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dragonlady7via http://ift.tt/2nmOT6S
My absolutely favorite thing when it comes to poe/holdo is that—once upon a time, Holdo was the beautiful hotshot flyboy taking too many risks, growing up on tales of the heedless, headless bravery of the Rebellion. She wasn’t so much younger than Leia when the Senator took her aside and said, stop, said, this is peace, we don’t need martyrs, said, you are smarter than this in a tone that was equal parts compliment and chastisement. (Holdo was still bleeding from her lower lip, her gaze blurry from emerging too-suddenly from hyperspace. She was sure her father had somehow asked Leia Organa to talk to her, talk down the Gatalentan tea-baron’s daughter from joining the New Republican Navy. But Leia was beautiful and her eyes were dark, and Amilyn had nodded.
Okay, she’d said, dazedly, and joined the Navy anyway.)
But she’s not twenty and wild when she looks at Poe, and all she can see is how dangerous that is, all her mistakes written in future tense for him. Leia has told her, has laid it all out—her plans for the Resistance, with Poe Dameron at its head, the burning-bright spark of the thing, if only he could learn to think outside himself and the awful price exacted by heroism.
I’m not a very good teacher, Amilyn whispers, kissing Leia’s pale forehead. Leia does not stir, and Holdo swallows.
She does like him. That’s the worst part, watching him quietly rally the others around him, speaking words of power and self-governance, heroism, his eyes flashing. He is so beautiful and burning, and Amilyn hasn’t been that way in at least a decade. She wishes she had a better way to say, that will only get you trouble, you’ll burn out trying to set the galaxy on fire. The galaxy is wet with blood, and doesn’t notice misery. Amilyn wears lavender because that’s the color of the flower that grows over graves; Gatalentan society believes it’s the symbol of mourning, and death.
She’s watched so many sentients die.
She’ll give him credit, he corners her in her rooms—the General’s rooms—before he tries the bridge. He tries to corner her up against a wall, though he’s shorter in stature than she is and more desperate, lashing out.
Amilyn wonders, as he shoves her against the durasteel, what it would like to be the object of Commander—Captain Poe Dameron’s loyalty. A huge, all-encompassing and burning thing, she suspects, but with unexpected edges. Absolutes. Flyboys like—Dameron, like Holdo, and like Han Solo before the both of them had principles, unexpectedly. No wonder Leia liked it so much.
She wonders if she would have given into Dameron and his charms, in the way she knows Leia hasn’t. She wonders if she would have let him spend all that reckless love and protectiveness on her, instead of Leia, who was spoken for many times over by flyboys brighter and wilder than Holdo or Dameron. Maybe they could have sought comfort in on another, the way Commander Antilles got once, when he took Holdo out for drinks in thanks for being his course assistant and drank too much. He’d started talking about Skywalker, about missed chances—and she’d been young, but she’d gotten into a grav-cab with him, and he’d kissed her, chastely, longingly, on the mouth. It had been mostly sad, not erotic at all, and he’d said, I’m sorry. You just make me think of him.
They could have had that too, Poe and Amilyn—and Leia, invisible and sad between them.
….well. They’ll never know, will they?
(She didn’t wear the lavender lipstick she usually does, with this outfit. She thinks about that, when Dameron is on the bridge, and then the docking bay, burning and talking about mutiny, about treason.
She pictures the faint press of her purple mouth, to his jaw. The mark it would leave behind. She thinks, I wish I was a better teacher.)
(Your picture was not posted)
My absolutely favorite thing when it comes to poe/holdo is that—once upon a time, Holdo was the beautiful hotshot flyboy taking too many risks, growing up on tales of the heedless, headless bravery of the Rebellion. She wasn’t so much younger than Leia when the Senator took her aside and said, stop, said, this is peace, we don’t need martyrs, said, you are smarter than this in a tone that was equal parts compliment and chastisement. (Holdo was still bleeding from her lower lip, her gaze blurry from emerging too-suddenly from hyperspace. She was sure her father had somehow asked Leia Organa to talk to her, talk down the Gatalentan tea-baron’s daughter from joining the New Republican Navy. But Leia was beautiful and her eyes were dark, and Amilyn had nodded.
Okay, she’d said, dazedly, and joined the Navy anyway.)
But she’s not twenty and wild when she looks at Poe, and all she can see is how dangerous that is, all her mistakes written in future tense for him. Leia has told her, has laid it all out—her plans for the Resistance, with Poe Dameron at its head, the burning-bright spark of the thing, if only he could learn to think outside himself and the awful price exacted by heroism.
I’m not a very good teacher, Amilyn whispers, kissing Leia’s pale forehead. Leia does not stir, and Holdo swallows.
She does like him. That’s the worst part, watching him quietly rally the others around him, speaking words of power and self-governance, heroism, his eyes flashing. He is so beautiful and burning, and Amilyn hasn’t been that way in at least a decade. She wishes she had a better way to say, that will only get you trouble, you’ll burn out trying to set the galaxy on fire. The galaxy is wet with blood, and doesn’t notice misery. Amilyn wears lavender because that’s the color of the flower that grows over graves; Gatalentan society believes it’s the symbol of mourning, and death.
She’s watched so many sentients die.
She’ll give him credit, he corners her in her rooms—the General’s rooms—before he tries the bridge. He tries to corner her up against a wall, though he’s shorter in stature than she is and more desperate, lashing out.
Amilyn wonders, as he shoves her against the durasteel, what it would like to be the object of Commander—Captain Poe Dameron’s loyalty. A huge, all-encompassing and burning thing, she suspects, but with unexpected edges. Absolutes. Flyboys like—Dameron, like Holdo, and like Han Solo before the both of them had principles, unexpectedly. No wonder Leia liked it so much.
She wonders if she would have given into Dameron and his charms, in the way she knows Leia hasn’t. She wonders if she would have let him spend all that reckless love and protectiveness on her, instead of Leia, who was spoken for many times over by flyboys brighter and wilder than Holdo or Dameron. Maybe they could have sought comfort in on another, the way Commander Antilles got once, when he took Holdo out for drinks in thanks for being his course assistant and drank too much. He’d started talking about Skywalker, about missed chances—and she’d been young, but she’d gotten into a grav-cab with him, and he’d kissed her, chastely, longingly, on the mouth. It had been mostly sad, not erotic at all, and he’d said, I’m sorry. You just make me think of him.
They could have had that too, Poe and Amilyn—and Leia, invisible and sad between them.
….well. They’ll never know, will they?
(She didn’t wear the lavender lipstick she usually does, with this outfit. She thinks about that, when Dameron is on the bridge, and then the docking bay, burning and talking about mutiny, about treason.
She pictures the faint press of her purple mouth, to his jaw. The mark it would leave behind. She thinks, I wish I was a better teacher.)
(Your picture was not posted)
