She smiled at Spencer's admonition, change was a tough mistress.
"I went from a teenager, running from Palpatine for hiding my Empathic Force Child son, to Mother of the Kae's Consort in a snap of my fingers. A-aa lot to learn then, fr-ffrom spacer runaway to Grandmother of the Royal House. Hard lessons. D-didn't get it right. T-t-took mme eight hundred years. Does you credit that you're already figuring it out." Wine pours itself into two glasses and move in crisp lines through the air to Ahani and [member="Spencer Jacobs"] to pick out of the recycled atmosphere of the ship.
The ancient Echani glanced down and smiled, family was all she had to love. She nodded to a set of chairs and paced the slow walk toward them. Her presence in the Force, her walk, her jittering muscles seemed to level off. Ahani's voice lilted with the accent of an old-time Imperial. "Born on Thyrsus to a Noble House, I watched my mother die in a duel when I was seven. My father was a Crimson Guardsman stationed on Byss, and it was in the Imperial Barracks I was raised. We were all tested, those of us who had a high enough midichlorian count were taken. Palpatine would take all our promising boys, never to return. Or when they did they were unrecognizable. I was fifteen and pregnant. My firstborn Manu was empathic from birth. His midichlorian count was . . . very high. For two years we hid until my father couldn't hide us. He died helping me escape.
I was trained traditional, we never spoke Common at home, barely when I was on the run. I-iit's why I st-ttutter. Such an awkward thing, speech." Ahani sipped her wine, looking out the viewport for some shred of peace in the stars. Always a stroke farther off.
"Manu was blessed. After Palpatine died, Manu was found by the Jedi. I was taken prisoner and tortured under Kashyyk for seven years. In order to remove from them the satisfaction of breaking me, I tore at my own mind. Fractured it until it drove me mad. By the time I got out, Manu had married the rediscovered Kae. Their firstborn was on the way.
Manu was the first empath to enter the Royal bloodline in centuries, and his empathy was so strong we couldn't make orbit around a populated planet without my son going into fits. He and his wife had two children: Divya, the Future Kae and Lochan Indra, her brother. Lochan was born after I cast Manu and I in crystal. When I heard you had Royal blood, I started investigating.
Spencer, my family was all I had and because of me the entire House of Najwa was dead. As was tradition, Manu took his wife's House as his own. My daughter Dalia was a Force Mute and she was rotten to her soul. My youngest, Yuca became a Prince of Chandaar. His bloodline survived, but that wasn't it.
It had to be Manu and according to your wife's investigations, it was. You are descended from Manu and Erryn Xextos' son Lochan. You're one of mine. One Two-Millionth of your genetic code comes from my son." A softer sound than had come from her mouth slid into the air as Ahani sighed.
"I didn't come to ask anything of you. That connection is eight hundred years old. It does nothing for you, but to an old mother with a galaxy shifted and changed by time, it's a frame of reference. A star to catalogue and calibrate my sensors. You have your life and you'll live it. I don't ask to be thought of in any particular way. Or at all.
All I ask is a place for myself. Some mission in the universe to cling to and spread my ragged, tattered mind. I just want to protect my own. Manu hems me in. He's tried to heal me, but it does not fall to a son to dote so on his mother. Everyone expects Darth Gyaumchem to be mad. Force knows I've survived more lifetimes of torture than most. Those sort of events stick with a soul.
But it's the slim connections of time, the farthest star that give the greatest hope. I hope that makes sense. I am not always completely mad."
