Ask Chandrila Mother's Day

[Crix Aran]

She wasn't too far away now and Crix could sense her through the Force.

Hans had stayed on the ship, telling him her room number and ringing ahead to make sure the staff didn't give him any issues but otherwise letting him do it on his own. Crix appreciated it for a number of reasons but one of the reasons was that it meant no one was there to see him as he stood at the end of the corridor, just staring directly ahead at the door he knew was hers. As soon as Hans had told him that she was awake he wanted to be here and even the anger and betrayal he had felt over Talak's inaction didn't change the fact that he had been all-but bursting at the seams to see his mom again.

But now that he was here, now that he could actually connect to her in the Force? He stopped where he stood in the corridor and just let it wash over him, allowed himself a moment to feel his mom's presence in the Force. Just like everyone else when he felt their unique presence in the Force, Crix felt a memory bubbling to the surface.

... he had said something funny and she'd actually laughed out loud, something she rarely did, as she hugged him... her coat was cold from having recently arrived home but she was warm and he couldn't put his finger on it but her scent was warm and comforting... she was Home to him...

That was it wasn't it?

He had approached the door during the memory without even meaning to and he reached out for it with a his shaking right hand. This wasn't just walking through a door and seeing his mom again, this was coming back Home. For as long as he could remember it had only been the two of them and they had been everything to each other; rock, confidant and Home. Home wasn't a bombed out flat on Coruscant or a spartan room covered in a myriad of droid parts on Yavin IV.

Home was right through the door.

Crix knocked on the door twice before opening it, taking a single step inside first. He... he wanted to see if she would recognize him before he threw himself in, before he let himself get overwhelmed with the fact that she was back. The idea was to hang at the doorway and see if she recognized him on her own, to see how extensive the memory issues were.

At least that had been the plan until he opened the door and he caught sight of her. Damn his lack of control and damn the way his voice cracked ever so slightly as he spoke.

"Mom...?"

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys had gone through several cigarras and had been pacing around in the small room that technically didn’t allow smoking. She was jittery and on edge. Though never the nervous type, only her son could have this kind of effect on her. What if she didn’t remember anything? What if he despised her for her lack of recall? Her memories were older, and while she had been given information by Hannibal, she hadn’t lived through them.

Her breath caught as she heard the knocks, and she quickly put out the cigarra she had been smoking. Trys didn’t stew in her thoughts, making her way over and opening the door. Her eyes widened immediately in surprise - he looked much more grown up and taller than she remembered. Her memories had been from his childhood and earlier days. What stood before her was a fully grown man, and she simply stood there staring. However, she knew it was him - she knew from the eyes and the slight look he had whenever he knew he was in trouble.

Trys had been asleep, and she hadn’t felt the passage of time. In her reality, she simply lived life as normal, went to sleep and woke up the next day. He had felt the agonizing reality of time. In her reality, she simply knew that Crix didn’t like being hugged or having her embarrass him with displays of affection.

“I… I’m sorry but I’m gonna hug you, man,” She blurted out as she grabbed him and pulled him into a fierce embrace. Trys hadn’t even realized when her eyes began to water.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Huh... he was taller than her now by a not insignificant amount. To the degree that he actually had to look down slightly to look at her properly. It was so strange, to have spent the majority of his life having to look up to meet his mom's gaze and now finding he had the opposite problem. The lack of interaction with her upright over the last few months had done that, had made the change seem sudden rather than the gradual thing it had been.

Lost time summed up in inches.

She apologized for hugging him but he honestly didn't care - hell it took him a moment to remind himself that there was a time he didn't like it. Kark it all, he had had his mom as a major part of his life every, single, day for years and he had taken her for granted. Now though? There wasn't even half a second's hesitation before he wrapped both of his arms around his mom and pulled himself into her.

He shut his eyes tight as he pressed his face in his shoulder to just... to just make sure that she was real. That this who thing was real and this wasn't another one of those nightmares he had where she would be alright and he would hug her and when he let her go she they were right back on Sullust and she was staring at him with those blank, dead, eyes.

The shudder ran through his whole body.

"Mom I..." he swallowed thickly and forced himself to break the hug, hands still on her shoulders so he could look her in the eyes, so he could see that she was There, "... I've missed you s-so much mom..."

Another thick swallow against a sudden block in his throat.

"If this... if this is another stupid dream I don't wanna wake up... kark..." he laughed, unable to help himself even as tears started to roll down his cheeks, "Kark it's you... it's really you..."

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys wasn’t normally the emotional type, but none of her normal rules applied with her son. It did wonders for her mind to see him - his very smell began to bring back threads of more recent memories. She hadn’t even realized that tears were running down her face, and she held onto him far tighter than was comfortable. They broke apart after a moment and she wiped her face off with her sleeve.

She couldn’t help but chuckle at his words, “Of course it’s me, Spikes,” Trys pulled him into another hug and gave him a squeeze before stepping back again. She gestured for him to have a seat, taking the one across him. Trys stared at him in silence for a moment before breaking out into a smile. He had truly grown into a handsome man, her memories having been from when he was small. The smile faded slightly as she thought about more recent events.

“So...Jedi, eh?” Trys said, keeping any judgement out of her tone, “Are they treating you well? What about that Hannibal dude? Your teacher? He seems like a weirdo but appears to mean well,” She couldn’t exactly disparage the guy that saved her life and pulled her from a permanent coma. Trys didn’t even want to think about alternative scenarios that probably would have involved Crix having to make the decision to pull the plug.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

Crix had been so worried that when he saw his mom again, he would be plagued by visions, memories, of what she had been liked when he found her on Sullust. When he found her in that cell and she was Gone in a way that felt so real without being so final as death. In many ways, he felt as though he could have come to terms with it if she had died but what had happened had been so much worse. And yet? Less than five minutes with his mom and the lingering fear was banished.

Heh - the power of a hug from a mom was the stuff of legends.

She was brushing tears off her face and that was what helped him to peg that he had some of the same thing rolling down his cheeks too. Hurriedly using the edges of his robes to dry them off, he tried to act like they'd never been there, like he was a grown up man and he... really?!

"Moooooom..." he groaned, his cheeks burning as he look behind him to make sure none of the hotel workers or guests were around, "Not in public, come on man..."

Kark it. He'd missed it and even his instinctive reaction didn't hide that from anyone. He just grinned like a loon as he took a seat, making sure the door was closed behind him. Crix was at the point where if someone tried to interrupt his time with his mom he was going to Force Push them into a damned wall. Of course when he sat down they started talking about the elephant in the room.

The elephant wearing armored Jedi robes with a lightsaber attached to his belt.

He coughed a little bit as he flushed and avoided her eyes for a moment before attempting to act nonchalant as he turned back to her with a smirk. It might be odd to her to see the same smirk she used all the time directed back at her.

"Guess I couldn't have come out the closet on my own terms but... Mom... I'm Forse Sensitive... oh and Bi."

Was it weird that even as two things he had accepted about himself a long time ago... it still felt weird to say them to his mom? Still felt like there was a risk that it might mean something changed between them? He had imagined it before - more about coming out as Force Sensitive than Bi but still. He'd had many dreams where he'd told her and her face had just curled up in disgust so this... neutral... tone was a much better starting point.

"Uh yeah I..." he coughed slightly as he idly toyed with the lightsaber at his belt, "I went to them rather than the other way round after Sullust... after the prison I just couldn't go back to pretending the Sith didn't exist, couldn't reach me, you know? Hans is cool - acts like he's younger than me sometimes but he's cool. Lot fewer lectures than other Jedi. He mentioned he..."

He waved a hand in her general direction, not entirely sure how to vocalized 'unkarked your head' to his mom. To anyone else? He'd have said it like that but this was his mom.

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys only grinned at Crix at his admissions, “The bi thing I always knew about. I remember that boy Din that you kept bringing over for studying far too many times for a topic you ended up flunking,” She gave him a knowing look. However, her expression changed slightly on the Force user topic, “I didn’t know about you being a Force user,” Trys sighed, kicking herself for missing something so huge, “I just worry about you being wrapped up in a Sith and Jedi war. I can’t lose you, man. You’re all I’ve got,” It had been just the two of them for so many years and now he was going into a place she couldn’t chase. She had to remind herself that he wasn’t a child anymore, and it was the toughest thing she had ever faced.

She nodded in response to what Crix said about Hannibal, though she did quirk an eyebrow, “Hans, eh?” She had a feeling the strange Jedi didn’t ask Crix to call him Master either. Trys paused for a moment before she looked at him for a while.

“You have to tell me what happened, kiddo,” Trys said firmly, “Everything. My memory is fuzzy so I need to hear names. I vaguely remember a sense of dread when I was in a bar and I got something on my comlink but everything after that is black.”

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

She always knew about the Bi thing? That actually felt like something he should feel bummed out about even though having a parent both know and be supportive about it was better than having to actually have the coming out moment. Though when she mentioned Din, he grinned a little bit, with just a faint dusting of red on his cheeks as he tried his best to look innocent.

He failed utterly.

"No idea what you're talking about mom - Mandalorian history just got boring that was all. Needed his help to keep me motivated." he joked back, the faux innocence breaking halfway through even though his cheeks did redden further, "Alright alright so maybe I was a bit obvious at times."

Crix grimaced as the conversation steered right back into the thing that hadn't been accepted so well. Part of him was worried that he was only ever going to be one step away from getting her angry at him, just like the Jedi were. One toe out of line for a Jedi and it seemed like the Galaxy was ready to jump on them as comparable to the Sith. Some, small, part of him worried that his mom would be like that. He knew, in his heart, that she wouldn't be like that with him but that fear never went away, it just sat there in the back of his mind.

"If it makes you feel any better - I didn't either until I was about 16." he admitted to his mom with a weak smile, shrugging his shoulders slightly, "Mom I was never gonna end up a kid who worked in an office block or at the senate building, you know? I was always gonna follow... well follow in your footsteps. Try and be the kind of person who stands up and doesn't let shrak-heel karkers get away with breaking the law and hurting people. Just not with a blaster I guess."

He patted his lightsaber at his side.

"Got my own weapon." he declared with a proud grin before snorting, "Yes. Hans. Ain't no way I'm calling a grown-arse man 'Master'."

That was just weird.

The big stuff was ahead though...

"Me and some friends went to Corellia - we were going to head to the Jedi since we all have the Force. On Corellia I met a Sith and she... she ah..." the shaking in his right hand started up again until he squeezed it shut with his other hand, "Well she managed to get in my head. Never learned her name though before Talak told me you were missing so we went to Coruscant and did some investigating when the local Rangers we met decided they'd just stand around looking concerned rather than do something..."

He skipped over the part where he broke into a government security agency building.

"Then... Sullust." he swallowed thickly, "I wasn't supposed to be there but like kark was I staying behind so I hid on Talak's ship and stowed away. Went down to the cells and... and you... well you were..."

Crix stopped for a moment, closing his eyes as the memory assaulted him. It had been absent before but now it was right there and he couldn't avoid it. He clammed up, not saying anything.

Trys Aran had been broken and it was all his fault... Mom we... we gotta go mom. We gotta get outa here...

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Try’s jaw tightened as she heard him lay out what happened. He would see her fingers curl to fists, but he would also know her anger wasn’t directed at him. There was a look she had that was very clear about when he was in trouble. Right now, her face only projected deep seeded rage far beyond she could ever direct at Crix. Trys exhaled after a moment, relieving herself of the pent up tension that threatened to boil over.

“Crix, you can’t throw yourself into danger any given moment,” She said quietly after a long pause. There was no lecture there, just a pleading look in her eyes that showed concern, “You and I talked about what I do for work and what that means. I signed up for a dangerous job. I didn’t sign up for it so you can chase danger. There are other capable people to do these things. All you end up doing is getting in their way. Imagine if you had gotten hurt and needed to be rescued as well. Imagine how much of a distraction you posed to others that were on Sullust,” Trys sighed and shook her head, “You have to be careful about these things. Whatever I do is ultimately to protect you. All of that becomes worthless the moment you willingly throw yourself into danger.”

She paused again, looking down at the ground for a moment. There had been no anger or disappointment in her tone as she spoke, but it was hard to leave out the concern. Trys glanced up at him again, eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“Tell me about this Talak,” She said, “Hannibal mentioned him too. What should I know?”

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

His mom was angry and even a blind man could see that - and a blind man would have been spared the look of thunder she had firmly in place. When he was younger he'd only ever seen it when people had really managed to push her buttons. He vaguely recalled a bully he'd had when he was very young that his mom had made the same kind of face to. Crix didn't remember all the details but he remembered not having a bully after that.

He could see where she was coming from - he really could - and if it was someone else? Hells if it was someone else he would have agreed so fast that her head would have spun! But it wasn't someone else, it had been her.

"They had you, mom, and they had you because of me." he told her quietly, wanting to curl up into a ball but holding off on it because she needed to know, "They got into my head and they found you from it. So I wasn't going to be able to just sit back and let someone else go - I needed to make it right."

More memories of the night flashed in front of him but he ignored them to push on through.

"You taught me to take responsibility and to do what was right. It was because of me you were there - so I was the one to carry you out of that cell."

Letting out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, Crix hand a hand over his horns. It wasn't quite the same as a human running their hands through hair but it was something he'd picked up from seeing his mom do that same action when he was young.

"I'm getting training to make sure I'm never the weak link between us again mom; so that I can protect you too."

Tell her about Talak?

The anger from before surged up and for a second he wanted to rant about the man. Instead he cut himself off before he could start, taking the Jedi road and being above that... with one minor snipe.

"Proof you have shrak taste in men." he responded sharply with a shake of his head, "He was your secret boyfriend... yeah found out about that by the way. He was there helping me get you out of Sullust - he was the one who called in all the Jedi to distract the Sith, bit fuzzy on those details though."

Alright so maybe not fully above it all.

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys finally scowled at him, “Did you drag me over to the Sith? No. Did you force me into a ship and fly me over to Sullust? No,” The tone of irritation was hard to bite back, “I’m responsible for my actions. Me. Alone. No one else. Don’t let anyone else take the fall for something you did,” She looked at him sternly, “Haven’t I taught you that? You’re my son. I don’t need you to become a statistic just because my job got me in trouble. You do me a disservice above all when you pull that shit.”

She didn’t care that she cursed. She only did it when she was dead serious about something, and now was one of those times. Trys exhaled again, calming herself down, though it was far more difficult than usual. She raised an eyebrow at ‘secret boyfriend’. Boyfriend? She had never put labels on any relationships since she had been with Crix’s father.

“Did I actually refer to him as a boyfriend? I highly doubt that,” Trys said with a grimace, “And anyway, that right there is why it was probably a surprise. When was the last time you thought any guy in my life wasn’t garbage?” She tried to keep a straight face, but a grin broke out. Before she could stop herself, she began to laugh, thinking of the older times when he actively worked to prank or sabotage any man she had introduced him to. As a child, he had insisted that it only needed to be just the two of them. The laugh died away shortly as she focused back on the topic at hand.

“You never should have been at Sullust, Crix,” She said, “Why weren’t you with your aunt? You know you’re supposed to be there when things get bad. And yeah, I don’t care if I’m your mom in danger or whatever - who the heck has been watching you while I was out? Hans the entire time?”

 

[Crix Aran]

Why was it when his mom made a point, even one he had made to himself, it made so much more sense? Why was it that his mom's argument always seemed so unassailable in their logic? He'd gotten it into his head that it was his fault and it stuck. He knew he hadn't thrown her into the ship or the cell but still... she only got there because of his mind being read, that had to count for something right? Except there was no way he was going to get away with such a flimsy argument in front of his Mom.

He actually felt himself hang his head a little bit despite himself.

"... sorry mom." he muttered a little bit quietly, "I just... it was easy to blame myself I guess..."

Though they were on the subject of Talak again so he had a chance to get over being shamed in an argument with his mom by letting out a bit of steam. He raised an eyebrow in almost an exact mirror of what Trys did to him. Their eyebrows were similar enough and he'd seen it often enough to pull it off flawlessly.

"I wouldn't know if you did, mom, I got introduced to him by him tracking me down to find you. Wouldn't know what you actually referred to him as." he responded with a small smirk, small enough that she miiiiight not pull him up on it before he grinned, "Yeah well, when someone is actually worth you giving the time of day to, maybe I'll change my tune eh?"

He did want his mom to be happy.

He always had and even with all the shrak he gave her partners over the years it was all out of love - out of not seeing them as good enough for her.

"Yeah well... people need to lock their ships properly." he muttered, looking off to one side in a very futile gesture to attempt to avoid the point about why he shouldn't have been on Sullust, "I've been watching me. Didn't go to auntie - I went out to make my way to the Jedi so I wouldn't end up flinging the Force around like some Sith-spit Sith-scum. So... after Sullust I hung around your bedside for awhile with Talak... then I went to the Jedi Temple."

... kark he wasn't allowed to tell her where that even was, was he? Double kark! She was REALLY not going to accept that as an answer! Triple kark! How the hell was he going to be a Padawan if she grounded him as badly as he thought she was going to over this?

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys shot him an unamused look when he had to get in at least one more jab about her dating choices. She knew a pointless battle when she saw one, and she didn’t keep poking at it. Describing that Talak had been by her bedside since she had been out was a comforting thought. From her memories, it was clear she cared for the man, but it was difficult to draw out much more than that. There was a sense of anxiety about seeing him again.

“Sith spit Sith scum?” She repeated, both eyebrows raising in amusement. Trys tried saying it in her head a few times, “And don’t tell me about where the temple is. I don’t know if I’m still in the clear or if any… Sith spit Sith scum are still in my head,” She despised how little she knew about this topic.

“Look Crix,” Trys gazed at him firmly, “All this saber waving and Force using is one thing, but I don’t want you to think this gives you a hallpass from going to university. I already talked to...Hans about this. You’ll listen to everything he says and you’ll attend classes remotely,” She made it very clear there was no room for argument, “I don’t care how tall you get, I will drag you back kicking and screaming if I hear you’re not making time for school.”

 

[Crix Aran]

Yeah Crix was aware he'd gotten the last shot in about the dating - and that it was best for him to just leave it there. Getting a point over his mother in an argument was cool but somehow being grounded over it despite being 18 was worse. He wasn't sure how that would work, only that he was reasonably certain his mother would make it work somehow. Of course she then immediately made him feel like a child by drawing attention to the fact that he had used a very PG phrase like it was a curse.

He grimaced.

"... I'm trying to swear less." he explained, awkwardly shuffling in his seat a little bit, "I don't think they're still in there but... well there's a lot I still have to learn about the Force and stuff. Knowing how to throw a rock without touching it doesn't really give you much help with head stuff."

But he knew why he was working from the ground up - he had some issues he needed to address, emotionally, with stuff that messed with the head before he could think to start using it. He didn't want to start messing with someone's head in practice, only to have a panic attack flashback to his mom or the junkyard and end up messing someone up in the head.

Hearing that his mom wanted him to finish school? It was just... such a mom thing that he couldn't help but smile. He was being told he was going to have to take classes, sure, but it was his mom just doing mom things and he had missed that.

"Alright mom." he agreed with a wide smile, "Gotta say I'm going to enjoy Droid Engineering - I've been tinkering with a couple that the Jedi just had in storage. They were just powered down and left there because they had some problems they couldn't deal with... didn't feel right so I've got them back up and running. Scooter has only had one attempted murder since then!"

It was a joke - the psychotic little droid had only held a stun blaster so there wasn't any chance of an actual murder.

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys was genuinely surprised when Crix didn’t put up a fight about school. She half expected some clever excuse or attempt at smooth talking out of it. She even had a list of counter arguments prepared. His choice of major was also a great one, and she knew there would be plenty of jobs for it.

She rolled her eyes at murderous droids, having seen enough cases where Crix actually ran around from a dangerously coded droid. She had to blast it and put up with Crix’s subsequent whining for a week. Trys was quiet for a moment, considering everything.

“Okay..” She said softly, “I wasn’t...expecting you to actually have a plan, I’ll admit,” She chuckled after that, smiling at him, “You really have grown up, haven’t you?” It was hard to keep the look of pride from her eyes, one she knew would embarrass him. She didn’t care, he didn’t have his friends here to act cool around.

“So… what do your friends make of all this?” Trys asked after a moment of pause. She knew he had a very tight knit group of friends, and she doubted any of them had known about his Force sensitivity.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

She was surprised he was okay about going back to school? Well considering he had run away on a school trip and ended up touring the Galaxy trying to find the Jedi to join up… probably not odd that she was so surprised. He hadn’t really showcased a love of all things academic over the years and recently he’d shown himself to be focused on the Force. But the fact that it was just so nice to have his mom worry about his education, like he was just a regular teenage boy and none of the torture, the coma or the pain had happened.

It was a nice moment just to pretend they were a normal family again – not that he would tell her that. The Aran family did not do Chick Flick Moments! His ears went bright red even though he managed to keep the blush on his cheeks rather tame as she commented on how much he had grown up.

“H-hey I’ve always been mature!” he groused back with what he would swear blindly was NOT a pout, “Besides we… well we talked about what I’d do at Uni awhile back. You said it would be good for me back then and I did listen…”

He had listened but somethings had come up in the mean time that had taken his focus off of his studies and back into the ‘real’ Galaxy. The air quotation marks in his own head too because the Force was hardly what most people experienced in the Galaxy. She asked about his friends and he grinned a little bit.

“That was the best part – like four of my friends have the Force too!” he told her with a cocky grin, “Willa and another girl I know are in the Jedi with me now. Enby… well Enby I lost touch with, same with Yo-Cho. Things just kind of piled up and we got separated.”

Speaking of being separated from things…

“So hey mom…” he looked to the side, kind of sheepishly, “I might have, kind of, sort of, maybe used your blaster rifle? So I got you a new one!”

He placed a hand on the lightsaber at his side and, very carefully, tried to adjust his belt so that it would hang to the side slightly out of sight.

@Sreeya

 

[Trys Aran]

Trys couldn’t keep the shock off her face when he spoke about his friends, “Wait a minute, what?” She blurted out, “How is that possible? I thought this Force stuff wasn’t very common. How did you end up in a clique of kids with it? Oh wait...” Trys shook her head, remembering some annoying memories about this. She looked at Crix, waggling her fingers theatrically, “The Force works in mysterious ways,” She said with a dramatic voice before cracking a grin.

The grin was promptly wiped off her face when he spoke next. Trys stared blankly for a moment, exhaling slowly to keep from getting angry. However, her face scrunched up in mild confusion after that, “Wait, why a new one? If you just used it, just give it back,” The logic didn’t add up. While she wouldn’t support him ever using her weapons, he could simply give it back to her, right?

Trys stared at him for a second, watching how he moved, “Spikes,” She said quietly and very patiently, “I’m a career Ranger. You think I won’t be able to pick up when you’re being shifty?” Her gaze flicked over to his hand over his saber and then back to his eyes.

@Nefieslab

 

[Crix Aran]

"I know right?!"

Yeah Crix had had the exact same reaction to the news about his friends as his mother had - flat disbelief followed by lots of jokes about 'fate' and 'destiny' and all that kind of shrak. Worst thing was that when he'd made jokes like that half the bloody Jedi he'd spoken to seemed perfectly freaking fine with it. Like it wasn't a million to one odds at the best of times, like Force Sensitivity was somehow the norm and not some weird kind of quirk that only some people seemed to actually get.

He laughed, the laugh breaking and coming out as a snort without him meaning to. If he had been drinking he'd have likely choked on it at the hand gestures.

"Apparently that's something that people around the Temple actually go around doing! Like... the kark is all that about? Are Jedi supposed to be monks of freaky street magicians?"

Who was he kidding? They were kind of both.

But he had given her a little bit of a half answer and his mom wasn't ever going to accept a half answer when she was speaking to him. He winced a little bit, feeling small as she pointed out the flaws in his little 'cover up' before rounding on him and, rightfully, pointing out that he was terrible at hiding anything from her. With a sigh, he reached down to his belt and unclipped his lightsaber before holding it out for his mother to take.

"... I wasn't sure if you were ever gonna come back." he admitted quietly as he showed off the lightsaber he had made out of her rifle, "Wanted something to keep. I can make it back into a rifle if you want?"

Might be an interesting project actually.

Spoiler: Lightsaber

@Sreeya