Chapter Sixteen: Shaeeah & Jek

3K 130 150
                                    

"Thank you for dinner, Suu. It was really delicious," Cass nodded to the grown Twi'lek.

"Hey, I caught it," Cut interjected.

"It attacked you...and almost won, I might add," Sue deadpanned.

Cut crossed his arms and leaned back. "Still caught it," he muttered under his breath.

Cass laughed with the kids and began grabbing the empty plates on the table.

"You don't need to clean up Cass, that's the kids' chore," Cut started and tried to grab the dinnerware from her hands.

"No please, it's the least I could do. And it will help keep my mind off things," she explained and brought the dishes to the sink.

"Very well," Suu nodded.

"Yes! No dishes!" the kids cheered.

"Well no, now you have more time to clean up your toys outside," Cut argued with a chuckle.

The kids whined and threw their hands up, they hung their heads low and grumbled as they dragged their feet outside and onto the dusky home front.

As Cass continued to scrub and rinse and dry the few dishes, she watched the shadows outside grow longer until only dark silhouettes were visible. She smiled as she saw Shaeeah and Jek get distracted while picking up their things, eventually starting a game of ball. They played one game, wrestled, and followed a lizard all in a matter of ten minutes. Watching them get distracted kept her thoughts from steering too far in the direction she didn't want to go. When she finished the last dish, she dried her hands, grabbed her data pad, and walked outside, then sat cross legged on the dirt and continued to watch the kids dance in the shadows.

"Hey Cassi! You want to join us now?" Jek kicked the ball to her and it gently tapped against her feet.

"I think it's getting too dark to play, but I was gonna stargaze if you wanted to join me," Cass flicked her hand and force pushed the ball back to Jek with a velocity to match his. She tapped away on her data pad, the glow of the screen illuminated her features in the darkness.

"I don't know, how much do you know about the stars?" Jek caught the ball under his boot and shifted his weight to one side.

"Well, there's about 400 billion stars and over 3 billion habitable star systems orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy. The Republic assigned stars a specific class based on their chemical properties, and they come in so many different types and sizes! I mean it's really cool to think about it when-"

She paused when she finally looked up and saw Jek and Shaeeah staring with wide eyes.

"I uh...I mean—yeah I know a lot about stars," she mumbled and sheepishly blew out a breath.

"We can see that," Shaeeah laughed.

Cass bit the inside of her lip, afraid she may have gone on too long or spoke too quickly or frankly lost their interest. But to her surprise, they sat down beside her and looked to her expectantly.

"Well, go on!" Jek light shoved her shoulder.

"Uh, yeah—yeah okay, um...well what do you wanna know?"

Jek excitedly began pointing to the sky, his index wavered every which way. He cheerfully chirped when she answered his questions, and it only made her smile bigger. She explained the difference between luminosity and apparent brightness, and told them that even some planets—if close enough—can shine brighter than a star. At that, the kids went on about every planet they had heard of from their father's stories. And of course Cass gladly mapped out and spouted everything she knew about each one. They eventually had splayed out onto their backs, not caring about the dirt that would dust onto their clothes. She spoke passionately and carefree, like there was nothing wrong in the galaxy, and they listened like there was no other words than the ones she spoke. Pure childlike curiosity resonated from all three of them, especially from the one who laid in the middle—the one who wasn't an actual child.

Inevitable {Tech}Where stories live. Discover now