Private Held in the Currents of the Force

[Lyra Ventor]

The mention of a hundred years in a prison stripped the amusement from Lyra's expression. She couldn't begin to imagine what that must have been like, especially for someone who relied upon the Force to perceive the world around him. A century was already beyond anything she could easily comprehend, but a century deprived of his senses and with little more than the passage of time for company sounded unbearable. The fact that something as simple as another person sitting down and talking with him had mattered enough to help change the course of his life said more than any grand attempt at redemption probably could have.

"She just talked to you," Lyra said softly, considering that for a moment. "No speeches about what you should become or what you were doing wrong. She just treated you like someone worth talking to." Her hand found his again, fingers curling loosely around his. "I think I can understand why that reached you when someone trying to change you might not have."

His description of his children's likely reaction brought some of the warmth back into her expression. "A few planets over?" she repeated with a laugh. "I'm choosing to believe that was an exaggeration." Although with Syn's family, she wasn't entirely certain. At least she apparently wouldn't have to worry about an explosive confrontation if and when she met them. Manners she could handle. Quietly fleeing to another planet to complain about their father's girlfriend was another matter entirely.

Then something occurred to her that she probably should have asked sooner. "Wait. How old are they?" Lyra shifted a little closer, curiosity plainly winning out. "Because I've been thinking of them as your children, but you're nine hundred years old. For all I know, I'm younger than your grandchildren would be." She paused as another possibility occurred to her, and her eyebrows rose. "You don't have grandchildren too, do you?"

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

He took a moment to think about it. "NOt as far as I am aware but they are in their twenties. Still learning a great deal and learning to use the force in ways that surprise even them at times." He said it while he was there and debated it but he thought about what she said. "There is something when you are imprisoned, mentally or physically. Pain, torture, something can do a lot. It drives anger, it makes many want it to stop but the smartest ones know that the best way it nothing. Void and silence until the point when you are begging for something anything. The best prison is leaving one alone within their own mind."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra blinked.

Then she blinked again, staring at Syn as the significance of that particular detail caught up with her. "They're basically my age..." she said slowly. Of all the complications she'd imagined might come with dating someone who had lived for nine centuries, discovering that his children were roughly her contemporaries had somehow escaped consideration entirely.

She covered her face with one hand for a moment, a muffled laugh slipping through her fingers. "Maker, that's going to make meeting them interesting." Dropping her hand, she looked toward Syn again with an expression caught somewhere between amusement and disbelief. "I'm trying to imagine being introduced as their father's girlfriend when I could have gone to school with either of them." She shook her head, although her smile made it clear the realization hadn't frightened her away. "You really should come with a warning label. Nine hundred years creates situations nobody thinks to prepare for."

The humor faded as she considered what he'd said about imprisonment. A hundred years alone with almost nothing but his own thoughts sounded worse the more he described it. "I think I understand what you mean," she said quietly. "Pain gives you something to react to. Someone to hate, something to resist, even if it's horrible. But nothing..." Her brow furrowed. "There's nothing to fight against when there's only silence."

She reached for his hand again, tracing her thumb slowly across his fingers. "A hundred years is longer than my entire life several times over. I can't really pretend I understand what that felt like." Her fingers curled gently around his. "But I think I'm beginning to understand why someone simply coming to sit with you and talk mattered so much."

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

He looked at her with that. "Perhaps they will ask questions. I am not certain though as any potential of such meetings would be something that their father would have. At this point there are few my age in the galaxy." He said it and he had met one or two but they had been of questionable sanity more then anything and even worse they wanted to treat things like it was still that time. Displacement was a thing for some of them but he nodded to her talk about what it had been. "Yes, at that point anything at that point would have been welcome and it wasn't like I immediately shifted. I listened and we talked and it still took time."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra considered his answer for a moment, her thumb continuing its slow path across his fingers. "Questions I can handle," she said, a small smile returning. "Although I reserve the right to be nervous when the time actually comes. Meeting someone's children is already a little intimidating without discovering they're basically your peers." She laughed softly. "I suppose there really isn't a normal way to date someone nine hundred years older than you."

The thought of how few people remained who could remember the galaxy Syn had known centuries ago made her expression soften. She couldn't decide whether that longevity sounded extraordinary or terribly lonely. He had lived through generations, watched worlds and Orders change, and had presumably lost far more people than Lyra wanted to contemplate. Yet he was here now, still willing to let someone new into his life. "Does it ever bother you?" she asked. "Being one of so few people left from your time? Everyone else learns about those centuries as history, but you actually remember them."

His explanation of how slowly the Jedi had reached him only made the woman who'd visited his cell more interesting to Lyra. There hadn't been some miraculous conversation that changed everything. She had simply kept returning, apparently content to let whatever developed between them happen in its own time. "I think I like her approach," Lyra admitted. "She wasn't trying to win an argument with you. She gave you something you'd been denied for a very long time and let you decide what to do with it."

Her fingers tightened gently around his before she smiled again. "I'm glad you eventually decided to listen, though." The words carried a quieter affection now. "It would've been rather inconvenient for me if you'd stayed an angry Sithspawn in a prison cell nine hundred years ago."

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

"It would but there is a lot of people who have come from cryotubes to escape the wars then." He said it with a parrtil chuckle as there had been several he had met and more he had heard of. A lot of jedi used it as their way of showing they were classical jedi which brought amusement to him because he often remembered their master. His eyebrow only raised a little when she mentioned him being the same as back then and he chuckled. "It certainly would have been a different encounter... for good and bad. Though the daarkside in the long run for one is not as sustainable. The anger you need to maintain it cools on its own and you would only ever be searching for fresh grievences which would weaken much of what you wanted."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra gave a small nod at the mention of cryotubes. She supposed that made sense. Nine hundred years was an extraordinary length of time to live continuously, but the galaxy had more than a few ways of allowing someone to skip over centuries rather than actually experience them. "That's different, though, isn't it?" she asked. "They might come from your time, but they didn't live through all the years between then and now. You did." To her, that seemed like an important distinction. Syn hadn't simply gone to sleep in one age and awakened in another. He had accumulated all those centuries one day at a time, with everything that came with them.

His description of the dark side made her thoughtful. Lyra had never possessed the Force herself, so much of what Jedi and Sith said about it remained something she could understand only from the outside. Anger, however, was considerably more familiar. "That sounds exhausting," she admitted. "Not just being angry, but having to keep finding reasons to stay angry because you need the anger for something else." Her brow furrowed as she considered the strange cycle he'd described. "Eventually you're not even reacting to what happened anymore. You're looking for the next thing that lets you keep feeling the way you think you need to feel."

She shifted closer against him, comfortable in the intimacy they'd settled into. "I think I prefer you this way." There was a teasing note to the words, although the affection behind them was unmistakable. "The version of you who gives massages, takes me on dates, and occasionally introduces me to terrifying wildlife is already complicated enough. I don't think adding angry Sithspawn to the list would improve things."

Her smile lingered before curiosity returned. "Do you ever miss any of it?" she asked. "Not the prison or what the dark side did to you. I mean being that person. The power you had, or the way you saw yourself back then. Was there anything about him that you had trouble letting go of?"

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

"It will sound different but no I do not miss aspects of it. I am still the same person. I have just had more chances to make mistakes, more chances to learn and improve and grow stronger. Perhaps what was done upon Cathar but there is not as many things that are left and cathar in the galaxy are fewer then others see. My time among the miraluka saw the few remaining Luka brought together and they have joined the Silver Jedi allowing them to thrive." He said it but laid there while he was thinking about it. "But if I hadn't experienced the centuries, if I had just gone to sleep and come out to an entire new galaxy it would have been less. I would not have the experiences needed to know and having learned some temperment."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra listened without interrupting, her expression softening as Syn explained the distinction. She had been thinking of his past almost as though there were two versions of him, the person he'd once been and the person lying beside her now. Syn clearly didn't see himself that way. Nine hundred years hadn't replaced one man with another. They had simply given the same man an extraordinary amount of time to make choices, discover which ones had been wrong, and decide what he wanted to do differently the next time.

"I think I understand," she said after a moment. "You're not someone completely different from the person you were then. Everything that happened is still part of you. You just had nine hundred years to become more than you were." Her fingers moved lightly along his arm as she considered everything those centuries must have contained. "Most of us get one lifetime to make all our mistakes and hopefully figure ourselves out before we run out of time. You've had... considerably more practice." A little smile accompanied the understatement.

What he'd said about Cathar and the Miraluka reminded her that those centuries hadn't only been about Syn himself. He had watched entire peoples change, diminish, gather together again, and find new places in a galaxy that never seemed capable of remaining still for very long. Lyra couldn't imagine carrying that much memory around, much less being able to compare the people and places of today with versions of them from centuries earlier. "I suppose waking up after nine hundred years would make this galaxy feel like it belonged to somebody else," she mused. "You would've known where you came from, but missed everything that turned that galaxy into this one. Living through it means this is still your time too."

She shifted closer to him, settling comfortably against his side. Whatever Syn had once been, Lyra hadn't met that version of him. She knew the man who teased her, taught her, challenged her, took her to places that had an alarming tendency to contain dangerous wildlife, and somehow made nine centuries of history feel far less intimidating when they were simply lying together talking.

"For what it's worth, I like what all those centuries turned you into." Her voice was quieter now, warmth replacing the earlier teasing. "Not because I think everything before now was something you needed to erase. If all of those choices and mistakes and lessons are part of what made you the man you are, then they're part of you too." She smiled and gave his arm a gentle squeeze. "But this Syn? The one I actually get to know? I like him quite a lot."

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

He looked at her and gave a look. "Do I have more? I get what you get Lyra. I get what all get in the end. I get a lifetime." He said it while he wrapped an arm around her though and stayed there. "Besides, you are going to make me sound old, ancient even. I am still young enough in most ways to continue to live and enjoy. I am here for yu and hopefully will be able to keep up and make you enjoy the feeling of having this... I don't know what settling would look like but even if it is only a day it will all depnd on what we manage to do."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra's expression softened when his arm came around her, and she settled naturally against him. His correction made her reconsider the way she'd phrased it. Nine hundred years sounded impossible to her because she measured it against a human lifespan, but to Syn it hadn't been a collection of extra lives handed to him one after another. It had simply been his. "Okay. A lifetime," she conceded, tilting her head toward him. "A ridiculously long lifetime from where I'm sitting, but I'll stop making it sound like you've been collecting them."

His complaint about sounding ancient brought an amused smile to her lips. "You are nine hundred years old. I don't think I'm responsible for making you sound ancient." She gave him a playful nudge before relaxing against him again. "But no, I don't think of you as some ancient relic. You're not sitting around telling me how much better everything was eight centuries ago and complaining that nobody respects proper hyperspace etiquette anymore." Her smile widened. "Most of the time I don't really think about your age until you say something that reminds me you personally remember things I've only ever known as history."

The rest of what he'd said stayed with her longer. Lyra wasn't certain what settling looked like either, particularly when they'd only just managed to put the word girlfriend to what had already been growing between them. Trying to define years from now seemed unnecessary when she was still enjoying discovering what tomorrow with him might look like. "I don't need you to promise me what settling looks like," she said. "I don't even know what it looks like for me yet. We can figure that out if we ever get there."

She turned enough to press an affectionate kiss against him before settling back into the circle of his arm. "And I don't want to measure this by whether it lasts a day, a year, or however much time we get either. I want the dates. I want the adventures. I want quiet days aboard Alema where the most dangerous thing I encounter is whatever opinion she has about me next." A soft laugh escaped her. "I want to see what this becomes without worrying so much about deciding what it has to become first."

Her hand rested comfortably against him as her smile softened again. "So just keep up with me, old man." The teasing lasted only a heartbeat before affection overtook it. "I'm rather enjoying having you here."

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

"Next opinion.... I have notes." The ship was speaking as it flashed but took a small moment and shifted the walls to show a viewscreen that was forming for her. "Also challenging him to keep up might not be a good idea, you may find challenges push him further then many others." She spoke and Syn was there just holding Lyra as he spoke. "Perhaps but we will take it as it comes, there is always more things happening in the galaxy and we will be able to travel around and help." He offered a smile though while he was checking over some parts of it. "I am looking forward to seeing what we are going to find next."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra's eyebrows rose as Alema announced that she had notes, and the newly forming viewscreen earned the ship a suspicious glance. "Of course you have notes." She wasn't entirely certain she wanted to know how extensive those notes were, particularly when they concerned her relationship with Syn. Alema had already demonstrated that she had opinions about practically everything that happened aboard her, and apparently Lyra's choice of teasing was now subject to review as well. "For the record, I was teasing him. I'm not actually asking him to prove he can keep up with me."

She settled more comfortably into Syn's hold, then added after a moment, "Although now I'm curious what exactly you think he'd do if I did challenge him." Her attention shifted briefly toward the viewscreen Alema had formed. "Actually, no. I'm not sure I want to encourage the notes." Though there was too much amusement in her voice for the objection to carry much weight.

Syn's answer drew her attention back to him. Traveling and helping wherever they could sounded surprisingly appealing, particularly when there was no expectation that they decide immediately where this relationship was supposed to lead. Lyra had already spent much of her life traveling, first because ships were simply part of her world, and later because she had chosen a life that kept her among them. Doing some of that traveling with Syn was something she could very easily imagine enjoying.

"What do you think is next?" she asked, tilting her head slightly toward him. "And I mean what do you actually think, not whatever mysterious answer a nine-hundred-year-old Jedi Master gives when he wants to pretend he knows something I don't." Her smile widened as she rested her hand over his arm around her. "Another world? Someone who needs help? Somewhere you've been before and suddenly decide I absolutely have to see?"

She paused, then laughed softly as one final possibility occurred to her. "Or are we going to pick somewhere completely ordinary for once and somehow discover the giant spiders after we arrive?"

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

"I think the next thing to explore is you, a chance to make sure there is nothing wrong or pain." He said it while laying there and only laughed a little to himself. "But no idea, I was going to get some sleep and hopefully by the time we wake up we would be in space that you recognize. We can go anywhere and find an adventure or purpose." He didn't need to roll over he just held her while Alema was looking with a flash. "I have adjusted the engine speed, there will be enough time for sleep cycles to be done should you both wish it. Your guest is finding food for himself and raging that the vents are too small and stuffed."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra had been prepared with a suitably teasing response to Syn declaring that she was apparently the next thing worth exploring, but Alema's update completely derailed it. She stared toward the nearest flash from the ship for several seconds as the image formed in her mind of their tiny, perpetually irritated passenger discovering that the ventilation system had betrayed him. "Wait. He's doing what?" The question came out somewhere between laughter and disbelief. "He's looking for food in the vents?"

She buried her face briefly against Syn as laughter finally won. The Anzellan had already demonstrated enough attitude for someone who could practically fit inside her tool kit, and apparently being unable to crawl through Alema's ventilation system was now a personal offense. "I don't know whether I should be concerned for him or concerned for your vents." She lifted her head again, still grinning as she glanced toward Syn. "Although if he starts taking Alema apart because he can't fit somewhere, I'm staying out of that argument."

Then her attention settled fully on Syn, and the amusement in her expression changed into something warmer. "And as for your suggestion that the next thing to explore should be me..." She let the words linger deliberately, her fingers tracing lightly along his arm as she remained comfortably held against him. "I never said you couldn't." Her smile turned decidedly playful. "In fact, I'm fairly certain I've given you plenty of evidence that I'd be very receptive to a thorough investigation."

She leaned in to kiss him, lingering close afterward rather than immediately settling back. "Though apparently we have enough time for sleep too, so I suppose there's no need to rush your research." The teasing warmth remained as she relaxed into his embrace again. Whatever came when they woke could remain unknown for now. "Then that's our plan. We sleep, wake up somewhere interesting, and figure out what comes next."

Her gaze flicked briefly toward Alema before returning to Syn. "Preferably without waking up to discover your guest has declared war on the ventilation system."

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

"He tried to break into the vents, I let him and have been shifting the positioning of the floor and vent itself so he is walking in a circle. I did warn him." THe shipped seemed as pleased as it could be with that for being a monotone ship and the jedi master was right therre burying his face in the blondes hair to hide his laughing with her at the situation. "Well if you warned him, then I cannot interfere some sort of actions have concequences thing for the jedi blady blady blah." He said it while being therre and Alema gave a confirmation flash. "Exactly, this is his actions, I will handle it for a few more hours and let him tire himself out... HOpefully this is a lesson learned and I will not have to do it again."

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra's laughter only grew when Alema explained exactly what she'd done. The image of the Anzellan determinedly crawling through the vents, entirely unaware that the ship was rearranging herself to keep him walking in circles, was almost too much. Syn burying his face in her hair to hide his own laughter certainly didn't help. "That's terrible," she managed, although the laughter undermined any attempt at disapproval. "He's going to be furious when he figures it out." Somehow, she suspected Alema was perfectly aware of that and considered it part of the lesson.

Syn's solemn invocation of consequences earned another laugh, and Lyra turned slightly within his arms. "Blahdy blah blah?" she repeated, raising an eyebrow at the Jedi Master. "Nine hundred years of Jedi wisdom, and that's what I get?" She shook her head with exaggerated disappointment. "I'm beginning to understand why Alema keeps notes."

With their guest apparently destined to spend the next several hours learning an important lesson about respecting a sentient ship's ventilation system, Lyra saw little reason for either of them to remain awake for it. She relaxed back against Syn, though the earlier suggestion he'd made hadn't been forgotten. Quite the opposite. "Well, if Alema has that handled..." Her fingers traced slowly along Syn's arm, and the smile she gave him carried considerably more warmth than innocence. "I believe you mentioned something about exploring me before we got some sleep."

She shifted closer, pressing an affectionate kiss against him before lingering near. "I think we should get some 'sleep.'" The emphasis made her meaning rather difficult to misunderstand. Whatever exploration happened before the actual sleeping portion of the night, Lyra was clearly more than willing to let Syn pursue it.

Her attention turned briefly toward the nearest indication of Alema's presence, amusement still lingering in her expression. "Goodnight, Alema. Have fun with your tiny prisoner." Then Lyra settled her attention back upon Syn with a smile. "Now... where were we?"

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

"Yes I did." He only offered a smile as ALema shut off the lights and turned her attention to the vents as she was looking at the engineerr still cursing and going through them. Herself flashing for a moment as she spoke. "I told you not to get into the vents now we are entering rest mode so I suggest you sleep." Alema said it asthe sleep mode was cycled with the lights going off and set up to come on as needed. Syn waking up several exhaustive hours later while he remained there for a moment in the bed and only slipped out to go and make sure their clothing was cleaned as he held them for a moment and ALema had done good work.

 

[Lyra Ventor]

Lyra had eventually fallen asleep for real, thoroughly exhausted and comfortably tangled against Syn beneath the covers. Whatever Alema had done with the lights, temperature, or the rest of the room had worked perhaps a little too well, because the first thing Lyra registered when she began to wake was not the absence of Syn beside her but the distinct feeling that moving was an unreasonable expectation. She made a quiet sound of protest, stretched one arm into the space he'd vacated, and only then cracked her eyes open enough to realize she was alone in the bed.

"Syn?" His name came out sleep-heavy as she pushed herself upright, gathering the bedding around herself while her gaze wandered through the dim room. Memories of the hours before actual sleep returned in pieces, bringing a warm flush to her cheeks and a thoroughly satisfied smile she made absolutely no effort to suppress. Apparently Syn had taken her invitation to explore quite seriously. "Maker..." she murmured, rubbing sleep from her face before attempting to coax her hair back into something resembling order. It was a hopeless endeavor.

She eventually spotted him with their clothing and gave up on her hair entirely. "Please tell me you've been awake long enough to know whether my legs are expected to work yet." The teasing complaint was accompanied by a laugh as she shifted toward the edge of the bed. Her attention dropped to the clothing in his hands, and her eyebrows rose when she realized it had all been cleaned. "Oh. Alema cleaned everything?" She looked around the room with growing appreciation. "I could get dangerously accustomed to this ship."

Then another memory surfaced, and Lyra's smile immediately widened as she looked around the room. "Alema?" A laugh was already threatening before she even asked. "Please tell me our tiny engineer eventually gave up on conquering your ventilation system."

Syn

 

[Syn]

Lyra Ventor

He looked at her and raised an eyebrow but remained there. "I am not certain, to handle the impact I generally reinforce myself with the force." He said matter of factly for the moment as he was checking on a few of the things before laying them out as Alema spoke. "He went to sleep an hour ago, tuckered himself out trying to outrun me and he has quite a mouth on him. I rerrouted some of the soap to clean his mouth out as one should do before resealing the vents. he was less then happy but his clothing seems to have improved in sanitary levels." THe ship said it while it was going and Syn got dressed when he looked up and at it. "As long as you have not hurt him."