IF SHE COULD curse the adults in her family && the emperor to fiery deaths, in that moment she would. Every fiber of her being vibrates with fury as she can only sit && wait for the team to return from the verdant planet below. It’d be a beautiful place to raise a child. Far from the tightest of Imperial control, not too sparsely populated, temperate, && free from any lethal flora or fauna, but it’s not to be for the pair of redheads the extraction would drag back with them. Horror welled up in her stomach the moment she’d been informed of their sidetrip. Naturally, the saga of Mara’s escape, taking her child with her, had reached her, spat out with sithly rage on a holocall. It’s remarkable that the Hand even dared to try, && for that alone, she now held Jaina’s admiration. ( what must it be like to be loved that much? for a mother or father to risk their lives to hide you away? ) Silently to the Force, she’d wished them well for the sake of the little boy she’d only met, what? Three, four times? ( how old is he now? ) Her uncle still isn’t fond of her refusal to support the family as she ❛ should ❜ && didn’t encourage her to spend time with the boy when she was on planet.
Ben. His name is Ben, she resolutely tells herself, replacing boy with something real as the call comes, heralding a complete success. A smile plasters onto her lips, but there’s no joy in her heart. Only ASHES.
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TO BE SUMMONED by the admiral only an hour later confuses her, something in her mind connecting it to their mission, but what falls from his lips lays outside anything she could imagine. But that is how she comes to stand outside a door, the clanking && clattering of the durasteel storm within easily audible in the corridor. There’d been some attempt to find something else for her to wear, the bridge officers fearing Ben was simply attacking Imperials after being separated from his mother, but that’d been impossible. She doubts that’s all, but she tied her flight suit sleeves about her waist, exposing her sleeveless white tunic, as a concession.
Standing at the door, her hand hovers over the control panel when something tingles in her mind. It’s dangerous, risky, but was it anymore than every time she calls it to herself in battle? Sucking in a breath, she opens her fledgling connection to the Force, keeping it carefully shielded, filling it with love && calm. Then finally, she presses the release, opening her connection to the boy in the middle of the room as she steps within.
Instantly, the atmosphere shifts, debris settling to the floor. Withholding a gasp as she finally clearly sees Ben, peering up at her with tearful, huge blue eyes, is impossible. ( he’s so young... && so small. there’s a flash of an even tinier, younger girl, equally alone. ) Jaina falls to her knees as the little boy runs to her, instinctually wrapping the sobbing child in her arms. Heart aching with the pain she senses, && more than a little within, she presses her face into his flame hued hair, throat tightening about a lump, voice only a whisper. ❝ I’m sorry, little one. I’m so sorry. ❞
@heirite liked for an imperial au starter