Holshef

"You hide people from the Empire?''" "''Of course I do. Got a few stashed away right now&mdash;there's Holshef, Pinson, and a couple of others. I hide them as long as they've got enough credits, you understand."

- Merei Spanjaf and Yahenna Laxo

Holshef was a human male living on Lothal. He was an old man with wispy white hair who painted and wrote poetry. His artistic expressions against the Galactic Empire resulted in an arrest warrant and forced him into hiding. He paid credits to Yahenna Laxo of the Gray Syndicate to stay safe, but Laxo sheltered individuals only so long as he felt it to be to his own advantage. The death of Laxo left Holshef in great danger, as a bounty remained on him, so Merei Spanjaf sought to spirit him off-world.

Early life
Holshef lived on the planet Lothal under the Galactic Republic and later the Empire. His grandmother had come to the planet as a young woman and built the family home in Capital City. In his youth, his first job was as an apprentice sap collector, collecting sap to make greel-wood syrup from the trees of Far Hiradne. When the Empire first annexed Lothal, he and his family threw a party because they felt there was much more the Empire could do to bind the galaxy in a better way than the Republic ever could.

A fugitive artist
"There's so much the Empire could do to bind the galaxy together, to create a more perfect union of worlds the way the Republic never could. But what has it done instead? Poisoned Lothal's air and water, when protecting them would have only cost a few percentage points of profit. I thought that was wrong, and I thought surely someone in the Empire would understand it was wrong. I thought if I pointed it out, someone would stop it."

- Holshef, explaining why he was wanted by the Empire

When Holshef learned that the Empire was poisoning Lothal's air and water when it would have taken so little to preserve them, he wrote poems and painted pictures to express his objections, but only ended up with an arrest warrant issued against him for his trouble. He thought about going to see Arihnda Pryce, Governor of Lothal, regarding his concerns, thinking she'd understand, but was told by his daughter that it was a bad idea. As such, he was forced into hiding, paying credits to Yahenna Laxo of the Gray Syndicate to keep safe.

As part of her duties for the Gray Syndicate, Merei Spanjaf would sometimes visit Holshef in his hiding places to collect his credits to give to Laxo. Spanjaf was a teenage human girl who had been drawn into the shady underworld of the Gray Syndicate due to her investigations into the Galactic Empire's capture of her boyfriend Zare Leonis's older sister, Dhara. Holshef would offer her tarine tea and ask her to describe things like the color of the grass or the sunset outside and she found him to be terribly lonely. She empathized with his complaints about the Empire and he found her to be a friendly face, promising to paint her a picture, but nothing that would get her in trouble. Later, Spanjaf visited Holshef again to inform him that Rosey, also of the Gray Syndicate, would be moving him to a new hiding place in order to ensure his continued protection from the Empire. At some point after this, Laxo sold Holshef to a bounty hunter and assigned Spanjaf to take the bounty hunter to Holshef's newest hideout, 1044 Chapel. This was punishment for an attempt by Spanjaf to cross him, but a raid on the Gray Syndicate's headquarters, brought down by Spanjaf herself, followed Laxo's ultimatum. The raid left him dead and Spanjaf seemingly free of their influence, as she was believed to be an innocent civilian who had been taken hostage in order to stop an investigation being conducted by her mother.

A need to escape
"Living the rest of my life without the sound of the wind in the grasslands? Or the sight of thunderheads rolling in over the mountains?''" "''Holshef, you have to listen to me. If you stay here you'll never see or hear those things again. They'll put you in a cell and all you'll see is metal. And all you'll hear is machines."

- Holshef and Merei Spanjaf

Following the assault, Spanjaf wondered what had become of Holshef. As soon as she was in a position to do so, she visited the warehouse where she was told he was being kept. Upon arrival, she spoke with a whiskered Lutrillian. The Lutrillian recognized her as one of Laxo's couriers. He told her that the "crazy old man" was downstairs, but warned her that he couldn't stay because he hadn't received his credits. She told him that alternative arrangements were being made and gave him enough credits to cover the week, plus a little extra. She told him that he was to only deal with her when it came to Holshef, then went inside. Holshef greeted her cheerily, saying that he had forgotten her name, but she reminded him that she had never told him it, as it was too dangerous. He was amused by the intrigue and pleased at the idea that he would be moved within the week, as he would have a chance to see the sun and enjoy early spring, though Spanjaf lamented that it was still cold. Both commiserated about the fact that they could no longer enjoy the smell of the jogan blossoms and as Spanjaf's eyes watered at thoughts of time past, he offered to read her poetry about Lothal's fragrances in the time of his youth. Overwhelmed, she fleed for the stairs, reminding him again that he'd be moved soon.

Spanjaf continuously fretted over the problem of Holshef before finally reaching the conclusion that there was no safety for him unless she moved him off-world. At dinner with her parents, she floated as a topic of conversation that the Empire was cracking down on off-world travel from Lothal, saying it was something her classmates at the Vocational School for Institutional Security had been discussing. Her mother told her that while it was true unauthorized launches were reacted to quickly, travel was still possible if one submitted to an ID check and questioning by security personnel, who had been trained to spot people who were nervous or hiding something. Spanjaf realized that she wasn't going to get Holshef off Lothal via the spaceport. She returned to the warehouse to find the Lutrillian in a state of near-panic about the recent Imperial crackdowns. She was able to give him enough credits to cover ten more days, but warned that this was the absolute limit. She began having nightmares about Holshef's fate.

Spanjaf decided to visit Old Jho, a contact she had met during her time working with the Gray Syndicate. The Ithorian was amused that she was looking for more trouble after being freed of a bad influence like Laxo, but she told him that she just had this last bit of business to clear up. When he asked her what it was Holshef did to anger the Empire, she showed him some of his poetry, which caused him to reminisce about the spine trees of Pelamir Gorge in the forests, forests that the Empire had now cut down. He told her that he had people who owed him a favor and to be there with her friend and credits in six days. Four days later, Spanjaf visited Holshef, only to run into an unexpected problem. Holshef simply didn't want to leave, as he had lived on Lothal all his life and considered it his home and didn't want to give up the sights and sounds of the planet. Spanjaf reminded him that if he stayed, the only thing he would see and hear would be metal and machines from a prison cell. She told him that she knew what he had lost because she had lost it too. He told her that people had to understand what had been lost, but she told him that it was too late, as they already knew. His work could help the rest of the galaxy, but not if he remained on Lothal. This seemed to strike something within him and he noted that she had never told him her name. She told it to him and in barely a whisper, he agreed to go, then sobbed for what he had lost and was about to lose.

Sudden flight
"Listen to me. We're in danger. We're going to go as fast as we can without getting stopped by a patrol. And if a patrol does try to stop us, we're going to have to go a lot faster than that. So I need you to do two things. First, shut up. Second, hold on tighter than you'e ever held on before."

- Merei Spanjaf to Holshef

Spanjaf soon realized that there was much more at stake than Holshef. Her deceptions were finally catchiing up with her. The Galactic Empire had arrested Hestia Tarleton, a girl whose photo had been used a doppelganger for her. Spanjaf knew that she had hours at most. She contacted her family, told them to meet her, and then went immediately to Holshef, telling him that they were leaving right away. He griped that "Today's youth are always in a hurry," and began gathering stacks of his poetry, only for her to stop him, saying that they didn't have time to take anything. He asked if he could just take his latest and she knew it would be better to allow this small demand rather than let him wheedle for hours. When, however, he tried to take an entire year's worth of poems, she cut him off at one week. What followed for Holshef was a wild ride on a jumpspeeder of the type the poor old man had never experienced in his life. He was shocked into silence when Spanjaf warned him that they were both in danger and that she needed two things from him: first, to shut up, and secondly to hang on more tightly than he ever had before. The two nearly made it to Old Jho's when they were very nearly blasted off the bike. A wild chase ensued as Spanjaf realized that the individual chasing them was the bounty hunter who had been after Holshef. As the chase continued, Holshef's bag of poetry papers slipped and one of them blew in the wind, covering the face of the bounty hunter, who crashed into a droid truck. As the truck exploded, the two made their escape and Holshef mused "Never underestimate the power of poetry."

The two arrived at Old Jho's, where Holshef spoke of their thrilling exploits and talked of Lothal's history with Old Jho. The two established quite a rapport while Spanjaf confessed the truth of her activities to her parents. That night, the group slept together in a storeroom and the next morning, Spanjaf awoke to find Holshef absent, though her father told her that Holshef was out "mooning over wildflowers" with Old Jho. She later found Holshef scribbling on a stylus as she received an important comm message from some old friends, a group she knew as "the Spectres," who were to meet up with the group at the edge of the Garel system after Old Jho brought them there. Shortly after this, however, Spanjaf learned that her boyfriend Zare Leonis was scheduled for execution by the Empire. The entire group was forced to flee Lothal in a hurry, once Spanjaf rescued Leonis's parents.

Personality and traits
"Let that be a lesson for you, my dear. Never underestimate the power of poetry."

- Holshef to Merei Spanjaf

By approximately five years before the Battle of Yavin, Holshef was a tiny, pale man with a halo of wispy white hair, though in his past, when he was just 16 years old, he was tall and strong with a rakish black mustache. He was a kindly individual with a single daughter, but carried a great sadness about him. He had a sense of justice and used artistic means to express his dissatisfaction with how the Galactic Empire had poisoned the planet Lothal. Spending his time in isolation due to being wanted by the Empire, he took comfort in the presence of a kindly face. He was fiercely loyal to Lothal, to the point that he had trouble accepting the idea of leaving it, even if staying placed his life in danger.

Behind the scenes
Holshef appears in Servants of the Empire: Imperial Justice, a 2015 novel by Jason Fry that is part of the series Star Wars Rebels: Servants of the Empire, focused on Zare Leonis's quest to uncover the fate of his sister, Dhara Leonis. Holshef is one of the several individuals in the book being hidden from the attentions of the Galactic Empire by Yahenna Laxo of the Gray Syndicate, others being Apapaba, Durchine, Kinlo, Marhas and Pinson, though Holshef is the only one who actually appears within the story. Holshef's story was continued in Servants of the Empire: The Secret Academy, in which Merei Spanjaf sought to move him safely off-world.

Appearances

 * Servants of the Empire: Imperial Justice
 * Servants of the Empire: The Secret Academy