Jaina Solo (thatkidcanfly) wrote in the100, @ 2016-03-23 19:50:00 |
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Entry tags: | !log/thread, anakin solo, jaina solo |
Who: Jainakin
When: After Anakin gets back from his trip with Nico and Reyna, not long after Jaina's arrival.
Where: Jaina's apartment
What: Reunion, talking, the usual Solo/Skywalker angst
Rating: PG for some talk of the Dark Side and the usual things
It was good to have the Jaina shaped place in his mind filled back in once again. Anakin had forgotten how lonely it could be without either of his siblings around just being there. That it was just Jaina and not Jaina and Jacen, well that was a little off-putting he had to admit. It should be the three of them, it was supposed to be the three of them, and Anakin had half expected that he'd return to Mount Weather with Nico and Reyna and find Jacen waiting there. Of course he hadn't, and he couldn't exactly demand that Jacen show up, although he did find himself wandering in a sort of half-prayer if maybe the pod god, if there was such a thing really, might bring Jacen along too. It was ridiculous. Getting out of the mountain though, hadn't been and Anakin could only hope that it had actually been helpful for Reyna to get out. He made his way from his apartment to the one where Jaina was knowing that it wouldn't have eliminated Reyna having to come face-to-face with Faith, but it hopefully had put it off long enough for her to feel more confident about doing so. And Anakin could hardly complain about having the time with Nico and he was pretty certain he'd been able to help Nico shadow travel more easily, which almost made him wonder how much he and Nico might be able to share powers with each other. That… was something for experimenting at some point. But not right now. Right now he had to tell his sister a whole bunch of uncomfortable things that he wasn't looking forward to, even if he'd rather her be back and him have to tell her those things, than the alternative. He stepped up to the door and knocked, waiting for Jaina to open it. It had been a crazy few days and Jaina’s mind was on overload. Just waking up here had been shock enough but then she’d picked up from people she talked to on the network that there was an entirely different timeline within their universe and in that timeline things were very different. Her mother was a general, there was still a war but it wasn’t with the Yuuzhan Vong, and then her mother had come to see her and gave her the biggest surprise of all. She and her brothers didn’t exist there and the woman standing in front of her who didn’t look much older than Jaina herself had memories from that world. She’d only met Jaina and her brothers when they were here before, she’d come from an earlier time before she’d married Han then she’d gotten new memories and Jaina began to wonder just what kind of place she’d landed in. Her father had come by as well with Chewie which was a wonderful surprise and Jaina finally let go of the tears she’d been holding back since she’d arrived and just held onto the wookiee, her face buried in his fur while her father patted her on the back. She was better now, she’d met Max who had apparently been Jacen’s girlfriend and she liked the girl a lot. Jaina had also had a drink with Jessika Pava who was a pilot as well although from the other timeline and they’d had a good time comparing stories. On Saturday she’d gone to visit her aunt and uncle and meet her cousin who was the most adorable baby ever she’d decided. Mara had explained a few more things to her as she came from a bit past where Jaina was and she learned just how lucky she’d been. She’d gone EV and was blinded for a while according to her aunt, so Jaina was grateful that she was taken before that happened and all she had were a few bumps and bruises and sore legs. One of her ankles was a little swollen from where she’d braced herself when the coralskipper had impacted but the doctors said it was only slightly sprained. She could walk on it and even if she hadn’t been able to, it was far better than being blinded. Jaina had been sitting on the couch in the living area looking at a book someone had left on the coffee table when she heard the knock. Reaching out with the Force, she confirmed that it was indeed who she thought it was and a big smile lit her face as she got up and went to answer it. “About time you got back!” she said and threw her arms around Anakin in a big hug. "Hey, watch the hair," Anakin grinned at his older sister, even as he returned her hug easily. It hadn't been that long since he'd seen her, but he could also tell that she was older than Jaina had been here before. When she'd been here before, she'd felt normal - and at first he'd hardly noticed there was any time between them - while Jacen felt quite a bit older, and as it turned out had been older. This Jaina was definitely older, but probably not quite so old as Jacen. Anakin didn't really have a timeline to compare any of it too. "Sorry about running off like that," he shrugged as he pulled back. "Things were - a little crazy, and I had some friends that needed me, but we brought back some pretty cool stuff I'll show you later. Have you settled in a bit?" She rolled her eyes when he mentioned his hair. “Please,” she said. “Come sit down and tell me about the cool stuff.” Jaina hadn’t seen Anakin in some time at home so to her he looked more grown up. He was almost sixteen he’d told her while she would be eighteen in a few weeks. Their ages lined up even if she’d been younger during her previous visit here. Jaina sat down on the couch and curled her leg under her but was reminded of her injury and winced. “Can’t do that quite yet,” she muttered and pulled over the coffee table, grabbing a pillow so she could elevate it. “It’s not messed up too bad, mostly sore, I just have to remember that. So tell me….what is this place and why is it so confusing. I’ve talked to Mom, Dad, Uncle Luke and Aunt Mara and none of it makes sense. Although Chewie’s here so that kind of makes it all better.” "Chewie being here is the best," Anakin sighed. "It's good - if a little weird - to have him as a roommate. But no complaints whatsoever. I'd missed him." He sank into the couch across from her and considered options. The heavier weight of his future was hanging there like a small cloud that could easily spring into a large storm, but for the moment he ignored it. "Well, I went with Reyna and Nico south-ish. I can show you on a map, but we mostly went looking for someplace a little warmer than here, and Reyna has a giant tent thing so we went camping. We had a lot of disappearances right before you got here, and one of them was one of Reyna's close friends, as well as you and Jacen who were here before, and so we all kind of wanted to get away, but… I mean it's a little more complicated than that, but the best part is that we seem to have found like a speeder-type vehicle. It's got wheels, so it's not quite a speeder, and it's also pretty rusty and broken down? But I think I can play with it a bit. Nico and I are going to work on it anyway." Anakin stopped realising he'd hardly paused for breath in the midst of all that and shrugged. "Nico and Reyna are both demigods -- one of their parents was a god where they were from -- but they're super cool and they get the Jedi stuff. They've both been here longer than I was. Nico was probably my first real friend here." “Demigods? I hope not gods like the Yuuzhan Vong war gods,” she shivered. Obviously that wasn’t the case or Anakin wouldn’t be friends with them. “Can’t say I’ve ever met a god or a half god although I could think of a few Jedi who would love being worshipped as one.” Jaina’s eyes lit up at the mention of what they had found. “A speeder? Or something like it huh? That’s great! I was wondering how people got around here or if we were even allowed to leave the immediate vicinity.” She wasn’t feeling it yet but Jaina knew she’d start feeling restless before too long if she was confined to either inside or immediately outside the mountain. The idea of being stuck in one place didn’t appeal to her. "No, nothing like that," Anakin said quickly. "Their world is different from ours in a lot of ways, like the gods are real, but they aren't like the war gods. Although it does seem that there's quite a bit of fighting for them. Monsters and that sort of thing. There isn't an exact comparison, but there are enough similarities that they… get stuff well. You'll like them." Anakin was certain of that considering that Jaina had liked them before. Plus, Reyna and Nico had both been great friends to Anakin and even if he hadn't had Jaina being here before to pull from, he knew that she would have liked them from that alone. "It's kind of complicated, the vicinity thing," Anakin switched tracks. Staying on Nico for too long was likely to just lead to embarrassing places that he really didn't want his sister honing in on. "The speeder, Nico said they called it a motorcycle, and it has wheels, isn't really in working order so we're going to see if we can get it in working order again. In terms of whether we can leave - well when we first got here, I mean when I did? There was a five mile perimeter around the mountain, and that was the only place we could go - the locals on this planet aren't always the friendliest, so it was our safety theirs… it really drove me nuts. Right now it's mostly a temperature thing though, because it's… well things are a bit better. Although it's still not a particularly safe planet." “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen so much snow,” she said. “I went out for a bit the other day but people say spring will be here soon and it’s nicer then.” Jaina had read some of the history of this place and how the planet had ended up the way it had. “It seems like there is war everywhere, doesn’t it? It would be so nice to find a place where there isn’t any of that or where there hasn’t been any of that.. That’s too much to hope for, I guess.” She grimmed at him. “I’d like to meet your friends, they sound pretty cool and if they want to rebuild something that can go places, that would be awesome. Too bad it can’t fly. It can’t, can it?” That would be too much to hope for but Jaina thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask. Anakin sighed and shook his head. "I've not been above ground since I got here like seven months ago." He really missed flying, really, really missed it, but he really couldn't do anything about that. At least Nico's shadow travel abilities meant that they could get between places on the planet reasonably quickly. It was something, even if it wasn't the same. It did mean that they weren't entirely bound to one location. "It was definitely better when it wasn't all snow covered. The snow, and the cold - that's about driven me crazy really. Especially earlier when I was feeling a little down about other stuff." Anakin looked over at her realizing he knew exactly how Jacen must have felt, only worse. He had no interest in telling his sister what happened to him in the future. "Anyway - it'll be spring, as you say, which it should be better. We can go out and explore, and hey maybe I'll even get the motorbike working or something." He was keeping something from her but Jaina couldn’t hazard a guess as to what it was. While she had a bond with her brother, it wasn’t the same as the one she shared with Jacen who was her twin. Still though she knew there was something. “If you’re wondering how much I know, I can tell you that Mom came and talked to me. Or do we still call her Mom? I mean she is but she’s not and the idea of a version of our world where we don’t exist just feels strange.” Jaina had spent a lot of time thinking about that fact and had met people from that world but when it applied to her family it was harder to think about. “Aunt Mara told me a few things too, she told me a little about what happened to me after the part where I was taken. I met Ben, he’s great. I’m really happy for them,” Jaina knew that they’d been hoping for a child but with Mara’s illness and the state of the world in general, it didn’t see as if it was meant to be. “so what are you not telling me? Don’t try to sit there and tell me that there isn’t anything because I know there is.” Anakin rolled his eyes in Jaina's direction generally, and pulled up his feet underneath him. "I figured she might. Sorry. I feel like I should have kind of explained all of that to you. Not that I even entirely explain it. When I first got here she didn't know me, but also she was really young - like, I mean she still looks young, but she's got memories now and she didn't then. So I had no reason to think that she wasn't our mother in the same way. And she is still Mom. I mean, I still call her Mom, but then I had that option of getting used to her when she was younger and not now. She does have a son, in the other world, that isn't me or Jacen. I don't know if she mentioned that. She didn't mention it to me exactly, but Dad did eventually." Anakin stopped and pressed his lips together as he tried to figure out what to tell her about that. But then he only knew so much. "There are people here that she knows better than she knows us, which is a little weird -- no, a lot weird -- I guess, but she's still very much Mom so there's that. The other son, he's -- well, he goes dark, I guess." “She told me that she had a son but she didn’t say much about him.” Jaina said. “And I picked up on the fact that Poe and Jess and some of the others know her better than we do. It’s just odd, she does look young but her eyes….you can see that she’s been through a lot.” It had been a very strange conversation and not one that Jaina wanted to dwell on. It was too confusing. “That’s what Aunt Mara told me. I asked her about it when I saw her but even she didn’t tell me much, just that Mom and Dad only have him and not the three of us in that timeline. I wanted to ask Jess about it when we hung out at the tavern but I was afraid. She didn’t really seem to want to talk about him so I guess he must be pretty bad.” It seemed hard to believe that anyone who had grown up in their family would fall to the Dark Side given what they knew about their grandfather but anything was possible. “This has to be hard on Dad since he remembers us. I mean he’s definitely Dad and even if he was kind of off the rails for a bit, we never doubted that he loved Mom.” There were times when Anakin really wished that they could go outside of the mountain. Somehow this conversation felt like it would be easier if he were moving and not just sitting on a sofa underneath the earth. That was probably why he'd taken off the first time around, unable to just sit still and try to make sense of everything that was being thrown out at him. Probably it made him a bad Jedi - he couldn't really picture Uncle Luke not being able to sit still during difficult conversations. He pulled himself up a little straighter and decided that he could at least try to be more like Uncle Luke. "I don't know that many people that know much about him, and nobody really talks about him. I heard about it from Dad, and not from anyone else," Anakin admitted. "It's like we just don't talk about it, and mostly we don't talk much about the fact that we're not actually a family. Everything is a little weird… it's easier to not talk about it I guess. But you should be on the same page as everyone else even if it's not being talked about much." “We’re still a family even if it’s a little screwed up….or maybe a lot screwed up but we’re together. And Chewie too, I cried when I saw him, Anakin. I missed him so much, that was the best thing about waking up here was seeing him again. No offense to you of course,” Jaina smiled. They’d all missed Chewie, Anakin probably the most of all aside from their dad, and having him here was great. “Hopefully this other person won’t show up here. I’m not sure that I want to meet him.” "None taken," Anakin offered a smile back at his sister. He couldn't blame her for being delighted to see Chewie. He'd practically knocked over the Wookiee when he'd seen him first, and that was somewhat saying something considering the Wookiee's height and strength and Anakin's height and strength (and okay, maybe he was exaggerating a bit…). "So where do they have you working?" “Intake. They had several people leave recently so they needed someone in there. I’d be better off in military or scouting or whatever but those places were full. Whoever talked to me seemed to think my being a Jedi might be good to help calm people down.” Jaina shrugged. “I guess they’re right. It’s scary at first when you wake up because my first thought was that I had been captured by the Vong. Good thing they had taken my lightsaber off me or I might have sliced something off someone.” "Yeah. I mean, when I first arrived I didn't remember any of the Yuuzhan Vong stuff," Anakin said quietly. "We'd been getting ready to head out to visit Lando at Dubrillion, all of us. I didn't get the memories of Sernpidal or Dantooine until later, in a dream, which let me tell you - not the most fun of things. It kind of means you wake up with a splitting headache." He pulled a leg up so that he could rest his chin on it. "Jacen was from further out. He knew more than any of us did at that point. And there are books here too, on the network, about the war." “Aunt Mara mentioned that there were things on the network. She told me how to access them but not to do it until I was sure I was ready. You know me, I just dive right in usually but something about the way she said it, I haven’t done it yet. I’m still trying to figure out the two different timlines thing,” she shook her head. “The most important thing is that we’re here together and maybe Jacen will come back. I did even if I have no clue about being here before.” Anakin nodded. "Yeah, I mean stuff happens apparently in the future. Jacen had lived some of it that obviously I didn't and no one else did. He told us some of the stuff when he was here so I know some of it. I still haven't done any reading although I probably would have had he not told us cause he was being evasive about stuff and it was irritating me. But the books weren't available then. He told us stuff after they were out on the network. "There's a mission we're on in the future Jaina and it doesn't go really well." His throat felt dry and he had to force himself to look up and stay calm. Because whether or not he wanted to say anything probably she deserved to hear it from him or someone who cared and not from a book or from some else entirely. "For me. Anyway." Jaina sat quietly for a moment, letting his words sink in. He didn’t have to spell it out, she knew what he meant. “Kriff…..I…..no…..when does it happen?” Why it mattered, she had no idea but she wanted to know. How much time did he have? How long did he live? It wasn’t fair that Anakin didn’t get to live a long, happy life. She was trying not to cry but it wasn’t easy and she took a deep breath. “Well I’m glad you told me. I’d rather hear it from you than just find out,” she reached out and pulled him into a hug, holding him tightly, her head buried in his neck. After a few moments, she pulled back and wiped her eyes. “So we make the most of all the time we have together. Nothing is going to happen here, we’re together except for Jacen and there’s always hope he might come back.” She couldn’t imagine life without both of her brothers but apparently in the future at home, she would have to. Not here though. Not yet. Anakin allowed the hug, and offered it back, even though, just as it had when he'd first found out and his mother had wanted to constantly hug him, it made him feel edgy and anxious just a little. As if the hug and the condolences in and of themselves were rushing forward the future. It wasn't logical, and Anakin knew it, but he wasn't certain how to not feel that way, and he also knew that Jaina would need the hug, just like his mother had. As she pulled back, he shrugged. "Jacen was from maybe two years? I don't know… he was 19. So. Sometime before then, he didn't give me a specific date. Just that it happened. It's... I mean, I'm here. And it doesn't matter what happens there," it did, but Anakin couldn't change it, and if he couldn't change it, then it didn't matter, couldn't matter really. "So… we just do stuff here, basically. And also try to get Jacen back here somehow. I'm not really certain how to accomplish that last one, but… if anyone could do it, we could." "It would be nice if we could do something here that would change the future at home but you’re right, we can’t." She shrugged. “Maybe someone here is already working on it and just isn’t saying. That would be awesome, wouldn’t it? I’d like to have Jacen here too.” Anakin definitely liked the idea of changing the future at home - but maybe if they changed it something worse would happen. Instead of him it would be his sister or his brother that died. Or maybe something else terrible. There were worse things than dying bravely - probably. Maybe not much worse things, but there were at least a few things he could come up with. For the moment though, he couldn't do anything about that. So there was a future here to consider. He grinned and nodded, reaching over to squeeze Jaina's hand. "Yeah, it would, but in the meantime, have you had a tour? Cause I could definitely give you one of those." “I haven’t had a good tour,” she said with a grin. “As in one that covers all the places that you know about that no one else would tell me. I’d like one of those.” Jaina knew that there were still things left unsaid but she didn’t want to talk about sad things anymore than her brother did. She just wanted to enjoy the fact that they were here and they were together and that fact made this place feel a little more like home. "All right then," Anakin pulled himself to his feet and gave her a crooked grin. "Then let's go. I'll introduce you to everyone I know, and show you where the library is, and also there's a tavern where they do dancing sometimes… it's not all bad. It's primitive, but people are nice and with most of the family here, it's almost like home." |