Su'cuy! Welcome to Chapter 2 of Syzygy! As usual, reviews are greatly appreciated. And Ori'vor'e (Thanks a million!) to those who continue to show their support for my stories!
Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars, nor did I develop the Mandalorian culture and language.
The opening quote is taken from Chapter 8 of Book 3, The Front Line. The title of the chapter is taken from a phrase of Adriaan's Jordin quotes in the chapter. I believe it is based on a Japanese saying; I feel dumb because I honestly can't remember where I got the quote :-P Anyway, the saying has been on my mind lately, and as usual, I've incorporated my thoughts into my writings.
This chapter is a bit short (for my chapters, anyway :-/) and doesn't have the usual building detonations, lightsaber clashes, fire fights, and martial arts galore, but it is by no means an unimportant section of the story. I hope you guys like it!
Chapter 2
"What I find most mysterious is this Adriaan ell Talaan. She just appeared out of nowhere. There is no background information in the Archives on her. It's as if she was just born." – Unidentified Jedi, approximately two months after the Battle of Geonosis.
✶ Triple Zero: The Jedi Archives, 407 days ABG ✶
Eight hours cross-checking mercenary activity in the Core with tracking reports of Death Watch activities, along with searching for files apropos to two Mandalorians named Rune and Atoya, was not exactly the activity Jordin had in mind to be engaged in during her convalescence. She ineptly rubbed her eyes, trying to retain her focus on the datascreen she had been hunched over for hours without respite. But at least I have help, Jordin thought, peeping over the computer screen at the Temple librarian, Jocasta Nu, who had joined the search two hours ago. The normally stern librarian had taken pity on Jordin and had offered the girl her valuable services. As Jocasta was more acquainted with this type of job, Jordin was more than happy to accept her aid.
Light footsteps approached from behind, followed by the tantalizing smell of hot caf sweetened with Corellian chocolate. "Thought you might need an energy boost," Zett said in his grave voice, handing the steaming mug to his friend with a quiet smile. Jordin concentrated on her facial muscles, working hard to beam gratefully at her friend in return for his benignity. It felt more like a lopsided grimace than a heartfelt grin, but Zett understood; he knew the head injury had caused her to lose control of her facial expressions. She was getting better, but a full recuperation was going to take a very long time.
"Acquired," Madame Nu remarked crisply – it was the first word she had spoken since she had started. Jordin excitedly hastened to rise to her feet, but her body was stiff from remaining in one position for so long – and besides that, she still hadn't the coordination to stand up on her own – so she could only collapse anemically back into her chair. Jocasta, however, graciously accessed the file and sent it into the air so that the infirm Apprentice could see from her vantage point.
It was a holomap of the Core, with a blinking red tracking reticule heading steadily towards a planet labeled "Kuat". Jordin stared at the chart, trying to follow the chain of Aurebesh streaming next to the dot on the map. "What is this?" she asked finally.
"We've had a Jedi team monitoring Death Watch activity for months now," Jocasta explained. "They patched me in to their holofeed, so what I've been doing for the past two hours is watching the Death Watch camp. Ten minutes ago a two Mandalorians hopped onto their ship and took off, presumably on their leader's orders. A scan indicated they set the hyperspace coordinates for Kuat. As their is little indication that the Kuati have any friendly dealings with Death Watch or Mandos in general, we can safely assume these might be the Rune and Atoya your Master is looking for."
"Oh, thank you, Madame Nu!" Padawan Skraps cried enthusiastically.
"As for General Grievous, I am sorry to say that there is no news to report on his whereabouts," Madame Nu continued.
But Skraps had expected that. Grievous was all too clever in the art of strategic disappearance. He would resurface when it was time for him to make his move. "Thank you, Madame," Jordin said, inclining her head to show her respect. "I'll give this information to Kan immediately."
"Kan?" Jocasta asked sharply, her hoary brows drawing together quizzically. "I thought this information was for your Master."
Jordin mentally wobbled for a long minute, then suddenly remembered. "Oh, yes, of course!" she said with a short bark of a laugh. "This was for Master Adriaan…right. On her behalf I offer you her sincere gratitude. We are truly indebted to you."
"Glad to be of service, my dear," Madame Nu said with a dainty bow. "May the Force grant you a swift recovery and success on this assignment." With a rustle of skirts, she turned and swept out of the room. Zett, mumbling that he had classes to attend, exited almost immediately after Jocasta, after getting Jordin's comlink out for her and dialing in Adriaan's number.
Curse this forgetfulness, Jordin thought as a tall, blond young woman shimmered into view on her comlink holoscreen. Behind her appeared a shorter, darker, masculine figure. Kan looks so grown up, she thought admiringly, gazing at his serious face. But her veneration for him faded, however, as she began to feel something in his visage that was not altogether right. Why does he look so torporific? What's happened to him?
"Well?" The blond said, folding her arms across her chest.
"Master…Adriaan, is it?" Jordin asked helplessly. At the confirmatory nod, she continued, "I'm dispatching the Intel you need. Rune and Atoya left a Death Watch garrison minutes ago and appear to be heading toward Kuat. ETA is currently oh-thirteen-hundred." ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival. Hah, I'm remembering now!
Adriaan's head tilted toward her datapad. "File transmitted. Good work, Jordin."
"Madame Jocasta found the information for me," Jordin corrected.
"Give her my thanks, then." Adriaan appeared completely engrossed with the holo Jordin sent her. Jordin didn't mind; it gave her more of an opportunity to scrutinize Kan. Those dark circles under his eyes…they weren't there before, she realized. And this feeling of darkness…why do I sense this shadow in him?
"He's on a very important assignment, Jordin, and you know what a slave driver Adriaan is. He's just enervated."
"Kan?" she asked aloud.
He started, as if he had been jolted awake. "Yes?" he said, rather curtly.
"Are you…" she grappled to find the right words. "Are you okay?"
"Fine," he said with some surprise. "Why do you ask?"
"You…you look tired."
"Oh, that's just the holoscreen," he said with a dismissive shrug. "The blue tincture makes everyone look exhausted."
"Oh, right." Jordin nodded in agreement, although the anxious knot in her stomach didn't loosen.
"We could all use a little rest," Adriaan remarked. Kan jumped and glanced guiltily at Adriaan; neither he nor Jordin had realized she had been paying any attention. "I'm having the Padawans develop their own personal styles of lightsaber combat at the moment. They've all been working hard…possibly a little too hard."
"Even the Wicked Club?" the redhead Padawan asked with some surprise.
Kan nodded. "Aedan's the most excited about this assignment," he admitted. "He hasn't stopped working on his new lightsaber hilt ever since he copped the parts he needed."
"Aedan always did enjoy exercising his imagination," Adriaan said with a grin. "I knew this was a task that would interest him."
"When are you cleared for active duty?" Kan asked with a significant look. Jordin, even in her discombobulated state of mind, realized what he meant. Have you gotten the information I wanted yet?
"I'm not sure," Jordin replied. "Rez is chomping on the bit to get going, but it won't be for at least another day or two." I'm still researching.
"Take your time," Adriaan broke in encouragingly. "TBI is no trifling injury to get over. Take it easy and don't worry about us, all right?"
"I will," Jordin said, nodding clumsily. "May the Force be with you." And get some sleep, Kan, her eyes pleaded to him silently, you need all of your strength.
Kan appeared to be incredibly interested in the plight of his scruffy, abraded boots, so he didn't return her gaze. Heartbroken at her friend's despondency, Jordin turned to her Master. "May the Force be with you," she said, not realizing until too late that she was repeating herself.
"And with you. Oh, wait one, is Rez available?" Adriaan asked suddenly.
Jordin didn't know; she hadn't seen him since he had dropped her off at the library. "Last time I checked he was with Synta," she admitted.
"And how long ago was that?" her Master persisted.
"About eight hours ago," Jordin confessed sheepishly.
But Adriaan didn't appear distressed in the slightest bit. Why should she be? Rez and Synta were both exemplary, squeaky-clean young adults. "Well, they're both good kids. I'm sure they're keeping out of trouble," the Jedi said. "The only reason I ask is because Ember is freaking out about Rez hanging out with a female."
"They're not doing anything wrong," Jordin affirmed.
"I know," Adriaan replied. "But Ember thinks it's too risky. Plus he's ticked that I didn't tell him about it right away. I figured I'd better give Rez a heads-up before he sees his commanding officer again, because I can smell a nasty dressing-down cooking in Ember's brain."
"Well, you have his number," Jordin said with a shrug, slightly miffed that her Master was acting as if the redhead was personally accountable for the reliable – albeit slightly sophomoric – soldier. "I'm going to go get some rest now."
"Oh, okay," Adriaan said. "Sorry for delaying you."
"Goodnight," Jordin said impatiently.
"Is it really night over there?" the Jedi asked incredulously.
It was actually five o'clock in the morning, but her Master need not know that. "Yes," Jordin said, and then she switched off the link before Adriaan could reply. Finally, she thought. That woman just doesn't know when to hang up, does she?
"You're one to talk, Miss Chatterbox."
I'm certainly not Miss Chatterbox anymore, Jordin thought sadly, gazing at her pallid reflection on the computer screen. We're all getting old and tired before our time. This war is killing us all. Kan's haggard face came back to haunt her. Those clear gray eyes, once so full of ambition and light, seemed plagued by some gnawing feeling in his gut, eating the very hope in his soul. Oh, Kan, what happened to you?
She was exhausted, but she knew she would not sleep with those empty eyes plaguing her thoughts. She had to do something, anything, to relieve the pain reflected in Kan's gaunt face. The only thing she felt she could do now was to find that information he wanted. She suspected that it was the suspense, the lack of knowledge itself, that was eating him up inside.
She had already been to the Archives once, but only succeeded in securing a file on the Disciples of Ragnos. Sadly, there was surprisingly little information on the record that was of any interest to Jordin. She had gone over Adriaan's, Darc's and his Master's biographies, only to discover that the majority of the sections on their files were barred. Not even a document signed by Adriaan granted Jordin sanction to read the locked sections, unfortunately; the files only recognized the retina and midichlorian scan of a Council member. As for the bios of Haak and Ra'hal, they didn't exist…that is, they were erased, or embedded within someone else's file. Luckily, in her last communication with Kan he had divulged a name that could very well be the key to the entire hunt: the true name of Adriaan's Master, Jacen Palgwebb.
Jordin pulled out her list from within the secret compartment in her chrono. There were only a few names left on it to research, but she knew the task could very well take several hours to complete. The top name on the list, of course, was Jacen Palgwebb, but there were other files worth looking into as well: Padawans from Adriaan's youngling clan, the Colo Clawfish; Netari Ptosoy, the woman whom Adriaan had alleged to be her Master; and the Night Falcon, the self-exiled Jedi who had trained Klamin and Heatrian on Zylxx.
With trembling fingers, she typed in Jacen Palgwebb and waited with bated breath for the file to upload.
Document upload successful. The screen chirped.
"Security clearance?" Jordin asked breathlessly.
There was a pause as the computer calculated. Negative; this is a public document, which is accessible to any reader.
Wizard! She couldn't believe her good luck. Thrilled, she eagerly opened the file and scanned it.
The profile picture was a mug shot of a dark man with a clean-shaven head and sharp, angled features. The biography showed that he hadn't been the tallest of human males – only about one and three-quarters of a meter in height, and about sixty-four kilograms in weight. He had died in twenty-three BBY – two years ago. The bio also affirmed that he had won the Taikaido Galactic Point Fighting Championship in the Welterweights division twice, and he had been a third-degree black belt in Taikaido. None of this information really interested Jordin – except for the fact that she knew that Adriaan was also a black belt in Taikaido – so she scrolled down further.
And then her red eyebrows drew together in a ludicrous frown. What she was looking at was the section in his biography concerning his Jedi Padawans – or Padawan, as it happened – and what she saw there dumbfounded her. The picture itself was unsurprising – the long, lean, blond girl with braces sparkling in her wide grin was clearly a happier, younger, uglier version of Jordin's Master – it was the name underneath that was discomfitingly baffling. Not trusting her eyes, she jabbed the name Netari Ptosoy onto the keyboard and waited half-impatiently, half-fearfully, for the file to upload.
Upload successful.
"Security clearance?" she asked, her voice cracking as her heart clogged her throat.
Public documents are accessible to all readers.
Netari Ptosoy was a Pantoran woman, who according to the biography was the first student of the Night Falcon. Interesting, the Padawan thought, scrolling down and recognizing another name. And…yes, Jacen Palgwebb had been the Night Falcon's second Padawan, apprenticed shortly after Ptosoy's Knighthood. Netari had been thin and slight, weighing only fifty kilos and standing at only one and a half meters in height. Her wavy, soft lavender hair was coiled into two braids which fell way past her hips, and her pale yellow eyes bore a soft, clement expression in the picture. According to the file, she had died the same year as Master Palgwebb. Jordin dragged her eyes from the sweet, gentle woman's face and scrolled down to the section about Netari's Apprentices.
Like Palgwebb, she had only had one, and the file attested that her Padawan had been Adriaan ell Talaan. "Oh, Force, it can't be," Jordin Skraps muttered, staring into the eyes of a familiar face.
Except the face wasn't Adriaan's.
It was a human girl, born in forty-eight BBY – a good ten years before Adriaan's birthdate, Jordin realized after a quick check on the calculator, because she no longer had the mental capacity to do even basic math in her head. Netari's only Apprentice had weighed fifty-seven kilos and had been only been one and three-fifths of a meter in height – while Adriaan was sixty-four kilograms and 1.7 meters in height. The girl had been about seventeen when the picture had been taken, but she did not have the eyes of a joyful woman in the blossom of her youth. She was pale and unsmiling, grave and wistful of face, her twilight hair loose and toppling in wavy cascades past her shoulders. Her lips were full and red, her cheekbones and forehead high, and her eyes were black and empty as space without stars.
She looked nothing like Jordin's Master, yet the file confirmed multiple times that the girl's name was Adriaan ell Talaan.
Even stranger was the fact that even though the woman in the file was not the Adriaan Jordin knew, something about the face and eyes reminded her of someone, someone whose name she no longer remembered. Marya? No, silly, she scolded herself, Marya is tanned, short-haired, and ferocious-looking; nothing like the sad, wan young woman in the picture. I must be imagining a resemblance.
Disturbed, she switched to the previous file she had been examining and again gazed at the picture of the person whom she knew to be her Master, Adriaan ell Talaan. Again she frowned and rubbed her eyes at the name, which stated otherwise that she was really called – "Impossible," Jordin declared.
Kan would want to see this, she knew. Quickly, she typed out a command on the keyboard. Request copying selected files to datachip.
The computer processed the request, then beeped in confirmation. Permission granted. Jordin inserted the datachip, and while the computer copied the files onto the disc, she quickly researched the other names on the list. She tried to concentrate on the words before her, but the discovery she had made in Netari's and Jacen's profiles had so disconcerted her that she could not focus. So those files, too, she copied onto the datachip after a brief perusal of their contents. In a few minutes, the transaction was completed, and Jordin closed all the windows, cleared the history on the computer drive, and stood up to leave.
Jango Fett swiveled his Westars at Kan's Master and fired…
Blood, blood everywhere…in the dirt, in her eyes, in the sky, in her clothes, in her being, spilling, spilling…
KA-BAM! Ships exploding, fire kicking up the red dirt and fogging up the amber sky with black smoke and yellow fangs. A white helmet charred and blackened from smoke rolled to a stop at her feet, the fragmented T-mask staring brokenly up at her. And she couldn't help but think, what sort of man had he been, the man who had worn that helmet?
The dirt and dust and ash cleared, and she screamed, for she was back in the pink-wall-papered room of her thoughts, the horrific pastel prison of her mind…
And you will never escape this; never, never…
Then she saw a sable man, veiled by a bulky black cloak, and kneeling at his feet was a broken figure – a girl, her golden hair disheveled, her clothes and skin torn, a wheel of fire burning away in her heart.
"Hand them over," he commanded her.
She opened not her mouth, but shook her head in reply. And clenching the earth till the knucklebones seemed to break through her skin, she stood, threw herself up, using her body to shield two forlorn figures who twin crimson beams of light at the phantom menace. The boy was unrecognizable; a child of about four, with a shock of light hair. And the other one…she was the woman Jordin beheld in Adriaan's place, the woman with the eyes like twilight, except now she, too, was a child, naked to evil.
"Hand them over, Jedi-witch!"
Then she raised her head defiantly, and cast her hair back, and it was as if the sun had risen out of an eclipse. "If you want them, you'll have to kill me."
"Apprentice Skraps?"
Jordin snapped back against her seat, aroused at the sound of the kindly librarian's voice. But even the concern in Madame Nu's tone and expression seemed to Jordin ferocious and full of suspicion. The girl stared at the kind, aged face, her heart hammering in terror. Had Jocasta seen what she had been researching? If she had, surely she would think nothing of it, she thought nervously, after all Adriaan is my Master; I am breaking no laws by looking at public documents.
Jocasta did not appear to realize what Jordin had been looking at – either that, or her concern for the girl overrode any interest she might have had in what the Padawan had been researching. It took all the Padawan's strength not to sigh audibly in relief when the librarian, satisfied that all was well with the invalid, left the room in a bustle of skirts.
Jordin fell back against her chair and cast her eyes upward in a silent prayer of thanks. But even as she let out the pent-up breath she had been holding, the anxious knot in her gut tightened. She inhaled sharply and clutched the precious datachip tightly in her fist, resolving that she would not shrink from retribution, but accept any consequences that would result from assisting in Kan's deceit.
CT-1374 took a rag and swabbed the smear of grease his fingers had accidentally rubbed onto the T-mask of the generic GAR helmet he had spent a good part of the morning adjusting to fit the head of a person much smaller than a clone soldier. He spun the helmet in his hand like a bolo-ball, examining his work. Finding no flaw in the mask, he set it on top of the stack of white armor plates by his feet. He would need to get a special paint to give the armor a special pop of color, for the person it would serve would greatly dislike wearing classic clone trooper skeleton-white.
Maybe a dark gold paint, CT-1374 thought, thinking of the person to whom he would present it to as a going-away gift, or even a green to coordinate my camo armor. His chest ballooned with pride as he looked at the set of armor he had produced, imagining the look of delight on the receiver's face when he would present it to her the next morning, just before she would be consigned to the GAR Academy on Carida. As for himself and his charge, he expected they would be discharged for active duty within days, so he had prepared all the going-away gifts for the friends he would be leaving behind on Triple Zero. An outbreak in the Mid-Rim had sent Captain Rex and Torrent Company back to the front line days ago, so Rez had already given them their parting gift: a round of drinks at one of the local dives the ELF scout had become acquainted with during his stay at the Republic Capital. The pot of Eclipse lilies – native plants to the planet Hohepäe, the black blossoms fringed with a corona of yellow petals were known for their resilience and subtle fragrance – Rez had purchased from a street vendor that morning he was going to deliver to the Temple later in the afternoon, when he was scheduled to pick Jordin up from the Archives. The soldier had bought something else that morning with the last of his pocket money, too, and he smiled as his fingers grazed the gift hidden in his breast pocket.
"A new set of armor already?" A soft, low voice said from behind.
The hairs on the back of the soldier's neck prickled at the unexpected sound. How in fierfek did she manage to sneak up on me like that? The clone had long ago become accustomed to Adriaan seemingly appearing out of thin air, but none of her Padawans had yet tread softly enough not to be detected by his superhuman senses. Fighting down his chagrin for being caught off-guard, he turned and crushed the frail sylph in a bear hug, giving her a brotherly grin as she tilted her face up to smile gravely at him.
"Jordin, since when have I needed armor plates shaped like these?" he asked, holding up the concave breastplates.
The girls' cheeks reddened. "Oh, dear," she stammered, lowering her eyes. "I am sorry; I did not see those. Besides, now that you point it out, I see now that this armor is meant to accommodate a person quite a bit smaller than you."
Rez was thrilled; it was the longest string of sentences Jordin had uttered aloud since her injury. "Glad to see the old Jordin's back," he remarked lightly, ruffling her cropped hair roughly. Privately, though, he conceded there was something he liked more in the serious, mature Jordin.
But she shook her head. "I fear you must be disappointed, for the old Jordin can never come back."
"Oh, buck up; of course you'll recover!" the trooper hastened to assure her, fiercely squeezing her against him. "Why are you so certain you will never go back to normal?"
"Even if things did 'go back to normal' – which by that I assume you mean I regain my physical and mental faculties – the fact remains that my head was nearly blown off, the fact that without you and Eris I would have surely died," she said gravely, yet without sadness. "Psychologically, I have recovered from the trauma, but recovery is distinguished from actually forgetting the experience. I remember Adriaan used to tell us this whenever we asked her why she did not speak of her past: 'Ka'trasu trattor gotal'u mun werda' – she explained that it is a Goba Shag proverb which is translated as 'The setting sun casts long shadows' It means your past can darken your future, and the memory of being trapped in a comatose state is indeed a long shadow in my heart, Rez."
The boy lowered his eyes. "Of course," he said quietly. "But that does not mean you must be so serious all the time." He raised his head, suddenly bold. "I haven't heard your beautiful laugh in ages."
A deep blush colored her sickly cheeks. "Oh, of course I will laugh again, if the mood takes me," she said, rather hurriedly quenching her blooming complexion. "It will not be as often as before, for the things which used to delight me I now find insipid. I feel like – and no, do not contradict me, for my feelings are my own – that I died in that accident, and yet here I am, born again."
The clone nodded, his heart cleaving to hers in understanding. "I can explain your feelings, I think," he said gently. "The little caterpillar grew into a butterfly."
"A very grey, dull, vapid little butterfly," Jordin said with a wry smile. Rez opened his mouth to reply, but he observed her gaze dart quickly around his apartment as she searched almost desperately for a means to change the subject, which had become increasingly awkward for them both. Almost immediately, her eyes pounced on the brightest focus in the room – the Eclipse lilies. "Oh, I did not know you loved to grow flowers!" she said, shambling forward to admire the spectacular blooms.
Her gait is more consistent now, he observed to himself. Aloud he replied, "Not really; I bought those for Eris Akura, in thanks for her invaluable compassion and friendship."
"I am sure she will love these," the girl murmured, her fingers hovering over a lily, as if half in fear the flower would shatter at her touch. Her back to him, she spoke to him telepathically. "We are leaving soon, aren't we."
It was a statement, worded as a question. Speaking to her with his thoughts, which only she could hear without the aid of his voice, he answered, Yes.
"Can we leave tomorrow morning then?" she asked with her mouth.
Rez was surprised at her eagerness to depart. Maybe she's as sick of this inactivity as I am. Perhaps I have underestimated her after all. "If you like," he said, deciding to leave the decision up to her. She best knew her own limits, after all, and the clone knew that the girl was not prone to overexerting herself.
"That is good; I finished my work this morning," Jordin said with a sudden briskness. "You will need to deliver your present to Eris today, though, because you will want to give Synta her armor when she leaves tomorrow morning."
The girl anticipated his moves with an uncanny accuracy. The soldier gulped, then realized he wasn't as vulnerable to her as he had first thought, for she still had no idea what was concealed in his breast pocket.
"Speaking of armor," he said, stepping to her, "I was going to ask your advice on the coloring and insignia. I was thinking she would like a dark metallic gold…"
"Oh, she will love that!" Jordin said enthusiastically. "Better yet, paint an Eclipse blossom on the helmet and shoulder pads. The symbol is appropriate, as Eclipse lilies are a sign of determination and resilience."
"That is an excellent idea!" Rez enthused. "But if I am going to paint the Eclipse lilies, maybe we'd better go with green as a base paint. Maybe something to match these…" Suddenly he withdrew a pair of sparkling, luminous, large, long, dangly, gorgeous emerald earrings gilded with rose-red gold.
The Jedi student gasped at the simple, elegant beauty of the jewelry which swung before her eyes, fairly dazzling her in their unusual brilliance. She could guess by the luster and hue of the stones that they had probably been hard for the clone to obtain, and her assumption was not far from the truth; Rez had practically scoured three levels of the upper-class districts, and visited approximately three dozen jewelry shops, before he had found the perfect gift for the little Padawan, who had become his best friend over the course of their time on Coruscant. It was the least he could do, he thought, for someone who was so kind and so selflessly loving towards him, who had hardly experienced any sort of affection from anyone other than Adriaan and his fellow soldiers, who were more family than anything else to him. Brotherly love bordered on violence; Adriaan's maternal affection was also somewhat gruff and rough around the edges, so he had never experienced the sweet, quiet intimacy that came from a little sister.
"Oh, Rez, you shouldn't have –" Jordin began, but the soldier firmly pressed them into her hand.
"Yes, I should have. It was about time you had something pretty of your own, something to make those gorgeous eyes sparkle again," he said with a vehemence that astonished even himself. Jordin, scarcely believing that the glittering things she held in her palm were truly her own, could only stare at the earrings in stupefied silence. It was understandable – the earrings were probably the most outrageously glamorous items the child had ever owned, and there was a remote possibility that they might even be scandalous for a Jedi to wear.
Iniquitous or not, Jordin meekly submitted to having the clone put them in her ears. When they were secured, he held up a hand mirror for her to take a look.
She gasped, her hands going up to her ears. The transformation was incredible, noticeable even to the normally unselfconscious Jordin. A rosy blush flushed youth back into her face, and her eyes reignited with the old passion-green fire. Even her hair seemed to glow with an added luster. Her lips parted, but did not quite threaten to turn up at the corners.
"I – I am not sure I deserve these…" she murmured, perfectly sober.
"Nonsense!" Rez said, fed up with her lack of facial expression. "Jordin, if you dare refuse this present, I shall never forgive you; I'll have you know I spent several hours trying to procure those, and I spent the last bit of my allowance to purchase them too. The store I bought it from has no return policy, so if you will not accept them, what in the Seven Hells am I supposed to do with them? Synta can't wear dangly earrings in the Academy, and I would certainly look dorky with those ridiculous things in my ears. So you might as well take them and shut up." His voice was rough, but only because the raggedness of his emotions made his voice harsher to disguise how he really felt.
But Jordin knew this; the child didn't laugh, but a smile just as beautiful as her giggle washed away the gravity from her expression, and cleared the storm which had begun to darken the clone's brow. "Oh, thank you, Rez!" she breathed, and then she flung her arms around him in a grateful embrace.
Rez would have preferred a squeal of delight over the polite expression of a verbal "thank you", but he was satisfied with the return of her sunny grin and reciprocated her hug all the same.