Private Ghosts of the Clone Wars

[Galen Paven]

Galen had looked to Iandre as she spoke. Stun on a Blaster? He knew she was crazy, a little, but stun him? A smirk had rose from the unsure look on his face. Stun. He shook his head and took a deep breathe


"Stun huh? I am almost positive Ive been stunned and, well, it triggered worse things!" Galen chuckled. he wasnt serious, he joked with her. As she continued to speak, Galen had calmed down considerably. He knew he was just getting himself worked up and He knew that the chances of him crumbling Aurora Station from the inside out, well, was Bathna Poo-Doo and it wouldnt ever happen. He knew they would have security measures in place and ways to not him but to restrain and slow down the, well, for lack of better word, crazy.


"I appreciate everything youve done thus far. I do. I also appreicate you keeping me calm and getting to know how to keep me calm. This power I was given was never explained, never taught and never even tested. Just because it was the force and blood of Qui-Gon Jinn, I am supposed to know everything instantaniously. That, i assure you, is not the case. I had learned things as i did them. I never had a chance to study and I never had a chance to perfect this ability, so by me being here, this will help. I am almost positive that I will be fine. My head, well, it just likes to think things that shouldnt!" Galen smiled and looked out the cockpit window, the station was getting bigger, closer, Galen still stared at it in marvel. He had seen these stations but again, nothing this big. Galen had cracked his neck slightly and took another breath. sighed in disbelief of the size of the station and, well, just kept staring.


When the ship got closer, Galen could see Iandre do some things with the control panel and press certain buttons and the ship jolted slightly and started on a, sort of, corrective path towards Aurora. The time was drawing to an end on the ship and Galen knew this was going to be for the best but for some reason, still in the back of his mind, things were still looming. Alas though, Galen also knew that he was in good hands with iandre and also knew that she, along with anyone else on this station, wouldnt harm or even let Galen be harmed or let himself harm anyone else. Protocols would be in place and everything would work out fine.


Iandre Athlea Laphisto

 

[Iandre Athlea]

"Then we'll make certain nobody puts 'stun Galen' at the top of the contingency plan." Iandre's amusement lingered, though what followed was considerably more serious. She listened without interrupting as he described what had been expected of him: power inherited from someone he'd never known, knowledge supposedly encoded in him, and the assumption that possessing either meant he should somehow understand what to do with it. It was becoming increasingly clear that Galen hadn't lacked ability so much as the opportunity to learn what to do with it before other people decided how that ability ought to be used. "Qui-Gon Jinn died when I was still a child, so I can't tell you very much about the man from personal experience. I remember him, and of course I knew who he was." A faint trace of private amusement touched her expression at memories she had no intention of explaining to Galen. As a youngling, Iandre's interest in Qui-Gon's former Master had been considerably less academic than she would ever willingly admit now, which had made that particular lineage difficult to forget. "But whatever they gave you from him, they didn't give you his lifetime of experience. Having his potential doesn't mean you should have awakened already knowing how to use it. Someone should have taught you instead of expecting the Force to fill in everything they neglected."

Aurora could begin answering the questions neither of them was equipped to answer aboard the Conquests Agenda, while actual training could address some of what had been left unfinished. Neither required Galen to understand everything today, and his ability to recognize that his imagination was getting ahead of reality was encouraging in itself. "So yes, your head thinks too much. Fortunately, that's a considerably easier problem to work with than destroying the station." The Conquests Agenda continued along its assigned approach while Iandre attended to the familiar controls and Aurora grew steadily larger beyond the viewport. Bringing the ship back stirred memories she hadn't expected to feel quite so sharply. It had belonged to Laphisto before it became hers, and she had taken it away at a time when leaving had seemed easier than remaining among the ruins of everything she'd expected her life to become. Rellik had been gone, the Diarchy had been collapsing, and grief had consumed so much of her that she'd needed distance simply to discover whether anything remained beneath it. Laphisto had understood enough not to stop her. He had placed the access chip to a ship carrying so much of his own history into her hand and trusted that, someday, she might bring it home.

As the corvette passed through the hangar entrance and settled into its berth, Iandre found herself thinking about just how different the woman bringing it home had become. Grief hadn't vanished, nor had love for Rellik become less real merely because losing him no longer hurt every moment of every day. She had simply grown around the absence, gradually building something where she'd once been convinced there could only be an empty space. Somewhere along the way she had become a Knight, taken Jayna as her Padawan, and found purpose beyond merely keeping herself occupied until another day passed. She had friends she hadn't possessed when she'd left and people she genuinely wanted to come home to. There was Judah too, and the increasingly undeniable warmth that accompanied thoughts of the next dinner, the next quiet morning, or simply another excuse to spend time beside him. Whatever they were building was still new enough that Iandre had no desire to force certainty upon it, but she no longer pretended she didn't hope there would be more. Wanting a future again hadn't erased the one she'd lost. It had only taught her that losing one life didn't mean she was required to spend the rest of hers standing among its ruins.

"Welcome to Aurora Station." Iandre glanced toward Galen as the ship finished powering down, the corner of her mouth lifting. "And despite your predictions, it appears to have survived our arrival." When the boarding ramp descended, she expected the familiar sights and sounds of Aurora's hangar, but not the solitary armored figure waiting beyond the marked landing zone. The armor itself was unfamiliar, newer and considerably different from what she remembered, yet the presence within the Force required no second examination. Recognition brought her to a brief stop at the top of the ramp, warmth spreading through her almost quickly enough to hurt as a smile appeared before she'd consciously decided to give it. Laphisto had come to meet her, and somehow that simple fact meant far more than an escort, ceremony, or formal welcome ever could have.

Aurora had once been where Iandre awakened to a galaxy that had gone on without her, and later it had become tangled with another life collapsing beneath her feet. Yet this return belonged to neither of those women. She wasn't arriving half-starved and terrified after losing nine centuries, nor was she the hotly grieving widow who had run because every familiar place seemed to hold another reminder of Rellik and everything falling apart around her. She was coming back because she wanted to, carrying the beginnings of a life that had somehow become full again, and her father stood in the hangar waiting for her as though there had never been any question she would eventually find her way back. The joy of seeing him came tangled with a quieter ache over how long she'd been gone and how much of his life she'd missed, but for once Iandre didn't need to turn either feeling into something easier to manage.

She descended the ramp without making much effort to conceal what the reunion meant to her, her eyes briefly traveling over the unfamiliar armor as she approached before settling upon Laphisto himself. "New armor." Her smile warmed as she stopped before him. "I suppose I've been gone long enough to miss more than a few things." There would be time for explanations about Galen and Boz Pity, for everything that had happened since she'd left and everything Laphisto had to tell her in return. Aknoby was somewhere aboard the station too, another part of her family she had missed and was genuinely excited to see again. For this moment, however, Iandre allowed herself the uncomplicated happiness of standing before the man who had given her the freedom to leave when she'd needed it and had still been here when she finally came home. Her voice softened, carrying none of the teasing she'd used with Galen only moments earlier. "I've missed you, Dad."

Galen Paven Laphisto