Last time: The Trio and Kait joined up with the 19th.

Now: Cien talks to Oppie about the twins.

Chapter 12- Help Train Them

The 19th was waiting to redeploy until it was morning, shipboard time, and Kait, Oppie, Sasha and Viran were going to stay aboard until then since it didn't quite make sense to ferry them back down planetside separately. They had gotten confirmation that Frey had, indeed, stopped in Cerrasses, so they were going to deploy a small force to scout that out. Mainly just the Xivs and the Copperheads.

The only issue with this plan was the relative time difference for the four from the planet. While the ship had switched over to the night shift, it was still late afternoon for them, so they were still quite awake. Sasha and Viran had gone to take advantage of the gym and Oppie and Kait had gone with them to try to tire themselves out. The other three were still there, Kait had suggested showing them how to box, but Oppie had elected to go cool off in the canteen with a cold drink after he had finished his own routine. He had been surprised to see Cien still there, or possibly returned, and quite awake since she was having trouble getting to sleep lately, and Oppie was happy to have a chance to talk with her. They were sitting on a sofa that she had apparently claimed as her own, and had visited for a while before there was a quiet moment.

"I had something I wanted to ask." Cien said, looking out at the starscape, and the dark side of the planet that dominated the view and hid the system's star somewhere over the horizon.

"What's that?" Oppie asked, worried what she might ask since they had thus far not broached any awkward topics. Cien, after her little bit of teasing at dinner had backed off.

"I…" She said, having a little trouble starting. "I was wondering if you, Sasha and Viran would mind helping me train… them," she said, gesturing towards her stomach, "more as Jedi than as Sith." She asked, looking over at him. "But I wanted to ask you, since you trained Sasha and Viran."

Oppie looked over at her, surprised. "Why?" He asked. He just assumed she would want to train them her own way, and he would help where he could. But to have a Sith, even a fallen one, ask to have her children trained in the ways of the Jedi seemed so antithetical. Even if she was their sister now, she was still Sith.

"I hate the Sith." She said, "I hate the idea of them, now. I'm walking my own path, but it feels so precarious." She said, "I am not sure I could train them to avoid the dark side, and I'm afraid they would slip if they hadn't had to face what I did." She said, "I stay away from the darkside as much as I can, but I still dip into it. But I always pull myself back because I don't want to be immersed in that pain again." She said quietly. "I told Kyr it's like a drug addiction that I am constantly fighting, and it is. Those memories of what happened, what they took from me, what they did to me. What they made me do. What I did." She said, swallowing. "That pulls me back from it because I don't want that again. But they wouldn't have those memories. I could tell them, I could teach them, but unless they went through all of that I don't think they would understand what the lure of that power truely costs you. You don't understand that until you have to go through all of it. I think the Sith order should die with me." She finished quietly.

Oppie looked at her, still surprised, but nodded. "Hopefully a long time from now." He said quietly in response to her last statement. "I understand. I am happy to be there to help train them in whatever way I can." Oppie said, "them and Lana. I was planning on it." Oppie said, "and if you want me to train them more as Jedi than as the path that you've found, I'm happy to do that with you." Oppie stated, "but I…" He frowned, "I hope that you're not discounting the lessons you have to teach them."

"I'm not." Cien said, "but I don't…" She paused, "I don't quite know how to teach them in the lightside." She said, "I just know how I was trained, which I won't do. And the lessons I have learned over the last few years especially. But I don't know how to teach them to walk that razor's edge without falling." She admitted.

"If anyone could, it would be you." Oppie said, "I can help train them as Jedi, but you and Kyr still have time to think about it."

"Thank you." Cien said.

"Your path seems to work for you." Oppie continued, "and I think your path and mine are a lot closer than you think." He admitted.

"How so?" She asked confused, with a slight arched eyebrow.

"I'm not being a very good Jedi. My master was always a bit worried about me, especially through the war. Then facing Dracul, and then some stuff that's happened lately I just…" He paused, "I feel like I am wandering closer and closer to that line."

"What stuff?" Cien asked.

"I lost my temper at J'onz, I threatened him that night after what happened at the nightclub. And after I heard what you had done to him to get the information, I was… kind of glad." He said with a grimace.

"Sasha told me about that, what happened when you threatened him." She said, smiling slightly. "I asked her if she had a recording of it."

He glanced at her, "why?"

"Because that is something that would be worth seeing, you losing your temper at someone like him."

Oppie wiped his face with his hand. "It's not exactly my finest moment." He said quietly.

"It sounded like he deserved it. If I had been there I probably would have just slammed him against the wall and told him to stay out of our way the first day we arrived." She said with a malicious smirk she tried to hide.

"And now I feel bad because I would have really enjoyed that." Oppie said, trying to hide a smirk too.

"Why did you lose your temper at him?" She asked. Sasha had explained but she was curious what he would say.

"Because he…" He started, and looked away. "Because he nearly got Sasha and Kait killed, and then he started bullying Kait because she couldn't fight back like we could since he was a superior officer." He said quietly. "Or at least a higher ranking one."

"Those sound like good reasons to lose your temper to me." Cien said, "especially because it was the two of them." She finished quietly. She looked over at him and he was just grimacing. "Op, if there's one thing that is your trigger point it's threatening the people you care about. I learned that the hard way, once or twice." She said with a disarming smile so he would know she meant it as a joke as he looked back at her. "I don't think that's a bad thing. You're the model image of a Jedi in most respects, but the only way you differ from the teachings of your order is that you allow yourself to care about the people around you. That's not a bad thing."

"It is if I hurt people because of it." He said worriedly. "When people like us get mad, our anger can manifest very dangerously."

"I know." She said. "I especially know." She paused. "But getting angry at someone for that kind of reason doesn't make you a Sith Lord."

"I guess." He replied, "I remember Master Redika used to worry about me, and that…" He paused, "scares me a little."

"Well, what did you do then?" She asked.

"I guess I would lose myself in battle a little bit. He was a very pacifistic Jedi, I think that was why the Council made me his padawan. To temper that a little."

"Well, why would you lose yourself in battle?" She continued her question, "you don't strike me as the type to go into a bloodlusted frenzy?" She stated.

"No, I guess… When the clones were being threatened, or I was being threatened I'd lose myself a little." He replied.

"So when people you consider your friends and family are threatened, or when your life depends on it, you do what you need to save them and survive? Op, that's not the darkside." She said, "trust me, I know."

"I suppose so." He said.

"Do you know why I stepped in to interrogate J'onz for Sasha?" She asked.

"I can sort of guess." He said, not entirely sure.

"I sensed Sasha approaching the edge of the precipice with what she had to do to get him to divulge what he knew. I stepped in because I can do that more… safely than her." She said. "Sasha is naturally someone very deeply steeped in the lightside, but the lessons she learned, she learned mostly from you. And she hated herself for what she almost did to him. If you worry about how far from the light you are, look at the people you've influenced most, her and Viran."

"I guess." He said, "thank you."

"Also, if he was threatening Kait, I've been there." She said. "I know things aren't too far along with you guys, but enough is there to make that a particularly strong reaction." She said quietly.

He looked up at her, trying to decide if she was teasing him. "Yeah." He just said in quiet agreement when he realized she wasn't.

"How is that going?" She asked after a moment. "I understand if you don't want to talk about it."

"I have no idea what I'm doing." Oppie stated after a moment. "And, really, I have no idea what's going on." He admitted.

"Well have you guys talked?" She asked.

"Yeah, a little." Oppie said uncomfortably. "Nothing that seems to make anything official. But after the last time she kissed me." He said.

"She what?!" Cien asked immediately, almost yelling as she looked over at him in surprise, especially as she remembered her own first kiss with Kyr.

Oppie retreated into the seat as he was sure a few heads in the canteen swiveled over to look at them, even at this late hour.

"Sorry." Cien said, recovering a little, and reverting back to their subdued conversational tone. "She kissed you?" She almost whispered.

"Just a little kiss on the cheek." He said, very uncomfortably, trying to sink into the couch cushions.

"Well, that's a good sign." Cien said, trying to hide a smile and failing terribly.

He just looked over at her a little grumpily.

She looked over at him and swallowed, composing herself a little more. "Are you worried about what that means in regards to your path not following the Jedi way, still?" She asked carefully.

Oppie considered before answering as he slumped lower into the couch. "No, not really." He said, "Viran and Sasha already brought that question up years ago, even before they were in a relationship, and I had to wrestle with it then. And you and I talked on the beach planet, and that kind of took away that last of my doubts." He said, "now to just be replaced by completely different doubts." He said quietly.

She raised her eyebrows slightly looking at him, "like what?" She asked.

"I don't know, all of this is new to me." He said. "About everything about it, I guess."

"Well you're apparently doing something right." Cien stated, trying to keep from laughing.

He looked over at her with a sour expression and then back out the window.

"I'm sorry Op." She said, trying to think of advice she should give as his big sister, "just take it one step at a time." She advised. "That's what I did with Kyr. Granted, we had those three months to kind of force us together." She said.

"Thanks." He said, still perturbed.

Cien bit back a teasing comment as she looked around the canteen. Her focus settled subtly on something before she turned back to him. "Well, I think I might turn in for the night, getting a little tired now." She said, perhaps a little suddenly, and showing no evidence of being any more tired than she had been. If anything she seemed more animated.

"Okay, have a good night." Oppie said, looking up at her suspiciously.

"You too." Cien said, getting up. "Oh, Op, one more thing."

"Yeah?" He asked, looking up at her from his slouching position still.

She looked like she was going to say something, and then glanced away. "It slipped away from me, never mind. Have a good night." She said, walking away.

He shrugged and looked out the window, where the dark side of the planet still revolved slowly. There was some atmospheric glow from over the horizon now, promising a sunrise in a few minutes. They were in a fast enough orbit that they saw one every two hours or so, though. He heard relaxed footsteps behind him and he spoke up. "Did you remember what it was?" He asked.

"No?" Kait asked, "remember what?" She asked as she came to a halt. She was in her same clothes as before but her hair was a little wet, as though she had just gotten out of the gym and showered.

Oppie immediately tried to work his way up from his slouching position and sit upright. "Oh, sorry I… uh, thought you were Cien."

"I just passed her." Kait said, looking at him. "Mind if I join you?" She asked.

"No, please do." He replied.

She sat down on the couch near him, not too close, but put her feet up on the low table that was between them and the window.

"I'm sorry if my family was weird before at dinner." He said, speaking of the way that they had been teased a little, and then when Kyr and Viran had gotten deeply entrenched in conversation about a Dianoga versus a Sarlacc. Kait had looked between them like they were a little insane. Which they were.

"Oh don't worry." Kait said with a smile as she settled into the couch. "I thought it was fun."

"That's good." Oppie said.

She glanced over at him and smirked, then looked back out the window. "So you guys had a ship, how many planets did you visit?" She asked, conversationally.

Oppie tried to remember, "too many." He finally said, "I can't remember most of them."

"So you've been around the galaxy a lot?" She asked.

"Yeah, as a padawan, we-" Oppie started.

"A what?" She asked, looking at him slightly confused.

"A padawan, like a Jedi apprentice I guess." He clarified.

"Ah." She said in understanding.

"We traveled all over, then the Clone Wars, then running from the Empire. I've been to more planets than I can count." He said. "You said you hadn't been off Nivon much?" He asked.

"No." She answered, "never had any reason to go off world. When I was younger I wanted to travel. But being the police captain doesn't give you a lot of opportunity for that."

"Well now you have a perfect excuse, being a marshal." He said. "When you were going to the marshal's academy, or here, did you ever see a sunrise from orbit?" He asked.

"No." She said, shaking her head. "I just had a little cabin on both trips. No particularly good view. Nothing like this." She said, looking out at the dark side of the planet before them which was like a gaping hole in space, surrounded by an exceedingly thin, blue corona. "The stars are beautiful from up here." She observed a little wistfully, looking out at the star scape. They were at an angle where the galactic plane was running diagonal to them, so it cut a bright star filled ribbon across the sky.

He looked over at her with a slight smile, then back out the window. "I love this kind of view, I usually don't get to see it too often." He said. "Or appreciate it as much as I should when I do." He said.

"On Nivon there's enough dust and pollution that you can't see a lot of stars." She said, "but if you go out to the mountains, like we did a few times for family camping trips, you'd see them. On a dark night when the moons were new," Nivon had a couple of small moons that orbited it, oversized asteroids, really, "you could see something like this. One trip, my dad and I laid out under the stars and looked at them for an hour or so." She said. "Every trip, really, come to think of… Oh, wow." She said, as the local star started peeking over the horizon of Caranas spectacularly, and it made a brilliant display as it lit up the atmosphere below them.

"Whenever we orbit some place, I like watching these at least once." He said quietly, "no two sunrises are the same between planets. Some more brilliant, some are more subtle, but they're all a privilege to see."

She glanced over at him with a small smile and turned back to the display. On a whim he reached over and took her hand, and her only acknowledgement was to grip his back.

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