Sibling Planetary Fun Day (Reyn)

[Adara Raxis]

[member="Reyn Australis"] and his sister Adara grew up in parsec-marathons since the invasion of Manda’yaim. Between splitting their parents’ duties and ensuring their Clans were safely away from Mandalorian space, Adara and Reyn had no choice but to rise.

And rise again.

And rise this morning cycle with a ludicrously loud alarm in the form of ‘The Happy Song’, by Adara’s fifth favourite band Shananaginnies. The peppy rock rhythm burst into audio input/outputs across the ship she and her brother commandeered for this best siblings fun time trip in the known universe.

Adara and Reyn were going home.

Not Mandalore, that place was too far in the grip of too salacious a crowd, but the true (according to Ba’buir Aditya) home of all Epicanthix, and especially Panathan Nobility:

Panatha.

Adara was going home. In truth, she’d been to Panatha in those times around boarding school schedules and House Fitz-Kierke family plans. But this time she had her best friend and best brother (sorry Yronwulf, Sigurd-Adolfo, Girak-Kaine, Magnus, & Viggo) Ram’ika by her side.

As the archano-synth vocals of Pipsbub the Lead Warbler hit on the chorus, Adara was already out of bed, with her clothing finished cinching itself up as her hair brushed and braided itself out of her pretty, rosy cheeked face.

The ship was bound to be docking now, bound! Or better, no, it was much better. They’d get to see the approach. It was just Adara, Ram, the Militibus ex Infernis, who due to Uncle @Skorvek’s sheer and acceptable paranoia over the teenagers’ safety always came wherever Adara went, a couple of Fitz-Kierke Handmaidens, and a droid or two. They were as alone as Adara ever was with anyone, and as she hopped into her boots, which opened themselves up for her and tied themselves as she skipped to her brother’s room, she felt the beginnings of the best, most awesome, exciting day in their lives.

“Ram! Raaaaaaam!!! Ram are you up? Are you dressed yet? Brush your teeth! I know you forget to brush your teeth and your buy’ce smells like the ghastly end of a womp rat, and… and hurry! Are you dressed, oh tell me you’re dressed! We’re going to miss it! The horizon! Going down to the surface we’re going to miss it! Oh do hurry Ram’ika! Eeeeee!! We’re almost there!” Hey, when two teenagers finally got time away from monumental responsibilities and injured parents to do something fun for themselves, wasn’t it a beneficial sign to be eager?

Adara bashed her palm on Ram’s door again, as The Happy Song burst into its’ overly peppy chorus.

“EEEEEEEE!!!! We’re gonna miss it!!”

 

[Adara Raxis]

“Iii’m so haaaappy, feeeeeelin’ snaaaaappy… eeee I’m so excited!” Adara’s palm smacked at the door until [member="Reyn Australis"] opened it. Skittering inside, Adara stopped short at the mess, yet not even her brother’s uncanny ability to make everything in life more complicated, even walking to his bed, could dampen Adara’s spirits.

Sometimes a couple of kids needed to go to a safe and fun place, and vent.

“Raaaaam!” Backing up a couple of steps, Adara ran for it. Right for Reyn! She hopped into the air with her sidelong momentum, buoyed by the Force to tackle Reyn in his own bed. “Goooooood Morning!”

Arms thoroughly thrown over Reyn’s shoulders, Adara hugged as tightly as her feeble muscles could manage, and while even their smallest of siblings could break free of Adara’s hold, she tried.

“Oh good you’re up! Let’s go! Come on! Come on, come on, come on!” She started tugging him toward the edge of his bed, grinning in a way nobody else got to see. Buir’s frail princess didn’t get to grin, or jump on beds, or undergo myriad shenanigans.

She was controlled at all times, measured and polite. Adara kept her posture perfect, and her hair combed… unlike her brother. Messing up Reyn’s mop of hair, Adara sat back on his bed.

“Soooo I was thinking breakfast in the Square, you know, the one outside the docking platforms, in that nice little shopping area. And then buy a ton of snacks at that bakery off the third side street, and maybe shop for shoes…” Pursed lips paired with an upward glance, “But then we’re meeting Papa Girak, too. So maybe breakfast is better at that café off the Temple district, because I am mortally and lethally dying for another steak and eggs with that sauce they put on the side, and those croissants with the filling and… am I talking too fast? I think I’m talking too fast! I was so excited about Panatha, that I totally got up early and made a hot cocoa, but then I was like, wait, Adara, you’re fourteen. And if we’re adults like our parents constantly remind us, then adults drink stim-caf in the morning, so I maaaaay have put like, three quarters of a stim-caf in my hot cocoa and like, a teensy bit of cocoa, but then it needed whipped cream, 'cause stim-caf is bitter.

One cannot wake up properly without whipped cream.”

Releasing a caffeinated Adara, the flouncy dressed princess-girl on a planet of jungle predators and fine art... what could possibly go wrong?

 

[Adara Raxis]

There were few perfect ways for a sister to achieve her desired effects on her brother’s.

Food. The best of those was the promise of good, filling food. Sure, it helped that Adara too was famished, or her growing body was dictating the addition of calories. In the past year, Adara shot from a dainty petite height barely large enough for a human to 6’1”. Her limbs lengthened, and for the first time in her life, muscle began to grow where once was nothing but the skeleton and skin of a malnourished tyke.

“Food! Steaks and eggs and roast tubers and cocoa and those little rashers of bantha bacon... oooo and croissants and cupcakes and...” If she were purely factual, Adara would admit she was ravishingly hungry perpetually. Flopping on her back on [member="Reyn Australis"] ‘ bed, Adara waited for her brother to get ready, even if the red Beskar’gam was indecently recognizable on a planet without Mandalorians. Knowing she’d never get Ram’ika out of his armour, Adara tapped on her wrist comp to let Papa Girak know they were docking.

Two beeps of affirmation were his response.

“Yes! Yay! Ready! Us! You and me! Us! Go now!” Adara hopped up and grabbed Reyn’s arm, tugging as hard as she could toward the hatchway.

The Canthar air swept through the hangar bay and into Adara’s nostrils with a waft of spice and sea air. Ocean not far from the edge of the capital city, the Palace of the Kings loomed over temples and town. Market spices and far off meals sang in the summer heat, an enjoyable and docile humidity tempering the air.

Sniffing the air, Adara raced off toward the spaceport exit in search of their great-grandfather Papa Girak. The Militibus ex Infernis fanned out, reaching shadows and disappearing. Always protected, Yasha’s children were never alone.

“Ram! Ram hurry!” Still tugging her brother’s hand, Adara rushes through the port, strangely empty of any security or customs, until the food sellers and marketers began appearing on the side streets in kiosks erected every morning.

“Papa!” There in the distance, Papa Girak opened his arms with a tight grin, flanked by an odd congregation of House Fitz-Kierke guards. Well armed and wearing armour crafted from the goran’e of Mandalore, House Fitz-Kierke’s soldiers were both men and women of Epicanthix descent. They seemed occupied with the cityscape. Aware of all happenings.

“Ram! Dar! My kids! Praise the gods! My handsome grandkids, come! Come come come! You must be hungry!”

 

[Adara Raxis]

“Papa!” Adara rushed Girak, flinging herself into his arms without a care. “I missed you.”

He kissed her forehead, hugging her tight, before setting her feet back on the ground so she could grin back at her brother.

“Oh, do hurry up Ram!” Adara’s joy was ineffable. She held not a worry or single care, for nothing could harm them here. Not in the Capital. Maybe out in the jungles, where predatorial animals roamed, giving the Epicanthix people its’ natural inclination to love both beauty, and a warrior’s skill. One without the other was useless to the Epcanthix race, and many weaklings were culled by virtue of failed hunts in the wild places.

“You could eat, can you? You, a strapping growing boy could eat!? Bet you could eat a side of Bantha all to yourself.” Papa Girak laughed and hugged [member="Reyn Australis"] tight, slapping his back with a tense arm. After the horrors of Mandalore, even before, Girak and the Panathan side of House Fitz-Kierke returned to their home world. Perhaps it was a change in the tides, or the offshoot of Yasha leaving her mantle behind, but wealth and troops in tow, House Fitz-Kierke rejuvenated itself on Panatha once more. Not insignificant, the House with plenty of gains remained protected.

“Praise the gods you’re safe, Ram’ika. We were all terrified we’d never see you again.” Girak whispered, before letting the boy go. House Fitz-Kierke was safe… But, one might ask… how?

The Scion of House Fitz-Kierke, the Heir to the House faced the Panathan God-King Darth Carnifex in single combat. Yet, beyond a tightness which appeared in Papa Girak, there were no outward signs. Perhaps extra guards. Had there been so many, before? People on the streets shifted out of the way of Girak, Adara and Reyn as they moved toward the restaurant with arguably the best breakfasts in the Capital.

“You’ll like this restaurant, Reyn. They can do any cut of game you ask for. Always keeps a good larder, Donovan.” A former royal cook, who took up a better suited line of work. The boy… The boy had to wear his beskar’gam… of course he did.

Just like his mother.

Girak bit his tongue, rushing them through an intersection with an enthusiastic push. Adara didn’t notice the way the street traffic stilled for them to pass by. Nor did she notice the sniper positions ever moving in the rooftops. When they entered the restaurant and were seated right away in a private dining room on the top floor, overlooking the bay with view of the Palace, the girl never questioned.

She did notice the menu, and the insatiably tasty things upon it.

“Oooo! Stim-caf please! With cocoa and whipped cream on the side.” Bouncing in her chair, Adara tapped at Reyn’s shoulder. “Do you want one? Do you? It’s good! Try it! It’s good!”

Papa Girak coughed and leaned over to the waiter, who covered a smirk with his stylus scribbling on the data-pad.

Decaf.

 

[Adara Raxis]

Girak held his great-grandson tight, not wanting to let go of the young one, who in his father’s eyes was a man. But [member="Reyn Australis"] was a boy. Such a youth… surely his father only believed in Reyn’s adulthood due to the relatively short lifespan of Mandalorians.

What was 13, when one lived past 200, for an Epicanthix? Even to a half-breed, how many years would Reyn have speeding toward his adulthood as if he was running out of time? Could he not be a child for a few precious more years?

Or was Reyn’s life destined to be as short as a blink, surging after the glory his father had in his day? Girak let go, taking his seat at the breakfast table and looking out across the city. The waiter poured water for each of them, and returned with hot stim-caf and two hot cocoas for the youths.

“Big breakfast…” The waiter waited for more, a peruse of the menu… it appeared nothing else would take place. This boy must have been some form of savage!

Girak smirked and shook his head, shutting his menu with a soft click and setting it on the table.

“The Chef’s discretion, my great-grandchildren are famished after a long journey.” Girak spoke with the lilting accent of his Epicant tongue, watching Adara hug her mug of stim-caf, before splashing a few dollops of whipped cream on top. “… by the gods, Ram’ika, you won’t match her caffeine levels, or Panatha will never be the same. Let’s have a quiet visit, shall we? Perhaps a hunt later, let you both run out your energy in the jungle.”

Sister giggling quietly into her mug, great-grandfather leaning back in his chair, all seemed particularly bright… if not for the enhanced security around them. Amidst music playing in the dining room, the bustle of Canthar seemed a loose echo.

Until the waiter returned with three plates of bacon, bantha steak, sausages and grilled vegetables. Another server left butter, fruit preserves and baked goods still steaming hot from the oven. The waiter grumbled in Epicant to Reyn, before setting down another plate of hog belly, seasoned, rendered and steaming.

“Enjoy.”

"Ooooooo hunting.... more meat. We're gonna need more meat. Meat, meat, meat..." Adara giggled, her knife and fork telekinetically partitioning her food before she partook. "Hey! Catch up, Ram! Hurry hurry hurry!"