To Stand By His Side Forever

Dia and Boba return to the moisture farm on one eopie, leading the other behind them, laden with the saddlebags and credits. They don't arrive until well after sundown, and lights glow in the two houses.

As Dia reins the eopie in, Boba notices his shoulders tense up.

"What's wrong?"

"The lights are on in Grane's house," Dia says, barely above a whisper. He slides off the back of the eopie, helps Boba down, then leads the eopie into the paddock. "He wasn't supposed to be back for another week."

"What – ?"

Dia pushes Boba's shoulders until he sits down, hidden by the sleeping eopie. "You stay with the eopies, okay? Don't let anyone see you."

Boba catches his wrist. Dia's hand is shaking. "Are you going to be okay?"

Fear in his eyes, Dia pulls his hand away. "Stay here."

"DIARO!" comes a furious shout from the house.

Dia flinches, and sprints out of the paddock. Boba cranes his neck around the eopie, trying to see what's happening. A bulky shadow blots out the lantern light in the doorway, and Dia cowers on the front step. A hand grabs Dia's shoulder and roughly pulls him into the house as he yelps in pain.

For several achingly painful minutes, Boba hears muffled yelling from inside.

I have to go help. He stands and sits down several times, hesitating. But what if I make it worse?

Finally, he can't take it any longer, and leaps over the paddock fence, ready to charge into the house.

A hand drops onto his shoulder, and he spins around, striking out.

It's only Elan, who dodges and holds his hands up in surrender. His expression is somber.

"Go to my house," he says quietly. "I'll bring Dia there."

"What's going on?" Boba demands.

Elan winces. "Master Grane returned early from his trip, and was… quite furious to find Dia gone. He's not supposed to leave the farm without permission." Boba notices several bandages on Elan's arms, blood seeping through some of them already. "Now hurry along," Elan urges.

Boba obeys, stumbling through the sand to Elan's house, where he paces across the kitchen floor, biting his nails, until the door creaks open. Elan stumbles in, supporting Dia. Boba freezes when he sees him, covered in red marks and bleeding from his mouth. His eyes are closed, and his feet drag on the floor.

"Quickly, Boba," Elan prompts.

Hurrying over, Boba slings Dia's other arm over his shoulder and helps Elan lower him into a chair. As Elan cleans the cuts on Dia's face and applies bitter-smelling salve to the already-forming bruises on his arms and legs, Boba watches nervously. Dia's eyes stay closed.

"Here." Elan hands Boba a damp rag. "Finish helping him. I'll make some H'kak bean tea."

Boba takes the rag and hesitates a moment before gently starting to wipe the blood from Dia's cracked lips. He can't help but feel like it's his fault. He's the one who'd insisted Dia always went with him to Mos Eisley. He's the reason Dia had come back late.

The guilt is becoming almost physically painful when Dia stirs and opens his eyes. For a moment, he blinks at Boba, dazed.

"You're alright," Boba assures him, putting the cloth down. "It's okay, you're safe."

Something touches his hand, resting on the armrest. Boba looks down in surprise to see Dia's fingers curling around Boba's own.

"Here, little one." Elan emerges from the kitchen and hands him a mug of a tea.

Releasing Boba's hand, Dia takes the mug with trembling hands and sips at it tentatively. Elan retreats to the kitchen, wringing his hands. Dia doesn't speak, and won't meet Boba's eyes again, although Boba sits right next to him, trying to think of something to say.

He doesn't have a chance to.

"Boba," Dia whispers. He clears his throat. None of the usual teasing light remains in his eyes as he slowly speaks. "If you save me from this, I swear I'll owe you a life debt."

Boba's eyes widen. "Whoa, hang on." Is he serious? A life debt's a serious thing! Besides, how would I free him?... Kill the slave master, I guess. Not a problem. He wants to kill that scum already for what he's done to Dia.

"Please, Boba." Tears begin dripping down Dia's cheeks. "Just help me get out of here. Please."

"I will." Boba cups his hands around Dia's, and leans forward. He presses his forehead to Dia's in a gentle Keldabe kiss. "You don't have to swear a life debt, Dia. I promise I'll free you."

__________

Freeing Dia is not as easy as Boba had expected.

"Can't we just kill Grane?" Boba asks.

Dia shakes his head. "They implant bomb chips in all the slaves on Tatooine. If we try to escape…" He mimics an explosion with his hands.

Boba grimaces. "Great. Do you know where the chip is?" 

Dia shakes his head. "So we can't remove it. And if we killed Grane, I'd just get sold to someone else." Casually, he picks up his bowl of porridge and keeps eating, but Boba notices his hands shaking slightly.

"I have enough credits to buy you," he realizes aloud.

"No," Dia says immediately. "You need those credits to fix your ship. Besides, that's just carrying on the cycle of slavery."

Boba stabs at his porridge with his spoon, frowning deeply in annoyance. "By the way, is your full name 'Diaro'?"

"Yep. 'Dia' is a nickname."

"It's a nice name. Both of them are nice names."

Dia smiles. "Thanks. And don't worry – I'm sure we'll come up with something." Dia pats his hand comfortingly and stands up to put his bowl in the kitchen. He moves gingerly, like each step pains him. It probably does. A few bandages still dot his face and arms.

Why are you comforting me? Boba wonders. You're the slave. I could leave whenever I wanted. But he won't. He knows that. Something makes him want to stay and help Dia. I promised I would, and I don't go back on promises.

________

"You want to go back to Mos Eisley? Hah! You can go when it snows!" Elan declares vehemently, scrubbing at the kitchen counter with a rag.

"Oh, come on, Elan!" Dia tugs his red poncho over his head. "We just want to go check on the ship."

"Grane's back. We're not allowed to leave the farm," Elan says firmly.

"Boba's going to help us." Dia sets his jaw in determination. "So I have to help him."

"Dank farrik, Dia!" Elan slams the rag down on the counter. "You're not only putting yourself in danger."

Dia stares at him until he explains. Elan sighs heavily, glances over the kitchen counter at Boba, who's frowning distractedly into his porridge, and whispers to Dia, "What'll happen if Boba is caught trying to free a slave?"

"Oh." Dia looks away, suddenly feeling guilty. "I guess you're right…"

"Not to mention what might happen to me," Elan adds under his breath. "Learn to be less short-sighted, Dia."

"I'm sorry," Dia murmurs. He takes off his poncho, still staring sadly at the ground.

The motion alert beeps at the front door, and Elan hurries to check the screen. He pales. "Grane's coming this way."

Dia quickly hides Boba in Elan's pantry, behind a few sacks of rice, then hurries outside as Grane arrives at the front door. The Klatooinian looms over Dia. Staying motionless, Dia keeps his head bent down.

"One of the vaporators is on the fritz," Grane grumbles, scratching his jowls. "Go fix it."

"Yes, sir." Dia starts to step away, but Grane grabs a handful of his hair, yanking painfully.

"Did I say you could leave?!"

"Sorry, sir," Dia murmurs, keeping his eyes down and his face expressionless. He silently thanks Hondo for all the Sabacc-face lessons.

"Bring the water collection boxes back to the barn, too," Grane orders, shoving Dia so hard he nearly falls. "NOW!"

Dia hurries away as Grane turns his anger on Elan.

He fixes the vaporator quickly enough, and begins moving the boxes. He catches a quick break, sitting on a stack of boxes in the barn, when Elan walks up with a canteen of water.

"Here, drink something," he says.

He speaks in the Tatooine slave language, used by most of the slaves on Tatooine to be able to talk without their masters understanding. It's incredibly difficult to learn, and made up of clicks of the tongue along with words.

"Thanks." Dia tilts his head back and drains half the canteen.

Elan leans back against another stack of boxes next to Dia, and sips from his own canteen.

"You really think Boba's going to help you?" he asks after a moment. He doesn't sound as though he doubts it. He just sounds… hopeful.

Dia nods. "I promised I'd owe him a life debt if he saved me." Elan chokes on his water. "He said I didn't have to, but I'd feel bad if – "

"A life debt? Wha – Where'd you even get that idea?"

Dia pauses, swinging his feet."…On my homeworld, it was an old tradition."

Curious, Elan tilts his head. "You rarely mention your home– " 

"Besides," Dia quickly continues, "Ruhssk talked about life debts all the time. He used to owe one to someone before he got sold into slavery, remember?"

"Oh. Right."

"Do you think he and the others and doing alright?"

Elan doesn't reply, but purses his mouth unhappily. They both know it's unlikely.

When Dia had first arrived on Tatooine, the moisture farm had been owned by an Aqualish Dia never met, who left the running of the farm to the slaves. There had been seven of them, then, including Elan and Dia, and they all looked out for each other. It was still a crappy life, but it could've been worse.

Then the Aqualish had died, and the current owner, Grane, inherited the farm and the slaves. He's cheap and cruel, and sold all the slaves except for Elan and Dia, and their work became almost too much. It's been a year since then.

"Are you sure about this, Dia?" Elan asks, leaning back against another stack of boxes. "A life debt's a serious thing."

"I know," Dia says firmly. "It means standing by his side forever. I'm willing to do that."

"But you're still so young," Elan protests. "I'm sure – "

"DIARO! ELAN!" Grane yells from outside.

Dia and Elan scramble to get back to work, their conversation cut short.

________

Boba sits uncomfortably in Elan's pantry for hours, wedged between two woven sacks of rice. Hunger eventually gets the better of him, and he cautiously tugs a barrel of bantha jerky towards him.

Before he digs in, he notices scratches on the wall behind the barrel, now uncovered. The light from the kitchen is too dim for Boba to clearly see, so he shuffles over to the wall, and runs his fingers over the scratches.

"Tally marks," he murmurs, recognizing the short lines. "Who made these? Dia?"

The tally marks disappear behind another barrel, which Boba moves. With a soft exclamation, he sees that the marks nearly cover the entire wall. For a moment, he makes an attempt at counting them, but quickly gives up. He sits back on his heels in disbelief.

"Hundreds and hundreds of days," he whispers. "How long has he been here?"

Now that he thinks, Dia does usually pop into the pantry every evening. Boba can suddenly picture it: Dia crouched in here, carving tally marks into the stone wall, crying at first, but gradually becoming numb to it with the passage of time.

Boba sits in the pantry, huddled and dejected, until footsteps sound on the other side of the door. It creaks open to reveal Dia, who beckons for him to come out.

"Dinner time," he says with a strained smile.

Boba wants to say something, to comfort Dia, to help him. But what could he possibly say?