Spoken like a true princess.

War, Plourr decided, was worse when you weren't doing any of the fighting yourself.

Every day, she received a briefing on 'the situation,' and every day, it was worse.

Nental was bad enough; she and Rial spent days there after the fighting ended, appearing, meeting with city leaders, rebuilding. Plourr spent a morning sifting through the rubble alongside volunteers. Her aides scheduled it as a public relations stop but she felt better than she had for days during those couple of hours spent hefting rocks, sorting debris, carrying wounded. She'd always felt better when there was something to do with her hands. But there was too much to be accomplished globally; she couldn't stay and focus on one city.

The royal couple made more than one stop like that as time went by.

The Priamsta kept attacking and the guard kept fighting back, and intelligence kept failing to infiltrate, to follow to map to do anything useful. The nobles shouldn't have been able to vanish like ghosts, but they did. The people stuck by the crown, which surprised her until Rial pointed out that they were sticking by her. They trusted her, for whatever Sithforsaken reason, and they were sure she'd find a way out of it all. She built up the guard, inspected the Royal Navy, beefed up defenses wherever she thought they could be improved. Kriff, she even called on the New Republic, though she got the exact response she'd suspected she would: apologies, Princess, but the New Republic simply cannot interfere in internal crises. The woman she spoke to said 'internal crisis,' but Plourr knew what she really meant: civil war.

The one thing she'd never expected to feel if she returned to take the throne was helpless.

When the X-wing sets down in Eiattu's capital's spaceport this time, it's alone. There's no fanfare; just the lone snubfighter tearing into the atmosphere, slowing at the last moment and settling down softly on repulsorlifts and landing gear. The seal on the canopy pops and the canopy itself lifts, and the pilot takes a deep breath and starts running an efficient post-flight checklist.

It's not long after that there's a princess stepping down from the fighter, onto the ferrocrete. The changes are subtle; the snubfighter has more kill markings, more dings and scraped paint. The princess has longer hair that she's running a hand through, a walk that might just be a touch more graceful. Of course, she's wearing the traditional orange flightsuit and combat boots and carrying a duffle bag over her shoulder, so there's not too much grace.

Diplomatic receptions are highly necessary, especially for Eiattu. The planet spent years under the yoke of Imperial control, and now its neighbors are cautiously testing the mettle of its new princess and her husband. Plourr knows this.

Of course, the necessity doesn't stop them from being unbelievably dull.

You'd think an event that lasted this far into the night would at least be interesting. Sadly, however, it was not, and Plourr is now sitting in a (to be specific, Rial's) ground-floor private office, still in full royal regalia with her shoes kicked off. She has her bare feet up on the desk and a much-needed bottle of lum in hand.

Plourr hums quietly under her breath, pulling the bit out of her thak's mouth and the bridle from her face, rubbing her forelock. The thak noses her princess with her big head, and Plourr smiles and pulls the pieces of bluefruit she's been saving since breakfast from her jumpsuit pocket and feeds them to her. The stableboys could handle grooming for her, but she'd rather do it herself. Besides, the stable is nice; it's quiet and smells like hay and thak-feed, and the stablehands leave her alone when she comes in to take early-morning rides.

As Koer happily eats, Plourr starts the process of unsaddling her.

It's the middle of summer on Eiattu, but it has been one of the rainiest months in the planet's history. The cavernous royal chambers are damp and drafty, and there is a decidedly grumpy princess sitting at a desk in the inner living area (the smaller, less formal one). She is surrounded by beautiful things; rich tapestries, a few paintings, sleek furniture with smooth lines, everything in warm shades of gold and cream and yellow. The glowlamps are turned down low, besides the one burning brightly on the desk, and she is adrift in a studious sea of datapads and flimsi scraps, bare feet planted firmly on the floor.

Of course, it would be a much more elegant scene if the aforementioned princess wasn't wrapped up in a huge comforter, her head in her hand. And if she weren't sneezing, blowing her nose, swearing, and occasionally flinging styluses in abject misery.

Plourr likes this small section of the palace roof. It's quiet, for one thing, and it's flat which means that walking on it isn't too dangerous, but most importantly, she's never seen another soul up here. Solitude's getting hard to come by.

She slips off her shoes and makes her way past the glass of one of the Grand Hall's skylights, bare feet contrasting sharply with the formality of her clothes. She sets the shoes down and sits at the edge of the roof, letting her feet swing out into space. The courtyard is far, far below, but Plourr is a pilot; heights have never bothered her. She watches the capital city spread out before her. Her city. It's looking better; after nearly a month of work, it's becoming difficult to see signs of the fighting that had taken place. Most buildings have been rebuilt, the streets cleaned up, debris removed.

Still, Eiattu is not entirely healed. Plourr knows that.

She sits quietly, leaning back on her hands, and watches the sun set over the city and the jungle beyond.

Thaks are ugly creatures by anyone's aesthetic standards, big and scaly with long necks, four webbed feet, long tails, and sharp teeth. They smell and are grumpy and tend to have tempers.

Plourr loves them.

The wind flies in her face and clouds scud across the blueblue sky overhead, and she grins fiercely, staying in the saddle as her thak leaps a fallen log. She gives a wild shout of delight, finally reining the creature in to give Rial the chance to catch up.

She is surprised to look back and see him just behind. "You ride well, my count! Not many can keep up with me when I get going!" she calls.

[All dialogue from Lucasfilm's and Dark Horse Comics' Star Wars: Rogue Squadron: The Warrior Princess.]

Juke left, juke right, juke left, juke right; lure your opponent into a false sense of security, make him think he knows exactly what you're going to do.

Lasers flash by on the screen.

One last juke to the right, and there's the light-up of a targeting lock; she yanks the stick back and to the left, throwing the sim fighter into a tight roll that should press her back against the seat with its force. Of course, this machine isn't nearly complex enough for that.

She's got to find some way to throw the Priamsta off guard like that. To catch the rebels--the ones who say they're lead by Harran but they're not they can't be--off guard and--

The flash of an explosion and the screen goes dark.

"Sithspit!" Plourr slams an open palm against the overhead frame of the simulator, then lets her hand rest there, hooked on the frame.

She runs her other hand over her head in an unconscious motion; auburn stubble still foreign to the touch, too rough and scratchy. Hell, her whole body feels foreign; her tunic is smooth and skintight, eggshell-colored with deep purple, allowing every cord of muscle to show. She's not used to anything so fine, and she's definitely not used to the matching skirt, to seeing her legs bare in anything but athletic shorts. High heels. She'd drawn whistles from the Rogues that afternoon; joking whistles, yes, and ones that had earned several of them glares and thwappings, but she had caught admiring looks from not a few men at court, too. From the nobles at dinner.

Dinner.

"The tyranny of the nobles is at an end, Laabann. I will see to that. If you wish a place in the future of Eiattu, either stand with the throne-- or fall."

The crash of a breaking wineglass.

"The choice is yours."

Plourr hits the top of the simulator again.

They weren't expecting her to come down the nobles' staircase.

Plourr spotted several familiar figures in the crowd; white dress uniform jackets with red sashes were difficult to miss. She caught the tail end of Wedge and Tycho’s conversation as she descended.

“—oes someone raised surrounded by such opulence become such a fierce pilot? You’d think she’d be just another spoiled—”

“You obviously haven’t been listening to your squadron leader’s combat tales, Tycho.” Her voice rang out loud and amused. Every face in the hall turned to her. The music played by the quartet in a corner cut off abruptly. She ignored them all, trailing one big hand down the banister. She did, however, allow herself a small, triumphant smile as she saw the flurry of motion at the foot of the staircase that she should have descended. Her flat shoe set down noiselessly on the Great Hall’s marble floor. “If you had, you’d know that princesses have fought for the Alliance long before either one of us.”

“Wow, Plourr… You look tremendous!”

She rolled her eyes at Tycho, making her way over to them. “Thanks, but don’t let this outfit fool you.” She smirked. “I could still vape you out of the air with my eyes closed.”

They were talking, then, exchanging pleasantries, and she wasn’t listening to a word they said, or to what she herself was saying. Instead, she watched the ‘droids and the palace flunkies across the way. They were scuttling across the floor, toward her new position.

Plourr looked back to Wedge and Tycho. “But let’s not forget why we’re here,” she said. “This is a beautiful world, gentlemen—” Her voice started out low, but it rose fast and grew grim and she was absolutely sure. “And I will not allow the Empire’s presence to infect it any longer.”

A man waved to her, rather frantically, and she left the two pilots behind—hearing them talk quietly behind her—to join the courtier and a protocol ‘droid at the foot of the stairs.

“Presenting the Princess Isplourrdacartha, empress apparent-heir to the royal house.”

Her heart pounded.

“Long may she reign,” announced the ‘droid in its fussy voice, amplified over the hushed sounds of the crowd.

“Long may she reign!” the crowd roared.

A sea of smiles and raised fists, ceremonial swords, and glasses. They looked hopeful. Her people looked happy.

Plourr couldn't let them down.



[All dialogue from Star Wars: X-Wing: The Warrior Princess, ©Dark Horse Comics & Lucasfilm.]

It doesn’t feel weird when the girl slides it on the back of her head. For years, she’d worn the empty earpieces, and for years she’d worn braids where the veil should hang. It was a silent reminder of the responsibility that waited for her.

She thinks this should feel more different than it does.

Plourr stares at herself in the mirror. The maid rises on her tiptoes to peer over Plourr’s shoulder. “Oh, Princess,” the girl breathes, and Plourr is too startled to tell her not to call her that.

“You look beautiful,” murmurs the little maid, adjusting the veil.

Plourr is never long at a loss for words. “Shut up,” she growls, but her heart isn’t in it. She catches a glimpse of wide, hurt blue eyes in the mirror before the servant ducks away, and she grumbles a quick Huttese obscenity under her breath. “Malia?”

The girl pauses in the high, arched doorway of the chamber, her hands full of bright orange fabric. “Princess?”

She forces her voice softer. “Tell them I’ll be down in a few moments.”

A quick flash of a smile and a curtsey, and then Plourr is left alone with the unfamiliar woman in the mirror.

She doesn’t want to look.

Instead, she walks around the room, picking up the few personal items that she is left with. A blaster here, her helmet there; the bustling crowd of servant women left her with few of her own things after ushering her into the high-ceilinged bedchamber, styled in gold and cream and yellow.

Plourr pauses by the massive bed, brushing a yellow bedcurtain away and resting a hand on the smooth wood post. This room had been for guests, back when she had lived in the palace. She feels like a guest still.

Run, her father had told her. Run, and don’t look back. And, for the most part, she hadn’t.

Now, though, now? Plourr sets the helmet and the blaster down on the bed and stalks over to the mirror, listening to the swish of her train on the marble.

Now she has to look.

The gauzy pants are wide and of a style unique to Eiattu, gathering at the ankle. Her tunic is of the same fabric and allows bare, muscled arms to swing, wrapped tight at the waist in royal deep purple. A heavy red pendant weighs down her throat and bracelets jangle at her wrists; between the jewelry and the train trailing from her shoulders, she can’t move silently anymore. Her eyes are lined with dark kohl, and stare at her out of a face with high cheekbones and a jaw that doesn’t look nearly as masculine now that she has had makeup pressed on her.

She doesn’t recognize herself.

But maybe that’s good. If she doesn’t recognize Plourr Ilo in the mirror, maybe that means she’s Isplourrdacartha Estillo.

Hell, she doesn’t know. She just smooths excess fabric over her arm and then moves away from the mirror.