How Things Are

[Aela Talith]

Borleias
[member="Kaili Talith"]

Aela had wandered back home a few days ago, having dropped Jamie off on Naboo and made her way to her childhood home not long after. She was sitting quietly, and contentedly in the living room, a small novel folded in her lap.

The house was, of course, quiet.

Her parents had left to explore the Rishi Maze, and that left the house empty, well almost completely.

Kaili was still living in a small shop nearby, and apparently had plans to venture over to the house today. Aela looked forward to seeing her youngest sister, and after spending the last few weeks running around the galaxy she looked forward to...not doing anything at all even more. There was something about being at home that simply made her want to sit and wait, read a good book, and maybe play the violin.

Simple things.

She yawned slightly as she dug herself deeper into the sofa.

Briefly she wondered what Jamie was getting up to back on Naboo, but she quickly pushed the thought from her mind. If anything happened she would sense it through the bracelet on her wrist. For now everything seemed to be perfectly okay, and it was better not to worry and just enjoy the small window of time off she now had.

Lest she be interrupted by some SIS mission.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

With all that was going on it was nice to be back home on Borleias again. For the last few days Kaili had decided to set up camp within the old shop she had lived in when her company wasn’t much more than just this little shop. Between frequent trips to Coruscant and Kiara it was almost starting to feel as if Kaili had taken up a permanent residence on her ship rather than anywhere with more solid ground. Not that anywhere was particularly ‘solid’ when the foundation of her ideals had been given a small shakedown on Atrisia.

From what others knew of her, Kaili wasn’t much for words. She had always been somewhat reserved, but once you got her talking there was no end to it. Right now that was exactly what the girl wanted. Allyson was great for that as well, but with her taking on several deployments she wasn’t as readily available for such things as family was. Perhaps that was why she had returned to Borleias in the end. She had already called ahead to let them know that she was coming.

She had believed the house to be empty, but Aela had already proven her wrong which in the end was for the better. In fact it was way better. Kaili had been meaning to talk to her sister, perhaps air grievances and frustrations at her current situation but never really found the chance to ask.

Kaili was after all rather busy these days.

With one foot through the door of the old family home she gave the door a quick knock to announce her presence. “Hello?” She called out. “Anyone home?”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

She heard Nohei call out into the house.

Her sisters voice echoed, bouncing off of the walls and reaching her within half a heartbeat. For a second Aela wondered if her mother and father had left all the doors in the house unlocked. It was an odd thought considering that the house was located on an isolated island in the middle of the ocean and even if the locks weren't engaged it likely didn't matter...but the thought sprang to her mind for some reason. She frowned for a moment and then shook her head.

"In here!" She called out to her sister.

A moment later she realized that wouldn't really work considering how big the house was. "In the living room!"

There were actually technically two living rooms, but given that one was on the way from the other it didn't really matter. Noehi wouldn't have too much trouble finding her. She considered for a moment and then remembered that her sister would have to go through the kitchen.

"Bring me something to eat!" She bellowed. "I think there's cookies in the cabinet!"

She waited for her sister to respond.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Living room, check.

“There is always cookies in the cabinet!” Kaili cried back speaking with experience from when she was younger. She stepped into the kitchen, opened the cabinet and grabbed the old familiar ceramic pot. She weighed it up and down to measure how many there were before she opened the lid. There were enough.

An eye shot out towards the living room. She could bring her all the cookies, or…

Kaili put the lid back on and continued to cradle the jar as she stepped into living room with her sister. She would have waved, but would have preferred to keep both hands wrapped around the jar in case she dropped it. She settled with leaning back for a second in substitute for a proper greeting before placing the pot on the table before Aela.

“Hey you,” Kaili smiled and took a seat of her own in a nearby armchair. “It’s been a while since we last met like this.”

A very long while, actually.

“Feels like ages, almost.”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

The cookies were likely stale by now, something that Aela hadn't really thought of.

Their parents had left quite a bit ago, meaning that the last time her mother had made cookies was before she'd left. Aela highly doubted that either Kaili or Maleah...or for that matter Micah had come back here to make cookies, and that meant they were stale. She frowned for a few moments and then shook her head, giving up on the idea and deciding that later she'd have to send out one of the droids to to get food for her, if only because the fridge was empty.

"Well." She said as she put down her book. "I've been busy."

It wasn't an excuse, just a fact. "Once the One Sith were gone I thought things would slow down."

A hand came up to rub her face.

"That hasn't really been the case." Sadly. "We've been more busy than ever. Chasing rogue Sith, criminals, half a dozen other things."

It was clear that Aela was more than exhausted, her eyes a bit sunken. She looked fine physically, no bruises or cuts, but that didn't really mean much when things like bacta and accelerated healing existed within the galaxy. She glanced towards Nohei, checking over her younger sister like a protective hawk.

"How are you?' She asked.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

No kidding. Aela almost looked as bad as Kaili did on some days. Or maybe not quite. Needless to say, she had seen a lot of stress as well. Though the markings that Kaili would have picked up were less related to the actual stress as much as her efforts to keep it at bay. Black marks, small cuts against her cheek and arms, bruises from spars that in some degrees might have gone against what the Jedi deemed ‘okay.’ The Kiaran Peacekeepers did not go soft on their masters, and in their eyes Kaili had always been one of them despite the fact that she was a good forty years younger than the majority of them.

So, at her sister’s question there was little Kaili could do but snicker. “Well,” She began. “That really depends on who you ask and when.”

“CEO Kaili Talith, absolutely fine, couldn’t be better.”

“Warden Talith, anxious to get out more.”

“As for Nohei Shamalain…” She shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Same as before, I guess. The nightmares came back for a short while but I’m coping.” There was the unspoken ‘since Atrisia’ that Kaili left hanging in the air. She didn’t like to speak about it all that much. “It’s all I can do, really.”

No doubt Aela would have heard through the grapevine — their parents — that Kaili had been present on Atrisia before it had all started and the part their father had in getting her out of there. Yet this time, for all the death it brought, Kaili hadn’t reverted into the broken shell that she had once kept herself locked inside of the last time she felt death on that magnitude.

All things considered, Nohei was doing very good in light of what she had seen and felt that day.

“What about you?” The youngest sibling asked her sister. “How are you doing?”

“And I don’t mean just ‘busy,’ I mean you. How have you been?”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

She shrugged for a moment.

The question was a hard one to answer, and in truth she was far more worried about Nohei than herself. Aela was about as stable as they came when it came to her own thoughts and nightmares. She'd had them before of course, everyone did, but for her they never lasted. Perhaps it was because her dreams were more like stories, laid out and fallen into place like any narrative. She didn't know, but either way she was far more concerned about Nohei than she was about how she felt.

"Stressed I supposed." She finally answered.

Aela had told Jamie, so shouldn't she tell her own sister?

"I've been thinking about leaving the New Jedi Order." Aela said quietly. "Take a break for a little while."

That would likely come as a big surprise to her little sister. Aela had been a part of the Jedi Order or fighting against the Sith in some way since she'd been almost twelve years old. It had entirely consumed her life, worrying her parents at time with the amount of zeal she displayed for it. Now of course it was just the opposite. She was starting to feel worn out and...well broken. She wanted to lay down for a while, rest and just lay her head.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Surprised was most certainly the expression that Kaili blinked herself into wearing, but the reason for Aela wanting to leave was one that she could agree with. Working with the same thing for so long rarely made things interesting or rewarding in the long run no matter how good you were at it. Kaili was great at working droids, but that didn’t mean it was the only thing she wanted to do for the rest of her life. And while Aela didn’t outright mention why she wanted to leave it didn’t take a genius to draw the lines that connected stress to the Jedi Order.

The surprise would slowly fade from Kaili’s face as she began to nod at her sister.

“I think I could understand that.” Kaili lowered her expression for the floor for a second. “There are times when I want to drop my company as well with all the meetings and the obligations and the…” The girl groaned and covered her eyes to avoid the mere thought of another meeting with yet another rich, self-entitled Coruscanti executive or politician who had little to no care about the girl’s business ideals and what she was doing.

“Just, trust me, I understand what you mean with wanting to take a break for a while.” She looked to her sister with a smile until finally the jedi-aspect of it all came to mind and Kaili looked just as confused as she did when Aela had brought it up the first time.

But, what would you do if you weren’t a Jedi?” It was hard to imagine. “You have been with the Covenant, the Alliance, for a long time.”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

Aela shrugged. "I don't know."

The answer was truthful.

"Like you said I've been fighting in one way or another for...a decade." Saying it out loud made her feel somewhat small, as if she was less of a person for having devoted her time to one thing and only one thing alone. Her lips thinned for a moment. "I would find something."

She always liked travel.

"It's not like I have to get a job or anything." The Talith family was extraordinarily wealthy. They had more than enough money to feed themselves and half the planets in the star system. She could go her entire life without working a single day and still be more than okay. Add on top of that the fact that she was decent enough with finances and it wasn't like she was concerned with how or where she would be living.

"Money won't be a problem." Kaile already knew that. "I don't think I want to start a company though."

She stuck her tongue out at her younger sister.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Air would burst through Kaili’s nose, a snicker followed.

“Yeah, don’t. The attention is not worth it.” She said and approved of Aela’s plans to not get into business. While Kaili herself wasn’t all that bad at handling finances she still valued her independence far too much to rely on her parents for money. It was that particular strand of stubborness that kept her from getting rid of the company she had in the long run. She knew she had the option or possibility to rely on her parents, but saying no was quite simply too rewarding for her to not do it.

Without really thinking Kaili reached for the lid of the cookie jar and grabbed herself one. She stuck it in her mouth, took a bite and…

“Oh.” A grimace spread on her lips before she covered them with her hand to ‘deposit’ the piece back in the palm of her hand, covered that and got up out of her seat. “Not good.” The grimace lingered as she stepped away towards the kitchen. “Stale cookies. Not good.”

“How long have mother been gone, anyway?” The girl wondered out loud and shook her head. “Too long.”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

She smiled. "A bit now."

Their parents had made their way off to the Rishi Maze some months ago, heading out to explore worlds that no one had ever stepped foot on, or so her father had put it. The idea of the trip was incredibly exciting, and part of her had wished that she could have gone with. She was sure they were having fun, more than she was just sitting about with the Jedi Order.

Her head shook.

"Oh." Aela said suddenly reminded. "I need you to help me set something up."

Here she went, bigger sister pressing the younger one into doing what she wanted. "I need to talk to Mom and Dad. I know they left some sort of array here that should be able to reach them, but I have no idea how it works."

Aela was somewhat clueless when it came to technology.

She could use a datapad readily enough, but setting up a communications array? Unlikely.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Kaili on the other hand was not super keen on the idea that of setting foot on “unexplored” planets. Kiara was already a burden as it was. Perhaps not the kind of secret that you kept from family, but the idea of suddenly saying ‘Oh by the way, I have a whole planet that think of me as messiah for randomly plopping into their neighbourhood’ had no real ring to it.

Yet regardless of that it was just nice to be back into playing the family’s IT-support again. The holonet pass might not have been under her guard anymore, but she knew what her family as capable of and what they showed themselves… With a slight lack of eptitude compared to Kaili and her father. Granted, that comparison in and of itself was unfair to just about everyone in the galaxy. Kaili had always considered herself lucky for both her skills and the role that her family trusted her with.

… Under the watch of their father, of course.

“Yeah, okay,” Kaili perked her brow and looked around. “... Where is it?”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

"Uhhh."[/color[ Aela said quietly.

Her head cocked to the side.

"I..." Her father had told her before she'd left, but he'd told her a lot of things. He had said that she was the oldest so she was responsible for making sure the house didn't burn down. Most of the time that wasn't a problem, but for some reason she couldn't...err...kark. "Don't know..."

Aela trailed off quietly.

It would make sense that it was inside right? It was a communications array after all. "I think we might have to look."

That didn't really sound like much of an issue to most people, but Casa De Talith was...big. There were twelve bedrooms, half a dozen bathrooms, several floors, and more hidden chambers than a Sith Castle. Finding something inside of the house was a complete mess. Just about the only time Aela had ever seen her mother get frustrated was when she'd lost a hairclip somewhere in the house and couldn't find it.

At least a comm-array was bigger.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Oh that wasn’t good. The thought struck Kaili that she could have prodded around in the force, probably, to try and get a better idea of where this array was but with the sheer size of their home she already knew that it would be like prodding around in a haystack while looking for a needle. She could do it, but the sheer amount of electronics of similar or greater magnitude meant that the item they wanted find was best found on foot rather than through the means that Kaili was used to by now.

She looked to Aela and nodded. “Yeah, it seems that way.”

Arms stretched out wide in a poor attempt to conceal a lazy yawn. All things considered this was a vacation for Kaili as well. She too wanted to make the most of it.

Stepping up to Aela she began looking in the many directions they could go. Yes, it made the most sense that the thing they were interested in would be indoors. It was an electronical device, that usually meant you wanted to keep dust out of it and on a planet made out of beaches that’d be a rather hard hard thing to prevent if you kept something outdoors.

“I got a good feeling about the garage.” Kaili shrugged. “The workshop is in close proximity to it. That’s where me and father spent most of my days as a kid.”

Not that Aela didn’t know that. “For all we know he might have foreseen that you-... We would find ourselves in this situation, right?”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

"Oh." Why hadn't they checked there first? It seemed the most likely option, just like Kaili had said, and her father was smart enough to know that his daughters would inevitably end up in a situation just like this.

She frowned for a moment.

"Yeah." A nod. "Yeaaaaaaaah."

Sometimes she questioned if she was really all that smart. People had told her she was intelligent, but sometimes simple things, and more...social aspects of life just kind of slipped over her head. Jamie made fun of her for it, especially when it came to boys. Her head shook from side to side and slowly she pointed towards the garage. "Let's go little sister."

They would probably find the comm-array where Kaili had pointed out.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

“Okay, oldest sister.” Kaili offered as a jestful retort and stuck her tongue out.

As the duo ventured through the hall they found themselves passing through rooms that Kaili had forgotten even existed or were bigger than she had ever thought. The study seemed larger, had a lot more books and storage drives than she could remember. A small smile set on Aela as they passed on through as Kaili tried to remember if this was where she had ever so often seen her sister shuffling about when they were younger.

There was a fine layer of dust floating through the air and Kaili couldn’t help but feel her nose start acting up with an itch. She tried to hold it back but the impending sneeze echoed through the room no matter how hard she had tried.

The girl arched forward and nearly stumbled over. “I really should have built them something to help keep this place cleaner.” Kaili sniveled. It wasn’t the first time she had said that while passing through this room.

“Think mom and dad have any secrets stashed somewhere around here?” Kaili grinned and came to a stop as she threw a few glances around the room.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

"None that we want to find." Aela told her sister with a small smirk.

Recently, as she had been spending more and more time with Jamie she'd had her eyes opened about certain...things. Things that her parents too had likely done in the past, as evidenced by her and her siblings existence. It was not something she wanted to think about, nor was it something she necessarily wanted to bring up with Nohei, but the joke was there...and she felt like if she didn't say it then Jamie would somehow find out and be mad at her.

She shook her head. "Best not to go looking."

Lest they be disturbed forever.

"How are...things with you?" Aela asked while they were on the subject. She was of course aware that Nohei was in a relationship, though she'd never met her partner or even spoken to the girl...as far as she was aware anyway.

In reality Aela had met Allyson briefly on a trip to the outer rim, the girl having been assigned to one of her ships before it had crashed.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Kaili gritted her teeth as she understood what Aela was getting at.

“Ah,” She let out at the realization. “You have a point.”

“And uh, I am... fine.” Didn’t seem all that believable. Kaili’s eyes set for the floor with a false smile on her lips. It tugged, it tried to pull at the corners of her mouth but she couldn’t really let it. She knew her sister, her sister knew her and they both know that Aela could read Kaili’s every single movement and the ‘subtle’ indicators that not everything was as fine as Kaili wanted them to be. Broadcasted like a cheap soap opera on the holonet.

The truth of it all was that things were pretty far from fine. There was no hiding that from Aela.

Yet Kaili would try. “I’m just fine. Thank you.”

In reality Kaili felt more lonely than she ever had but part of her didn’t want Aela to know that. She didn’t want anyone to know that. Kaili wanted nobody to know that despite however ‘okay’ she tried to be, she had been growing more and more restless over who she had started to see herself as and it tore at her.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

She frowned for a moment, looking down at her younger sister.

A few years ago, hell even a few months ago she might not have noticed or asked her younger sister, but ever since she'd taken Jamie as an apprentice, ever since the two of them had taken to wearing those odd bracelets she was slightly more attuned to others. It wasn't that Aela hadn't cared before, she most definitely had, she'd just never noticed when something was actually wrong. Her family knew this of course, she'd always just been the bookworm.

Too far gone to notice.

"Are you sure?" Aela said, coming to a stop just a few steps away from the garage.

She might have let it go a few months ago, but now? There wasn't a chance.

"You don't seem like it." She was the older sister, this was what she was supposed to do. "Is there something wrong?"

The Marshall continued to pry, clearly not about to let up.

 

[Kaili Talith]

[member="Aela Talith"]

“I just,” Kaili sighed. “I feel like I could be doing more. About everything. About the Sith, about the Mandalorians and their massacres.” And it all started at, “I have never felt more hopeless or useless than I did before dad brought me away from Atrisia and it has been gnawing at my conscience for a while now.”

“All of my friends are out there doing things while I just sit with a content smile on my lips pretending like everything is fine when things aren’t fine at all.” The youngest Talith frowned. “Yes, dad said I couldn’t do anything and that I had already done as much as I could when he rescued me, and I am proud of what I managed to do, but I can’t help but feel like I could have done more if I was just ready. If I had just…”

A frustrated groan parted Kaili’s lips and she gritted her teeth. “I don’t know!” She exclaimed. “I just wish I hadn’t been so fething useless.” It spilled over, the short fuse was lit and Kaili was just ever so close to wanting to explode. “I wish my girlfriend didn’t have to spend a majority of her time away from me fighting these monsters and I wish that I knew what the feth was going on with my best friend.”

Kaili stopped herself to take a deep breath and calm herself. This anger wasn’t becoming of her. “Everyone I know are out there fighting terrors except me and I just can't help but feeling like I should be as well. I don’t want to be, but part of me feels like I should be.”