Peace and Quiet

[Aela Talith]

Silence.

It wasn't something she was often afforded in his house.

With three siblings and two parents that had just as much fun as those children it was difficult for Aela to ever get any real silence. Truthfully the best time to do so was at night. When her sisters her sleeping, her brother was pretending to do so, and her parents were off in their own room doing what parents did. Even then however Aela never had a chance to be loud herself.

She could not scream, she could not train, she could not yell. She could not even read out loud with someone waking up!

This was of course little more than an annoyance, and not a major issue. Yet it bothered her, especially because recently she had found a new passion, that of the Viola. It was a simple instrument, a small piece of wood and string, nothing more, nothing less. To her it was beautiful, and the sounds it made even more so. She had purchased it for herself on a recent trip, hiding it away in her luggage so neither her parents nor siblings noticed it.

For some reason she did not want to tell them. It seemed silly, but there was a hesitance, a slight bit of shyness. Aela didn't want them to know, didn't want them to hear. That was why silence was so important, and that was why she was now so very excited.

Father and Mother had left, and with them they had taken Micah, Maleah, and Kaili. A small trip to Onderon, one that Aela would have loved to go on, save for a small sickness that had come upon her. She had sniffled, coughed, and sneezed her way into a cold, gaining a high enough fever that her mother had ordered her to bed. The entire trip had nearly been canceled, but Aela had convinced her parents to go.

She was sixteen after all, old enough to care for herself, and Amorella was only a small swim away.

That was why she now walked through the empty house, a thunderstorm raging outside, wind billowing and lightning striking the ground. A viola within her hand as she made her way towards the living room, a smile on her face.

 

[Aela Talith]

Father played the flute. He had told all of the children so, had even played for them. He said he had picked it up as a hobby nearly seventy years ago.

That still amazed Aela.

The fact that her father was centuries old was not something that came up often, but it was something that the Taliths had once talked about when they had all learned how old Oma Quietus really was. That had been an amazing conversation, and weeks later Aela had met Oma's Oma, the Queen of Kuat. A smile crept on the young womans face.

That visit to Kuat had been amazing, a hallmark of her life. It was the thing she remembered most from the trip she had taken with her father...that and Geonosis. She smiled slightly at the memory, then turned down another hallway that lead towards the living room. A few more graceful steps carried her into the massive center of the mansion.

The living room was quite large in it of itself, though sparsely decorated. There was a small indoor fire pit, a gas stove really, surrounded by a large plush couch. On both sides of the room were massive windows that let in the sun, and small decorations hung from the walls.

There were bookshelves opposite each other. Aela had read every single one of the books on all of the shelves within this room, even the boring ones.

She smiled again, looking at the empty living room.