Wind in My Sails

[Adder]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Her nose scrunched up as she watched the younger woman – the fierce set of her jaw, the upward tilt of her chin. Adder smiled, eyes crinkling at the corners.

“You did a good thing,” she spoke after a beat. “What could’ve been… doesn’t matter. You saved millions, Aela.” Rubbing her brow, the redhead searched for words. Never been her talent, as she’d proved yesterday well enough. The memory alone made her throat sting.

“At some point, it’s enough. Someone else has to take up arms,” she dropped her hand from the blonde’s shoulder and returned her gaze to the deep forest ahead.

Maybe one of these days, you’ll take your own advice.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She shrugged again. "I know that."

Adder wouldn't hear any argument from her on the subject. She was proud of what she had accomplished, of everything that she had done, but it was time to leave it behind. In her mind she didn't want to be that person anymore. She didn't want to be the vanguard.

"I want to be normal." She said quietly. "As Normal as I can be anyway."

For a second Aela trailed off. "I want to make friends. Jog for fun instead of training...go clubbing."

It seemed silly, but it was true.

"I want to live in the peace that I helped create." Aela said quietly. "At least for a little while."

 

[Adder]

Adder side-eyed her friend again, pinching her lips to hold back a chortle. Aela? Normal?

“That’s… fair,” she relented, ducking beneath a fallen tree. Slimy vines and (probably poisonous) orchids grew out of the trunk every which way. Adder did her very urban best to avoid them.

“But you have friends, Aela,” the redhead added with a slight furrow in her brow. You have me.

Even if sometimes, she fethed it up. Big time.

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"I know." She said with a smile.

Was Adder worried?

"I'm not about to forget my past." That wasn't what she intended. "I just want to look to my future."

That was a good thing, wasn't it? To look past what you had already done and improve upon your life. She frowned for a few seconds, and then shook her head slightly before glancing up at the mountain ahead of them. They had a little ways to go still. "I've missed out on a lot."

She explained quietly.

"I just want to catch up." She deserved to, or she thought so anyway.

 

[Adder]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Mulling over her answers, Adder pushed further into the jungle. Far above, the sun was beginning its final climb into zenith, and she’d never been happier for the thick canopy overhead. Yesterday they’d missed the worst of it, but a midday out in the open would surely leave her scorched.

“That’s…” she smiled, “that’s normal, Aela.” Sighing, the redhead continued, eyes fixed somewhere on the distant horizon. “Sometimes you’ve been doing it for so long that it feels like you owe it to someone, to everyone, to fight. That if you don’t do it, who will?”

“I know I felt that way for a long time after I left Coruscant. Guilty, I think. I don’t know,” she shook her head, “point is, don’t do that.”

“You gotta live too. After everything you’ve done… you deserve it. And if teaching makes you happy, you should do it.”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"I'm going to." Aela said with a smile.

No one really had to tell her twice to do something that she wanted to do. She had already asked her mother, her padawan, consulted with...pretty much everyone. The decision was already made up in Aela's mind, and inside of a month...as long as they got off this island, she would be living on Wroosti.

"It's not the teaching I really look forward to." Aela mused as they continued to walk. "It's doing...ordinary things."

Perhaps that seemed silly, but for Aela it was a thought she enjoyed. "Grocery shopping, cleaning, going out."

She laughed.

"Some things I haven't done since I was a kid." Her mother had always insisted they clean their own rooms, not the droids. "Some I've never done."

 

[Adder]

[member="Aela Talith"]

She laughed out loud, this time.

“Oh, geeze,” Adder choked out between snorts. “Bet you you’ll be calling me in a week if I got any criminals you can help catch.” The redhead chanced a glance at the younger woman, still chuckling.

“Compared to the life you’ve led, Aela, ordinary things are boring as heck,” she elaborated after the laughter died down. Curious green eyes sought out bright orange.

“What haven’t you done?”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She shrugged. "I need a little boring."

That was an understatement, a big one.

"I've never gone grocery shopping, I've never cooked for myself." The latter was probably a little bit sad. She'd had plenty of opportunity as a kid, her mother had always offered, but she'd never really been all that interested before. Now that she was older though she saw the appeal. "I've never...just gone out with my friends."

She paused. "Well that's not true, Jamie and I went drinking on Vineta but that doesn't really count."

Aela shrugged.

"I just want to do ordinary things." She said. "And I think I can."

 

[Adder]

“You… [member="Aela Talith"]… went out drinking?”

Adder near-on choked on empty air. She stopped in her tracks and whirled on the taller woman, green eyes wide with amusement and surprise. “And with your apprentice, no less,” the redhead shook her head, biting the inside of her cheek. “Is that how you’re gonna teach the kids at the Academy too? A lesson in the Force, then a night on the town?”

A one-shouldered shrug, then she pushed on ahead. “Guess there’s something to be said for the ordinary stuff. I enjoy it enough back on Sulon.”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"She was sad." Aela explained, though she gave no indiciation of why Jamie was sad in the first place. That was something that she would have to share on her own. Aela wasn't in the business of spreading gossip around, even when people didn't know each other.

Better that way.

"It was the only thing I could think of to cheer her up." In all fairness it had actually worked pretty well, and the mission they had been on had gone undisrupted. No one would really criticize her for the choice, no one but herself anyway. The splitting headache she'd had the next day was more than enough punishment. "The children on Wroosti won't know anything about life."

She said the words quietly. "Not for a while anyway."

There was a reason they were being raised in the Temple.

"Ordinary is good, calm." She needed calm, desperately.

 

[Adder]

Adder was glad to be a few paces ahead of Aela – better that the blonde didn’t see that frown. She did her best to smooth out the furrow in her brow by the time she glanced back at the other woman.

“That’s… I never got that, really?” she rephrased, finally, stopping in her tracks. “How can you teach a kid to protect a galaxy he doesn’t even know?”

[member="Aela Talith"]

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

She turned back towards her friend for a moment. "I'm not training them to protect anything but themselves."

Not these children.

"Centuries ago the Jedi Order would take children from their parents...or rather they were given the Children, Jedi never kidnapped anyone or anything." It was a confusing piece of history, not one she really wanted to get into at the moment. "The New Jedi Order doesn't do that. Most Padawans we get are teenagers or older."

A fact that was easily verified. "The kids on Wroosti are a different story."

Part of why the Temple would be so secluded.

"These kids are...powerful. Very powerful in the force. If they're left untrained it can be dangerous, they could hurt themselves, others...maybe get captured by the Sith." A scary thought in truth. "I and the others on Wroosti will be training them, then when they know how to control their power they'll be given a choice of whether or not they'll want to join The Order."

 

[Adder]

[member="Aela Talith"]

She stayed quiet for once, biting her cheek to keep from talking right over Aela. She focused instead on pushing through the thick of the jungle, towards the flickering sun that peeked through the dense foliage every few steps.

They were getting closer to the cliff now – the terrain was becoming steeper, and her breath shorter.

“What makes them so powerful?” Adder asked between labored strides, cutting aside another intruding branch. How do people live in this?

A mystery for the ages. She could hardly wait to set her boots back on sweet, sweet duracrete.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

For her part at least Aela seemed hardly bothered by the weather or the ground they were walking on.

It was little surprise really, she had grown up on a chain of islands and spent her youth exploring jungles that were larger, thicker, and more humid. These conditions suited her in a way, and as they continued to move forward the Jedi Master didn't seem at all bothered by anything around them. ”They are naturally gifted in the force, more connected to it than the average Jedi or Sith would be.”

That was why they were so valuable.

”We don't really know why that happens, maybe genetics, maybe luck, maybe the will of the force itself.” She shrugged. ”Both of my parents are force users and my father is extremely strong, but I'm still only slightly stronger than most.”

In terms of raw power anyway.

 

[Adder]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Adder squinted her eyes at the glare of the sun, wiping the sticky sweat from her brow. Couldn’t get off this island fast enough. Too many bugs, too hot, too humid, too much sand, too much everything.

“How do you guys even… figure out how strong they are? Like, how do you measure the Force?” The redhead laughed, very much out of breath. “Isn’t it supposed to be something… dunno, magical?”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

Slowly they began to ascend the mountain side now, Aela still maintaining her composure to the utmost.

"There's a few different weighs." The Jedi Master began. "First off is reading the amount of midi-chlorians in the bloodstream. They're...tiny microscopic organisms, the more you have the more likely you're able to control the force."

Though that was difficult. "Everyone has them, even you, just force users have way more."

She shrugged.

"There's also a simpler way, sometimes you can just...sense it." She half turned to Adder. "Some can do it better than others, but generally when another force user is nearby you're able to feel it, and that feeling can be used to judge their strength. Particularly if the person is untrained."

It really was sort of like magic.

 

[Adder]

[member="Aela Talith"]

Chewing on the inside of her cheek, Adder finally gave up and leaned on a nearby tree. Enough. She was eyeing the forties now. Girl needed a breather every now and then.

“So you have what? Force scanners or something?” With a light shake of her head, Adder met Aela’s gaze. “How good are you at it? The… scanning thing?”

She pushed off the trunk, biting into the slope again. It wasn’t far now.

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"Not great." She admitted.

Sensory type things had never really been her cup of tea, she could barely feel if a darksider was nearby. It wasn't really all that much of a failing considering her strengths, but she did feel somewhat self conscious about it when standing next to a Jedi who was particularly skilled at it.

"My talents sit elsewhere." She shrugged. "I can sense it sometimes if I'm lucky, but if someones hiding..."

She trailed off. "Nothing."

Just wasn't in her wheelhouse.

 

[Adder]

[member="Aela Talith"]

A light smile pulled at her lips. Adder pulled her steps just a bit to catch Aela’s stride, nudging her in the side with an elbow. “It’s okay. We all suck at things.”

“Like, take me for example. Let me near a stove and you’ll be fighting a four alarm fire in an hour.” The redhead chuckled, pressing ahead.

“So where do your space-magic talents sit?”

 

[Aela Talith]

[member="Adder"]

"Fighting." Aela said with a shrug. Maybe the thought was a bit depressing, but it was true. Aela was probably one of the best vanguard Jedi that the Order had. "Increasing my speed, strength, crafting bubbles of protection."

The latter was a technique that she had employed almost her entire life. She could do it without a second thought and almost instantaneously. More than once it had saved her life, and more than once it had saved the lives of others. The technique was a favorite of hers in truth.

"Force light too." That one made her smile though.

Force light was a technique that not many Jedi knew, much less mastered. It was incredibly difficult and one had to be correctly aligned with the lightside of the force to even attempt it. Her father had taught her the theory of the technique, though he'd been unable to show it to her himself. It was something she'd found almost naturally, first using it back on Telti.