[Open] This Was Your Choice

[borntorebel]

CHARACTERS: Leia Organa and Various
LOCATION: Lockers, the Gardens, Comms and other places on the ship
WARNINGS: Princesses swearing
SUMMARY: Leia gets some surprises, some good, some bad.
NOTES: Luke's gone, and this is set after the jump.


Lockers - after the jump
Instead of going to hand out the flower crowns as Leia normally did every jump with her dear friend Lúthien, she spent time with her father near his locker, talking. Somehow, talking about home had become harder and easier the more she did it. But the discussion left her feeling more melancholy than interested in trying to be genial and welcoming. Her attitude wasn't helped much by the loss of her twin, a loss that was much more palpable than that of Han Solo so many jumps before.

So, she headed to her own locker, intent on getting the crowns to hand to Lúthien before going for a swim. However, there was something wrong. Behind the dull, ugly jumpsuit that she kept in the back of her locker there was a flash of something metallic. Shoving the icy queasiness down, Leia pushed the jumpsuit to reveal a familiar outfit, replete with the damnable jewelry and the boots on the bottom of her locker. However, before she can shut (slam really) the door, the light reflects from a large glass jar on the shelf where the flowers should be.

And inside the jar is sand. And a tiny, eyeless, gaping-mouthed flesh eating worm. A sarlacc. Just for her.

"WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS FUNNY?"

Gardens
After the lovely surprise in her locker, Leia's footsteps couldn't take her fast enough to the only place on the whole kriffing ship that made her feel steady, the Oxygen Gardens. But instead of heading to the stream near Lúthien and Galadriel's flets, she went to the second floor and sat in a relatively unused corner.

Her mind was a jumble of thoughts about Tatooine, Han, Luke, and him, Jabba the Hutt. The fact that she had killed the disgusting crime lord before she and Luke allowed his pleasure barge to fall into the sarlacc pit wasn't really a comfort at that point. She missed her brother. She missed Han. She missed everyone back home and having that humiliation shoved in her face after two relatively decent jumps (aside from the killer hounds before the jump) was too much.

But before she could fall too far into the pit of self-pity, a strangely familiar string of chirps and whistles caught her attention. She followed the sounds until she spotted a little droid with a blue dome, rocking back and forth as it tried to free itself from the vines of nearby plants. With no effort, Leia smiled and ran over, pulling the vines off before hugging the astromech droid. "Artoo! I'm so glad to see you."

Comms
A few days after finding R2D2 and cleaning him from the debris and making sure he wasn't damaged, Leia decided to bring him down to Comms. First, she wanted to show him off to the people she worked with. Maybe Skye or Darcy would find him interesting (and not take him apart!). And secondly, she was pretty sure that her father could tell her what the parts of Artoo's memory banks she couldn't access were for. Since he'd had possession of the droid as part of the Tantive IV.

Anywhere else
Feel free to spot Leia and R2D2 anywhere on the ship, since the little droid is now attached to the hip with her when she's not sleeping.

Comments

[borntorebel]

Artoo let out a few distressed sounds and hid behind the princess. Don't let the scary new lady take him apart.

Leia raised an eye at the R2 unit's response. "I actually know very little about what makes him tick. You'd've been better off asking Luke when he was here. Mechanical things aren't my forte, sadly."

[mspoots]

"Aww." She frowns after him. "Don't worry. I'm not scary."

Unsure of how one goes about reassuring a robot that they're not a threat, she holds out a hand as if she's letting a dog sniff her. Logically, she knows that he can't smell, but what else is she supposed to do?

"That's too bad. Did you find him after the last jump?"

[borntorebel]

Artoo beeps at her, in a way that is all too familiar to Leia.

"Don't even consider it, Artoo."

Skye, you almost got shocked by the devious little astromech unit. Be glad.

"I just found him right now. Somehow, he was here."

[mspoots]

Skye feels like she's just missed something, but maybe it's better if she doesn't ask.

"It must be nice to see a familiar..." She glances at the droid. "Face-like interface."

[borntorebel]

Don't ask. Let's just say that the smell of fried fur and/or hair isn't something she wants to repeat any time soon.

"It is nice, I suppose." But not worth the trade of Luke and Han to have Artoo, not by a long shot. "It's even better to have my dad here though."

To have him alive.

[mspoots]

"He talks about you fondly."

She straightens up, not sure if that's a weird thing to say, but it's something that's really stuck with her. Her own parents are a mystery to her, long-lost and entirely unknown. She would give anything to have her own father show up here and just know that Skye was his.

[borntorebel]

Leia chuckles sadly. "He talks about me from when I was three years old. I admit that I was adorable and a handful back then, but two decades have passed since then for me."

But she doesn't want him to stop either. She's always been daddy's little girl.

"However, I've found that since I've come here, I have to share him with more than just Winter and Neena. It's odd. But nice."

[mspoots]

Skye makes a noncommittal sound. "It sounds like he's pretty happy with how you turned out, too."

He's downright proud. Skye would kill to have a parent to look at her like that. Okay maybe not literally kill, but she'd totally steal some government files for it or maybe even punch a dude in the face.

[borntorebel]

"Yes, well..." Leia turns her head, trying not to show how pleased she is with that. Of course she wants her father to be proud of her. Her mother as well. It's just that she never really intended to make a huge deal out of wanting their approval. That's not why she's done everything she did back home.

She did them because these things were the right thing to do. Which is probably why Bail and Breha would be proud of her.

"He still questions my sanity regarding some things. And, right now, I can't say that I blame him either."

[mspoots]

Skye raises an eyebrow. Color her curious, but she's made enough of her own questionable decisions that she likes hearing that other people are human, too. She'd like to think that she's learned from hers, but apparently she's still making new ones, anyway... or maybe they're just new takes on old ones.

"Why's that?"