Private Not By Chance

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Avalore

"Indoors sounds peaceful compared to this storm. But I left off the first line of the Sith code when I told it to you yesterday. Peace is a lie; there is only passion. The real world will never offer you ideal conditions, tranquility, safety, and so we train in ways that push us to our limits. Dig deep into your frustration and resentment, be angry with me, and you'll feel the Force surge to meet you. Find your inner fire. You'll find yourself warming up.

"Eventually."

 

[Avalore]

"What." Ashin had give her a larger vernacular, but the ability to think things through and apply was a skill there were no shortcuts to. She stomped her legs, the snow seeping through her loose woven pants. They kept bugs out, not the cold. Beyond the cold, she was freezing. "But my toes," she complained, looking to the estate walkway at the other end of the court yard. It only took a single glance at it to propel her forward, the teen ignoring the stranger's lesson in favor of just a step indoors.

Fek this horrid nonsense, Ashin could speak riddles out of the wind.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Avalore

Two steps forward, one step back. Like breaking a mount.

"Be stronger than this," Ashin called after her, above the shrieking wind. "Don't run, fight. Hate the cold, hate me for locking you out."

Should Avalore reach the door, she would indeed find it locked.

<This is how you become like me.>

 

[Avalore]

Well now she resisted for the sake of it. She wasn’t running! She was strong! The lessons of yesterday had tangible gain, but this? She felt like she was being played with. She wasn’t hot she was freezing- the cold burned at her lungs. Her toes were losing sensation. All the while Ashin spoke in riddles, edging her for a reaction from her that she didn’t know how to give. She didn’t understand. Not yet anyway.

The metal knob sucked away her finger's heat, but it did not give way. She made a noise of frustration, turning on Ashin.

"Let me in," she demanded.

She most decidedly did not like snow.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Avalore

"No. This is important."

Ashin let herself relent a little - from command to reason.

"This ability will keep you safe here and across the galaxy. It'll also show me that you're serious about learning what I have to teach you. But most importantly, it will be the first time you intentionally use the Force outside a moment of extreme stress."

Snow was piling up in her hair, on her shoulders and back.

"Wouldn't you rather fight the cold than run from it?"

 

[Avalore]

Her shoulders dropped, the look of defiance lessening.

"I am serious," she responded, her small protest lost to the wind. The pain of the chill seeping into her bones left her shuddering violently. She tried to make herself stop-- there was no dignity in it-- but her body did not respond. Ashin wanted her to focus on her anger? Well she had plenty of that now. Everything felt so out of her control. Her frustration boiled over into fury, the kind a cold, hungry, sore teen can feel in a flash when having just stepped out of bed.

"Ah," came the wordless exclamation, the force surging through her in a sudden wave. There was no control. It all pin pointed into her desire for heat-- a lick of fire lashing out wildly around her. The snow at her thighs dropped into a pool of water. She jerked back with a yelp, expecting pain.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Avalore

"Good, very good." Ashin crossed the distance between them briskly. "But still uncontrolled. Don't flail. Be deliberate, be precise, be strong. Do it again until you're no longer melting snow around you - until you feel warm at the heart of a blizzard."

And blizzard was the word. The wind and snowfall had escalated. Ashin might have had something to do with that.

"Understand that the galaxy has thousands of ordinary Sith. I'm not teaching you to be ordinary."

 

[Avalore]

The flash boiled snow seeped into her shoes, the numb extremities tingling violently at the change in temp. She fell back into the door, her butt sliding down to the wind-cleared threshold. Bring the flame into herself? She was going to light herself on fire.

The fear ran rampant through her, poignant memories of trauma cutting through her like the wind. It would be clear then-- her phobia of flames. She hid it so well, but as Ashin asked her to bring the heat into her, parts of her resisted. Some of the quakes weren't from the cold, the mental block cutting to the quick of things.

She hadn't meant to burn down that hut. She didn't mean to leave Tho inside. She just didn't have control. Was that possible here?

"Be precise, be deliberate, be strong."

A version of herself she didn't see. But anything for a chance to be something different than the girl she left behind. Tears blurred her vision as she brought the heat into herself, accepting in the moment that she either die... or be reborn as something better.

She envisioned with all her stubbornness the heat coiling into her, warming her limbs and chasing away the cold. No fire-- no fire. There was no room for another reality as she puffed out a breath, her finger tips pricking back to life as heat reached them, chasing all the cold away.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Perfect, Avalore ," said Ashin softly, and the door clicked open.

Inside, the big house was warm and expensive - plenty of technology in sight - but a little shabby. Any number of strange events and incautious teenagers had left their mark over the years. This had been one of the many residences that Ashin had shared with Spencer Varanin and company - children, foundlings, followers, the occasional clone. Ashin removed her snowy boots and padded into the entryway.

"Not sure if anyone's home," she said over her shoulder. "There's a bed for you in the guest rooms that way. Plenty of food, reading material, space to train. I'll make sure the security system recognizes you as a guest."

 

[Avalore]

Avalore wiped her face dry, worked up and feeling foolish for it.

She pulled herself into the space, closing out the blizzard behind her and staring numbly around. She was use to someone prodding her about her outbursts. She was use to fights. She stood there, a puddle of water forming around her, realizing quickly that Ashin didn't give a fek.

Oh. Her frustration sat unreleased in her chest. She uttered a tense string of words. "Can I have dry pants?"

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"I'm tempted to make you figure out how to dry your own clothes - it's a natural extension of the skills you're already learning - but you've earned a minute to relax and you'll need more clothes anyway. You're not much smaller than my daughter Noelle. I'll get you some of her things to start."

Ashin left Avalore there in the entryway to do as she would. Damp or not, the kid knew how to keep herself warm.

Though sensing others wasn't Ashin's strong suit, as she went upstairs to Noelle Varanin 's room she got the feeling that her daughter was home. She knocked on the door.

"Noelle? Can I borrow some of your clothing?"

 

[Noelle Varanin]

Noelle appeared between the sliver of door that opened, Spencer's face and Ashin's once golden hair staring back at the dark-haired stranger. Ashin may have felt the probe against her mind, feeling out the essence behind the mask. It was insistant. Sharp. Uncaring if Ashin resisted as she pried.

Her eyes widened, lips softening in shock.

"Mother."

The door swung open, revealing the pristine insides of a dark room.

Years past Ashin would have received an exuberant hug and a sly request for time. Even if Noel was not one to show excitement or ply for attention like Quinn, there had always been space for affection for her family.

Today she stood still, the space between left uncrossed. The house was equally still. Unoccupied. Unlit.

The glint of a dagger disappeared into the folds of her skirt. "You've come home." A question burned behind her eyes. Did she know?

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Noelle Varanin

A fine line separated aloofness and teaching self-reliance. As a mother, Ashin hadn't always respected that line. A twinge of old and compounding regret stirred in her. You know I love you, don't you? had been at the tip of her tongue for about a decade.

But she also felt pride at the strength and decisiveness of Noelle's telepathic probe, not to mention the ready dagger, and she let Noelle feel it.

"Spencer isn't permanently dead," she said. "Not if I can help it. For the moment, what I need is some of your clothing. There's a soaked and freezing adolescent downstairs who didn't pick up tapas quite as easily as you did."

 

[Noelle Varanin]

Noel's attention snapped to the hall, unsettled by the guests she hadn't quite been tuned into sensing. Perhaps she had been alone too long. There was a bit of comfort in blocking out the world as she grieved.

"What do you mean she isn't permanently dead?" She pushed, snapping into action as she went to her wardrobe without hesitation. Training pants, underclothing, thermals all were piled onto the foot of her bed. Lately nothing had gotten her to move quite so quickly as the words Ashin had just said.

"And what does this teen have to do with it?" She knew Ashin well enough to sense the plan brewing. Her eyes pulled over the unfamiliar face, her echani roots sniffing out for tells that would reveal a wider story.

Communication wasn't all words.

She would be included, or else.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Noelle Varanin

"I'm in the process of making certain sacrifices." Most of them personal, and totally irrelevant to both Avalore and Noelle. Well, not totally. "There's a good chance I'll be around more often. The girl has a role, not in resurrecting your mother, but in what comes after. If she learns well, anyway." Ashin gathered up the bundle of clothes with a thin smile.

"Could you get her settled into one of the guest rooms and meet me in the kitchen? There are things I need to know."

 

[Noelle Varanin]

How could a girl that struggled with tapas help her family? The idea was ludicrous. She grabbed her mother’s wrist, fire in the gaze that looked *so much * like Spencer.

Tell me it all , she nearly demanded. She took a deep breath and unclenched her fingers instead, releasing Ashin to her own devices. ”I’ll see you in the kitchen.”

She reached out for the pile of clothing, seeking permission to abscond them down to the girl she’d deal with. Quickly.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

The grip on Ashin's wrist brought back strong memories of teaching joint locks and similar maneuvers for hours, days on end, until Noelle Varanin could reliably strip a saber out of an enemy's fist. Better times. Ashin nodded firmly and, as Noelle brought the clothes downstairs to Avalore, headed for the master bedroom.

The place still felt and even smelled like Spencer Varanin , longtime and former queen of this world, Ashin's closest ally for a quarter century. Ashin stayed in there quietly for perhaps five minutes. It felt much longer.

In due course she made her rendezvous with Noelle in the kitchen. Like the rest of the estate house, it was grand, gothic, and well-lived-in.

 

[Noelle Varanin]

If Avalore was expecting an instant connection with the daughter of her new Master, she would be disappointed. Noel regarded her with dismissive indifference. An untrained waif of no standing- as soon as Avalore was looked over she was discounted. If Noel knew of Ashin's plans, she might even be disappointed in Avalore. As it stood the girl was merely an inconvenience. She was escorted off and deposited into a room.

This, naturally, left the freshly woken up, wet, and hungry Avalore taken aback. Noel closed the door on her without a thought, turning on her heel and walking briskly to the kitchen.

Her hostess tendencies stirred inside of her, leaving her to regret her dismal of kitchen staff. She couldn't given her mother crackers. She was found staring blankly into the unlit pantry. She turned sharply, not a beat skipped as she pushed for answers.

"Where have you been?"

Unlike Quinn, she could show patience in starting with the basics.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Noelle Varanin

"The Cosmic Force, I suppose. Here and there, helping death flow into new life. The Bryn'adul genocides kept me busier than I expected. But helping your mother claw her way back will mean giving up, oh, all of that - and more time to spend at home won't be the only consequence, not by a mile."

Ashin shouldered past her daughter and slid a pack of Bathkari noodles off a pantry shelf. The food stocks looked lean and inexpertly curated. A matter for another moment.

"Tell me how she died. I don't know a thing about it."

 

[Noelle Varanin]

Noel stiffened, her initial concern coming to light.

After a moment she let out a long breath, stepping to the side to let Ashin pass her, noodles in hand.

"Um," she started, not usually one to fumble her words. She followed her into the kitchen proper, standing awkwardly in place before finding that she was just going to get in the way of the construction of the noodles. She brought herself to the island, sitting gingerly on the edge of the stool. Not unlike she would as a child. She felt particularly small sitting in that stool. Her usually poised posture rounded in, her next words not easy.

"Alekto. They crossed blades on Dubrillion. I wasn't there," she confessed, shame in her voice. "They say she bound Alekto to her and tore them both out of this realm. Nothing of them remained. The planet was lost anyways." Came the bitter report.