The Rebel Queen - Poe Dameron

Chapter XXIII: Medley of the Heart [prt 1]

Poe

Always the fool playing hero. Hot-headed and brash, crashing into walls instead of using the door. Leading with the heart, and not the head. These were his flaws. The very core things to his nature that he'd inherited from both of his parents, both of them fighters in the Rebellion.

So why had he thought things would turn out any differently?

When he'd learned that Versengen's encrypted drive held damning evidence against Calista's mother, he'd been prepared to face those horrors beside her, with her. But when she erased the logs and spoke nothing of what she saw, her actions akin to a spy cowering from discovery, he was outraged.

How could he have not seen her to be like every other politician? Playing angles and keeping secrets was their very core nature. He'd seen it countless times. He'd even expected it from her during their first encounter.

Then she told him her name, whispered so close to his cheek, lyrical as it fell from her lips and played tricks with his heart. Such a beautifully complex name which refused to leave his inner ear, sounding out over and over again. In her quarters. In his. By the tarmac, standing beside Gold Squadron, pretending not to notice the outline of her shadow across the ship lanes. It was inescapable, haunting him until all he could think to do was sneak aboard the Silvertail and confront her—if not about why her name kept crawling alongside the walls he leaned against, then at least as to why she'd offered it in place of an explanation; in place of the chance to come clean.

Palms hot, fists shaking, Poe knocked on the door, unable to keep his breathing level. What was he doing? Why was he here? It's not like he could ask them to turn the ship around if things imploded in his face. He was flying straight into a brewing war after only just having escaped his last brush with death. And for what? Foolishness? A beautifully far-away smile? Lips that part with the door, full and hanging without words to greet him? A face strewn in confusion that looked dauntingly like hope rekindled—like unexpected happiness held at bay by raised brows and wide eyes. Eyes the colour of the soil on Yavin 4. Fertile and dark and home to many wonderous things he'd grow to miss well into adulthood.

"I couldn't leave it be," was all he mustered up to say.

He shivered as a rivulet of coolant dripped down his back from his hair. The liquid had leaked onto him, coating his jacket and hair in that familiar ozone smell down by the lower levels of the ship when he'd stowed away. He felt boyish in the face of a princess.

The Matriarch's Quarters were lit in such a way that Calista's skin glowed impressively. Her attire matched the room's; woven patterns of gold thread pressed the deep blue silk to her body like armour. The material was bluer than the bottom of an inkwell, and the fabric draped around her body in a complicated fold. First, it crossed in an X around her neck, then it opened up to a V above her hips. The fabric was light and heavy all at once, swaying with her movements but also bunched around her elbows, creating this layered tunic.

The room's bedsheets were that same shade of blue. and the walls were draped in tapestries that held elaborate woven patterns. Their thread was made of gold and purple and red, their stories seemingly of a tale to be unspooled from one hexagon to the next.

From Calista's attire to the golden lighting and the rich shine of the bedsheet, everything about the scene unfolding before his eyes screamed "Honeymoon."

He felt his throat go dry as he fumbled for words—for his righteous anger that he had been convinced was the reason for this very stunt.

"I need to know why you did it," he fought hard not to blink. He was afraid it would all be a dream.