Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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A Date with Destiny

Corellia…


The beautiful jewel in the middle of the Five Brothers, the crown jewel of the Core Words, regardless of what anyone else would say.


It had been many years since she had been home, well it had been over 800 years to be exact but no one really cared or was counting. She knew there was limited to no chance her actual house was still standing and even if it was, it probably belonged to someone else. It didn’t matter, she wasn’t here for that purpose.


She was here to see him…


She glanced down at a rippling holophoto in her hand of Ayden Cater and then the other holophoto of her smiling face being held tightly from behind of someone who looked almost identical to Ayden, down to the smile. There was no way he could be the same person, everything from the clothing, to the demeanor and even the way they dressed was the same. Cameron even had a hat of similar color that she would steal from him on occasion and make him go crazy.


The sudden onset of memories caused her to jolt forward and collapsed into some durasteel containers in the hanger bay, grabbing the attention of a few workers who merely shrugged it off. Her right hand shot to her forehead, her muscles twinging in her neck and eyes as the memories came at her with blinding speed.


19 ABY.

Tyrena Spaceport.

Shuttle prepping to launch to the NRSS Destiny for mission to Maxis Colony.


“That’s my lucky hat!” She could hear the distress in his tone over the comlink. “Come on Ara, isn’t it against some Jedi Code to steal?”

“Who said I stole it?” She laughed a bit on the other end as she walked over to a container and sat down on it, her legs crossing at the heel. “Alright, alright…” She took a breath. “Calm down killer, I promise I didn’t take it.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the comlink and then some rustling around. “You aren’t going to make me look for it, are you?”

Aaralyn smirked and held up a finger, bringing the comlink close to her lips. “It’s your lucky day Captain Savros…” She held her breath, biting down on her lip with every attempt not to laugh. Finally, she let loose a soft giggle as Commander Fox strode by her and raised a brow, helmet in his arm. He made a motion towards his head and mouthed hat, this caused Aaralyn to laugh a bit harder.

Aaralyn’s laughing didn’t make Cameron feel any more comfortable, instead he sounded a bit worried but tried to hide it behind a toughened voice. “Where Ara?”

“Oh calm down, gosh…” She said with a disgruntled tone. “You’re not being fun today…” She motioned to Fox to head towards the ship. “In the refresher unit, hanging up…”

“That supposed to be a hint?” He said with a grumble.

“Perhaps it is...it also comes with a bonus suit for you to take me out to some place fancy Mr. Coin when I get back!" She quickly cut off the comlink before he could respond, laughing a bit as she made her way to the ship.

Present Day

“Ma’am?” The uniformed CorSec officer shook her gently. “You alright?” He questioned as he took a step back, and looked her over once more.

“Yes, I just got a little dizzy and fell into these cargo crates…” Her face flushed slightly red as she made an attempt to stand and stumbled a bit. The CorSec officer quickly grabbed her arm and helped her up to her feet and motioned towards the bench nearby. “We have already arranged for transportation for you.”

“To where?” She questioned as she was assisted to the bench and sat down, her hands came down to her pockets where she frantically searched for the holopictures. The CorSec officer produced them before her and smiled.

“To see Mr. Cater of course.” He replied before handing her the holo images and moving on to resume his patrol.
 
If there was anything more grating than people barging in believing themselves important enough to interrupt his schedule were the soul-crushing board of director meetings he was forced to attend. Ayden hated bureaucrats. Hated them with a passion. They were some of the few beings in the galaxy that could be as inviting as a Zeltron and as devious and cruel as a Hutt. Still, he had some amount of leverage over them as he had led CEC into a period of aggressive growth and expansion. A decade ago and Corellian Engineering was wasting its potential on simple freighters. Now they were producing warships to rival Kuat Drive Yards and stations that were used across Protectorate space. Any eccentricities he had had been well paid for already.

It was for that reason that no one said a word while Ayden was in the middle of the table, holding himself upside down and balancing on one hand. Reports of quarterly earnings, budgets, and projected profits and losses fell on deaf ears as he slowly lowed himself towards the table and then pushed up. Over and over he pushed against gravity while the other directors spoke. Occasionally one would glance his way, but by this point in time they had learned to accept his occasional odd behaviors. After all, not only was he the orchestrator of a financial renaissance but he was also the Lord Protector. If the man wanted to do vertical, one-handed push-ups in a board meeting, no one was gonna tell him he couldn't.

As the meeting concluded, Ayden hopped down from the table and wiped his brow with a towel. He felt better after that little workout, and as many of the directors knew, he had in fact been listening the whole time. Business plans were going through his head when he saw a CorSec officer headed towards him. Further behind the officer was a second one and beside him a woman who looked particularly confused and unsure of her surroundings. He was looking at her with curiosity when something the officer said snapped his attention back. "I'm sorry, what?" Ayden looked straight at the CorSec man as he repeated himself. "We found your wife earlier. She seemed a little weak so we figured it best to bring her by." Ayden simply stared at the man then back at the woman. Who was she?"

[member="Aaralyn Deltain"]
 
And there he was...


There was no emotional control she had through the Force that could contain her feelings, as the CorSec Officers departed, she stood there a few feet away from him --- staring blankly. Words couldn't express what she felt or how she felt. How could the man she had fallen in love with so long ago be alive? The Force was unable to provide answers, the Archives explained little on what the Force Nexus actually did, no one seemed to know what happened to her to where she was today, almost 800 years in the future and what seemed like to be an alternate Universe. That didn't matter anymore, that was behind her, what was infront of her was all that mattered for the moment. The man she gave herself to for the first time, or atleast the person who looked every bit like him was right there---and she didn't know what to say.


It took a bit of courage and knowledge that she might get tossed out on her fourth point of contact if she didn't say something quick, she manage to stammer out something uninteliable as she stepped forward and extended her hand, within her hand was a holopocture of the two of them. The man who was identical to Ayden had his arms wrapped about the neck of Aaralyn and was leaning in to kiss her upon the cheek with Aaralyn blushing a crimson red as the picture was taken. Both appeared to be in relaxed attire and all smiles, a truly happy couple. As Ayden no doubt would take the picture from her, at the bottom would read:

"Year 53:1 GRS" Aaralyn and Cameron outside of Tyrena Beach


"Tha-..." She stopped for a moment, trying to compose herself. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, she knew better than this, she was a Jedi Master for the love of the Force. "That was taken almost 800 years ago..." She watched him take the image from her and look at it. "Do you know who that man is?" She could feel the emotions that were raw inside of her, everything from anger to pain, misery to sorrow. She knew it was impossible for it to be him but how could the Universe be so cruel to make someone in almost every way once again. Destiny itself had it's way of knocking on our doors and presenting itself, and just maybe this had something to do with it. Maybe it was her past come back to haunt her and maybe it was meant for her to reconcile her differences with a man that did not know any better either way but for her to clear her mind and be able to focus more on her duties as a Jedi.


Or maybe, there was nothing at all...

[member="Ayden Cater"]
 
Anger. Grief. Confusion. Wild emotions rolled over him in great waves, threatening to crash him to pieces against the rocks. Yet he knew they were not his emotions. They were hers. They were her emotions when she looked at him. For what seemed like an eternity, neither moved. And then she was walking. His eyes remained fixated on her as she walked ever closer. There was something about them that demanded his attention. This wasn't the walk of a woman looking to seduce him, or someone looking for a fight. This was the walk of someone that wanted to be anywhere but right where they were at that moment in time. It was the walk of those desperate for answers.

When she stopped, she didn't immediately say anything. She simply handed him a photo. Out of courtesy, he took the photo and gave it a cursory glance. Then he looked again and the color drained from his face. It was suddenly clear why the CorSec officer thought that he was married to this strange woman. Whoever the man in the picture was, he looked like he could have been Ayden's brother. 'Hell, he could have been my twin,' Ayden thought to himself. The resemblance was uncanny. Same shade of eye color, same facial features, same skeletal structure, same hair color and texture.

Almost perfect. The longer he studied the picture, the more he was sure that it wasn't him. The differences were subtle, very subtle. He could only perceive them from his own history of the last four hundred years. Had he not known better, and were he a man prone to memory loss, he could have sworn that it was him in the picture. And yet it wasn't.

The emotions were back, this time physically rolling over him as the woman spoke. Aaralyn's grief radiated with each word, her pain and sorrow echoing in his ears as her anger lashed at his senses. Yet for the simplicity of the question, Ayden could not utter a word. He had no idea who the man was. It seemed likely that he was a descendant of this man, but it could have just been happenstance. Whatever the relation, whatever the reason, Ayden knew that the woman was confused and was going to need time to gather her wits about her. Without a word, he turned and gestured for her to follow him to a lift that would take them to his office in the building. And to answers, for both of them.

[member="Aaralyn Deltain"]
 
There was nothing she could say, as it was apparent for him to say nothing besides stare at her with the same pain in his own eyes. A pain that reflected something of loss of his own. She didn't dare intrude in on his thoughts, that wasn't her goal. She was more intently focused on finding out if this was some lesson to be learned or perhaps it was some stroke of destiny. She had to hold onto something, what else did she have left? Of course some within the Order would say that the Jedi were enough or that the living will of the Force was enough...but not for her.

When you love someone so much, and you aren't able to tell them goodbye --- It's done and there is no going back to truly say the things you meant to say. For her though, she was lucky enough to possibly say what she wanted to. In reality, she knew it wouldn't be him and those words she meant to say that day when she was teasing him about the hat, would never get spoken again...ever.

Aaralyn followed Ayden quietly, her hands remaining clasped behind her back, her head bowed low as she attempted to avoid eye contact with him. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut it with her lightsabers, and they both knew it. What could she possibly say to someone who probably thought she was insane?

"Hey, don't mind the fact I just popped in and totally caught you off-guard with that?" She said to herself, her eyes rolling slightly as they entered the lift. She remained close behind him and stayed behind him the entire duration. "Oh yeah, sorry if you have a wife, I know this is probably not the most awkward thing she's ever encountered!" A smartass remark to herself in her own mind made her roll her eyes again. She quickly freed her hand from behind her back and smacked her forehead, literally facepalming it behind his back. "What am I doing!?" The smack caught Ayden's attention for a millisecond in the doors as they began closing.

"I'm sorry, this was probably a mistake, I shouldn't have come..." She said as she made an attempt to reach infront of the two of them towards the turbolift controls to stop the doors from closing.

[member="Ayden Cater"]
 
[member="Aaralyn Rekali"]

As she reached a hand out to stop the door, his own hand came up and blocked her from doing so. It wasn't done in a threatening manner; far from it in fact. There was a quiet reassurance in he gesture and written on his face. It was readily apparent that he was not put off by the way the two had met, perhaps in a manner some would consider ignominious. Though perhaps his interest was less in common with her and her desire to find answers to his close similarity to the man in her photo. Rather, he was more interested in the timestamp of the photo.

When the lift came to a stop and the doors open, he slowly walked off and headed straight down the hallway towards a large set of double doors. Beyond it was the office he had been afforded. It was comfortable and had a number of seats to allow her a variety of options on where exactly to sit. He made his way toward the desk and sat on the edge of it, looking at her with interest. "You have a lot of questions. I'm afraid I don't have much in the way of answers for you. I was born a number of years after that image appears to have been taken. As far as I am aware of, knowing a fair bit of my family's genealogy, I have no relation to that man. I can't explain the similarities in our appearance."

He paused for a moment before continuing. "I must admit though that I am rather interested a great deal in you. That image is post-marked a number of centuries before now. I'm no geneticist but Humans don't generally live that long. You don't appear to have even seen thirty years." Ayden looked at her some more before turning and digging around some in the desk. For his trouble, he came up with a bottle of Whyren's Reserve. "Care to tell me your story over a shot of whiskey?"
 
~Why did it have to be whiskey?~ She thought to herself and sighed heavily, her arms came up to her chest and overlapped one and another, gloved hands clasping the material tightly as she gave him a nod. "I wouldn't mind that at all..." She had a drink a few times before with Cameron, he drank it straight on the rocks, she would shoot whiskey three at a time just to show him up and call him a "sissy pants". She chuckled softly to herself as she moved away from him, not too far but far enough to where she could think for a brief moment before he approached.

He obviously wasn't Cam, or in any relation to him and now she was stuck where she had to explain how she had gotten here. She was without sabers but not without the Force, but the man didn't give her that vibe through the Force. There was no rippling aura that represented danger or imminent death...there was a sense of curiosity and even relaxation. She looked at him as he approached with the shot and handed it to her, a gloved hand unclasping from her arm and taking the small glass within her delicate grasp and before anything could be said, she took the shot and grimaced. The bitterness of the Whyren's Reserve was one that make her close an eye and turn her head. She hadn't had anything that powerful in centuries, hell she hadn't drank in centuries.

"It was an anomaly of the Force..." She began to explain, shaking her head softly as a light buzz feeling came onto her senses, regardless of how much focus she tried to press through the Force, she couldn't alter it. This wasn't like poison, so the Force had a different effect for control when it came to senses and alcohol. Her vision swayed just lightly, perhaps she didn't need that drink....not that she was going to be sick. She was going to be utterly vulnerable to questioning more so than ever before.

[member="Ayden Cater"]
 
[member="Aaralyn Rekali"]

Ayden just watched her, a passive expression on his face, as she seemed to struggle with her thoughts. There was a part of him that was tempted to probe, to use the Force to try and find answers faster without having to wait for her to gather herself. But he knew better. He wasn't like the Sith, or even some other Jedi for that matter. He would respect her privacy. It was clear after all that whatever had transpired had shaken her greatly. He wasn't about to upset her further by incessant badgering or invasive probing. At best, that would further upset her. At worst, it would provoke an incident.

So Ayden simply sat there, glass in hand, and stared at this mystery woman. Turning one wrist, he tapped into a terminal on the bracer. He began a search through every database he could access looking for information on an 'Aaralyn'. Given the extensive damages that occurred as a direct result of the Gulag Plague, he doubted he'd get any hits back any time soon, if ever. But it couldn't hurt.

When she spoke, Ayden paused and turned his gaze back to her. It wasn't much, and she still seemed very shaken. However, it was a start. "An anomaly of the Force?" He repeated back at her, curious to figure out exactly what it was she meant. While he knew that he did not know all there was, or even a majority of the things possible through the Force, Ayden could not recall any instance of something like falling forward in time through the Force. What if it was something that could be duplicated? What if it could be reversed? Ayden's mind began to slowly turn over the possibilities while he kept his attention on Aaralyn and patiently waited for her to elaborate.
 
"It was shortly after I attended the Pellaeon–Gavrisom Treaty or as you might know it, the Bastion Accords." She shook her head softly and looked to Ayden and then down to her gloved hands, playing idly with her fingers within the gloved material. She took a deep breath and sat back in her seat. "I remember leaving the Star Destroyer Chimera and heading to Maxis Station out near Taloraan, once we were done dropping off supplies...we were attacked by this organic looking vessel."


The memories came to her mind causing her to briefly wince, the sound of explosions, the bright white light that consumed everything and then the darkness that lasted for so long. "I had in my possession a crystal which was purified in the waters of Tython, and it contained very powerful energies of the Force. Specifically the lightside of the Force, or so they say." She began unzipping her top, pulling aside the material and eventually downgrading to a black cami. Beneath the cami and barely visible on parts of her collarbone and below were marks the size of teardrops. These marks were scars that appeared to have healed over but underneath them, something glistened when it made contact with light.


"The Crystal of Light is what they called it and well when this mysterious ship attacked, the Force was disrupted..." She shrugged slightly and moved the cami around a bit to show the various teardrop shaped scars around the upper portion of her chest. "And the shards of the crystal impaled me but that isn't really relevant, what is..is the energy released by the crystal and the absence of the Force itself in this one area at a specific time created a rift." She could only shrug at this point. "Atleast that is what I have come to the conclusion after this long..."


She exhaled roughly, a hand coming to her forehead, rubbing it gently. "The ship is similar to the ones the Yuuzhan Vong use, and the absence within the Force was the massive gap in the Force that day. It was the Vong who attacked and it was the first time we had seen them and according to what I have read..." She brought her hand down to look at Ayden. "It wasn't the last.."

[member="Ayden Cater"]
 
[member="Aaralyn Rekali"]

Listening to her speak, Ayden was amazed at her tale. She had been through a lot from the sounds of it. He remembered reading stories on the first Yuuzhan Vong invasion. It has been a brutal invasion, the likes of which the galaxy had not seen in centuries. It had been a war that very nearly brought the galaxy to its knees. A new found respect for the woman grew as he listened.

After it seemed as though she had finished her story, Ayden set his glass down. "You've been through a lot. I'm sure you're still confused and disoriented, but it's something that will pass with time." He offered a reassuring smile before deciding it was his turn to share. "I know what it's like, to be transplanted through time. To be in a place so unfamiliar and alien to you, where everyone you knew and cared for has long since passed into the care of the Force. I know this because I experience it every day of my life."

It was only with someone who shared an experience could tales like this be shared. "I was born in 392 ABY. And I've been alive since then. Some days I wake up and for a heartbeat I think I'll wake up..." He trailed off suddenly and looked out the window with no indication he was going to finish that thought. "I know it's hard now, but you'll learn to handle it. If you ever need help with anything, anything at all." He pulled out a small, card piece of flimsi and handed it to her. On it was his title and comm number. "Give me a call."
 
Aaralyn pursed her lips to the side, as comforting as it was to know besides herself and her father, there were more...it didn't feel like enough. She could only nod in reply before she stood and took the card from him gently, tapping it against her other hand. "Look, I'm really sorry. I feel like a complete idiot." Her cheeks began to flush a bit crimson. "I just find out my father is someone I've basically known my whole life, you know...it's alot to take in." She held her hands up and laughed a bit nervously. "I sound like a complete idiot, cause here you are talking about losing those you love and here I am talking about yet again, something different than the reason I came!"

Her hand came to her forehead and she took a few steps back. "Wow, really, Mr. Cater, I am so sorry to have wasted your time.." Why the hell was she acting like this? She hadn't acted this girlish since Cameron. It was like a star-struck feeling rolled over her and slammed her emotions into the wall and just totally overwhelmed her in every mental way possible. "I appreciate your time." She bowed quickly and stumbled backwards into a chair, she regained her composure and quickly made her way towards the turbo-lifts, her face flushing a brighter crimson. She pressed the summon button and a thought hit her as she turned to him. "Oh, and my name is Aaralyn Rekali...and...so you know if I ever call." She said quickly as the turbolift dinged upon arrival.

Once it arrived she gave him a quick look and stepped inside the turbolift and immediately pressed the lobby button. Once the doors closed and the lift was on it's way down, then did press her forehead against the wall and mutter. "What...the hell..." She still felt a bit loopy from that wee bit of alcohol he had given her, but it could have been that could it? It wasn't a bad thing but man did she feel stupid. If she were that man, she'd be changing the comm frequency right away to prevent her from talking to him.

It was a rush of wild emotions that had overcome her, she was human after all. Regardless of Jedi doctrine, she was who she was. She felt what she felt and knew that the feelings for Cameron were strong but he was gone. She took a deep breath and exhaled roughly. It was time to let go and be honest, eight-hundred years was a long time....the man was dead. The wisest of the Jedi sayings was "Let go." And it was time for her to do so. By the time the lifts had reached the lobby, her face had returned to it's normal coloration and she had felt no emotion about the situation. A lingering sensation of curiosity for [member="Ayden Cater"] hung somewhere in the balance but overall, she knew that man was someone else entirely and Cameron was gone. It was that simple.
 

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