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CHAPTER ONE:
dépaysement

"Hurry," Gareth hissed, shoving what seemed like anything he could reach into his pack. Their entire life had changed in the instant it took for a shuttle to explode, but when Lisbet saw him reach for her Ladyship's jewels, she stretched a hand out to stop him.

"Gareth, we can't," she said, half a sob and half an appeal. "We can't just steal their things."

Her brother's face softened a measure when he saw her distress. "They don't care, Lisbet. They're dead."

"I know," she said. "But it seems wrong."

"We need the jewels to sell or trade for transport," he reasoned as he pushed them all the way to the bottom of the bag. "It isn't cheap, flying all the way to the Rim."

Lisbet put a hand to her spinning head. This was all happening so fast, and her judgment was clouded by grief and shock. "Can't we just go home?"

"And bring the danger there with us?" Gareth paused again and looked her in the eye, as if to impress upon her the importance of what he was saying. "Lisbet, we were meant to be in that shuttle with the rest of the Senator's household. If the Emperor finds out that we survived - or worse, what we know - he won't hesitate to finish the job. Hells, he would probably put the blame on us."

"But if people knew that he ordered the Senator's assassination, maybe it would weaken his hold," Lisbet said, even though she knew it was impossible. It had been five months since Chancellor Palpatine had reformed the Republic into the Galactic Empire, styling himself as the Emperor as the war drew to an abrupt end. Already his power had grown to the point that everyone was terrified to oppose him - with good reason. Senator Tibirian had spoken against the Emperor's motives once, and three days later he and nearly his entire household had burned in a "shuttle accident."

And now Lisbet and her brother were rifling through their former employer's apartments, looking for trinkets to barter in exchange for escape.

"It wouldn't change anything," Gareth echoed her thoughts. "It would only make us dead. Better for us to disappear and never give anyone in the Empire a reason to think of us again."

"Where will we go?" she asked, finally picking up one of the bags he had brought but not quite ready to start packing it.

"Do you remember grandfather's cousin, Warwick? We were very young when he left for Tatooine."

"Tatooine," Lisbet breathed. "That's far."

"I know," Gareth said, his face an apology. "But we can disappear there. Now hurry, go to your quarters and pack light. I'll finish up here."

Lisbet took a steadying breath, steeling her resolve. Even if they had to spend some time on Tatooine until the danger passed, surely it didn't mean permanent exile. Perhaps after a year or two, all would be forgotten and they would go home. She could do this.

"Will we be able to find transport with such little notice?" she asked.

"There are always ships coming and going," he replied. "We'll book the first leg in the wrong direction and then change ships at the next port. It will be impossible to track us, if they somehow find out we're alive." She nodded in agreement with his logic and headed out the door. "Lis," Gareth called before she had completely gone. "Better change into your plainest dress. Once we leave Coruscant, you won't be one of her Ladyship's handmaidens anymore."

Lisbet didn't trust herself to speak, so she nodded again as she turned away to hide her reddening eyes, and wondered how she could just pack up an entire life and disappear.

Two Months Later

Lisbet pressed a fist into the small of her aching back, trying to massage out some of the tension. Sitting at the loom all day was tiring work, but it was better than walking back and forth again and again to feed the spindle when Oona spun thread. And that was better than the backbreaking work she and Gareth had done in Mos Eisley when they first arrived on Tatooine.

It was only late morning, before the worst of the day's heat. Lisbet had quickly learned the Oona liked to start work early while the rest of Anchorhead was still sleeping. It meant they could take breaks or finish early, which was a welcome respite from the tedium of weaving.

Footsteps from the cellar stairs sent Lisbet's hands back to the loom so that Oona wouldn't think she was slacking. A silvery white head of hair appeared in the stairwell as the weaver slowly came up, accompanied by her quiet sounds of effort at the task.

"Come to the market with me, girl," Oona said as she took the last few steps. Helping haul groceries wasn't technically part of her job description, but Lisbet was stronger than the wizened old woman, and Oona sometimes shared luncheon from her own pantry when Lisbet's packed meal didn't meet her standards. So she didn't mind, and it was a good excuse to go out and stretch her legs.

"Coming," Lisbet said as she reached for a headscarf and looped it around her neck.

Oona gave her a disapproving look and made a tusk tusk noise as soon as she saw what Lisbet was doing. "You might as well give up, girl. That scarf will shade your skin no more than the sky will give us rain, especially when your nose is already red."

Lisbet reached up to touch the tip of her nose, even though she knew Oona was right. She was so pale that she burned quickly, and the double suns on Tatooine only made it worse. It didn't even turn into a tan, either - just a constellation of freckles overtop even fairer skin after the burn peeled. "Maybe I should try a hat," Lisbet wondered aloud.

Oona pushed a shallow basket into her hands with a harrumph. "I suppose you're too pretty to be clever, but I thought everyone knew that the sunlight reflects up from the sand. A hat would hardly help you, either."

"Oh," Lisbet muttered. She didn't bother reminding Oona that neither Coruscant nor her homeworld had much sand, so there was no way she could know. Still, she folded an edge of the headscarf under her eyes and wound the rest over her coppery hair. At least it would keep the dust from choking her if it was windy today.

As always, the suns dazzled her vision as soon as they stepped out the door of Oona's workshop. Lisbet balanced the basket on her hip so that she could bring a hand up to shield her eyes. The marketplace was all the way across town, laid out in a sprawling maze beside Tosche Station. Not that it was very far away - Anchorhead was fairly small.

"We'll check on Solstice while we're there," Oona decided. She had a distinct rhythm of walking, sure but slow, and Lisbet fell into her shadow. Solstice was Oona's young niece, who minded the little fabric stall in the marketplace twice a week now that she was too pregnant to be much help with weaving and spinning.

They left the relatively closed in residential area, where the clay huts provided some shade and shelter from the wind, and entered the much more open market. Lisbet considered the stalls there as ramshackle, though she would never say the word aloud. The vendors were all kind, and few had given her and Gareth small tokens of welcome when they arrived almost five weeks ago.

Oona was as decisive in shopping as in all things, so they quickly filled the basket in Lisbet's arms and then cut a deliberate line toward the fabric booth. Solstice greeted them with a smile as they drew near.

"Good morning, Auntie!" she said in her sing-song voice. "And sweet Lissy, too. Forgive me for not standing, but my ankles are a sight to see in this heat. Come soon, baby!" She addressed the last to her round stomach.

"I think your belly has gotten even bigger since I saw you last," Lisbet smiled in reply, transferring most of the now-heavy basket's weight onto the counter. "Are you sure you're not farther than six months along?"

"Maybe it's twins," Solstice laughed, her glossy black hair shimmering in the sunlight as she moved.

Oona was poking through the bolts of fabric. "Had any sales today?"

"Three yards of muslin to Rhyssa, but that's all, Auntie," Solstice said. "Although Sevrina asked if you could spin more purples, she wants a new skirt and you know how picky she is with colours."

Lisbet let her thoughts drift away from their shoptalk. She liked to watch the gentle bustle in the marketplace, especially at this time of day when it was busiest. She didn't really feel like she belonged here yet, but she couldn't deny that she was surprised by how kind the people of Anchorhead were. After the the misery of Mos Eisley when she and Gareth had first arrived, this was a refuge.

Her wandering attention was drawn to a man a couple of stalls down. The first thing she noticed about him was his voice - or rather, his accent. He was speaking to the fruit merchant, and Lisbet hadn't heard such clean, cultured inflections since…

Coruscant.

A sliver of unease knifed through her as she instinctively slid further behind the stall's drapery to conceal herself. Surely he wasn't from the Empire, sent to spy on her and Gareth?

She risked a peek at him, glad that her scarf hid most of her face. The man wore a long cloak of dark brown that covered what looked like simple, roughspun clothes beneath. His neatly trimmed beard was a sharp contrast to the unruly hair on his head, which wasn't helped by the wind carding through it and ruffling it into his face. He swept it back with his hand, but a second later the wind had it again. Even at the distance, Lisbet could see the brilliant blue of his eyes and how expressive they were.

She turned to look for Oona, since the old weaver seemed to know everybody in Anchorhead. But the only ones in the fabric stall were Solstice and a customer, who was looking dubiously at a length of orange linen. "Where did…?" Lisbet asked, shooting Solstice a confused look. Oona had been right there, and she wasn't known for moving particularly fast.

"Oh, she's talking to-" Solstice paused for a second, "well, I forgot his name."

"Who?" Lisbet was still scanning the immediate area for her.

"Him," Solstice nodded in the direction of the man with the blue eyes and accent. "Isn't he handsome?"

"I hadn't noticed," Lisbet replied, a fresh wave of anxiety sweeping down her spine as she peered around the drapery again. Sure enough, Oona was chatting to the man, looking much more animated than Lisbet had ever seen her.

"You hadn't noticed," Solstice scoffed with a delightedly scandalized look on her face. "Why, if I hadn't already wedded and bedded my husband, I would give Auntie a run for her credits."

Lisbet just made a vague agreeing sound, too distracted by fear to give Solstice's words much thought. Oona didn't even know that she and Gareth had come from Coruscant, much less why they had left the Inner Rim at all. But if this man really was an investigator from the capitol, he probably knew the right questions to get her talking.

"Excuse me," she said to Solstice as she gathered up her basket and checked the folds of her headscarf, just to be sure it wouldn't slip out of place.

"Oooo," Solstice crowed, clearly misinterpreting Lisbet's intentions. "Sweet Lissy means to catch herself a bachelor."

"Hush, you," Lisbet threw over her shoulder, keeping her tone playful despite her tense mood. She didn't particularly like Solstice's nickname for her, but she knew it was kindly meant and there was no point in alienating a potential ally.

The pit of her stomach hollowed as she drew closer to Oona and the stranger. The weaver woman was doing most of the talking while the man nodded occasionally at her words, and Lisbet was so afraid that she forgot all about her deeply ingrained handmaiden etiquette and interrupted them the moment she was close enough to speak.

"Are you ready to go back to the shop, Oona? I thought we might take an early lunch." The words poured out of her in a tumble, and Lisbet felt the full weight of their rudeness, wishing she wasn't so panicky.

Oona fixed her with an astonished scowl, either shocked by Lisbet's uncharacteristically bad manners or resentful of the interruption itself. "In a moment, girl - if your hungry belly can bear the wait."

"Yes, of course," Lisbet wilted.

"Ben, this is my new apprentice," Oona said, turning back to the stranger. "I found her in Mos Eisley last month, scrubbing floors in Jabba's townhouse."

"Pleased to meet you," the man - Ben - said with a gracious incline of his head.

Lisbet hastily returned the gesture with something that might have passed for a curtsey, although she wore trousers instead of a skirt. Now that she was really looking at him, she realized that Solstice had been right; he was handsome. The realization, coupled with her unresolved anxiety, made her feel much younger than her age.

Meanwhile, Oona was chattering on. "She and her brother came to Tatooine looking for their great-uncle or some such relation - what was it again, girl?"

"My grandfather's cousin," Lisbet reluctantly supplied, trying to telegraph for Oona to please stop.

The old weaver wasn't having any of it. "Oh yes. They came all this way to find him, only to learn he'd died some years ago and left monstrous debts to the Hutts."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Ben murmured.

"I'm sure our misfortunes are of little interest to your friend," Lisbet tried to draw Oona away again, angling her body back toward the shop in the hopes that it would influence her to begin moving.

"Nonsense, child," Oona waved the suggestion away and continued her story without missing a beat. "Of course, Jabba conscripted them into his staff, to work until they paid off the debt. This one," - she jerked a thumb at Lisbet - "was dressed as a boy, all covered in filth and ill-fitting clothes."

Ben made a politely interested facial expression, and it suddenly occurred to Lisbet that he seemed as eager for the conversation to end as she was, except he was much better at concealing it from Oona. She decided to change tactics and speed up the process, since Oona seemed so bent on getting the whole story out.

"The deception was my brother's idea," she explained, "when we first landed in Mos Eisley. It seemed better than the alternative."

"That was a wise choice," Ben said, and the earnest look in his eyes made something flutter low in the pit of her stomach. She was almost relieved when he turned back to Oona. "How did you perceive the ruse?"

"Her hands," the weaver replied smugly, grabbing Lisbet's wrist and raising it, as if to prove her point. "No boy would have fingers like that, especially a servant."

"Oona convinced Jabba that we could repay the debt more quickly if we came to work here with higher wages," Lisbet said as she pulled her hand away under the pretext of adjusting the basket on her hip.

"I needed someone to help with my work, since my niece is too fat with child to be much help anymore," Oona sniffed, although the words were tinged with fondness. The finger she poked in Lisbet's ribs wasn't very gentle, though. "Don't even think about getting pregnant, girl."

"I won't," Lisbet ground out, hating herself for feeling so embarrassed in front of this man.

The wind was ruffling his hair again, and he swept a hand through it in another futile attempt to keep it out of his eyes. There was something in his expression that might have been amusement - just a tinge, and well-hidden at that. It was so subtle that she wondered if she'd seen it at all.

"I sent the girl's brother to work as a farmhand for Kairon," Oona said, then fixed Ben with a pointed look. "My brother always needs good, strong men to help with the work."

But Ben only bowed again, clearly signalling that the conversation was at an end. "Thank you for the renewed offer, Oona, but I would make a poor moisture farmer. And now if you'll excuse me, I really must be going."

"Oh, won't you have lunch with us?" Oona said.

"Thank you, but I'm afraid I don't have the time." Ben swept up her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles in a formal goodbye, which apparently rendered Oona completely speechless, since she only gaped in open-mouth astonishment while Ben nodded to Lisbet, said "It was a pleasure to meet you," and walked away.

Lisbet looked between the weaver woman and Ben's retreating back as Oona stared after him. After a moment, she asked, "Are you alright?"

"That man is a scoundrel," Oona said, rousing herself, in a tone that suggested she liked scoundrels very, very much. "Come on. Let's go eat."

Lisbet fell into into step beside her as they headed back to the shop. "Has he been in Anchorhead long? I don't remember seeing him before."

"You wouldn't have," Oona grunted, putting a hand on Lisbet's elbow to steady her tired feet. "He showed up about six or seven months ago, lives out in the Jundland Wastes. He only comes to town once a month, to gather supplies I suppose. Although I saw him in Mos Eisley once at a cantina."

Six or seven months ago, Lisbet thought in relief. There was no way he was there to investigate them, then. "Do you know why he came to Tatooine?"

"Keeps to himself, that one," Oona said. Then she narrowed her eyes at Lisbet. "Don't you get any ideas in your head, girl. I saw him first."

Once again, Lisbet was glad most of her face was concealed by the scarf, although this time it was to hide her smile. "He's all yours."

But she couldn't help but wonder about him, why a man who was clearly educated and intelligent, from an Inner Rim world, would come to live in the wastelands of a barren planet. Maybe he had a secret, too.

dépaysement, (n., French), when someone is taken from their own familiar world into a new one.

Special thanks to Amelia for being a powerhouse of encouragement and problem-solving, and shout-out to everyone else who has sent love along the way. :) This fic will be updated every two weeks.

05.04.16