Patience

[branchifer]

Who: Branch and Boba
What: Showing him his little room
Where: Random place in the Pole
When: After Boba's run off
Warnings/Notes: N/A for now

[Branch immediately goes looking for Lucky after he runs off, googling "clone" along the way. That requires him to google a few other terms and it leaves him even more confused than before. The idea of a person somehow only having one parent is completely normal so the fact humans find it weird is odd, but being identical is weird by troll standards.]

[And Lucky is from another world than this, even if he looks like the humans here.]

[He really doesn't get it. He doesn't get how it could be possible, nor does he understand why it'd be an upsetting thing.]

[But it upset him and that's all that matters.]

[It doesn't actually take him that long to find him. Ever since Bingle terrified him when he first woke up, he's been especially kind in his very childlike Elf way, and he's sometimes asked the other Elves to also be kind if Branch needed help with something they could actually help with. Some whispered and jingly Elf conversations provide him a lead on where Lucky's gone, due to some of the Elves seeing where he'd run to.]

[So Branch goes to his hiding place. But he finds a place to sit and wait nearby. Either Lucky will come out on his own or he'll at least give him a little time before he goes in and tries to check on him. Clearly, he needs time to to process whatever he's feeling right now.]

Comments

cw: cannibalism mention

[orivodika]

[Boba remembers the rancor and the Great Pit of Carkoon-- before that, a handful of sea-mice and an eel and a dark shape in the water-- and he thinks that Branch was probably right to be worried about getting eaten.

(Life is hard for the small and weak.)

He carefully watches all of the steps Branch takes to open the door so he can commit them to memory.

When he crawls through and sees what Branch has done, he inhales sharply. His mouth goes slack in shock.

Boba is feeling a lot of things as his eyes dart around. He's not sure what all of them are. His stomach still hurts in that bad-angry way it was before, but now his throat feels like there's something lodged in it and there's this feeling of pressure behind his eyes and ears. He scrunches up his face and quickly wipes at his eyes and nose.

It must be dusty in here or something, that's all. He sniffs loudly and approaches one of the decals on the wall. His hand hovers over it, not quite touching, as his brain starts trying to guess how long it would've taken to put this whole place together. The pressure in his ears starts to turn into an almost-ringing so he makes himself stop thinking about it.

Boba takes a step back, scrubs his eyes, and turns around. He can't bring himself to look at Branch directly so his eyes settle on the floor slightly to the left of the troll.]

I...

[Boba feels like he should say something, anything, but his brain is too full of white noise to think. He feels like hall of the feelings that are happening inside of him are going to make him explode, like a corpse that's been forgotten in a smuggler's cargo hold.

The only clear thought he has is full of guilt. Branch made this place for Lucky, but Lucky doesn't exist.]

My name is Boba.

[branchifer]

[Branch can easily see how moved Boba is. Try as he might to hide it, the wiping at his eyes and nose is pretty clear.]

[But then there's the name. He raises his eyebrows a little bit. It actually hadn't occurred to him Lucky - Boba - had given a false name. Lucky was absolutely a normal given name for a Troll, after all, so it sounded mundane to his ears.]

[But he's starting to get the gist that this kid has a lot of reasons to want to hide. And if there was weird...clone stuff, whatever it is, hiding his identity maybe made sense too.]

[The pronouncement has a weight to it. The tension and being unable to meet his eyes could mean a lot of things, but Branch knows the dishonesty, even if it made sense and harmed no one, might be heavy on a child's mind.]

[So he just smiles a gentle smile like there's nothing wrong with either the truth or the lie.]

[Because there isn't. Nothing's wrong either way.]

Lucky's a good nickname, but Boba's a nice name. Actually, it sounds like it could be a Troll name.

[They absolutely weren't above fun sounds as a species when it came to making up names.]

Which name do you want me to use around other people?

[orivodika]

[Boba's eyes flicker to Branch's face in surprise. It doesn't look like the troll is lying, so he looks away again.

Lucky is an old nickname. He can't remember who said it or why, but he does remember the feeling of joy and pride when one of the ARCs called him "lucky", because that's how the clones get names. A name is the thing their brothers know them by.

Jango hadn't felt the same. Boba wasn't allowed around the Alphas for a long time after that. The next time he saw them, they had gone from lanky teenagers to grown men who didn't want some kid following them around.]

I don't know.

[He's beginning to realize that the name Boba Fett doesn't mean the same thing here as it did where he came from. He doesn't have to hide to protect himself like that. But he's already spent so long lying, what happens when someone doesn't take the change as well as Branch seems to be?]

Everyone already thinks that I'm Lucky, and adults don't like lying.

[At least, they don't like it when they're lied to. They like lying to other people a lot.]

[branchifer]

Adults understand when people prefer nicknames. Or if they had reasons to be afraid to share their name. Sometimes people need to keep secrets to protect themselves and they might keep up the habit somewhere new and potentially dangerous.

My bunker, the one I dug for a hiding place, I needed that to be a secret when I was kid. For a long time. It made it feel safer that nobody else knew where it was originally. Later on, I let at least a few of the other trolls find out.

But even now, here, in a new place that was scary at first, I still haven't told everyone where all my boltholes and tunnels are. It feels safer to have a place to escape to.

[He shrugs.]

I think if you shared your real name, nobody would be upset you used another name first. But I also think nobody would think it was wrong if you decided to go on keeping it a secret because it felt safer that way.

[He knows it can be confusing, though, for a child figuring out right and wrong.]

Adults don't like dishonesty, but usually it's because lying can hurt someone somehow. Just hiding your real name isn't a type of lying that can hurt anyone.

[orivodika]

[Branch is wrong. Hiding his name can hurt people-- did hurt people. He lied about his name and the Endurance crashed on Vanquor. It didn't make him any safer, it just put other people in more danger. But maybe it didn't hurt anyone this time.

Boba understands what Branch is saying, he can follow the logic, but it still doesn't sound right.

Adults like power. Lying takes power away from them, so they don't like lying.

(Self-sufficiency, knowledge, and power. Those are the things Jango wanted him to find. He's not sure if he's been living up to that.)]

Maybe- maybe you can call me that, just when we're alone.

[Boba wants people to know his name-- the name his father gave him. He's proud of it. He's proud to be Jango's legacy.]

I'll think about telling other people. If it's safe.