Ask Finishing Missions

[Vidha Solus]

Vidha followed her course to Mandalore. After a while, the planet came into view through her cockpit window. The familiar gray-blue planet calmed her. "Back home," she sighed. She landed her starfighter lightly. Her cockpit window slid back with a hiss and she hopped out, her boots hitting the ground with a deep thud. She looked up to the sky in time to see the woman land her ship next to hers. She smiled under her helmet, tossing the bag of credits in her hands if only to have something to do while she waited for the woman to get out.

@Van'Aria Solus

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

After a short travel the Hyperdrive powered down as soon as she exited Hyperspace, her right hand going down to adjust a few settings concerning her Ship's power consumption, but that familiar look of a Planet all too dear gave her pause for a moment.

"Its... been long."

She spoke to herself as she gave the glass of her Cockpit a firm press as if she could touch the Planet through it, but unfortunately could not, not willing to keep her new acquaintance waiting either she gave a satisfied sigh before making her way Planetside, albeit slower than Vidha, she held reverence to the Planet it felt sacred to her and not having set foot on it for quite some time now was hard to comprehend at first.

Though eventually Van'Arias broke through the Atmosphere above where Vidha had landed and eventually albeit a bit more off the grid she landed, powering down her Machines as she prepared to disembark though another thought gave her pause yet she dismissed it shortly afterwards.

Raising herself out of the Cockpit she landed with a firm thump, the ground beneath her just as she remembered it, and whilst she took careful steps at first she reaffirmed herself shortly afterwards and strode forwards in firm and confident steps until she came to a halt just a few steps short of Vidha.

"Do you remember its name?"


She asked without cohesion... without reason behind her words it could be a question about anything at this point.

@Vidha Solus

 

[Vidha Solus]

Vidha turned her gaze from the woman. She looked up at the sky and then off into the horizon. "This planet? I may not have been born on Mandalore, but this is my true home-world," she said. She had not been on Mandalore in a long while. She took a half-step back, letting the woman take the lead. "Should we reunite with our clan?" she asked. She longed to take off her gloves and touch the ground, let it seep into her skin and bones. Instead, she tied her credits bag to her belt and readjusted her cape.

@Van'Aria Solus

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

"Perhaps. What is it you wish most?"

She asked directly, gauging her answers, her thoughts her mannerisms, she knew just as much what connection this Planet had to many a Mandalorian and more importantly to those that were devoutly in service of the Mandalorians.

"Your mind seems clouded, perhaps you are conflicted?"

She asked her directly, it was a honest question one that she hoped she would answer without resistance but she would push not further if Vidha decided against it, whilst she wanted to let her knowledge be freely accessible by all she couldn't and wouldn't force it upon one.

"You mustn't answer, if you simply wish to walk for now I shall walk beside you."

She gestured ahead, Van'Aria rarely took the lead as she wanted people to direct their points of interest first, she cherished to see the curiousity in people, their thoughts their judgements, it was among the few things that she could watch every day, standing in an alley just watching the folk go about their business each with different ideals, goals and destinations.

@Vidha Solus

 

[Vidha Solus]

"What I wish does not matter; the only things that matter are the Foundlings," Vidha replied, taking the lead. She had never been good at hiding her emotions despite her helmet, and she wished she was better at it. She forced her hands to come around, tucking them under her arms as she crossed them. She started walking towards the compound, knowing the woman would follow her.

They walked in silence for a while and Vidha decided after she delivered her credits to the Foundlings she would visit her sister's makeshift grave. It was the best she could do- her sister had disappeared on a mission years ago and no one had been able to find her so she had been proclaimed dead. There had been no body to bury so Vidha kept a pile of her sister's old possessions in a little alcove in her room here on Mandalore.

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

For a long time Van'Aria was simply the silent bystander following VIdha along, she went about her way with her, listened and simply observed for a very long time in absolute silence it was only when they embarked to another destination that she finally spoke.

"Something ails you."

She asked plainly and directly, something betrayed a clouded mind, she felt as if there must be something on her mind that weighed her down and going with her gut she simply asked.

"Is it something you wish to tell me? Or perhaps you wish to show me?"

A somber tone was within that voice, it had changed from that stern, cold and disciplined, she was used to adjusting to better suit to someones mood, she had many a person before that shut themselves out in quiet lament and sometimes speaking about things resolved issues but there was always the added risk of it just worsening things so she approached it in a neutral manner.

"You mustn't if you do not wish ofcourse."

 

[Vidha Solus]

Vidha slowed her hurried pace. There was something about the woman's voice that made her question herself. Something about the way the woman so readily knew something was wrong.

"It is nothing," Vidha said softly. "Nothing you could help me with, anyway." They reached the compound, and a little foundling girl ran out, an excited smile on her young face.

"Vidha! You've returned!" the girl exclaimed, using Vidha's name. Vidha knelt down to meet the girl. Bare skin met cold beskar as the two rested their foreheads against each other. The little girl put her hands on the sides of Vidha's helmet but didn't try and remove it.

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

"It would ease my mind if I tried."

She would give back, it was not that she believed to be capable of helping her but at the same time she felt it her duty to at the very least try yet she would not pry if she wished not to speak on it.

As they slowed down Van'Aria gave a brief pause, she felt someones watchful eyes on the back of her helmet so she turned around but in the end there was... noone there, she narrowed her brows beneath her Visor, was she getting paranoid? She couldn't have lost her touch she tried to reassure herself but nevertheless it gnawed at the back of her mind.

"Is she with you hmm?"

Van'Aria bent down into a squat the fabric of her body glove contracting as it tightened audibly, tilting her head slightly at Vidha she gestured to the Foundling girl, she rubbed her thumb idly along the inner side of her palm whislt speaking, it calmed her, kept her concentrated.

"Vidha has been a great boon to the Clan today."

She explained as she regarded the Foundling girl directly, whilst she may not know Van'Aria first impressions were important especially with younger Foundlings.

 

[Vidha Solus]

Vidha looked at the Mandalorian woman. There seemed to be something in her voice when she said her name. Vidha was not as skilled at hiding her emotions but she was curious at this slip up. "If I may ask, what is your name?" she asked. Something roiled in the pit of her stomach and she felt a strange excitable anxiety.

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

"I believe deep within you, you know already."

She placed a hand on the soil beneath her feeling it firmly with her gloved hand, it felt familiar and it carried with it memories, memories faded to time, she gazed through Vidha for atleast a full minute before coming back to her senses, she sharply inhaled before then giving her a proper answer.

"My name is, Van'Aria."

She spoke it and it rang true, yet it was something she spoke very rarely and everytime she did atleast among her Mandalorian brothers and sisters it either earned her curiousity or resentment, the latter more often than not.

"It has been... quite some time."

She slowly came to rise from her squat and as she did she regarded Vidha with a neutral demeanor, she knew not what she felt and wanted to leave her to process what she mayhaps heard for the very first time in a very long while.

 

[Vidha Solus]

Vidha followed Van'Aria and slowly stood up. Under her helmet, her jaw hung. "How... how is this possible, you died, seven years ago..." she stuttered. The young foundling girl looked up at the two women, confused. "I don't understand, if you were alive, why... why didn't you come back for me?"

The shock was setting in. Vidha could barely wrap her mind around the fact that her sister was alive, but here she was, standing in front of her in that way of hers- steadfast. "I mourned your death," she continued, a little bit of anger seeping in. She fidgeted with her belt that seemed to tight around her waist and her fur cloak that seemed to strangle her.

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

"I swore a duty."

She would start as explanation but realized that no matter how she put it it would sound... selfish even if the ultimate goal was to be selfless, the day when she was asked to go and to not return was one of the hardest decisions she had ever felled and it made her who she was today.

"One I must enact even still, there are many a Mandalorian that looks upon me with the same hatred you might harbor this very moment and I unfortunately, cannot cure these feelings."

She continued as she blaced both her hands behind her back, her form growing stiffer, that discipline one was used from her returning yet at the same time it felt fragile, a wall with holes in it.

"What grief I have given you, I cannot erase... but what I can give is reassurance."

She stared as she looked Vidha up and down a firm smile forming beneath that Visor, she that her work had paid off and moreso that she left a lasting impression which only further affirmed Van'Aria that the path she travels was the one she is meant to travel.

"You have become strong, as strong as I knew you would be. You should be proud of yourself."

 

[Vidha Solus]

Vidha's shock was wearing off. "I am proud of myself, no thanks to you," she said, letting her anger seep into her tone. "You swore something else, before you ever abandoned me- you swore to me you would always be there, you would have my back," Vidha continued. Almost against her determination to be angry right now, she wanted to see what Van'Aria looked like now- she had vague memories of how her sister looked before she earned her helmet. She knew she herself had changed greatly- dying her hair silver after her sister had 'died'.

Vidha suddenly remembered the foundling girl and turned her attention back to her. "I have a gift for you," she said, pulling out a small cloth doll from her credit pack. The girl's eyes lit up and it warmed Vidha's insides. She straightened up again and looked back to Van'Aria, wondering if she recognized the doll- Van'Aria herself had made it and gave it to Vidha when Vidha was five.

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

"I-"

She cut herself off, there was no excuse, nor was there a way to explain the unexplainable, Vidha had every right to feel the way she did but at the same time Van'Aria had a duty bestowed upon her that did not allow for bias, nor attachment, if one is to teach they must be able to let go eventually.

"You've grown faster than most, and now you teach like I did once you, mayhaps... not as harshly but we are what make we of ourselves. I am proud that what I inherited in you finds another place in someone you value as much as I value you."

She bowed her head in almost shame, no it was respect to being in this position, being granted another day to remember, to witness the rise of a new generation albeit not guided by her own hand and she was content with that, it was meant to be that way or so she hoped.

"Yet I fear you have alot of questions. And I will answer them all if it permits me."

She stated and she likely wasn't wrong, being gone this long comes with many a story and many a question for the one that might've felt abandoned and she just hoped that she could answer every single one of her Questions truthfully, but for now the most important thing was to give Vidha her full and uncontested attention.

 

[Vidha Solus]

Vidha pondered Van'Aria's words before looking back down to the little girl. "Run along, now," she said. The girl, clutching her new doll, smiled and dashed away.

Vidha looked at Van'Aria once more. "I do have many questions- what was the duty that you had to so urgently leave on and never return?" Vidha asked. Her anger had cooled down but she still wasn't in an entirely kind and generous mood. "And the point of my anger goes past training me- we were not only sisters but the best of friends,"

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

"I was set down a path I did not think to travel when I was taken up as a Foundling."

She gestured Vidha along as Van'Aria endeavored to find a place to sit before continueing her words, it was going to be a lengthy explanation and with all due respect she would not have Vidha suffer through standing upright during a potentially very long discussion.

"The one that took me in, as much as they have you, sent me down a path that I thought Mandalorians did not persue. A path of History, recording it, archiving it, preserving it. I have spent the years I was absent searching for remote Clans and knowledge of the elder Mandalorian days."

She used her hands to gesture the enormity of her task before then pulling inwards as she spoke, letting out a brief sigh shortly afterwards as her gaze slightly fell forwards alongside her entire head.

"I no longer fight, only if it deems necessary, my sole purpose is to preserve and further our people, to search for what you were once, Foundlings. And to pass along to all Mandalorian Clans, new or old the ways of our ancient Traditions."

She sounded crestfallen for but a moment as if this wasn't exactly what she had envisioned in her path as a Mandalorian.

"I have made it my choice that I will walk my path regardless of what I swore and regardless if attachment could cloud my judgement. That is why I stand before you today."

 

[Vidha Solus]

Vidha was silent for a while as she sat down next to her sister (it was crazy to think she had a sister). "You have made it your mission to journey across the galaxy for the purpose of preserving and discovering Mandalorian history, and I have made it mine to bring up the foundlings, training them as you once trained me, filling the gap you left behind," Vidha began to realize she was rubbing the guilt in Van'Aria's face, and if the situation had been normal, like when they were younger, Van'Aria would have scolded her for being so petty.

"I can understand your duty to the tribe, but it sound like its not what you want, or at least you wonder what it would have been like to go down a different path," Vidha said. She could be totally off- she wasn't very good at reading people- but this was her sister and she knew her better than anyone in the galaxy.

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

"I should be here to do both."

She retorted, it has always beeen the way she approached things, she put herself infront of any person always willing to go the extra length so another wouldn't have to but she had to make sacrifices, decisions that hurt her deep to the core and these Scars that were left in the wake reopened on a regular basis, dry felt her throat as she spoke about it, it left a bitter aftertaste one she couldn't shake easily.

"How am I to fight confidently if all that I have accumulated could be whiped away in a single encounter? It is not easy."

She raised her hands in frustration but they eventually came back down to rest on her knees, she leant forwards staring up as if there was something out there she couldn't see, what was it that she was to do?

"Ive come across Mandalorians that resent me, spit at what I do, nothing but spite, regarded with accusations of cowardice."

She then tilted her gaze over to Vidha who she felt like she had failed, she had passed on what she could but ultimately she could not keep a promise that hse had sworn to hold.

 

[Vidha Solus]

Vidha stood up hastily. "No matter how much I wish I could, I will never hate you, Van'Aria. You shaped me into who I am today and I must thank you for that. Nothing is easy in this galaxy," she said. She shook her head- she never got philosophical- she had spent too much time sitting.

She looked down at her sister. "It might be selfish of me to ask, but would you remove your helmet for me, in private, so that I might see how much you've changed?" Vidha knew a lot of her fellow Mandalorian warriors who if their helmets were even mentioned became extremely defensive. She hoped Van'Aria was not one of those people.

 

[Van'Aria Solus]

"You among all should know that I cannot do that."

She slowly but certainly rose alongside her standing right infront of her, it was a rarity that she removed it even if it was in utmost almost ceremonious privacy, she would violate one of the most sacred parts of the resol'nare, the six tenets of the ancient Mandalorian way and being asked something like that was not to be taken lightly.

"There was once a Mandalorian I knew very closely that asked the same of me, be glad that you have never met him, he was very protective of me."

She reached up and peeled back the fabric around her neck to show Vidha a wicked jagged scar that travelled down her neck, it had not been there before, this one was indeed new and it showed Vidha one of the many ways Van'Aria had progressed through life.

"But I am certain you would not be swayed from your wish to see. Here I thought I had taught you well enough that a Womans greatest tool is what she does not show."