TOY SOLDIER [IX] ▸ Poe Dameron

CHAPTER THIRTY [XXX]

[tw: brief panic attacks + EXTREME ANGST whoops lol sorry bout it]

THE NIGHT ERUPTED INTO FULL-TILT MADNESS. ROARS FOR OUR CAPTURE AND OUR HEADS ON STICKS, CRIED OF "REBEL SCUM!" ECHOING THROUGHOUT EVERY ALLEYWAY.

We had managed to slip away, but that luck was slowly trickling out and we weren’t willing to press it much more. In our mad dash for freedom under the cover of smoke, we had ducked into what appeared to be an abandoned servants’ tower, a nook of the castle hidden away coiling with a spiral staircase. I slammed the door behind me desperately, my fingers fumbling to lock it. I heard a beep emitting from my midsection and I released Beebee routinely, as if on command at this point. The orange droid tumbled on out eagerly, whirring around the otherwise-silent room with nervous, pent-up energy.

I was thankful for the otherwise silence, because gratefully that meant that it appeared that no one had followed us. However, I could hear the shouts from the outside and I knew that one of the hundreds of hunters set on our trail eventually would; we needed to use our time warranted with our headstart wisely.

I looked over at Alya, who had collapsed against the wall gasping for air and massaging her temple in an effort to stop the overdrive gears in her spinning mind. A cut bled down her cheek, presumably from where a bounty hunter had pressed a blade tantalizingly to her skin. The young girl slid down to her knees, blinking emptily as she looked up at me in a daze. Her innocent brown doe eyes looked just the same as I had remembered.

How ironic, that this was their true princess, and those people were out there calling to see her head roll off of her pretty neck.

“Y-you good?” she asked me, voice trembling.

I nodded in my distraction, eyes darting around the room until they rested on the quaint wooden servant wardrobes in the corner of the room. I removed the mustache from my lip and discarded it, thinking out loud as I walked. “We should get changed out of this gear and the disguises, or we’ll be recognized too easily.” I said, moving clumsily to rifle to through the dresser. I fumbled with the Poyterian servants’ garb awkwardly. “You?” I then asked offhandedly, peeling off my armor and replacing it with humble brown fabric.
When Alya didn’t respond, my head raised to ask again, perhaps louder, because perhaps she did not hear me. But when I looked up, I saw the same fear in her eyes that had been in mine so many nights ago on Uma’s rooftop, and I knew instantly that something was wrong.

“Hey, hey, hey, sweetheart, what’s wrong,” I softened at once, my voice dropping to a calming baritone as I approached the shaking girl. Her chest movements quickened like that of a small mammal’s, short, brief breaths of air to her lungs.

“I-I’m fine,” managed Alya. A weak lie, and I knew it. She suddenly avoided my gaze, massaging her temples as the truth tumbled out. “P-Poe, it’s just... “ She bit her lip. “I knew him.”