Beyond - Legends (completed for 2015) Notes for When You Are Older – Elena Shelvay; DDC; new 12-22

I apologize for having fallen so far behind in my reading and reviewing. DRL is finally letting me catch up a little on things, so.... You've obviously done your research on parenting, since I'm nodding along with pretty much everything Elena is going through. I especially remember all the conflicting advice you get (usually from relatives; at least Elena is spared that). I loved the alien intelligence agent's puzzlement over watching her interact with Lydia; being around babies is certainly enough to reduce otherwise rational humans into babbling weirdos.

There are some interesting family dynamics at play here...and by interesting, I mean occasionally disturbing. There's such a duality to Elena. On the one hand, she's a loving mom who's fiercely devoted to her daughter, on the other she's Miss Imperial Collateral Damage. Having read "Shark Kibble," it's easy for me to see the mom parts of her and forget that the New Republic has good reason to call her "Crazy Ells." She's obviously not been a good person in a lot of ways, and yet she's trying to make a normal life for her daughter. It can't be easy for her given her past and the career path she's been forced into. It's quite fascinating the way you've made someone who's violent and unstable enough that she's known for leaving a trail of collateral damage and make her sympathetic.

And then there's Tremayne. I can't help but wonder if Elena isn't seeing what she wants to see in his reactions to Lydia. Nothing in his character suggests to me he'd have any particular paternal instinct. Then again, there have been interviews with the children of genocidal dictators who thought they were great fathers, so maybe he does (or maybe those kids were as brainwashed as Elena). It will be interesting to see what develops. Like Findswoman, I wonder what Ahnjai thought of his visit.

 

A/N: I know that I am way behind (to the tune of 4 chapters ) on comments, and will try to catch up after these next entries are posted. In the meantime, thanks to everyone who left feedback. It’s always great to see.



Thirteen

[Elena Shelvay – entry dated 24 AE: 3:9 – 5 ABY by New Republic calendar]

Lydia: These are just a few of the off-limits things that I have had to pry away from your curious inspection and/or mouthing this week:

• A dusty, mummified jaquira fruit that I misplaced while making dinner last week, when it must have rolled under the furniture
• My shoes (now with barely visible chew marks)
• The most terrified Humbarine gecko I have ever witnessed, although thankfully you at least did not seem to be attempting to eat it
• My work comm (now that would have been a job to explain)
• A bar of soap
• A washcloth tag that you managed to detach from the cloth
• A container of bath gel that I am still not sure how you got your hands on

Are you seeing a theme here, Lydia? Bathtime with you has been like herding pittins for the the last few days, I swear. But then, you have also been more reluctant to wander about.

I think Ahnjai’s withdrawal is making you stressed. He’s been around but keeping so much to the fringes that it is easy to forget he is there. This was once his usual habit and I do not care for seeing it revived. But trying to make more than an uneasy truce with him and Antinnis would be a fool’s errand, I fear. There are some things better left alone.

And as for Antinnis, he seems to have become a bit more relaxed although currently that is manifesting in the form of him sleeping soundly through most of the day. From the way he looked and acted when he arrived, I do not think he has been getting enough rest – probably not since the battle at Endor happened.



[deleted text]

It has been an odd experience having Antinnis around and I could not define the feeling until I thought of those mixed up dreams of the past. And that, somehow, is what it is like. It is not that I no longer love him, but at the same time something in my mind feels that I am visiting the past and not the present when we are together.

Maybe a part of it is that I have changed more dramatically in the time since Sedri. Though the galaxy has also changed and made the Inquisitors responsible for more duties than ever before, the core nature of what Antinnis is and does has remained the same. My priorities have gone through a major shift and his have not. Nor should they, of course, given the situation in the Empire. But the fact remains and I cannot ignore it.

The chemistry is still there between us. He still looks at me the way no one else ever has – not just as a pretty thing, but as though I were truly… wonderful, I suppose. There are so many things that are downright addictive about that man: his voice, his smile, the self-assured way that he moves, and stars know even the differentness of his features that he finds so distasteful is attractive to me. Our physical intimacy is, if anything, better than ever. So many of the things that I used to be insecure about just do not seem to matter so much anymore. If there is one thing that all the chaos of the last couple of years has instilled in me, it is a tiny bit of distance from the worry about my imperfections that used to be my bane. Life is just too short. Today is good in many ways and I refuse to waste the time brooding.

It’s funny. Every day that Antinnis stays here I am reminded of how much I never want him to leave.

And yet, I find myself relieved that he plans to depart tomorrow. There were times – especially late in my pregnancy – when I cursed our separation and cursed myself for accepting from the start that we were not in an exclusive relationship. The vulnerability that I felt was like a vibro-blade in my heart some days. He was the only person in my entire adult life who had ever truly cared for me and I was so very, very afraid of losing that. Now, he isn’t the only person who matters anymore. Now I have Lydia, as well as Ahnjai, Amery, and Zain. They are the ones who have been here when I really needed someone, and they are part of this new life that I have made on Shullia.

It sounds awful to say this, but I just do not think that Antinnis could mesh with that life on any sort of permanent basis. Not even if the Inquisitorius suddenly no longer desperately needed all its administrators. He just is not cut out for even the Imperial government fringes of civilian life. Antinnis being here full-time would be like putting a demonsquid in a swimming pool. It couldn’t end well. Neither the demonsquid nor the bathers go home happy.

I do not in the slightest believe that he would deliberately harm Lydia. However, deliberately is the operative word and I worry about how hair-triggered his Inquisitor’s reflexes may be. Ahnjai is another matter. I am not so far removed from my childhood that I cannot recognize the “I’m not bothering you” game in play, and Antinnis has been practically bleeding “I’m not bothering you” every time Ahnjai is in the room. I do not like that vibe at all. Whatever the gory details of their past may be, the way Antinnis acts around him makes my hackles raise and I fear that he might act on his earlier threats made on Sedri if they are in the same place for too long. He agreed to acknowledge the change of Ahnjai’s allegiance, but that was all for my benefit. I do not know that it would stand the strain of long-term interaction and would rather not find out.

For all that there are so many things that I love about him, Antinnis has an undeniable mean streak where the people he dislikes are concerned. And his impulse control in that regard is not the best. The turnover in his subordinates was often high back in the day, enough so that I once saw Darth Vader himself call him on the carpet for it. None of that is easy to reconcile with the Antinnis who has been my friend and lover, but the unfortunate reality is that he cannot be trusted with some beings.

People who say normalcy is underrated have never shared a small-end-of-medium-sized apartment with a felinoid warrior and a spaceflight-lagged Inquisitor who just so happen to loathe each other. I think I can actually smell the aggression at times.

So I am going to miss Antinnis terribly, but I think I will also breathe a big sigh of relief when I can no longer feel his presence.

[end deleted text]



Well, the squarriks were keeping us both awake but you seem to have managed to drift off to sleep. Probably time to go to bed myself. Good night, Lydia.

[end entry]



Notes:

Jaquira fruit (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Humbarine)

Humbarine gecko – OC species from the urban planet of Humbarine (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Humbarine); they’re intended to be the GFFA equivalent of the common house gecko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_house_gecko).

Pittin (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Pittin)

Demonsquid (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Demonsquid)

Squarrik – OC species of animal native to Shullia. Small tree-dwelling mustelid-like (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mustelidae) creatures with an omnivorous diet. They eat nuts, fruits, insects, small birds, and anything that doesn’t bite back or run away. Squarriks are social and live in small groups with one male and several females. The males are highly territorial and often squabble, particularly in the breeding season. They have the ability to inflate part of their head/neck to make a very loud noise, in a way similar to real-world howler monkeys (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howler_monkey). Groups live in both the countryside and in the city, where they often nest on the roofs and ledges of buildings. Considered to be a pest species by most residents.

 

Excellent entry, and I enjoyed reading Elena's thoughts on Antinnis - her feelings for him are very complex indeed, the wanting him there but also looking forward to his departure, and on some level she seems to understand that it is best for Lydia perhaps not to have him around.

 

love her reflections on the things to put away and on Antinnis

 

LOL on the entry itself and all the stuff Lydia finds to almost ingest The deleted section - fascinating complexity of wistful almost wanting but whew, he's leaving blend there. It's a testament to your skill thhat that all came out clearly and not all jumbled. Because I'm sure elena is feeling jumbled about it all. Ahnjai is one intricate dude. Someone you want in your corner but certainly not on his bad side, as Antinnis seems to be based on hints about their history.

 

Glad to see this updated.

I can see that Lydia is on that "baby diet". The work comm was a scary item to appear there, the rest sounds like typical baby (and puppy) business. A nice dash of fun before the serious stuff.

The deleted part is...such a mood whiplash. Elena's lack of understanding for her own feelings and altering between convincing herself that she still loves the sexay cyborg and being almost afraid of him is worth of a psychological thriller. The Stockholm syndrome and implied casual sex (or, dare I say, possibility of grooming and/or rape) make this even more confusing to poor woman.

And there comes the twist with Antinnis going all Inquisitor on his own child. *gulp* *bites nails* That implication that he would never be able to do anything else, on top of it...yikes. He must be into some sort of reverse eugenics.

Elena doesn't know how much she's on something regarding Darth Vader, with the whole topic of children.

I think I'm having actual, literal goosebumps now.

 

I agree with everything that's been said above about this chapter, but rather than repeat when others have said it better, I will just add that I really love the "demonsquid in a swimming pool" analogy and the squarriks (a great name for an interesting OC species).

 

Yup, we want a fanon entry on that species!

 

Thanks for the comments again, and I will try to start catching up on the backlog this weekend. You’ve all brought up so many interesting points and it may take a few posts to reply to them all since I let this go so long.

Fourteen

[Elena Shelvay – entry dated 24 AE: 3:11 – 5 ABY by New Republic calendar]

Lydia: Things have settled down since Antinnis's departure and you are back to crawling around like an AT-AT on a mission. Luckily, I seem to have been correct that your need to gum at the world would go back to a more usual level once the household returned to its regular routine.

Of course, you also have been more needy. I think you could tell something was off and now that it is not, you want reassurance. Perhaps that is me reading too much awareness into your infant world. The way you watch so intently makes it all too easy to believe that you understand more than you really could.

Right now, we are on the roof watching the sky and listening to the party going on down in the streets. The festival in honor of this world's official founding took place today with a less extravagant version of Imperial celebrations I have seen throughout the Mid Rim and Core. There was a parade, music, an appearance and speech by Governor Xacall, and a nice synchronized display by the TIE units from the garrison.

Unlike those Core celebrations, here the festival has mutated after sundown as the officially sponsored events wind down and the participants wind off into side streets where the festivities are melding into a sort of hodgepodge harvest festival. The date is out of sync with most of the settlers' traditional holidays. The one I remember from my childhood would have taken place months ago.

But the change in seasons seems to be bringing out this not-so-organized response as the chill in the air -- or possibly the surplus of sakarra gourds taking up countertop space -- has inspired the citizens of Tulekahju to start up a series of neighborhood celebrations. On Coruscant this sort of activity would be much too hazardous to be allowed. However, Shullia is much more like my homeworld in that respect and the security forces are keeping only a minimal watch. (If it is anything like what I recall, they’re more likely to face the drunk and disorderly than the seditious tonight!) The scents and sounds are different, but the feel of the crowd is familiar. You and I will stay here and watch from a distance, since I don’t wish to risk wandering the festival with you; the locals are probably mostly harmless but they would make excellent cover for Isard’s agents with all of the commotion.

Many of the partygoers are in costume, either celebrating early or late for a holiday of their memories. I can see a group of young men and women garbed in the silver robes and phosphorescent mist streamers of the Quian ceremony of First Frost, dancing slowly down Vesin Street in an elegantly choreographed ritual sequence. I witnessed that ceremony on Quian once, or rather a much more extensive version. An important official was poisoned with the mist during the dance due to a Rebel plot. I realize that is not the usual progression of the ceremony, and yet I find myself a bit unnerved. Some Rhinnalian men painted with blood-red temporary skin tatoos are engaging in a ferocious-looking pretend battle. There are also several large groups of Grannans adorned in brilliant yellow fancy dress who are dancing much less sedately and seem to be determined to wear out their shoes before the night is out. And over towards Torimi Street, a Twi’lek parade is taking place with dancers dressed as trees, other species of aliens, battle droids, and ferocious creatures – the costumes are a bit mix and match and it can be hard to tell which dancer is portraying what sort of being.

That last group is where I glimpsed Ahnjai a few minutes ago. He would have stayed with the two of us, but I urged him to go since I could see the celebrations had captured his interest and I can take care of things for one night. This autumn breeze has even me seized with a restless energy. The air is humming with the rhythms of a dozen different songs coming from the sound systems and live performers out in the streets. So you and I performed our own completely ridiculous waltz across the roof until you finally seemed tired. I can smell baked sakarra gourd bread. I’ll have to see if I can find a recipe, seeing as some people keep slipping their unwanted produce into my work space.

[end entry]



Notes:

Twi’leks are a pretty familiar species and all of these other cultures/species have appeared in my stories before, but just for quick reference:

Grannans (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Grannan) – a near-human species with methane-breathing lungs

Quians (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Quian_(people)) and Rhinnalians (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rhinnal) are both Human cultures.

Sakarra gourds – OC vegetable which is something like a naturally sweet pumpkin, and produces like a zucchini plant (much to the dismay of the careless)

 

So, Elena has been there for a year. Glad that there's a "breather" update, given how serious the previous one was. I was trying to imagine Lydia prancing like an AT-AT, and I logically assumed that the next step would be jumping around like an AT-ST. Am I right?

The subtext of the Imperial Remnant merging some sort of a harvest festival with a regime holiday reminds me of...well, life. The next thing we know, they'll be taking popular children's melodies and changing the lyrics so they're about the dead Emperor and his glorious deeds. Indocrination of children FTW. It *has* to happen.

OC vegetable? You're going beyond all possible beyondness (again).

 

Very sweet image of Lydia crawling around like an AT-AT! The festival sounds lovely, and Elena waltzing Lydia around is so beautiful

 

Excellent details on the festival and traditions behind it. Oh, autumn. One of my favorite seasons! Specifically for the chill in the air Love Elena's spontaneous waltz on the rooftop. Glad things seem to be back to normal.

 

Replies - for Posts 9-10

Thanks for the comments! As you can see, I’ve gotten very behind in replying. Since this is going to be a lot of text, I plan on breaking up the reply posts this round. Next up will be 11-12.


Nyota's Heart

This entry made me grin!!!!! Awwwwww! Very great pick-me-up after reading "Necessity" which is terrific but rather ouchy LOL at present. Love Elena's musings about Lydia's precocity and what she probably inherited from both sets of parents. I look forward to Elena's reminiscing about her family and Lydia's namesake in particular.

Thanks! And one of the nice things about fanfic reading is that there are many emotional tones running in the various fics here at any given moment. (Speaking of Necessity, I hope it’ll be back soon!)

Anyway, re: Lydia’s relatives, it is still a sore subject for Elena but I think we will see more memories being recalled. She knows that there is no other way Lydia is going to learn anything about that side of the family. So it’s important to her to put some of the details down in writing even though she’s uncomfortable revisiting that grief for long.



Nyota's Heart

Great and day to day stuff for the main text which contrasts well with the action in the deleted portion. Yup, I think Dayja and Elena would do better working together at least when it comes to avoiding trouble.

Just what I was going for with the contrast! I think working with Dayja is going to be difficult but ultimately a good thing for Elena; it means facing someone who knew her before she decided to change her ways. So far as she has, anyway. It’s no easy thing when Elena has gone out of her way to separate this new life with her daughter from the old one.


Findswoman

Ok, time to get caught up. One thing that's so fascinating about this diary is how totally routine, normal baby-and-mommy things take place alongside totally out-of-the-ordinary Imperial and Isardian intrigues.

One of the things that inspired this diary was that odd contrast that I knew must have been going on in the background of Lydia’s early life. As I think we’ve already seen, this odd situation of theirs changes perspective wildly depending on who is telling the tale (which is one reason why I’d love to get some short stories of the same ‘verse written, since Elena’s POV here is essential and yet kind of inaccurate).

With enigmatic felinoids thrown into the mix. I'm tickled at the possibility of Lydia picking up some Hras'kkk'rarr, which of course would only make sense given that Ahnjai (whose name, I now realize, reminds me of that of my brother-in-law Andrzej) is essentially her nanny. Curious to see if she picks up the gestural component of the language, too.

Since he’s got such an intriguing backstory in the sourcebook, I’ve really liked getting to develop Ahnjai here -- even though he remains something of a mystery still.

Lydia’s picking up something of his language was something that I had not planned on, but then it made too much sense. I suspect she won’t acquire the gestures since my interpretation of his refusal to use that language with Tremayne is that Ahnjai’s native tongue in its full form is something very personal to him -- kind of a last vestige of his old life that he keeps to himself. The version he uses in his “singing” to Lydia is more of a limited vocabulary of song-words (like the ones that you get in some English music as well); it’s related and contains some meaning but it’s not the whole thing exactly.

I guess at this point I should know who might be sending assassins after the Shelvays—Isard herself? A. Tremayne? (Or someone else altogether whom we don't expect?) But I'm notoriously bad at following any complicated political intrigue plot lines of any kind, so do not take it amiss if I get a little lost concerning that sort of thing. In any case, it's a relief that Elena and Lydia are safe, at least for now, but I have a sinking feeling that that will not be the case for long.

I have plans for that plotline, and I can only hope it will work and make sense. We’ll see more of that in the coming months.

Also neat to learn a little of Elena's family history and to get a glimpse of what's behind the name she chose for her daughter. Her comments on Force-sensitivity pique my curiosity too: wheb Elena says she doesn't know how Force-insensitive parents keep track of their children (believe me, we manage, somehow ), is she implying that she, Elena, has some Force-sensitivity herself? (I guess I may need to re read the backstory between her and A. T.)

Okay, so this is pretty much all on the level of headcanon with Elena being Force-sensitive at all. The source material isn’t really definite on that point. They do add a couple of Dark Side points in her stats (but the same is true of Ahnjai and it may actually be meant as a way of noting their status as Tremayne’s minions for all I know).

I decided to go with the idea that she has an easily-missed brand of Force-sensitivity. She’s not so much on the borderline like what Lydia tests as (although she really prefers to think of herself that way), but has a narrowly channeled focus thanks to the way her mind works. Most of her talent lies in perception rather than manipulation, hence her being directed towards the ISB rather than the Inquisitors. And I’m sure she would learn to track Lydia without the Force -- it’s just that a convenience you have on hand becomes habit. So she thinks it would be difficult and it might be at first, but that’s just because she never had to deal without the Force for long.

Although she uses her perception on a low level most of the time, she’s also pretty uncomfortable with being Force-sensitive. The first she knew of such people was when the mess with Corwin and Tremayne occurred. She kind of mistrusts her gifts even though she acknowledges them as a necessary evil. It doesn’t help that her training was with a Dark Side focus, and so the world that her extra senses show her when she really looks deeply into the Force is not a nice one. As we’ll probably see in future posts.


JadeLotus

I too was very intrigued by the mention of Force-sensitive parents, and it will be interesting to see if/when Lydia will start to exhibit signs.

The matter-of-fact way Elena recounts her experience with the assassins is quite harrowing, but speaks to her strength in handling the situation.

Re: the Force-sensitivity, Lydia’s going to prove difficult to pin down. There’s something and both Elena and Antinnis are aware of it, but as for what that is? No one’s sure yet.

And that was what I meant to convey with the assassin incident (other than plot points). Elena’s been accustomed to violence in the past and in a way she’s able to do that flip between mommy and hardened killer on a moment’s notice. But it’s not always as simple as that, either, and having that old life come so close to her new one is definitely going to have her already considerable wariness set on high.

Ewok Poet

Nine

I was about to mention sleep deprivation as a comment about types of screaming and baby picking the babysitters, but then I saw that Elena eventually figured out what was wrong with her. And the way she worded it was soooo funny.

Yeah, the kid was born stubborn; it’s genetic.

Maybe because of the said condition, maybe not, this entry is surprisingly more open than most of the others. Just like @Findswoman implied, the contrast between the baby stuff described to great detail and some scary shady business going on and threatening to destroy pretty much everything is fascinating. It's almost that Lydia herself is the symbol of the new, better and uncorrupted world being built, yet there are influences ready to corrupt whatever new order is being established AND her from day one.

Thanks! I’m finding that I really enjoy writing that contrast -- I don’t know what one would call it, dark fluff? Fluff noir? Anyway, it’s an important thing in understanding both her and Lydia that there is that constant tension in the background, but also a lot of not so bad influences. It’s the people/places that Elena becomes associated with seemingly by chance that are giving her some basis to be more than what it says on the label; in Tremayne’s plans she was never “supposed” to befriend two random Imperials and an alien, or end up on this backwater world away from more intensive supervision, or encounter all the people she’s going to meet on Shullia. And yes, Lydia’s kind of smack dab in the center of a struggle that runs underneath the surface of things.

The second to last paragraph is very, very human. The way Elena goes from jealousy to unity and compassion, two things that may have been ripped straight out of her ribcage in the past is so natural that it took me two reads to see anything even remotely "wrong" about it.

It’s been many years since she had any normal friendships, so Elena does find herself being jealous and conflicted with these new ones. The fact that these two turned out to be siblings is hitting on all kinds of scars in her mind, since she lost all of hers one way or another and that was part of what made her Imperial agent persona. The weird push-pull relationship she’s had with Tremayne isn’t helping either; there’s this whole “we’re not together/exclusive” thing that they’re trying to achieve at the same time that I think they both feel an intense possessiveness towards each other. Also, the ribcage thing was a great expression of how she ended up here.

Ten

As usual, wonderful double-meaning to pretty much everything.

Thanks! Life with Elena is pretty much the dark undercurrents and surface normalcy show, so yes. Lots of double meanings.

While the idea of Lydia speaking a variant of Srrors’tok being a baby and all is incredibly smart, given that babies do make limited gestures, it can be specieism again. The non-intentional kind, that is.

That’s an interesting point and I’d love to know your further thoughts on it. My take on it in writing is that there is a definite thread of discomfort in Elena’s feelings on how Ahnjai is playing such a big role in Lydia’s childhood, and the Imperially-indoctrinated speciesism is definitely a culprit there (that he’s not Lydia’s dad, who Elena really wishes were the kind of person she could expect to do some actual parenting, is part of it too). I think she’s definitely worried about others’ reactions to Lydia coming up with these non-human mannerisms if they recognize the behavior for what it is. Her biases might have been undermined severely by the events of the last year or so, but that doesn't mean it's all gone by any means.

And constant mentions of Lydia rolling and flopping are interesting, too. Elena may be feeling like a fish out of the water or like somebody on fire, in a bad way; and that makes for nice subtext.

That’s a really interesting point. I wasn’t consciously thinking about it but there’s always more to what you write than your actual plans and intent.

And then, out of nowhere, the poodoo hits the fan. An action scene from Elena's viewpoint and the sheer horror of her and Dayja being on Isard's list. Led me to thinking that she may end up being on others' hit lists, too. And I ain't no talking about the charts.

No wonder that part was deleted!
And now, logically, I wonder if there is anything else that Elena may know that Isard wants her dead for.

Poodoo hits the fan indeed! Yes, it’s a bit of a dose of cold water to have that suddenly happen -- though Elena’s been suspecting and worrying about the possibility for a while. I get the impression in the books that Isard was cleaning house in a major way for a while, so there are any number of reasons she might want Elena dead -- starting with her affiliation to Tremayne, which is in at least some records somewhere. But you’re also right that Isard is not the only shark in the water...


divapilot

Now that I have had a chance to catch up, I am hoping this will be updated soon.

I love how Elena is recording baby Lydia's milestones - her first gurgly attempts at language, rolling herself over, and of course the "how in the heck did you move so fast" maneuver. It's a fascinating contrast to Elena's espionage.

Thank you! It’s been an unusual writing experience since I have to double-check dates and research what Lydia might be expected to be doing at a particular age (and then add in the fact that I doubt any child is totally typical and she must have some quirks of her own). So it’s been fun to try to pick out the traits from Lydia’s older self that might show through, and weave all of that baby stuff into Elena’s much more hazardous world.

 

Great updates and interesting developments. I love how Lydia is really starting to ramp up her baby independence. The section where Elena lists everything that Lydia has chewed rings very true, my own kids went though that phase too. And I loved the description of her moving around like a little AT-AT.

The description of the festival was cool, too, kind of like Mardi gras meets Halloween. It must have been quite a sight!

 

A/N: Thank you all for the comments, and I will try to catch up with replying to 11-14 soon. (I know, I've said this before. ) The other part for this month is already written and will be posted tomorrow.

Fifteen

[Elena Shelvay – entry dated 24 AE: 3:32 – 5 ABY by New Republic calendar]

Lydia: Hello, chatterbox. I think we've witnessed your first proper word recently. It is not "mama" or "Ahnjai" as might have been predicted, but "window" -- well, more of a "win-oh" - shaped sound that definitely corresponds to any peek you get at a window, mirror, or viewscreen. In hindsight, this is not surprising at all given your fascination with such things. You love to watch people and the whole existence of windows and doorways is a wonder that has not yet worn off for you.

One of your favorite things in the day is when I hold you up so you can watch the squarriks running around on the roof through the holovid feed. It's become part of our routine to check on them at dusk or dawn when the animals are most active. Having screens to the outside of the building wasn't something I had ever considered as more than a security feature. It never used to occur to me to appreciate the views, only analyze them. But you see it differently and through you, I suppose I do now as well.

This area of the city looks like any other urban area built up in the last two to three decades – attractive enough, but mainly functional in design. Yet now I’m much more aware of the details: the characteristic shades of the light at different times of day and how they change with the seasons; the mixture of native and imported avians that gather on the higher vantage points; and the voices of people passing by in the street in their varying cadences.

Although I am still cautious of taking you out into public places, I’ve begun making small trips with you and Ahnjai – as much for him as anything else, since it’s obvious that being indoors for too long wears on him. Though it generally gets one the cold shoulder to pry into his past, I have gathered that he was accustomed to traveling great distances on a daily basis on his homeworld. Most of the records relating to the Srrors’tok seem to describe them as primitive nomadic sentients, though there are older unsubstantiated reports of steam-level technology and small cities. None dating from after the Clone Wars though, so whatever may have been there in the past must have been long before his time. He is, however, seemingly unimpressed and unbothered by modern technology and takes to the electrified bustle of downtown Tulekahju with ease.

Truthfully, he is the one who has more friendly contacts in the neighborhood – I’ve got some acquaintances at work, of course, and in areas of the city where my job takes me alone. But with you in tow, I find that I’m very reluctant to talk to people (which is something of an irony, because many more beings want to chatter with a young mother and her baby than wish to engage with me in my official capacity). Though few are supposed to know, I fear that the information of your parentage will inevitably leak as it did at the office. For all that they are rarely seen around here, I cannot imagine that the resentment of Inquisitors and their like is any less here than elsewhere. It bothers me to be recognized this close to where we live. Still, spending a little time exchanging polite greetings with Ahnjai’s friends seems wiser than complete reclusiveness even if my reflexes tell me otherwise. And you seem to adore them, which I suppose is better than nothing as a character witness. (Not that I haven’t checked their profiles anyway. I was not born yesterday.)



Notes:

My mental picture of the architecture in Tulekahju is not that different in appearance from Lothal’s major city in the new Rebels cartoon (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Capital_City), though we’re going mainly EU here. The main difference would be the surroundings, which include mountains in the distance and a green area of plains and low hills around the city.

All the stuff here about the Srrors’tok having older unrecorded cities and so on is headcanon, since the existing info (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Srrors%27tok#Society_and_culture) is pretty minimal. In this particular ‘verse, the Imperials are fairly dismissive of Ahnjai’s species (being inclined to put even the Wookiees in the “primitive nonhumans” category) and have rather poor documentation of anything that happened on their homeworld before the Clone Wars. That’s likely to be a problem stemming from the Republic as well – given the lack of interest in what were considered outer/marginal areas, the records kept probably were not that good for any number of worlds. It seems like anything short of galactic-level tech might easily be lost to history, at least offworld. (Some credit definitely goes to Ewok Poet’s emphasis on steampunk Ewoks in her fics for sparking this idea. )

 

Aw, I love Lydia's first word! And Elena's fears make a lot of sense given the circumstances, and I really love her getting a different perspective through Lydia.

 

Excellent tone here, Kahara - the hesitancy to be among strangers understandable blended with the interest in being out and among neighbors - for Ahnjai and Lydia's sakes ostensibly. Like Lydia's fascination with looking out viewing panes.

 

Sixteen



[Elena Shelvay – entry dated 24 AE: 4:20 – 5 ABY by New Republic calendar]

Lydia: It’s hard to believe that it is already your first birthday. It seems like this year has been both eternal and far too fast. I swear that there are months that I actually lost somehow even though I remember things that happened and evidently journaled them. The actual sense of the time is just gone.

We went out to Rafnkell Lake on a day trip, just you and I. There’s a hoverbus that goes in a circuit several times daily, and we spent the ride listening to the relationship woes of a young Zabrak who was holding an impressive conference comm with approximately two-thirds of the teenagers in Tulekahju throughout the journey. It was worth the trip in the end. Though we could have easily stayed in town and gone to the green-space not four blocks away, it seemed better to go outside the city.

I have not done much in the way of the usual childhood ceremonies with you. This was really the first, and possibly the only. I managed to locate kaha tree sap in the market once, and just the smell was enough that I was useless for the rest of the day. Perhaps if they did not involve so much in the way of food and smells. The more ordinary daily songs are something that I have started to share with you the last few months – not because I’ve really had any revived belief, but because I remember that music from my childhood and how it made me feel safe. I suppose I just want that for you. And it makes me feel calmer sometimes.

Back on Galtea, the right place would have been the small copse of marsh robles with their twisted mangrove roots and violet-blue leaves where generations of our family had gone – quite probably for hundreds of years, though no one ever counted. The trees at the lakeside were very different, of course. But it didn’t take long to find some of the swaying, long-branched trees that the locals call Diathim’s Hair, spectacular with the last of the crimson fall colors. The autumn comes slower out there than it does in the slightly higher altitude of the city, but it does eventually arrive. We leaned against one of the trees for a while, and I took your hand and put it on the trunk for a minute and whispered the introductions for you.

It should have been your uncle Ansel there. I still have the holo, though I haven’t looked at it in all the years since I went to the trouble of recovering our pictures. Since I had been born in the spring, I was of course liberally dusted in sticky marsh roble catkins which my grinning elder brother – normally doomed to being the well-behaved one of all of us by birth order – had helped me scatter all through my hair. This was a fashion statement which my parents were reportedly somewhat less thrilled with than I was. Without Ansel, it actually should have been Corwin. But that wasn’t going to happen.

It’s a bit vague as to why our family does this; there have been many successive religions in the Brinelands and the origins of this particular ritual are more than a little bit lost. We do, of course, have a perfectly good explanation that corresponds to theology of the Respehra. But it is also a much older custom than that, as the evidence of some fairly ancient artifacts that one finds in the wetlands will attest. Whatever the case may be, there is the sense that one is being listened to. It is all the effect of the rustling of leaves and branches, but still rather soothing.

Well, you were tired and melting down into a crying frenzy on the way home, so you were exiled to nap-time with some difficulty after we got back to the apartment. However, you were recovered enough a few hours later that Ahnjai and I made a zoochberry pudding and we had a birthday meal with the three of us. I overestimated your capacity for pudding, which is why there is now a purple stain that will not come out of the carpet. Ahnjai has purple whiskers. I have a purple streak in my hair, right where my ponytail got dipped in the pudding as I attempted to head off the great violet vomit disaster.

We have certainly learned a lot this year.



Notes:

Kaha tree (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Kaha_tree) – a nifty-looking tree species that originally comes from Talasea. This is purely fanon, but I’m guessing that the humans who settled on Galtea would have brought some offworld species with them.

Marsh roble – OC species of tree from Galtea that is found mainly in salt marshes. The “roble” comes from the Spanish word for oak. They produce catkins (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catkin) like Earth oaks, but their root system is more like those of mangrove (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangrove) trees.

Diathim (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Diathim)

Another fanon thing here is that the particular Galtean culture that Elena is from (though there are literally dozens on the planet) is both patriarchal and matrilineal to some degree – so it’s the brother/uncle/grandfather/other male relative on one’s mother’s side who normally has a key role in certain life events like the birthday custom in this entry. It’s traditional for the mother to fill in as Elena does if all of those relatives are gone for whatever reason, but it’s rare for a family to have that many relatives missing.

Zoochberry (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Zoochberry)

 

Fifteen:

Windows are, in their own way, identical to viewscreens. Plus it may depend on the frame, the curtain and many other things. I like it that it was Lydia's first word.

On the other hand, using security as viewscreens for entertainment is wonderful, scary and disturbing at the same time. I know I can count on you for such weird stuff to pop up out of practically nowhere! What Lydia is being born in reminds me of the story of a girl from Novo Brdo who randomly added me to Facebook some years ago. She was born in 1995 and had no memory of going out and playing freely, walking down the street and similar things. Curiously, her life changed when she moved to study at the university...making this whole thing even more realistic and believable.

Thanks for the mental picture of Tulekahju and for that little credit for inspiration. <3


Sixteen:

You forgot the title here and I messaged you about another error.

we spent the ride listening to the relationship woes of a young Zabrak who was holding an impressive conference comm with approximately two-thirds of the teenagers in Tulekahju throughout the journey. - Oh, poodoo. So, the emo!Maul from MESA, JAR JAR!!! had a child before Jar Jar killed him? KILL IT. KILL IT WITH FIRE.

Loved reading some memories from Galtea, before Elena kills them herself, with how she feels about her brother. What's also interesting is that she does not seem to mourn the rest of the family. This is the point where I ask how exactly was their death explained to her, if all

This was really the first, and possibly the only. - This made me sad. You always stick the scariest stuff with the most uplifting and create these awesome mood whiplashes, but this is the pinnacle of Elena's own realisation about her mortality, even more so than the assault from one of the earlier entries. This whole realisation that she eventually WILL have to write the truth once she has realised it herself, so her daughter knows what happened...eeek, eek, eek!

 

love your entries with the first word and first birthday

 

Kahara - the first birthday entry is full of homeyness and realism, evidently including the overindulgence but the setting with the trees sounds so incredibly wonderfully serene! You wish you could bottle that peacefulness and carry it around with you the rest of the days of the year.