Title: Jaxxon's Twi'leks 27 Wiped
author : helgaleena helgaleenas@...
Series: post-TPM, pre Star Wars: Twilight, by Ostrander and
Duursema
Rating: PG-13
Category: het, slash implied
Warning: interspecies,
Disclaimer: Lucas is god of Star wars and owns everything; I am
nothing
Summary: the story of Jaxxon and Quinlan Vos, concluded.
Author's note: This is where the party ends. Quinlan Vos is about
to wake up in a burning building with no memory, and begin his
illustrious career in the Dark Horse graphic novels. Aayla Secura is
spending a sybaritic interlude among her uncle Pol's personal
attendants. And our furry Lepi hero drops out of sight until he
shows up with Han and Chewie, in Marvel Comics, on Aduba 3.
More on Jaxxon at web-strip Jaxxon's 11 at theforce.net
http://www.jaxxons11.com
previous episodes: http://www.livejournal.com/users/hlglne/5044.html
"Jaxxon, wake up."
The person holding my head in their lap seems to think I'm Jaxxon.
I'm not sure if that's a good idea, being Jaxxon. What's a Jaxxon?
"Please, please, you have to wake up..."
They are asking nicely. I will consider it. I think it might hurt
if I wake up, though. It might not be worth it...damn, I'm waking
up. It hurts. But it's not life-threatening, just feels like
someone ran over me with a big-- running-over thing. The worst is
my head, I think---nope, it isn't the worst. And even my hair hurts.
I open my eyes. I can now see the person the lap is attached to.
It's a she, with a baggy flight coverall and no hair at all, and
tentacle things where her ears should be, and she's yellow as a-- a
yellow thing. Water is coming out of her eyes, which means she is
upset. Otherwise, I think she'd be pretty.
Come to think of it, how do I know it's a she, or that she's
pretty? She's the first person I've ever seen, since I went to
sleep. And I can't remember what I look like, either. I might be
prettier...
Whatever I am, there's a lot of me that doesn't fit on her lap. I
have on a flight suit, too, rather the worse for wear. We are in a
sort of low place between these built things to hold people, that
are on the ground and don't move, unlike mine (how do I know this?),
and there's a lot of dirt and stink.
I have a feeling I used to know a whole lot more than I do now,
about those things, and who she is, and who I am, but I don't. I'll
have to ask.
"So,--who's Jaxxon? And who are you?" I try to keep my tone light,
so as not to further upset Miss Lap. But it doesn't work. She
starts boohooing out loud, and yelling in a language I don't know,
with even more liquid squirting out of her eyes.
I sit up, and put an arm around her, which doesn't hurt too
terribly, thank goodness. "I'm sorry," I say, and eventually she
gets control of herself. Meanwhile, I notice that I've got things
on my head too, that I can move. But they're not snaky like hers--
they're ears, with fur, and they swivel really well.
"Oh, Jaxxon, they fed you glitteryll. You don't remember me; you
don't remember anything."
"Who's they?"
"Never mind that. You don't want to know; it's better if you
don't. We have to get away from here, from them. They got Kim, and
Aayla, and Rena-- all of them. I was still on the ship, and when
you didn't come back, I went looking for you. Oh my poor Bunny!"
She starts wailing again, while I try to make sense out of this.
There was a ship, and she and I came to this dark, smelly place on
it. We had friends, and "they" had "got" the friends. Some
of "them", according to this yellow gal, had fed me a thing called
glitteryll, which had wiped my brain as clean as a -- a very clean
thing. Or so she says.
"How do I know all this is true, and not just a story you're telling
me, yellow person?" She wipes her nose on her sleeve and gives a
watery smile.
"Because I had it done to me, once. And you saved me, and gave me a
new name-- Meena. I owe you my life. And if you take off your
gloves and put your hands on me, you'll know it's true."
That sounds pretty far-fetched, but what do I have to lose? I pull
off the heavy-duty gauntlets I'm wearing, surprised that my hands
are green, not yellow like hers. And I touch her pretty, wet face.
And then I know everything she knows. Whoah. How did I do that?
So what Meena knew was-- she was a race called Twi'lek, and she
woke up one day on a planet called Tatooine, just about as blank as
me right now. She found out that she was a pleasure slave for a
slimy guy called Jabba the Hutt, and it wasn't a pleasure. Along
comes this Jaxxon, who was furry green with big ears, and helps her
buy her freedom, is nice to her in very intimate ways, and it is
definitely an unusual experience to find out who you are supposed to
be by reading another being's mind, which is what she is letting me
do.
I am grateful to Meena for filling me in on Jaxxon. Evidently I am
a swell young fellow despite my quirks, which include this reading
by touch, though not too choosy about the type of people with whom I
associate. She thought for years that I should spend less time with
riff-raff and more with Meena. But she never did anything about it,
until I hooked up with this Kiffar human named Kim, to get away from
Jabba the slimy Hutt, and certain other Twi'leks formerly in his
employ went too. She didn't trust the ones she knew about, and
tagged along, even though the whole business wasn't her preferred
style, just because she thought she owed it to Jaxxon, which is me,
I must remind myself.
The whole memory bank speeds up to a bit of a blur at this point.
This Kim wanted me to go to wherever there are lots of other beings
like me, and bring Twi'leks to entertain them, when he was really
doing something else, which Meena doesn't know, so now I don't
either. But on the way we had to go to all these other places,
including the Twi'lek planet, which is here, where we are sitting,
in a rather filthy corner of it, which she informs me is known as a
waste pit.
This is Ryloth, where all the bad things happened to Kim, and his
little blue girlfriend Aayla, and a whole lot of relatively
blameless females like Meena, who were along with us. What exactly
befell them, and why, Meena is foggy about, as she had refused to go
along, but had stayed on the ship. My ship.
"I'm captain of a ship? It's mine? What do I do with the ship?"
"Yes, it's yours; when I got worried, it told me exactly where to
find you. We have to get back to the ship, Bunny; once you touch
it, you will know how it works."
"Oh, okay. Uh, do I like it when you call me Bunny?"
"I hope so. I only just started to, Jaxxon."
"I guess it's okay, then-- and if I didn't like you before, Meena,
I surely do now. I wouldn't know anything at all if you weren't
here. Thanks."
My legs work. As I limp along with her, out of the stench and
toward the lights where presumably other Twi'leks live, it occurs to
me to ask,
"Why am I thrown away by these Hutt serving bad guys, Meena? Why am
I not dead?"
"I suppose they didn't think you were dangerous enough to kill, or
valuable enough to enslave. If you had stayed in the waste long
enough, the scavengers would likely have eaten you, unless you
remembered what danger was, and became a scavenger yourself." She
sounds bitter and disgusted, and I decide that I am, too.
"I don't intend to be labeled as waste, or as a scavenger, thank you
very much, Ryloth." Meena laughs at that. It sounds way better
than her crying.
"Let's get out of this place and never come back, Bunny. Okay?"
"Sounds like a plan. We cut our losses and go. It will take me
some time to reinvent myself into a-- Lepi? There better be a
library on that ship with some data. You are simply not informed
enough for me, young lady."
Meena is laughing again. I'm liking it. "I'm way older than you,
Bunny, but I guess that doesn't count because we have both been
turned into newborns, and you very recently."
"Okay, then, you are age three, and I am age zero point one. I
guess you're older."
I begin replaying her memories of me, as we slink through the
sparsely inhabited areas toward the space port. The whole city is
built in a bunch of caverns-- the surface of the planet is called
the Bright Lands, and Twi'leks only go there to die-- or visit the
rest of the galaxy. Strikes me as funny somehow, traveling and
dying put in the same category. We are running for our lives, here.
Meena's knowledge of the place has big gaps, having been gleaned
second-hand from fraternizing with other Twi'leks when they were off-
planet. They had clans, but she had no idea which one had birthed
her. The birth thing, too-- I am fascinated with how Twi'leks do
it. And she is so certain that she and I could never produce a kid,
and she's pleased. Why couldn't we, when the stuff she remembered
me doing with her would make children with a male Twi'lek? Am I not
a male? Do Lepi have the same sexes as Twi'leks, even? --she'd seen
me with males and females, both. Another puzzle for later.
Meanwhile, I hope Twi'lek noses aren't as offended by my smell as I
am. Meena takes out an absurd cloak with flowers on it, and covers
me, which she says makes me look like a green Twi'lek beggar, when
the hood is up.
We get to the gate. She tells the guards that I've been cast out
and am bound for the Bright Lands. They hold their noses and look
the other way. She keeps a blaster pointed at me the whole time,
until we're out of sight. It makes no sense to me, but whatever
works, I guess.
After a long trek upwards, we reach the Kala'uun Spaceport, in
blindingly bright sunlight. It is a bit harsh, after the gloom
below. Meena puts on goggles. Under the hood, my eyes can tolerate
the light after a while.
At the spaceport gate, Meena gestures to me to put my bare hand to
the locking mechanism. Surprise! my hand finds out what the
mechanism wants--a code, which I punch in with my gloved hand.
Easy. We are in, and on our way to the ship-- my ship.
And when I put my hands on the hull, it comes streaming back to me
how much I love her-- my Rabbit's Foot. I'm crying as much as Meena
was. This is not just a chunk of metal and circuitry, this is my
freedom, my steed through the stars. And a lot of the things on her-
-I think of it as her-- I made myself. It has an AI programmed by
me, and it's telling me that most ships have one nowadays. I am
truly glad to be Jaxxon at this moment.
"Let us in, Foot."
"You got it, Boss," and the hatch lowers, to admit me and Meena. I
am going to celebrate with her, right after I decontaminate. I am
definitely one lucky Bunny.
END
author : helgaleena helgaleenas@...
Series: post-TPM, pre Star Wars: Twilight, by Ostrander and
Duursema
Rating: PG-13
Category: het, slash implied
Warning: interspecies,
Disclaimer: Lucas is god of Star wars and owns everything; I am
nothing
Summary: the story of Jaxxon and Quinlan Vos, concluded.
Author's note: This is where the party ends. Quinlan Vos is about
to wake up in a burning building with no memory, and begin his
illustrious career in the Dark Horse graphic novels. Aayla Secura is
spending a sybaritic interlude among her uncle Pol's personal
attendants. And our furry Lepi hero drops out of sight until he
shows up with Han and Chewie, in Marvel Comics, on Aduba 3.
More on Jaxxon at web-strip Jaxxon's 11 at theforce.net
http://www.jaxxons11.com
previous episodes: http://www.livejournal.com/users/hlglne/5044.html
"Jaxxon, wake up."
The person holding my head in their lap seems to think I'm Jaxxon.
I'm not sure if that's a good idea, being Jaxxon. What's a Jaxxon?
"Please, please, you have to wake up..."
They are asking nicely. I will consider it. I think it might hurt
if I wake up, though. It might not be worth it...damn, I'm waking
up. It hurts. But it's not life-threatening, just feels like
someone ran over me with a big-- running-over thing. The worst is
my head, I think---nope, it isn't the worst. And even my hair hurts.
I open my eyes. I can now see the person the lap is attached to.
It's a she, with a baggy flight coverall and no hair at all, and
tentacle things where her ears should be, and she's yellow as a-- a
yellow thing. Water is coming out of her eyes, which means she is
upset. Otherwise, I think she'd be pretty.
Come to think of it, how do I know it's a she, or that she's
pretty? She's the first person I've ever seen, since I went to
sleep. And I can't remember what I look like, either. I might be
prettier...
Whatever I am, there's a lot of me that doesn't fit on her lap. I
have on a flight suit, too, rather the worse for wear. We are in a
sort of low place between these built things to hold people, that
are on the ground and don't move, unlike mine (how do I know this?),
and there's a lot of dirt and stink.
I have a feeling I used to know a whole lot more than I do now,
about those things, and who she is, and who I am, but I don't. I'll
have to ask.
"So,--who's Jaxxon? And who are you?" I try to keep my tone light,
so as not to further upset Miss Lap. But it doesn't work. She
starts boohooing out loud, and yelling in a language I don't know,
with even more liquid squirting out of her eyes.
I sit up, and put an arm around her, which doesn't hurt too
terribly, thank goodness. "I'm sorry," I say, and eventually she
gets control of herself. Meanwhile, I notice that I've got things
on my head too, that I can move. But they're not snaky like hers--
they're ears, with fur, and they swivel really well.
"Oh, Jaxxon, they fed you glitteryll. You don't remember me; you
don't remember anything."
"Who's they?"
"Never mind that. You don't want to know; it's better if you
don't. We have to get away from here, from them. They got Kim, and
Aayla, and Rena-- all of them. I was still on the ship, and when
you didn't come back, I went looking for you. Oh my poor Bunny!"
She starts wailing again, while I try to make sense out of this.
There was a ship, and she and I came to this dark, smelly place on
it. We had friends, and "they" had "got" the friends. Some
of "them", according to this yellow gal, had fed me a thing called
glitteryll, which had wiped my brain as clean as a -- a very clean
thing. Or so she says.
"How do I know all this is true, and not just a story you're telling
me, yellow person?" She wipes her nose on her sleeve and gives a
watery smile.
"Because I had it done to me, once. And you saved me, and gave me a
new name-- Meena. I owe you my life. And if you take off your
gloves and put your hands on me, you'll know it's true."
That sounds pretty far-fetched, but what do I have to lose? I pull
off the heavy-duty gauntlets I'm wearing, surprised that my hands
are green, not yellow like hers. And I touch her pretty, wet face.
And then I know everything she knows. Whoah. How did I do that?
So what Meena knew was-- she was a race called Twi'lek, and she
woke up one day on a planet called Tatooine, just about as blank as
me right now. She found out that she was a pleasure slave for a
slimy guy called Jabba the Hutt, and it wasn't a pleasure. Along
comes this Jaxxon, who was furry green with big ears, and helps her
buy her freedom, is nice to her in very intimate ways, and it is
definitely an unusual experience to find out who you are supposed to
be by reading another being's mind, which is what she is letting me
do.
I am grateful to Meena for filling me in on Jaxxon. Evidently I am
a swell young fellow despite my quirks, which include this reading
by touch, though not too choosy about the type of people with whom I
associate. She thought for years that I should spend less time with
riff-raff and more with Meena. But she never did anything about it,
until I hooked up with this Kiffar human named Kim, to get away from
Jabba the slimy Hutt, and certain other Twi'leks formerly in his
employ went too. She didn't trust the ones she knew about, and
tagged along, even though the whole business wasn't her preferred
style, just because she thought she owed it to Jaxxon, which is me,
I must remind myself.
The whole memory bank speeds up to a bit of a blur at this point.
This Kim wanted me to go to wherever there are lots of other beings
like me, and bring Twi'leks to entertain them, when he was really
doing something else, which Meena doesn't know, so now I don't
either. But on the way we had to go to all these other places,
including the Twi'lek planet, which is here, where we are sitting,
in a rather filthy corner of it, which she informs me is known as a
waste pit.
This is Ryloth, where all the bad things happened to Kim, and his
little blue girlfriend Aayla, and a whole lot of relatively
blameless females like Meena, who were along with us. What exactly
befell them, and why, Meena is foggy about, as she had refused to go
along, but had stayed on the ship. My ship.
"I'm captain of a ship? It's mine? What do I do with the ship?"
"Yes, it's yours; when I got worried, it told me exactly where to
find you. We have to get back to the ship, Bunny; once you touch
it, you will know how it works."
"Oh, okay. Uh, do I like it when you call me Bunny?"
"I hope so. I only just started to, Jaxxon."
"I guess it's okay, then-- and if I didn't like you before, Meena,
I surely do now. I wouldn't know anything at all if you weren't
here. Thanks."
My legs work. As I limp along with her, out of the stench and
toward the lights where presumably other Twi'leks live, it occurs to
me to ask,
"Why am I thrown away by these Hutt serving bad guys, Meena? Why am
I not dead?"
"I suppose they didn't think you were dangerous enough to kill, or
valuable enough to enslave. If you had stayed in the waste long
enough, the scavengers would likely have eaten you, unless you
remembered what danger was, and became a scavenger yourself." She
sounds bitter and disgusted, and I decide that I am, too.
"I don't intend to be labeled as waste, or as a scavenger, thank you
very much, Ryloth." Meena laughs at that. It sounds way better
than her crying.
"Let's get out of this place and never come back, Bunny. Okay?"
"Sounds like a plan. We cut our losses and go. It will take me
some time to reinvent myself into a-- Lepi? There better be a
library on that ship with some data. You are simply not informed
enough for me, young lady."
Meena is laughing again. I'm liking it. "I'm way older than you,
Bunny, but I guess that doesn't count because we have both been
turned into newborns, and you very recently."
"Okay, then, you are age three, and I am age zero point one. I
guess you're older."
I begin replaying her memories of me, as we slink through the
sparsely inhabited areas toward the space port. The whole city is
built in a bunch of caverns-- the surface of the planet is called
the Bright Lands, and Twi'leks only go there to die-- or visit the
rest of the galaxy. Strikes me as funny somehow, traveling and
dying put in the same category. We are running for our lives, here.
Meena's knowledge of the place has big gaps, having been gleaned
second-hand from fraternizing with other Twi'leks when they were off-
planet. They had clans, but she had no idea which one had birthed
her. The birth thing, too-- I am fascinated with how Twi'leks do
it. And she is so certain that she and I could never produce a kid,
and she's pleased. Why couldn't we, when the stuff she remembered
me doing with her would make children with a male Twi'lek? Am I not
a male? Do Lepi have the same sexes as Twi'leks, even? --she'd seen
me with males and females, both. Another puzzle for later.
Meanwhile, I hope Twi'lek noses aren't as offended by my smell as I
am. Meena takes out an absurd cloak with flowers on it, and covers
me, which she says makes me look like a green Twi'lek beggar, when
the hood is up.
We get to the gate. She tells the guards that I've been cast out
and am bound for the Bright Lands. They hold their noses and look
the other way. She keeps a blaster pointed at me the whole time,
until we're out of sight. It makes no sense to me, but whatever
works, I guess.
After a long trek upwards, we reach the Kala'uun Spaceport, in
blindingly bright sunlight. It is a bit harsh, after the gloom
below. Meena puts on goggles. Under the hood, my eyes can tolerate
the light after a while.
At the spaceport gate, Meena gestures to me to put my bare hand to
the locking mechanism. Surprise! my hand finds out what the
mechanism wants--a code, which I punch in with my gloved hand.
Easy. We are in, and on our way to the ship-- my ship.
And when I put my hands on the hull, it comes streaming back to me
how much I love her-- my Rabbit's Foot. I'm crying as much as Meena
was. This is not just a chunk of metal and circuitry, this is my
freedom, my steed through the stars. And a lot of the things on her-
-I think of it as her-- I made myself. It has an AI programmed by
me, and it's telling me that most ships have one nowadays. I am
truly glad to be Jaxxon at this moment.
"Let us in, Foot."
"You got it, Boss," and the hatch lowers, to admit me and Meena. I
am going to celebrate with her, right after I decontaminate. I am
definitely one lucky Bunny.
END
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