Soup Can Conversations [Open | Republic]

[Avalore Eden]

Coruscant
Jedi Temple
Communications Lab
2:27AM


Eight months pregnant and about to burst, Avalore didn't sleep much anymore. At the insistence of the the older Jedi Knights and Masters, she'd taken leave from her studies and from her duties as a Healer. This left the young woman with...not much to do.

It used to be she'd tend to patients or walk around the city proper to the Temple. But walking, anymore, was more a laborious chore of hobble-waddling, and the discomfort simply wasn't worth it. So, she spent a lot of time in the library, the gardens, and her room. Avalore didn't have a lot of friends. Astrian had taken leave some time ago, Diana was on Cato Nemoidia, and the two other Padawans she shared a Master with ...well

One of them excelled to Jedi Master in what seemed like a matter of months.
The other? She'd never met.

Amazing to think that pregnancy had held her back so much. The idea of having reached Jedi Master by now was something of a far off, hazey dream she couldn't remember. She felt stuck, and exasperated, and more than a little lonely. She missed her old Master and wished she knew how to find him again, but all attempts and efforts had been in vain. Avalore feared the worst.

So now, sitting here in the communications lab before a private comm, she hesitated on who to call. Really, the choices were slim, so with a sigh she reached forward and dialed in the number to the only person she knew would likely answer. [member="Diana Moridena"]

[member="Marakai Al'Orren"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

Diana had received the call, and of course she had answered it. Coruscant made her uncomfortable nowadays, in fact it made her downright uneasy, but one of her padawans needed her, and so she came.

Coruscant was the home to every Jedi that now despised her, every Jedi that thought her a murderer and a warmonger. She hated this place. It felt to her as though every eye was upon her, judging her silently as she stalked through the halls not in robes, but in armor, she no longer felt comfortable in the robes of the Jedi. It was ironic really, that fact wasn't lost on Diana. It was probably why they thought her a warmonger, or at least part of it.

She wore armor constantly now, but it made her feel safe, and that was enough cause to wear it even here.

Quickly she moved through the halls of the Jedi Temple, finding Avalore's room in no time and rapping her knuckles on the door. Diana had not completely abandoned Avalore of course, she frequently returned to the girl and they met outside the temple, likewise Avalore took trips to Cato Neimoidia, though that had slowed since the girl entered her last months of pregnancy.

Eagerly Diana waited for the girl to open her door.

 

[Avalore Eden]

Avalore answered the door wearing the only clothes that fit her anymore; those dastardly Jedi robes that her Master had forgone. She'd had to find herself larger sizes in order to accommodate her very large belly, and so it was that the midsection was the only portion of her outfit that really fit. The shoulder darts draped down along her upper arms, the sleeves required rolling and tying off to keep them out of the way. The pants? Well, they were rather relaxed, and were it not for the stretch panel sewn into it by one of her fellow Healers who had a skilled hand with a needle and thread, they'd likely never stay up.

I refuse to wear a maternity gown, she'd written in her journal a week ago, I'd rather clean womprat cages in the labs.

Regardless, she'd been in a rather rotten mood until the moment she laid eyes upon her fully-suited Master. Avalore grinned and slowly moved forward to hug the woman, tightly - as tightly as her belly would allow.

"Thanks for coming Di," the need to stand on ceremony between them had died long ago. Avalore knew when to address her by her title and when it wasn't necessary. She preferred it this way - it felt more like a friendship, and less like a classroom.

"You didn't have to take that trek, ya know, a simple holocall would've been fine."

 

[Cedric Dorn]

Diana embraced her apprentice for a few moments, holding her tightly against the armor she wore. She imagined it was rather cold, but since the girls skin didn't really touch her she imagined it didn't really matter. The Jedi Master frowned slightly as her apprentice told her a holocall would do. For Diana that was not so, she felt that Avalore had been in trouble, nothing but her undivided attention would do.

“No.” She smiled slightly as she backed off from Avalore and let go of the girl. “You called, I could tell something was wrong.”

She was intuitive like that.

“What wrong?” Diana swept into Avalore's room without so much as a pause or invitation. She lithely moved past the pregnant girl, squeezing through the doorway and stepping into the meager rooms of the padawan.
[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Well, I mean-" Avalore turned to follow Diana into her room, hearing the soft snick of the door hissing shut behind her.

A frown curved the young woman's lips as she shoved her hands into the pockets of her over robes, "-nothing...not really, anyway. I, uh-" her expression went through a cycle of put-upon faces, settling after a good smack of her lips, "I was just lonely. Wanted someone to talk to that wouldn't spend the entire conversation staring at my globe."

She stared at the floor and for the first time since she'd moved into that room notice that the carpet had a striped pattern.

"But since you're here, do you wanna do anything at all but stay in this room? I'm pretty much intimately familiar with every smudge on the wall and tile on the ceiling."

[member="Diana Moridena"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

“Oh.” Diana said as if the thought of loneliness had never actually occurred to her, as if it was completely out of her range of emotions. She frowned for a second, and then simply nodded. She wouldn't mind leaving this room, but she'd rather not stay in the temple either.

“Would you like to venture outside the temple?” She said the words almost slowly, unsure of Avalore's current condition. “I'm not exactly welcome here anymore.”

The Jedi Master cringed slightly at the words, not really enjoying saying them to her apprentice. Avalore had to know of course, the controversy around Daella and Diana was quite famous at this point and she was sure that at least some Jedi wouldn't keep their traps shut around Avalore, but saying the words herself still made her wince.

Her face sagged slightly, this was all very depressing.
[member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Avalore Eden]

Avalore knew, or at least had heard the rumors, but coming from a child who grew up as the butt of many jokes in school she'd come to regard gossip as an absurd sort of thing. She didn't care what they said about Diana, Avalore knew the woman was a good person, knew that her old Master would approve of her and her actions. It paid to be proactive.

"Yeah, that'd be fine. I don't move real fast, but my cabin fever is way worse than my swollen feet," she smiled and moved to slip on a pair of sandals - the only shoes she had that would fit.

Before long the pair was making their way through the Temple entrance and down the steps. Avalore held her belly as she took the steps slowly, methodically, "I'm not taking my classes anymore and the other Masters have excused me from my Healing duties at the hospital wing cause it's too hard to do anything. McPuff's become a veritable no-fun zone. It's like I'm carrying an Ysalamir, only it negates fun."

[member="Diana Moridena"]

 

[Marakai Al'Orren]

Fingers smoothed out her tunic over her leggings, auburn curls loose and swirling around her as she walked. Through the Temple, out to the front entrance, and down the stairs at a slow, sedate pace. Force knew she couldn't sleep...hadn't slept more than an hour at a time in the last few days. Becoming accustomed to sleeping alone was far more difficult than she had anticipated.

At least she had managed to find a tiny single room that no one wanted because it was windowless and dark. But it was comforting to her feline side, and afforded her some measure of privacy to vent her sorrow. She'd tried holding it in, but that only served to make a gloriously awful scene when she'd lost it in the middle of the Archives.

Mara was at a loss. So she walked. Avoided everyone with the barest of polite nods, and simply walked out of the Temple in an effort to find something resembling fresh air. Open air and a respite from the questions people peppered her with. The gossip mill of the Temple made the HN reporters look like amateurs...the redhead sighed as her boots clicked along the broad steps.

Soon enough, she hoped, they'd be on to some new topic.

In the mean time, Mara was determined to spend as little time confined to the Temple as possible. Amber eyes blinked as she passed two others making their way out as she was, and she descended past them in short order until her brain processed who it was that she'd passed. Turning, she waited until they had reached the bottom of the stairs, a soft smile coming to her features for both of them.

"Master...I didn't know you were here...is everything alright?" she queried.


[member="Diana Moridena"] & [member="Avalore Eden"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

“I see.” Diana said as she began to walk down the steps of the temple. Slowly she began to relax as they descended the steps, her muscles becoming less tense and her eyes slowly focusing more on what was ahead of her, rather than the people around her. When they hit the bottom of the temple steps she let out a deep sigh, as if she was suddenly far more at ease than before.

She looked Avalore over for what seemed like the first time in a while. Diana studied her apprentice astutely, taking in every little detail. At one point she reached out with a gloved hand and smoothed the girls hair, folding over unkempt knots and flattening it. “I-”

Suddenly she was interrupted by her another voice. She turned and her eyes lit up slightly, it was her other apprentice, one that she sadly hardly ever saw.

“Mara!” She smiled, sounding as excited as she had to see Avalore. She turned to Avalore and regarded Mara at the same time. “Avalore, this is Mara. My other padawan.”

She doubted the two girls had ever met, Coruscant's Temple was massive and the two lesson plans the girls had weren't exactly similar, especially now that Avalore was fit to burst.

 

[Avalore Eden]

Force, had she forgotten to brush her hair again?

Avalore smiled impishly under the hand of her Master, lifting her own to run them over the windswept mess atop her head. Really, she'd stopped caring about it long ago. Her hair did as it pleased and there was no stopping it now. She pushed it off her shoulders and pulled her bangs back over her ears, but they didn't stay because they were too short to get a good hook. Instead they fell back around her face and flipped in the light breeze.

The woman wriggled her nose at the tickle.

Then she noticed the stranger.

"Other Apprentice, but-" didn't that one ride the promotion-train to Master City? No, wait, that was a dude. This one... Avalore looked her up and down, clearly not a dude.

"Hi," she offered casually, "so you're the one whose lessons Dangerous Di speeds off to all the time. Don't blame her really, history is such a drag." Hands resting over her moon-sized belly, she patted it absently.

Avalore had one combat lesson. Just one. That's all it took for Diana to realize that Avalore was not going to combat well, ever.

[member="Marakai Al'Orren"]

 

[Marakai Al'Orren]

"It's nice to finally meet you, Avalore."

Hands clasped behind her back, she was rather proud of herself for not wincing as Avalore said 'other apprentice' and looked her up and down. It wasn't hard to discern who she was thinking of, as Diana's only other apprentice in recent months had been Sarge. Fingers reached up to tuck an auburn curl behind her ear as she somehow managed a soft smile in response.

It was relatively easy since Diana looked so pleased to see her, and Avalore at least didn't mention his name. With any luck at all, it wouldn't come up, her master wouldn't ask, and she could avoid the topic entirely.

"Uhhh...not exactly. I haven't exactly had a lost of lessons since I got here. Which I had pointed out to me rather recently, so I...I'm hoping to change that." Mara nodded and dropped her gaze down to the ground, studying her boots for a few moments, more than a little embarassed at her admission.

Looking up at each of them in turn, she did manage to look a bit concerned. "I'm not keeping you from anything, am I? You must be on your way somewhere."

 

[Avalore Eden]

"Just food," Avalore raised her brows with a side glance to Diana, "and lots of it hopefully. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll run into one of my missing womprats while we're out."

Still no luck in the womprat bounty. No one had turned any in to claim the reward. Avalore frowned as she thought of this, glad to be free of her lessons and the persistent questions of Ysan about the littlest womprat.

"I'd say something clever like 'you can join us but only if you can keep up'," Avalore intoned with a stout expression, "but really it's more like if you can stand to walk slow enough for me to keep up."

[member="Diana Moridena"]
[member="Marakai Al'Orren"]

 

[Cedric Dorn]

“Were on our way to no one Mara.” Diana chirped slightly as she watched the two apprentices interact with one another. It was an odd thing to watch them, but strangely heartwarming. She smiled at them both, and when Avalore finally admitted that she was rather slow at the moment Diana allowed herself a small chuckle. When she mentioned womprats all she could do was raise an eyebrow, she had heard nothing of womprats going missing.

“Lets get going. I'll buy.” That had probably been assumed the entire time, given that she was the master. “Where shall we go?”

There weren't many restaurants near the Jedi temple, for obvious reasons, but there were a few within walking distance. She just hoped that they could make it to one before Avalore began to consume everything around them, she was known for such things.