#forcehid

arms cross, back straight, as piercing green eyes look upon her son. she knows the hum of a lightsaber, the glow of it's light against skin, the pressure of a blade locked against another. felt it in too many battles, the warmth of the blade too close to her skin. but she's a trained jedi knight. a master of the craft with years of experience under her belt. not a teenage boy playing at being a jedi. locked in stance with another, that warm glow far too close to his face for a mother's comfort. mara wonders what she might have walked in on if she was even a second later. would her son be permanently marked, changed forever? would he have breathed his last? no, they're only children. it wouldn't have gone that far . . would it?

[ @forcehid​ ] "When the 'why’ is plain as day, the 'how’ tends to get done."  /  mara

“that it does.” Ben has always been a quick study. and this was no exception. calling up the holo-map again, Mara gestured, zooming in closer on a portion of it. “so, you know the why. you have the information. what’s our ‘how’?”

he’s spearheading this one alone. son of two great Jedi Masters himself, but much less recognizable than either of them ( and hers and Luke’s usual ‘actor impersonators’ routine wouldn’t work here ). “you know our contacts, where they are, and the forces between you and them. you know you need the information, and you need them all out alive, but without causing a diplomatic fuss.”

yes, it’s something that Ben might have learned the framework for under Jacen, and the basics of spycraft from herself, but it never hurts to expand upon it.

never.

[ @forcehid​ ] “Justice. That’s a pretty word.” /  Mara

“And also an important one.” The elder Skywalker is kneeling at the edge of a balcony, pack of spycraft gear sitting right next to her. Without looking over at her son, she offers the macrobinoculars to him, knowing he should know enough to follow her line of sight to the target that they’re practicing on.

( remind her, later, to thank Tresina again for agreeing to play the part ).

“You have to remember that we can’t be the sole dispensers of justice in the galaxy, no matter how justified you might think it is. Being judge, jury, and executioner is a slippery road into the dark side.” And that was a lesson she thinks she’s learned before she even picked up a lightsaber, if the amount of people handed over to the local law enforcement ( or cleared the name of ) had been anything to go by. “The minute we stop working for the greater good....”

[ @forcehid​ ] “Some call it magic. I call it good aim.” /  jaina

“His aim could be better.” Jaina answered, shaking down the bowl of bang-corn currently sitting on the table in front of the two of them. There were supposed to be more than just her and her cousin in the apartment right now, but so far, Jag has left a message saying he got caught up in some diplomatic snarl or another, and her parents haven’t even sent one ( which Jaina takes to mean her niece has probably run them both ragged, and her father, at minimum, is napping and overslept his chrono alarm ).

So, instead of making fun of this season’s crop of smashball teams in good company ( she could already hear her father complaining about the quality of the Corellian Dreadnaughts ), it was just her and her cousin.

Not bad, but hardly a family get-together, either.

She nudges Ben with her elbow, “C’mon, see? These newbies can’t kick in a straight line.”

[ @forcehid​ ] "It is difficult to understand the universe if you only study one planet."  /  jaina

"Did you break into a stash of kismet biscuits?” One eyebrow arches, and the older Jedi stares her cousin down evenly, waiting to see who cracked first.  Of course, waiting games were never her forte, and Ben, by all accounts, tended to have more patience than quite a few Jedi his senior, cousin included.

Another heartbeat or two, then Jaina finally said, “Did you at least save some for the rest of us? I wanna know if they’re all that straightforward or not.”

The best ones were the ones that were borderline nonsensical, but Jaina supposed that’s what happened when Mon Calamari proverbs were translated into Basic.

     ❛  i  can’t  …   i  can’t ,   i  can’t  do  this  today .  ❜  / mara    »    @forcehid​

                    gentle hands set upon shoulders even only just slighter than her own, the mother dipping her chin to meet the eye of her child.   once, she stood in his place, an exhausted, frustrated girl peering teary eyed up into the sickly, stony gaze scowling upon her.   once, she believed the emperor’s cruelty as much a kindness as his generosity, hardening her against the peril of the galaxy, of her future purpose.

                    now, she knew him for what he truly was: a monster.

                    no child of hers will ever suffer so.

“Money wasn’t good enough.” [ @forcehid​ -> Jaina ]

Jaina canted her hips to the side, thumb looped through one of the many utility hooks on her mechanic’s jumpsuit, and eyed her cousin for a long second. “So they tried to bribe you, huh? I don’t think anyone’s gotten the ‘you can’t bribe a Jedi’ memo recently. About time someone reminded them.”

It wasn’t even as if Ben resembled much of a kid anymore, all gangly limbs and a face that might not get carded at some of the seedier bars, and, were she not halfway up a pilot’s ladder, he would be taller than she was, too ( that, though, was not a high bar to reach ).

Finishing the ascent, Jaina heaved herself on the nose of her snubfighter, casually peeling an access panel open one-handedly. “So? Didja send them packing? Give them your dad’s ‘a Jedi does not seek to enrich himself’ spiel?”

“How come you didn’t turn on me?” [ @forcehid​ -> Mara ]

The question gives Mara pause, brow furrowing sharply. For a brief moment, she wonders what artifact of Caedus has left these doubts in her boy’s mind — and then the Jedi Master shuts that line of thought down before it could turn into the same cold fury that sent her after the Darth in the first place. “Because you’re my son.” Because I love you.

But in this galaxy, in this life of theirs, being family didn’t preclude turning against one another — Jaina’s ever present loneliness, not as hidden from her old Master as Mara suspected she thought it was, speaks plainly enough to the truth of that statement.

Reaching up to cup the side of his face ( when did he get so tall? almost as tall, now, as her husband, as his father ), her expression softens. “You’re my son, I love you, and you know I would try to talk you down long before I raised my hand to fight you.”