A Ballast

Shakka’Dira woke to warmth that wasn’t a thermal coil or the gentle hum of her night filters. It was a living heat, steady as a hearth… Yone Duri, wrapped against her chest, cheek tucked below Shakka’s collarbone. The room held the quiet of an answered question. For the first time in a long time, Shakka had slept straight through, and for the first time ever, she’d done it in someone’s arms. The old vigilance drifted like fog, and with it came the strangest realization: the most defensive form she had ever taken wasn’t a circle of blades… It was opening her arms.

Her movements were slow, deliberate, but the shift of her breathing stirred Yone awake. The other Twi’lek blinked up, shy smile blossoming. Shakka’s lekku twitched with private irony; of all people to trust, she chose the one who’d followed her home and burst through her door. The hinged double-saber lay folded on the nightstand beside a palm-sized droid with a dim status light. Her trust was not misplaced.

“May I?” Yone asked, hand hovering near the prosthetic lekku.

Shakka nodded.

Bare skin met cool alloy. The digital receptors came alive in a prickle, then her warmth ran the length of the prosthesis as if it could blush. Yone’s fingers traced gently, reverently, and Shakka let it grow still. When the touch lifted, the lekku fluttered on its own, an unconscious flick that slipped through Yone’s open hand like quicksilver.

“It’s just like the real thing,” Yone breathed. “I can read it perfectly.” The next words tumbled out before she could stop them. “Did losing it… change you?” Her eyes went wide; a hand flew to her mouth. “I- I didn’t mean…”

Shakka’s lekku moved before the apology could fall apart. It’s all right. Yes. It changed everything: memory, temperament, the way silence sits in me. The prosthetic didn’t make me whole; it gave me a place to stand while I learned a new form.

Yone watched, eyes following every curl of meaning. She understood in a way that made Shakka’s eyes soften. It wasn’t fluency alone; it was attention, the gift Aayla had taught Shakka to offer others and herself… To pause, breathe, and focus.

Shakka tipped her chin toward the nightstand. Her lekku signed a name: Dave.

Yone’s mouth curved. “The translator,” she said, not looking away from Shakka. “On standby.”

He over-translates when I’m emotional, Shakka shaped with a small, embarrassed flick. Sometimes he reads me like I’m shouting.

Yone’s laugh arrived like morning. “When I passed you in the street, before all of this,” she said, “I could swear I translated your thoughts, too.” The laugh folded into a wince as she clutched her belly. She reached for Shakka’s shoulder to steady herself, and Shakka did not move. Her stance was its own invitation. Dependable, said Yone’s soft exhale. A place to lean. Shakka felt the observation rise through her metallic chest like a ballast.

Silence followed, but it wasn’t empty. Yone’s gaze slid to the window, then back; her lekku betrayed the flicker-and-hide of someone who had learned early that people leave. They leave when you break. They leave when you’re inconvenient. They leave when you stop being useful. She didn’t sign any of that, but Shakka had spent years listening to frightened eopies and skittish tooka; she knew how pain shaped motion. You’re safe, her lekku promised, echoing the old work of taming panic and coaxing trust, the same calm she’d once used to turn stampedes into stillness.

Yone’s hand drifted back to the prosthetic lekku, and this time the touch stayed. “It’s… beautiful,” she said, reverent, as if admiring the joinery on a beloved instrument. Shakka’s mechanical eye adjusted with a soft iris-click, drinking in Yone’s face from a new focal length; strands of white hair streaking her left eyebrow, the tiny scar near her cone-shaped ear, a strand of head-wrap frayed to silk.

Shakka’s lekku flirted with humor. Dave just thinks I’m dramatic. Yone snorted. “I’ll manage without him.” The glance she sent the nightstand wasn’t unkind, just amused. You should know, Shakka added, Dave sometimes says what I won’t let myself sign.

“That tracks,” Yone said lightly. “I have a friend who did that once. Very annoying. Occasionally helpful. Like an anger-translator.”

The world stretched awake around them. Beyond the walls, a ragged pair of birds cut across the roofline, their screeches thin in the smoke-gold dawn. Shakka felt the sting of heat bleeding off cracked solar tiles, the air warped by grit and exhaust. Then she let it pass. Here was gentler work.

Yone’s fingers laced with Shakka’s organic ones. The scars there were old maps; her thumb traced south to north and back again. “You’re… so quiet,” Yone whispered, more observation than complaint.

Shakka shaped a small, wry answer with her lekku: I learned to listen after I lost my voice.

“Mm.” Yone’s eyes softened. “A lot of people would benefit if they tried listening to others.”

The quiet gathered them closer and with gentle movements, they kissed. Yone smiled against her mouth, then drew back with a breath that sounded like relief.

Yone’s forehead tipped to Shakka’s. “I was drawn to you,” she confessed, voice hushed as secrets. “You carry yourself like a fortress, but it’s not the walls I want. It’s the courtyard inside.”

Shakka’s lekku folded into gratitude, then unfolded into something braver. Be with me, they said. The shape of it was larger than one night. She could feel Yone hold her breath as her eyes flicked up to meet her own.

“So,” Yone said at last, voice steady, palm warm on Shakka’s shoulder as if testing the strength of the ground beneath them. “What’s next?”