nexus_crossings | Destination: Tropical

Han smirks and shrugs.

He couldn’t deny that being the Captain of your own Ship could seem like being the King of your own Castle to some. “I’m thinking one is a little more isolated than the other.” And as a King it seemed like you were generally rich, whereas he was definitely not rich. Matter of fact, he was surprised by how hard that it was to keep on top of the expense of keeping the Millennium Falcon space worthy.

“Something sweet, huh? Now that you bring it up, I don’t think our night would be complete without it.” He says with a more genuine smile. Han’s not sure that he’s ever had dessert with a date before, but he’s eager to brake that trend. “Something with chocolate.”

"You might be surprised." She could be isolated in a room full of people by virtue of the fact that no one wanted to risk saying the wrong thing in front of a princess. He did have a point in his way though and she could understand what he meant with it. She had been rich, heiress to an entire planet actually, but that was before Alderaan had been lost. She was known far less wealthy and had no home to claim title from anymore. She was a princess without a land.

The little sound she makes at the mention of chocolate betrayed her particular love for that treat. Leia waved the server over and asked for a menu. "You can pick something if you like. I'll just use the refresher and be right back." She stood to leave the table and test just how much she'd had to drink so far, to her credit her steps were fluid but not sloppy.

Han’s smile turns into a flat out grin at her noise. The little squeak of delight was probably not very Princess-ish, but it was so genuine he couldn’t help but find it endearing. It seemed ... funny to him that someone who he would have expected to be so reserved would turn out to be so genuine.

“Sure. I’ll be right here.”

While Leia is gone, Han settled on a flourless chocolate cake that he orders while she’s using the ladies room. He also orders them each a cup of caff, which, he figures might be a good move for two people that seemed to be angling for extending the evening.

Leia returned a few minutes later, just as the dessert and caff were being delivered. She was pleasantly surprised by that thoughtfulness, and it did sound perfect now that she thought about it.

"Excellent choice." She complimented the selection before she retook her seat. Caff had a touch of sugar and cream added and stirred, darkness just taking a slightly more caramel hue. She looked at the cake, simple but classic and it looked delicious. "You have more will power than I do, I don't think I could have waited to try it."

She took a fork and neatly scooped a bite of the cake, that cute noise he admired from before returned with a throatier finish as she tasted it. "That has to be illegal somewhere."

Han takes his drink black because he had grown a taste for things that were bitter over the years. Sweets, by comparison, he almost never indulged in. Too much of a luxury when he was very young and these days he usually opted for drinks over nice meals. He could count the number of times he’d had chocolate on one hand.

“I think I’ve found a Princesses’ weakness.” He says, bemused by the sound and her comment. He reaches in with is own fork and goes for a bite for himself. He manages not to make a noise, but she will see him scrutinizing the fork (and putting it back into his mouth) to make sure he got all the cake off.

She might also notice the return of his foot nudging playfully against hers.

Bitter? Han? There's a joke in there somewhere but fortunately no one is making it at the moment. Leia had grown up in a civilized society with exposure to delicacies and treats, it isn't at all uncommon for her and she knew what to expect. But she smiled broadly at seeing his enjoyment.

"One of my many flaws, I assure you." But perhaps after tasting that cake he can understand just why that might be. She helped herself to a second bite and slowly savored it before setting her fork down to sip the caff. "I could probably eat that whole thing by myself. So please do help me with it."

The next time his foot goes to nudge her's, it wouldn't be where he thought. Rather a shoetip would slide along his ankle while she placidly sipped her caff.

“I’ll help.” Han murmurs, reaching in for another bite. “This is obviously dangerous and you shouldn’t face this dessert alone.”

And he takes a second bite. Then a third. After that, he’s feeling ready to see if his coffee has cooled enough for drinking with a shallow sip. He really likes the way that the cake seems to taste sweeter when contrasted with a sip of his caff. It’s starting to dawn on him why people like having this whole other part of the meal, especially when there was good company to enjoy.

“Care to share any other weaknesses, Leia?” He says, while leaning his leg right into her foot for more contact. Han knows he’s unusually taken with this woman, but at the same time, he’s enjoying it too much to question.

"How gracious of you." A light chuckle and she helped herself to another bite followed by another sip of her drink. She was feeling well satisfied with the entire experience already and was giving thought to what they might want to do next time. As if they had finished their not-quite plans for this date. Was this a date? No, neither of them knew the other enough to call it that, more of an encounter really. One she was more pleased with than she would have guessed.

"You know one of mine, I think it's only fair I learn one of yours before you get another."She murmured back to him between sips of caff. Her foot was casually slipping down his calf and back up. Slippers allowed that a bit easier than the boots he wore and were generally practical for all but the worst of climates and conditions.

“Alright, that seems only fair.”

Han goes in for another bite and tries to think of something notable to tell her about himself. He’s less worried about telling her something that he thinks she might already know, because she seemed to be pleasantly surprised by him mostly.

When he finishes his bite of cake, he says. “Eels.” As if that explained everything. He does elaborate after a moment by adding. “To get from where I lived into Coronet City, you had to travel around a large bay and there was this huge fish market there. So the seafood was cheaper than most of the other meat and we ate it a lot, but I hated Eel no matter how it was cooked. Plus they’re just kind of slippery and ... unpleasant.”

It sounded unpleasant, Leia made a face. She could empathize with him though, more than he probably thought possible. Tucked in that little confession was a bit more about him and how he grew up. Fish markets, shipyards, living on a bay. No wonder his first thought of swimming hadn't necessarily been as pleasant as her memories.

Leia took one of the rapidly dwindling bits of cake and slowly, thoughtfully savored it. She tapped the fork to her lips when she was done and then gestured to him with it. "I was once trapped in a trash compactor with a dianoga."

She hadn't been a lone but that wasn't the point, it had been a slimy disgusting thing. Fortunately for her it seemed to favor the fairer haired to brunettes.

“I can’t, for the life of me, even imagine why the Princess of Alderaan would be in a trash compactor.” He says, utterly baffled by that statement. He knew the point of the statement was supposed to be more about the dianoga and commiserating over slimy dumb creatures, but he couldn’t get passed that first part.

He takes one more bite of the cake and then sets down his fork.

"Finish up and I'll tell you the whole story while we walk." And to do her part she does take that last bite of cake. Licked the fork clean and setting it aside. She tipped back the last of her caff and dabbed her lips one last time.

When he looked done she rose and smoothed her suit and readied to leave. The server returned to bring Leia a small slip of paper and wished them a good evening, the paper went into her pocket and she gestured to the direction of the door. "Shall we?"

Han finishes his coffee fairly quickly. There wasn’t much point in hanging around the restaurant that he can figure. He hadn’t really considered much about the paying part of this encounter and he wonders how much he has with him, when the server comes up.

“You paid.” He said, eyes narrowing. He looks like he’s going to try to find some reason to object, when opts to just say, “thank you.”

“I could use a trip to the ‘fresher, but I’ll only be a minute.” Because their evening had been filled with liquids of various sorts and heading out to a park afterward. He’d rather go now that make it awkward trying to find one later. So he does excuse himself for a moment and then, he’s ready to go.

"I asked you to join me for lunch, so naturally I paid." She shrugged and let it go at that.

When he returned she linked her arm through his on the way to the door. "Besides now you can cover next time and I've secured a second... outing." She still wasn't entirely sure this was a date, but whatever it was, it was nice.

The afternoon outside was fading quickly and the sunset was a pretty rosy hue just beginning to color the sky. Leia directed him from memory toward the park, she tired to quicken her steps to keep pace with him, short legs were really not going to keep up with longer ones very well.

He likes that she immediately went arm in arm with him. He had spent a couple of moments wondering how best to accompany her on their walk and he hadn’t been all that sure what to do. This had take all the thinking out of it for him and he was entirely grateful for that.

“What are we gonna do?” Han asked, wondering when it was she had time to plan out a second get together for them.

At first, while they walk, Leia works extra hard to keep stride with him. And for a short period of time, he doesn’t realized that he’s making it difficult to stay in step with him. Though when he feels her falling behind, it dawns on him what happening and he starts to walk slower.

"It was mostly a joke about ensuring I would see you again." She shrugged, she could make jokes, normally she was rather witty even, but that hadn't carried well. Possibly because she wasn't sure if it implied something or not.

The small kindness of his slowed stride was greatly appreciated and made it easier to keep pace with him. She directed him with gentle pulls to his arm to get him around this corner or up the next street and there was the park. A large, wide open expanse of flowers, grass and trees. They were arriving before dusk so everything was still well lighted.

"So why was a princess in a trash compactor. It was an escape gone a bit sideways." She was skirting details because she wasn't sure he needed to hear about them just now. "From a cell to a dead end corridor, I garbed one of my rescuers blasters and blew a hole in the bulkhead so we could escape from being pinned down. The wall panel covered a garbage shoot and we were all dumped into the compactor where the dianoga was. Things were tense for a bit." Compacting and what not.

“Well, let me assure you that I’d like to see you again.” He says, shrugging. Han hadn’t really caught on that it was a joke when she said it, but maybe he was too excited to consider the prospect of hanging out again. He really liked Leia. She was interesting and witty in a way that he hadn’t been prepared for — not that he had went into the meeting with a lot of expectations.

“I’ll plan what we do for next time.” He says with a thoughtful smile. “But don’t put me on the spot yet, I want to come up with something good.”

Han was impressed with how warm it was in the nexus. It was nice that the could still walk to the park spontaneously and not have had to back for heavier clothes or anything. In hindsight he wish they had a blanket to spread out on the ground, but there were benches to sit at. He starts guiding them towards one of those so they can talk for a while.

“You know there’s a lot more to being a Princess then I ever would have guessed.” He doesn’t press for an explanation of why she was kidnapped, he has to assume it would have to do with money and it doesn’t seem like a polite thing to make her want to relive. “I’m sure the dianoga was awful, but mostly I’m just glad you’re okay.”

Oh! The garbage chute was a really
wonderful idea. What an incredible
smell you've discovered! Let's get
out of here! Get away from there...

Vivid memories came back to her as she recalled the escape from the Death Star, she and Han had been at each other's throats from nearly the first moment they met. Seeing how the man she was walking with now had treated her she had to wonder if she'd misjudged his older self due to the circumstance. He was actually kind of sweet even, and this Han was not one she'd been prepared for, she knew he could be charming but she never thought it would be so appealing.

"I'll consider it a surprise then and not ask questions." He wouldn't have much to do after all to top lunch and a walk in the park, the bar was relatively low as far as activities went. And there was a bench they'd conveniently pivoted toward. The view was lovely, sun set in the distance, small bed of flowers ringing a great tree with huge branches off to the left and a rather nice view of the city proper off far to the right. It was mostly empty so they seemed to have the park almost to themselves.

"Maybe," She shrugged as she took at seat on the bench. "I think in my case I made more work for myself than was strictly necessary. I could have been a good little girl and gone to Courscant and been married off to some wealthy prince and one day rule somewhere. But I never had the disposition for that."

No reward is worth this.

Leia turned to regard him, always gifted with reading people she saw no deception in what he said, his faint brow crinkle of concern pass as she looked at him. "You really mean that." Not a question, but a statement, one which made her smile. And one which earned him a soft kiss on the cheek. "Thank you."

“From what I remember, which I admit is not much, Alderaan is ruled by a Queen. Doesn’t that mean the fancy Princes should be coming out to woo you?”

All things considered, there weren’t that many planets that he could think of that still had royals. Or maybe he just only knew of the really rich and famous ones. They were all gonna have trouble if they didn’t yield to Palpatine, Han supposed. That was the only thing that mattered when it came to hierarchy of power in the galaxy.

Han sat beside her and that will probably remind her of the guy that she knew — because he immediately settled into a posture that was comfortable and not one that seemed overly concerned about impressing anybody. His arm stretched out along the length bench, behind Leia’s back. He hadn’t expected her to lay that kiss on him, even if it was fairly chaste. His eyes had widened slightly and his cheeks seemed to have picked up a bit of flush in the aftermath.

“Uh, you’re welcome.”

"A queen or king, this generation was Breha my mother. My father Bail was Prince consort and senator before I took his place at eighteen." Alderaan had a constitutional monarchy and the family to lead was voted in to office and could be replaced if they did not well serve the needs of the people. This was not a frequent event though as the Alderaani people tended to be of one mind on how their lives were to be left to learn and grow and only needing such guidance and interference as was necessary.

"The government was more caretaker and beholden to the people than it was a shepherd. I know of many governments that rule by military might but that was never our way. Little crime or violence, no military, no weapons. Peace and prosperity." It had been a jewel among the worlds of the old Republic. And she missed it so much her heart ached. Leia took a deep breath and shook her head. "Sorry, I'm sure you didn't want a lecture on galactic politics" Not even what the point of his comment was really,but it was so much a part of her early life that she fell into it naturally.

She did like the way he blushed though, and she was not at all uncomfortable with his arm across the back of the bench. "As for Princes, we were taken to be put on display. All young pretty eligible girls at around seventeen. We were supposed to dress up and parade around like some orobird mating display to find a husband." Her distaste of it was obvious from her sour expression. "Needless to say I didn't go, I didn't get married off and I don't regret that for a single moment."

“I didn’t ask not to have a lesson in politics, either.” Han said with an amiable shrug and an easy smile. “It was nice to hear you talk about something you’re passionate about. I can imagine if you’re anything like your mom and dad, they’re good at giving speeches.”

“It’s just not a topic I can add much about.”

That was more gracious than she might have expected, he didn't even accuse her of trying to bore him to death. She was warming to him quickly and was surprised at just how that was affecting her, she might have to consider there is more than just alcohol at work here.

"Then tell me something about you. That scar," Her eyes traced it, then a fingertip did the same. Odd line down his strong, angled chin."how did you get that?"

Han’s arm lowers off the back of that bench now, sliding around Leia’s shoulders. It’s sudden weight was probably not all that surprising to her, given that they both knew he was probably going to try to draw her in like this at some point. With her already leaning closer to trace the scar over his chin? It seemed like a good a time as any to spring that on her.

She had turn toward him, after all. He just wanted to keep her there.

“I’m a very good pilot.” Han murmured. “I always was drawn to anything that I could get behind the controls of. Driving when I was younger, because it was just easier to get access to a speeder, but I always knew someday I’d be flying.”

There was an aspect of this story he wasn’t comfortable telling. The fact that he left Corellia to enlist with the Empire is something he’s not very proud of, in hindsight. He thinks he can tell the gist of the story without offering up that part of himself.

“I started learning how to fly when I left my homeworld. I was never satisfied with taking anything slowly and listening to the people that were trying to teach me, was only acceptable to me if they were telling me something I already agreed with. One day I decided I was done with the training wheels and took a one man starfighter that didn’t belong to me for a little spin.”

Han seems almost bemused by how dumb this story gets, but he goes on. She wanted to know, after all. “I got misidentified as a hostile and one thing led to another. A whole squadron of people were trying to run me down, but I was too stubborn to eject. I didn’t get out of atmosphere fast enough and they were my friends, sort of, so I wasn’t going to shoot back at them. Lost my right wing completely. Spun out of the air. Hit the ground and got lucky that my ship didn’t explode.”

“So the scar came from cutting my chin on the control panel during the crash and not being able to afford bacta to prevent the scar.”

Se'd leaned in as he spoke, intently listening to his story. It felt nice the way his arm cradled around her shoulders. After tracing the scar her hand lowered to rest on her thigh, fingertips brushing his.

She knew he was a good pilot, any Han in any context never let anyone forget that. But the time form which he went from not being one to being one was far close with the man she sat next to and hearing him tell the tale was drawing her in.

Leia smirked at his unwillingness to take anything at another's pace, that rang true as well. They were not so different in that respect, only she had other concerns to monitor and had to sometimes keep herself in check.

"You what?" Why did it even surprise her that he'd steal a ship? He probably didn't even consider it stealing, one of those who believed in joy rides. She quieted again and let him continue. This was after all his story.

When his tale took a dangerous turn she gasped quietly, her hand moved to his thigh, just above the knee. An attempt at reassurance, or compassion or connection. Just something she felt was needed in hearing he had be so near death. Did he even realize how easily that story might have ended differently?

"I'm sorry, but I'm s glad you're alright." She smiled a little, brow still furrowed with concern. "Of all the scars I've seen it's one of the better ones. It adds character."

No, he didn’t consider it stealing if you intended to give the vehicle back. In this case, he actually had simply been trying to steal the TIE/LN and get off world, but he had purposely not wanted to cast himself in too much of a negative light. He still wanted to impress her. Still wanted her to like him. It was, also, why he didn’t mention that he had enlisted either. He can’t imagine the Princess from a world that eschewed violence would be all that impressed that he was a Imperial Academy washout and Ex-Stormtrooper.

“Mmm, so you like it, huh?”

The cut on his chin hadn’t worried him so much. Or the bruises that he’d sustained. It was the scratched cornea that had come from the crash that had been really concerning. He had to cover his eye with a bandage for almost a week.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject