The Nursery

Justen, the young General, was eating his lunch in the front garden. He had just finished his coffee and commented to a nearby cat about how lovely the sky looked, when he spotted the very young Prince of Myrkr making his way down the lane.

“Hey, Your Highness,” Justen called. He didn’t mean to sound so casual, but having just eaten such a good meal, he could hardly help it. The royal child, not being a big fan of formalities as it was, took no notice.

“Hi Justen!” he said brightly. “My father sent me to give you a message!”

“He did?”

“Yep!” He handed Justen a letter and started reciting the contents before the General had got it open. “My dad wants you and your family to come to Coruscant with us for a... for something.”

“An ambassadorial conference,” Justen supplied as he read the letter. His wife, Nyssa, and their daughter appeared in the front door. Little Chikako squinted in the sunlight and leaned against her mother, having just woken up from a nap. She waved at her daddy and stared lazily at the Prince. She was still too sleepy to remember that she disliked him. “Hi!” Justen called to his family when he finished reading. “We’re going to go to Coruscant!”

Nyssa’s brown eyes went wide with surprise. “Coruscant!” she exclaimed, trying not to smile too much. She set Chikako down in a flowerbed, sat by her husband and began a tirade of a million questions. The Prince bowed, took his leave of the excited couple, and had a leisurely walk home.

A few weeks later, Justen and Nyssa enjoyed a not so leisurely walk through the streets of Coruscant. “This is unbelievable!” Nyssa said, trying to keep the pace of the crowd and see everything at the same time. Difficult, but she was loving it.

Justen, carrying Chikako, shifted her weight. She clung to his robe with one hand and to his necklace with the other. Her blue eyes were the size of small planets, and she hadn’t said a word since they left the hotel. “This city just keeps getting bigger and bigger!” Justen commented to his wife after he’d gotten the toddler situated comfortably in his arms. “Before we know it it’ll cover the whole planet!”

Nyssa just shook her ponytailed head in amazement and they continued on to the auditorium where the conference would be held. When they arrived, they were met by the King and his son. The King immediately began introducing his young friends to dignitaries from various other systems.

“Here’s the nursery,” Nyssa said at one point. “Chikako, this is where you’ll play during the conference.” The little girl eyed the room skeptically.

Justen turned to his wife. “Let’s take our seats,” he said.

“Can’t I stay with you?” Chikako asked, suddenly panicked.

“No, you’d be bored,” Justen said. “In the nursery, you can play with other kids. With us, you’d have to sit and be quiet for about six hours. Look, the Prince doesn’t even want to stay with us!”

Chikako glanced at the Prince, who was laughing with some boys his own age. This didn’t convince her. “I don’t like him,” she said. “Why do I care about what he’s doing? I don’t wanna go to the nursery.”

Her parents looked at each other. The lobby was starting to clear out and the King had already gone to sit down. Chikako had her stubborn/sassy look on her face, meaning she wouldn’t hesitate to throw a temper tantrum if she thought it might help get her way.

But then the Prince appeared. “I’ll take her to the nursery,” he said. “You two go inside.”

“Thanks, Your Highness,” Nyssa said, and the couple disappeared without giving Chikako a chance to protest.

The little girl was stunned. Her parents had just ditched her, and now she had to deal with him? “Come on!” the Prince said, and led her to the nursery doorway by the hand. That she found disgusting, of course, but was still a little too fazed to do anything about it. “Look at all those kids! And all those toys! Go have fun!” He nudged her towards the threshold. She peered into the room and saw nothing but strangers.

“I don’t want to go in there!” she finally got out.

“Well I can tell you right now you’ll have a whole lot more fun in here than you would in there.” He pointed to the auditorium where a speaker from Calamari was beginning the meeting. “Sounds boring, doesn’t it?”

She ignored him. “I don’t wanna go in there.”

“Well you have to,” the Prince finally said. He lifted her up and set her inside the room. “And now I’m going with the kids my age. Bye!”

Chikako didn’t stay put for more than a second, and now she was suddenly crying. “Can’t I go with you?” she wailed, running after him.

“With me?” the Prince asked. “You don’t even like me!”

“You’re better than THEM!” she said through her tears and pointed accusingly at the nursery door. The Prince laughed.

“Here,” he said, moving one of his fingers slightly. A big pink flower appeared with a shimmer in Chikako’s outstretched hand. This startled her enough to stop the tears, and she proceeded to examine the magical flower.

“There’s a fairy inside!” she gasped, and as if on cue, the fairy slipped out of the bloom and alighted on one of the little girl’s pigtails. Chikako froze, wanting to reach up and make sure it was still there, but also not wanting to crush the tiny fairy. The Prince coaxed her back to the nursery doorway.

She was no less apprehensive, but a little more subdued now. “Why don’t we just watch for a while?” the Prince suggested. Chikako nodded, clutching the flower in her right hand.

A little girl with white hair in two buns bounded in circles around the room. She thrust a building block into Chikako’s left hand as she went past, and then continued on her way. Chikako looked at the block.

“See, now you’ve got a friend,” the Prince said. “What’s your name, little girl?”

The room-circler looked up. “An – ni – ka,” she said between leaps.

“And I’m Asteroid Priire Seijoutai!” a little blonde announced, mostly just looking for attention. “And that’s my sister Coru and we’re building a castle but I don’t think you can help us ‘cause you’re not a twin with us and I don’t think you’d know how to do it right ‘cause – ”

“Aster, you’re not the boss,” a redhead – Asteroid’s sister – interjected. She looked at the Prince from behind a pile of building blocks (the castle). “She thinks only we know how to build castles right and maybe we can do it best but that doesn’t mean somebody else can’t build the castle’s garage or something.”

“I wanna build the garage!” a girl with a crown of light blue braids shouted. She ran over to the pile of blocks. She piled a few before she noticed a little boy with a toy lawnmower. “I wanna play with that!” she said in a more awed voice. She dropped the blocks and went to see what could be done about obtaining that lawnmower.

Asteroid Priire Seijoutai had also lost interest in her beloved castle by now. She shuffled a deck of cards as she walked up to a group of five year olds playing Duck-Duck-Goose. “Who wants to learn Sabacc?”

Chikako approached Coru, who was still diligently stacking blocks for the castle. She shyly placed the block Annika had given her on top of the pile. The little redhead shrugged. “Yeah, I guess it looks okay there.” Chikako giggled. The Prince smiled too and left the nursery.