Crystal Clarity

[Silvi Velt-Morata]

Silvi couldn't remember a time she didn't feel her parents' eyes on her. Like a constant, slow smothering. Even when her mother was out there, trying to create the vaccine and other medical advancements, even when her father patted her head and she watched him walk out the door of his apartment to help others, there was always the nanny droid. The security droids. The security detail of the Mandalorians her mother saved. The security detail granted by the ISC. The Jedi. Eyes, so many eyes on her. Perhaps she was lucky the galaxy at large didn't know she was Doctor Ilana Morata's daughter, but there were times she felt its' pressure weighting on her shoulders, pressing down.

Her mother, pushing her to medicine. Keeping her 'safe'. Keeping her controlled. Her father pushing her towards the Rangers. More protection. More layers. Until it felt like she could never be herself; two versions of Silvi. For Ilana, she was the scientific mind, the curious and eager assistant. For Corran, she was the hunting buddy, the friendly voice, the cheerful and grateful civilian. How long was she expected to hold up this mask before it cracked?

It wasn't like her mother understood what it meant to hide behind a mask.

Still, she found solace in her elite school. Others, children of famous people and diplomats, the many greats kids all in classes together. No one knowing who Silvi Velt's parents really were; there were rumors of course. But there was something else that caught her, that made her push herself beyond all her other peers.

Politics.

So close to the Senate, she signed up for every debate club, ran for every role in the student governmental body, worked as an intern in the Senate and often sneaking away from her parents' watchful eyes. There were tricks to it that she adapted effortlessly since she was a small child. Her mother was against it, so adamant in fact the arguments lasted for weeks, with her mother leaving for a meeting on Christophsis with bitter words still hanging in the air.

She wasn't going to follow her mother's footsteps, however. She didn't know what made her mother so cold, but it always seemed like the weight on her shoulders was too much for even Silvi to lift; so she would run away, and make her own life. Away from all the eyes that watched in the dark. She would make her own light.

The MC vessel was bound for Naboo. Her parents thought she would stop there as part of her internship in her mother's company, before going to Belasco for their University of Sciences, but they were wrong.

She would become a Senator one day, and outshine them all. But first, she wanted to have a little fun. And a festival was the perfect way to melt into the crowd for good. Let her parents' eyes try to find her now.

 

[Silvi Velt-Morata]

"Mother, I want to get into politics."

Silence, silence. The whir of a cleaner droid scrubbing across a pristine floor, perhaps her mother would look up from her datapad placidly, sharp amber eyes peering through her.

"Mother, I want to become a Senator."

She could almost hear it; the stillness of it, like she didn't exist, like Ilana was a phantom image on the Holo screen. Like when Silvi was a toddler, putting her hands against it to capture her mother's essence in tiny fingers. Not really there; worlds away.

"Oh really, Little Star? And what appeals to you?" And her mother would stare her down, poised and elegant, one slender hand holding aloft a datapad or a beaker, or nothing at all, a clutch as she would leave for another fundraiser.

Another night alone watching cheap holovids.

"Mother... I love it. Politics. Debate." The confession brought a flush to her face; love was a complicated word in the Velt-Morata household. She didn't know why, but when her mother looked at her that fateful day and saw her resolute face, she didn't see Silvi entirely. She had eyes of blue, but just once, Amariel looked and thought she saw silver. Just once, she wished to see a child, her child, one with his silver eyes---

"Mother."

Ilana turned to look. Silvi could see it, the longing in her eyes, suddenly closed down and shuttered. Eyes like distant stars, flickering and vague in their promise of warmth. Silvi knew she was loved, but the capacity to love someone like Amariel was difficult. Alien. Love was spoken on thin lines and tight-lipped conversation, carefully spoken to avoid the crises of the galaxy. Crises Silvi couldn't close her eyes to now.

One day, she would remember the fight. A vase, shattered, and fear, anger, disappointment flashing in her mother's eyes. You can't protect me forever. Not like Daddy could, either, and he was gone, gone somewhere in the hyperlanes, or at a tavern somewhere talking about the old days of being a Ranger. Unable to look at her mother's face, even after all these years. You look just like her.

No, no.

Breaking out, running away. Eventually, she would be found again. But not before she had secretly signed on for the ISC intern transfer program. She would run to Naboo, go to Theed University. Let Mother believe she was going to Belasco; she would let her believe that.

 

[Dr Ilana Morata]

And just like that, she was gone.

She was gone.

The shatter of glass impacted into the wall. Her throat was raw from the mindless shrieks that she ached to release. The first person she could love, the first that held her heart tightly since her brother's slip from reality, had run away.

Oh, but it wasn't running away, was it? No, it was 'chasing her dreams', 'following the right path', and that 'she should be happy to finally have alone time'. Fingers clamped hard, hard enough to bleed as nails sliced into her only biological palm. The windows of their... no, her penthouse cracked, spiderwebbed and creaked as waves of grief and fear threatened to boil over. How could she? She knew her father would have taught Silvi the basics of the troubles of the galaxy, but she wanted her safe. She wanted her home.

"My little Starshine..." she managed to mutter, feeling the mask finally crack. The holo-message played over and over in the background, and she could feel the warm slide of tears as Silvi's blue image wavered and flickered.

"...going to Theed University. Don't worry, Mother. I'm going to make you proud." A crooked grin touched the corners of her lips, and Amariel could feel her heart break, as once again she saw the wistfulness in that face. "I'm going to be a Senator someday. Just wait and see."

She wanted to hug her. To wrap her up, and hide her from the galaxy again. To see her smile, without the closed-off expression she developed through her teenage years. To go back in time, and figure out when exactly she had failed one of the few that reigned supreme over her heart.

Had she failed? She tried so hard to not be like Matriarch Yselti Morata... yet why did she taste such bitter failure?

"My darling girl... I-I was already... so proud..." she managed to gulp out, before she buckled. The windows finally gave out, and she knelt to the ground, not even bothering to stifle the cries she let out. She had failed. She couldn't protect her little Starshine anymore; her little girl had truly grown up, and she felt like her daughter's leaving the way she did was her fault.

When she would pull herself together, she would finally call one person, asking for their help, to guide her daughter. After all, even though Silvi was her own person, Amariel was always, to her, first and foremost her mother. And a mother would always worry.