Of Uncommon Fear & Family (Kaine, Beth)

[Yasha Cadera]

Squeals of laughing excitement broke the air as [member="Kaine Australis"] emerged from the bedroom promising a raid. Adara and Reyn pushed the kitchen chairs into a row, hiding behind them with their fingers pointed like guns.

“Protec da Buir!!” Adara bellowed, raising her finger guns and throwing loud “pew pew!”’s into the air. Reyn followed suit with a hearty battle cry. Feminine laughter assaulted the air as Yash’ika poured a second cup of stim-caf and held it momentarily aloft.

“I’ve got an honour guard.” Yash’ika’s grin faded at the sight of him, a rare and fragile insecurity tampering with her raucous joy. She went too far, it was obvious, every second he spent in the bedroom in thought was a death knell to the idea that kissing him had been the wholesome and right choice.

There he was, far older than she, far more volatile in battle and diplomacy, walking down the hall yelling for the children. Tamar stood behind Yasha in the kitchen, plating up pancakes and fruit. She cut smaller pieces for the children, ensuring equal distribution of fruit and syrup in every bite.

“I’m Bambrose!” Adara yelped.
“I’m Baba Yaga!” Reyn tried to deepen his voice, mimicking the way Alkor Centaris stood with his gun. “I’m gonna eat your sooouuullll and shoot you dead.”

“No me! Me first!” Adara whimpered, pew pew pewing at the assaulting form of the only father either of them had ever known. The two children charged, each one grabbing a leg with their own battle cries. Tamar snorted and hid a giggle behind her turned face, setting two plates on the table, the other three on a tray and running her hand over Yasha’s shoulder with a whisper in Epicant.

Yasha blushed and turned down her chin, lips pressed firmly together. She set the stim-caf down on the table beside both plates, and gave Kaine a soft smile. The kids adored him, playing round the ‘breakfast raid’ as she sipped her stim-caf.

Enough Alor’e were constant in their talk that five years was long enough for Mand’alor the Infernal to spend in mourning for her lost riduur. If she expected to lead by example, should she not move past the pain of losing Kaden and take a new riduur? One who could stand by her side, father more children, a strong Mando’ad with a fervent Clan behind him. The Mand’alor should not rule alone. She was young, many called her beautiful, and the politicians of the Galaxy would keep pushing for an alliance through marriage, if she remained unattached.

Banishing such thoughts for the moment at hand, Yasha put a smile on her face and raised her hands.

“I’m caught! Your ooga booga raid was too powerful. Warmaster Australis, your booty.” With a flourished bow, Yasha held up the mug of stim-caf for Kaine to take.

 

[Yasha Cadera]

The kids went off, a subtle word from Tamar gave Yasha the confidence in knowing they would stay gone until [member="Kaine Australis"] and Yasha were done. What would she do without Tamar? Not nearly as much, nor as nearly successfully.

The upholstery of the chair met the thin fabric of Yasha’s tank and linen pants, cool in the morning hour. Window panels open to the diffuse Mandalorian sun, the light from the biodome shone in soft blues and bathed her skin in its’ luminescence almost bright enough to sting Yasha’s eyes.

She was after all, a being of the dark. The stim-caf mug stung her fingers with its heat, but she held it firm, sipping the contents as she stared down at her plate of breakfast.

“Was I?” Yasha sipped her caf, letting the black liquid stabilize and fortify her. Bitterness in her mouth pleased her, its stringency reminded her of nothing she knew in the Nether or in times of campaign. Stim-caf was the beverage of liberty, a purification in her mouth with as much virility as a hot coal.

“Sleep helped. Last night, I was… consumed.” Stringing the word out through pursed lips, Yasha picked up the fork and played with the food on her plate. This apartment, this part of the Palace was the place she built out of Kaine’s imprisonment, charged and hazarded into by his reticence to let Adara die. Was Yasha’s emotional state a country of coercion, now that Kaden was dead and… Yasha breathed.

She shut her eyes against the light, which stung them.

“You owe me nothing, Kain’ik. On the contrary, I owe you a fethton with dividends. And I know you’re going to say it’s what family does, but that’s what your family does… it’s not what mine did, so just… kark.” The mug clinked on the table as she set it down, hot fingers raising to play with her naked lip as her elbow leaned on the kitchen table top.

“I want to… fall into this. To sweep myself away in this love that permeates every window and wall of this apartment, but there’s a large part of me going ‘that’s not fair to Caz and Nibs’. I keep thinking back the last five years and I never would have made it if not for you. There’s this… pressure.

It’s been five years, and the Clans are looking at me to marry again. Had a couple of Alor’e giving me their ‘frank appraisal’ of the situation.” Yasha mimicked the words, frowning in jest then letting her face be soft as she stared at the plates of breakfast on the table. “If Mandalore is going to recover, and the people are going to breathe again, it’s up to me to lead that path to its’ conclusion. So, I was thinking about it. What would it be like if I got married? Who would I marry? What would change? All this… this… paper castle we built ourselves would crash down. You’d still love the kids, and we’d figure that out but… Baiko made me realize something precious and irrefutable. I know there will be other lovers, just like you have Caz and Nibsani. Love happens and you run with it… you said last night this wasn’t temporary. That this was aliit and you keep it sacred. A part of you.”

Amber eyes searched the lines of his elbow, up the crook to his shoulder and neck, that frustrating neck she wanted to wring at times until his eyes lolled back…

“I love you, Kaine Australis. When I think of riduurok with anyone, all I can see is you. I don't want some arranged riduurok with a Mando'ad chosen through crucible.”

Doubt immediately pushed against the back of her neck, casting her chin down toward the table. Would he accept her? This was the man who loved her, who gave half a decade to ensure she and her children were alright. Living, rather than surviving. He taught her what the love of aliit looked like, how it felt as it rocked her on those early hard nights. Gray loved Yasha, he taught her how a man should love his daughter and how a daughter should be loved. Kaine taught her that the Mandalorian people were strong for their familial connections, and that the love felt between them, both familial and otherwise was right. Regardless of social conventions flinging her between monogamy and the traditional polygamy of her mother’s Panathan culture.

“When I think of taking a lover, I see you.”