Private A Dismantled Heritage

[Rance Valere]

Some time, not long ago
Coruscant​

"You don't get to make these decisions for me, Addie!" Rance yelled. He had been threatening to boil over for a while, but with their mother having stepped out of the room, and Adalai Jannus Valere [full names only when he was pissed] still persisting to apologize like it meant anything at all in the grand scheme. That was just not good enough.

He was on his feet, eyes drilling into his blonde sisters face. She dared come back? To do what? Apologize, but not turn herself in. Her conduct had ruined the family reputation. Sullied their late father's name, and made Rance's opportunity for promotion vanishingly small.

Pacing back and forward, the eldest Valere child scratched behind his ears. She had always gotten her way. Always been able to sweet talk her way into his good books. But not today. not again.

"I'm leaving tomorrow," he said, looking out the window of their family apartment on the middle floors of the upper levels of Coruscant's middle class area.

He met her eyes in the reflection and answered the question before she could ask it. "Naboo," he said while looking down and scratching the back of his head, "contacted some of dad's old buddies...they got me in on the ground floor of the Royal Security Force. Junior Detective."

His hand rested on the window, likely leaving a hand print that his mother would complain about later. "Mom doesn't know yet," he said, pain in his voice, "she wouldn't want me to go...but I don't have a future here, AJ. Not since..."

| Jannus Valere |​

 

[Jannus Valere]

C O R U S C A N T
[ MID SECTOR ]
​

Her eyes stayed fixed on the emptied contents of her getaway bag, splayed out on the couch. She heard the words of her brother, a mixture of anger and pain for what he likely viewed as another betrayal. That anger had been there for a while. At first, it had been sympathy, but that quickly shifted as she ran out of excuses for why she hadn’t turned herself in, falling out of his good graces.

This time she couldn’t wave it away, all of her lies and fears were laid bare. It didn’t matter what she said anymore, at this point.

She knew she’d lost him now, too.

Adalai swallowed hard.

“Go ahead,” she spat, feeling the tightness spread through her chest. “That’s all anyone in our family ever does. Everyone runs away whenever things start gettin' tough around here. When the hard decisions have'ta be made.” She was falling apart inside.

Rance was the only one who’d ever understood her, if he abandoned her, then she was truly lost. Where would she go? What would she do?

Instead of showing that vulnerability, the blonde whipped her head and turned her jaw upward with haughty indifference to try and cover up the burning pain of rejection that spread through her veins like wild fire. “But if I’m so awful that you have to leave, then why don'tcha just turn me in and be done with it! Don’t sit here and try to pull the guilt card on me!”

In her head she could hear their mother’s voice scolding her like a broken record, ‘Your temper Adalai, your temper.’ She'd always struggled with it, she'd let it get the better of her that fateful night, too. Remembered the heat of shame in her hands when she pulled the trigger. The blind consensus as the cold rain beat down on her head in the back alley that night, when she realized her career was over.

But it had gotten results.

No one could argue that, for no one else had come nearly as close as she had to solving their father’s murder. The entire reason she’d become an officer in the first place.

“I did what I did, and I’m sorry for what happened at the department because of it… but I’m so close Ran. Just give me some time and I can fix this. I can fix all of this.”

| Rance Valere |​

 

[Rance Valere]

She sounded like an addict on the street. Begging, bargaining, just to get her next fix. He said nothing in reply to all the words that spilled forth. Just left there to stew in her own folly. But internally he raged and yelled at her, his jaw clenching with each internal utterance.

Run away? I have...never...so rich...coming from you...where have you been all this time? What have you been doing? You didn't call...you...NO...damn you, AJ.

They were supposed to be partners on day. That was the childhood dream anyway. It was probably more Rance's dream than hers but she had at least played along with the idea.

Turn you in...turn you in...AJ...you know what that means! Don't accuse me of playing guilt cards when you are the one that is guilty as hell.

His hands balled into fists, slowly, yet firmly. The pain of his fingernails digging into his hands gave him something else to focus on just for the time. She was so close, she said. So close. He spun about on his heels, eyes aflame with an emotion that might actually be verging on unbridled hatred for the first time in his life.

"That day. You know. When you..."

His voice trailed off. Too afraid that mentioning his actions would lead to some of his own that might be regretted later.

"I got promoted that day, AJ. Finally."

| Jannus Valere |​