Private A Lesson Not Yet Learned

[Mia Monroe]

Adelle did not sit.

Perhaps it was because sitting was too much like being still, or perhaps that flicker of tension that ran through her every time Mia moved made it impossible for her to fully relax. There was no way to know for sure. What Mia did know, was that it stung, more than she could have anticipated, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why.

Her sapphire gaze dropped to Phantom, her tail flicking as she nudged Adelle's hand, clearly asking for something the former Jedi was not giving her.

The question drew her gaze back up and she shook her head. "No. I had no intention of approaching you about that at all. It's not my business, until it becomes my business. The door, however, is open for you Adelle. If and when you are ready, and not before."

She let her words settle, gave Adelle a moment to process them before continuing.

"I need your help with my..." she trailed off trying to find the right word for Liorra "I suppose 'ward' is the correct term, though Liorra is much more than that to me. "

Adelle Bastiel

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Tags: Mia Monroe

Now she knew she was sleep-deprived because there was no way the flash of hurt Adelle sensed actually belonged to Monroe. It had been too short-lived for Adelle to fully feel it besides so it had to have been a sleep-deprivation induced hallucination. And those sorts of distractions deserved no further thought.

She nodded as Monroe spoke, listening carefully but knowing she’d have to think through them a few times over later to fully process them. Mostly, she got that Monroe wasn’t going to intervene until it became a problem but if Adelle wanted to talk about it, she’d listen.

A snowball had better chances on Mustafar.

Fortunately, Monroe moved on to the actual other matters she wanted to discuss: Liorra. Adelle couldn’t help the initial flare of disbelief when Monroe said she needed help. She shouldn’t be surprised. They’d worked together with Aether’s adopted daughter, teaching her about the Iron Wolves and training her in the Force. Still, she hadn’t exactly pegged the Warmaster as someone who asked for help. At least, not often.

And Liorra was much more to her than just someone she mentored. Adelle kept her face carefully neutral as Liorra’s voice echoed in her ears.

"I swear every time I turn around she just disappears."

“Alright,” she said, straightening. Phantom half-pounced at her retreating hands, tail lashing. <<Lap!>>

Adelle stared at the spukami for a moment. The black feline sat primly, halfway closing her eyes. <<Please.>>

If she sat, she was going to start nodding off. Adelle stretched her neck and stayed standing, returning to the conversation at hand before Monroe started to think she was crazy.

“Sorry about that. Zoned out for a moment.” It’d have to do. She wasn’t going to try to explain the bond she shared with Phantom. That might invite questions. “What do you need my help with?”

 

[Mia Monroe]

The silent interaction between Phantom and Adelle drew a small smile of amusement. she leaned froward as Adelle straightened, reaching across to the chair the spukami was sitting it to scratch gently behind her ears while she tried to find words to explain what she needed.

"Its not easy to know where to start with this, I never know which version of history Mandalorians of today have had. Whether they were raised on propaganda or truth. And even then the truth is missing pieces." She sat back fingers flexing eyes unfocused before she took a breath and settled them back on Adelle. "I was not trained in the force. I didn't have a mentor to guide me, I simply woke one day with a lifetime of memories that did not belong to me. I went from a woman with no idea she even had a connection to the force, to a Master of the dark side overnight."

A shadow moved behind her eyes, a flicker of memory shrouded in anger that she let slide away before continuing.

"Liorra came to me unexpectedly. The granddaughter of a friend I once held very dear, with a very black and white view of the world, that the light side of the force is the only good path, and that those who utilise the dark are evil. No middle ground, no grey area. Liorra is much the same, unforgivingly so. We have argued over it before..." Mia trailed off and shook her head pain evident in her voice.

"She wants to be a Jedi and a Mandalorian. That is not a path I am equipped to help her on. You are."

Adelle Bastiel

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Tags: Mia Monroe

She tried to stay relaxed, she really did. But her brain couldn’t let go of the fact that Monroe was an authority figure. Her fingers tightened around the cup as Mia reached forward, her hand showering Phantom with attention. Phantom of course reveled in it and when the hand retreated again, she took that as an invitation, hopping down to jump up in the Warmaster’s lap. Adelle took a drink as Monroe explained. The way she seemed to look through things before refocusing was noted.

There were a lot of legends and stories about Monroe. What she said now had been one of the more believable tales, even if the story had added embellishments to the truth. Granted, it hadn’t been an overnight transformation in the story, but that wasn’t the most outlandish thing she’d heard. Something dark and haunted passed over Monroe’s face as it became far harder than Adelle had seen yet.

Monroe explained her relationship to Liorra, how she knew the girl in the first place and what influences had been in the teenager’s life. Black and white. Absolutes. Adelle took another drink—the Jedi Masters in her old order were fond of the saying “Only a Sith deals in absolutes.”

Hurt wasn’t something she expected to hear. Rationally, she knew everyone got hurt by someone else and many chose other, more defensive forms to express it. Even legends. Monroe, Adelle had figured, would have done the same: hidden it behind anger, or condescension, or any number of other feelings. But pain bleeding into her voice?

"She wants to be a Jedi and a Mandalorian. That is not a path I am equipped to help her on. You are."

Adelle huffed a small laugh. “I’m not particularly good at either of those but I’ll see what I can do. That requires her being still enough to actually listen for five minutes. Hells, I’d even take five seconds.”

 

[Mia Monroe]

Phantom settled in her lap as she had been when Adelle had first entered her office ad Mia resumed the gentle strokes and scratches behind her ears, her eyes on the spukami instead of Adelle as she began to purr contentedly. She was a welcome weight. Her eyes snapped up, not at the laugh, but at the way Adelle dismissed the idea that she was good at either role. Mia looked around the room, her eyes lingering on the mythosaur skull mounted above the desk before looking back at Adelle with a look of incredulity.

Was she delusional?

"I've no idea how to make her do that. I don't even think Mishel knows how to either and she's her mother."

There was a fondness in her tone, but it faded almost instantly when Mia set aside what she'd asked and decided to press the matter.

"Adelle," she began "You spent most of your verd'goten trying to protect the other foundlings, you have been appointed as ambassador to the Republic and Aether keeps you close because you remind him of where the line is. What about any of that makes you not good at either being a Jedi or a Mandalorian?"

She didn't wait for an answer.

"You are better than most Jedi I have met, and you are an exceptional Mandalorian. Don't discredit yourself."

Adelle Bastiel

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Tags: Mia Monroe

So Mishel was Liorra’s mother. Adelle had assumed as much—their likenesses and energy were too similar—but it was good to have confirmation. Internally, she made a face. Mishel had been a handful and she was an adult. Adelle had only needed to work with her on Corellia. Liorra was a teenager in need of guidance.

She stilled when Monroe listed her reasons why Adelle was actually qualified, staring through the floor. Her fingers tilted her mug in a slow circle. She’d always wondered why Aether kept her in his advisory circles but had assumed it was payback for getting smart with him in his appointment. For every point Monroe made, Adelle could think of several more that countered them.

“Then you’ve had a very poor sampling,” she said at last. Adelle leaned on the back of the chair again. The idea of sitting was very tempting now but she knew she’d start nodding off the moment she sat.

“Reckless.” The word felt heavy even after all these years. She could still hear Grandmaster Manse’s voice echo in the Council chambers, a quiet reproach that cut more deeply than any lecture her father had given. “Impatient. Restless. Obstinate. I never took on a padawan and there’s a reason for it.”

“And I’m Caamasi,” she said, finally looking at Mia. “Partly, anyway. Every battle, every death is carved into my brain and I will never forget them. I relive them over and over and over again, as fresh as if they'd just happened.”

“So. Corellian with pacifist DNA. How does that make for anything other than a bad version of either role?” The question asked came uncomfortably close to the one she asked on her worst nights. Adelle took another drink of her caf-flavored whiskey, trying and failing to ignore it. The answers she'd received so far hadn't been positive.

Was she worthy?

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia's brow furrowed, not because the information regarding her DNA worrying, but because the way Adelle was depreciating herself was. While Mia hadn't spent a lot of time with her personally, she had done her homework and there was not a bad word to be said about her.

“Reckless with your own safety, not the safety of others.” Mia countered. “Patient enough to be named Ambassador to these people,” she gestured beyond the room referring to the people of the High Republic. It wasn’t that she believed they were beneath her, just that she did not care for the way they handled things, their politics was a lot of hot air being blown around and not a lot of decisive action.

“Restless, because you see the things that need to be done and know you can make a difference by doing them and as for obstinate?” she smiled “find me a mandalorian that isn’t.”

“I’m willing to bet you didn’t take a padawan because when you look at yourself, all you see are flaws. You see the bad in every aspect of yourself insteading of seeing the good.”

She paused her gaze unwavering as she studied Adelle, watching how her words landed.

“I would argue that your DNA combination makes you perfect for both roles. You have the tenacity of your Correllian blood tempered by that of the Caamasi. Because you know every action you take will be etched into your mind, so you seek out the best path for everyone involved, not just because it's the right thing to do but because you won’t forget a mistake.”

She swirled the glass slowly in her hand, the amber liquid leaving oily tracks as it spun.

“Whoever told you otherwise was either an idiot, or they were trying to manipulate you.”

Adelle Bastiel

​

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Tags: Mia Monroe

‘Reckless with your own safety, not the safety of others.’

Adelle winced and looked away, unable to look Monroe in the face. Her personal investigation into Coruscant said otherwise. Yes, Master Astra and Prahnk had insisted on coming with her, had voluntarily stepped into danger with her. But the fact remained that she had led them blindly into Coruscant’s underworld, relying on the Force and blurred memory. And of the three of them, only one had made it back.

“Patient enough to be named Ambassador to these people,” she gestured beyond the room referring to the people of the High Republic. It wasn’t that she believed they were beneath her, just that she did not care for the way they handled things, their politics was a lot of hot air being blown around and not a lot of decisive action.

“Restless, because you see the things that need to be done and know you can make a difference by doing them and as for obstinate?” she smiled “find me a mandalorian that isn’t.”

“I’m willing to bet you didn’t take a padawan because when you look at yourself, all you see are flaws. You see the bad in every aspect of yourself insteading of seeing the good.”

Well she wasn’t wrong there. But how could she not? She had lived and worked with brilliant and talented Jedi most of her remembered life. Grandmaster Manse wasn’t just a peerless Battlemaster—he was a genius in observation and deduction, taking in small details to create an accurate picture of who he was interacting with. Master Sol had been a premier healer, working small miracles daily. There were other Jedi there, other Knights and Masters that hadn’t been so thoroughly broken that could teach Padawans.

“Whoever told you otherwise was either an idiot, or they were trying to manipulate you.”

Adelle inhaled sharply as her eyes snapped back in Monroe’s direction before she forced her gaze away again. Force, she was slipping if that was triggering a reaction. She tapped her fingers against the glass, jaw clenching and unclenching. Monroe was incredibly, uncomfortably correct. She could look back at Krayt and see every ploy, every lie, every tactic for what it was. Her father, however… That was a more complicated mess. Adelle recognized his actions as wrong but it was still too easy to believe his justifications.

“Yeah,” she said softly, looking down at the caf-stained whiskey in her mug. She probably shouldn’t be drinking as much as she was with how tired she was. “Idiots.”

 

[Mia Monroe]

The wince and refusal to look at Mia told her more than Adelle probably wanted. If she had been anyone else, Mia might have dismissed it as someone who simply didn’t want to hear her perceived truth, but Mia knew that look, she knew that pain, that guilt.

Then she looked back, a sharp inhale and looked away again and Mia let out a small sigh from her nose. Adelle’s attempt to disguise the truth was poor, and no doubt the former jedi knew it, or maybe in her current state she didn’t, without pressing Mia couldn’t know.

“Adelle,” Mia said softly “I didn’t dig into your past, because I didn’t need to, nor will I. But I would like to give you some advice, what you do with it is up to you. You can accept who you are today, and leave your demons in the past, living for this life, not the one you lost,”

She paused, fingers shifting on the glass in her free hand, the other coming to a rest against Phantom’s back.

“Or, you can chase what is behind you and lose what’s in front of you. You cannot do both.”

She sighed, passing a hand over her face, a weariness settling on her that went beyond simple tiredness.

“Believe me, I have tried.”

Adelle Bastiel

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Tags: Mia Monroe

She didn’t get it.

Adelle stared at the floor, clenching her jaw as her hold on the mug tightened. No one got it. No one ever got it. Not even Leigh. It wasn’t that she wanted to chase the past or keep reliving it. But memnii didn’t work like that. Every time she thought she had made progress, something happened and she felt like all that progress came undone. Anger at not being understood was quickly replaced by a flood of despair and exhaustion.

Seven years. And it still wasn’t enough.

“Memnii don’t work like that, Warmaster,” Adelle said quietly. “I do what I can.”

She looked at the contents of her mug before knocking the rest back. “And I’ll do what I can for Liorra. It’s all going to depend on how much she listens.”

 

[Mia Monroe]

“I wasn’t talking about the memnii.”

Mia’s response was soft. She was referring to whatever leads Adelle was following, whatever ghosts she was chasing. Adelle was exhausted, which meant not everything was landing where it should. There was danger in pursuing this conversation now instead of at a time when she was fully in control of her emotional responses.

As for Liorra?

“That’s all I ask.”

The Warmaster took in a small breath, draining her own glass before gently nudging the comfortable Phantom on her lap.

“Come on, little one, off you get.” The spukami took her time uncurling and stretching before leaping lightly off Mia’s lap and onto the chair Adelle and refused to sit in, her lamp like eyes watching Mia as she rose, offering one final scratch of the cats head.

“You can’t function properly like you are right now..” Mia moved to the sideboard, setting her empty glass down before turning to look at her.

“Cancel your appointments for the rest of the week and rest, Adelle.” Her tone had shifted, no longer soft, but sliding into the authority that she normally carried. It wasn’t aggressive or cold, it was simply coming from a woman who was used to giving orders.

Adelle Bastiel

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Tags: Mia Monroe

Adelle frowned at the Warmaster’s correction. What else could she be talking about? But the moment slipped by too fast for Adelle to work out her meaning. Monroe coaxed Phantom out of her lap as she finished off her own drink. Phantom hopped back on the seat of the chair Adelle leaned against, blinking at her once before turning her attention back to Monroe. The Warmaster had leaned forward, standing and closing the distance far quicker than expected. She stepped back, one hand gripping the chair back with white knuckles as her heart hammered the inside of her ribcage.

But the Warmaster only walked to the sidebar and set down the used glass. Adelle’s insides unclenched and began untwisting themselves, even as the Warmaster observed the obvious. Functioning properly wasn’t the goal. All Adelle had to do was survive the next two weeks. She’d intentionally front-loaded everything to make sure she could coast through as it got worse.

And then the order came, as if the woman that had just poked and prodded at Adelle’s traumas with a soft voice had never existed. The instinct to push back rose to the surface far more than Adelle usually allowed. It felt like swallowing bile, resisting the urge to snap back. But she only scoffed; what the Warmaster ordered was easier said than done. The embassy couldn’t lose its Ambassador unplanned.

“I’ll do what I can,” she said, hopefully even enough that it wouldn’t start another lecture or argument. “Have a safe trip back, Warmaster.”

 

[Mia Monroe]

Mia took quiet note of all of it, the sharp step back and the tension that had snapped back into Adelle's shoulders when she had risen, like she was expecting aggression from the Warmaster. Whatever trauma Adelle had buried deep, her exhaustion had pulled to the surface. She wandered what it was that she reminded Adelle of to have her react this way, but she never voiced the question, in fact she never showed that she'd even noticed.

The scoff, did draw a smile and a gentle shake of her head as she moved to the desk to collect her helmet.

"Adelle, if you were killed in battle tomorrow, the wheel would still turn. The Embassy would find a way to function without you until another Ambassador was appointed. They can manage a couple of weeks without you." She ran her thumb along the gold at the edge of her visor before letting out a small sigh realising her words were probably harsher than intended and that they were probably falling on deaf ears.

She recognised the stubbornness all to well. She lifted the buy'ce into place, it sealed with a soft hiss.

"If I have to come back here tomorrow to repeat myself," she began, the dark visor moving to look at Adelle, the vocoder adding a harsh edge to her voice. "Then we are going to have a problem."

She let the words hang for a moment before shifting her gaze to the mythosaur skull hanging above the desk before she turned towards the door.

"Rest, Adelle." she commanded again as her hand reached for the door controls. "I'll see you on Mandalore."

Adelle Bastiel

 

[Adelle Bastiel]

Tags: Mia Monroe

It took a lot in her current state to not flinch when Monroe said the Embassy would live without her. She knew that. She knew it well. Adelle didn’t work to the bone because she thought she was indispensable, necessary for all the responsibilities here. She wasn’t necessary. And there were far better candidates in the Empire to handle being the appointed envoy.

"If I have to come back here tomorrow to repeat myself," she began, the dark visor moving to look at Adelle, the vocoder adding a harsh edge to her voice. "Then we are going to have a problem."

The threat that followed, made all the sharper by the buy’ce’s vocoder, brought Adelle’s attention squarely back to the Warmaster. Phantom’s sudden weight on her shoulders barely registered. It sounded a lot like one of her father’s threats at the end of a ‘conversation.’ Adelle swallowed down both the kneejerk defiance and the bitter deference her father wanted. She only gave a nod, letting the Warmaster know she’d heard and understood.

If she were lucky, she wouldn’t see Monroe on Mandalore at all. But that was a sentiment better kept quiet. Adelle knew that even in her sleep-deprived state. She only grunted noncommittally and watched the Warmaster depart. For a few moments, Adelle remained tense, braced. When there was no sign of the Warmaster suddenly returning, when enough time had passed that Monroe would be well on her way to departing, then and only then did Adelle breathe, her whole body sagging.

She slowly walked over to her desk and eased into the chair, swiveling to face the terminal positioned off-center. There was a mess still to clean up. Monroe had said to rest, yes—practically commanded it. But Adelle wouldn’t be able to until everything had been squared away again. Adelle used the official comlink for the embassy, and called her aide.

“We need to extend official apologies to the officials, delegates, and whoever else,” Adelle said tiredly. “And we need to work on rescheduling those meetings.”

There was a very pregnant pause on the other end. “Warmaster Monroe gave explicit instructions that you were to rest or else to notify her.”

Adelle scowled. Of fething course. “I’ll be able to rest once those two things are done. That’s not unreasonable.”

“Understood,” her aide said. “I’ve already composed a draft for formal apologies. Shall I try to reschedule things as early as next week?”

If I have to come back here tomorrow to repeat myself, then we are going to have a problem.

“No.” Adelle took a deep, shuddering breath in. “No, let’s go three weeks out. This doesn’t need to be included in the formal apologies but—”

Phantom hopped from her shoulders onto the desk, earning an undignified grunt from Adelle, and then delicately stepped down into her lap. Adelle absently stroked the fur along the spukami’s spine.

“—I’m currently getting ill and will need time to recover.”