Private Beneath a Broken Order

[Xian Xiao]

Xian considered Xuko's point about flying with him, unable to find much of an argument against it. She hadn't known whether she could carry another person until circumstances forced her to find out, and waiting until she'd felt completely prepared wouldn't have helped anyone on Bastion. "That's different," she said at first, although there wasn't much conviction behind it. A moment later, she conceded with a small smile, "Alright. Maybe it isn't entirely different. But if I ever teach somebody to fly, I'd still prefer their first attempt not involve discovering whether I can catch them."

She dipped another piece of bread into her stew while Xuko sampled the nerf. His reach for the water drew a brief glance from her, but she politely refrained from asking whether the restaurant had successfully defeated him with its hottest spice. The question that followed distracted her from teasing him anyway.

Her hand slowed, bread still held between her fingers, and her black eyes gradually grew distant as she looked beyond the park rather than at anything within it. There were plenty of smaller things she hadn't figured out. The Force was one of them. What she could do with it, how far she could take the abilities she'd discovered, and whether she would ever find someone who could help her understand them without disappearing halfway through. None of those felt like the real answer, though.

"My future," she finally said, her voice softer than before.

Xian lowered her gaze to the bowl in front of her. "I don't think I've ever really had one planned. When I was little, it was mostly about getting through the day. Then the Jedi found me, and I thought that was going to be my future." A faint crease formed between her brows. "That didn't exactly work out. After I left, I started taking jobs and traveling, and somewhere along the way, that became my life. Finish one job, get paid, find the next one."

There was nothing inherently wrong with that life. She'd seen places she never would have imagined as a child on Coruscant, met people she cared about, and gained a freedom she'd never possessed before. Yet lately, continuing exactly as she had for years no longer felt like enough. Xian wasn't sure whether that was because she'd changed or because there were finally people in her life who made her wonder what staying might feel like.

"I know what I want tomorrow most of the time," she continued, looking back toward Xuko. "I just don't know what I want five years from now. Where I want to live, what I want to be doing, whether I want to keep taking jobs forever or find something that's actually..." She hesitated, searching for the word. "Mine."

Her expression softened as she looked away again. "I think that's what I still need to figure out. Not who I am right now. I'm actually getting better at that." A small smile touched her lips. "I need to figure out who I want to become when I'm not just letting whatever happens next decide for me."

Xuko Pagoi

 

[Xuko Pagoi]

Xuko chewed his steak as he listened to Xian's words- marveling once again at her measured approach to life despite her relative youth. Xuko had little idea what he had in mind ten minutes from now, let alone ten years.

As he did, he mulled over another question, hoping that Xian didn't mind his queries. "Why were you in the food line today?" he finally asked when his curiosity finally got the better of him. Judging by her comfortable display of authority at the Crucible- not to mention the uncanny way Xian seemed to be three steps ahead of everyone else- made him question whether her presence was due to hunger or some other, more intentional, reason.

His tone left no doubt that he didn't harbor judgment in any case; but he was curious.

Xian Xiao

 

[Xian Xiao]

Xian paused with a piece of bread halfway to her mouth. Of all the questions Xuko had asked her, that one seemed to catch her slightly off guard, perhaps because the answer was considerably less complicated than he appeared to expect. She lowered the bread again and glanced across the little park before answering. "Because I needed food," she said simply. There was no embarrassment in the admission, only the same practicality with which she approached most uncomfortable truths.

She had been close to the Diarchy once. Closer than most people standing in that relief line would probably ever realize. Rellik had been one of its leaders, and she had been his apprentice, but neither of those things meant very much now that he was gone and the Diarchy had fallen apart around them. "I'm as much a refugee from what happened here as most of the people who were standing in that line. I had a place because of Rellik and the Diarchy, and then suddenly I didn't." Her expression grew quieter at the mention of him, but she didn't linger there. "Being his apprentice didn't leave me with some account full of credits or a permanent home. He died, everything collapsed, and I was on my own again."

Xian tore a smaller piece from her bread, considering it for a moment. She had been on her own before, enough times to know how to survive it, but knowing how didn't make the situation any more comfortable. "Work is harder to find right now. Food can be too. There are a lot of people trying to put their lives back together, and I'm one of them." She gave a small shrug. "If there's relief being offered and I need it, I'm not going to pretend I don't just because I used to know someone important."

Her black eyes returned to Xuko, and a faint smile softened what might otherwise have sounded bleak. "I think that's part of why I noticed what was happening in the line so quickly. I wasn't standing outside watching people who'd lost everything. I was standing there with them." She took a bite of the bread at last. "I'm just fortunate that I know how to fend for myself. I've had plenty of practice."

Xuko Pagoi