maybe this will get us to talk about Force kids

[for_everyone]

When the girl returned, it was with a newly constructed lightsaber.It took the place of the shattered one she had carried before, that rumor had it had once belonged to Anakin Skywalker. Those pieces she had presented to Leia Organa – and what had been done with them, the General had kept to herself. Many had nudged Hera to share what she knew of it, as close as she was to Leia, but Hera could truthfully say she had no idea. Though of course, she also hadn't asked.

Rey's return had been greeted with great excitement from those on base – the curious troops had poured out into the landing fields, only giving way for her friends to greet her. She had been quiet at first, but after a few hours, with enough coaxing, she did share her new lightsaber - one thing from her secret travels to learn more about the old secrets of the Force, and the Jedi Order. That new saber turned out to be two bright blue blades that glided smoothly through the air as she swung it, as she had once her old staff, that was now perhaps just a relic of her old life as a scavenger.

What else she learned while she was gone, Rey kept to herself, or at least didn't share with many. Maybe with the General. Maybe with her close friends.

And when others asked Hera about this – that's when she had to lie. To an extent.

Her presence lifts the spirits of everyone on base. Though the Resistance has rebuilt, their numbers spreading across the Galaxy, the First Order has responded with the viciousness of a cornered sleeth, forcing the Resistance into battle by brutalizing civilians, repaying any strike against them by slaughtering whomever was unlucky enough to fall within their reach. What they needed wasn't just a fighting force, even with the progress they'd made to build one.

They had to face the heart of the First Order, the infamous Kylo Ren. Rey gave them hope, or so it was said.

Hope is for the dead. That's what her father had said. For the living, there's work.

Hera can see her in the far distance – Rey has retreated to a deep, rocky valley a few kliks away from the base. The wind is whipping harshly, the sky set with the rust red clouds that on this world preceded a lightning storm. Maybe she still has a few hours, maybe she doesn't mind. What Hera can really see, what she knows she can see, is the flash of her sabers as they spin, so fast, nothing but a tiny circle of spinning blue light.

And even so far, in her head, Hera can hear the slices of the blades through the air, the practiced rhythm of Rey's breath, the quick yet steady, soft steps, as though the ground were lifting up to meet her feet.

Comments

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Thinking of older times?" Thrawn asks, careful not to approach too closely.

"And other young Force users?"

[for_everyone]

At an earlier time, Hera would have assumed Thrawn was baiting her.

Now -

"Do you need something?"

Perhaps her answer is still the same. But her voice is steady, not sharp, and she doesn't look up as she speaks.

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Not particularly," Thrawn says mildly. But, of course, he's hardly going to leave it there. The past, perhaps, yes, but the present --

"She seems to be holding up well, so far," he continues, inclining his head in the young proto-Jedi's direction.

[for_everyone]

Hera tilts her own head, to the side.

"It's no surprise that she's resilient."

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Desert planets are good for that," he agrees.

"As history has proven several times."

[for_everyone]

She doesn't answer at once, letting the silence linger, the sounds she can still so easily call to her mind continue for just a little longer.

And then, at last, she looks up to him. "You haven't always seemed that interested in the Force."

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Mmm," Thrawn murmurs, turning his own attention toward the lightsaber in the distance.

"There is often little point in a Chiss adult expressing interest in such matters."

[for_everyone]

All right.

Now Hera's interested.

"What does that mean?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Among my . . . former people," Thrawn says slowly, sounding himself out even as he speaks. "Use of the Force is a thing solely for children. Not by custom, of course, but as a fact of biology."

[for_everyone]

It takes Hera a moment to parse that.

"Chiss lose Force sensitivity as they grow up?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"Indeed."

A small smile flickers at the corner of Thrawn's mouth, and quickly passes.

"It is also most often found among girls, unlike the larger galaxy, where most species have a relatively even distribution of Force users."

[for_everyone]

She glances away from him, shaking her head.

"None of that makes very much sense to me."

But then, she wouldn't say she knows very much of the Force.

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"I can see how it would not, but the way such things are handled here . . . that was jarring, at first. Fully grown men and women with such powers at their beck and call? Startling. Appalling."

He falls silent for a moment, and then --

"Appallingly useful, as well. As you know."

[for_everyone]

Hera sighs.

"It's not how I would say it." But she's not surprised he would.

[grandadmiralartcritic]

His smile is fleeting.

"No, of course you would not. And perhaps that utility is not the whole truth of it."

Thrawn means more than 'perhaps', by this point, but habit is hard to break.

[for_everyone]

She glances back to him.

"Why do you say 'of course?'"

Hera knows why, really. But she wants to make him say it.

[grandadmiralartcritic]

Thrawn considers how to say this. He considers it for quite some time.

And then --

"You have been closer than most with someone more . . . aware, I would say, and perhaps interested . . . in the more spiritual side of such matters. As I understand it, at any rate."

[for_everyone]

Hera supposes, on the whole, that was an almost sensitive answer from Thrawn.

She turns her eyes back to the rocky valley. "I've seen firsthand that understanding of the Force comes with maturity."

Something that wouldn't seem possible, if access to it was lost with childhood.

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"I can, I think, see how that would be true," Thrawn says, after another long moment. His own gaze drifts to a midpoint in the sky, and holds there.

"But we -- my people -- use the Force for one thing only. Hence, I suppose, my more utilitarian viewpoint."

[for_everyone]

"If only children, and mostly girls, can use it -"

She's speaking slowly, and steadily, her gaze still focused away from him.

"- then I'd guess you might view it as a resource to exploit."

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"We would prefer, I imagine, if it were to be found in both girls and boys -- to increase the numbers, as it were."

Is he still weighing whether or not to tell her the reason? Or is it something else.

Thrawn, himself, occasionally wonders how much loyalty to the Aristocra is left in him, after all this time.

[for_everyone]

"Then being boys didn't lend them more protection."

She knows her mind is very far from Thrawn's, in this moment, and she's not sure how much she cares to come closer to his thinking.

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"No."

He is silent for another long moment.

"Nor, in the end, does any of the children's service. Once the Aristocra is done with their need of you, it seems, they are very finally done."

[for_everyone]

Whether she likes it or not, that remark pulls her out of her resistance, her unwillingness to ask, to learn -

She looks sharply to him. "What does that mean?"

[grandadmiralartcritic]

"When their abilities fade, so, too, does their use to the Chiss. Those who have parents may be returned to them, if their parents are kind. But they have little formal schooling, and nothing that readies them for a life without the Force. It is . . . difficult for them to readjust, or so I have heard."

He clasps his hands behind his back, very loosely.

"And they have very few tools at hand with which to aid themselves."