Runaway

10. Chapter

Lydiya had suggested to get started right away but Ren wanted to wait until the next day and instead took us to Shemmys for dinner. The old woman seemed to be happy that we would stay a while.

"This is so exciting! It's been a long time since we had travelers come through here", she cheered.
She invited the whole village to her terrace, apparently back in the day it used to be a tavern but now mostly the three old men met here for their sabacc evenings.

Ren and his son sat down at the table with us, as well as Lania Oorhies, the old widow.
"What brings you here?", she asked, and the boss told her the same story he had told Shemmy previously. Lania seemed a bit suspicious though. Her dull eyes looked at him searchingly. She asked a lot of questions.
"Where are you from?"
"What kind of wares do you import?"
"Who do you work for?"
Her mind was still very sharp although she appeared so old.

"Oh Lania, will you stop being rude", Caleb said, laughing and shaking his head, "I'm sorry, she's always a little on guard with everyone. She believes the whole universe is against her since her husband died", he explained .

Then Quia appeared. She was wearing the same white gown as this morning, to be fair it was more of a shawl draped elegantly around her body, that had caught my attention.
She smiled, as kindly as before, and sat down on the opposite side of the table across from me.

"Ah Quia, darling, do you want some wine? Something to eat?", Shemmy asked in her caring way.

"Yes, thanks Shemmy. Actually some water will do, and whatever you have to eat", Quia responded. Her voice was incredibly soft and still so certain at the same time. And she always smiled while speaking.
But she didn't speak to us. She just listened to the conversations we had with the other citizens, at times she joined in our laughter. Then she looked at her daughter and the little child seemed to enjoy the lively atmosphere as well. I couldn't help but watch Quia the whole evening.

Once I looked over at Lydiya. She shook her head and rolled her eyes. But then she smiled, she cleared her throat and said: "Quia, your daughter is just so cute, what's her name?"

"Thanks, her name is Xii. She's almost two years old now. Say hello to Lydiya,  Xii", Quia looked at her child in expectation and the little human made some indistinguishable noises, that I would bare count as a greeting but Quia seemed to be happy, and Lydiya smiled too.
The two women got into talking. Apparently Quia hadn't been here for long either. She had just arrived a few months ago. She wasn't really being clear in what her motives where, she made it sound like she just landed here by chance because she had nowhere else to go. Apparently she was from a bigger city on Dantooine and she had to leave because of some political situation there.

I let my eyes wander around the table, and I noticed, that the major wasn't here.
I took that as a chance to finally say something.
"Why isn't the mayor here?", I asked not specifically to Quia, but for some reason she answered: "That man is always busy. And he doesn't like strangers. When I came here he wasn't very pleased either"

"Oh, okay", I answered. I didn't know what else to say and I tried not to sound uninterested.

Luckily Quia was good at conversations. "Where are you from, if I may ask?"

Was I going to tell the truth? I looked at Lydiya for help. She nodded and assured me: "I think you can tell her".
The rest of the table was involved in their own conversations anyway, so I lowered my voice a bit and simply said: "I'm a deserter".
Quia looked at me, trying to process that information, then she smiled and said: "Clone Trooper? Because I could definitely see that"

I laughed: "yeah, I fought for the Republic for three years but it didn't seem right to me anymore, all that killing you know"

"Yes, I get that", she replied.
"I think you did the right thing", she added.

"Thanks, I wasn't so sure about that", I said.

"Just so I get this right, your friends don't know about that, do they?", Quia followed up.

"Oh no, they do, but the rest of your village doesn't", I gathered some courage and asked her:"If you want to, we could go for a walk and I tell you the whole story".

"Sure, I'd like to hear that! Lydiya, would you be so kind and take care of Xii for a while?"