6 ABY
"She's beautiful," Thane said as he stared down at what had to be the most beautiful baby girl in the entire galaxy.
"You're beautiful," he added, looking up at undoubtedly the galaxy's most beautiful woman.
And they were both his.
Forever.
9 ABY
"You're not listening to me," Ciena said forcefully, her brow creased in a pattern that let Thane know he needed to take this seriously.
"Alright, alright. I am now," he said, hands raised. "Tell me again how our daughter managed to teleport a toy bantha across the room?'
The data pad smacked him in the temple before he had time to react.
"Ouch!"
"I'm serious Thane Kyrell."
"So am I!–Seriously questioning your sanity," he muttered under his breath.
"What did you say?!"
His wife marched purposefully across the room, arms crossed tightly over her chest.
"This is the second time this week, and the fifth this month!"
"And yet, somehow, I've failed to witness even one of these miraculous feats."
"Because you're either not here or you're not looking!" Ciena all but screamed.
"How convenient for you," he smirked.
"This isn't something I would make up Thane!"
"Ciena," he groaned, finally conceding he was not going to be able to laugh this one off.
"How many times are we going to have this argument?" This had become a recurrent conversation in the Kyrell home over the last 3 months and one he was becoming increasingly weary of.
"I'm not saying you're making it up," he said gently, ushering her into his open arms. "Have you considered that maybe you've been working too hard in the senate and it's causing you to… I don't know… see things?"
She sighed deeply. "Why can't you just consider that maybe she's…"
"Maybe she's what Ciena?"
He knew exactly what she meant of course. She'd implied it more than a few times, but neither one of them could bring themselves to say it out loud. Thane had spent his whole life denying its existence; refusing to believe that anything other than his own mind exerted control over his actions.
To admit that their daughter could do the unexplainable meant admitting that the galaxy was far larger, more mysterious, and more complex than he already knew it to be. It also meant admitting that there was something he could not provide for her; something he could not protect her from. And that scared him almost as much as losing her completely.
*CRASH*
The noise startled Thane from his thoughts, and he rushed behind Ciena to the adjacent room, only to run straight into her back.
"Thane, look," Ciena whispered sternly, holding out her arm to prevent him from entering the den completely.
"What?"
"Look," she said again, nodding over to the bookshelf that once held holos and mementos from days gone by.
The grip on his arm tightened as he realized that only one item lay shattered on the ground. The rest floated freely in mid-air, as if held in place by some invisible –– force. At the bottom of the shelf stood the chubby, red-headed, freckle-faced toddler, who had apparently stumbled into it after waking from her nap.
Thane watched, mouth agape, as each item slowly returned to its original place. The little girl spotted them then and happily ran over to greet her parents with kisses and hugs, as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred.
As they stared at each other over their daughter's mop of curly hair, Thane could see the question burning in his wife's eyes. It wasn't a mocking, "do you believe me now," but rather a pleading, "what are we going to do?"
"Well, Wynett Jude Kyrell. You just managed to make our lives a bit more complicated, didn't you?"