Private So, This Galaxy You've Got... (Quinn)

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

TO: Quinn Varanin
RE: Meeting request

Quinn-

By all accounts you're doing well. I'd like to sit down to discuss your impressions of the current movers and shakers of galactic affairs and also, perhaps, have tea or something like it. Let me know what world and venue you would prefer at your earliest convenience.

Remember, it's not gossip, it's shared operational constraints.

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Ashin Cardé Varanin //:​

Quinn sat quietly, sipping her tea. A finger swiping through the latest fashion trends on Jutrand. She needed to buy a few things if she was going to fit in. Also, it didn't hurt to pick up something to play with Alina's imagination.

The devilish smile faded instantly the moment the message came across her device. It was encrypted, and Quinn knew one person who would send such messages.

Ashin.

Shifting in her seat, Quinn opened the message from the woman and scanned it. It took her a few reads to realize what the message was saying. She took a sip and quickly responded.

Papa,
​

Jutrand, if that's possible. I have a home here. If not, I can travel to Eshan - I know we're both safe there. Please let me know which is better for you. I hope you're well, Papa.​

I miss you

Quinn​

There were moments when she desperately needed her parents, but her pride had gotten the best of her, forcing her to stand on her two feet and learn from the mistakes of her heart.

Whatever place Ashin chose to visit when she arrived, Quinn would have tea ready and small snacks, specifically ones that she remembered Ashin eating. As much as Quinn wanted to remain calm, she could not sit. Instead, the young woman looked out the large window in the living quarters. She chewed on the tip of her thumb, a habit she had inherited from her mother when they were nervous.

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Quinn's reply caught Ashin in her firing range aboard the Pomojema: a narrow tunnel that stretched the whole length of the ship, suitable for calibrating and practicing with her extensive collection of sniper rifles. Today she was working with something innocuous, her Glimmersteel GSS-11 sporting rifle. This particular body had its limits, so she used an anticoncussion shoulderpad even though the Glimmersteel didn't kick all that hard. After this many bodies - this was her fourth? Fifth? - she felt the need to take better care of them, more accommodating of their unique frailties.

To that end, when Quinn's reply provoked an emotional response, Ashin permitted herself exactly one tear.

JUTRAND
GRUMANI SECTOR
HOME OF Quinn Varanin ​

"No armor, no mace, no rifle, no spotter droid, and definitely no Dark Jedi entourage," said Ashin as she came in, apropos of nothing. "I feel downright naked traveling around this planet. The air feels tense out there."

The whole Grumani Sector was awkwardly positioned, subject to the conflicting influences - and, sometimes, outright conflicts - of the Sith and the Rimward Trade League. Who controlled which worlds at any given time escaped her.

"Thanks for having me," she added. "It's good to see you. How are you?"

She actually meant that. If you'd asked Ashin twenty years ago whether she had a functional relationship with her children, she might have laughed. These days, stiff and awkward as she could be at times, she'd transcended making an effort and actually found them, by and large, interesting.

 

[Quinn Varanin]

//: Ashin Cardé Varanin //:​

Quinn paused her nervous habit and looked towards Ashin. She wore another face, but the feeling was familiar. It was something that they could always know with Ashin. "I'm doing…" Quinn paused momentarily. She wondered where she should start. "Well, I recently just traveled to the netherworld and fetched the soul of my lover." Shrugging, Quinn tried not to enjoy the parallels between her and Ashin. "Sound familiar?" She chuckled and then moved towards the other woman, yearning for an embrace, but once more fought the urge.

"Beyond that, I've just been studying. After the ordeal with Vesta deciding that the reality that we lived in wasn't perfect enough for her to bother trying to be with me, I just stopped caring for a bit." Maybe she was more like Spencer than she liked to admit to. Her heart shatters like it did when Vesta explained her destined path. "I never understood it; she wanted to not be with me until she could write a reality where we could be together."

The Echani stopped, catching herself rambling about such trivial things. "I'm happy you visited; how have you been? How's mama?" Quinn hadn't contacted either parent for some time, not after her sister had taken the Eshan throne. The estranged princess avoided her sister, the man she decided to marry, and their child. It wasn't a life she felt welcome to be a part of, but she never understood why. "How's Noelle?"

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"Noelle is a queen, and that's an all-consuming role." Subtext, subtext. "Your mother's well. I do what I can to keep her retirement quiet when that's what she wants. I dragged her across the galaxy before you were born, remember. I'll always owe her some rest."

That brought back a bad memory or three, albeit fogged by long years and more than one change of body and brain. Had she ever told Quinn about Spencer's torture at the hands of the One Sith, or other times when Ashin had failed, abjectly, to keep her wife safe? She couldn't recall. Chalk that up on the list of things she'd probably never told her daughters.

Right up there with 'you can define yourself independently of a significant other,' advice that would have made Ashin guilty of decades of hypocrisy.

"I hold myself in contempt," she said abruptly, "that you couldn't come to me for help with your Netherworld concern. When your mother was trapped, I made a coalition, exploited all the contacts I could resurrect, got old friends killed to make it work. You can turn to me. But I'm impressed that you didn't need to. I want to hear more about your victory." She mustered half a grin. "And if I can remediate some of my errors by picking off an ex or two for you at a thousand yards, do let me know."

Quinn Varanin