Ghosthand
The air on Naboo was too clean.
Roman stepped out of the docking corridor and into the gilded sheen of Theed's central spaceport with the weariness of a man who had seen too much and slept too little. The galaxy spun slow on this side of things - no gunfire in the skies, no ash in the streets. Just laughing children, soft architecture, and skies so blue they looked smug about it.
It was like walking into a dream he'd long forgotten the rules to.
He adjusted the collar of his coat, still dusted with the quiet of Tython, and made his way toward a cantina tucked along the edge of the port - The Verdant Stirrup, of all ridiculous names. Polished floors. Hanging vines. Servers with rehearsed smiles. It felt more like a lounge for off-duty senators than a place that served real liquor.
He hated how much he liked it.
Roman didn't sit right away. He paused just inside the threshold, eyes scanning the patrons with the slow, practiced calculus of someone who still instinctively mapped exits. He saw nobles pretending not to be rich, off-world merchants loudly pretending they mattered, and a smattering of tourists soaking up Naboo's peace like it was a novelty drug.
Then - no Aiden. Not yet.
Good. He needed a moment.
Roman ordered something that sounded like whiskey but arrived with a flower floating in it. He didn't complain. He just pulled the garnish free and set it gently aside, nursing the drink like a man already preparing for another ghost.
Aiden had been his friend during their Padawan years - joyful, laughing, the kind of Jedi who made you believe the Order could be a home and not a cage. Where Roman had been forged from sharp edges and restraint, Aiden had moved through the galaxy like it owed him joy, and he'd taken it with open hands. They balanced each other, once.
Letters had come. Sparse, but honest. Roman had kept them all, even the dumb ones with jokes about astromech malfunctions and holodrama plots. Aiden had never stopped trying to reach him. Roman hadn't answered half of them. Duty had a way of eating your good intentions.
But now? After Tython? After her?
He needed to remember something that wasn't broken.
Roman stared at the door, waiting. Hoping. Not for forgiveness, not for understanding.
Just… something real.
A voice in his head - the bitter part, the part that still heard her saying he was his father's son - warned him not to expect too much.
But he shoved that voice down with the drink and leaned back in the booth.
Whatever came through that door next, it had to be better than what he left behind.
