, "I can see you, Kash!"

"Never said you couldn't," the woman—Kash—chuckled in a voice reminiscent of falling pebbles. She sighed through her nose and held up a finger in Elarra's direction in a wait one second motion. The ex-senator laughed under her breath. "Han, will you listen to the walking carpet for once?"

The Wookiee threw up his hands in protest, and Kash shrugged. "Sorry, bud, that was mean—" She returned her focus to a scowling Solo. "She's probably rich, right?" At this she glanced at Elarra for confirmation, who merely rolled her eyes loudly. Kash continued, "Exactly, so when you get her where she needs to go, she'll pay you handsomely, all right? You'll be made, Solo. And if it doesn't work out, drop the rest of the spice and give her to Jabba instead—he'll let you off the hook for bringing him a prize like her."

Solo hummed in thought.

His eyes snapped to Elarra, examining every inch of her, but he still wasn't wholly convinced. Eventually Kash groaned in annoyance and shoved him in the chest. "She's a beautiful woman who actually wants to go for a ride in your piece-of-crap ship, Solo. When has that ever happened?"

"There's you, isn't there?"

A look. "You think I'm here willingly?"

Solo held up his hands. "All right, all right, give me strength." He clenched his jaw and pointed an oil-stained finger at Elarra sharply. "Let's talk payment, sweetheart."

Oh, how she hated being called 'sweetheart'.

A/n:

okay okay I'm back! Let me know how you liked this chapter—it was a lot of fun to write. And yeah I did sneak in my other OC from my fic Steel in there bc what can I say? I'm a simp for Kash 🥸

Also I reworked some of the gifs after deciding to stop complaining about not being able to make graphics and actually watch some tutorials. So voila, the new title gif! (And yup I made my very own sign-off gif too, featuring the lovely Domino Twins!)

As ever, thank you for reading my lovelies, and I'll see you all next time! <3

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