deercountry | Sun rises, night falls, sometimes the sky calls...

Ezra frowns thoughtfully. "Deerington was a...bubble reality?"

"Or a dream," she said, not fully knowing the difference between bubble realities and dreams.

She went to her cupboard and pulled out two mismatched cups. One was a lopsided, glazed mug that was purple and spotted. The other was a stout thing that narrowed up at the top, glistening blue, with a handle like an arched eyebrow. Carefully, she pinched together one of her experimental tea combinations, dropping a little in the bottom of each while she waited for the water to boil.

Ariadne hadn't dedicated a lot of time to trying to understand Deerington. Alastrians were built for survival. And there were others there, much smarter than she. Better equipped to try to unwrap the mysteries. She saw it as her responsibility to protect them, in order for everyone to learn.

But she'd never absorbed a lot.

"They said it was the dream of some great being called Cynthia Sodder."

"Huh." He'd have to look or the Archives or ask around. Maybe. He's still very much working out his list of priorities here. Survival came first, but he was willing to leave some of that in other qualified hands and move to more medium and long term goals.

"Just out of curiosity, did most people get memories of a life that matched the dream or were you all aware you'd been pulled into it?"

"We all knew who we were," she said. At least, she'd never once forgotten. Others had gone through occasional periods of confusion. But Ariadne's sense of self was, if anything, stronger than before. That happened when you were removed from everything you knew.

And she'd been removed twice.

...three times? She still wasn't sure if Trench was a continuation or a new beginning, most of the time.

When the tea kettle screamed, she snatched up a rag and wrapped it around her hand, carefully pouring out the hot water into the cups. The whole room started to smell of green pear and rose.

"Was it different for you?"

"Well, it was a thing that only lasted about a month, for us. One of the guys in town could bend reality, and usually it was in small ways, but he kinda....panicked and cast a spell to try to protect us all? And bam, there was this bigger, nicer city, and most of us believed we were on Earth, rather than the planet we were actually on, and had always lived there."

He takes a breath and plows on in his explanation. "I was one of the odd ones out in that I kept my real memories and the magic ones the entire time. Most everyone else forgot their real lives for a while. Although both lives felt pretty real to me at the time."

"That sounds awful."

Perhaps she shouldn't have said it quite so baldly, but it was true. The idea of not knowing who you really were was kind of terrifying. Like history being lost and forgotten which, for an oral culture like hers, was as bad as not existing in the first place.

She picked up the mugs and walked over to the table, offering him the purple one, as she sat down on the floor. "Or, at least, very confusing?"

"That smells really good," Ezra said about the tea.

"It wasn't all bad. I got memories of way more education than I had as a street kid. And a big brother who had always been there for me-"

He broke off and cleared his throat. "And it didn't take long to work out what wasn't real, because Ben was so much happier in the life created by the spell. Which...does sound awful when I put it that way..." he trailed off.

Yeah, he's walked himself right back into the tangled mess that was him trying to figure out how to relate to Obi-wan, here, hadn't he?

"It's okay to say things that sound awful," she said. "Especially when you don't mean them that way." He was just working out his thoughts. She could hardly blame him. In her mild rage after Anakin killed Dean, she'd said some pretty awful things about him and Obi-Wan and all the rest of them.

None of which she really meant.

She pulled her heels beneath her, wrapping her hands around her mug. "And...it makes sense," she added. "He doesn't seem like a very happy person."

A small, huffy part of her decided that was due to the 'no-attachments' rule, but she didn't want to go down that argument again.

Ezra frowned a little.

"Really? He seems tired, but I figured a lot of that is being worried about Anakin and things they keep hearing about possible futures. But at least Anakin is here. A lot of what Ben lived through...hasn't happened yet. There's hope."

"Oh, there's always hope," she said quickly. And firmly. Because if Ariadne believed anything, it was that. "I guess he just hasn't had the chance to explore that hope."

Because Anakin kept killing people.

She sighed. "I know a bit about worrying about possible futures. But the thing I've kind of figured out" or resigned herself to, "is that it's kind of impossible to figure out possible futures here. Because none of the fixed information we thought we knew is the same. It's like trying to calculate probabilities for a card game where the rules keep changing with every hand. I might be able to calculate the odds of a winning hand in a game with 50 cards. But out of nowhere, a new card will be added, and suddenly your hand is four cards instead of three. Constant entropy. Which is frustrating, I guess."

A pause.

"Or you could look at it as exciting. Meaning you never know when something wonderful is going to happen. You just need to...be open to it, I guess."

"Oh, I know there's always hope. Ben would say so, too. In fact, he did. His message saying so to surviving Jedi is a big part of the reason I'm a Jedi now," Ezra says, with more warmth.

"I just meant..." He shakes his head. "Obi-wan can think of most of the rest of his family as still out there. Alive."

She nearly pointed out that Obi-Wan had flat-out told her that he was taken away from his family as a child. But she stopped herself, both because she knew it was out of her grudge against him and because she was fully aware of the fact that family never started and ended with blood.

Instead, she shrugged. "With thousands, if not millions, of versions of reality out there, it's pretty safe to assume that in some of them, they are. Which means there's always a chance they might show up here."

And just as much a chance that they wouldn't.

"But he is here. And deserves to be happy, but has to do it here. Because we're kinda stuck."

Ezra opens his mouth, closes it, presses his mouth together and then decides, no, he's going for it.

"You know, that's all that lack of attachment actually means. At least as I understand it. Try to control reality, or other people, and you'll bring unhappiness to yourself and probably the people around you. You can love people, and hold them...but not that tight."

"I've never really thought of attachment as control," she admitted, sipping her tea. "Kind of the opposite, I think. My father always said that you absolutely cannot control who your heart yearns for." She laughed a little. "Believe me, I'm sure my mother could be plenty inconvenient for him."

But he loved her. And loved her fiercely. Right up until...

She shook her head. "You would have liked him. My father. He was a wonderful man. Calm, like Obi-Wan. But...poetic. Dreamy sometimes."

"He does sounds like someone I would have liked. I'm not even sure I disagree with him about the heart feeling whatever it's going to feel."

He carefully takes a long sip of the tea. "Obi-wan's my brother. There was a time and place we decided, together after the spell was broken that it was still true, and I don't want to change that, even if I could. But here it's just my choice, and my feelings to deal with. It's not this version's problem."

"Problem? Why would that be a problem? Who doesn't want to have a brother?" Especially one as pleasant as Ezra.

But it only took her a fraction of a second to follow his meaning.

"You mean, this version isn't as...open? Is that it?"

"Anakin is his brother," Ezra says evenly. "Do you want to even imply to Anakin there's this kid Obi-wan might, maybe, someday, love nearly as much? I don't. I had to talk Anakin into letting me visit their house again, just as fellow Jedi from the future."

He shrugs. "And ok yeah, maybe Obi-wan's a little less inclined to be demonstrative. Except I'm not even sure that's fair to say. He told me his home was always open to me and I had his support, like, immediately. Just because I was a padawan that turned up here."

Edited (word order) 2022-01-18 23:21 (UTC)

She had to let out a small sigh. Of course it was Anakin who was the problem. Anakin, who seemed to think the entire multiverse revolved around him. Anakin, who killed without reason or remorse.

Anakin, who she was desperately trying not to hate.

This wasn't helping.

"Well," she said, "I had ten brothers. I think there's room in everyone's heart for more than one. And I think Obi-Wan is wise enough to realize that. Eventually."

"He said I'm welcome. And Anakin hasn't vetoed that. We'll see what happens from there," Ezra replied. That's all he has to say, at this point.

Then he deliberately smiled brighter. "Wanna see pictures of some of my friends and family who are back in the galaxy?"

Oh, that subject change wasn't subtle at all.

Neither was the smile.

But Ariadne wasn't going to argue the point. Ezra would do what he felt he needed to do. And their friendship was still too new for her to question him.

So she smiled in return. "I would love to!"

But it worked! And besides, he really would like to show her some pictures.

He pulled a hand held holoalbum out of his cloak pocket and flips it on, so it projected an image. "First up, my mom and dad, and tiny me. This is the only picture I have of them. My foster sister Sabine found it for me, because she is also great. Best birthday present ever, honestly."

He was aware that probably said something sad about his birthdays, but to be fair, he had good reasons to usually be sad on his birthday.

Ariadne leaned forward to look at the image. Strangely, it was a technology similar to something back in Valeria. The Elves sometimes captured images in crystals, which would project into the air above them, when properly heated. She hadn't seen one in a long time, but wasn't the least bit thrown by it.

On the contrary: She grinned.

"Look at you!" she said cheerfully. "You're so cute!" She was aware that some Humans took offense to the word 'cute,' but she couldn't help it. He was cute. "And you look just like both of them!"

Ezra had things he took pride in, but if he minded the sort of vulnerability implied by 'cute', he wouldn't have shown her this picture. He just beamed.

"I think I have my dad's nose." And flips through pictures quickly, looking for the next one he wants. "And here's Kanan and Hera. I never called them mom or dad-"

He shrugs. "But they were my foster parents."

At the sight of the strange woman, Ariadne's eyes widened to the size of coins. It wasn't her kind face or pretty eyes. Not even the way she had her hand on her mate's chest. Nope. None of that.

"She's...she's green!"

If Ariadne wanted to meet Ezra's family before, that urge suddenly doubled. Someone green! Who wasn't an Alastrian?

Extraordinary!

Ezra glanced between Ariadne and the picture of Hera, confused by the strength of that reaction.

"Yeah. She's Twi'lek. They come in lots of colors, but green's not uncommon. Lots of species in the galaxy, in a whole array of colors. I've probably got some kind of non-human somewhere in my family tree. When I grow my hair out, it's less black and more blue."

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