Author's Note: Hello everyone, I'm back with a new chapter finally! Although, I'm actually *backtracking* here from where I left off writing initially ^_^ This chapter is still before Finn and Rose left her home planet. I felt that I skipped over him meeting her parents, etc. the first time around, so I wanted to go back. I'll move into the following three parts, after they return to the new First Order / Resistance base, which my original readers will have already read last year, but I might change or revise the scenes as I go. This chapter, at least, is all brand new :)

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Finn stood at the front of the room, not sure what to think of the loud exuberance of the mountain folk packed inside Rose's modestly sized house. In Stormtrooper training, once in a while someone would act unruly in a group and everyone else would wait anxiously to see how the disobedient one would be punished. That's how Finn felt now, nervous that at any moment the loud celebrating would be broken up by some local authority bursting in through the doors with guns. Maybe he was just tired.

A shout rose up from the crowd. Everyone responded to the jovial cheer by lifting their overfull drinking glasses, splashing liquid all over each other and onto the floor. They were responding to Rose's rendition of the recent battle. Most of it happened in the sky and hadn't reached this village, but the skies were lit up during the fight between the Ruling Order and the Space Pirates, who'd shown up unexpectedly to save the mining planet. It was Rose, in the end, who'd stopped the robots by disabling the nearest command center. She was the real hero. She'd been immediately pulled into the crowd of merry celebrators when they arrived, leaving Finn standing at the back of the room.

People of all ages danced around the room. Finn felt too hot all of a sudden. He wasn't used to the humidity on this planet either. Rose continued telling her story, in a language Finn didn't understand. He hadn't even thought about the locals speaking something other than English. Rose didn't even have an accent of any sort. But he did hear some English spoken here and there among the family members, usually one word thrown into a string of local speak, like 'spaceship' or 'Ruling Order.'

Finn glanced around the room for an escape. He couldn't even see Rose, over the much taller miners in the room. He spotted a curtained doorway and headed for it, needing a place to get away from the crowd. He pushed past a few teenaged girls, who gave him a dirty look. Their wild hair and rough clothes were contrasted by their flawless skin and bright eyes, which lit up like Rose's did. He wondered if they were her cousins.

Before he could make it to the doorway, music started playing from a string instrument near by and everyone sang along with gusto. It sounded like a victory song. Finn smiled at the sound of it, but quickly headed through the door curtain anyway, needing to get to a less populated space.

On the other side was a kitchen. Some of the women of the house were gathered around a table, forming dough into balls and dropping them into boiling water. They all stopped what they were doing when Finn entered.

"Who are you?" the largest of the ladies asked accusingly. She had a thick accent but Finn had no trouble understanding her.

"I'm-" he started to say, but he was interrupted by a deep growl from behind him. He turned to find a large, bearded man, with wild hair, staring down at him with a frown. Finn was dumbstruck for a moment.

"You are the friend of my daughter Rose," the man said. His studied Finn with a calculating gaze. A few more large men piled into the kitchen behind him.

"Yes," Finn replied, clearing his throat. Was there some proper way to address a father in their culture? Maybe a nod or a bow? He eyed the other men cautiously. They looked down their nose at him.

"Dad, this is my friend." Rose came bounding in, breathless and pushing the big brutes near the door out of her way. They towered over her but she didn't seem to even notice.

"There are too many in this house of mine," Rose's dad yelled.

Rose rolled her eyes at this and there was an outburst of laughter from the men. Even those in the other room were laughing. They called out from the other side of the thin curtain, adding to the conversation.

"The fattest must leave! Too many in the house!"

"Open the windows!"

"Yes. Throw him out the window. It will make more space in here."

"He's small like a child, we will throw you out I think."

"Me? But you are fattest!'

"If I am the fattest, you can not lift me and throw me out!"

All of this was said in English, for Finn's sake he imagined. He couldn't remember the last time he'd heard this much group laughter, if ever.

A pleasantly plump lady shoved Rose's dad aside and grabbed Finn's arm. "There is never too many to not be a guest in our house!" she said above the clamor. "I am Rose's mother. It is nice to meet you. What is your name?"

"Finn."

"Oh, yes. Finn. We know a lot about Finn."

"Not me. I don't know about you," Rose's father said, crossing his arms across his chest.

Rose punched him in his beefy arm and he didn't even flinch.

"Daddy, I told you all about Finn. He's the stormtrooper who escaped from the First Order and he also just saved our planet."

Rose's dad grunted but didn't say anything else, which may have been some form of approval. Although technically, it had been Rose who single-handedly disabled the control station which stopped the robot army in the end. But Finn didn't object to her praise in front of her father.

"Be nice!" Rose's mom said, pointing an unnaturally long spoon made of wood, at his nose. He gave her a bored look and left, the other men trailing after him.

On the other side of the door a man bellowed, "here comes the fattest of the house now! If he is thrown out, it will make room for five more men!"

Another outburst of laughter and Rose's mom tisked, dismissing her husband with a wave. "Leena, take the boy to play," she said. Finn turned, hoping not to see one of the displeased teen cousins behind him, but it was just a little girl of about eight years, with many braids and big eyes.

She replied to Rose's mother in their language and grabbed Finn's hand, dragging him away. He looked to Rose for help but she only shrugged. Maybe she thought it better that he go play with the kids, than be subjected to her father's, and uncles', roughhousing.

The little girl name Leena led him to a cellar-like opening in the floor, with a ladder leading down into darkness. Finn held back, nervous. She went down ahead of him and flipped on a light, which was surprisingly electric, and the tunnel lit up. Finn went down after her. Once at the bottom, he followed her through a door that opened up to a basement area. It wasn't a cave-like room, as he'd expected, but a nicely carpeted play-area of sorts, with finished walls and ceiling. In fact, the downstairs room was more spacious than the main area upstairs.

A dozen or so kids were already there, chattering away and playing with homemade dolls, which were impressively well made, with small jackets and string hair. Other toys included small sized furniture and miniature spaceships made of wood.

Finn was overwhelmed by the sight of it, but in a good way. He'd never played with toys, or with other children when he was growing up. It was always training.

The kids stopped what they were doing, and one by one, assessed him. He wondered if adults weren't generally allowed down in their special play place and he'd broken some rule. They all fairly looked similar. Three of them for sure had to be siblings. They stared at Finn and said nothing.

Suddenly Rose entered the room, her face flushed. She'd changed into a light summer dress that took Finn's breath away. She was beautiful in the dress.

Finn turned his attention back to the children, not wanting to ogle Rose and for her to notice. "Any of you children speak English?" he asked them.

There was a moment of silence as they looked at each other. Then they all started talking at the same time, in the cutest broken English Finn had ever heard.

"Whoa! One at a time!" Finn held up his hands and they all stopped, as though their master had spoken. Finn smiled. This would be fun. "Uh... the first person to bring me a good tasting dessert, will get to wear my magic ring, that can make you invisible."

There was a second of stunned hesitation, then they were off! Running towards the door to the ladder, pushing and clawing and scrambling their way past each other.

Finn was left with Rose, who gave him a questioning look. "You realize you sent ten children into an already packed house. My mother's going to kill you."

A loud rumbling sound from above made Finn duck involuntarily. It sounded as though the ceiling would collapse. But it was only the kids, racing around upstairs, pounding their feet like heavy little Tauntaun's from Hoth.

"You have a ring?" Rose asked, already shaking her head in disapproval.

"Well." Finn looked down at his bare hands. "I was hoping you had one?" He phrased it like a question and Rose rolled her eyes. With a sigh, she pulled a ring off her finger.

"You're in luck," she said. "But I'll need it back by the end of the night."

"Thanks!"

No sooner had she placed the ring in his palm, than the children burst into the room, pushing each other as they scrambled to reach him, their chocolatey hands outstretched. A tall, lanky kid with large teeth reached Finn first, the others still tripping over each other while squishing soft chocolate cake squares in their hands, making crumbs all over the floor.

"He reached me first!" Finn said quickly, before there was any question of who the winner was.

A chorus of complaints rose up, about why "it wasn't fair" and so-and-so pushed me. But Finn raised his hand, holding up the ring and they stopped, wide eyed.

"What you don't know," he continued, enjoying this game. "Is that the ring..." he looked at them all in turn. "Is evil."

The kids gasped, no longer concerned about who won.

"Whoever has this ring," Finn continued, "will be invisible, so he can steal from your homes."

"What homes?" the lanky boy asked.

"We'll make homes, down here. Who wants to play village?" Finn said, coming up with an idea for a game to play. He put up his hand in a show of consent and the other kids followed his example, raising their hands high.

"I do!" they said. Some spoke in English, while others agreed in their own language.

"Can we all have homes?" the girl with the braids asked.

"Of course," Finn said. "But at night, when the lights go out," he pointed to the light switch near the door, "the one with the ring will be coming into your homes and you won't know where he is. So gather your things and make your homes quickly, before night time." Finn made his way slowly to the light switch.

Squeals filled the room as the kids scrambled to claim the toys that would be part of their homes. Finn smiled down at the group of little humanoids, all so eager to follow a leader in a game of pretend. It was quite possibly the most fun he'd ever had in his life.