May The Way Be With You

Quality Time

"Welcome!" An overly happy resident exclaims as Mando and I walk out of the hanger. We've arrived on Naboo. We aren't near the capital, instead in a little town. Apparently there's a festival of some kind going on. Things are decorated in colorful flowers, bright ribbons and flashy banners. There is music playing everywhere, and there are countless stalls selling anything one can think of to sell. Food, clothing, bits and baubles, art, books, crafting supplies, every and anything.

I have my credit purse with me and the backpack I got, not worried about pickpockets with Mando standing right behind me. We walk through the overflowing market, looking at different things. Mando sticks close to me, always having a hand on my back, waist or shoulder. Like he needs to have a physical connection to me to be sure I'm safe.

We come to a stall that has strange objects that I have a feeling aren't what's being sold. "Ah, welcome Child. Do you wish to have your fortune told? See what fate has in store for you?" An old, feminine voice calls from the tent behind the stall.

"No, thank you. I decide my own fate." I tell the voice, moving on.

"How peculiar, a Greyling not wanting her fortune told." The voice ponders. Both Mando and I stop dead, turning back around. Out of the tent comes a VERY elderly woman, who's hair is a pale lavender color. Her face feels familiar, but I don't know this woman. Her eyes are clouded, but I can see they are the same pale lavender as her hair, and her pupils are the same as mine.

"Are... Are you a Greyling too?" I ask, stepping up to the booth.

"I am." She smiles. I look to Mando, who doesn't say a word. "Are you sure you don't want your fortune read, Child?" She grins. I get an idea.

"Counter offer: I'll pay you your rate for a fortune, but instead, you tell me all you know about Greylings. I'm more interested in that." I tell her. She cackles.

"What could I tell you that you wouldn't already know?" She laughs.

"Pretend we don't know a kriffing thing about Greylings. Do you accept?" Mando says. The woman stops laughing slowly, looking between the two of us.

"Alright then. Come, inside the tent." She grins, waving her hand as she goes in. We enter the tent and there's more of those crystals, glass balls, and odd trinkets everywhere. Mando and I have to share a chair, so he has me sit on his lap so we're comfortable.

After I hand over the credits, the old lady starts talking. She starts with a woman named Zelna, who was the first of our kind. As she tells me about Zelna, I realize my dreams were about her. She says that our race was a science experiment. To create super soldiers who didn't need as much food or sleep, who could take bullets and shrapnel like it was nothing,

By the time the Empire came, we were no longer being made in labs, but born. The formula for making us was long gone. The Empire got their hands on a few of us, trying to reverse engineer us so they could create even stronger Greylings. Apparently they were mixed with the clones that used to make up a lot of stormtroopers. Our people ran, scattered across the Galaxy to escape the horrible experiments and treatment of the Empire.

"Rumor has it that one family, the descendants of Zelna, has claimed a planet for our people. Named it Greylandia, and rule over our people as a monarchy. I've never been there, so I don't know it's location. And it's a rumor after all." She sighs, taking a puff from her long stemmed pipe.

"If Greylings can take as much damage as you say, how do they die?" Mando asks.

"They don't. Not until they are ready to and choose to go into the void of death. Our close connection to The Force prevents us from dying unless we wish to. Even for the Old Republic, do you think they'd let death take away lab rats they spent centuries and countless credits cultivating?" She chuckles, then coughs.