Chapter Three;
Soleil almost wished that the Ghost would never touch down – even if it meant that she would never get to live her dream, that she was letting it slip through her fingers like smoke. But the news that they would be at a refugee camp?
She shook her head, closing her eyes. No. It couldn't be true. It went against everything she'd ever been told. It was the Rebels who caused death and destruction and forced innocents into camps, fearful for their life. She had been told, over and over again: the Rebels were insurgents, a threat to the order of the galaxy. It was the Empire who brought stability.
She was going to have to see the truth with her own eyes.
Soleil stood wedged between Sabine and Ezra, tugging on her hair for something to do. The crates they would use to distribute food was nearby.
Ezra jumped down from his previous seat on one of the said crates. "You okay?" he asked Soleil.
The brunette jolted. "Oh, yeah," she said. "Just a little... nervous, I guess."
Both to be confronted with the truth, and to finally live her dream.
She felt the Ghost land and bit her lip.
Okay. Here we go.
The door opened, and Soleil gasped, her eyes flooded with light.
It was beautiful – a temperate terrain, green with an azure sky ahead. Soleil wanted to run outside and feel the long blades of grass and touch the trees, a breed that was unheard of Garel. Everything here was wilder, more natural – there wasn't a building in sight.
"It's beautiful, isn't it?" Hera asked, descending from the cockpit.
Soleil could only nod, but Hera and Kanan understood at once.
Soleil was allowed to stare for a moment longer before everyone chivvied to action, pushing the crates with them.
Soleil trailed behind the others: for one, they knew where they were going, and she didn't. And two: she just wanted to drink in the sights of a new world, barely daring to believe she was breathing another planet's air, walking on a ground that wasn't dust and concrete. She was enthralled.
And she was so busy taking in sights that she didn't realise they'd arrived before everyone else came to a stop.
"What is this place?" she choked out. Her heart had stopped, her eyes were wide, her breaths blocked in her throat.
The sight in front of her was the most miserable sight she's seen in her life.
The town before her was – could they even call it a town? It was a camp, more like, building contrasted of scrap metal and torn fabric. People who meandered about did so slowly, arms wrapped around each other, shoulders stooped and bent over double.
Hera rested a hand on Soleil's shoulder. "I told you it was bad," she said lowly.
It was bad. And it was worse. As they drew closer and opened the crates, soon walking amongst people more thin and miserable and withdrawn than anyone Soleil had ever seen, with dirty and frayed clothing, who thanked them endlessly as they handed out the food. Soleil suddenly felt tainted: she was Imperial. She was different to everyone here, she was part of the Empire, which caused this.
The ground had been pulled out from beneath her feet, the ground she had known and walked on her entire life – it was gone, and it left her falling, confused, with nothing to reach out and hold onto because she hadn't been walking on substantial ground: she had been walking on a fragile web of lies. With every grateful murmur of thanks, Soleil wanted to turn around and be sick on the ground.
She was so undeserving of any thanks.
As she gave a ration to one man, his eyes narrowed. "Impossible – Reina Foxe."
Soleil froze.
My mother.
The man wasn't the only person looking at her. The Ghost crew, the other refugees nearby. She felt exposed, like she'd been stripped of her body and left for everyone to see who she really was.
"I'm afraid you must be mistaken," she stammered. Her heart was in her throat – she felt almost faint, like she was about to blackout. She would so much rather she blacked out now. Because then the accusatory stares would disappear, and she wouldn't feel like a criminal on trial – please, ground, open up and swallow me up now like those sinking holes I read about on Jakku –
The man's eyes narrowed. He looked close to her mother's age, if Soleil thought about it. It wasn't implausible they had encountered each other at some point.
"You're not Reina," he hissed, between shaking words. "No, no – but you are her daughter, are you not? Imperial scum!"
Just let me die now.
Soleil's entire body was shaking. Even her little pinky finger was trembling with the force of her shock, her emptiness, at the way everyone was down looking at her like she was the devil incarnate.
I haven't done anything! She wanted to protest, but was aware how defensive it sounded even to her own ears.
Her eyes filled with tears as the people screamed at her, insults in various languages that Soleil didn't understand but the venom dripping from the words making their intent all too obvious. She wrenched her hair free of its braid and tried to hide her face from view as she backed away, turning and fleeing from crowd, suddenly wishing she was back home in Garel in the safety of her walls.
At least there, the hatred of the world was locked away, hidden behind thick walls she couldn't leave.
At least then, she still felt human, and not filthy like the dirtiest pest.
She was an Imperial after all, wasn't she?
+++
"I can't believe we let an Imperial aboard our ship," Zeb growled, as the group returned. They'd been at the camp for a time far longer than they had expected, calming down the agitated crowd. They had been like ravenous animals, thirsting after their prey, foaming at their mouths. Only Hera's gentle words had been able to calm them down.
You couldn't blame them. The Empire had destroyed their lives. Soleil was a representation of the thing that had broken them.
Kanan sighed. "You can't blame the kid, Zeb. She looked terrified."
Sabine pursed her lips. Her helmet was resting on her hip, kept in place by the crook of her elbow.
Soleil had looked terrified, like someone looking directly into their doom. She'd trembled like an abandoned puppy, a leaf in a hurricane. Sabine had not failed to see the tears that sprouted into Soleil's eyes at the accusations, at the blood that drained from her face, how sick she looked.
Not at them, though. But at herself. As though she wished she could throw up and rid herself of the person she had been when she stepped on board the Ghost, the person she had been only minutes ago.
Something told Sabine that Soleil was like her: a girl, naïve, who had once blindly trusted the Empire... Only to have that trust broken later, in the worst way possible. In a way that left your soul shattered and your heart numb.