CMC

by Sapadu

This future must not come to pass. A Wish that must be granted. Justice that must be delivered. Spoilers for most every book there is. (23-Jan-2023 update: Dead fic)

2. Chapter 1: Chaos Theory

CMC

By: Sapadu

Part I: Denial

Chapter 1: Chaos Theory – Tiny changes in circumstance can have major ramifications later on, but patterns do still emerge from so-called chaos.

It was upon the event of the eighth year celebration of Ben Skywalker that a venture to a festival on the Bright Jewel system was arranged. It had been the suggestion of Jacen that, in lieu of the current difficulties the beleaguered Skywalker parents were having with politics and settlement of the Jedi Order's place in a Republic recovering from the Yuzuhan Vong War, combined with their son's rejection of the Force, it might be conducive to Ben's well-being, as a Jedi, to spend some recreational time with his two cousins, as well as serving an educational experience to learn about different customs in a system other than his home planet.

Thus, with the chaperone of a protocol droid, C-3PO and the sponsors of the voyage, Jacen and Jaina Solo, Ben found himself in a whirl of gaiety on the Heart of the Bright Jewel sector – Ord Mantell. And this, gentle readers, is where we shall begin.

~.~.~

"What makes the clouds look so pink like that?"

"Ben..."

"Are we gonna see a real savrip? I thought they were supposed to be everywhere, here. Like, isn't there supposed to be a zoo

or circus attraction, at least?"

"...Ben..."

"Is that where they're rebuilding the Jubilee Wheel? Can we go see it?"

"Be~en..."

"Where're all the buildings? I don't see any walkways or anything around here!"

"BEN! BREATHE FOR A MOMENT!"

The festivities had reached their third stage by the touchdown time of the transport from Coruscant, but as there still remained a week of carnival to attend, none aboard could be disappointed for long. From the eventful first moment the trio – or, in all fairness, quartet, though a chaperone such as C-3PO doesn't count for much, especially as he had a tendency to detract from the enjoyability of the carnival, rather than add to it – set foot on the planet's surface, Ben had begun looking everywhere, jaw permanently unhinged and far too many questions for his cousins' comfort spilling out all at once. Jacen found them spots on a float which was already crowded, but most all of the other passengers were so inebriated that none cared when four extra bodies – one of which was clearly too underage to be at such a debauch – squeezed into a seat.

This left Jaina the responsibility of finding drinks for herself and her twin. Needless to say, she rather resented the lack of challenge.

"Here." She shoved a glass of something that was most likely not to Jacen's taste into his hands, "Just don't ask where the cup's been." Jacen shrugged, remarkably somber for being the one to have suggested this excursion, but took a sip anyway.

"Can't be worse than some of the other questionable sources we've had to procure food and water from before." He commented, pointedly. Really, Jaina wondered, if he was so unhappy to be at a carnival, why did he bother taking time off from his sabbatical to explore other schools of Force-study? Why'd he even bother suggesting they come all this way out here when she still had duties to the Order, and there were still areas of the galaxy that needed aid and support in the aftermath of a war? "Remember Zonama Sekot?"

Jaina took a long swig, directly from the bottle, "If you didn't want to drink, you could have just said so."

"I didn't... Jaina, I want everyone to have a good time – I was just as busy as you were when I pulled away for this." Jacen sighed, phlegmatically.

"Then, why'd you come, at all?" Instead of snapping, Jaina feigned disinterest in her own question, instead taking her seat again and putting her attention on a surprisingly muscular, shirtless creature that was humanoid enough to be of passing interest, but vague enough that she couldn't tell if it was male or female. Either way, it was a good show. When Jacen didn't answer, Jaina glanced over to see him also staring in the same general direction, but as though his pupils were somehow too dilated for him to really see anything.

"...Ben needs us. I figured it would be best to spend time with him for a little while and make sure he was doing okay." Was his response, so painfully bored that Jaina didn't believe it for a second. And if that really was the case, why was Jacen so worried about Ben, who hadn't even been old enough to remember Jacen before he'd left, but didn't think for a moment about anyone else? Because, obviously, it wasn't like the only sibling she had left just deciding to depart for an unknown amount of time to Maker-knows-where had scared Jaina at all – no, no that couldn't have POSSIBLY happened.

"Well, so long as spending time together is an obligation – I'd hate to think it was because you were enjoying yourself or you LIKED anyone in our immediate family..." Not that she was bitter or anything. Because Jaina was sure she didn't sound like it. Because she wasn't.

Jacen shot Jaina a look that she didn't see as she took another swig and looked over to see Ben staring at the both of them, those blue, Skywalker eyes as wide and round as any child's ever got. She'd be lying to say she hadn't missed them, nor the astounded curiosity in them.

"You guys are so WIERD!" Ben finally said, grinning impishly. Jaina turned to Jacen for a moment, and then the both of them reached over and hauled Ben out of his seat and wedged him between them, both of them administering some form of playful, childish torture on their baby cousin. Threepio stood over the three of them, protesting the rough treatment and oblivious to the fact that Ben was enjoying it just as much as he struggled to free himself from Jacen's headlock.

~.~.~

Really, Jacen's plan had gone off without a single hiccup. After ten minutes, Jacen had had another drink, Jaina had to fight to get a second, much more difficult bottle, and Ben willingly let his arms dangle over the side of the float and just listened to the cacophony of noise being raised by other festiviants. The fact that everyone else in the crowd was so focused on just having a good time also didn't hurt – it buzzed on Ben's senses like having a whole swarm of bees happily dancing just close enough that he could feel the hairs on his skin standing up.

And that was when he saw her – felt her, really, because she was the only person, like himself, not shouting, screaming, or throwing anything as they enjoyed the carnival. She certainly stuck out, like a little hole in otherwise solid, bumpy – sharp, Ben thought, as someone accidentally elbowed him in the ribs and their apology was swallowed by the din of the crowd – ground, the only spot of complete quiet while everyone else was making a racket. Not only that, but she looked different enough to stick out, impressively. She couldn't have been that much older than he was – maybe that's why she stood out so much, because she was the only other real kid here – and she looked as though she'd never seen the light of a sun before, her skin was so pale and her hair was so white. She looked soft, like the fluffy white fur of a stuffed toy. Her bright eyes – so green that Ben wondered if it was even natural – were fixed on his face with such intensity that Ben couldn't help but feel her gaze. When she threw something at him, Ben didn't even think for a moment to not reach out and catch it – he hardly even needed to see what it was, or even the movement of her arm to know that it was coming. With a soft rustling noise, Ben caught what appeared to be a bouquet of pale blue, flower-shaped candles and fabricated green leaves. Ben remained on his feet, trying to keep eye contact with the girl for as long as possible, but the float moved on and she disappeared into the crowd and the noise as quickly as she'd come.

"Ben, where'd you get those?" Jaina sounded vaguely suspicious as they piled out of the float once it reached the end of it's line. Threepio was complaining noisily about being rattled so much, about the unruly behavior of every other occupant on the float, and about where, precisely were they headed next when they didn't even have reservations in any rooms? Jaina was somehow completely upright, but looked as though someone had just injected an extra liter or two of blood into the skin on her face, and several strings of fake gems on cheap necklaces slung about her neck. Even Jacen seemed to be wobbling a little, "You can never be to careful with these strange plants – no matter how pretty they look, they could be poisonous, or have tendrils that reach over and choke you while you sleep, or teeth on the insides of their leaves and you never know until you lose a finger, then it's a hand, and then, while you're panicking..." Jaina paused to put a hand over her mouth for a moment.

"Jaina. I think they're fake." Jacen pointed out as he poked one of the 'buds' and it left an impression of his fingernail in the wax.

"...Oh." Jaina shook her head, "Never mind."

"But where DID you find those, anyway, Ben? They look way too nice for someone to have just set down or lost by accident." Jacen immediately returned. In response, Ben clutched the bouquet closer to his chest.

"A girl threw them to me." He said, resisting the urge to add 'They're mine, so there!'

"...A girl? Who?"

"I dunno – someone we passed by on the float." Admittedly, Ben could already see his argument leading to something kind of bad – a complete stranger just giving out gifts in a crowded place like this. Even his dad wouldn't let that go without some discussion, and his mom would probably want to dust said gift for fingerprints, just in case.

"...Ben..." Jaina started, but Jacen elbowed her and gestured to the beads she had around her neck.

"Fine. But if you can carry that, you can handle your own luggage, too." Oh yeah... Ben had more or less forgotten, but Jacen pushing the satchel which Ben had packed for this trip into his arms quickly reminded him. He shrugged and slung the heavy parcel over his shoulder before Jacen and Jaina started shuffling him along, out of the crowd.

"Where we going next?" He asked, hanging onto Jaina's elbow as she kept leaning on Jacen to stop from over balancing.

"Somewhere." Jacen said, his lips twitching into a grin, "You'll see when we get there."

~.~.~

Somewhere, as it turned out, was at just about every sideshow or vendor that had been crammed into the streets of the city. Virtually every stretch of duracrete and footpaths had been crammed with performers – at one point, Jacen stopped everyone to watch a supposed magic show that was so blatantly fake, even Ben could see the holoprojectors hidden up the man's sleeves – and to make matters worse, it was impossible to maneuver around the swells of people without somehow being squished. Nearly everything was decked out in some kind of adornment, whether it be colored, folded flimisplast, flickering lights, or floating balloons in any manner of outrageous shapes, and that was only the buildings or stalls. The people were a different matter entirely – one which Ben was kind of glad that Jaina and Jacen kept turning him in every which way to keep him from coming into contact with anyone, even if it meant he kept getting squished.

"Um... why don't we go down that other street if you don't want to bump into anyone?" Ben asked as Jacen navigated him through a crowd of giggling ladies – in the loosest possible sense of the word – that had clustered around a boy doing caricature sketches.

"Trust me, Ben – you're not going down THOSE streets until you're thirty if your parents and us have anything to say about it." Jaina responded, leading the charge and shedding her jacket as she did. By which, Ben could only assume Jacen and Jaina thought there was too much nudity on other streets.

"Can't be much worse than here..." Ben grumbled, especially as someone almost over balanced and Jacen steered him around stepping on someone whom was almost certainly sporting more jewelry and makeup than actual clothing. Threepio was either missing from the group, or was so scandalized by the overwhelming spectacle that his programming had long since shut down to prevent a short-circuit.

Either way, it had been eventful enough that, by the time lights had turned on over the streets and Jaina had shed her boots and Jacen was actually unsteady enough that Ben kept having to push him back upright, the decision was made to find a room for the night.

It was there, in the domed lobby of a hotel, was where the evening really got interesting. And Ben had seen both his cousins get quite inebriated and at least a dozen complete strangers with no shirts in the last hour of the day.

"Not even any single rooms? We could probably even sleep on the floor, if you have a common sleeping area." Jaina was asking the clerk as Ben sat on probably the only empty seat in the lobby with their luggage. He could see the concierge – a droid with a model not terribly unlike Threepio's, but faceless and with a single appendage to pass through the drop slot in the glass – responded almost exactly like Threepio might have, with a huff as though it was offended that Jaina thought the hotel was so low-class that it had such a thing as a communal sleeping room. In fact, it pointed out, such things were unheard of on most civilized worlds when the Yuzuhan Vong War ended. There was, after all, no need for establishments to be so crowded when there was no need to provide mass shelter for civilians.

"In that case, what about other hotels in the city?" Jaina asked. The concierge droid maintained it's miffed air as it politely – technically – informed her that there weren't any openings in any establishment within the city limits, "You've got to be kidding – not even a shiprest port? Any cruisers in orbit that we could take a shuttle up to for the night?" The answer didn't seem any closer to something manageable than before – if anything, the droid seemed to be bordering on outright telling Jaina that, even if such an option was available, it wasn't about to send guests away, "This is such bull-"

"Jaina, this is our own fault for not planning ahead – don't take it out on the droid." Jacen put in, as though he'd been denied the opportunity to speak up before, while Jaina was having her long conversation, aplentied with pauses, with the droid.

As fascinating as the dilemma was – or, at least, as fascinating as any eight-year-old boy might find the adults making travel arrangements could ever be – Ben was more interested in looking around and observing the further spectacle of other occupants. There was a restaurant whose pub opened into the lobby accumulating a crowd of spectacularly decorated creatures, either in costumes or of a bizarre nature that blended into their clothing. Security droids rolled about the lobby, occasionally pausing to escort some creature with a few too many stray credit chips in his pockets out the door, or pull a lump of limbs, skin, and clothes off of a body that was making a seat rock. And it was all so noisy... until...

Ben couldn't say when they appeared, but when he saw a pair of people standing in the middle of the lobby, he could have sworn they'd materialized out of nowhere. The gentleman was tall – towering, even – at least twice the height of the lady at his side, and with skin that was tanned, freckled and lined as leather appears after a decent tanning and white hair falling over a broad, flat forehead and hooked nose. But the lady was what made Ben stare. Logically, sensibly, Ben knew that she was nothing outstanding – there were probably women just like her everywhere back home – save for the silence around her. It was eerily similar to the girl he'd seen on the float, only so much more pronounced that it seemed to envelope him, pushing back all the other noise in the room, and thus, the more Ben stared, the more he found intriguing enough to continue his inspection. Perhaps it was her dress – all black and slitted in the skirt and sleeves to allow silvery-gray frills to spill out – that was extraordinarily common among all the costumes he'd seen that day, but that hung on the woman's tiny frame as though it were a skin that she slipped into and out of with daily routine. Or perhaps it was her manner, being surrounded by oddities, frivolity, and chaos, and instead of being overwhelmed as either Ben or any of the other visitors were, seemed to be perfectly at rights with herself.

Whatever the case, Ben's eyes remained fixed on her, and perceiving every movement as she spoke with the gentleman in her company, until she turned. It was as though, rather than being a mere distant observer, Ben had been close and defenseless to the motion as the woman's eyes – wide and almond-shaped and a bright, brilliant gray – landed on him and opened fully. It was the tiniest, most subtle of movements but changed her expression so completely. Ben felt as though he'd been hit full-on in the face with something dense as the woman turned, bodily, and strode towards him, almost as though their faces had a magnetic connection that stopped him from tearing his gaze away from any little detail – the curve of her cheeks into her jaw, the flat the bridge of her nose, the smooth curve of her chin to her throat, the sweep of her dark hair in a fringe over her brow and into the twisted braids over her ears.

It didn't even occur to Ben to be startled until that face was level with his as the woman knelt. Up close, her eyes seemed less a normal gray and more like polished, reflective silver.

"The hour is so late for one so young." Even her voice had something queer about it, something that Ben had no words to describe in his vocabulary, "Might I be so bold as to inquire – what occupation could you have as to be out here, alone, young sir?" Dazed as though struck with another blow to the face, Ben blinked for a moment before it occurred to him that he was, in fact, the young sir she was speaking to.

"...I'm not alone." Ben finally managed. There was no mistaking this sensation for exactly like that of the girl in the parade – a parallel that made Ben feel somewhat more at ease with recognizing it in another person, but also made him clutch the candle-flowers tightly. It wasn't, after all, as though this strange lady might find anything more valuable in the other belongings Ben had been set to watch, "They're just getting a room for us, over there."

The lady straightened up, following Ben's direction with her eyes. A single finger raised to rest on her chin before the woman turned back to Ben and offered him a hand.

"By my estimation, it is a room they are having difficulty procuring. Let us go and provide assistance as it may be required." Before his own common sense could argue, Ben was on his feet and following the lady in black towards the desk. On his feet, he could see that this strange woman was only the least bit taller than he was, and barely came up to Jaina's shoulder as they approached his cousins.

"If I might intrude upon your discussion, perchance – is this little treasure yours, Madame and Monsieur?" One of her gloved hands, small and fragile, pressed into Ben's back and pushed him forward, interrupting Jaina's debate with the clerk of whether they could speak with a manager, or at least a sentient being. Jacen glanced away, long enough for Ben to see a puzzled, then leery expression cross his features. Why, Ben couldn't imagine.

"…Yes – why, was he bothering you?" Jaina straightened up, and then almost jumped when her eyes landed on Ben. Really, Ben thought when her next reaction was to grab him by the arm and yank him towards her, he didn't see what they were being so touchy about.

"I wasn't DOING anything!" Ben protested, even as Jaina pulled him tightly against her side. Maybe, if he'd been yelling or running around – unlikely, from the throbbing ache in his feet and how his legs didn't seem to want to move - or had been brought over by a patrol, he might understand why they were so mad. This lady was just being nice, and he had just been sitting with the luggage.

The strange lady in black giggled, her gloved hands going up to cup the lower half of her face and obscure the smile. It was kind of odd to see, since Ben found himself wondering what she looked like, normally.

"Not to be contrary, but I could see quite plainly that the young one was alright. It was this I was referring to-" She gestured and when Ben followed her hand with his eyes, the fussy droid that had been lost in the crowd earlier was standing directly behind the lady in black, "His claim referred to you as his companion party, but he lacked any connexion to you. I merely wished to provide any assistance possible."

"Master Jacen, Mistress Jaina, how could you LEAVE me like that? All those crowds, half of them were so noisy I could barely process half the noise, the other half kept trying to pull me apart, and I was jeered at and poked and pushed and pulled every which way and I kept trying to say that I already had a master, but you were nowhere to be found and…"

"Oh, hush – you're fine now, aren't you?" Jacen drawled, as though to say 'You interrupted our important conversation for THIS?' to the lady who'd brought Threepio back over. Ben didn't say anything – he was leaning on Jaina, suddenly more aware of how heavy every muscle in his body felt, now that he was standing up and wanted so very, very badly to be at least sitting down somewhere.

"And what are you going to do NOW? Every place in the city is overcrowded – it shall STAY that way for at least another week, and what will any of us do for a room, tonight? Even hotels that allow patrons to sleep in their lobbies are unable to accommodate any other occupants!" Ben wasn't as used to Threepio like Jaina and Jacen supposedly were, so he wasn't quite able to tune him out the same way they were, and these questions did seem fairly serious. If Jacen and Jaina had been more tense – he could feel them, feel that they were at least unhappy, but it definitely could have been worse – he might have been a little tempted to panic.

"We're working on that." Jaina snapped, impatiently, and shooting a glare at the desk clerk, which was silent and unmoving as though their conversation wasn't even registering, "Now, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, I need to speak to speak with someONE with more authority in this matter, please."

The droid instantaneously replied that, since it could tell Jaina was unhappy, she should use the communication hololink and register a formal complaint, but it was clearly not going to find a person for her to speak to.

"Is there a directory of transport stations, at least?" Jacen finally asked, "If we can't find a room, then we can manage there for a night or two – at least it's shelter of some kind." And to that, the droid was clearly not going to even acknowledge the question.

All this time, Ben hung on Jaina's arm, about ready to fall asleep, but still watching the strange lady. She hadn't even budged from her spot, as though she were waiting for something, and Ben was the only one who saw her face as she stood, listening and watching. He could see her eyes fix on Jacen, then on Jaina, then back, and could practically feel the laser precise heat from her stare, and when Jacen said 'transport station', he could see her mouth tighten. It was a little weird, seeing someone's face move so little, but seem to say so much, and yet nothing at all. With Jacen and Jaina, or even the complete strangers that were drinking and dancing all around in the festival, at least Ben could understand what they meant when they either laughed or shouted or glared, to the point that he barely noticed their expressions. Technically, this woman's face moved even less than his cousin's and he saw every centimeter of it, but he had no idea what any of it meant.

"Begging all pardons..." She finally spoke up, and given the way Jacen both looked at her, and from what Ben could feel, he had thought the woman was gone. Ben could even tell that Jacen was even more surprised that he WAS surprised, "...I simply need a copy of my key, if it would not be objectionable to you."

Jaina was the one who huffed, but still pulled Ben over to the side and more or less nudged Jacen away from the counter. Ben saw tiny, silver-tipped heels peek out from under the train of her skirt as she stood on the very tips of her toes to be visible to the droid and make her request. The clerk intoned that it would need to have a manager present to authenticate the process. Ben could feel Jaina snort, as though she wanted to shout something, but had neither the air nor patience to find words. Both she and Jacen had this aura of warm, prickly irritation rolling off of them, like someone had managed to boil the points of pins into a liquid.

"You needed a key copied? What for?" The manager that appeared had a lined, darkly-spotted face, one that was obviously long estranged from his beloved slumber.

"For the members of my party that have only arrived just now." The lady in black intoned, sweetly, "We had a trifle with the different transports and, rather than postpone and hazard checking-in after we recovered, I simply thought it would be more prudent to have copies of keys made once they arrived."

Ben felt a jump in Jaina's mood that matched a quick plummet in Jacen's, as though they were matching halves of an elliptical circle divided perfectly into two. He could even feel the sharp peaks in the manager as he reviewed the records, then squinted at the strange lady so much that it made his eyes look as though they were encircled in a mask of bruised skin.

"You didn't make any mention of having more members to your party joining you later when you checked in." He grumbled, that same tone to his voice as when Jacen had first addressed this same lady.

"Did I not? How clumsy of my memory, to let such an important duty slip through!" The lady's voice went up in pitch and her eyes grew impossibly wide. As though compensating for that, the manager's eyes narrowed, "But that is neither here nor there – we now have the three young people in question and they shall need copies if they are to enjoy the same freedom the rest of us had upon check-in."

Wait, Ben thought, had she been talking about them? When he glanced up, he could see the lady in black holding one arm across her body with her palm pointing in their direction. The same leap and dive that he'd felt in Jaina and Jacen before now seemed even stronger, more solid, and Ben felt an energy reverberate in the both of them. So, were they happy or was there something bad about this that Ben didn't see? He honestly couldn't tell, because everything was so muddled. The fact that he could barely keep his eyes open and was just waiting for any kind of place to lay down might have slightly impaired his ability to think, in this regard.

"So, you're asking me to just look the other way while you let unregistered people into one of my rooms and fraud me out of space?" The manager asked, his voice low and rather akin to a noise found in some carnivorous mammals. The lady in black giggled, and again hid the entire lower half of her face behind her hands.

"Oh, think not so ill – I merely noticed that you have three-hundred and twenty-seven rooms in this building, and three-hundred and twenty-six of them are occupied. The last one is a singlet, which you have customers willing to pay for, as the customary price for singlets in this establishment goes." With an exaggerated flourish, the lady in black pulled a credit chip from the silver-embroidered breast pocket of her blouse, and held it between two fingers in front of her face, "The only tiny detail is that this available room is attached to three others of its kin by a sitting room, for which there is only one door that requires a common key. I merely suggest that you make the economical decision that any reasonable businessman would find both logical and practical."

She finished speaking, dramatically lowering the chip to reveal her eyes. For a second, Ben could see her gazing, half with a look that was soft and girlish, but half with something hard and sharp and cold, straight at the manager. There was another moment when Ben could feel the manager – like a million sharp knife-points were jutting out from him in anger and defense – before it was immediately smoothed away and the man smiled.

"Why, of course." He didn't even reach over for the credit chip as the lady in black slid it across the counter, "I'll just get those copies for you."

In the end, there would be a warm bed to sleep in, and they'd be up in the morning like nothing had happened. With that reassurance, Ben closed his eyes and let his weight carry him into Jaina's ribcage. Just as he'd suspected – there'd been nothing to worry about.

~.~.~

Once the manager disappeared behind the counter, Jacen reached over and put a hand quite firmly on this strange woman's shoulder. It was, he reasoned, just enough to both attract her attention and send a message.

"Excuse me but what the hell are you pulling?" Jaina spoke up before he could compose a question of further consequence – or, at least, one that sounded more dignified. Or one that might have prevented the woman's reaction, as she whirled about and brushed Jacen's hand from her shoulder and flat-out glared at the both of them.

"I might be so inclined to demand such an answer from you – are you two really so short-sighted? You have a boy with you – not even ten years of age, at most – and your design is to sleep in a public station, completely exposed to the mercy of the strangers about you? Have you no sense? Have you no shame?"

In all logical sense, Jacen knew that it wasn't anywhere near as bad as this lady was making it out to be – he and Jaina could have taken turns standing watch, and the worst they would have had to worry about was a pickpocket or bounty hunter. That being said, he guessed, they weren't in a war, or a battle, or an invasion, so such reactions and ideas probably did stand out a lot, and, if Jacen thought about it, probably not necessary. At the very least, a complete stranger being willing to extend a generous hand to them made more sense.

"So, we're supposed to be at the mercy of you – whom we don't know and who just offers us help?" Jacen managed to ask. Jaina gave him a look that he ignored – she was, after all, the one who'd been arguing with a droid when she had no chance to win. The woman in black huffed, the same haughty tone to her voice that Jacen recognized from Threepio.

"I make no demand that you trust me, nor accept my offer – that is your prerogative – but I should hope the welfare of the little one would be your foremost concern, not your pride."

That, Jacen would stubbornly deny, hit a little too close. On the other hand, he could see Jaina shifting so that she could fully support the weight of a sleeping Ben. Withholding a sigh, Jacen crouched and extended an arm to pull his cousin onto his back.

"…You said that one of those rooms wasn't occupied – are you sure that it's no trouble?" Jaina finally asked, saving Jacen the humiliation of acknowledging the offer. The woman relaxed from her stance almost immediately, as though her cold fury had kept her as hard as ice and the loss of even a little of it made her melt.

"I have no doubt we can all manage with the other three rooms – perchance a body or two will find space on the couch in the sitting room, if needs be. Oblige me to fetch my man – Gornash!" The woman barely turned, and at her side, there appeared a tower of a man, also in black and white, perfectly silent but intense. Maybe it was because he was easily two meters tall – and Jacen couldn't help but associate height like that with other acquaintances with such an intimidating build – or maybe it was the crooked scars under his eyes, but Jacen instinctively knew that he would be a fool to quarrel with this man, "Hasten to the suite and have everyone vacate the Nor-Eastern room. 'Twould never do if there was no room for our new members."

The man named Gornash bowed and wordlessly left, presumably on the errand his employer had set for him. Jacen was sure to keep an eye on him – if only because there was something inexplicably off about both the woman and her servant, but Jacen did know what an experienced combat veteran looked like when he saw one.

"...Well, in any case thank you. We'll be sure to pay you back for the room charge, at least." Jaina was rallying remarkably well, as well as keeping the dialogue flowing with the strange woman, whose reactions were at the very least curious.

"Nonsense – even accounting for the reluctance of the management, the room was already paid for. I simply find this a way of wrangling an even better value from the bargain." She fell silent as the manager returned with the copies of her keycards, taking them without even a word of thanks to the manager and striding away. As she passed, she promptly handed Jaina three, as though it had been a practiced maneuver, "Shall we proceed, or have you matters of greater import to attend to?"

Jaina snorted and gathered up all of their bags, as though the woman's way of attempting to help them save face had been a personal insult. With his arms full of Ben and lacking a key for himself, Jacen was left with the option to follow and keep his attention on the now apparently crazy lady whom had just let them into her room for no reason. Jacen didn't need, nor care to, look back to know that Threepio was at least tottering along after them this time – the strains of 'Wait for me!' were more than enough.

It wasn't until they'd crowded into the turbolift that the woman began her discussion in earnest.

"There – as far as one can come from overzealous ears with too little to keep them amused. Now, I realise the distasteful solution I provided, perchance to a problem of nought but my own creation, but the idea of leaving a band such as yourselves without a place to stay was unthinkable. I must apologise and repent of the grief I instiled just now – I meant no offence." Despite the lift being so crowded, the woman lifted one corner of her skirt enough to accentuate as she unmistakably bowed. Jacen avoided replying as he shifted Ben's sagging weight off of his back and onto his shoulders.

"It's okay – we were kind of stressed and not thinking too clearly." Jaina admitted, her cheeks and neck red from more than just the wine, "Really, thank you for offering this – we'll try not to be a bother to the other occupants."

The woman in black smiled, and it seemed true and genuine for the first time – or, perhaps, it just seemed visible and wholly more natural than Jacen would have guessed with the pretense she'd put up, earlier.

"One might as well say that they would do well to not be a bother to you – come, there's no need for such stiffness." The way she waved her hand, it looked less like a natural gesture and more like a motion that had been practiced, and meant to be indicative of a very specific, almost scientific, idea, "In that vein, wherein do you come to Ord Mantell and not already know your accommodations – I should think that, if you had such a mind to sleep in a station, you might have spared yourselves the time and trouble." The red flush across Jaina's cheeks crept higher, and possibly for a third reason, now.

"Yeah... This trip was sort of at the last minute – we just picked Ben up, caught a shuttle, and didn't have arrangements ready. Neither Jacen nor I've ever been to this festival, so we didn't know it'd be so packed – trust me, if we'd known it'd be THIS crowded, we'd've taken a proper ship and found a place to dock so we'd be able to sleep in our own quarters." Hearing his sister talk about taking proper ships made Jacen feel the tiniest pang of homesickness for his father's Falcon, and the cramped sleeping cots that had been more than spacious enough for him and Jaina when they'd been Ben's age, and half-broken down fresher that Chewbacca had only managed to repair the leaks in when...

"Oh..." The woman in black blinked at them, beadily, with a small crease between her brows, "...You have vessels of your own... and I suppose that must mean family and homes they are with?"

Now that was a strange question. Jacen supposed that his questioning look must have been identical to Jaina's.

"...Ye~ah..."

The woman's ghastly pale cheeks didn't really change, but she acted as though she meant to blush – and, from how wide her eyes went and how she held her hand against her mouth, it looked even stranger without at least a very red shade of pink to match.

"Oh... I ought to plead for your pardon... but the two of you traveling with both such small worldly possessions and a child such as this one... I presumed you were all of no name."

When this declaration was met with complete bewilderment from both Jacen and Jaina, Threepio – all too pleased to be relevant in the discussion – informed them that 'of no name' was a euphemism for 'orphaned'. This made Jacen snort – maybe it was with disgust, or maybe it was grimly amused – and shift again to keep Ben from completely sliding off his back. His little cousin twitched and shifted again, starting to drool on Jacen's shoulder.

"Orphans, huh? Yeah, right..." Jaina had one of those looks on her face, again – one that Jacen had only seen too much of at the end of the Yuzuhan Vong war, at all the memorials the Jedi had overseen, and all the families that had been grieving, and especially...

"...I had no ill intentions... Please, forgive me if what I said was too grave." The woman started – and started to lift a hand, as though to reach out for Jaina's shoulder – only to be cut off with Jaina's next, markedly sharp, words.

"It's nothing – our parents are just fine, and so are Ben's."

"Besides, we're both adults – even if something had happened to our parents, we could take care of ourselves." Jacen felt the need to add in – for Ben, he might understand the concern of a complete stranger, but himself and Jaina...

"Still..." The woman seemed to sink into the corner, as though being ushered into it by a threat of some kind, "...'Tis never an enviable fate – to have lost someone so precious."

Jacen ignored the pang he felt by focusing on Ben.

"He's getting too big to carry like this." He grumbled – what had happened, anyway, to the little toddler Jacen had last seen at the end of the war? When DID he get so big? Jaina sighed and let their bags drop.

"I'll take him – here." There was an unspoken 'I'm used to it, anyway' in her voice, which Jacen also found easier to ignore in favor of awkwardly transitioning the boy from his back to Jaina's – indeed, she took his weight without hunching or stumbling, like Jacen had. The only shift she made was to brace her feet and send the bags tumbling over – which was quickly remedied when Jacen stretched out into the Force and braced them. Even the woman – in a skirt that was far too ungainly to be kneeling in – bent and picked one up to hand to Jacen. Still not feeling very gracious, Jacen couldn't help but think that if she hadn't interfered, then the holochip wouldn't have slid out of one of the pockets in Ben's knapsack.

"...Hmm." And why the woman felt the need to examine it, Jacen also didn't understand, "Might I hazard a guess that the reason the young one is with you and not his own flesh and blood is because this young gentleman wanted some privacy from a little brother for his honeymoon?" She asked, an inviting, girlish smile spread across her face as she passed the holochip back to Jacen – rather with the attitude that she was sharing something that she felt belonged to her, as opposed to returning a possession to it's rightful owner. More than a little put off by this demeanor, Jacen grabbed the chip back and surveyed the projected holo of Ben's parents on their wedding day. It was enough to make him pause, given that he remembered the day well, himself, and hadn't realized that Ben was carrying this with him.

Jaina's response, though at first one of similar, nostalgic surprise, quickly turned amused.

"Sorry to tell you, but that picture's REALLY old – that's Ben's dad, not brother." And she let the woman draw all her own conclusions from there. If anything, her reaction was almost comical in how serious she turned.

"...Oh... His father..." She murmured, eyes going very wide and voice going very soft, "...They look so alike..."

Jaina cackled and loosened one of her hands from under Ben's knee to pat him on the shoulder.

"Don't let Ben hear you say that – Uncle Luke asked us to take him for this trip BECAUSE they'd been fighting so much, lately."

The strange woman made no reply, instead choosing to lead the party off the lift as it reached, presumably, the floor they'd been waiting for. In any case, the enormous man with the scars under his eyes was standing outside the lift doors, as though he'd been able to see them through the walls or some other sense had told him they would be arriving. The woman made a distracted motion with her hand and the servant – if that's all he really was, since Jacen was beginning to have doubts – bent to pick up the bags and proceeded with them as though it were an everyday occurrence.

The thought didn't occur to Jacen to question any further, but once the door to the suite was opened and he saw the two occupants of the sitting room couch, he suddenly felt a nasty suspicion. Apart from the fact that just this common area was ridiculously spacious – it would probably be possible to park a couple airspeeders between the floor-to-ceiling windows and the door, maybe even a full on one-man fighter – there was a bald, sagging lump of flesh that hardly looked like a person but probably was at least Humanoid slumping on the floor next to the couch. On the couch – or, more appropriately, half-on half-off the couch, with his shoulders and head resting at an awkward angle on the floor – was another Human, long-limbed and gangly, with a skin color far too dark to be even the worst of tans, and black hair that was knotted in long braids like ropes.

"Mister Tilus?" The woman nudged the lump with her fingertips, and Jacen managed not to jump when a face emerged from the mounds of black-clothed flesh, "He has fallen off, again – could you see to it that we have no injuries in the morning?"

Jacen wanted, at that moment, to ask if this strange woman – this strange, apparently very wealthy woman – had only taken pity on them, believing them to be orphans, because she'd done so before. He never did, instead opting to help nudge Ben awake enough that he'd get to bed on his own steam. The boy grumbled and whined and kept trying to lean back into either Jacen or Jaina's arms to settle back down, but eventually, Jaina did manage to coax him into enough of a coherent state for Ben to pick up his own bag and the wax flowers and totter into the only room with the open door. Jacen and Threepio followed closely, but Jaina remained behind.

"Sorry for not asking sooner – we never did have introductions, did we?" She extended a hand to the strange woman, an attitude as though she were more demanding a handshake than just passively expecting one.

Jacen lingered just a moment to watch. The woman blinked, her gray eyes impressively wide and almost perfectly round. She looked so much younger – more like a child than she'd been all evening, and from her natural features, that was something. After a moment, she timidly extended her own hand and grasped it. Later, Jaina would share with Jacen that her grip was strangely unyielding from hands that were so soft – and so cold, for that matter.

"You and your companion are called Jaina and Jacen, is that not so? From how loud your argument was, I would confess no surprise if all the hotel knew of it, by now." That and the small, overly familiar fond smile on the woman's face made Jaina snort, "I have been known as the Comte'de'Maria'Colegia, the Countess, Excellency... but I shall say the simplest form I have found simply to be the CMC." The woman curtsied so low that neither of them saw her face, nor exactly what expression she wore upon it.

~.~.~

Ben had apparently thought it important to put the flowers in a vase with water before passing out on top of the covers – the next morning, they would tease him for not realizing that fake flowers didn't need water. For now, Jaina tried to at least pry the boy's shoes off before either she or Jacen tried to find spots to sleep. It was also of no small hinderance that Ben had decided that he needed all two-square meters of the mattress to himself and had likewise sprawled out on it.

"The CMC, huh?" Jacen asked, nonchalantly pulling his own boots off and setting them down on the floor. Likely, he wasn't going to sleep on it.

"She sure is a strange one." Jaina agreed, finally pulling the fake stones off from around her neck and not caring where they landed when she tossed them onto the toilette stand. Admittedly, she thought, they'd met and known many more, much stranger persons in their years. Just dismissing her as strange wasn't quite a reasonable response, by comparison.

"Strange isn't quite the word I'd use." Jacen disagreed, pushing Ben to the side just enough that Jacen was able to settle in the center. Jaina took a seat on the other corner, watching her brother prop his head up on both of his linked hands.

"What would you say then?"

Jacen's eyes slipped shut. Only then did Jaina realize the lines around them. When HAD her brother gotten so old?

"I don't dislike her..." He began slowly. Jaina snorted – she'd certainly been fooled.

"Yeah?"

"...I'm just not sure I LIKE her, just yet..."

~.~.~

In their own room, the CMC needed her valet to undo the laces of her bodice and gown. They'd lit none of the lights, nor said even a word, until it came time for the valet to undo his employer's shoes.

"Gornash." She whispered into the dark silence. The servant said, nothing, only needing to meet the CMC's gaze to know, "...That boy... he's..."

Gornash silently put his hands over his employer's shivering shoulders. Her hands reached up and clutched his jacket.

"Stay." Gornash made no reply, "Just for tonight. Stay."

There were no other words even needed.