Log:A Parting Gift
A Parting Gift
OOC Date: January 22 2023
Location: Private Residence
Participants: Ambrosia Greystorm
The Sith uprising is stirring chaos, threatening to overwhelm the newly refurbished Republic, sowing seeds of fear and uncertainty, all around. But in here? In this little pocket of the world, within these walls, there is peace. Serenity.
There is also the most mercurial Greystorm, standing over the crib of her youngest grandchild, Aderan.
Her motionless frame divides the ray of light let in by the open door, casting a shadow over the slumbering tot. The older child, Senin, is cackling over something Jax has said in the kitchen. Sesti’s in there, too, presumably setting the table.
She hasn’t got much time.
Reaching over the rail, Ambrosia traces a few fingers through the little one’s hair. So soft. Hands which have committed countless acts of violence in the name of a greater good, or for selfish vengeance, scoop ever so gently under her grandson’s arms and lift him soundlessly free of the blankets. Lays him over her chest, head on her shoulder.
Her cheek bows to the crown of his head.
“I won’t be around to see you grow up,” she mumbles, adopting a little sway to her stance, “and I’m not sorry...”
The lone tear seeping from her left eye tells otherwise though.
Holding him there with one hand, she reaches around under her hair to loop fingers through the chain around her neck.
“But I bet you turn into somethin’ spectacular.”
Ambrosia pulls the chain up and over her head, from which hangs a slightly melted, warped ring bearing the Jedi signet. Over a thousand years old, this heirloom artifact dangling in the light from her fingertips.
“That’s why I’m leavin’ you this...” She hangs it from a soothing light orb, over the child’s bed. “Belonged to my ancestor - your ancestor - Jera Aderanne. Guess you’re sort of her namesake. She died, a long, long time ago on your mother’s homeworld, in defense of children. Like you. Her blood and power flowed through my veins, into your dad’s, and I’ll bet it’s in you, too.”
Aderan grunts, rooting his face deeper into his grandmother’s shoulder, and the retired General sighs. A ghost of a smile touches her lips, lopsided. “Yeah, yeah...I know. Sounds like a bunch of jibberjab to me, too,” she murmurs against his cheek. “Truth is, kid, I don’t expect I’ll be seeing you again, in this life or the next, cause soon I’ll be dead and there ain’t a ‘next’. Maybe you mystical folk have some tricks up your sleeves, but I’ve been there once before, see, and it weren’t nothin’ but dark and cold. So. You make do with what you got for as long as you’ve got it, and don’t let anybody give you guff. If there’s any bit of me in those genes of yours...you won’t have a problem showin’em a little what-for,” she grumbles softly, taking care not to wake the tyke. Or alert his parents to the subject of their ‘conversation’.
A conversation which is about to be over.
“Go find Grannygrump,” Jax’s voice instructs Senin from across the home, only half muffled by the walls.
Ambrosia sighs, closing her eyes to the spinning dance of that dangling ring. “All right...all right. Looks like ‘granny grumps’ got to go,” She dips head head aside again, breathing the scent of his hair, just once. Plants a slow kiss atop it. “So let’s get you back to bed.”
Moments later, the old battle axe steps into the hall, intercepts Senin’s fleet-footed steps, and swoops him up and over her shoulder with the crook of her arm. Carries him kicking and giggling all the way to table.
One final family meal to be had, cherished, and then left behind. Closure is just one long flight and a short fight away.
