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Hera "The Joyful" Albion

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Jedi Order
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Black Noise
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Hera did not watch Leon with her eyes as the young man fought, instead, she affixed the other Deucalian captain with a dark stare. While the duel raged on, Brutus Hell-Borne initially held a cheeky smirk across his face. It faded quickly as Leon began to dominate the field. All the while Hera simply stared Brutus down. Finally, the fight was over, and the other challenger had been irreparably damaged.

'Dire-Hard' shouted the winner, "Jedi Warrior, Leon, has claimed honorable victory!" A chorus of cheers and roars, "As such! Hera Albion's truth is now law! We's takin' these ships, our ships, and ourselves to become one with the First Mercenary Defense Enclave! Everybody start packin' ya shit! We's be leavin' at next dawnlight!" Fewer cheers, more groans, but the law of iron had been declared. If Leon, at this moment, shouted 'the sea is purple!' then that would be a new truth until someone 'corrected' him.

Hera did not immediately beckon Leon to her, though she would not stop him from coming near. Approaching Captain Brutus, she remarked, "Your boy will be outfitted with cybernetics-" Brutus affixed her with a sharp scowl, "He damn well better." "I'm not sorry," Hera retorted, "You chose this outcome, but now you have a chance to put some good into the galaxy. Don't squander it, or I will come for you."

Ymir himself, being assisted to his feet by his comrades, shouted out, "Next time Jee-dai! I'll have you next time!" Before laughing heartily. His face, deathly white, seemed to betray the danger of passing out at any second. But this Deuclaian would never pass up the chance to goad an opponent into a future bout. He held no grudge against Leon, the Law had been declared, and Leon had chosen to spare Ymir's life. It was just as good as a win in his mind.

At that point, Hera would beckon Leon to come along with her. She could sense the emotions roiling around inside him and she would speak to him as the pair moved away from the 'former' pirates. "Should we have just killed them?" Hera would ask, a strange twinge of darkness boiling through the woman's emotions. Hera's emotions would be overtly obvious to Leon through the Force, she was utterly enraged.

The anger swirled around her like a dark power, until the words "Breathe Hera, breathe." Escaped the councilor's lips. In an instant, the darkness faded, and a gentle, happy feeling washed over Hera. Smiling softly, she continued speaking as if nothing had happened, "The galaxy, as much as I wish it was just black and white, isn't. It's a thousand shades of grey, and approaching every situation as 'a Jedi should' with self-righteousness and holier-than-thou attitudes won't help anyone."

"You enacted violence today, we both did, but what were our intentions behind it? Did we do it for fun? Because we wanted to see blood spilled? We have given hundreds of mercenaries a chance at a new life, a chance no one else would've given them. Some will squander it and go right back to their old ways, but some will use it to help the galaxy. Should we have condemned them all for the choices of a few?"


That last bit was a genuine question, and Hera waited to hear Leon's answer.


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Leon Baudelaire

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Zay
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That awkward congratulatory mix of adulation and jealousy rippled out from the surrounding crowd. Leon was patted on the back, shaken roughly, and clapped on the shoulder for his display. More than one muscle momma tried to get his attention, but he wasn’t thinking with that head at the moment.

Leon sighed. He should be stoked holding an ale and getting drunk. That was victory wasn’t it? To his suprise he was relieved when Hera beckoned him over. He was hoping to be chastised for his behavior, but instead he was handed a moral dilemma.

He frowned, “All of them?” he asked, glancing around at the crowd, “I mean if we took out the whole ship, oh you mean SHOULD we have, sorry, this culture is loud.”

That’s when he realized she was talking more to herself than she was to him. The anger roiling off her was palpable. Maybe she just needed to get laid, Leon thought, starting to look around the crowd for a potential suitor when Hera calmed herself and elaborated.

The emotional switch was a little jarring, but Leon had been through so much in the past 36 hours he just went with it. The young man considered the weight of the question. Hypocrisy seemed to be the only answer, so, rather than say the answer he assumed she wanted, Leon just told the truth.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug, “Earlier when they were charging us guns blazing, striking to kill made sense,” he looked away rubbing his scar, “It’s our job to make the hard choices,” he looked around at the ragtag vikings and chuckled, “To be honest, I kinda feel like we made the hard choice sparing them.”

Leon wasn’t sure where Hera was going with this, but he was fine answering whatever hypotheticals she had to offer.

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Hera "The Joyful" Albion

Character
Jedi Order
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Jedi Councilor

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Black Noise
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Hera smiled as Leon spoke, moving to have him follow her back toward their speeders. This matter had been resolved as far as she was concerned, more than she needed in vessels had been acquired and more men had joined her ranks. But she felt strangely empty, as though her joy had begun to run dry. The preposterous notion of running out of happiness was promptly discarded and Hera decided to fill herself with ale.

Reaching over, she snatched a large mug off a counter before they left and downed the whole thing. Almost immediately she retched, the strong alcohol mixed with having been left out since yesterday did not present joy to Hera's taste buds. Grimacing, then smiling again, she spoke to Leon. "You're a good man, Leon. I have no doubt that you will make an excellent Jedi Knight. I also have no doubt that you will be excellent even if you choose to move on from this life, your heart is powerful and your mind is wise."

Stepping out into the fresh light of day and wincing, Hera hadn't slept in nearly thirty-six hours, the redhead groaned and continued. "You may see solutions I do not, Leon, and I want you to voice them next time if you do. Though I know this mission has been nothing but a rollercoaster ride gone off the rails, ha ha! At least it wasn't boring!"

Nearing the speeders, Hera posed Leon with a few final questions, "What would you do in my shoes? If you had my power and authority, how would you use it?"


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Leon Baudelaire

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As Hera snatched the horn of ale Leon raised a hand to stop her, but it was too late. Luke warm stale beer poured into her mouth and was received as well as you might expect. Baudelaire snickered a little, but he was starting to get concerned for his master. She was acting a little crazy.

”Uh, I’m fine, I don’t know about being a good man,” he chuckled, a little put off by the compliment.

“Sure,” that made sense. He didn’t really expect her to follow through with any of his advice, but it was nice she was willing to ask. “Boring is the last way I’d describe this mission,” he laughed, slinging a leg over his speeder. Hera stopped him with a few more questions. Leon sat back in the seat and crossed his arms cupping his chin while his brow furrowed in thought.

“You could have filled me in on what was going on,” he said with a shrug, then switching to telepathy, “We have a built in comm system,” then back to normal speech, “You just kinda bailed on me for like a whole night,” he said with a shrug finally adding, “To be clear, I had a great time, I was just a little lost on what our objective was when we entered pirate viking territory. Last thing I knew we were here to talk to a guy about a ship, or something.”

Her second question was harder, it felt as if these last two questions held dual meanings. Was Hera doubting herself? What in the hell had happened while she was gone? Deciding to air on the side of caution he said, “I’m just a dumb padawan, I can’t imagine what the authority of a Jedi Master feels like,” he said with a chuckle.

He fired up his speeder and jerked his head toward their original destination, “Wanna see that guy about a ship?”

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Hera "The Joyful" Albion

Character
Jedi Order
Rank
Jedi Councilor

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Black Noise
Joined
Jan 12, 2021
Messages
345
Reaction score
142
Hera listened to Leon and did not reply, waiting until he had finished before speaking aloud with a smile. "Sorry, guess I'm not used to communicating well. In the future, it's, well, something for me to work on, haha." Then, mounting her speeder, she jetted off in the direction of the hangars where they would take Hera's ship back to the Jedi temple.

During the ride back, Hera would be silent. Telepathically, she would communicate to Leon a few key points as they rode. She explained that the ships had been all dedicated to the Jedi cause through the First Defense Mercenary Enclave, that his fight had been for them to give up piracy, and that the original owner of the vessels had unfortunately perished. However, after explaining what happened, she would communicate no more.

Not on the rest of the ride back to the hangar, not on the vessel ride back to the temple, and not when they split up to go to their rooms. Not a word. It was not Leon's intention, but something he said had struck something deep within Hera. It was akin to striking the ground for oil and hitting a pressurized vein. Now, the Jedi Councilwoman had become trapped inside her own mind until the next time she would meet her Padawan for training. A half dozen questions turned and twisted inside Hera The Joyful, and it tore her up inside.

'Do I feel anything about having authority? Do I feel anything about being on the council? Do I even feel, really, anything?"

/end
 
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