Jelly BeanImageJelly Bean was finishing up with Walt the A-Lt droid, running a coolant purge, recirc, and then a pressure charge. She never had any formal schooling for mechanics and electronics. The machines just talked to her. She had been a teenager when she first started feeling the strangeness that she understood things that she shouldn't, couldn't possibly understand. But people were harder for her. And Winta asked her to come along for negotiations. Critical negotiations that could mean the difference between life and death for the Galaxy. Winta brought her along for a conversation about the same thing on a much smaller scale, the life and death of the scavenger family. Dealing with people on a real emotional level was hard to Jelly Bean. Not because she didn't care, quite he opposite. She had hidden so much of her true self and her heart for so long, keeping it protected and out of the reach of anyone who might try to 'know' her. She had gone against her better judgment not that long ago and let someone into 'see' her true self. It didn't end well. What did Winta hope might happen here by having jelly Bean along? Did she think Jelly Bean could actually offer more than the facade of charm and charisma, and snarky humor and that would make these people trust them enough to help the resistance?
Ironic that... Given that the Twi'lek was in the 'customer service' business for Tenga the Hutt. All of that was fake to her. She was born with gifts and addets and the Hutts used up people like her and threw them away and then bought another. But she was lethan and her 'shelf-life' was longer than most other slave girls. Even after her adolescense was over she still had value to the Hutt. But to Jelly Bean that value was just a prolonging of her fear and her misery. She was always a difficult slave and she bore the marks to prove it. Oh, thoise marks were carefully hidden, surgically healed, and made to look pristine all over again. Whether it was the Hutt and his enforcers, or the people who paid large amounts of credits to satisfy their twisted fantasies and darker predatory urges upon her, it was all the same. Most of the scars were on the inside.
Jelly Bean stood just a step off of Winta's right shoulder. You might say it was a new habit built on an old principle. Survival in principle, and keeping her gun hand on a clear sight line. She listened to her leader's appeal and then to the Zabrak's reply. Jelly Bean bit her lip. Logic was not the path here...
Then, without leave to speak Jelly Bean shook her head just a small fraction. She didn't sign up with the resistance to share her problems or make friends, or even travel to see exotic kriffhole wastelands. She signed up to get revenge. She signed up to make someone pay for taking away the only thing she had allowed herself to care about since was a child on Ryloth. Maz Kanata helped her focus that pain and hurt and rage and make it work for her, but Jelly bean was no fool either. Maz was teaching her to make it work for the resistance. Maz, Leia, all of them... they were using her as a tool, focusing her on what they wanted and needed. Everybody used somebody for their own ends, that's how things worked in her experience. The Hutts used her and now the Resistance used her. At least the goals of the Resistance matched her own for now. How could she get the scavenger's goals to match those of her team?
She knew that she would probably regret this one day. She stepped forward and around Winta. She closed her eyes for a heartbeat or two, and took a deep breath.
"WE are not good people," she began honestly. "We are desperate people who try to do good things. And I think you are too, all of you... But you are scared... Oh, for kriff's sake, I'm scared too. Everyday since I was six years old, I lived in fear. Scared I would die, scared I would live. Everyday was a struggle to see if my HOPE that it would all end would finally outweigh my NEED to survive. I was a plaything for Hutts. You know what happens when evil people are allowed to evil things. I lived in fear... Fear that I would not see another day, fear that I would see another day, fear that I would be hurt so badly, healed, and then hurt some more... just because that was fun for them."
Jelly Bean offered the strong and proud leader of the scavenger's group a hand, extended as an offering of connection. Logic would not prevail, but maybe real emotions might.
"But one day, I realized that living in fear, hoping that I could survive another day, or hoping to die so that it would be over... well, that's not living. So, on that day... I made a stand. No one had the right to make me feel afraid. I took control of my life. I told myself that I would actually try to live, and that I would never give up living... ever again."
She offered her other hand as her eyes welled with tears. tears were valuable to a Twi'lek. Tears were water, and water was precious in a desert culture. That was why she worked hard to repair WALT. Water was precious and tears were the 'Waters of her Heart, as they old Ryllian saying went.
"The Strus, like all Swoop gangs, and Hutts... and even the kriffin' First Order are BULLIES. They hate... everything, even themselves. And you can't reason with hate. You can't negotiate with hate. You run, they follow because you run. Bullies will take whatever is most valuable from you, be it things like 'your droids' or 'your Twi'leks'... or your children and your hard earned parts and anything you salvage to make money to feed your children. They will take your dignity and strength and fill you with fear because seeing you in fear is what they really want... and they will never stop taking from you until you make them stop."
Jelly Bean paused a moment to take a breath.
"You helped us. The Strus were out there looking for trouble. They were going to hurt someone, but you helping us pointed them in your direction. I'm sorry for that. The things we do, and the reasons why seem so abstract when you're here and your first worry is just finding enough metal things to buy some food for those precious babies. To have enough water to make it to nightfall and hope your evaporators will work to fill your tanks for tomorrow. Every day, each day, is the only day. Saving the galaxy sounds a fanciful notion, and you're right, they're just words... a slogan... But, what's real is what's happening right now... right here."
"Word will reach the rest of the swoop gang, and they will come. We all know that. You feel you need to run. To protect your people, your children, the only way of life you know. They will come, and then they will follow and hunt... because their lives have no meaning and hurting others is all they know. You can't outrun fear. There is no where to run. You know, and fear, that we will leave and go on with our fight in some other distant place that the rest of the universe doesn't care about or even know it exists. And we will, we must...That's our fight. But, what's real is what's happening right now... right here."
"When that one day came for me, I stopped being afraid and I fought back. For the first time since I was stolen from my own desert homeworld, my life was my own again. I drew a line in the proverbial sand, and said... this far and no farther."
"For you... That day is today... and we're not going anywhere. Screw the Galaxy. Because it isn't worth saving a notion, a concept, or a catchphrase if you don't actually save the people who need saving the most. We helped make this mess and we will stay and make it right. This is your family and our family together... It's time to stop living in fear, and start actually living."
"My Kweekuni here is something called a Jedi, and I've heard tell that Jedi don't run. She and the rest of our team will get us ready to help you draw your line in the sand. BaBay and I can get that turbolaser up and running. We WILL get it up and running! No more bullies! This is your home and no one will take it from you!"