Star Wars Roleplay: Chaos

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What Makes Little Girls Dream? (Darth Metus)

The sister of @[member="Darth Metus"] hugged her knees and let the HUD of her Beskar'gam function in its 360 degree passage around the helmet. Most of the image was stone floor, horizontal walls, bed slats, the area around her bedroom filtered in with a comforting sort of redundancy. Nothing moved, and no new sounds were frothing into the augmented audio receivers connected to her damaged ears.

Huddled under her bed, Ginnie Verd held herself and waited for the night to pass her by. It didn't sit right, these feeling she got. She had no basis for understanding beyond what she saw from Isley and Phoebe during her first battle. They could do inhuman things, sure she'd heard about Force users but had the girl ever seen one? In the flesh, real and resolute? Defending her?

She couldn't do that, could she? Throw beasts around, all of it, like Ket Van Derveld effect a room with his presence and feel. Could she? Through the Force, the untrained aspirant was projecting her fears - a child with no security, a girl with no context for what she'd seen.

Was Isley going to come and show her? Would her big brother save her again, and free her mind so she could sleep without fearing hell hounds in her dreams?
 
There were few things that could rouse Isley from his sleep, especially after a long string of missions undertaken alongside the Dread Guard. Now that he was finally home at Caste Ne'tra, he had every reason under the sun to sleep like a baby. However, the Force would not allow the sweet embrace of slumber to fall upon him, for his sensitivity to the ebb and flow of the enigmatic entity caused him to feel that which his beloved little sister was projecting. Fear. Doubt. A myriad of emotions mingles together into a radiating cloud that screamed potential for the Dark Side of the Force...and that was something that worried the Mandalorian. Sure, he was apart of a secret Order of Sith, sure, he wielded the Darkness on a semi-daily basis...but feeling this from his sibling was something that just didn't sit right in his heart.

As such, he reluctantly abandoned the sweet embrace of his slumbering beloved and rose from their bed, fumbling about in the darkness as he trudged along the darkness of the hall. Three doors down, he then admitted himself within Ginnie's ro and rubbed his eyes ever so slightly. This was one of the rare occasions that the Mandalorian was out of his armor, for his truly desired the best sleep possible tonight; and as the growing mark of darkness upon his skin was clearly visible in the pale moonlight. To those ignorant to it's meaning, it appeared as nothing more than an intricate, tribal tattoo of black which wound it's way about his exposed chest and around his neck. However, it was a physical manifestation of his skill in the Dark Side; and the larger it grew, the more he knew.

"Ginnie? Are you alright?" He asked into the darkness.

@[member="Ginnie Verd"].
 
A shuffle and dim clang resounded from the region under the girl's bed. Her room in its darkness bore no visible child, but the noise was undeniable. Ginnie had been crying. Whimpering sniffles came from under her bed, as hearing her brother's footsteps the girl had originally pushed herself further underneath the furniture. A pang in her chest, shifting in the dark into a near tangible fear, thick and brooding for a girl her age.

The scuffling noise got louder as a tiny pink helmet peeked out from under the bed. It tilted in its glance and appeared to be glaring at @[member="Darth Metus"] until the helmet disappeared. "No" Ginnie wailed, sniffling and whimpering in the night. "Isley? Why do you get so scary? Why'd you make those hounds afraid? Why'd that man at the party bring the cloud of doom with him? It doesn't feel right. It hurts and itches but not like a real hurt or itch. And and, and I don't get it. What's wrong with me? Am I gonna do that stuff, too? Is it less scary when you do it to people other than feeling it from people?"
 
Over the course of his lifetime, the Mandalorian had done a multitude of Karked up things...but not one of them made him feel as crappy as he did in that very moment. His heart broke when he saw her, under her bed crying...and all because she had been exposed to his Darkness. Isley had no idea that the effect would be so monumental upon her; but the truth was that standing beside two Dark Side Masters whilst they let loose was not exactly going to be a harmless experience for any involved. Remorse bled through each step he took towards the bed and he wordlessly squatted until he was level with her form. Without so much as a word, he guided her into his arms and stood, cradling her against him for a moment. He then reached for her helmet, removed it, and set it upon her bedside table before turning on the light.

He then sat upon the edge of her bed, holding her close, and spoke softly and calmly so that she could read his lips.

"What you felt that day...was the Dark Side of the Force. What I did was take the anger, fear, pain, sorrow, and every other negative emotion within me and turned it into the fuel for an ability known as Magic. Through this, I was able to make the high hounds experience the worst kind of fear. Ket, was able to do the same thing, but instead projected it about himself instead of at others. It's nothing to be afraid of Ginnie...However, I will not be teaching you how to use it. In order to do such things, you must experience Hell in order to get the pain strong enough to draw upon. No, I'll teach you better things, like how to not feel so hurt when exposed to the Dark Side."

@[member="Ginnie Verd"].
 
The girl whimpered, "How come I could feel it?" Panels on her armour clanked, shivering on her diminutive body. Ginnie had put on her Beskar'gam, but left her fuzzy pink slippers on her feet, they brushed the ground as all fluff does when Isley pulled her close. The safety she felt with her brother was marred with a slick confusion: how could he be so comforting and yet also be so potent in a power she was only beginning to feel in her bones? Her spindly arms threw themselves around Isley's neck, as her helmet shook when he started taking it off. Did she want him to? Getting disarmed by her brother was being comforted by Allit, family, one of the tenants of their kind.

"Isley, when you were scaring those hounds, it got me fighting harder. I wanted to kill them, I wanted to hurt them like all the other people'd hurt you, make them pay for it. I don't even know what those people did to you so why did I fight so hard?" Her ribcage stuttered in its expansion and implosion, as the puffiness of her red eyes bespoke of how long she'd been lying on the floor in fear.

"What'll I learn if I can't learn what you do? Why does Mr. Ket want to throw that kind of fear around himself? Can't we give him a hug and make it go away?" Somehow the child managed to keep a slim layer of innocence on top of the roiling cognizance. She clung to it, hoping in some way her fairy tale could continue. "What kinda pain do you need, Isley? What kinda pain'd do it?" @[member="Darth Metus"]
 
"What got you fighting was the rage you felt in my spell. Like I said, Magic takes everything negative inside me and uses it as fuel; so what you felt was everything I keep buried." He began, placing a kiss upon her brow. "I don't know why Ket decided to project his aura, as there a variety of reasons. However, I can safely say that there are other things within the Force that you can learn." With that said, he reached out with the Force, plucking her helmet up from the table with an elementary display of telekinesis. He hovered it in the air for a few moments, demonstrating what he meant. "And always remember Ginnie, the Force is but a tool, no different than your blaster. You learn it, you master it, and you excel with it."

He deliberately dodged the question regarding what sort of pain was required in order to access the darkness to his level, and hoped she would leave it at that. There were just some horrors that the Mandalorian did not wish to share at that very moment in time. Details regarding his years of torture at the hands of the Sith...

@[member="Ginnie Verd"]
 
"That was you?" She sniffled and mashed her lips together, attempting in her way to be brave. "I should'a found you sooner, Isley! If.. if your family got you sooner we coulda protected each other. I'm .. I'm sorry, I shouldn't'a taken so . . so long." The Family meant everything, it was the pinnacle of their grand reasons for learning to defend to the last mother and child. In her ego-centric mind, the child knew she could have done that one big thing, the grand gesture, or bonding influence which would have gotten Clan Verd to act for their own lost lamb. She hugged her brother's chest, her tearstained face smearing the brine of her sobs onto the dark tattoos splaying across his skin.

The love of a child was a precious calamity, both comforting and filled with the unanticipated malaise which came from doing a child wrong. Wrong wasn't the worst of it, but a reversal of the innocence which held them in stasis until adult eyes opened and saw the galaxy as a deeper, more dimensional place. Her palace had shaken and the Princess laying within started pushing her hands up at the walls, if she pushed hard enough they'd go back up and stop falling down. As her brother lifted her helmet, Ginnie's hazel eyes widened. "A tool that can do magic. When do I get to learn? I'll be better at defending you if I learn, right? Is there anything that makes me stronger and faster? Faster than a blur. Fast enough to stop the bad guys." Her knees curled up toward her chest, body unintentionally displaying fear and experience. "I got good at hiding, when I left Mandalore. Kept real quiet and shoved into small spaces. They barely ever found me. I closed my eyes and hugged my backpack and kept saying 'don't find me don't find me' and they never really did. Not till I fell asleep or such. Does… does that count?"

@[member="Darth Metus"]
 
A soft chuckle escaped his lips at the mention of the word Family. Sure, there was an eternal bond between Ginnie and Isley, but it had been forged in the fires of neglect displayed by their sire. The aging drunkard with a song in his heart was not the definition of a good, loving father. However, Isley did not want to ruin the tender moment shared between both he and his baby sister by mentioning the man he so despised. Holding his peace for a moment, he simply tightened his embrace around the little bugger and released his hold of the Force, returning the helmet to the bedside table.

"Hey, you've done an excellent job of keeping me out of trouble so far." he said, stroking her hair, "With you here, I doubt that I'll ever get into too many scrapes; and if I do, you'll come running to save my ass, won't you? Now then, I will admit that staying hidden is a fabulous gift...but there are other tricks of the trade within the Force. If you want, I can teach you one of the more basic tricks right now..."

@[member="Ginnie Verd"].
 
Tears pooled over her eyes and stung her cheek. Isley'd been more of a father to her than their progenitor, and he didn't know the half of it. Sure, Ginnie wasn't naive enough to think Isley and the Head of Clan Verd were on good terms, but once her big brother was gone? Ginnie's lip wobbled. She tried biting it, but the onslaught of her lonely, hateful years poured over into the air, into the presence she didn't know she exuded in the Force. Lonely, terrified child. Left confused, broken goods. Not worth picking up, not worth training, why worry for the little one when everything else was wrong? Ginnie clung to her brother's shoulders, doffing the crushgaunts on either hand to let the deep pink of her skin feel her Allit. "I gotta keep you outa trouble. If you're in trouble, I have to save you. I gotta save you, Isley. I gotta. I gotta. You're my Allit, you an' me. I don't got much else. You went away, and didn't come back and now I know you've got this hurt inside. But I can fix it! I can and I will. I'm gonna save you."

Out it came, the timid truth. If their father'd seen her as anything but a land speeder with three wheels out of four, he'd never said. "Course I'll come running! Whose gonna love you more'n I do? We're genetically built to love each other to pieces! Family is forever, and you're mine. You're my Isley." Ginnie's words died, she snuffled loudly and bit her bottom lip, smiling slightly as her head nodded. "Yes, please. I wanna learn."

@[member="Darth Metus"]
 
He felt it.

Like a star emit light, he felt the sorrows of his young sibling radiate through the Force. She had been terribly lonely and had so much confusion and so much self doubt inside. She felt as though she was not...worth being held, trained, or even bothered with. She felt as if she were truly alone; and Isley had no one to blame but himself. Supreme selfishness had seen him leave her behind, and so she suffered years because of it. Touching his lips to her brow, he held her even closer; wiping away her tears as she spoke. "Yes, and you're my Aliit. You are what is most precious to me in this entire Galaxy. I won't be going anywhere Ginnie, not without you being right there to save my arse if I get into trouble. I'll always be here for you, I promise."

With that said, he took a moment to give her a loving smile and reached out for her helmet. Once it was within his grasp, he placed it within her hands and began to instruct her. "Alright, the first step is to become calm. Deep breaths, one after another. Then, close your eyes and open yourself to the Force. It is a presence that is all around you, and once you feel it, it is as simple as guiding it to lift the helmet in your hands. Go on, give it a try."

@[member="Ginnie Verd"].
 
Isley felt it and she knew. Ginnie lacked the cognizance to claim this knowledge as the ineffable Force, but she felt the moment where her brother's mind folded around her infantile fears and claimed them. As her brother's lips found her forehead, the stunted child burst into a downpour of sobs. Clinging to his neck, she choked up her sniffles and rubbed her palms over her eyes after his fingers left them, trying to memorize the sensation. To keep her brother's endearing touch with her during the hailstorms yet to come. "I don't know what kinda good I can be, but you got me by your side. Always and forever. We promised."

Sniffling raucously, Ginnie put a feeble smile on for her brother's benefit, cuddling into the crook of his neck as he put her helmet in her hands. Deep breaths, he said. Calm and focus. Ginnie got comfortable and nuzzled into Isley's shoulder, shut eyes pressed into his collarbone. Her little lungs moved inward, expanded, inward, expanded until slowly they came to a restful rhythm. Once more the wind came, that inexplicable wind she first felt as her outer body was bathed in the flames and shocking pressure of the grenade's inferno. Had she heard the wind before that? Had she lived outside of the wind's howl? Genteel and formless, the wind came to the room and spread across it with the smell of wild plum blossoms and dainty perfume. Yet there was a resolution to the wind. A potential for forming where once it reigned passive and patient. Ginnie felt herself sway within it as it wrapped itself around her brother Isley Ginnie could hear how the wind howled for him, struck out and inside him like some wicked, maimed series of passages channeling its natural potency in rushed layers. Daunting. Steady.

He owned his piece, but the wind owned Isley. No, commanded. His body wore the tattoos of servitude to the tool in which he spoke, this force of nature which gave him the ability to defend his Allit, and take back what time and their father destroyed. Her fingers dug into the metal of her helmet, commissioned by Clan Verd - perhaps the last action of a dying mother - had Mommy made it yet? Was she okay? Ginnie lost the image of her mother in the howling current, the breeze which picked up within her and began its expansion toward a gale.

The wind. It always had been the wind. It was the wind which made the Man in White dance and the wind which held his lightsaber aloft as it deconstructed. He moved in its good graces, but the wind was not so kind to Isley. Ginnie grit her teeth. Her lungs worked in and out faster now, faster and her fingers dug until they hurt, nails pressed white into the metal. The wind commanded and it took. It bled the best years from her brother and allowed others to destroy his inner calm.

And if the wind allowed such things, Ginnie would own the wind. She would own it, and curl her fists around it and she would save Isley. The Helmet rumbled in her hands and with a fit of girlish anger Ginnie's eyes flashed open. The helmet flew out of her hands and hit the ceiling with the clanging resonance of a bell being struck hard against the side of its bowl.

Too hard, her mind told her, too hard.

She cast her hand upward and called the helmet down until it was floating level with her face. In its reflection, a twinge of yellow bled into Ginnie Verd's eyes.

@[member="Darth Metus"]
 
Once her tears were dried, the young girl nuzzled into the Mandalorian, only to be met with a return of said affection. Isley lowered his head and wrapped his arms around her all the more, as if swallowing her into an ocean of filial love that was never to be broken. He lingered there, holding her close, until he felt the enigmatic presence fill the room. Surprise characterized Isley's expression as the Force responded strongly to the concentration of his younger sister; and as he watched it became painfully apparent that her potential was as vast as the oceans of Roon. However, the Mandalorian did not dare move nor comment, for such things might break the concentration that Ginnie had on the task at hand. Then, in a feat of telekinetic prowess, Ginnie launched her helmet into the air until it collided with the ceiling.

The metallic twang filled the room with its echo and Isley could not help but flinch; yet despite this movement Ginnie's focus was not broken. Instead, she continued to surprise her elder brother, lowering the helmet slowly through the Force until it hovered before her eyes. Pride swelled into the Mandalorian's expression and he, initially, flashed a grin; yet upon looking over her shoulder...he saw the reflection in the visor. Yellow began to creep into the brown of her eyes, signifying the aggression that had been utilized in order to accomplish the task. This ferocity, coupled with the generally "dark" atmosphere of Castle Ne'tra, was more than enough to propel the apprentice down the path of the Dark Side...and Isley would not have it.

"Enough, enough!" he cried, seizing the helmet out of the air. Standing to his feet, he then set the helmet down upon the bedside table and held Ginnie close, rocking her lovingly. Isley couldn't bear what he saw...he couldn't bear to see that she had the stain of the Dark Side in her very eyes. "We...We cannot train here. Castle Ne'tra is too dark for you to handle...I'll take you to Roon for a week and we'll train there. Yes, Roon is more balanced..." he continued to ramble, out of worry, for he did not want Ginnie to begin to walk down the path he tread upon each and every day.

@[member="Ginnie Verd"].
 
Isley was up on his feet, and Ginnie near tumbled from his arms. Her hand grazed the box under her bed. She pushed it further in, scrambling up and back into Isley's arms. The sudden burst of her own power left the girl shaking, the wind itself howled around and for a moment she thought the tattoos on Isley's chest grew darker still, the tendrils of a gaping monster attempting to creep up her skin.

"What'd I do wrong?" Ginnie squeaked, her throat fluttered with what she thought felt like a cold. The soreness crept out of her along with the sting in her eyes. She pushed her knuckles into her eyes and rubbed, they felt flushed, funny. An odd fatigue struck the back of her neck and she flopped into her brother's chest, doffed of her helmet, her fingers pulled onto his chest and released much of the urgency of her feat of tele kinetics. "I thought I was 'sposta do it strong. Like a Mand'alor. . . but it didn't feel right. Not all the way right. I got mad 'cause it doesn't … it… I got mad at the wind!"

Not like the Man in White. It came easy for him, that sort of easy a child sees when they don't know of tragedy and struggle, when hardship is removed from their eyes they see ease where others see a collective swath of talent and retribution. The eternal try. Abandon. "Why're we going to Roon? Isley, I'm frightened. How come you can handle Ne'tra and I can't? Is it 'cause you've already been darkened? I… Roon's nice this time of year."

Another flicker of fear struck the wind - she'd done something wrong, untoward or off. Ginnie had to prove to her brother that she was worth keeping, that she could stay, that he wouldn't send her away to Roon. Wasn't that what he was going to do? Bring her to Roon and leave her there. Come back here, with his little sister banished. Ne'tra was her home now, wasn't it? It had to be. Ne'tra was where Isley was. Where Phoebe and Siqa were. Ginnie disentangled herself from her brother and scrambled under her bed. Her hands dove into the box, grabbing a cylinder wrapped in an old dress she'd worn out when she was little. "I can make it better! I can! Don't send me away, I can take it! Look!" Bringing it up, she held out the bundle for Isley. The dress fell away and in the middle of her two doll-like hands laid an unpolished Beskar lightsaber hilt. The hilt's battered exterior had notches and grooves fitted to the discerning eye by a Mando'ad Blacksmith for those same tiny doll hands that held it aloft.

"Look! I was gonna surprise you, but if you like it will you let me stay?" The unlit saber thrummed with the odd crystals within: Barab Ingots both, the case itself seeming to carry forever the scorch marks which would become a signature of Isley Verd's precious Mando'ade Aspirant.
 
The Mandalorian snapped out of his fit of worry and heard the hidden plea locked within her simplistic offer. She had constructed a lightsaber, all on her own, and was now offering it to him...as if this would be a fitting price to pay in order for her to stay in the Castle. Isley then realized that they were on two totally different wavelengths. From before this day, Ginnie had expressed worry...worry that Isley would simply discard her as defective and send her away. Now, he was talking about going to Roon in response to her first display of telekinesis...and her first display of touching the Dark Side of the Force. In order to calm his beloved sibling down, he first held her closer and placed a kiss upon her cheek, then another upon her brow.

"Calm down," he began, lowering his tone to a comforting whisper, "I'm not sending you away. We are going to Roon, together. You see, Castle Ne'tra was built upon the ruins of a Sith Temple. It naturally radiates the Dark Side of the Force. You, being new to utilizing the Force, are being affected by its presence. I'm taking you to Roon so that you might get accustomed to training in an environment rich in the Force; that way you will not end up walking down the path of Darkness. It is not a Path that was meant for you to walk...Fret not, you did nothing wrong, this is my own mistake." With that said, the Mandalorian planted another kiss upon her brow and took the lightsaber she had constructed into his hand. He held it aloft, then ignited its blade.

It was well-balanced and well-sized for a girl her age and size. Surprisingly well constructed for a novice in the Force. Isley promptly extinguished the lightsaber and returned it to her, smiling softly. "You've done very well Ginnie, better than most Apprentices. Who taught you how to make this?"

@[member="Ginnie Verd"].
 
Worry, shock, concern, the emotions were a usual pattern in the child's upbringing. Ruled by their Chuba of a father, Ginnie'd gotten used to being left behind and shoved around. Now in the thick of a stringent line of coming clean, Ginnie had been so concerned with being valued that she missed her brother's many cues. Isley loved her and he held her with the firm grip of what she'd imagined a good father would be. The near-teen grabbed onto it, basking in the filial affection as if it were the last draught of oxygen on the planet. "You don't want me to turn out like Dad, is that it? You don't want me to rule through fear, or fall in to hurting people? You're scared I'm gonna end up wicked and miserly? I… I can…. I can understand that. Yeah! Roon'll be fun. We'll have a great time. I bet I can use my brain to throw a ball higher than you can throw it with your hands!"

A little hop and a little jump and the fear dissipated. The quality of the force shifted in the room, as if it had waited for the timid grasp of the child to tame it. Allow it a lullaby quality. As her saber came to life, Ginnie watched the spatter of the beam, she felt warm inside with its glow and affirmation. Isley liked it. This was good! Ginnie was worthy of all good things. She'd done well.

"I.. I ah, I got these two scientists to help me get to Barab I for the crystals, and and I closed my eyes and tried to … to figure out how to find the crystals and I heard the wind, just like when the grenade went off and my ears stopped working and Daddy pulled off the door with his crush gaunt and… don't get mad. Promise! Promise you won't get upset. I know you! Promise." The girl mashed her fingers together, pushing them into her chest plate as she danced lightly from foot to foot. Dropping to the ground, Ginnie pulled the box out from under the bed and rustled around.

"Promise." In her hand was a small holoprojector of obvious traditional Echani design. The sworn enemy culture might not have been the blood feud it once had been, but Ginnie remembered enough to intuit Clan Verd might get upset by their young one's discovery. Pressing her lips together, she watched her brother's face - looking for a tell. "I tried to read up on the instruction guides but I still don't read good. But I found this in the Archives, it's from some Royal Collection of Chandaar." Ginnie's thumb flicked the switch and the holoprojector bathed the room in a calm grey-blue glow. The glow wafted and waved like the sun filtering through ocean pools, Ginnie clamoured onto her bed and watched - breath caught - as the waves caught the spirit of the room and bathed it.

Peace reigned within the filtered image, a perfect and complete rendering of pure delight grounded only by the man who brought his hands together through the illumination and the waves shifted to the spectre who had caused it in the first place. @[member="Manu Xextos"]' expression carried the grounded resolution of the born warrior, his white skin and silver hair the call sign of the Echani. Silver eyes opened, peering at the holocamera, which once had captured the sight as he swung down into a meditative position - no, swam. He swam in the air, so graceful and free. Jaw locked, the man portrayed in the crane of his neck and the flex of his fingers the inner demons which he rectified daily, hourly in his swath of peace. A silver-white lightsaber floated up as he placed both hands palm up on his crossed knees. Eyes drifting shut, he craned his head nearly imperceptibly and Ginnie did the same, and the lightsaber deconstructed before their eyes. The pieces floated in a grand mandala, a rich pattern of motion and geometrically spherical design. A moving meditation was the Echani, whose twitch of muscle and movement of tendon and bone spoke to the girl in an express no word could say.

Within his gait Ginnie had discovered pure language, she watched captivated as the lightsaber reconstructed itself before them, lifted and pieced together by the impetus of the Force. As the casing clicked into place, the Echani rose grasping hold and began to move fluidly through an elaborate series of Ataru exercises. "He's telling us a story, Isley. There was this evil guy, and he threatened everything the Man in White loved. See how he's fighting? He's replaying the battle, cleansing it. He's beautiful. I… I didn't know they could talk without their mouths, the Man in White taught me. According to Chandaari, he got frozen in stasis battling the evil man, he sacrificed himself for his family eight hundred years ago. I … I don't know his name. I watched it again and again and again until I got it right. He doesn't have to use words, Isley! I can listen without missing anything."

Precious language, that she could be fluent in the art of motion and better survive in a culture the Mandalorians despised, all due to her fleshly infirmity. The Man in White battled on, committing to inhuman acrobatics and strikes, each binding twitch and movement betraying his adoration for his family, his people, the history of panic, empathy, a medical soldier. Yet, as the projection moved opponents of metal came upon the Man in White. Each strike was the peacefully taken yet viciously lethal strike of the absolved conquerer, the heart of his darkest enemy laid transplanted in his chest, a bitter pill the Force in its wisdom donated to guide and balance. No struggle ensued in his art of precision and death. The Crusading Redeemer, the Protector, the Husband of the Kae.

Ginnie sighed. "I can see exactly what he's talking about and I don't have to read his lips. Have you ever seen anything that pretty?"

@[member="Isley Verd"]
 
"That's a bet that we'll just have to see play out." Said the Mandalorian with a warm smile, planting a kiss upon his younger sibling's brow before she scampered out of his embrace in order to reach for something under her bed. "And no, I don't want you turning out like father, or like me for that matter. The Dark Side is not where you belong Ginnie, and I will do everything in my power to keep you pure." As the words escaped him, Isley soon found himself gaping at the form of an Echani. That alone caused a scowl to form upon his features and the rest of her tale fell upon dead ears. Cultural, mutual respect was one held between the Mandalorians and the Echani races, but Isley was the sort of person to take a cultural rivalry and convert it into full-blown racism. He loathed the very sight of the silver-haired mongrels...a fact that he was not certain that Ginnie knew.

"You've done good work." He commented, eyeing the projection. "I just wish you'd have learned by hands other than those scum. Karking Echani..."

((OOC: Pardon the length of the reply, posting from mobile x.x))

@[member="Ginnie Verd"]
 
"We gotta try it. I want to throw the ball into orbit." She hopped back down onto her bed and hugged her lightsaber, "I understand, big brother. I'm gonna save you, though. You won't always have to be in the Dark. I'm gonna make it better. . . and Dad's a weenie. I'll be okay, I have the best big brother in the world, and there's no power in the universe greater and bigger than the love we got in both of us. It's what makes Clan Verd great! Our little version of it."

As the hatred grew, it changed the quality of the wind. Ginnie stifled a sniff inward, holding onto the holodisks with the death grip of the desperate child. "Isley!" Stamping her armoured foot on the ground, Ginnie looked as sternly as she could at Isley. "If you want to keep me from the Dark, I gotta learn what the Light's like. There's a bunch I need to learn from you, but if this Echani dude is gonna teach me how to do stuff in a way I can get, I need you to set your hate aside and be happy for me. It's the Scum's ability to talk without words that taught me to do that at all." The amount of hate in Isley's heart for the Echani wasn't known of his little sister, but the racist hate?

She was familiar. Putting her holodisks down on her bed, Ginnie reached for both of Isley's hands. "The holodisk showed me how to build my very own lightsaber. It showed me what the Light of the Force is like. But it can never teach me how to be great. Only you can teach me how to be amazing, and how to be the best Ginnie. No holodisk can teach me a tenth of what you can. Don't get jealous. Take a Think Breath, just like Mom said." Leaning up, Ginnie kissed her brother's cheek. "Thank you for loving me enough to not obliterate my stuff 'cause it's got Echani Stink on it. I appreciate it. And I promise, nothing can take the Mando out of this Clan Verder. I'm gonna own Clan Verd someday!"

@[member="Isley Verd"]
 
The words of his beloved sibling caused the Mandalorian to draw a deep, calming breath. Though he despised the very presence of the Echani, and the fact that his younger sibling was learning from an Echani-made holodisk, he would not become the villain in her story. That was a line that he would never cross, not willingly at least. As such, he stifled his ocean of malice and returned the kiss upon Ginnie's cheek. "Well, you're certainly right about one thing...there's only one Mandalorian in this entire Galaxy who can make you great, and that's me. I'll teach you everything I can and make sure that you have plenty of options to learn what I can't. You're going to be the best of the best, ya hear?!" Isley then chuckled at the mention of owning Clan Verd...and a sad realization crossed his mind.

With Rigard dead, it would fall to Isley by right of birth to lead their clan someday. The thought caused the Mandalorian's stomach to do somersaults and he quickly changed his train of thought, gently tapping Ginnie's brow with his fingertips. "Well, at least you know the absolute basics of telekinesis. Now come on, pack a week's worth of clothes, we leave first thing in the morning for Roon. I'll let Phoebe and the girls know, and we'll all head over together. A family trip!"

@[member="Ginnie Verd"].
 
"Bubsy, I'm planning on it." Ginnie hugged her arms around Isley's neck and then scampered off to grab her knapsack. "One week? Already done!" She shoved the packed sack on her bed, and shovelled the holodisks inside it, with her lightsaber. "I never unpack."

The girls. Ginnie's smile pursed together, not dampened but shifted in the wake of her brother's statement. Phoebe was the light in Isley's life, his wife and the mother of his children, but the brood of girls was beset with a malady most unbecoming.

How could a clone end up ruling Clan Verd? In the wake of her brother's clone meat children coming to the knowledge of Ginnie's mind, the girl had made that same mind up. She would become the Matriarch of Clan Verd. Ginnie would make herself into the greatest warrior she could, win the glory of Mandalore and then her brother would see that while he was busy with the Confederacy, Ginnie would take the Clan off his considerably full palette. The child hid this plan deep in her heart, covering it over with training and Echani until she reached the age of majority.

It wasn't that she didn't love her nieces, but they were so old already, so terribly grown up. It was unnatural in a way the Force had no part in, designer children. If Isley could grow his daughters to varying ages so quickly and at such make and model as his desires, what use would he have for her? @[member="Isley Verd"]
 

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