Illuminate

“Hey, I’m not criticizing,” Jubilee raised her hands defensively. “I think Fredrick is a cute name!” She hummed. I should name my tree…” Jubilee paused a moment in thought, before shaking her head. “Want some help getting it in there?”

“Are you sure it’s not too.. I don’t know- whimsical?” Asteria pondered as she looked over the tree again. “That would be stella, thank you. Can you grab his head, top? The top of the tree-” The blonde clarified with a wave of her hand as she offered: “I can help you make a list of potential names if you want, I can format it into a spread sheet with pros and cons for each name."

“…you named your tree fredrick? that’s pretty original.” a grin followed her words as she placed her hands on her hips. “i like it.”

“Well it almost looks like a Fredrick, don’t you think?” Asteria paused with a furrowed eye brow as she examined the tree. “I mean- the name should probably be more Christmas related really, or at least winter inspired. Like Noel or Holly, but they seem a little clique.”

“Fine, so tell me your reason! What was so awful about it that you wanted to get off so badly? I just don’t get it!” Soleil hadn’t meant to raise her voice but it happened all the same, a not of desperation in her tone, now that she was finally bothering to actually ask the questions she’d been holding onto for what felt like years. “What was so viral about just being with me and mom? Why did you hate it so much? Because that had to be it, right? Me? Since you got what you wanted, we’re here and you still won’t let me in. I’m still on the outside of everything all the time. Just little Soleil who doesn’t matter because she’ll just get sent back to the station eventually and you’ll get to stay and never have to think about me ever again.” Soleil swallowed hard, feeling tears burning at the back of her eyes. “I belong far away from you right? Well I might as well have lived a galaxy away for my whole life for the distance you’ve kept me at. And that’s not ever, you mean. Not just not right now.”

As she began to raise her voice, Asteria frowned lightly closing her laptop and holding it under one arm as she grabbed her sister lightly with her free hand and tugged her out of the library until they were in the corridor before letting her go. “Because how you feel here is exactly how I felt up there. I didn’t belong there Soleil, you know that. Everyone knew that. They called me a freak and mocked me enough so I knew it too, not that I exactly cared what they thought but it still stung. I wasn’t good enough for them, for dad, mom or you evidently. I felt trapped, we’d been living in the same place for over a century, same tin walls the same buttons and the same dull reflected shine. And I never wanted to live up to what mom’s done, I don’t want to be a hero, the commander, I never wanted any of it. It’s a fake reality, everything is created for our survival. Forced gravity, oxygen tanks..it’s all- fake and shiny. I know you think it’s stella and extraordinary and we should be thankful for it. But I’m not going to be thankful for something that made me feel like I was suffocating for nearly twenty years of my life. Here- I’m enough, I actually have friends for once. Wait you-?” Asteria spoke a light frown pulling onto her lips as she watched her sisters face quietly stunned by the words coming out of her lips. “How could you even think that? I tried Sol! I was sick you accusing me on the station, I was sick of everyone forcing commandership onto me and I was sick of space! I’m sorry but I have been since I knew what the hell was coming on. How could I not be when there was this-” The blonde paused gesturing to their surroundings. “Beneath us. I tried when we came here, but every time I tried to help you shut me out and I know it’s because you were upset about being here. But you can not put this solely on me, you have been just as bad as I have with communication and effort.”

“What relationship? She’s not even speaking to me,” Soleil scoffed, sinking into her chair in a pout. She sat up straighter when Asteria started talking about the havoc she had caused back on the station. “You…” she trailed off, not quite believing what she was hearing. “I knew you were hacking the Stai but I didn’t think you were breaking anything. I thought us getting sent down here was mom doing you a favor and punishing me, not trying to get you out of the Stai,” Soleil was torn between being impressed and upset. She had managed to convince herself only on the most surface level that her sister’s hacking habits were what got them grounded, but underneath it she had always assumed it was really her fault; that Zenon had sent Soleil to earth as punishment for Soleil’s own bad behavior and sending Asteria away was just to give the older girl what she wanted. Soleil thought she had been waiting for the moment her sister would confess it was all her fault but hearing it outloud, it almost made Sol sad to think about, forcing Sol to see her sister as more like herself than she had considered. A quietness settled over Sol as she listened carefully to everything else Asteria had to say, something the younger girl didn’t normally do, but for once she actually cared to hear what her sister had to say, not just because it was something comparable to the praise Sol had always desired to hear, but because it wasn’t something she had expected to hear, especially from her sister. “What if I don’t still fit when I go back. If I go back,” was all she could manage in response. “Well, how am I supposed to know whose at fault for anything if you’re both acting guilty and neither of you will tell me what happened?”

“I wasn’t breaking anything, don’t be so over dramatic. Everything I hacked could be rehacked and fixed; it wasn’t difficult and quite frankly the security network should be stronger so in theory I was doing everyone a favor. Everything I did was only a reaction to someone someone else had done. Okay? Why would I bother ‘breaking’ the station without a reason? What I did do, doesn’t matter now, but it was all rightly deserved.” Asteria stated bluntly her jaw clenching and throat tightening at the memories. The spiteful side comments and negativity that seems to follow her like a shadow on the station looming on her shoulder, but yet again she pushed it down and swallowed it. It was in the past and something she was determined to stay there. “If she was going to punish me for what I did, she wouldn’t have sent me here. She wasn’t trying to get me out of it. I think she thought it was a faze. Please- you’re here because that’s what happened to her. She was here when she was your age, she thinks it’ll build on your character. You’ll go back, it’s where you belong. I belong here and you belong up there on the next shuttle across the galaxy. And for the last time, I’m not telling you any Soleil, if you want to know ask mom. Until I figure it out fully, I’m not dragging you into this. Besides, I don’t even know if you’d be particularly upset by it, I doubt you’d even remember, but it’s not something I’m going to risk. Not right now Sol.”

“One day I will be,” she huffed before snickering to herself. “You aren’t even Padawan level. No, that would be crazy, I told you the sensing thing is more like emotions. But you are a terrible influence.” Jaina had never focused that much on practicing her Force abilities outside of meditation; instead she focused on her lightsaber skills. Though as she began noticing the path her brother was taking, she knew she needed to start taking them more seriously, which as of late she had been. Shaking her head, Jaina smiled. Of course Asteria had to start an argument over the nickname, which was part of the reason the brunette used it, because she knew it would draw a reaction. “I lived on a planet, you lived in space, we’ve already been through this. Dunno, I do dress in rather dark colors,” she mused, biting into her lip to silence the chuckle that escaped her lips. “Hey, he needed that mask to breathe. But yes I know, you think I’m wonderful.” Pausing her expression grew serious and she sighed softly. “Because you were the one that needed to figure things out, Asteria. You were the one that needed to decide if you wanted me or Philippe. You never really said you figured things out, so I didn’t know what you wanted, I was just trying to be there for you while you were going through everything.” Giving a small shrug of her shoulders, Jaina pursed her lips as she listened to Asteria. She was right, Jaina wasn’t even sure what they were waiting for either at this point. Throwing caution to the wind, she leaned in and pressed her lips lightly against the blonde’s to silence her. “You’re rambling, again,” she mumbled as she pulled back with a smirk. “But to answer your question, you. I want you. I… actually like the person I am around you. You make it easier to keep my darkness at bay, you make me feel like I’m not a total monster. And as much as that scares me I know what it’s like not having you around now, and I can’t say I like or want that.”

“Oh so that idea is crazy? But the other levels of the force don’t sound crazy at all? No of course they don’t, not one bit.” Asteria spoke with puff of air blowing through her cheeks in exasperation; she really needed to re-watch those movies. “I know that we’ve already been over this, you don’t have to remind me, I remember quite clearly. So I don’t have to remind you that you are still not from earth and still considered in the category other. And yes, perhaps. But that doesn’t change the fact he still sounds like a underwater scuba diver, now does it?” As Philippe’s name was brought up, a light frown pulled onto Asteria’s lips as she gave a small shake of her head; the situation seeming idiotic to her realistic mind. “I know- I know. And it was more complicated that ‘deciding’ and you know that. There wasn’t really a specific ‘choice’, rather a vague term. It wasn’t whether I wanted him or you, or you over him. Because it wasn’t like that- it doesn’t matter now that’s over. It was over months ago but then everything just got- messy. I know...thank you for that.” As Jaina moved and pressed her lips to her’s, Asteria froze. For something so simple, it shouldn’t have caught her as off guard as it did. Considering it had been something they’d teased about and hinted at, the reality was one she’s admittedly been thinking off for a while. Her heart rate picked up and Asteria found herself in one of the rare moments where she was lost for words as she sat looking over at the girl. A light pink to her cheeks and an awkward smile on her features. “It’s uh-..you, I ramble more around you more.” She spoke sheepishly. “See..I told you I’d get you to like me in the end..” Asteria murmured a wider smile pulling onto her lips as her eyes flickered over Jaina’s features, her mind trying to memorize every detail of her face; this not being something she wanted to forget any time soon. Her hand moving up to brush her fingertips lightly over Jaina’s cheek, Asteria leaned forward and pressed her lips lightly to hers again murmuring: “You’ve got me..I think you had me a long time ago.”

A small smile formed on Jaina’s lips at Asteria’s apology, she didn’t even need to be a Jedi to know how remorseful the blonde felt, and though she found it unnecessary, part of her was touched by it. “I know, you’ve apologized more than once,” she teased. “But it’s fine, I’m not that upset anymore.” Looking down at her hands for a moment, Jaina gave a slight nod. Talking about things wasn’t something she was used to, her problems or her feelings. “I know, I’m just not good at all that,” she mumbled. Chuckling softly, she shook her head. “My uncle and the other Jedi Masters would disagree with you, in their opinion we can never meditate enough.” Jaina’s amusement only grew when she noticed Asteria’s shifting along with her words, causing the brunette to arch a brow. But as she listened and let the words sink in her expression fell serious. She had already been in this situation once before and ended up wrecking it, something a part of her still regretted to this day. Her fears and reservations hadn’t gone anywhere, but now she knew what would happen if she let them control her, and after already being away from Asteria once, she couldn’t say she wanted to experience that again. After a long silence Jaina attempted to reply but ended up just opening and closing her mouth a few times. Letting out a nervous laugh she tried again. “Well, I think that’s up to you. I know quite well how I feel about you, may have taken me a while to admit but I know. You were the one that needed to figure things out, I’ve just been waiting, training, trying to keep my brother from going dark side, while trying to avoid falling back to it myself. Fun stuff like that, y’know? I’m not too sure why you’d want to be with supposed Vader Jr, but you’ve always been a little strange, so your call, space girl.”

“Well you’re not a Jedi Master and neither am I, what they won’t know won’t hurt them. Right? Or do they already know, like some kind of...Jedi wave lengths? Can they sense when you don’t meditate? Because that seems like an invasion of privacy.” Asteria thought aloud, despite how long she’d know Jaina, the older Kar still found it mentally challenging to gather her mind around the Jedi concept; though she was trying. After Asteria had spoken, the silence that followed was agonizing. Yes the time lapse wasn’t exactly long, however because of the outcome that Jaian’s words could have, the blonde’s anxiety about it going wrong made every second feel like a minute. Listening, her brows furrowed slightly, until she shifted looking at her closed laptop in puzzlement before looking back over at Jaina. “Firstly I think it’s important to clarify that you are too a space girl and yes granted I have technically lived in space for the majority of my life; here, you’re also considering in the category other. Secondly, you’re not ‘Vader Jr’, until you start dressing in all black and have one of those masks that makes you sound like you’re underwater, then maybe I’ll consider the term. But you’re not him, I know that. But thirdly and most importantly, Why is it up to me? I ask you what you want to do about us and you say my call? It’s not some game of pitch, I call and then strike we’re out. I’m not going to decide what we are because there is a key term in the phrase called we. It’s not just about what I want. I’m asking you what you want. What you want to do. Because I’ve known you for over a year, you’ve been waiting stars-” Asteria paused with a sigh as she ran a hand over her face. “I can’t remember how long now. I just- I don’t want to wait anymore. I don’t want to look back on this and think I wasted my chance or I wasn’t I don’t know..I wasn’t forward enough or I didn’t try hard enough for you. Because I’m starting to worry if there will even be an us if we just keep waiting. I don’t even know what are we even waiting for anymore. What do you want Jaina?”

“I can’t believe you forgot.”

“I did not forget! I set three reminders on my phone, I’m here aren’t I? Admittedly yes, I’m late, however that doesn’t mean that I necessarily forgot I just got..side tracked.”

“I might be drunk.”

[text]: Is that all you care about?

{text} No, I also care about my tablet, it’s equally as important. But I’ll have you know that I also take pride in being able to recite the speech from season 1 of Game of Thrones. {text} That is a show I care about deeply

[text]: Wait, what happened?

worm cat