The Legend of the Jedi Queen

52. Young and Sweet

"Just breathe," Jaina began. "Now, reach out into the galaxy."

Nellith did so, taking a deep breath before extending her consciousness. She saw her aunt, the blazing fire that she was, and extended further. Her parents, like the river and the tide, she could see as well.

Further, Nellith extended herself into the stars. But she couldn't sense him, not for lack of trying. Gasping for breath, Nellith opened her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't do this."

"Yet," Jaina said, her smile kind. She placed her hand over Nellith's. "We'll take a break for now. But Tallis is counting on you being able to do this."

"I know," Nellith said. "I just need a few minutes, then I'll try again."

"Good," Jaina said. "I'm sorry I have to put this much pressure on you. But I also know you'll be much happier when we find Tallis, and get him out of the hands of the Second Order."

"Because then Abeloth or Snoke or whatever's in Andromeda Hux won't have her claws in him," Nellith said. "I know what that thing did to Dad. I won't let it to the same to Tallis."

"Then we need hurry up and try harder," Jaina said. "But first, let's get you that break. You have been trying for about an hour and a half. Trust me, you're getting better. Even if it doesn't feel like it."

"Thanks," Nellith said, her voice slightly bitter. "I wish I was good enough."

Jaina's smile turned sad and sympathetic. "I know how that feels. And so does Ben."

"You're saying maybe I should ask Dad to teach me?" Nellith's voice was half-joking, half-sincere.

"No." Jaina lightly punched her apprentice in the arm. "I'm not giving you up. You're still my apprentice, Young Padawan."

Nellith rolled her hazel eyes. She realized that she was playing with her new necklace again. She glanced down to the glowing pale blue diamond-shaped stone, laced with gold that matched the incredibly long chain.

Just that morning, her mother had gifted it to her for her fifteenth birthday. Any joy the occasion might've had was cut into by the events that had occurred three days prior. The last attempt to stop the war diplomatically had literally exploded with the bombs planted beneath the conference hall where negotiations were taking place by the Second Order.

Tallis Shan, who Nellith previously had thought died in the explosion, had in fact been kidnapped by the Second Order before he could defuse said bomb, and was currently most likely in some brainwashing situation to make him the Emperor of the Second Order and like most of his Sith ancestors.

Still, her parents did want to celebrate, so while her father had gifted her with a stuffed bantha to match her tauntaun she'd cherished from him, her mother had gifted her with the necklace.

"I know it's a bit small, but it's a holocron," Rey said as she placed it around her daughter's neck.

Nellith held up the stone, remembering the Sith holocrons she had encountered nearly three weeks ago. Unlike the Sith holocrons, which glowed the same red as their lightsabers, the holocron Rey had presented her with was blue. Within it, she could sense their presences, particularly the river of Rey's presence, and the tidal wave of Ben's.

"What's in it?" Nellith asked.

"Our family's history," Rey said. She hesitated a moment. "Both sides."

Nellith's jaw dropped. "You mean you're finally going to tell me about your parents?"

Rey sighed, fiddling with the mother's ring Leia had passed onto her all those years before.

"With extreme reluctance, I thought that you might finally be old enough to know the truth," Rey said.

"Thank you," Nellith said, holding the end of the necklace in her hand again. "This means so much to me!"

She wondered what secrets would lie within the holocron. She would finally know more about her mother's past than being ditched on Jakku by her parents and the surname Qel-Droma. There was clearly a history somewhere, and she couldn't wait to hear it.

Jaina watched it, and suddenly got to her feet.

"I'd be a terrible auntie if I didn't give you something for your birthday," Jaina said as she walked to where she had left a black duffel bag in the meditation room. "You know, since I missed the other fourteen. I was there for the day you were born, I swear I was there for Day 1."

Nellith let out a snicker, and watched her aunt with curiosity. Jaina came back with a folded cloth of some sort. It was a deep violet-gray that reminded her of Tallis's eyes. It seemed everything was trying to remind her of him.

The only hope so far was that he wasn't dead.

At least he's still alive.

Not that that was all that reassuring.

For a moment, Nellith thought that what Jaina had given her was some sort of scarf. But with a quick unfolding, she revealed a cloak with a hood—more of a poncho, in style. Nellith reached for it, and felt the softest, warmest fabric she'd ever encountered.

"Oh my," Nellith said.

"Luke gave me a jacket lined with that stuff when I was fifteen, and a scarf made of that for Ben," Jaina said. She smiled, a little sad. "I wish I'd taken things a little less seriously then."

"Aunt Jaina?" Nellith's voice was soft and tentative. Jaina Solo rarely, if ever, discussed her childhood, or her past with her twin brother, Ben Solo.

"I thought everything was on our shoulders then," Jaina said, speaking more to herself pensively than to Nellith. "We had adventures at the academy, but they were all just little adventures. Not much in the scheme of things. Not like what happened with Ben. I remember the night the temple burned down. I still have nightmares, of the fire. Sometimes I feel it in waking."

"I'm sorry," Nellith said.

"It all happened long before you were born," Jaina said, shaking her head. "None of it's something you need to be sorry for. And Ben made his apologies a long time ago. When you were just born, ironically."

"Did he change a lot when I was born?" Nellith asked.

"Not completely," Jaina said. "But definitely in the way that mattered. He became a good man when you were born."

The two human females sat in the meditation room, thinking on that.

"Do you want to try again?" Jaina asked.

Nellith nodded, and she sat cross-legged, ready to start again.