Wind in My Sails

[Adder]

Her shoulders shook as sobs wracked her body – the only sound in the eerie quiet that followed her scream.

Hot tears branded her cheeks. Her eyes stung, her nose was leaking.

Ugh.

Adder sniffled, wiping the wet mess from her flushed face. No idea if it was a minute or half an hour, but Aela was still as a statue, her face hard with… something she couldn’t put a name to. Didn’t want to – she was the fething cause, again.

“I’m sorry.”


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

It wasn't like Aela would hate Adder forever.

Aela wasn't the type of person that could hate forever, or even briefly really. It was a quality that she had inherited from her mother. At times she found it frustrating, she wanted to hate, she wanted to be angry, she wanted to ride her emotions to their natural crux, but they always fluttered away. It was a quality that many Jedi had praised her for, and many normal people had denounced her for. To some Aela seemed cold, distant, almost inhuman, but that was what she had always been.

"I understand why you hold that point of view." Her voice was still that same neutral tone, just a bit of heat still touching it.

She wouldn't stay mad, but she still felt frustrated. Adder had a point of course, but what she felt, what she thought didn't come from some rational base. It came from experience of hurt and pain, it was born of something that no one should experience but plenty had. It was still wrong however.

Was an apology enough? Maybe. Maybe not. "But I can't stand it."

 

[Adder]

[member="Aela Talith"]

“It’s hard,” Adder admitted, eyes fixated to everything but her friend. She could hardly breathe – one look at the hard lines of Aela’s expression, and she’d break down crying again.

She felt it, felt the dam that barely held. Cracks spreading out of the fault line that had cut across it so suddenly, so fercely.

She dragged in a shuddering inhale, and it raked her throat. Raw.

“I— I know, rationally, but it’s just so,” Adder gripped the bark of her perch, found strength in the pain as it dug into her palm. “I can’t help it, Aela,” she breathed, weak as the evening breeze.

“It’s this… ugly fething thing, and I don’t want it, but it’s there anyway! Like anyone’s ever cared what I want, shet. Not even my own damn head… ”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

Aela stared at her friend for a few silent moments.

There wasn't really anything she could say, or even really wanted to say. She wasn't at all pleased in the moment, and sympathy didn't come easily even for her when she was upset. After a few more seconds however Aela eased up just a little bit. Some of the sternness dropped from her face, her expression growing just a bit softer.

Though it was clear she was still mad. "Do you know how many Jedi I know that feel the same?"

She asked quietly.

"Nobody wants war, nobody wants battle, nobody wants innocents to get hurt." She frowned. "It just happens because of a few...a tiny minority.."

Always. "Blaming each other...it just makes it worse."

 

[Adder]

She rubbed her reddened eyes, her wet cheeks. Movements were sluggish, slow. Adder felt tired like she hadn’t in months. Like all those nights she’d escaped, year after year, drowning memories in the bottle – like they’d all caught up to her at once.

A pause for breath, a sad chuckle.

“Well… someone’s gotta be guilty, right? War don’t just appear out of thin air. You always got fethers who wanna go kill other fethers.”

Adder shook her head, feeling the fatigue of the decades spent trying to keep that from happening.

“Just need a greedy bastard to sell them a good story, and you’re set for another ten years of mindless killing.”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She shrugged. Her opinions on this were somewhat...cynical by now, but that was mostly born of her father. "War perpetuates itself."

There was a tinge of sadness within her tone. This was something she had realized on Coruscant, back when they had first liberated the world. She had seen then what the One Sith had brought, she had seen what it had brought to people, the world itself.

"The hatred. The anger." She motioned to her friend. "Look how you feel."

She shook her head. "There's thousands, maybe millions of people who feel the same way as you, but they have more impulse. They'll strike out, they'll get weapons, bombs, they'll act upon their hatred instead of just yelling."

The Jedi Master stepped back, kicking the sand for a moment and frowning.

"There's no stopping it, not really." There was a tinge of desperation in her voice. "It's why I'm leaving The Order."

 

[Adder]

“You— what?”

The admission punched through her self-pity like a lightsaber through a trooper. Her red-rimmed eyes flew wide open, mouth gaping – but no sound emerged.

“You’re… you’re leaving?”

Adder swallowed, blinked, near-on pinched herself. Her throat was dry (from the screaming, from the tears, now from this) and she… she didn’t know anything. If Aela… but she wouldn’t. How?

“But— but you are the Order!” she breathed. “What are you going to do? Just… give up?”


[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"Not anymore." She said quietly.

It hurt her to do it of course, but she had thought about it. She had asked her parents, her padawan, even her friends within the Order. Jacen had told her the same thing, they had all told her the same thing. She frowned for a moment, then looked away from Adder and towards her feet.

Her lips thinned.

"I've been fighting the Sith since I was thirteen years old." That was when she'd first encountered them anyway, when she had taken up her fathers lightsaber. It was a memory that stuck with her even now, and was one of the reasons she wanted to leave now. "I helped take down the One Sith. I've arrested dozens of Crime Lords, corrupt governors..."

She trailed off. "I don't want to fight anymore."

There was a pain in her voice.

"Not when every time I do something new pops up. Not when I know there's no stopping it." She frowned, then began to answer Adder's question. "There's an Academy on Wroosti, it's new. They need teachers."

That was what she would do.

 

[Adder]

Adder squeezed her eyes shut to keep the tears at bay. Not for herself… for Aela. The words couldn’t ring more true with her heart if she’d said them herself. Not the stuff about the Jedi, just… the emotion behind it. She knew it too damn well, and it fething hurt.

Before she knew it she was standing, advancing on her friend again. Not to cause her pain, no. Never again.

She drew her arms around the taller woman, fierce, almost desperate.

This fight they carried on and on and on… it was empty. Aela knew this too, now, and Adder felt her cheeks grow hot and wet again. She hated crying – felt fething weak – but she couldn’t stop it either.

It was her, fifteen years ago, staring her Captain dead in the eye as she threw the badge and the blaster on his desk.

It was Aela, now, as she gently set down her Marshall burden and walked away.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered. Not for what she did, this time – but for what the world was like.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

Aela patted her friend on the back. "It's fine."

The one thing people couldn't accuse Aela of was not caring.

She had done her share of it, and now, now she was going to try hard not to. The Jedi Master was sure that it wouldn't really work, that she would be dragged into some conflict somewhere for some reason, but she was going to try her best to be happy. That was what mattered to her for now.

Having a life.

It seemed cruel in a way, like she was abandoning the suffering people of the galaxy to their own fate, but she knew that if she didn't take the step now she never would. A life devoted to others was a good cause, but some would argue that it was no life at all in some ways. Aela wasn't quite sure how she felt, but she knew that she wanted a chance. A chance to be somewhat normal, to have friends, maybe even have a relationship with someone.

She wanted to live, not die in war.

 

[Adder]

Slowly, resolutely, Adder shook her head.

“No,” she breathed into Aela’s shirt, wet with tears. “It’s not.”

“I do shet like this all the time. I feth up, and dammit, Aela,” she pulled away, met her gaze, “I’m old enough to know better.”

But you don’t ever fething learn.

The woman sighed, wiping her cheeks. At least in the dark, the blonde couldn’t see just quite red her eyes were. “I guess I’m just… angry.”

“And tired. I’m so damn tired of this song and dance, that I can’t even— ah, preaching to the choir.” She chuckled. “It’s why you’re leaving the Order.”

Adder picked up the broken branches out of the way. “Come on. Let’s get these for the fire. We both need sleep.”

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

It was something she could agree on at least.

Unfortunately starting a fire wouldn't be as easy as just snapping their fingers. The Force could do such things of course, but Aela couldn't. AS they gathered more firewood the two women eventually made it back to the small campsite they had already erected. The sun was nearly at the horizon and Aela couldn't help but wonder if somewhere out on that ocean lingered a ship or something else that could save them.

She frowned as they placed down the firewood in a large pile. "Too bad I don't have my lightsabers."

Aela mused.

"Would be easier with those." Much easier in fact.

It was rare that Aela left them behind, but she hadn't figured on needing them here.

 

[Adder]

“Oh. Uh,” Adder teetered there with an armful of branches. Focus, woman. She’d done enough stupid things in one evening to last her the next few years. Time to solve shet and stop faffing about.

“I left my lighter out on the sun earlier. Should be dry by now.” I hope.

Dropping the bundle of sticks and kindling on top of everything else they’d gathered, Adder marched over to the outcropping where she’d left her stuff. The clothes were still a bit damp in places, but her utility belt – and, more importantly, its contents – were fine.

After her third crash landing on a backwater planet, the redhead had learned to carry a few absolute necessities with her. Not toiletries, mind you. Useful stuff – a knife, a lighter, a hydrospanner, backup powercells, the lot.

“You know how to set up a pyre?” she asked as she began arranging a stone circle. Busy was good. Busy meant she didn’t have to think about the horrible things she’d said. That she was capable of saying them, after everything she’d seen.

Anger was an underhanded beast.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"Yes." She stated simply. "I grew up on an island."

That wasn't any sort of profound saying, but rather a simple truth.

Borleias, her homeworld, had no single continent as it's mainstay of civilization. Instead the entire planet was dotted with hundreds of thousands of islands, some larger than others. The place she had grown up on was a tiny string of three islands in the southern hemisphere.

Her parents had built their home there, and of course though electricity and every luxury was provided, Aela had her siblings had still gone 'camping' fairly frequently on the other islands within the small chain. It was a natural thing, though most of the time they had brought half the luxuries of their house home with them. She set to work without another word, building up the fireplace as fast as Adder managed to set up the circular rocks.

After a few moments she'd built the pyre properly and set about gathering some fallen bark from the surrounding trees. "Tomorrow we'll check the waters."

Part of her was still counting on that gungan city.

 

[Adder]

“Oh. Right,” Adder shot her a sheepish smile. She helped build the rest of the pyre in silence, intermittently opening her mouth and clamping it back shut. You’ve done enough damage today.

Thinking back to their row in the jungle made her chest ache. It made her want to kick the branches, kick the stones, kick something, anything – she’d scream if she could. Until she went hoarse and couldn’t say stupid shet anymore.

And then she got angry about being angry, and… STOP.

“Yeah. ‘D you…” she licked her lips, looking anywhere but at the blonde, “want help? Tomorrow?”

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She shrugged. "I don't think you can hold your breath long enough."

That wasn't a dig at Adder, just a small observation. Aela could hold her breath for about fifteen minutes with assistance of the force and although that wasn't long enough to reach any sort of underwater city it was long enough to spot one. At least in her experience with the Gungans. She frowned for a moment.

"It'll be a good idea to stay on shore though." The Jedi Master said. "So I know where to head back to."

She wasn't too keen on the idea of getting lost in the ocean.

Though the island wouldn't leave her sight she knew that the place was big enough that she could get lost wandering around. Better to have Adder standing somewhere with a torch or something similar that could be used to spot her. That way there would be no confusion when she made her way back to the island.

 

[Adder]

Thank Force for the night. The fickle light of the fire obscured the embarrassed blush that colored her cheeks, and Adder busied herself stoking the flames. At least then she’d have the heat as an excuse. “No,” she replied after a beat. “I can’t.”

“I can stand on the shore though,” the redhead chuckled, shooting a crooked smile at Aela. “Maybe I’ll fish, if you don’t scare them all way diving.”

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"I'll be far enough out that it shouldn't be a problem." Aela said with a shrug.

That was certainly true. If there was a gungan city anywhere around here it would be a bit away from land. The Gungans liked to live close enough to shore that they could come and rest in the sun, move around their herds, and of course gather information. Usually they preferred the swamps, but it wasn't like they hadn't moved outward every now and again.

Aela didn't expect to find anything huge, but maybe something.

"We'll see what I find." She frowned. "If it's nothing..."

Aela trailed off. "I dunno."

 

[Adder]

“You dunno? Hah,” Adder let out a wry chuckle, prodding the embers at the edge of the campfire. “Well, we’re in deep shet then. You’re the one who grew up on an island – ‘fraid a city girl’s gonna be more a hindrance than help out here.”

The redhead let out a heavy sigh, rubbing at her face. The emotional rollercoaster of the day was seeping into her bones, into her limbs. The fire’s warmth wasn’t helping.

“Guess I can try jury rigging my datalogger to broadcast on the emergency frequency. Maybe we get lucky and ping a ship.”

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

Aela shrugged again, not being dismissive, but knowing there wasn't a big chance any ship would pick them up. "We can survive."

The young Jedi Master was at least confident of that. The island was plentiful with fresh water and fish surrounded the place, that alone would allow them to survive for quite a while. It was a tiny comfort, not something she would use to make someone feel better but...honest.

"If we're here longer than a month." She pointed to her back. "I'll use my tattoo."

Though she'd rather not.

"Plus there's that cliff." She pointed to where it had been, though it was too dark to see now.