Private Curiosities

[Noelle Varanin]

It had been three weeks since she had accepted the crown. It felt like a single day. Life moved quickly inside Eshan's capitol. She wondered if it would ever feel natural to her again. Something felt off, and it wasn't the new responsibilities or the growing eyes. Her journey through the Netherworld had changed her. Truth was, she could die tomorrow. A bitter part of her doubted her mothers would even bother getting her. The dedication she had felt for them had grown cold.

Or perhaps that was the corruption in her veins.

Her mother's resurrection had come at a price. She felt its weight in her chest every day.



The light of a rare super moon illuminated the gardens. She breathed its energy in and let the tension roll out of her shoulders. The combined focus of the city on that singular vibrant orb created a tangible static of energy in the air. Call it the nature, or Lilah the moon goodness herself, Noelle didn't care. It was nice to be back behind the city gates.

She was finally home.


The rare event was a cultural holiday. All would stay up tonight and celebrate the occurrence in theor own private ways. Before the city's destruction, there would have even been a festival. Next time, Noelle vowed. Instead the newly restored palace gardens had been opened to all.

Couples mulled across the stone walkways and children grappled playfully in the grass. Noelle stood by a pond's edge, distant yet present as she watched it all.

Elle Mors

 

[Elle Mors]

WAVES​

Push, pull.

The force was a strange master, at one moment it willed her towards the cluster of stars that had illuminated her home and in the next it was drawing her back out towards the other end of the galactic rim. She didn't pretend to understand why it was that it guided her in the way it did, but she did find herself questioning its pull as it guided her away from the core and towards the planet of Eshan. It wasn't a planet she was familiar with, not beyond it being the home of the Echani, and to her knowledge the planet hadn't fallen under a dark hand for quite some time, at least if more recent star charts were anything to go by. That being said she wasn't one to refuse the pull, and down she went - to places unknown.

Wandering through the city streets, dressed as just another random passerby, she could at least admire the sense of tranquility that the scenery gave her, populated to be sure but not overcrowded like the streets of a world like Coruscant or Denon. Still, there was something else, not unlike an echo or perhaps a shade, that loomed behind the peaceful backdrop as if the quiet she enjoyed was a result of something else rather than of the people's own wishes.

It did not take her long to find her way back to nature, or at least as much of it as civilization could lend to her within its concrete pathways and steel walls, to the edge of water and the feeling of grass under the thin soles of her shoes. Green had always been her favorite color - the color of life in nature, of trees and grass - and here it was in quiet abundance. There, at the edge of a pond, was the source of the pull - her eyes caught the sight of her gazing, in a way perhaps best described as wistfully, at the others that meandered about around them.

"You appear lost." She said, turning her head to try to look out where Noelle Varanin was peering out towards, as she drew near. 'Kindred spirits?' She mused, to herself, as she glanced over towards the stranger. "Or maybe hurt?" She offered, her head tilting as she tried to figure out why there was something so.. familiar.. about the feeling that rolled off of the Echani in waves. She shook her head dismissively, as if she'd suddenly come to a conclusion that was obvious in retrospect.

'Alone.' She thought.

She knew it well.

"Elle Mors, my name that is - Jedi, though maybe not quite a good one." Ellie explained, as if an introduction was in some way related to the strange examination she'd made. "Oh, and an empath, if you're wondering about my, er, curiosities." She added.

 

[Noelle Varanin]

Noelle's eye brows shot up, her attention sharpening to the approaching girl. She was experienced enough to sense when she was being read. Her people's ability to reach each other came from a purely kinetic base. A master of their fighting form could read intention inside a singular muscle twitch. Noelle had learned young to keep her emotions behind a wall of ice. Her sister may have found it fit to flit around with her heart on her sleeve, but she had had no title to grow into.

This Elle Mors wasn't reading her expressions, no, this girl was--

an empath

Ah.

Noelle's expression softened, her lips betraying a hint of amusement. "I am Noelle," she offered, dipping her chip. "And I am not lost." Her attention scooped back out to the paths, lingering on the new hedges and fresh stone floors. Nothing here was old, yet everything looked the same. She had over seen the replication herself.

"This is my home. I know it well." A thin smile cracked over her lips, filled with mirth as Noelle played word games with Elle's statement. She glanced back to the jedi, looking her over with unabashed interest.

"My cousin is a jedi." And my mother a Sith Lord. " Shira Varanin . She is unfortunately more cyborg than not by this point. One need only be on the other end of her sword to know the pity is unneeded." She gave a tell-tail grimace and rubbed at phantom bruises.


"Do you know her?" She kept the hope in her chest from reaching her words.

 

[Elle Mors]

She nodded, aware that she'd kept her realization internalized, and accepted the position of being mistaken. Being that her abilities relied rather wholly on the literal feelings in others, she didn't quite catch the shift in expression beyond what she assumed was humor in Elle's mistake, but she didn't quite try hard to look for any visual cues that she might've recognized either. Following the woman's gaze, or at least trying to, she wasn't quite sure how to connect what she was looking at with the statement of not being lost - unless she had taken her words literally when she'd only meant it in the figurative sense - but that seemed to clear itself up when she explained herself soon after. She cocked her head to the side at the minor revelation, 'A Jedi? Is that it?' She questioned herself in the momentary pause that preceded a name being given.

"...Varanin.."

Aside from the name of Ashin Varanin having been a bit of a staple in the Sith teaching of modern history during her time as an acolyte, the name also rang another bell, albeit one she couldn't remember. Still, she opted to assume that this stranger was either no Sith at all or at least as good a person as one needed to be to not necessitate an intervention through the force. "I can't say I'm familiar." She admitted, brushing the prickly sensation of unease that came with a bit of her past, however innocuous it might be, resurfacing. "I don't actually know many Jedi, though, I'm a bit of a recluse when it comes to that kind of stuff. No order or anything, just me.. meditating and trying to figure out what the force wants.. that sort of thing."

"It sort of brought me here, actually. To you, though I'm not really sure why."

Noelle Varanin

 

[Noelle Varanin]

Maybe the force wanted them to have a nice cup of tea.

She knew that wasn't the case, but when what she had been searching for showed up so bluntly to her doorstep, she felt a flutter of nerves. Elle appeared to know her family name even if she didn't know her cousin. A pity, really. In this moment Noelle would have preferred it to be the other way around.

Shira might have been able to help her. Now she wondered if the Elle would even stay, or if the name alone would brand Noelle in her eyes. Rightly so. She stopped being a bystander to her family's reputation the day she forced a shade into her service.

All of this passed through her as a flickered of insecurity. She swallowed it back and raised her chin.

"Why don't we go for a walk." It was not a question.

Noelle turned from the lake, her heel striking stone as she return to the path. A set of white-haired heads dipped her way as a couple strolled passed. Noelle looked to Elle, breaking up the tension in her body with an attempt at easy chatter.

"A jedi without an order... how do fund yourself. Do you work?" Maybe her definition of easy was askewed.

 

[Elle Mors]

If she'd spoken the concerns she'd had on her way towards Eshan she might've apologized, it seemed that Noelle Varanin was a far more pleasant person than she had anticipated her to be - not that she'd been aware who or what was the source of the pull she'd felt in the force. In the last several weeks these sorts of feelings had grown stronger, but rather than lead her to people like this the force had instead led her to fights that almost ended with her own. "Oh, uh, sure?" She said, taken aback by the.. well actually she hadn't really experienced this kind of behavior before.

Lagging behind just a little, Elle tried to follow her towards wherever it was that they were headed to, missing the shift in Noelle's mood that'd taken place just before as it was masked by her momentary confusion and rather lax attention. What followed was perhaps an equally perplexing question, though it sort of made sense to her after she considered her answer for a moment or two - it was something she'd had to consider when she'd began her journey as a Jedi, although not quite in an approach as direct as that. "I.. don't?" She said, her voice trailing off momentarily as she searched for the words to follow. "Fund myself, I mean." She explained, realizing that her vagueness didn't exactly imply which question she'd been responding to. "When I arrive on a planet I trade labor for food and supplies after I do whatever it is that the force has led me there to accomplish. I don't really have a wage or anything, I don't think I even own a credit chip anymore, actually."

"Build a house, fix this or that, help with a farm or something, stuff like that."

"By the way, if you don't mind me asking, um.. Who are you exactly?"

She was rather curious, the name she'd been given earlier aside there wasn't much information that she was privy to that helped her figure it out on her own.

 

[Noelle Varanin]

Noelle's chin turned Elle's way, the girl given a skeptical glance.

The Jedi really did not know who she was. There was some humor in that, along with a pinch of insult. Perhaps she should find humility in that instead. Or perhaps, she chided internally, she should stop overthinking things and simply be.

Her brows pulled in. She looked away, her steps steady and without haste. She wasn't guiding them anywhere in particular. Moving simply felt good, so she continued to walk the meandering path deeper into the gardens.

"I am Noelle Varanin," she finally answered. "This world and its people are now... mine to take care of. I am the Queen." She glanced to the left, observing Elle's reaction before responding in disbelief.

"You really did not know what you were walking into, did you?" A slight laugh caught in her chest, her words growing blunter. "And here I was expecting some New Order spy. You are here on your on your own." Again, not a question.

Elle Mors

 

[Elle Mors]

She nodded slowly, the last name was more or less a giveaway given the name of her cousin, as she was led to the conclusion of royalty that, honestly, was a bit more out of left-field than she was expecting. Personally she was expecting something a bit less.. normal? Maybe it was the series of coincidences and admittedly bizarre situations that had led her to places like this in the past, or maybe she was just hoping she wasn't just here to deal with some kind of mundane issue after so much excitement in the last several months, but the result was still the same. A mix of surprise and a tiny bit of disappointment marked her face, which transitioned wholly into disappointment not long after.

"I was pretty sure I was transparent about who I am and why I'm here." She said with a frown, sounding a little more offended at the insinuation that she'd been lying than she probably should have. "But, no. I'm not exactly.. educated.. on stuff like planetary governments and stuff, I don't usually go bumping into royalty either." Elle added, glancing off to the side. "So, in the interest of starting over, I'm Elle Mors, Jedi without an order. Your name sounds a bit familiar to me, honestly, and you do look like someone I could've seen before, I just can't place it." She said.

"I'm not here for politics, though. Not interested."

Noelle Varanin

 

[Noelle Varanin]

Noelle's amusement bleed out of her face as Elle's own disappointment made itself known. For a flickering moment Noelle was left confused.

The jedi made no attempt to hide her disappointment. It did not add up to Noelle, who was under the impression that the jedi had come with no expectations or context. And yet, the woman was still displeased. Noelle looked down at herself, the source of the disappointment, and smoothed out her dress.

"Very well," she replied delicately, their steps filling the silence as they transitioned deeper into garden. The lake was left behind, along with the people. The area was still, spare the rustle of leaves or the hoot of owl. For a moment it was hard to believe they were in the center of a great city. It felt more like her isolated family home, surrounded by the rich nature that encased this world.

A glance right would be all it'd take to dash that illusion. The restored palace loomed overhead, leaving her to feel decidedly small. She frowned.

"From the moment I took that throne, I have gotten a great number of visitors. They have all only wanted one thing from me." She paused, then pulled her gaze from the palace to look at Elle.

"Politics." It was a very thin apology. More of an explanation than anything. She resisted the urge to wrap her arms around her core and turned from the building, guiding them on a new path that led away.

"You say the force guided you to me. Well now you are here and you can see, everything is quite alright." Her heart pounded in her chest. She didn't put much stock in the force guiding the affairs of others. If the force cared about the state of the galaxy, it would have dealt with her mothers long ago. Still, it was either a massive coincidence, or the force had been following her movements.

The latter frightened her.


"Perhaps the force was wrong."

Elle Mors

 

[Elle Mors]

She tilted her head at that.

The force? Wrong?

"The force is.. a thing, not a person. It isn't wrong just like gravity isn't wrong." She said, trying not to sound like a scolding teacher - it was a reality that she had become aware of not long after she had committed to being something better than a Sith. "Usually the force leads me somewhere because there is something I have to help with, usually it's because there's some dark influence making things worse, but that isn't always the case." She explained, curious now. If Eshan was fine then there wasn't much for her to go by in order to interpret the feeling - if anything had been wrong then it would have been her, maybe there was something else related to Eshan that just took her attention and she'd assumed it was the force?

"You didn't look quite too happy when I showed up, so maybe Eshan is fine, but are you?" She asked.

"Er, your majesty." She added with an embarrassed grin, not quite used to talking to people who were more or less indefinitely above her in status. "Like I said though, not here for something as pointless as politics. Your kingdom or whatever is going to come and go just like New Imperial Order you seemed to be so concerned about."

"I suppose I could leave if you wanted.. but I don't think the force was wrong, Miss."

"Perhaps we were."

Noelle Varanin

 

[Noelle Varanin]

Noelle's nostril's flared, the moonlight accentuating the harsh angles of her face as she stared the Jedi down.

The woman wasn't wrong. That was the most infuriating part of it. No one liked to hear that their monarchy was finite, or that they themselves were easy to read. A month ago Noelle would have responded harshly to such blunt words, but... she had others to think of now. What if this was her only chance?

She tried to reason that she would be fine--she would never harm her people-- but a seed of doubt kept the disillusion back.

Once you start down this path there is no going back.

Ashin had been wrong before. Why not here. Why not now? "Wait," she called out, before her elongated glare could shoo the Jedi away.

A pause.

Agitation undid her. She turned away, a harsh breath puffing through her nose as she force words through her teeth. "I didn't ask the force to come in the form of a stranger. I wanted family. I wanted someone I could trust." The words were biting, fueled by the darkness that uncoiled from her core. They were wiffs, tiny tendrils, but she had been touched by corruption. And they had taken root.

"How can I trust the likes of you? Your only allegiance is to yourself."

Elle Mors