driftfleet | (no subject)

Nomi stepped lightly off the shuttle, making her way through the maze of docks with an easy grace. The Force would light her way, the bond like a string guiding her straight to her child...and when the young woman came into view she too started running. They collided with a crash, the elder Sunrider gathering her child up in an enormous hug.

"Vima! You're so tall!" Obviously, she's not four. "It's so, so good to see you. You have no idea."

Vima wrapped her arms around her mother. It had been seven months since she had seen Nomi--the Nomi here now was not the one she had left, but she didn't care about that just now. Alone as Jedi had become alone in history. As much as Vima didn't want to see her mother subjected to Atroma's absurd whims, she couldn't deny it was a relief to see her again.

"My hair turned red, too," she said with a smile. "I'm happy to see you too--it's been such a strange time here."

It'd been only a week for Nomi, but she didn't much care. This was her child, and what mother didn't want to see her daughter...and comfort her? She hardly wanted to vanish, or leave. Vima clearly needed this.

"It certainly did. I guess you got that from me," she chirps proudly. "And I can imagine! You'll have to tell me about it, and about the other people you've met. And everything else."

Like, your training, your diet, all those things that mothers want to know about their daughters.

"You bet. I've met all kinds of interesting people," Vima said. Future Jedi or no... she wanted to be sitting down to talk about them, though, now that she knew why they were so cagey and odd.

She pulled back, looking at Nomi's face more closely. It would take time, Vima thought, to become accustomed to this--all those travels and friction and arguments still to come, some moments that Vima wasn't that proud of. "Do you want to sit down? There's a good cafe around here, with all kinds of tea," she suggested. "It's been a long seven months, so it'll take some telling."

Nomi pressed a quick, motherly kiss into her daughter's hair before stepping apart and back. Seeing her like this...a Jedi...a teenager...it did her proud. She had no idea what was coming, of course, but in the end it didn't matter. Vima had grown strong, and that meant the world to her. Even if she didn't always have time to show it.

"Tea sounds good. So does sitting. Better than nattering away on a thoroughfare, of course. Lead the way."

Vima led them to one of the many little eateries that dotted the station, getting a couple of mugs of tea--not of any variety from their own galaxy, unfortunately, though she had been looking.

"There, that's more comfortable," she said. Now just--where to begin? With the future Jedi? The apparent destruction of the Order, far-distant though it was? Being put to bed and wandering around everyone else's psyche during the night? "I saw you asking people how much trouble I've been, but I think we can call it Jedi experience. Want me to start with my wayward Force adventures?"

Seating herself, Nomi chuckles softly. Spying, Vima? How very like herself at that age. A smile crinkles up her face and she nods. "I just wanted to see what my dear child had been up to in my absence. You'll also note I said I was trouble at fourteen, myself. It sounds like I was far worse."

She will own up to her mistakes, at least. Or her...proclivities.

"But that does seem as good a start as any."

"Oh, I noted it. And I definitely want to hear some stories about it," Vima said. There was too much she didn't know about her mother's own history. She took a sip of tea, thinking back to the beginning of her time in the Fleet.

"I've had to use the Force in battle," she said. "Not--a real one, I don't think. I'm pretty sure Atroma is sending us into a staged encounter with a droid fleet, or something. But it's pretty intense when it happens, trying to fly through laser shots."

"Fair enough, I'll not deny you that," Nomi smiled around the rim of her teacup. Whatever this was it tasted just fine. Nothing too overwhelming, but the news...her eyes darken.

"A staged encounter? Vima, you believe we're going to be sent to battle? Even a mock one..." That sort of goes against what she'd heard about a peaceful place with occasional tomfoolery...

"Does this happen often?"

Vima nodded. While it was possible to arrange a somewhat quiet life for oneself aboard ship, certain things couldn't be avoided. That was one of them. "From what people who've been here longer have said, I think it happens every few months."

She turned her cup around in her hands. "There was one, around the time I got here, with a real ship, a crew that had a disease which made them violent. That's where that big ship, the Iskaulit, came from... but Dr. Crusher knows more about it than me," she said. "The second time, a few months against different ships that were completely silent, which is why Ahsoka and I think they might be droids."

"Then I'll have to ask her about that. Diseases are nothing to scoff at," Nomi nodded, scribbling that onto a datapad she'd happened to have on her. That and the droids. Oh...boy. She wasn't fond of droids as combatants, not after the Mandalore war droids.

"Silent in the Force, you mean? Or completely silent on aural sensors as well?"

"I'm... not sure," Vima said, rubbing the back of her neck. "We did try hailing them, but they didn't respond. They chased us into a nebula that shorted out our systems, but didn't finish us off."

As for the Force... that was a trickier one. "I didn't get any feeling from them through the Force, but I don't think that means there isn't one. The augments that Atroma shoved in our heads messes with that sometimes."

"No response, but they didn't destroy you? That certainly lends credence to it being a game...and to it being droids."

Though, the mention of the augments had Nomi rubbing the back of her head. It's not like she can remove it, but it made her fairly uncomfortable thinking that a foreign object was inside her skull.

"How do you mean? A disconnect?"

Vima nodded. "Yeah. So next time it happens, we're going to try to disrupt it, or vet into their systems somehow." Even if it wasn't droids, Vima still wanted to know who they were and why they attacked--they might be prisoners of Atroma too.

She smiled ruefully when her mom rubbed at the augment. Vima understood the feeling. "You could call it a disconnect. Kind of like it puts a glass wall around certain things. It didn't cut me off completely, but it stpooed me from sensing certain things."

"How...dreadful," Nomi said with a shiver. That was perhaps the most unpleasant thing she'd been told that didn't involve a Sith Lord killing the Jedi.

"Do these disruptions last long?"

Vima was in full agreement with that shudder. The Force was so much a part of her--part of the fabric of her being--that even a temporary block unsettled her. It made her think just how helpless Ulic must have felt for all those years after Nomi had severed his connection from it.

"No, so far so good that way. Just long enough to keep me from figuring out what's strange about the thing I'm trying to sense. It's pretty dumb, because that just tells us we really need to figure out what it is."

"It does, doesn't it?"

Her smile returned, proud in a way that her daughter was coming to conclusions like that. Not that she'd ever doubted Vima's intelligence, ever...but seeing her point out such a logical deduction was nice.

"It's not a great comfort knowing we can't predict what's going to happen, but at least a glass wall is better than a lead one."

"Better a wall you can see through. Now if we could just get our lightsabers back, we could cut right through it."

She propped her hand on her chin. "I might say Atroma got more than it bargained for, with this many Jedi. But we're not exactly a unified group right now."

"No, we're from some pretty disparate times, aren't we? Do you know many of the others?"

"I've met most of them. Ahsoka was the first to show up--then Anakin, Obi-Wan, others like Padme and Leia who are from there but aren't Jedi." They all, at least, had been born within fifty years of each other.

"I... did learn from Ahsoka that the Order changed a lot. Not for the better. But nobody told me that it had been--will be--destroyed."

"They seem...nice." Nomi's hitch isn't entirely without reason. They do seem nice, but they also seem to be so vastly different. Especially Obi-Wan.

"Obi-Wan made it very, very clear that everything changes. I can tell by his mannerisms that it's not an Order than ours would recognize." She's of a mind that seeing these Jedi would be hard on her masters, as well, but that? She kept to herself.

"I'm not surprised that they kept that from you though. It's a terrible truth to hear. Frankly, I'm surprised they even told me."

A little smile appeared briefly on Vima's face on Nomi's hesitant description of nice. There was definitely lots of room for hesitation with the future.

"I have to remind myself that of course things are going to be different after that long, but I--well you talked to Ahsoka. I know you or Master Thon would never pass off your own mistakes as 'the will of the Force'."

She traced a pattern on the table with one finger. "It is terrible to talk about, even from way in the past. They must be second-guessing themselves constantly, wondering what they did or didn't do."

"No, we wouldn't," Nomi answered with a wry smile. "We're only human and Tchuukthai. We do make mistakes, and we should own up to them, not blame it on the Force."

Which brings her to another thought. Vima sounds a lot wiser, more worldly, than she'd really expected. It's a good thing, and it highlights how much growing her child's done.

"You think they've grown to doubt themselves too, then. Any specific reason?"

Vima nodded. Ulic had certainly never done that, either--his mistakes had been his own. And he had made the importance of consequences clear to Vima. One day, you will stand on a precipice.

She considered her mother's question for a moment. The Jedi who had responded to Nomi's transmission had been a lot more open with her than Vima, and she had learned several things. "The idea of no attachments, no family is--" she wanted to say new, but she wasn't sure how active that faction had been ten years ago. Vima was starting to hear about it now, though secondhand (obviously the no-attachment folks weren't going to jaw about it to her face, considering she was the daughter of two Jedi who'd never been tempted by the dark side). Evidently they'd won out. "It sounds like a recipe for isolation. Nobody said that to be a Jedi means being lonely and unhappy."

She took a sip of tea. "Not that would all be from that. They're at war, too. A long one, from the sounds of it. It's hard to be sure you're doing the right thing when you're thinking in terms of ally and enemy."

That faction had existed, yes, and she was aware of it. It wasn't something she agreed with, and it wasn't something Odan Urr would have either, she thought. He hadn't been detached himself, none of her teachers had been. They'd cared, and it was because of that care that she and the others who learned from them had thrived.

"No attachments or family...I think that's the heart of it. It's living in an ivory tower, I think. Self-imposed exile away from the population. That's not how we should live our life, as Jedi. We serve the people, and how can you serve the people...if you're detached from them."

Stated more to herself, fingertips trailing along the lip of her cup, Nomi considers Vima's statement.

"I was told, too, that the Sith appeared during the war. And that the people...turned against the Jedi, that the Jedi had become unpopular. Fallen out of favor. I think you're right, Vima. Between the war and that hopelessly myopic philosophy, they have plenty of reason to doubt. And doubt, as you know...leads to fear."

And fear to...well...you know.

Vima shook her head. That was right; living in isolation, you couldn't understand people, you didn't have new ideas or viewpoints. Their problems became distant and unreal.

And considering from the non-Jedi point of view... how could you truly trust people who kept themselves detached and locked away?

"I suppose they think it keeps them truly impartial--safe from dark influence. But it keeps them from learning. They don't understand others, and others don't understand them. I can see how people would grow to mistrust them if their only view of a Jedi is a soldier with powers they don't have themselves."

She sighed. "And then once that starts, it would be hard to stop. Fear breeding fear."

"Which again leads to the rise of the Sith, and with the galaxy fractured and divided..." Nomi sighed and leaned forward, reaching out to take one of Vima's hands.

"Not exactly what we'd have hoped for, but I'm told there is still hope. The Force will balance out, as ever it does. A strong light to counter a strong darkness, as was in our time."

Speaking more of the united Jedi Order, less about the two of them. Though, they were a part.

"On to more pleasant topics though. Ahsoka seems to think quite highly of you. It's good you're making friends."

Vima clasped Nomi's hand, glad for the contact, and nodded. She believed there was hope, too--Leia was there, so was Luke. That was proof that the Jedi could return. History repeated itself in the good as well as the bad.

She grinned when Nomi turned the subject to the more everyday concerns rather than how to feel about the distant-but-not-future. "I gotta say, it was a shock to say hello and start hearing that I was some kind of great legendary Jedi with a holocron," she said. "But I think she sees me as more of a real person, now--I like her. It's nice having a Jedi close to my age here."

"Oh I can imagine. I'm still shocked to hear we're remembered that far into the future."

She chuckled a little, curling her fingers around Vima's own hand, soft, but still calloused from work. She was never one for desk-work.

"She seems very genuine. I like her. And Beverly. Who else have you befriended, dear?"

"Me too. I'm pretty curious about the kind of stuff I put in my holocron."

Vima took a second to think about that question--there were enough, after all. "There's Stefan," she said; she had met him on the first day and stuck with her since. "He's nice--he tends to have a lot on his mind, but he's a good friend. And Leanne, the tactical officer on our ship. Our captain's a good guy too, but you've talked to him already."

There was a slight inquiring tone to the last sentence; Vima had noticed that the conversation went to private, which she assumed meant they had been talking about her.

"James, yes." Nomi noticed that twitch in her daughter's voice, and she doesn't need prompting to go on. She won't leave Vima in suspense, either.

"He told me about the difference in your age, mostly. And after that we discussed my eventual transfer to your ship, as well as the Force. I had thought, perhaps, that not everyone would be some comfortable with Jedi aboard. Even in our own home galaxy, we're often viewed with some worry, and I wanted to address any potential discomfort."

A beat.

"There was none, just so you know. He also spoke highly of your skills as a pilot."

"Nah, we're--we were uncommon enough here that nobody's been looking at us funny," said Vima. "Most haven't even heard of a Jedi until we tell them what one is." And as for discomfort, well, people on the Heron had long enough to get used to Vima levitating things around when she practiced her skills.

And she grinned, half in relief and half in amusement when Nomi explained what she and Bucky had talked about. "That's good. I haven't had much experience before getting the augment stuck in my head, but I haven't run into any asteroids yet either."

Or suns. She'd just not mention that right now. Among other future matters.

"I'd hope not. Though our ships are considerably bigger than my personal transport."

She's just glad you're doing so well. That's really important to her, you know. However there's another matter she wants to at least broach, if not talk about in full.

"There's something else I wanted to talk to you about. Doctor Crusher mentioned that the two of you had...shared memories?"

Ah yes... the calibrations. That was some months ago now, but Vima still remembered the things she had seen, and what other people had seen in her own mind.

"Yeah--a few months ago, we were all sent to the Marsiva, and we ended up in each other's heads when we slept. I was in Dr. Crusher's mind one night, and then she was in mine."

"I won't ask you what you saw. And I think you, she, and I need to sit down and talk about that sometime. But..."

Nomi squeezes Vima's hand, a look of concern on her face. She really doesn't think that's a pleasant thing to experience, at all.

"Are you alright? I know that can't have been easy."

Now that would be interesting--Vima wondered if Crusher would mention that she had actually kicked Vima out at the end for being too nosy. That could be interesting. But she nodded agreement. It was a good idea, and Vima was glad (though not surprised) that Nomi wasn't asking without Crusher present.

"I'm fine," she said, squeezing Nomi's hand back. "It's been a while, and... mostly, the memories people saw in my head weren't so bad." One of her visitors had stumbled on the destruction of Ossus, but mostly, the memories had been of a more personal and less catastrophic nature. "Not that I'm looking forward to a repeat."

"Let's hope it doesn't repeat. I don't particularly want anyone in my head, either."

Since she has some decidedly ugly memories, that she wouldn't wish on anyone. But seeing that her child is fine, she shifts gears one more time.

"I guess...we should also discuss your training. That'll have to begin soon. Or continue. What have you learned so far, so I'll have an idea of where to begin?"

"If it does, I'll make sure to be careful not to snoop," said Vima. Honestly, if it did, and she was aware of it--she probably wouldn't touch anything. There were a lot of bad things in there, and they would be as clear and defined as a four-year-old memories were not.

She took a deep breath when Nomi introduced the topic of training... Vima had been expecting it. How much to say? She didn't want to talk about Ulic right now, right this second. But she wasn't intending to lie either. "I know the basics. I've been doing things on my own--meditation, moving things with the Force, sharpening my senses. I've started sparring with Ahsoka, too, though we have to use sticks."

Nomi nodded and finished up her tea with a quick swallow. So Vima had the basics, and that was a start. That was more than she'd expected, really. And lightsabers, too. Good. Ahsoka probably was good for that, and it was like playing, too. Bonding with another teenager.

"Good, then we can start there. I can help reinforce those lessons, and you can keep practicing on your own, and with Ahsoka. And we can probably start introducing more advanced things into your training as well. I have a few ideas, things I learned quickly, and that you likely have an affinity for too."

Vima nodded. She had always wanted to train with Nomi--had always dreamed of that, assumed that it would happen.

It was a good thing, really, that it hadn't happened the way she'd thought it would, but she had been ready to train under her mother before getting yanked into the Fleet. Telekinesis wasn't hard to practice, but things like Battle Meditation... that, Vima would like guidance with.

"Maybe an affinity for the things you can do," she said. "I've always to follow in your footsteps."

"And probably some things I can't. You may follow in my footsteps for now, dear." Nomi laughed wryly at the image alone. "But one day you'll discover new paths too."