Jacen could barely get a moment to think, let alone speak, between the chorus of questions from both Sieren and Tenel Ka.
"Jacen, you never said-"
"-selé je toaou!"
"Now why you never-"
"-zelaeuau aé elia?"
He finally gave up and just waited until they had spewed all their thoughts out.
Never mind the fact that they were doing it all over him.
"Ok, Sieren, hold on." He held up his hand and she quieted almost immediately.
"Tenel Ka?" he looked at the woman standing in front of him. "And please," he muttered, "whole, uninterrupted thoughts."
"Who are you?" she asked flatly, her face a complete mask.
"Ok," Jacen admitted, "I know I didn't-"his commlink buzzed. He sighed. "Sorry. Hold on." He unclipped his commlink from his belt. "Solo." He flicked it on.
"Hi, Jacen." It was Tahiri. "I just got paged. Where are you?"
Jacen smiled. "I'm in my quarters, Tahiri. Sorry to worry you, I just forgot to accept my page."
"Ok. Later." He heard the click when she turned her commlink off.
Jacen put his commlink back on his belt.
"All right, Sieren, what were you going to say?" he sighed.
"Yquìn valos leser?!" she cried.
Jacen opened his mouth to answer her when he was abruptly cut off by a loud wail from the adjoining bedroom.
"Thank you, Si" he rubbed his forehead, "you managed to do the unthinkable and wake him up." He stood and walked into the bedroom, leaving the two girls alone.
Sun and Flame gazed at each other, both seeming to size the other up.
Jacen returned, talking softly to the whimpering baby in his arms.
"Ok," he sighed wearily, looking up at the girls, reflexively continuing to bounce the baby, "maybe we should start over, from the beginning."
The girls waited.
Jacen shook his head quickly. "No. The beginning will take too long. We start here."
"Tenel Ka," he addressed her slowly, "this is my daughter, Sieren."
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"Luke?" Mara came into the room, blinking sleepily.
Luke looked up. "What?"
"Did you feel that just now?" she brushed her hair back from her forehead.
Luke frowned. "Feel what?"
Mara paused, as if listening. She suddenly snapped her fingers. "That. Did you feel that?"
Luke attempted to sense around the room. "No...wait, yeah. I do." He looked back at his wife. "What is it?"
Mara looked thoughtful. "I think Jaina's here."
Luke's eyes widened. "Oh."
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Tenel Ka just stared at the flaxen-curled sprite for a moment. "Ah." She said finally, a strange expression on her face.
Sieren muttered something that sounded anything but happy.
Jacen shot her an I-love-you-but-you're-pushing-it look. "She's from Tatooine, and speaks Bachi, so I'll be translating." He continued on. "Some things I may opt to leave untranslated." He rolled his eyes with a smile.
"And this," he looked down at the baby he was bouncing, "is Keil." The baby cooed. "He's from Bilbringi. New model: no translation required."
Tenel Ka remained blank-faced.
Sieren smiled at Jacen, shaking her head, and said something.
"She says I'm not good with jokes."
"This is true." Tenel Ka agreed with a small smile.
"She understands Basic well enough, but we're still working on the speaking part." Jacen's smile was wry as he sat down on the couch.
Tenel Ka nodded, turning to Sieren. "I am pleased to meet you, Sieren. I am certain your father is very proud to have such a daughter."
The younger girl smiled shyly. "Thank you." The Basic was barely discernible through her thick accent.
Jacen smiled fondly at his daughter. "Mieca , vale I tarir."
She nodded and came to take her brother from him.
"How old is she?" Tenel Ka asked absently, watching the girl go into the other room.
"Almost seven." Jacen leaned back with his hands behind his head.
"She is quiet." Tenel Ka noted.
Jacen chuckled. "You say that now. Wait 'til you see her with Tahiri."
Tenel Ka smiled slightly as she sat down beside him. "You have not finished explaining."
Jacen sighed. "No, I guess I haven't."
Tenel Ka waited.
"Sieren's parents were killed during the war, when the ship they were on was pulled out of hyperspace en-route to Ando from Tatooine. One of the Shamed Ones aboard the Yuuzhan Vong interdictor found out they were Jedi, and managed to hide Sieren for almost a month until a resistance cell managed to capture the ship."
"She speaks Bachi." Tenel Ka mused. She looked up at Jacen. "I am curious. How is it you translate?"
Jacen's grin was sheepish. "Uncle Luke's been teaching Bachi to me on the sly for years."
"On the sly'?" Tenel Ka cocked her head questioningly.
Jacen grinned. "Mom's been getting after him to be a government translator for as long as I can remember. His declining excuse was that he didn't know the language well enough.
"Ah." Tenel Ka understood. "It would not do much for his alibi if your mother knew he was teaching you."
"Exactly. And she wouldn't be happy; in fact, you could say it might've caused a family feud."
Tenel Ka smiled. "And Keil?"
Jacen sighed. "Keil's background is somewhat more of a mystery. We really don't know anything about him. He was abandoned at one of the Safecare points with a specific request that he be placed in a crèche family."
"Crèche family?" Tenel Ka frowned.
"Yeah." Jacen stood and walked into the kitchenette. "Uncle Luke got it from something he read from the Old Order files. Apparently, the potential Jedi trainees were removed from their homes and placed into Temple 'group homes' of sorts when they were very young, to sort of prepared them for training." He pulled two mugs out of a cabinet and set them out on the counter. "Uncle Luke didn't agree with their methods, but it gave him an idea." He poured liquid out of a pot on the stove into the mugs. "So he set up families here at the Academy that would be willing to take in force-sensitive children from the state's child-welfare system." He handed Tenel Ka a mug of hot coffeine. "Now, some of the families have formally adopted their children."
Tenel Ka carefully took a sip of the stuff in her hand and somehow managed to keep from making a face.
Jacen, however, was nowhere nearly as cautious or as austere of facial expression.
"UGH!" he coughed, scrunching his face in silent agony. "Tahiri must've come by earlier to check on the kids. Have you ever seen her make caffeine?" he didn't wait for an answer. "She pours buckets of sugar into it!"
Tenel Ka merely handed her mug back to him. "Does Tahiri come by often?"
Jacen shrugged. "Only when she knows I might be gone. She stops by every once in a while to check on the kids." He shrugged again. "She mostly does it for her own conscience. I have a pager that vibrates long and hard if the kids' vital signs change even the smallest amount, and if I don't accept the page, or the problem isn't ramified in less than three minutes, it automatically forwards the page to Tahiri."
"Ah." Tenel Ka nodded. "That was how you could leave them this morning."
Jacen wasn't listening, but frowning at some unseen problem suspended in the air.
"You know," he said slowly, "I think Jaina's here."