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“I don’t want to dance with Sadori. I want to dance with you.”
Seyn surprises herself as soon as she says it. The Vushans had returned to the caves, bearing baskets of yellow-bright fruit, and she’d found herself venturing forward, watching as Dahna danced.
And Dahna looks surprised, too, violet eyes blinking, and Seyn wonders if she’s made a mistake. She knows that the Kage boy has a crush on her -- but, truth be told, she feels uncomfortable around Sadori, young and uncertain and earnest. It feels like hard work, faking a connection that isn’t there, but with Dahna, there’s that immediate sympathy over her supposed slave backstory…
Besides, she tells herself, Dahna is Staven’s second-in-command. It’s more valuable to get into her good graces over a tentative teenager.
“Sorry,” Seyn says, ducking her head. “He’s nice, but I’m not….”
“Interested in non-humans?” Dahna says, her eyebrow arched.
“No!” she says. The harsh immediacy in her tone isn’t feigned. She doesn’t want the Dreamers to think her a bigot, which might risk her cover. “I’m not interested in males.”
The best lies are the ones mixed with truth, and this is one thing that’s actually true.
To her relief, Dahna laughs. “It’s alright. I’m teasing. You’re allowed to have a preference, but, Seyn, you’re just a kid. I understand why you might feel like this -- we saved you from your sleemo owner -- but that doesn’t make this what you think it is. It took me awhile, too, to get used to making friends.”
“I’m not a child,” Seyn says, quietly. “I’m two standard years older than Sadori. And I want to dance with you. That’s all.”
Dahna is silent. Then she inclines her head to the side, the tips of her lekku curling -- and finally, she holds out her hand.
Seyn finds herself spending more of her time with Dahna. Eating meals together -- walking through the caverns together -- and dancing, always dancing. She draws silly pictures on flimsiplast in between her forgery tasks, and she gives them to Dahna: a nerf with wings, a tooka telling a joke, a voorpak wearing a hat. It makes Dahna laugh every time, soft and delighted, maybe even happier than when she’s eating Dahna fruit.
“Good job with the Twi’lek,” Hask tells her in an undertone. “You’re a natural little seductress, aren’t you?”
Seyn’s fists clench at her side. She makes herself say evenly, “I’m integrating, Gid.” It takes a great deal more finesse than getting drunk with Staven, that’s for sure.
In response, Hask smiles widely, a gundark baring its teeth, and Seyn turns away. Of course this is for the Empire -- of course she’s Inferno Squad -- Seyn Marana, the human datacomputer with a perfect memory and fine-tuned analytical skills. Yet there are new things to memorize in the touch of Dahna’s hand, the sheen of her gleaming eyes, and the sound of her voice when she says Seyn’s name.
There aren't any Twi’leks at Imperial Academy or in the Empire's ranks. No: that isn’t quite right. Seyn's never met anyone like Dahna before.
Seyn convinces Dahna to let her practice firing a blaster. She has to pretend that she’s never held one before -- missing the rock targets by meters -- and Dahna patiently corrects her stance and her grip.
Considering her own natural talent as a sniper, this entire experience is absurd. However, it means that the Dreamers trust her enough to let her handle a weapon, and that’s progress.
One night, she gets up late to return to the cave where they’d been doing blaster practice. She aims the rifle and lets several scarlet streams hit the cavern walls, leaving behind scorching careless marks.
Then she steadies the blaster and hits the middle target dead-center, dead-eyed, and it bursts into pieces.
“Wow,” says a voice, low and impressed. “You’re improving.”
Seyn sets down the rifle. “It was only one lucky shot. It helps to have sharp eyes like mine, but it doesn’t make me a real rebel soldier like you and the others.”
“It means you have potential,” Dahna says, putting her hand on her shoulder. “And you’re no less of a rebel. You’ve been helping us in your own way, and you’ll get better at this, too.” Her smile, which is starting to become so familiar a sight, reaches her eyes, and Seyn smiles back.
“It means a lot,” Seyn says. “That you and the Dreamers have faith in me. That you think I’m more than just a tool -- a piece of merchandise who makes things for you to profit from.”
To drive the point home, she looks down at the scars on her arms. She’s well-aware that the Dreamers are using her, but emphasizing the difference is a defining point of pride for them. It’s what drew Dahna to her in the first place.
The flutter of cool blue fingertips. Dahna traces the shape of her scars with her hands. Involuntarily, Seyn lets out a shaking breath. Back and forth, back and forth; her pulse at her wrists quickens. In her mind, there’s the memory seared; General Versio had summoned an Imperial loyalty officer to do the job, because they’re trained experts with vibro-knives, and she hadn’t -- hadn’t -- cried.
It was the one thing that she wanted to be assured about herself. Even underneath a sharp cutting blade, she was unflinching and undoubting. This was all for love of the Empire, marred and mutilated and proud.
Gently, Dahna says, “You’re more than the scared slave I first met at Otor’s Hub. You’re a person, Seyn, and your life is yours. One day, the entire galaxy will be free, because we’ll make the dream happen. And if we don’t ourselves, our friends and allies will.”
“Do you really think we can beat the Empire?”
“Of course,” Dahna says. “They’ll fall, just like your owner did, just like mine. We’ll dance whenever we want -- wherever we want -- including the Emperor’s grave himself.”
Seyn thinks: As if this ragtag team of terrorists can assassinate the Emperor, but the thought is chased from her head when Dahna reaches to touch her throat. There’s a scar here, too, but not from the loyalty officer’s knife. It’s from the slave collar that she had to wear for Rudaga.
“Does this bother you?” Dahna asks, her thumb stroking her neck. “I know that our scars are bad memories.”
“No,” Seyn says, her voice tremulous. “No. Dahna, I want you to touch me.”
Dahna makes a startled sound. “Stars, honey, you have to mean it--”
“I mean it,” Seyn says. “Like you said, I’m my own person. This is my own life, my own body. And I-- I’m giving it to you--”
Dahna cuts her off, tipping Seyn's head up, bringing their mouths together. So this is what it feels like, Seyn thinks. This is what it feels like to be kissed. And she files it away in her head like a brand new lexicon, like an unknown language she’s only just discovering, letting it slip from her tongue and her lips and her teeth, until it’s more than a kiss, until she’s guiding Dahna’s hands to her hips and her breasts. Then she touches Dahna’s scars, electro-whip burns like lightning on her shoulders and back; then she touches Dahna’s lekku, running her fingers along the length of it, and Dahna is gasping, shaking, saying her name, and it feels like the Imperial loyalty officer’s knife, but better.
Seyn knows how to say, I love you, in Twi’leki -- the verbal version, anyway, since she doesn’t have the head-tails for the sign language -- but she doesn’t say it. She had disclaimed knowing other languages, and besides, even for this kind of pretense, it’s too sappy, too sentimental, too likely to give away the game.
She and Dahna are lying curled together on a pile of blankets and pillows in a cavern. Dahna is still sleeping, her breath going in and out, and Seyn watches the rise and fall of her cerulean blue chest.
For a moment, she wonders what this would’ve been like if she had really been Seyn, liberated slave girl. Timid rebel-in-training. Dreamer and idealist and terrorist.
But she is not that girl. She is Agent Seyn Marana of Inferno Squad. This galaxy is destined for order, peace, and justice, not beautiful dancing girls who want to burn the world.
The Empire is going to win. They’re going to win. And Seyn will find out all of the Dreamers’ secrets and destroy them.
Seyn knows how to say, I own you, in Twi’leki, but she doesn’t. That would be too cruel. Even for this.