All In the Family (Ibaris)

[Ashin Varanin]

KORRIBAN
DRESHDAE

Arid, deadly, a serious inconvenience to whoever claimed it, Korriban was Ashin's favorite world. She'd ruled from here as Empress, after Omni took Dromund Kaas, and it was here that she'd spent most of her new Jedi career. Patrolling, keeping an eye on pilgrims, rooting out sleeper agents -- so many sleeper agents. So many undercover Sith. Fortunately, security was a little better right now, and Ashin felt not terrible about showing her favorite world to Ibaris -- at least, the tamer parts. Dreshdae was a hardscrabble town, a little spaceport built into a mountainside, a ways from the Valley and the Temple. It abutted canyons and deserts, where her sniper rifle collection and other efforts had made a dent in the local populations of tuk'ata, k'lor'slugs, hssiss and even terentateks. Korriban was silent always, but usually silent in waiting; right now, it was silent in fatigue. She'd ridden this world hard.

"This is my Korriban Compass, Ibaris. Never go running toward where it says to go. It's for finding dangerous things." She'd brought a second compass, but hers was the one she held out by its lanyard. "It'll help you feel what's around you, but be careful -- it can't spot everything."

 

[Ibaris Varanin]

"This is my Korriban Compass, Ibaris. Never go running toward where it says to go."

She nodded and looked at the item dangling from a lanyard in front of her, glancing up at Papa's face, then at the compass again, curiously yet carefully taking it into both her little hands, and studying it for a moment or two before looking away, off as far as the eye could see from her low vantage point. As far as the recollections of her young mind went, Ibaris had never, ever been anywhere so dry as this... but the prospect of a new place always held such promise, such a potentially high measure of congruence with her interests. Interests that were (to put it nicely) questionable for one her age, particularly to the depths which she took them. While most children desired the next gadget, or a docile, pretty pet, she wanted the big, ugly, dangerous things. The very things that...

"It's for finding dangerous things."

...and there it was, that one word that had appended to her fixations with a permanence, and so quickly matched up with the 'never' and the 'go'. Her hazel eyes snapped immediately back to Ashin in a protest that died before it left her, when Ashin spoke again. It was clear the girl had acquiesced - spending time with Papa was different from the time she spent with Mama, somehow.

"Okay, Papa," she said, giving the compass a closer look. "I'll try to be careful."

At least there was that. She always did try to try, whether it was successful or not.

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

 

[Ashin Varanin]

[member="Ibaris Varanin-Jacobs"]

There was every chance that giving Ibaris the compass had been a bad idea, but Ashin knew straight up that she had no benchmarks for this, no precedents. And on the spectrum of 'things she could share with her daughter', measured in increments of potential hazard, the Korriban Compass ranked pretty fething low.

"Alright, now you take care of that" was about all she managed as their speeder lifted off, a two-person Silk-9 model with a big cargo claw and a little trailer. She'd gotten a booster seat from the ship; even so, Ibaris' head barely peeked over the edge of the door. Parental locks were on; repulsor straps were automatic. For once in her very long career, Ashin was aiming for safety first.

The little vehicle slipped out of Dreshdae via a switchback road on the side of a dusty mountain, descending to the desert. "There's binoculars in the glove compartment -- tell me if you see anything you like."

 

[Ibaris Varanin]

[member="Ashin Varanin"]

The restraints were never her favourite thing, but she'd given up struggling against them long ago, having accepted them as a fact of life. As the speeder took off, she put her attention to the compass again for a few more moments, the needles moving about a wee bit, though not much, and Ibaris not knowing what that meant, if anything, or what would happen if the compass did as intended. After those few moments, when Ashin mentioned the binoculars, she hung the compass about her neck, not caring if it pinned down her hair, and reached for the glove compartment, only just managing to hook her fingers under the release, and giving it a tug, which opened the compartment.

With it hanging open, pulling out the binoculars was less of a stretch, and once she had them well in hand, she knew very well that she now had to close the compartment. That was a rule, that she was supposed to close things after they had been opened, and while it wasn't her favourite thing to have to do, it was better than the consequences that sometimes occurred from not closing drawers - like when she tried climbing her dresser and almost got squashed. Staring at the compartment door a moment, then fiddling with the binoculars, then looking at the open compartment again, she nudged the compartment door upward slowly with her right foot until it was almost closed, then gave it a light shove with the ball of her foot. The compartment sealed up again with a click.

Then it was back to fiddling with the binoculars, unwinding the neck sling, and settling them on the doorframe with her hands, looking through them... but everything was upside-down. She pulled her face away, wrinkling her nose, and turning the binoculars over, then trying again. Well, everything was upright this time, but it all looked blurry. Pulling her face away again, she dropped the binoculars in her lap, and looked at papa, watching her drive for a moment, while she tried to think of how it had been explained that the binoculars worked. Focus, she knew it was called focus, what she was trying to do, but... well, she looked at the binoculars again, and turned them this way, then that, her brow creasing.

"Oh."

She remembered, now, and adjusted the eyepieces and the dial for focus, accordingly. Then was the test, and she set the binoculars on the door again, and peered through them, both small hands holding the binoculars as stable as they could. It was much clearer this time, and she watched the far-off, as the speeder went along, unaware of the faint glow registering on the needles of the compass. She didn't see anything she liked yet.

"Papa, what kinds of things are there to see here?"