fighting_mad

Resigning her commission is surprisingly easy. A quick conversation with the captain and a handshake and she's gone.
Your faith was strong but you needed proof
It doesn't hurt to leave her X-wing nearly as much as she thought it would. It doesn't hurt at all, not even when she's running her fingers over the hard-earned kill silhouettes that will be painted over, not even when she hauls herself up into the cockpit to remove the couple of personal items that she always kept there.
You saw her bathing on the roof
To be fair, nothing hurts right now.
Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you.
She doesn't say goodbye to anyone. She's just another former Rogue, following Elscol, Dllr, Herian, Ibtisam, Nrin, Xarcee, Feylis, vanishing silently into the night just like the rest of them. Like the Darklighters and the Porkins and the Rendars and the Docs who came and went before her time.
She tied you to a kitchen chair,
She doesn't look back. Not once. Not walking out of the fighter landing bay, not in the shuttle leaving the Mon Redonda, not even once she has booked passage and is on a rattly old Stalwart-class light freighter bound for Eiattu.
She broke your throne, she cut your hair,
When the ship captain asks in the Alassar Major spaceport, she says the second alias that comes to mind. She thinks Hobbie would be horrified if he knew she gave her name as Klivian. Hell, maybe he'd laugh. She doesn't know.
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah.
She wants to say Pernon, but she knows better than that.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah.
The bored customs official spells it wrong. Thou Klivan doesn't correct him. She just slips him a few credits so that he won't need to see her identification.
Maybe I've been here before,
I know this room, I've walked this floor.
It takes three days to reach Eiattu, not four.
I used to live alone before I knew you
The nobles have to know she's coming, have to be watching the Eiattu spaceports and passenger lists for her. If they weren't ready to make an attempt on her life, they wouldn't have acted.
I've seen your flag on the marble arch,
She wears a hooded cloak and she keeps to herself, away from the crew and four other passengers. She spends most of the voyage on the bunk that's too short for her, sleeping or watching the stars streak past.
love is not a victory march,

It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah.
The freighter sets down in Otomne. She rents a speeder and travels the four and a half hours west to the capital city.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
It's sick how easily she gets into the palace without identifying herself. Bribe a guard here (he's going to lose his job), use a secret passage there, and she's in.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
On her way through the lower levels of the palace, the servants' levels, she runs into young Hilunda first. He's a count who she's worked with a few times; he lacks political clout, but she approves of him. He seems to actually care about the people; a rarity among the nobles.
Remember when I moved in you?
Just the fact that he's in the palace at all is a good sign; it means that he didn't break ties with the government the way that the Priamsta stalwarts did. Though damned if she knows what he's doing in this level of the palace.
The holy dark was moving too
"Princess--" he starts, eyes wide, but she brushes right past him. He is forced to hurry after her to catch up.
And every breath we drew was hallelujah.
"Count Hilunda. I need an immediate update on what's happening; the damage done, who was killed," and her voice doesn't hesitate or pause, not even on that, "and the demands of the Priamsta. Then I want a way to get a message to them, and when I say 'then,' I mean now."
Maybe there's a God above
"Princess, maybe you wish to speak t--"
And all I ever learned from love
"Princess!" Malia, her maid, dashes down the hall, hair flying behind her and her simple dress rumpled as if hastily thrown on, and maybe that's a clue as to what Hilunda is doing in the servants' levels of the palace. "Princess, you d--" The girl gets one look at the princess's face. "You don't know," she breathes. "Please, come." She grabs her princess's hand and tugs insistently.
Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you
She shakes her head. "I don't have time f--"
It's not a cry you can hear at night
"No, no, you need to come now," says Malia, and Isplourrdacartha is so stunned by the girl's interruption, by her uncharacteristic strength, that she lets the girl lead her away from Hilunda, up the stairs and down a corridor.
It's not somebody who's seen the light
After a few minutes, she starts, "Malia," but then there are voices in the corridor ahead, and they turn the corner.
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah
First, she sees a guard. One of her own. Then two more. Then a young baron and a layman advisor; two men who she would have expected to remain loyal to herself, and then, talking to them--
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
Hallelujah,
She has snapped. She has gone too long without sleep and her mind has just snapped.

Hallelujah.

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Oh, oh, "Rial--"

She throws her arms around him and clutches him fiercely, hiding her face in his neck and sucking in a shuddery breath.

He hugs her, holding her tightly and ignoring the fact that she probably can't breath.

"Plourr-"

The others in the corridor wisely retreat, though the guards remain within shouting distance.

Plourr doesn't notice them and she doesn't answer him; she just flings down the bag that she had been carrying over her shoulder and uncharacteristically clings. Breathing is difficult, but she doesn't care and it's not entirely his fault because she won't cry. She won't.

But it's no use repeating when his neck is already damp.

Still holding her, he moves backward until his back is against a wall and leans back, using one work-roughened thumb to brush tears away from her face.

"Shhhhh. It'll be okay."

She breathes shakily and nods, tilting her face into his hand.

"I can't believe it. When your mother called, I was so sure--" She can't bring herself to say it now.

"But I'm not. Promise."

He shushes her, though he's clinging as well.

"I'm not-" and it's hard to say, but he does anyway, "-dead."

She rubs her eyes hard with the heel of her palm.

"I've noticed."

"Yeah."

He's running his fingers through her hair.

"And - you're okay?"

"Yeah. Just--"

Fingers in her hair or not, his fault or not, she punches him hard in the arm. "Don't you ever do that to me again, Rial Pernon!"

"Ow!"

He yelps, and starts backwards, smacking the back of his head on the wall.

"...ow."

She is immediately repentent, gently touching the back of his head. "Shavit. Shavit, I'm sorry."

"It's okay."

He smiles ruefully.

"It won't happen again."

"Good," she murmurs, and then she watches him a moment before slipping her arms around his neck again, curling her fingers into his jacket.

"You're really alright?" Her voice is muffled by his shoulder, haunted and quiet, but audible.

"I wasn't even in the palace."

He holds her gently, like she mmight break if he lets go.

Well, her grip on him is tight enough for the both of them.

"Then why did your mother think you'd been killed?"

Rial glances away.

"I. Er. Snuck out of the meeting. I gather that there was a corpse that. Um. Resembled me."

"Oh." She doesn't ask who it was. She has an idea, based on her knowledge of the palace elite.

She slowly pulls away from him, wiping her face with a sleeve of her tunic. "I guess-- we should probably call them," a vague gesture at the door that the others had stepped through, "back here so you three can fill me in on what the hell's happening, huh?"

"If you're ready."

He absently plays with a strand of her hair, sighing.

"I'm sorry. I'd hoped you knew."

She shakes her head, hand still on his arm. "It's not your fault. I didn't dare access the Holonet to check my messages; I didn't know what was waiting for me here. Without my X-wing, I wouldn't have been able to defend myself if there had been a turbolaser trained on the sky." She rubs tired eyes again.

"You left your X-wing behind?"

Rial squeezes her shoulder.

"I'm - kriff, I'm so sorry."

She shrugs lightly, but there's the barest hint of a smile on her face for the first time in days. "Yes. I figured Rogue Squadron would need it more than I do."

"You're here to stay?"

He frowns.

Not exactly the reaction she'd been expecting.

"When I talked to Wedge about it, I thought you were-- I thought I didn't have a choice. I had to come home." Her eyes are on him. "But I have the choice now, and I've already made it."

Rial beams.

"That's great!"

Her smile is a pale shadow of its usual self, but it's genuine. "There's no getting rid of me now."

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