Private Nubian Dreams

[Victoria Treadway]

My heart is not here on Nar Shaddaa anymore. I've looked beyond the stars towards my home the home where I was raised and loved. I'm looking at Nubia and wonder if I can go back. I don't even know who controls that space anymore but I feel the tug of its familiar avenues and sights calling me to come home.

I know I have to go.

I'm not the person I was when I left, I'm also not the person I was three years ago. Much has changed.

I have to test my resolve I have to know that I am stronger than my memories and guilt. I have to go home.

 

[Victoria Treadway]

It would take a few days to put together the credits she had very little when it came to things. She looked at the spaceport to the transport that would take her home. She had a small cabin and meals.

I hope I'm right about this. She knew Claire was on Alderaan but she wasn't going to contact her and let her know she was going home. No not this time I couldn't stand to see the disappointment in her eyes if I fail. I'm doing this on my own I'm going to see it through.

Without any more thought she headed to the ship to check in. No not this time she wouldn't falter but would go, see her home, see the store....and everything else that she felt drove her to bitter ends.

 

[Victoria Treadway]

Standing outside the spaceport on Nubia I think it doesn’t look the same all I seem to see is gray. Had my eyesight been affected or is it my mind playing tricks on me. This once vibrant world that was my home look like the life has been sucked away the only thing left was colorless dreary and the hopeless.

I don’t have time to really contemplate it all though I need to keep moving before I chicken out. Before I just turn and run.

The roads are familiar the rented speeder moves through them easily. I see familiar places the closer I get to the store location. Oh odd even the restaurants, stores, even the signs are the same. I thought I had been gone long enough that those would be new or somehow different.

‘HAVE IT OUR WAY ALL DAY LONG AT MCYODAS!’

‘THE SOLO LINE NOW AVAILABLE AT LLS LIMITED’

All this did was make me realize that no matter how much I thought things had changed here on Nubia it had not.

A few moments later without really even thinking about it, I’m there. The store, a ghost abandoned to better times. The lights are out the glass panes are dirty I can't believe the windows are still intact.

But it has been abandoned I can’t help but go to the door I wanted just to peek inside but as I leaned on the door to my utter amazement it opened.

My heart is going 90 should I go in?

I can’t help it of course I’m going in.

 

[Victoria Treadway]

The old musty dust smells hits me first, then its amazing really. All the mannequins are still dressed covered in a thin white layer of dust like gossamer threads but still there standing some silent vigil.

“wow” the words don’t even carry. I’m too far gone now closing the door I walk around admiring the clothing. It would have been my job to come out and say ‘can I help you?’ There was no one there to do it today and had not been for a while.

I always loved the clothes and the materials Claire used. I never thought to ask for them and for some reason I never wanted any. They weren't meant for me, it wasn't expected either. But Claire after a while always wore her latest creation gathering accolades one after another. My jealousy had burned brightly then. Not so much now.

Except now looking down at my own clothes that had seen better days looking at the mannequin who clearly was better dressed than I was even in its dusty shirt and skirt.

As I touched the collar a soft poof of dust rose up for some unknown reason I laughed. Maybe I expected it to burst into flame either way it felt good to let it out.

What had made me leave again? Looking around I feel it building in my chest that raw aching that was hungry as it felt deprived of sustenance.

My mouth is dry thinking about these things, and wandering around her was making me anxious. I wonder if there is water available.

I passed a mirror and took a look at myself. I can’t remember the last time I looked at a mirror. The image looking back dark brown hair so like my mother, my skin lacked something it looked drawn up wrinkled. But what caught me the most were my eyes. I look like I had not slept in days, instinct made me step closer so I could stare into my own eyes.

They were still blue, a little blood shot, and for some reason I just stood there looking into them. Questions poked their heads up

What did people see when they looked into these eyes?

Can I see past the surface and look into my own soul?

Was I really alive?

I finally looked away still not sure of what I saw there. These kind of questions weren’t always good for the soul I had to stop, I still needed that water.

 

[Victoria Treadway]

Slipping into the back rooms something else unexpected my name still on the door to the little office I had. Victoria Treadway, so simple yet there it was and for the first time I could appreciate seeing it there.

I had to open the door the beginning of the crimes I had committed began in there. A gentle push and the darkness vanished as lights came on. There was power? Wow.

The papers were still there, the drawers had been taken out and dumped on the floor. Someone searching for something. One thing that Victoria never knew was how much what she had done had sent her sister on a mission to find out why?

I can imagine Claire in here dumping the drawers, trying to figure it all out. But….there weren’t any answers in the drawers. She had never put it in there, and she had only gotten in deeper when she ran off. Course no one would believe her if she said it hadn’t really started until after she left.

Maybe there would come a time when they would.

I was hopeful that the small unit where we kept the water, and wine would have a bottle. I chuckled when I opened it and found it all gone. Of course rule of survival food and water first.