Jairdain did not answer immediately. She let the auroras speak first: their distant pull, the way they stirred questions no hearthfire could quiet. When she did speak, her voice was calm, unadorned, carrying the weight of lived truth rather than saga-polish.
"I have walked with the Silver Jedi," she said softly. "And with those who stood beside them. The stories are…incomplete." A faint, knowing curve touched her mouth. "They always are."
She shifted her stance, boots firm against Midvinter's frozen ground, as though grounding memory as much as body.
"I have failed more times than any skald would care to sing," she continued. "I trusted the wrong people. I stayed too long in places that were already burning. I believed I could carry burdens meant for many alone, and paid for it." There was no bitterness in the admission, only clarity. "I lost friends. I lost time. I lost myself, more than once."
A pause. Then her tone warmed.
"But I also learned," she said. "I learned when to stand and when to bend. I learned that strength is not only measured by the battles you survive, but by the ones you choose
not to fight." Her hand rested briefly at her chest. "I helped rebuild worlds instead of conquering them. I stood between war and those who would have been crushed by it. I watched enemies become allies because someone chose patience over pride."
She glanced toward the lights overhead, unseen but deeply felt.
"And I built a family," Jairdain added, voice steady with quiet joy. "Not all by blood. Some by choice. Some by endurance. I have children who argue with me, who challenge me, who remind me why I keep walking forward when the galaxy grows heavy." A small smile. "They are my greatest success. Not the titles. Not the victories."
She turned back to Crenth, presence open, not urging, never urging.
"The sagas don't tell you this part," she said gently. "Out there, you will be unknown at first. That is true. But being unknown is not erasure; it is possibility." A beat. "You do not leave the hearth to break its promise. You leave to learn what kind of promise you can become."
Her voice softened, carrying no command.
"If you go, go knowing you will make mistakes. Go knowing you may fail. And go knowing that if you return, changed, scarred, wiser, you will still belong." She inclined her head. "The galaxy is vast. It does not need another legend. It needs people who choose, again and again, to live with honor where no one is watching."
She fell quiet then, letting the auroras ripple on, trusting him to hear what mattered most.
Crenth Wolfblood
Jairdain Ismet-Thio
