#mintrose tea was something i made up for my tali-mancing Shepard stories

[fanfoolishness]

the music of the spheres (Jedi: Fallen Order)

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, 2000 words, gen. Greez & Cal. Greez Dritus tries to get used to his new passenger. Set immediately after the prologue. Just a little early found family, a little bit of Cal's PTSD, and Greez looking out for someone besides himself.

--

The Mantis hummed her way through hyperspace, the way she always did when he managed to stay caught up on repairs.  Greez hummed with her, a little half-melody under his breath, careful not to wake Cere and Cal.  A strange crew if he’d ever had one.

He shook his head, waiting for his tea to steep.  This was a weird gig.  Probably his weirdest.  Definitely the first time he’d ever been hired to do something of galactic importance. He gave his tea a final stir and twitched the teabag out, taking a deep breath of mintrose and bluewing honey.  This was some of the last of his stash, but It’d been a rough few weeks on the run and dank farrik, he deserved a little treat.  

He went to take a sip, but the scalding heat deterred him.  He wasn’t sure why he was surprised; he knew how long it took the tea to cool.  Impatient as always.

He hummed his half-melody, then let it fade in his throat.  There was some other sound mixed in, something wrong, discordant.  Greez picked up his head, ears twitching.  What was that?  He set down his cup of tea carefully on a coaster and gazed around.  

Cere was still up front, stretched out and snoozing quietly in her chair.  She’d complain about being sore in the morning, but she was the one who’d grumbled at him when he tried to convince her to go catch some proper shut-eye.  Wasn’t her, then.

He heard it again, a sound that didn’t fit with the familiar thrum of the Mantis.  Some kind of mumbling.  He couldn’t make out the words.

Maybe the kid was chanting?  Seemed like something a Jedi would do.  He ought to leave him to it.  But Greez was a nosy one, and it was his ship, anyway.  He left the galley and headed back to the bunks.  

He heard a distinct “no” and he nearly stopped and turned around.  He was halfway through calling out a hasty apology when he realized it didn’t seem like the word had been said at him.  He crept on down the hallway.  

In the dim sleeping lights he could just make out the kid, curled up in his bunk, fast asleep.  Maybe he’d imagined hearing something?  But the kid’s face looked tense.  Off, somehow.  Greez watched him, feeling unsettled, though he wasn’t sure why.

The kid flinched.  “No, please, stop -- don’t shoot, don’t --” the kid slurred.  Even from a few feet away Greez could tell he was shivering in his sleep.   “Master -- ‘m sorry -- no --”

That was far enough.  “Kid?” Greez called out.  “Uh, hey, Cal?  You all right?”

The kid snapped awake, wild eyes darting, shoulders heaving.  He sat up sharply, taking ragged, gulping breaths.  “What -- where am I --”  

“Hey, it’s okay,” said Greez awkwardly, holding out his hands.  You put your foot in it now, Dritus!  He slowed his speech, tried on what he hoped was a soothing tone.  “You’re on the Mantis, with me and Cere.  Remember us?  Picked you up on Bracca?  Saved you?”  

“Bracca -- Prauf…” the kid said, the hunted look fading into something dazed and blank.  He blinked, then scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his grimy hand.  “I -- I must have been dreaming.  I remember now.”  He swung his legs over the edge of the bunk, swallowing.  “What is it?”

Greez twisted his lower pair of hands together, fiddling with his fingers.  “You were talkin’ in your sleep.”

“Oh,” Cal said.  He looked away.  “I didn’t know.  Sorry.”

“You got nothing to be sorry for,” said Greez.  Kriff, what was with this kid?  “Just didn’t sound pleasant, that’s all.  Figured I’d check on you.  You okay?”

Cal opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it.  “I don’t know,” he said sheepishly. “I guess not?  I try not to think about it.”  He smiled.  It looked like he was trying to remember how.

Greez let out a long breath.  “Huh.  I know a thing or two about that, I guess.  Hey.  Come on, kid, take a walk with me.”

“A walk?  Did we land?”

“Figure of speech.  But you look like you could use something to clear your head.”

Cal stared down at his boots.  “Did I wake you up?  I didn’t mean to.”

“No, you’re -- Come on, look, I ain’t asking a third time.”

“Uh, all right,” the kid said.  He got to his feet, towering over Greez.  Well, he wasn’t the tallest human Greez had ever seen, but he gangled, and it made him seem taller.  Maybe it was part of a larval stage human younglings went through.

Greez led him back to the galley, gangles and all.  “Go on, grab some seat.  Got something for ya.”  The kid sat down on the couch, clearly confused.  

Greez didn’t blame him.  Hell, he felt a little confused about this too.  What was he supposed to do?  He was harboring two Jedi -- well, a former one, and half of one -- on his ship, he had about sixteen bounties out on his head, and now the Empire and the Inquisitors were breathing down his neck.  None of it made any damn sense, and he had no idea how he was going to handle any of it.

He could handle this one little thing, though.

Greez grabbed the tea, now cooled to the perfect drinking temperature.  It panged him, but he handed it to the kid and pressed it into his gloved hands.  “Here you go.  Made it special, just for you.”

The kid’s eyelids fluttered closed, and he froze for a moment, lost in some kind of reverie.  He shook himself free of it and gave Greez a smile, one that reached his eyes this time. “No, you made it for you.  You were looking forward to it.  You should have it.”

Greez groaned.  “Is this some weird Force magic?  You have tea-sensing abilities?  Cere didn’t tell me that.”

Cal snorted.  “Not specifically tea, that would be weird.  Just -- sometimes I get echoes from the Force in things.  Memories.  This time it just happened to be tea.”  He paused.  “You sure you don’t want it?  It does smell pretty good.”

“Nah,” Greez said, waving an arm and settling down beside the kid.  “My great-grandma always used to make it when I had trouble sleeping.  Looks like you need it more than I do.”

The kid nodded.  “I don’t sleep so well,” he admitted.  “I mean, I guess you noticed that.”  He took a drink of the tea, and sighed in surprise.  “Hey.  That’s, um, that’s really good.  What is it?”

“Mintrose,” said Greez proudly.  “Grew it myself here on the ship.  Though it’s the last harvest I’ll get for a cycle, I think.  You can only take so much at a time.”

Cal took another drink.  “What’s the sweetness?  Is that the mintrose?”

“Bluewing honey,” Greez said.  “Got it off a trader in Mos Eisley.  Stuff’s supposed to be rare as anything, but I won it in a game of sabacc.  Running out, though, I’ll have to find more.”  Especially if he was going to have to share his stock with this hangdog scrapper kid.  

“You really think there’s something out there, like Cere says?” Cal asked.  “Something to hope for?”  

“Don’t look at me.  It’s above my pay grade,” said Greez.  

The kid lowered his eyes, shoulders slumping beneath his too-large poncho.  “Yeah, I figured.”  He took another drink.  His face twisted to one side, like he wanted to say something and thought better of it.

“Ah, don’t do that.”

“Do what?” Cal asked.

“The whole existential dread thing.  Weight of the galaxy and all that.  Is that a Jedi thing?  Cere does it too when she thinks I’m not looking.”

The kid laughed, a short, bitter sound.  “Maybe it is a Jedi thing.”

Huh.  This wasn’t helping the kid, Greez realized.  He leaned back in his seat, thought about the wide starflung void surrounding them.  Could there be something out there?  Something to hope for?  If there was, it’d be a damn shame to leave it all to the Empire.  Wouldn’t it?

“Don’t listen to me,” he said abruptly.  “There really might be something to Cere’s idea.  I dunno, it’s between you and her to figure out.  But honestly?  I hope she’s right.  Galaxy could use a new bright spot.”

Cal raised his head, staring at the holotable.  The holo projection of Bogano blinked above it, a sleepy little world in green and brown and blue far on the Outer Rim.  

Maybe it was nothing.  Maybe it was something.

“A new bright spot?  …It’d mean a lot.”  Cal finished the tea and set it down.  

“Coaster!”

“Sorry!”  The kid twitched one over with a wave of his fingers, setting the mug down on top of it.  “Sorry.”

“S’all right,” said Greez, but he surreptitiously reached out and wiped away the bit of moisture clinging to the table’s surface. “Just trying to keep her in good shape.  She’s all I got.”

“Well, you’re doing it,” said Cal.  “The ship’s great!”

“You’re just sayin’ that.”

“I’ve seen a lot of ships in the past five years, Greez.  Trust me.  She’s all right,” said Cal earnestly.

“Yeah?  Tell me about ‘em.  I always like hearing ship stories.”

Cal settled in, leaning back against the couch and looking up at the ceiling, deep in thought.  He pursed his lips.  “Ever seen the guts of a Lucrehulk?”  

Greeze whistled.  “I’ve heard about ‘em.  Never seen one in the flesh.  That must’ve been something else back when it was new, huh?  How long does it take to scrap something like that?”

Cal laughed again, stifling a yawn.  “Well, the freighter we had down on Bracca?  The Seia Khorrinos?  That’s what I first started on, after I -- Anyway, five years later, they’re still working on it.  It’s stripped down pretty far -- we definitely made some progress -- but there’s still years of work to do.  Solid construction, though.  You don’t see many like that.”

“Sounds impressive.  Never saw one myself in the Clone Wars,” said Greez.  “Tried to stay out of things if I could.  But one time I ran the wrong way up against a Subjugator.  Damn thing packs a helluva punch.”

Cal yawned again.  “What were you doing, trying to get past a Subjugator?  In this ship?  You a smuggler, Greez?  Be honest.”

“Me?  A smuggler?  I’m wounded at the accusation,” Greez argued.  “Okay, sure, I’m smuggling some Jedi right now, but that’s different.”  He launched into a fine retelling of how he’d been carrying cargo for some backwater scuzz to pay off a gambling debt, how he’d been caught in the midst of a crazed firefight, how he’d jettisoned the cargo to confuse the droid fighters and dashed away victoriously into the safety of hyperspace -- 

When he looked over and saw the kid had fallen asleep.  

“All right, all right,” said Greez.  He got up and shuffled to the kid’s bunk, and came back with a blanket.  He tossed it over him, then poked him in the shoulder until the kid mumbled something.  “Lay down, you’re gonna be sore if you don’t.”

“Mrrph ffrr brr,” the kid muttered, stretching out on the couch.  Greez winced, realizing the kid still had on his oil-stained boots; they were gonna scuff up the seat something fierce.  He let out a long breath, fighting the urge to shove the kid’s feet back to the ground, and shrugged all four shoulders.

Eh.  He could always clean it up in the morning.

He hit the galley lights, and deep, comforting darkness filled the ship.  The emergency lights twinkled in the black, their colorful pinpoints melding with the soft holo glow of Bogano.  A bright spot, indeed.

“Night, kid.”

The only reply came in Cal’s quiet breathing, interwoven with the shimmering hum of the Mantis gliding through hyperspace.  Greez nodded, humming his little half-melody along with the song of his ship, and this time, it sounded right.