Heart to Heart Conversations

[Alwine Daye]

How could she move on when every single time there was a new piece of information to pull her back?! "You have not," she shot right back at Gerwald as he claimed to have been honest since they'd agreed to move on, "You may not have told outright lies, but you have been withholding information. Information that is vital. What else am I to find out weeks from now? Months from now? Things you could have told me many times over but decided not to?"

No. There had been no freeing of Stewjon. Whatever Gerwald might have thought, Stewjon had returned to the way it always had been almost immediately. A few people were freed, a few mansions were burned, but had pretty much been the extent of it. It had been a single event, like the night the Confederacy had come to take care of spirits and then left. Once again, the Confederacy had come, done something for a single night, and now her brother was claiming this had fixed anything.

"You think no one there is held on trial like that anymore?" she laughed bitterly, "you think by coming once and waving a few swords around you made a difference on Stewjon? That it is no longer the very same hell we grew up in?"

It was such a… Such a… Such a typical way of thought! To do something once and expect it to take care of centuries or perhaps thousands of years of how things had been running.

And where was Katrine? The mere question drew another bitter laugh out of Alwine. Because she knew very well where the auflaque had been – blocking Gerwald's entrance to the cell, all covered up so that none could see her face, like a coward. She remembered his scent so hard in her nose as the shift had begun against her will, and her brother, first unable to come in, and then, for reasons that were his own, not coming in even after the auflaque had moved.

"Do not attempt to throw blame on Varick," came her next words, "Varick did nothing because I demanded he do nothing. With my imprisonment he had lost most of the influence he had. Do you not recall how the men he had trained and trained with looked at him, when you came that night? All he would have been able to do was kill guards and turn us into fugitives, but as we had no way to get off-world, there was nowhere we would have been able to go to. Two Lupines may be strong, but not strong enough to withstand an entire army that can hunt them."

But where was he? To that, Alwine would not speak. She knew her other brother had been partying and traveling around the galaxy, that he was not with her and Gerwald. Yes, he had kept in touch with her; they spoke regularly. The Confederacy could not satiate him. But now more than ever she felt she needed Varick closer, but he was not there.

"You were part of the Confederacy already, which holds some of the most advanced technological systems the galaxy has to offer, but there was no way to contact the Vicelord other than go to a wedding and ask him in person?" She narrowed her eyes. Alwine found that simply unbelievable. "All you had to do was take me out of the prison and take me off and away from Stewjon. Instead it was turned into a raid, a raid that has done nothing to change anything on Stewjon because as before, the Confederacy came, did a thing, and left, leaving the people in power to continue as they wish. You could have set the raid with your little permissions for a later date if you so dearly wanted to do that."

Yes. As Alwine had noted, and not for the first time, the Confederacy did very little to the planets it claimed as its own. For some planets, that was fine; for others though, the people who had been there were left to suffer, and it seemed that as long as things were running smoothly, no one actually cared. Stewjon had not been the first time that had happened, and it would likely not be the last either.

"Was it your idea to use me to make a failed statement?" Alwine found herself asking, "What would you have done if permission had not been granted, Gerwald? What else is there that I do not know? What else is there that I might find out in time to come?"

[member="Gerwald Lechner"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

"Vital... vital to what, Alwine? Your willingness or ability to forgive?"

Gerwald genuinely could not believe that she once again had not listened to a word he said on that point. Everything else they could debate, but this was a point that Gerwald would refuse to budge on.

"Awine, you don't get it do you? The only thing vital is whether you want to forgive me or not. The only thing vital is that I am your brother and you are my sister. That is what is vital here. That relationship is what we are both fighting hard to protect. If the past is truly in the past then it has to stay there. How can it even when you hear other things... easy... you choose to leave it there. If you are going to hold me responsible for every detail that I have or have not told you then your forgiveness is not coming from a place of relationship, but rather one of some messed up sense of superiority that somehow requires that I account for every bit minutiae that you can come up with. I can't do that, and I won't do that."

He let out a deep breath that he did not realize he was holding onto.

"Alwine, moving on has to be about who we are to each other, not about the details. I cannot apologize enough for what you experienced because of my choice, but at some point the fact I am your brother has to be more important than anything else.

Gerwald had never given any thought to how Stewjon had been after because the planet's Viceroy was supposed to maintain order. It was bad enough they had to raid on the watch of a Viceroy, and worse that Alwine had mentioned nothing had changed after. It SHOULD have, and Alwine knew that was not in Gerwald's control. The fact she would shoulder that on his decision to do what he did was unfair.

"Even with the best technology in the galaxy sometimes it is still more timely to go something in person Alwine. Not everyone, especially the Vicelord himself, is not going to drop everything to answer a ping on his datapad when he is having to play diplomat. Bottom line here Alwine... I get the impression you just want to find wrong in what I decide to do because you would not have handled it that way. Especially since you told Varrick not to do anything. You would have done the same had it been me there and for all those reasons you just listed. It is time for you to let go and realize that part of the reason we are not moving on is because you just refuse to let go until you feel satisfied."

"Forgiveness doesn't seek satisfaction. Forgiveness means knowing you have been wronged but letting go your right to receive satisfaction. You could demand it yes... but then what you would have is something more akin to vengeance not forgiveness."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

It was both! How could he not understand that? Why did she have to smack him with a brick of knowledge?!

"The details matter, Gerwald!" she growled again. Her brother was trying to be calm, was trying to reach out, was doing his best probably not to get angry with her. She knew it, but with the new information revealed and his unwillingness to understand why knowing mattered, Alwine could not yet bring herself to do the same, much as she wanted to.

"Forgiveness means knowing what it is you're forgiving," she said, the anger still lurking beneath each and every word, "Moving on means making peace with what has happened. You are not wanting me to forgive and move on, you are wanting me to forget and ignore and pretend it never happened, Gerwald, and I cannot do that."

With a gasp of anger, she turned around, rubbing her eyes with her hands. Why?! Why could she not get through to him?! Why could she not make him understand where she was coming from, what the problems were, what everything…

"I would not be fighting for this if you were not my brother. I would not be fighting for this if I did not love you and insist on you not being my brother anymore," she said, turning around to face him again, "but you can bet your furry behind that if you were ever in trouble, I would never ask anyone for permission to save you, no matter how furious I was with you at the moment."

Sighing, Alwine closed her eyes. Perhaps… Perhaps there was a way. Another way. A way he would understand. "It is like a wound, what had happened," she attempted, "and the wound is slowly healing. Closing. But then comes a new morsel of information, and that wound is opened brutally again. I cannot protect the wound, I cannot heal my end of it, when there are things being kept from me. I can think that I am, only to find out that it is not. Do you understand what I am trying to say, Gerwald? Because it is not about blaming you for events that have happened. They have happened. Neither of us can change them. I do not expect words to undo them. But I expect words to be used so that I know what exactly the events were. I cannot forgive something that I do not know had happened, something that I do not know exists. I cannot make myself pretend to be dumb and pretend nothing had happened."

[member="Gerwald Lechner"]

[member="Gerwald Lechner"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

"But that's where you're missing the point Alwine," he launched back right away. "I am not asking you to forget. You do know what you are forgiving me for. I left. You are the one making it about everything other than that. I was going to leave anyway, with or without Katrine. Had I not met her that night, I was getting on a ship THAT NIGHT. I have tried to tell you this, but no, you want to make my leaving without saying anything about her. I would not have known anything happened with you had I not been with her. I would have never met Scherezade so no one would have been on me about my siblings. I cannot tell you what would have happened were things different, and if the details were different, but what I can tell you is that you still would have been in that prison because you still would have reacted the way that you did. That wasn't caused by whether or not I had permission. That is the point I am trying to make. The point you refuse to understand. At this point you are making forgiveness about how you would have done things after the thing that you were supposed to have forgiven me for. You're the one tearing open the wound each and every time because it isn't how you would have done it."

Gerwald paused.

"I left. I came back. We are here now. You are alive, and so am I. Things are rocky I get that. But right now you want this to be about how it was I came back, when what caused the pain in the first place was me leaving. We have dealt with and hashed that out so many times, and here I am still having to tell you that is why we are here. That's why I know this isn't about forgiveness, because right now you're not dealing with the thing that caused the brokeness... your picking at a detail wouldn't be there if I had not left in the first place. That's why this detail doesn't matter, Alwine, because if you're going to fault me for the way I came back, or the path I chose to come back, that could have been different too, that could have been different if I hadn't come back."

There was another pause, and long breath.

"You are not dumb, and I would never ask you to be. But this is cause and effect. Forgiving me for the cause should render itself to the effects... otherwise you haven't truly forgiven me for leaving, and that means I'm not the one who needs to do some soul searching here. You're mad about the detail, I get it, I really do. But that one detail changes nothing about the outcome, and you can't know that it would have otherwise. You cannot speculate because that would be unfair."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

"But this is not about you leaving, and this is not about speculations!" Alwine almost cried out. It seemed her words were not reaching through to Gerwald. "I have forgiven you for leaving already, you big brute. But now there are new things popping up, things I did not know of, and these things do matter!"

With a sigh, Alwine sat herself on the edge of the bed again.

"Perhaps it is you who insists on going back to that," she finally offered, "because it is not what I meant, at any point, Gerwald. You know how things can both be connected and not. You have said so enough times yourself. Then why insist on making them one and the same? They are not."

By the gods, Alwine just… She did not know how to explain it to him anymore.

"How can you not understand the horror of knowing someone you loved needed permission to save you?" she said quietly, "how does the mere thought of it not fill you with dread?"

[member="Gerwald Lechner"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

"But Alwine, never once did I say I needed permission to save you. Perhaps I bit off more than I could chew, but after knowing that what we could do is not witchcraft, how could I sit by and let what happened to you happen to more. I didn't need permission to save you, but we needed permission to do the damage we did to the people we did it to."

Gerwald paused as he was really trying to make himself clear.

"I'm sorry Alwine, but I made the issue larger than you. We all did. Especially when the Mandragora heard that they were executing witches. Imagine how that made them feel. I was also not about to go in alone, because you are right, even three Lupines would have had a hard time, especially when you were in no condition to do anything. The fact you made it back home after... well... you are strong, and there is no denying that."

It seemed that whoever had told Alwine about their part in the raid had not fully understood, or they had simply not been aware of Gerwald's motivation in the raid. Yes, he could have gone off on his own to rescue Alwine, but where would that have put him. It would have been a foolish endeavor, and Ger was convinced there was no right way. What he had done was coming to bite him in the butt with his sister, but the other could have had consequences neither of them would have wanted.

"Look Alwine, I don't know who told you, or what they told you exactly. But I never once asked for permission to save you. We asked permission for what some might have considered genocide. Things on Stewjon, they have to change in that regard, they have to. All of this, it is all connected, but the reason I didn't tell you about it that was because it didn't seem important. No one was going to stop me from rescuing you once I knew the truth. Had I been told no to the one, I still would have come for you.... I mean I would have had to have stolen a ship, probably killed a few guards in the Confederacy, and would likely be facing execution, but I would have come for you."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

The issue was larger than her. Alwine said nothing at first. She knew exactly who was at fault for the issue being larger than her. She wanted to scream, to yell, to do violence. And yet… She could not. After all the anger that had been tossed in recent minutes, the strength had left her. She looked up in slight amazement at her brother, only now seeming to understand that it had not been done with malicious intent. Not by him, anyway. And deep down, not even that deep, she knew that Gerwald spoke truth; he would have come even without permission. She wanted to round on that again and ask why then ask for that permission, but there was no point. While she disagreed with Gerwald claiming she was looking for excuses not to move on, she realized well enough that doubling back on it would be just that – refusing to move on.

And now it was she who owed an explanation.

"At the Life Day ball," Alwine said quietly, "I came across one of the Mandragora. He spoke of you as though you were nothing but a new trinkets the Nightmother wore to show off, arm-candy, a piece of meat… And that it was she who waited for the permission."

The conclusions Alwine had jumped to were, of course, correct; at least the one in which it meant that Gerwald had been waiting for permission too, and had never told her. She wanted to be angry with him for thinking it was not even important, but… No. She did not truly want to be angry with him. In truth, Alwine was so tired of being angry with Gerwald, even if he deserved it every time. There were choices to be made.

"I am sorry, dalninuk," she whispered, knowing he would hear it. Had he ever heard her say that before? Nothing jumped to mind at present. But sorry for what? Was she about to grab her suitcase again and leave? No… That was not what she wanted to do. "I am sorry for allowing this piece of information to nearly break me and what we have managed to rebuild since coming here, and to renew my anger at you."

[member="Gerwald Lechner"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

"And of course you got angry... but at me?"

Gerwald walked over to his sister and out his massive arms around her. She could try and fight him off, but he wasn't going to let her.

"The Mandragora doesn't know what I am to Katrine. Their kind do not even get married from what I have been told. They do not understand the concept of it. Their idea goes much deeper than an exchange of vows, so yes, I look like a play thing to them until the scars are on my back that she has taken me as hers it always be that way to them."

He did not expect that Alwine would understand that, and he figured it would generate more questions than it would help. His point was simple though. Alwine should have just asked Gerwald what the truth was because he would have given it to her.

"Katrine asked Metus, yes. It seemed that she would be the better of the two to actually get his approval because Metus doesn't know me apart from anyone. I have only seen him from a distance until that day and I have not been that close to him since. We are in a world where we must play politics Alwine, politics is the way of these massive interplanetary governments. I do not like it anymore than you do, but it is what we must do. The Confederacy is a friend to our kind, the best friend I know of."

Gerwald let go at her apology. He had no idea what to say. For several moments he was speechless. Had she just actually apologized...

"I'm sorry for not giving you the details you are so desperate for," Gerwald finally said. "I am bound to not give you everything at once... it's my nature. Next time, ask me before you decide to leave. I would have hated to find this room empty..."

Ger tried to give Alwine a stern look, but failed miserably as he began to laugh.

"Damn you Alwine... we need mead now. C'mon."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

She wanted to answer him. She wanted to answer him so desperately, explain that yes, she had been angry at him; angry at him first for thinking he needed the auflaque to ask for permission for something he could do without her, and then for withholding it from Alwine under the guise of forgiveness and moving on. But no words came to her now. Alwine, the small yet strong sibling of the Lechners, had no words to come from her throat.

And suddenly her brother's arms were around her. There had always been physical contact among the Lechner siblings; they held hands as they fought, they went for the throat when they fought, they were no strangers to sleeping huddled on occasion in their wolf form. With Redd, Alwine had learned more about touch among Lupines, the need for the physical contact in ways that were so intimate that they were entirely absent anything romantic or sexual or improper.

Yet this hug, this hug was different than all of it, different than the old and different than the new. Alwine could not remember her brother, either of her brothers, ever having held her like that. And in response to most new things, her body first froze and her eyes narrowed as her mind insisted on beginning to analyze it.

"Your nature is stupid, Gerwald," she remarked at last, though her tone was light and the smile within it could be easily heard. Her muscles relaxed and she returned his embrace.

They had both apologized. There was nothing to add other than to indeed go back and chew on matters again.

And yes. Mead.

Once the embrace was released, Alwine rose from the bed. Before they could leave, she grabbed Der Kleine again, and returned it to its place on the wall. The clothes and weapons inside her suitcase could wait for later, when they were done.

Putting her hands on Gerwald's shoulders, she used him to jump up, landing a kiss on her brother's cheek.

"Most of the mead offered on Geonosis is atrocious, but I know of a little place close to the slums area that has a few passable versions."

[member="Gerwald Lechner"]

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

She had her own apartment by now. Gerwald had known this for a time, and was still adjusting to the fact he lived further from Alwine now than before. Most days they had tried to meet up as their relationship had been in a more solid place. That was not going to be the case with this meeting. Gerwald had once again done as he willed. This time he had been drawn away, and when his injuries and mental psyche fully repaired themselves, Gerwald would be able to explain to Alwine better what had happened.

All that remained between them at the moment was she asked him not to do anything stupid about [member="Naedira Darcrath"]'s death, and Gerwald had.

His days were spent as a wolf, but at least his brain had healed to the place where telepathy no longer bothered him. It was time to face Alwine now that he could have some kind of conversation with him.

Paws padded through the door and into her living space. His large frame laid across the floor as he waited for her to come home. Her scent filled his nostrils as though it were a drug, the telling sign this place truly did belong to his sister. She smelled of home, and yet Gerwald knew they were not home. He would not lie to himself and fancy some story that they were as close as they once had been, or that their lives were moving in the same direction. They were not. Gerwald and Alwine were moving in different directions, and for the male Lupine, his path kept him tied to where his best friend remained. Alwine would sense it, she may not like it, but it was genuine, and for reasons beyond her control.

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

[member="Gerwald Lechner"]​

For all the handful of weeks that she held it, it still did not feel like a home to her. It did not even feel like half a home to her. Alwine stood on the street, eying the tall building, her brown eyes finding no love or amusement in it. Not even relief. Inside, a short elevator ride away, she knew, was the place she had decided to rent. Four walls, enough space to move about, but nothing fancy. Had the ship that the Lechner siblings had been living on not become too suffocating for her, she would have never left it at all. But she could no longer stay there, in that metal box that felt more and more like a coffin with each passing day.

And what had caused it? Deep inside her heart she knew, that her brothers were not the sole reason for it. Each of them had as of late felt like a weight that was too heavy for her to bear, yet she could not deny that her own heart had developed a heaviness of its own, adding to all that had piled on in the time since they had all left Stewjon. These were not innocent days. These were not carefree running and trotting through the forests behind the cottage. These were not even days of reveling with the other Confederates. No. These were days of burdens, of pains, and of things that were changing in ways neither of the siblings could have foretold.

How happy she had been, when it seemed things would be changing for the better. How she had wanted to believe it with everything that made her her, that she'd ignored the signs. Had missed Gerwald and Varick both becoming more aloof, simply because it was comfortable to do so. And by doing that, she had not only failed the both of them, but she had become the sole responsible person for the disheveling of the pack. The every pack in which the three had always fought and bickered about, to come to an agreement about who the alpha would was. But there was her answer, wasn't it? It was her. For if it was not, then she would not have the power to undo it, even if it had happened unintentionally. Knowing she'd been the alpha all along had not brought joy to the petite lupine, not even the smallest of smiles.

And to think, that this was all but the bare tip of the looming iceberg.

With a sigh, Alwine, still dressed in her Knights Obsidian armor, entered the building and pushed the button that would take her to the floor her apartment was at. Already she could scent him, feel the remains of lupine in the elevator. Gerwald was there, and waiting. She had granted both him and Varick access to her apartment, for however bad the situation was, she would never keep either of them out.

Moments later, she entered the four walls, eyes falling immediately on her brother. Wolf form. On Geonosis? Wordlessly, she removed the weapons she carried by the very definition of her job, and tossed them carelessly into a corner before moving to the matted couch and letting herself fall on it, brown eyes never moving away from the form of the giant wolf that now inhabited the space of her living room.

There was no tenderness in her gaze, nothing but stiffness as she eyed him, allowing the information to stream into her, not only what her eyes beheld, but also what she could sense, both through the Force and through the sibling bond which went with never a need for precise words or images. A bond that had been too easily forgotten and neglected.

After a long silence, she rose from the couch and vanished into the kitchen area, only to return moments later with two bowls, one of water and one of meat.

"You have been neglecting yourself," was the only thing she could say before she dropped onto the couch again, any other word she wished to come out of her throat lodging and becoming stuck in there instead.

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

Gerwald could smell his sister as she neared her apartment. When she walked through the door he did not move or look up at her. She seemed to be disappointed, cold, distant, something, but as a wolf, Gerwald did not care much. His mind was not set on her as much as it what she was doing. Her movements seemed to indicate she was okay with him being there, but she was not exactly happy to see him. He did not expect her to be, not after he left her the way he had. She had told him not to, and he did. Had Gerwald known she thought herself the Alpha of their pack he would laugh. No one disobeyed their alpha, and yet Gerwald and Varik had both left her. In truth there was no alpha among them, and what Gerwald did not want to admit yet, was that they were not a pack.

They were growing distant, but yet they were not.The things they had survived were enough to make them loyal to each other for some time, and yet here they were.

Cold.

Gerwald perked up at the smell of meat as he watched Alwine bring the bowls out of the kitchen. He stood on all fours and began to eat as her words came to his ears. Fortunately telepathy worked for him again, and without looking up to her, Gerwald answered.

"I have not.. the Exarch has been very generous in her care."

Alwine must have known at this point that he had been recovering under the care of the Echani female. He had been claimed as her wolf, but only because of what she had lost. Srina was collecting things, and it was going to be interesting once he was fully recovered, and Gerwald was once again a man. His loyalty would always be to the Exarch for what she had done for him. The memories were still there however, and Gerwald had to share.

"The Sith did things to me... He... was the one. I fell for it... his manipulation."

[member="Alwine Lechner"]

 

[Alwine Daye]

[member="Gerwald Lechner"]​

It was almost like watching a stranger eat. Alwine waited a moment, giving her brother the time to do as he pleased with the bowls she'd brought out, and even though they had used telepathy to speak with each other before, it took her by surprise as he did so now. Perhaps, she thought, it was a sign of more distance to come. Why he would not change into a man, she did not know. And would not, if he did not tell her. But could she ask? Could she so intentionally add to the tension between them?

"Care runs deeper than food," was the only reply she had to his statement. The exarch. The mere thought of it made the petite blonde visibly shudder. She knew nothing of a claiming, of a collection, or of her brother's loyalty. Perhaps, it was for the best. But did she know that he spent more time with that woman? She had heard such rumors, but she had hoped they were untrue. Once again, her hopes had proven to be for naught.

"What Sith?" she asked, frowning. The exarch was a Sith, but now her brother was speaking of a he rather than a she. Was he, then, referring to the other exarch? "The one to what?" came the next question. "What mani-" she paused, "Well, you are easy to manipulate," came that last line with a shrug.

Still seated on the couch, Alwine continued to stare at her brother. She motioned with her hand, to let him know that he was welcome to join her on it. Strangers though they might have felt in that moment, she would not intentionally push him away, though she had, and probably would, unintentionally do so many more times while they both still breathed. But fur on the furniture, that was never a fear for a lupine. He could be on the couch if he so pleased.

"You did what I begged you not to," she said. Not a question. A statement. "What are you now?"