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Really, Arla should have known the moment she woke up that today was not going to be a good day.
Not only did she quite literally fall out of bed that morning, but today marked the fourth anniversary of the death of her and Jango's parents. They lost a lot that day, and while Arla will forever be thankful to Jaster and the Haat Mando'ade for taking them in, she still feels a pang of sorrow whenever she thinks too much about their old life, especially around this time of year. It hasn't helped that every year since then, this day has been a complete and utter mess.
The first year, she and Jango got sick. Bad. Jaster never told them what they had, but Arla is ninety-percent sure they caught it because Jaster forgot to make sure they had the proper inoculations for the planet they were on. They were both too feverish to process what day it was, let alone all the baggage that came with it.
The second year was worse, with Arla nearly being kidnapped by the Kyr'tsad. She didn't have time for grief when she was fighting to stay alive.
The third year involved Jaster being injured in a skirmish and spending a few days unconscious in a hospital bed. Both she and Jango pointedly ignored what day the calendar said it was, too caught up in the fear of potentially losing another parent to relive losing two others.
This year, however, is different. There are no flus, kidnappings, or other harrowing circumstances; just a quiet, rented house in Keldabe that they're staying in for a few months while the Haat Mando'ade regroups and resupplies. It's as good a chance as they'll ever get at having this be a good day, and Arla is determined to make the best of it.
Her plan is to make uj'alayi. Every Mandalorian family had their own take on the dessert, those on Concord Dawn were no exception. She still remembers their family's recipe by heart, fond memories of measuring out ingredients with their mom while their dad manned the oven and tried to stop little Jango from eating an entire pan at once. She'd make it for her brother, and they could go through the remembrance together.
She only has one problem: there is no uj syrup in the house.
No problem, she tells herself as she pulls on her armor. They haven't been in Keldabe for very long, but Arla knows of a general store a few blocks down the street. She can pick up a bottle of the syrup there and be back in no time. Everything would be fine.
Everything is decidedly not fine, she thinks, staring at an empty store shelf with the tag for uj syrup below it and slowly feeling her stomach drop.
There's a twi'lek standing at the front counter, presumably the owner of the store, and Arla grips her buy'ce tightly in her hands as she approaches. "Excuse me," she says, forcing a smile to her face to hide the way her emotions are flip-flopping at her plan having failed already. "Do you have any uj syrup left in stock?"
They shake their head apologetically. "Sorry, we're fresh out."
Arla feels her smile falter. "Oh." She is not panicking. She's not .
The twi'lek watches her for a moment, lekku twisting and untwisting. "You know," they say slowly, "there's a stall in the western marketplace that usually sells it. Cloth covered table, lots of other produce, can't miss it."
Arla blinks, then grins, thanking them as she shoves her buy'ce back on before walking back out onto the street.
The west side of town is too far away for her to walk to, even if she did know how to get there. Luckily, she has enough extra money to call a cab.
She stands on the edge of the street and waves at the first taxi speeder she sees. It speeds past her.
So does the second one.
And the third.
And the fourth.
She really should have just stayed in bed today.
Arla has no idea how long she's been sitting on the curb on the side of the road, and she's lost count of how many taxi speeders have passed her at this point. She doesn't do more than a half-hearted little wave at each new one that comes by.
She almost can't believe it when one finally does pull over in front of her. She jumps to her feet, almost positive that it has to be a mistake and the cab is here for someone else.
But there's no one else around.
Arla grins as she opens the door and slides into the backseat.
"Where to, kid?" the driver asks as he pulls back out onto the street.
"The western marketplace," she replies, buckling herself in. "And I'm not a kid." She's seventeen and has her own set of armor. By Mando standards, she's been an adult for quite a while.
"Ha!" One of the driver's three eyes twists back to look at her. "My species lives to be 300 years old! I get to call all you humans 'kid'."
Arla tilts her head, smiling even though the driver can't see it. "I suppose that's fair."
"You bet it is," the driver says, and Arla settles in for a quick, easy ride to the market.
Nothing about the ride is quick or easy. The speeder's been in constant stop-and-go traffic, and it's making her sick. She pulled her buy'ce off a whole ago, hoping the fresh air would help. It hasn't.
"Hey, ya doing alright back there?" the driver asks, one eye swiveling her way again.
"Just fine," she breaths, staring at a fixed point on the roof of the speeder just to get her head to stop spinning. "Please tell me we're almost there."
"Sorry, kid," the driver sighs. "With this rush hour traffic, we ain't goin' nowhere fast."
Arla closes her eyes. Great.
The driver hums. "Tell ya what, let me pull over, I'll give ya directions on how to get there. We're not too far off, could walk there no problem." Arla nods in thanks, then immediately regrets it as it sends everything spinning again. The speeder can't pull over to the side fast enough.
The cab driver refused to make her pay for a ride that was 1. horrible, and 2. didn't even bring her to her destination, so she walks away not only with directions to the market, but with the pouch on her belt as full as it was when she left that morning.
The directions were fairly simple: a few rights here, skip a couple intersections, a couple lefts there, one more right, and she'd be there.
When Arla takes that final right, however, she is definitely not looking at the western marketplace. Unless the western marketplace was actually a duracrete wall at the end of an alley.
Arla checks the few other offshoots of the street she was on before the final turn, but the market isn't down any of them either.
Maybe she turned down a street too soon, or went down an alley instead of a street. It's hard to tell. Keldabe is a fort as much as it is a city, designed to confuse even the most determined of invaders, or really anyone who had not grown up inside its walls. Unfortunately, that includes her.
She thinks she knows where she made her mistake— a left taken when she should have gone straight for a block more— so she retraces her steps back to that point.
Except, when she gets there, she's not on the same street she was originally.
In fact, she has no idea where she is at all.
And to top it all off, the next speeder that goes by drives too close to the curb, and the repulsors kick up a spray of dirt and mud that covers her completely.
Arla seriously thinks all of the Ka'ra must be laughing at her.
She isn't sure if it's the state of her armor or the probably harried look on her face, but someone finally takes pity on her and walks her to the market instead of passing along directions that she keeps screwing up.
Arla honestly feels like she could cry when she finally enters the western marketplace, and it thankfully doesn't take her too long to find the stall the twi'lek told her about. They were right; as the only cloth-covered, fruit-selling stand around, it's hard to miss.
She approaches the old human woman sitting behind the table, not even bothering to pick up her feet completely anymore even though she knows it will wear out her boots. "Please tell me you have uj syrup," she says.
The woman taps the bin to her right. "Plenty of it. Rough day?"
Arla sighs, grabbing a bottle and trying her best not to get dirt anywhere. "You have no idea. Is five credits enough?"
The old woman smiles, pushing back Arla's outstretched hand with the money. "Take it. Free of charge."
"I- vor'e," she says, and she hopes the woman can tell just how much she means it.
Arla does not want a repeat of her cab experience this morning, so she decides to take the tram. There's a station a few blocks down from the house, all she has to do is find the tram that will take her there.
She misreads one of the signs and nearly gets on the wrong one. It's heading north, when she knows for a fact the house is on the south-east side of the city, and she squeezes back out the doors and onto another tram with only seconds to spare.
She sighs in relief, sure she's finally on the right one, when the intercom chimes and a tinny voice fills the car.
"Tram heading westward to Chortav Meshurkaane."
In the time it takes her to process what was said, the doors slide closed behind her and the tram begins to move.
Arla sits down in a seat, mutes her helmet speakers, and screams.
It's dark out when she finally gets back to the house.
"Arla!" Jango says, jumping up from his chair in the kitchen. "Where have you been?"
Arla walks straight to the couch and flops face first down onto it. " Everywhere."
"Well," her brother says once she finishes recounting her day. "That was all pretty shitty."
Arla snorts, unbuckling her last gauntlet and throwing it to the side with all her other armor pieces that will most definitely be tomorrow's problem. "Don't let Jaster catch you saying that."
Jango waves her off. One day, he'll slip up, she just knows it. Jango leans back against the armrest of the couch and throws his legs across her lap. She's too tired to even try to throw them off. "What I don't get," he says, "is why you needed the uj syrup so badly."
Arla sighs. "I wanted to make you uj'alayi, the way our family used to make it."
Her brother slowly takes his legs back, scrunching up closer to her side. "Is this because today is..."
"Yeah," she says, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. It says something that Jango lets her do it without any complaint. "This day has always been so bad for us ever since they died and I just– I wanted it to be good for once." She feels something hot and burning prick at the backs of her eyes. "I wanted us to be able to sit and eat uj'alayi and finally have enough time to go through a proper remembrance for them."
The house is silent for a moment, then Jango is squirming out of her hold and hopping to his feet once more. "What are we sitting around here for then!"
Arla blinks. "What?"
"Come on!" her brother says, bouncing up and down on his toes. "It's not even that late! And Jaster isn't here to tell me to go to bed, which means we've got plenty of time to make some cake."
Jango is grinning as he speaks, as Arla finds herself slowly matching him. "You get the bowls and pans out, I'll get the ingredients," she tells him.
He gives her a jaunty fake salute back. "Yes, ma'am!"
Arla and Jango are taking their first bites of freshly made uj'alayi when Jaster walks in.
"Hi, Buir!" they chirp in unison.
He sets his buy'ce down on the counter, taking in the mess of bowls and measuring cups in the kitchen and the flour clinging to their clothes and their hair. "What's all...." He waves a hand. "this."
"We made uj cake!" Jango says, holding up his slice for their buir to see.
Jaster looks from him, to the uj'alayi, to her, and back again, the most confused she's ever seen him, before nodding once and slowly walking out of the room.
As soon as they're sure he's mostly out of earshot, she and Jango break into a fit of giggles that leaves them tearing up and gasping for air. It's the lightest she's felt in a long time. When she's sure she's not in danger of choking on it, Arla takes another bite of cake and smiles.
Today wasn't so bad after all.