Ascending Legend
Iandre listened as Galen described the simple relief he'd found in a hot shower, and she could understand more of it than he might have expected. There had been something strangely restorative about ordinary things when she'd first awakened. Warm water. Clean clothes. A meal that wasn't measured according to what her body could tolerate. Things so mundane they barely deserved notice until nearly everything familiar had been stripped away. If a shower had helped Galen feel a little more like himself, she wasn't going to question it.
His willingness to submit to a medical examination settled one concern, although his reasoning earned a slight shake of her head. "I'd prefer you didn't keel over and die for considerably more reasons than making me feel better." The humor was mild, but her expression became more serious as he continued. He was right about one thing. If they intended to do this together, she needed to trust that he wasn't concealing some physical consequence of his awakening merely because he wanted to reach Coruscant more quickly. "All right. We'll arrange an examination before Coruscant. If they clear you, I'll have one less reason to worry that your determination is carrying you farther than your body can manage."
Then he mentioned Aisha, and Iandre went very still. For a moment the cockpit around her seemed to recede beneath the soft hum of the ship and the endless light of hyperspace beyond the viewport. She had become accustomed to hearing Aisha's name spoken in the past tense. She could usually carry it now without the old grief reaching quite so deeply. Nine hundred years was an absurd distance to place between herself and the woman who had raised her within the Order, even if most of those centuries had passed without Iandre consciously experiencing them. Galen, however, had made Aisha feel close again. A memorial. A record. Something left behind besides the lightsaber she had recovered.
The possibility caught somewhere in her chest, and Iandre turned her face toward the viewport before the emotion could be hidden entirely. Her eyes burned. She blinked once, but it wasn't enough, and a tear escaped before she brushed it away with the side of her thumb. "Don't promise me that." There was no anger in the words. Her voice was simply quieter than before, roughened around the edges in a way Galen hadn't heard from her. "I know you aren't trying to. If there is something there, I want to know. More than I probably should. I just can't go into that place expecting her to have left something for me."
There were things about Aisha that Iandre had never needed a record to tell her. She knew how her Master had felt about her because she had been there at the end. Aisha had died saving her life. There was no mystery hidden across nine centuries about whether she'd cared, whether she'd chosen her Padawan, or whether she'd known Iandre was alive. She had made that choice knowing exactly what it would cost, and Iandre had been the one left behind to live because of it.
That certainty had never made losing her easier. If anything, there were moments when it made the grief harder to carry. Iandre could still remember Aisha as she had been rather than as some distant figure from Jedi history. Her voice. Her presence. The woman who had taught her, corrected her, protected her and, when the moment came, valued Iandre's life enough to give up her own. Finding a message or a record wouldn't answer whether Aisha had loved her. Ian already knew that. What frightened her was the possibility of unexpectedly hearing her Master's voice again, seeing an image recorded before everything fell apart, or discovering words Aisha had never expected her Padawan to hear.
Her composure returned slowly rather than all at once. Perhaps what hurt most was that this wasn't the first time she'd learned how to continue after losing someone who had occupied an enormous part of her life. She had awakened to a galaxy where everyone else she'd known was long dead, eventually found her footing, and somehow built another life from what remained. Then there had been Rellik. She had allowed herself to imagine years with him rather than merely survive the ones she'd been given, only for him to disappear too. Time had dulled that grief. She could think of him now without feeling as though something inside her had been torn open again, but there were still days when sorrow arrived without invitation.
Yet even that loss hadn't been the end of her life. Somewhere along the way, Judah had become part of it. There were no promises between them about what came next and no certainty that what they were building would become anything more than what it was now. Iandre wasn't asking for either. She simply knew that she cared about him, that she looked forward to seeing him, and that lately she had begun to hope there would continue to be a next time. After Rellik, allowing herself that hope had taken more courage than she generally admitted. Perhaps that was part of healing too. Not forgetting the people she'd lost, but refusing to let their absence convince her there was no room left to care deeply for anyone who remained.
"I had lost everyone once when I woke up. Just like you." Her gaze dropped briefly toward her hands. "Then I built another life, and I lost Rellik too." She swallowed and gave herself another moment before continuing. "I'm better than I was. With both of them. Most days, considerably better. I'm even beginning to find things I want again." A faint warmth touched the sorrow in her expression, though she didn't explain the thought any further. "But sometimes it still hurts."
There was no shame in admitting it. Perhaps once there would have been. Now Iandre merely allowed the truth to exist between them before taking another breath and settling back into her seat. "So we'll go. We'll look for Windu, and Yoda, and whatever records survived. And if there is something of Aisha there, I'll face that when we find it." A faint, fragile smile finally returned. "Just don't expect me to be particularly graceful about it if we do."
With Galen's agreement to an examination, there was no longer much reason to postpone a decision she'd been considering since leaving Boz Pity. Iandre turned toward the navigation controls and brought up their present course. Aurora Station had been sitting at the back of her thoughts ever since Galen collapsed. It was where she'd spent those first difficult months after her own awakening, where people had helped put her back together when she'd been barely capable of understanding the galaxy she'd awakened into. She hadn't wanted to immediately surround Galen with strangers when time and rest might have been more useful. Now that he was willing to be examined, however, the choice seemed considerably simpler.
"There's somewhere I want to take you first." Her fingers moved across the controls as she entered Aurora Station into the navigation system and began adjusting their route. "It's where I recovered after I woke up. They already have experience with at least two people who slept through most of a millennium, which is more than I can say for the average medical facility." There was a little more humor in her voice now. "We'll get you checked there. After that, assuming nobody finds something alarming, we can start worrying about Coruscant."
Galen's sudden declaration that they needed a droid caught her sufficiently off guard that some of the lingering heaviness finally gave way to amusement. Her gaze moved briefly around the cockpit before returning to him. "The ship doesn't actually need one. Its navigation and flight systems manage perfectly well without an astromech." Still, the idea wasn't entirely without merit. Whatever remained beneath the old Jedi Temple had survived centuries of occupation, destruction, rebuilding, and neglect, and they had no idea what condition its systems might be in.
"But you may have a point about bringing one with us." Iandre considered the idea before giving a small nod. "A droid capable of interfacing with old systems could be useful if we find sealed archives or infrastructure we can't access ourselves. It doesn't have to be an astromech simply because Anakin had Artoo, though."
Her eyes returned to the streaming light beyond the viewport as the adjusted course settled into the navigation system. Aurora Station first. A medical examination, time for Galen to recover, and perhaps a little more opportunity for him to understand the galaxy he'd awakened into. Coruscant would still be there afterward, along with whatever waited beneath the Temple.
And perhaps something of Aisha. The thought still hurt. Iandre let it. This time, she didn't look away.
Galen Paven
His willingness to submit to a medical examination settled one concern, although his reasoning earned a slight shake of her head. "I'd prefer you didn't keel over and die for considerably more reasons than making me feel better." The humor was mild, but her expression became more serious as he continued. He was right about one thing. If they intended to do this together, she needed to trust that he wasn't concealing some physical consequence of his awakening merely because he wanted to reach Coruscant more quickly. "All right. We'll arrange an examination before Coruscant. If they clear you, I'll have one less reason to worry that your determination is carrying you farther than your body can manage."
Then he mentioned Aisha, and Iandre went very still. For a moment the cockpit around her seemed to recede beneath the soft hum of the ship and the endless light of hyperspace beyond the viewport. She had become accustomed to hearing Aisha's name spoken in the past tense. She could usually carry it now without the old grief reaching quite so deeply. Nine hundred years was an absurd distance to place between herself and the woman who had raised her within the Order, even if most of those centuries had passed without Iandre consciously experiencing them. Galen, however, had made Aisha feel close again. A memorial. A record. Something left behind besides the lightsaber she had recovered.
The possibility caught somewhere in her chest, and Iandre turned her face toward the viewport before the emotion could be hidden entirely. Her eyes burned. She blinked once, but it wasn't enough, and a tear escaped before she brushed it away with the side of her thumb. "Don't promise me that." There was no anger in the words. Her voice was simply quieter than before, roughened around the edges in a way Galen hadn't heard from her. "I know you aren't trying to. If there is something there, I want to know. More than I probably should. I just can't go into that place expecting her to have left something for me."
There were things about Aisha that Iandre had never needed a record to tell her. She knew how her Master had felt about her because she had been there at the end. Aisha had died saving her life. There was no mystery hidden across nine centuries about whether she'd cared, whether she'd chosen her Padawan, or whether she'd known Iandre was alive. She had made that choice knowing exactly what it would cost, and Iandre had been the one left behind to live because of it.
That certainty had never made losing her easier. If anything, there were moments when it made the grief harder to carry. Iandre could still remember Aisha as she had been rather than as some distant figure from Jedi history. Her voice. Her presence. The woman who had taught her, corrected her, protected her and, when the moment came, valued Iandre's life enough to give up her own. Finding a message or a record wouldn't answer whether Aisha had loved her. Ian already knew that. What frightened her was the possibility of unexpectedly hearing her Master's voice again, seeing an image recorded before everything fell apart, or discovering words Aisha had never expected her Padawan to hear.
Her composure returned slowly rather than all at once. Perhaps what hurt most was that this wasn't the first time she'd learned how to continue after losing someone who had occupied an enormous part of her life. She had awakened to a galaxy where everyone else she'd known was long dead, eventually found her footing, and somehow built another life from what remained. Then there had been Rellik. She had allowed herself to imagine years with him rather than merely survive the ones she'd been given, only for him to disappear too. Time had dulled that grief. She could think of him now without feeling as though something inside her had been torn open again, but there were still days when sorrow arrived without invitation.
Yet even that loss hadn't been the end of her life. Somewhere along the way, Judah had become part of it. There were no promises between them about what came next and no certainty that what they were building would become anything more than what it was now. Iandre wasn't asking for either. She simply knew that she cared about him, that she looked forward to seeing him, and that lately she had begun to hope there would continue to be a next time. After Rellik, allowing herself that hope had taken more courage than she generally admitted. Perhaps that was part of healing too. Not forgetting the people she'd lost, but refusing to let their absence convince her there was no room left to care deeply for anyone who remained.
"I had lost everyone once when I woke up. Just like you." Her gaze dropped briefly toward her hands. "Then I built another life, and I lost Rellik too." She swallowed and gave herself another moment before continuing. "I'm better than I was. With both of them. Most days, considerably better. I'm even beginning to find things I want again." A faint warmth touched the sorrow in her expression, though she didn't explain the thought any further. "But sometimes it still hurts."
There was no shame in admitting it. Perhaps once there would have been. Now Iandre merely allowed the truth to exist between them before taking another breath and settling back into her seat. "So we'll go. We'll look for Windu, and Yoda, and whatever records survived. And if there is something of Aisha there, I'll face that when we find it." A faint, fragile smile finally returned. "Just don't expect me to be particularly graceful about it if we do."
With Galen's agreement to an examination, there was no longer much reason to postpone a decision she'd been considering since leaving Boz Pity. Iandre turned toward the navigation controls and brought up their present course. Aurora Station had been sitting at the back of her thoughts ever since Galen collapsed. It was where she'd spent those first difficult months after her own awakening, where people had helped put her back together when she'd been barely capable of understanding the galaxy she'd awakened into. She hadn't wanted to immediately surround Galen with strangers when time and rest might have been more useful. Now that he was willing to be examined, however, the choice seemed considerably simpler.
"There's somewhere I want to take you first." Her fingers moved across the controls as she entered Aurora Station into the navigation system and began adjusting their route. "It's where I recovered after I woke up. They already have experience with at least two people who slept through most of a millennium, which is more than I can say for the average medical facility." There was a little more humor in her voice now. "We'll get you checked there. After that, assuming nobody finds something alarming, we can start worrying about Coruscant."
Galen's sudden declaration that they needed a droid caught her sufficiently off guard that some of the lingering heaviness finally gave way to amusement. Her gaze moved briefly around the cockpit before returning to him. "The ship doesn't actually need one. Its navigation and flight systems manage perfectly well without an astromech." Still, the idea wasn't entirely without merit. Whatever remained beneath the old Jedi Temple had survived centuries of occupation, destruction, rebuilding, and neglect, and they had no idea what condition its systems might be in.
"But you may have a point about bringing one with us." Iandre considered the idea before giving a small nod. "A droid capable of interfacing with old systems could be useful if we find sealed archives or infrastructure we can't access ourselves. It doesn't have to be an astromech simply because Anakin had Artoo, though."
Her eyes returned to the streaming light beyond the viewport as the adjusted course settled into the navigation system. Aurora Station first. A medical examination, time for Galen to recover, and perhaps a little more opportunity for him to understand the galaxy he'd awakened into. Coruscant would still be there afterward, along with whatever waited beneath the Temple.
And perhaps something of Aisha. The thought still hurt. Iandre let it. This time, she didn't look away.
Galen Paven
