Time for a woman to woman talk

[motherofresistance]

Who: Leia and Baridi Sangura (Star Wars OC)
When: At some point during the Leia and Gray!Ben PSL
Where: Leia's quarters and also THE FORCE
What: Leia needs to have a Serious Talk with her son's role model.
Warnings: Talk of eating disorders, self harm, mental illness, death, and possibly past violence

Leia sat on a cushion in her quarters focusing on deepening her meditation. The sapling of the Force-Sensitive tree from Poe's family's farm that he'd been kind enough to donate helped greatly to that end; she planned to give it to Ben later, but for now, it stayed with her. She needed the extra focus that trees tended to provide her for this; she was searching for something that might not even be there. Not every Force-user who died retained their consciousness after death. Indeed most didn't, simply dissolving into the ocean of cosmic energy that was the Unifying Force.

But if what, or rather who, she was searching for did exist, then no one stood a better chance of finding her than Leia. Because once Leia Organa set her mind to something there was very little that could stop her, and she had very good reason to set her mind to this task. Nonetheless she knew better than to push. She let the Force guide her, drifting from one thread of energy to the next, searching, but never pressing, searching for a single, long lost presence among the vastness of the stars and galaxies.

Until... there. A presence she'd never encountered before but knew instantly as the one she was seeking. Currently invisible, but clear as day in the Force. "Baridi Sangura," Leia said. "We need to talk."

Comments

Handwave some aspects of her appearance, I had a hellish time finding a PB

[someone_purer]

Baridi hadn't been sought out in a long time. She lived many centuries ago, after all, long before things began towards their current path and when the Jedi were numerous. Even then, she had been oddly hard to reach. From her perspective, she drifted somewhere indescribable where she finally didn't feel the pains that had plagued her in life when she wasn't manifesting somewhere trying to get one of the Force users the First Order hadn't detected yet to become aware of their powers. She hadn't been able to do that successfully just yet; Vader's actions and then Kylo Ren's had made the Force a myth again to people, and it was hard to overcome.

When she appeared before Leia, she wasn't exactly as she died. She was in her proper robes, dark green and brown, dark brown skirt with thigh-high slits and baggy grey pants shoved into dark green Mandalorian knee-high boots. Unlike when she died, there wasn't blood on any of it from her coughing it up as her body finally gave out; her hair was also down like she had worn it when she wasn't in combat, giving her a more mundane look than Leia might have expected from someone written into legends.

She was also rail-thin, but the layers of clothing hid it well, just like Ben's had. Her face was unexpressive, but she nodded regardless, sounding resigned. "I am here. Where would you like to start?

Handwaving is go! :3

[motherofresistance]

Having been the subject of more than a few legends herself, Baridi's appearance didn't surprise Leia. She wasn't sure how she appeared to Baridi; Anakin had told her that the appearance of her clothing as a Force presence tended to change depending on what she was trying to project. Right now what she was projecting as all business and authority, and thus most likely appeared in an unadorned dress of deep blue with simple but elegant jewelry and her hair dune up in the stern bun she favored these days. Neither Princess nor General, this was Senator Leia, the position of authority she was always the most comfortable in and the one she had made the most her own.

"Let's begin with the reason I sought you out in the first place," Leia said. "Namely, the fact that my son nearly killed himself trying to follow your example."

<3

[someone_purer]

Baridi had lost track of what Senators wore and what positions people held. She was barely engaged in politics when she alive, too wrapped up in the world of the Jedi, but she knew an angry woman when she saw one. She had dealt with several angry Jedi Masters who were mother-henning their padawans, afraid that their padawans having tried fasting meditation meant somehow they were in danger. In her lifetime, likely because it was so brief, no one had gotten addicted to fasting other than her, so it was not until after her death she got to have Jedi Masters yelling at her for centuries about genuine concerns.

Sighing slightly, she replied, sounding tired and unmoved, "I cannot make him stop. I have tried to do that with many a padawan before. The most I can do is attempt to talk to him in a dream or as a vision."

Re: <3

[motherofresistance]

"I'm well aware of that," Leia said. "It's not up to the dead to solve the problems of the living, and even if it somehow were, there's no quick fix for something like this. Ben's healing process is just that- a process- and will probably continue for a long time yet. I'm just relieved that we found out in time to get him the help he needed and that he's recovering."

"And I would rather you not try to reach out to him in a vision, actually," she said. "Visions, especially traumatic ones, seem to do more harm than good where my family is concerned. The Force will do what it likes, of course, but best not to tempt fate."

"I'm not here to yell at you for a situation you had no direct part in causing," she said. "Ben's condition is the result of a lot of people's mistakes, misunderstandings, and bad decisions, but none of them are yours. Though I'd really like to get my hands on whoever it was that decided to record your story for posterity without including a clear 'don't try this at home' warning, among others." Not that such a warning would have stopped Snoke, she supposed, but it may well have saved a number of young Jedi's lives in the past, and spared others a great deal of suffering.

"I came looking for you because I wanted to know the real story," she said. "As the subject of more than a few legends myself, I know how easy it is for details to get lost in the telling or how some things can be exaggerated, left out deliberately, or spun in a certain way by someone trying to use a story to make a point. And that's when details aren't being made up out of whole cloth, or rumors repeated as facts for long enough that they become accepted as such."

"Basically, I'd like to get to know you," she said, "and hear your story- as much of it as you're willing to share- from the most reliable possible source. Jedi history is usually more my brother's area of interest, but thanks to Ben, I have something of a personal investment your particular part of it." Truthfully, she probably would have never even heard of Baridi if not for Ben and his situation, but she had, and here they were.

8 weeks inbetween PSL tags oh god I am awful I'm so sorry

[someone_purer]

The word 'fate' made something cold pass into Baridi's eyes, a long-ago forged armor that went up in defiance of that word. When she had been growing up as a Sith, she had been told she was fated to be a part of the Dark Side, a testament to its' strength and the inescapable nature of its' grasp. She had been proud, until she had seen the war grow so large and nearly died on a lonely, desolate planet, and realized the Dark Side had precious little to offer in the way of hope to those who ever faltered in their step.

So it was to defy fate, to destroy her old one and forge a new one for herself, that she took up striving for the Light. Ben Organa-Solo (Skywalker, a voice she didn't recognize as Anakin's added softly, guiltily,) was another such case if the Force was strong enough in his family for Force Visions to run in it. "I see," she replied, because she did. One Force Ghost had set her entire life on a new path, to do so and direct this Force User the wrong way could be a death sentence. "For the record, I never expected stories to be told of me. History embellished details to make me seem greater than I was, more special; I can only assume that made my actions appear to be less flawed than they actually were."

There were many mistakes made along the way to the formation of any legend in the Jedi, and one was that the ugliness that came in building one's self up to that level was wiped away to make the Jedi more radiant, kind and incredible. No one asked for the real story, even when they contacted her from beyond the grave. The truth was a matter of perception to many; they had decided the truth of her life before she had ever had a chance to open her mouth. Leia's request was... not unwelcome, but strange, almost incomprehensible. For even when Baridi was alive, she'd been put on the defensive with many, trying to defend her right to the Light Side, her right to be a Jedi, her right to be in the room with those who had never known Darkness. So she was used to embellishing her life's story in life and trying to rip embellishments out in death, all the while trying not to feel overwhelmed by it all.

Her expression moved from surprised to something contemplative. "I would like to aid you in your inquiries, but I do not know where to start. This is nothing I have ever been asked in all my years. And some of my problems took root before I became a Jedi, all truth be told..."

Sokay, I'm just glad to RP with you again. <3

[motherofresistance]

Leia saw and felt the armor go up at the word 'fate'. Frankly 'fate' wasn't something she believed in, at least not the way most people used the term. But regardless of her feelings on the matter, the saying was still what it was.

She nodded her understanding at Baridi's lack of control over what people wrote about her, or even the fact that they wrote about her at all. "That's usually the case," she said. "Everyone can see the results of a choice, but few know the process behind making it. To hear some people tell it, I never felt fear or despair, always making the right decision the first time as I rushed courageously on toward victory." She smiled wryly. "Which is of course, a lot of poodoo."

"Generally, none of the things they say I did are inaccurate," she said, "but rarely does anything even hint at the human cost of it all. The personality faults and foibles, the long, cold nights, the moments of sheer terror, all the times spent arguing with someone who outranked me who turned out to have a better idea after all, the times when my 'brilliant plans' were really just flying by the seat of my pants or a desperate tactic that happened to work out... All of that gets polished away, forgotten or redefined to fit the narrative. And in your case, they've had a lot longer to polish things."

Leia considered for a moment, her own expression shifting to something similar to Baridi's contemplative look. "Then it's likely best to start there, at the beginning," she said. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that situations like your and Ben's are rarely simple, and tend to start early."

/holds close

[someone_purer]

Legends were not kind in regards to influencing Baridi's feelings on fate. Fate had become something the Jedi and Sith alike were overly invested in, infested by, the idea outweighing common sense at points, and now here she was, thousands of years later, seeing the ugly end results of that focus manifest.

"The universe favors that view of wartime heroes, especially if they were desperate at the time. They project onto someone the image of perfection they need to believe exists so they have someone to strive to emulate. You can imagine how toxic that immediately became in my case. They didn't tell of my ragged appearance or my hours on the steps on the Jedi Temple calling out to those inside because I had convinced myself so completely that this was my only option at a future. They make my attempts to get the Force to be strong within me sound much more graceful than it was.

Before I was with the Jedi, even when I was with the Sith and at peak power and respect, my life was never fully mine," she began, as the start of an explanation that made her face look younger as she went on, less battle-hardened. "I was an experiment, in that so much Dark Side energy had never been channeled through a child at so young an age, even on Korriban. I met and exceeded expectations, but there were always expectations, never choices. At no point was I allowed to explore other things to be, other ways to be. I was particular about the precious few things I could control: my hair, my clothes, and my food. I had nothing else. I couldn't refuse anyone anything else. There wasn't anything else I had firmly in my own hands.

When I ran from the Sith, after meeting the Force Ghost of my mother, I suddenly went from having no choices to having every single one. I was..." Scared, terrified, alone in a giant universe? She opted for a better, more concise word instead, fiddling with her hair. "I was overwhelmed. I needed to pull on the Force for guidance more than ever, and my resources were fewer than ever. The Force will save one of its' own, but I didn't know that at the time. I didn't come up with some incredible strategy to coerce the Force into myself; it took me two months to locate and get to a Jedi Temple. I rarely had promise of when my next meal was coming, so I hoarded food rather than eat it, and in so doing, I accidentally stumbled into the realization starving enhanced my connection to the Force.

When the Jedi shut me out for being too old for training and too tainted by the remnants of the Dark Side, I couldn't take it, couldn't take thinking perhaps my fate truly was to be a Sith monster. So I found a way to bring up my Force connection to the point they had to let me in out of fear of what someone like myself would do in league with the Sith. I bent their will to mine not out of determination or valor or whatever other value they've assigned me this century.

I was backed into a corner and the only way out was through. At the time, I assumed it was something I'd stop once they let me in. This was never intended to be a permanent solution or a meditation."

She rubs at her temples, tired. Beyond tired, even; frustrated and exhausted with herself and the galaxy as well, because nothing ever seemed to end. Every time she had thought she had a good, solid grip on the world around her, she found out she didn't. All she could control in the end, Jedi or Sith, could be summed up in terms of physical, bodily attributes. Now, in the afterlife, she's lost that, too.

Getting this tagged after a million years. X3 No need to reply if you don't want to.

[motherofresistance]

Leia listened, and found herself understanding more than she expected. She'd grown up a princess, and though it wasn't to such an extreme degree as what Baridi had experienced, she knew all too well what it was like to be bound by a life of duty and expectations. A number of times in her life she had clung to duty at the expense of herself, her feelings, even common sense, because often, duty was all she had. Her appearance shifted as she thought about this, becoming younger, a figure in a shining white gown with her hair in an elaborate arrangement of braids. Princess Leia Organa.

She wondered if she had unwittingly passed this emphasis on duty over self to her son before he was old enough to really understand it. And at the same time she reached out to Baridi, offering her this understanding. Something a Jedi, whose understanding of selflessness was very different, probably wouldn't have been able to share. And also the tiredness that was as much of the soul as of the body. Tiredness that came from fighting for so long in so many ways and never quite seeing the end of it that you'd hoped for. For a moment the young Princess shimmered into the old General, before settling back.

"Things like that seldom are meant as permanent solutions," Leia said. "Just a fix for the problem at hand. But as they say, 'the best laid plans of sea-mice and men...'" She trailed off, leaving the saying open-ended and gesturing for Baridi to continue.