Shadows of Bankor

It was after the heist now, the package was taken into hand and whatever happened with it happened with it, it was the perfect time of day to process this days events once more. Out on the beech she'd rolled up her pants and sleeves, removed her boots, and pulled her hair back and tied it though it wasn't very long. What makeup she was accustomed to wearing was, well, gone now so there was barely any need to remove it at this point and so she just stared off into that murky abyss that was so much more stark at this time of night.

How the stars mingled with both the water and the sky above, it created a shimmering, the sound of waves and the blow of wind across her cheek. Smell and taste of salt on the wind, it all centered her back onto this moment. Then, all the other moments, as they played over and over again in her head. Had she made the right choices, was this nearing the end of her road, was all the hope she could figure a way out for nothing?

Was there a meaning to any of this or was it a chaotic mess that constituted a life? Was there even something called the Force, something that was supposed to guide them to some better end or was that all just the hogwash of some order of old and crazy people that sat up in some ivory tower once?

Splash of a wave.

Silence.

Then..

It had been a rather intense day. Beginning with their sudden flight into the night... whoa, less than a day ago. Quick sleep, an afternoon full of all sorts of feelings, a trip to the moon... redemption... loss...

He found himself walking somewhat aimlessly on the beach, mostly just putting one foot in front of the other. The breeze had become cool, perhaps even cold, as it blew passed him, ruffling his red hair.

He spotted the familiar figure. It wouldn't matter if it had been pitch black. Petrus still would have recognized his sister.

Smiling, just a little, he walked forward to join her.

"Hey," she said, her voice softer with the time of night. Cadence slower, sentences by default took more time but had a calming quality to her voice. "Funny," she said, but smiled more than chuckled, "I came out here and did just what you were doing now to relax earlier. Walking along the beach. Found Sacha and came for a chat, just like you found me just now, I guess," she continued. "Guess it's just kinda amusing, in a way, cause it's the reason I came to sit out here again. Hearing the waves.." she looked away from him toward the ocean.

"Calming," she said, before patting the space right next to her.

"Hey yourself, sis." Petrus said. His voice sounded heavy, but saying the familiar words made him smile.

With a sigh, he settled down next to her. "Yeah, it's nice, huh? Relaxing, calming. The ocean... I dunno. It's like the planet is breathing, and you're breathing with it." He chuckled. "Maybe."

He looked at her. "How's it going? It feels like it's been a lifetime since... we had to go so suddenly."

"Been a lifetime since," she said, putting on a smirk but her heart wasn't totally in it. Leaning over she tested her head on his shoulder for a second. "I'm keeping it together, barely. How're you holding up, bro?"

Petrus reached up to put a hand on her shoulder, giving it a squeeze. "Holding up. It's been quite a day. So much has happened..." He took a deep breath. "I don't think I would have been able to handle this, even a month or two ago. Now..." He gave a half-shrug. "I'm holding up. For real."

He looked at her; in the dim light, his blue eyes looked grey. "Keeping it together barely, huh? Go on, give." He nudged her with his elbow. "Tell me about it."

"I tried so hard," her voice was calm, even, exhausted. Today had been one moment from hell after the next, but it ended in a success that rang as hollow as any success ever could.

That hollow tone was adopted, in her voice, slowly but surely as she continued, "I tried really hard, Petrus, to do what.. to do what I thought was right? What was best? And... Tididol is dead, I.. I was going to warn her, the Hutt, about Vandil. I went against her and tried to choose the lesser of two evils but..." she choked on the thought, but had no more strength to form the emotion further.

"Vandil was faster, ready," she said, "she knows I betrayed her and she killed Tididol ahead of schedule. I'm ... I.." she paused.

"I'm in deep and I don't know what to do."

Petrus felt cold, and it wasn't just the chill breeze. "Hey, hey, it's okay." He said, putting his arm fully around her. "It's okay... we'll figure something out."

He swallowed. "I guess... we need to figure out how to get you out of this. For good. It seems like you can't get out by getting further in, that just doesn't work. So..."

He chewed on his lip a few moments. "What's she making you do now?"

"Nothing.. new, at least, I had a debt that I needed to pay. It was.. a big ask, but now that debts increased by far, I don't even know how far."

There was the sound of a wave.

"I'm not sure I can get out of it now, not anymore," she said. "I've thrown it all away Petrus, everything I worked for.. hoped for, it's gone. You don't come back from betraying someone like Vandil, the fact I'm even alive is.. more than I could have had a right to hope for."

"Means she needs me, for now."

Petrus grimaced, shaking his head. "There's gotta be something we can do. I'm not gonna accept that my sister is indebted to a gangster, like, forever."

He chewed on his lip a few moments. "Okay. Stay in her good graces for now. Don't do anything to get her in deeper, or that you can't come back from. Maybe once this Rebellion gets of the ground..."

He squeezed her shoulders, even as he turned to look at her. "We're gonna figure something out, okay? You and me, together. And our friends, if we need them."

"Okay," she relented, suddenly perhaps but she was.. "I'm just exhausted. Got my wish in a way," she chuckled darkly, "judged myself, wanted to stop running all the time because of how I left Vaya behind. I.. I wanted to be better. Well, I stopped running, and now I don't think I can ever run again."

Yet her thoughts still spoke the same tune, Vandil had her right where she could use her until she was no longer any use. Then, well, with the Hutt she might have known but with Vandil and her new direction it was a game of chance. Maybe at the end of the road she'd only be granted a knife in the gut, or something else horrid. Bodies, so many bodies, they plagued her mind and turned her skin a sickly looking pale. Just in the last month, there were so many, and one was just an innocent man trying to live his life.

Petrus knew his sister well enough to know when she was just pretending to be okay. "It's okay." He said firmly. "You don't have to run. I'll stand beside you. We can face whatever it is together. I can handle myself pretty well, you know?" He smiled, but Petrus wasn't going to underestimate the challenge of facing a crime lord. After all, he was a Jedi, but not a knight.

He gave her another squeeze; his arm was strong. "And hey, don't be too hard on yourself." He took a deep breath. "Fear is our enemy as much as anything else. I think I'm finally figuring that out."

Part of her wished she could join in that moment, that thought that her brother shared but every time he seemed to optimistically talk about how they would make it through together the same words repeated themselves. Or I can call in your contract, and anyone you care about. Anyone you care about.

Care about.

From where she was she shifted to look up more directly at her brother, she'd sacrificed so much so that they could be together again but now, now it was all threatened, again. Something dark inside her constantly built at the notion that she could possibly lose him at any moment, that he'd be taken from her again, her only family left in the entire galaxy.

"I'll try," she said, the thought was earnest but she didn't really believe it. Shifting forward she moved so she could rest her head down more at his side. Closing her eyes for a moment. Letting the exhaustion of the day overtake her for a moment.

Out in the distance, the sound of a wave washing up the beach and pulling back out.

Smell of salt, brush of wind.

Petrus shifted, guiding her and rearranging them both until her head could rest in his lap. "Do you remember sitting like this, when we were really young? Like, really really young?" Petrus said. "When we were already in our room, and but our parents were still up. Making noise." Fighting. "So we couldn't sleep, so we'd kinda sit like this?"

He took a deep breath. "You know... I really worried about you a lot when I was at the temple. Especially right at first. The masters tried to discourage it, but there was only so much they could do."

He was silent a few moments, gazing out over the dark ocean.

"I don't think you were even awake, the first time," she said, shrugging, the movement of her shoulder evident against his leg. It was vivid, in her memory, one of those brief formative memories from when she was younger that her mind still held onto the details of like it was the most important thing in the world.

"Maybe you were awake still, I didn't think you were at the time, I think, I just.. I remember plodding into our room at night, shaking your shoulder and just getting closer. Laying like this. It.. it was the only way I could fall asleep when they got like that, it was the only way I felt safe."

"I remember the first night, maybe the first week, after you were gone. I didn't sleep, and at the end of that first week.. I'm pretty sure, I took to wandering. I climbed out of the window and explored instead of staying there stuck with them. I didn't know where to go, I didn't know where I might be able to feel normal, or safe.. I just, I went. Kept going until one night, some years later, I didn't go back."

Crash of one slightly larger wave against the beach, the soft calming sounds of it pulling out against the sound echoed into the night.

Petrus smiled. "I honestly couldn't say if I was awake or asleep. I just sorta remember, you know?"

He sighed. "And I may have been the big brother, but I felt safer, too. Part of it was knowing that you were safe." Petrus' greatest fears had always been for others, not himself. "But also... I dunno. I just felt safer, too."

Petrus listened as she went on, the sound of the waves providing a pleasant backdrop to their conversation. "How old were you, when you left for good?" He asked gently.

"Want the whole story now?" she chuckled, tried to tease, it didn't have the energy it usually did. Soft, quiet, she was more tired than she could have ever believed before and it wasn't just physical. Today seemed to sap her of everything she had left, and yet she went on, because of it she went on.

"I couldn't have been older than thirteen, I think, but.. I stopped really paying attention to the date. When things happened, it didn't really matter, just why and where I had to be. Left those two to fend for themselves in the cesspit that was lower Coruscant. Maybe they finally kicked it.." she laughed, a dark laugh, "maybe they support the Empire now? Huh? That would be rich."

"Yeah." Petrus said. "I think maybe I wasn't ready before, but I am now."

Grimacing, he shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I'm learning that you can't escape your past... but they're not our past. You're my past, at least as far as family goes." His lips pressed together. "Well, and maybe that Black Ops Jedi from long ago, but I'm still not sure about that."

There was the pause of a wave, the sound of the water as she thought, "Right," she broke the silence with a soft word. "You mentioned something about that, before.. about some Jedi ancestor or something? Daz.. was it?" she was always good with names, part of the field, "what was.. well, you never told me about that?"

Petrus' lips quirked. "Sorry. It was something that I wasn't sure about, myself. And since I was a Jedi, well..."

He took a deep breath, letting it out in something like a sigh. "Well, you were there, at the temple on the moon. The Jedi that were trained there were... not like other Jedi. Willing to do unpleasant things out of loyalty to the Republic. Things I don't think I'd agree with. And..." He shrugged. "We're related to one. I'm not really clear how. But, well, there you go."

His grimace deepened. "Oh, and a Sith, apparently. An important one. I don't know the details, but, yeah, a Sith."

"Huh," she vocalized, holding the thought. Washing of the beach replaced what was occupied by conversation for a small while, and then, "I don't think I would have believed it, but, a Sith, huh? I.. I just think about you, and what you can do, and I see how much of a Jedi you are, not what the Empire says you guys are but what.. what everyone else believes about you."

There was a pause, she struggled with the thought, "Not the ones who took you away from me either, but the heroes of the Republic. Those Jedi, I can see them in you, and the idea of a Sith in that long family history of ours seems impossible. Then," a wave washes up the shore, "I think about Dad, or Mom, and well.. well, it kinda makes sense. How that.. how that fits, in the family."

Petrus lips quirked. "I mean, presumably, it was only dad or mom. Probably him, I guess. She took his last name, right?" He shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

He looked down at her. "But... thanks, Jenna. That means a lot to me, y'know? Because I've been trying so hard lately, but I... I don't know. I guess that last night shook me. But I think maybe if I wasn't a good Jedi, I couldn't have helped bring Neela back. I should trust myself." His lips quirked again. "After all, if everyone close to me does, I should too, right?"

"You should, Petrus, you're the best of us," she said, opening her eyes slightly to finally watch the waves as they came in and went back out.

"Me?" Petrus said, blinking. "No way. I'm not as brave or charitable as Xanna, or as steady and wise as Qareme. As..." he frowned "-flippy as Verse." Maybe he'd give her that one. "And there's Dove, and Dak, and Mia, and Floats..." He smiled. "The Resistance is full of heroes. I'm just... another one, I guess." Wouldn't sell himself that short.

He smiled down at her. "And hey, don't overlook yourself. You're brave and you're clever. That's really something, huh? I'm proud of you, sis."

"I.." she broke off, didn't finish the statement. She didn't know why he was so proud, brave, clever? Maybe she was, but those things only put her right where she was now and that was at the mercy of a crime lord known for solving her outstanding debts with a short blade.

"They've all their weaknesses," she started, shifting off of his leg she righted herself into a seated position but immediately slid back in, shoulder to shoulder with her brother, "only one I don't really see as having much of a weakness is Xanna. Still, it's.. easy for her, in a way, she's just who she is but you.. you've had to fight so much against everything that weighed you down. Fear, it had you.. I think, and I understand that now more than ever I think, but now look at you, you're really something. You've fought against so much and come to stand beside some of those that lead all of this into something more than a rabble of people wailing against the Empire and their fate."

"I just try to keep up sometimes," she shook her head, "I'm not sure if I can. I'm still trying though."