A Royal Education

[Salem Ave]

The flagship of the Hapan Royal Navy darkened the skies above Terephon. A matter of days had passed since Star Home had arrived (https://theholo.net/forum/showthread.php?56801-Departure), but already Villa Solis was transformed. Any trace of House Galney, the former occupants, had been scoured away. If the blue and gold banners did not betray the presence of House Alastor, the elite Chume'doro patrolling the villa's perimeter surely announced who was currently in residence.

Patios and terraces surrounded the cluster of domed buildings that made up the villa, and on each of these, there were no less than four women carrying pikes. Salem Ave stood at a window in the villa's library, looking out onto one such patio. Even the mist and rain that often plagued Terephon were being held at bay by the Hapan Royal Guard. It was a wonder there weren't more of them; had Razielle not intervened, almost the entire standing guard aboard Star Home would have descended upon Villa Solis. "I have no life beyond you," the Chume'doro swore, as part of their oath to the Queen. They would go wherever she went, give their lives in sacrifice to protect her. There were, however, things that even the vaunted Chume'doro could not protect Beatrix Alastor from.

At the sound of creaking floorboards, Salem turned from the window and paced back toward the space at the centre of the book cases, reading tables and armchairs that filled room. He stood and listened as footsteps neared the door to the library.

[Beatrix]

"Yes, my Most Treasured One. I love your drawing. It's just... I do not understand why I am pink in this one." The voice of the stalwart Lady Lira preceded the arrival of the Chume'doro escort who opened the doors to the library.

"Because. You turn that color now."

Stating the obvious came naturally to the young monarch. Beatrix, lovely in white dress, Hapan blue silk bow tied around her little waist, entered the library, head held imperiously high. Her serious little gaze came to rest upon the room's only other occupant. Her expression betrayed a momentary confusion. She was never quite sure how to act around him. He was male, and not at all Hapan. Yet, her mother had always instilled the notion that facts such as those did not apply to Salem Ave. Also, she was not unaware that in her own father's absence, he had been named her godparent. Some sort of guardian with an interest in her well being..

Her head tilted slighty. "You can all go."

[Salem Ave]

There was no protest from the Chume'doro, and there never would be. To question their Chume was unthinkable. They would stand sentinel in the hallway outside.

Before she left, Lira Terranova met Salem's eyes for a moment. He could not place the emotion behind her expression. When Salem gave a slight nod, she drew the door to the library shut, sealing the silence into the room behind her.

Now that they were alone, Salem, his arms folded behind his back, regarded the girl stood before him. She looked right back at him, curious. There was no defiant lift to her chin but there was no mistaking Beatrix's parentage.

"Your majesty," he said, squaring his shoulders as he spoke. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me today."

[Beatrix]

While the little girl may still be uncertain, the Chume could never be uncertain about anything. She had been told every day of her life that she made no wrong choices. She always did the right thing and others would accommodate her choices.

With that in mind, the young queen stepped further into the room, ice broken.

"Did you bring me something?"

[Salem Ave]

"Not exactly."

There was no point in lying. Salem had no intention of bribing the girl. Turning side-on, he gestured to a cluster of armchairs and couches, centered around a low, dark wood table. A tea tray awaited them, stocked with the villa's best tea set and a selection of breakfast finger foods of the kind that were so common in the Consortium.

"Will you sit with me? There are matters we ought to discuss."

[Beatrix]

There was no disguising the crestfallen look in the four-year-old's soft violet gaze. Beatrix did not pout. A queen should not, she'd been informed. She did however seem suddenly bored with the idea of a visit that did not include gifts brought to her from afar..

"Very well.", she sighed.

Crossing to one of the armchairs, Beatrix sat as she had been taught. Rigid posture for so young a girl, hands folded in her lap, little feet crossed at the ankles.

"What shall we discuss?"

[Salem Ave]

The way Beatrix sat, it was as if she was taking to her throne. Salem took a place into an armchair opposite her, with the low table between them.

"Once, when I visited you in the Fountain Palace, you did something very clever (https://theholo.net/forum/showthread.php?21814-A-Gilded-Cage&p=383260&viewfull=1#post383260) with some of your toys. You made them... float in front of you. Do you remember that?"

[Beatrix]

There was something almost guilty about Bea's face at the reminder. It had been a while ago, but she did remember her mother being cross with her later over it. Reminding her that she must never do that in front of anyone other than herself, or...Salem Ave. Curious.

"I remember you took my toys.", she confirmed.

[Salem Ave]

"I did. I am... sorry for that. It was wrong of me."

Salem folded his hands together and paused for a moment, allowing his words to settle in the silence of the library.

"Do you still remember how you did it?"

[Beatrix]

Bright jewel-hued eyes very like her mother's watched the man across from her speculatively. She was not entirely convinced that if she complied with this line of questioning there would not be consequences for her later. Her mother had very specific rules, but.. she'd always said those rules did not include being around him, so.. it must be ok.

"I do."

Shrugging as if it were nothing too spectacular, her eyes settled on the tray of goodies and one cookie in particular - one slathered in the berry preserves that broke her fast more days than not. Her fingers lifted from the arm of the chair, and beckoned. The cookie wobbled upward into the air and rotated a few times before floating directly to the hand of the young Hapan queen.

"Do not tell my mother I did that.", she advised.

[Salem Ave]

"Your mother and I don't keep secrets from each other... but I can promise that she won't be displeased with you," he said, inclining his head slightly towards the palm of her hand.

With his hands still folded together, Salem lifted one clawed fingertip. Such a small gesture, barely even noticeable, and yet with that motion, the cookie rose once more into the air and began to slowly spin, like a gyroscope on an invisible axis.

"Do you know how it works?"

[Beatrix]

When her recently pilfered pastry was lifted up and away from her, Beatrix watched it go. Her lips parted slightly in small wonder that this man could also move objects the way she could. The way her mother could..

"I did not know you could do that as well.", she admitted.

She may only be four years old, but she understood that it was a rarity. A danger if other people knew. It created a bond between them, she supposed. She could keep his secret if he could keep hers! A bit more engaged now, she scooted forward in her seat, one finger poking at the spinning cookie, swirling through the jellied fruit topping.

"It's to do with energy. Everything has it, you just have to learn where to grab it just right." She looked away from the cookie back to her godfather.

"Right?", she seemed suddenly unsure.

[Salem Ave]

Salem sank back further into the armchair, with its plush cushions and carved wooden arms. Something in the girl's response made him smile.

"Right," he agreed, with a nod. "Where did you learn that?"

[Beatrix]

"I just know it."

So maybe that was not the best answer. He was just going to ask her in different ways until he got the answer out of her that he wanted. Beatrix knew how adults fished for answers.

Fish! That was the answer!!!

"I remember when you visited the Reef Palace.", she commented. "You saw my aquarium? The fish don't really know about the water. They don't see it. It's just all around them, pushing them up or down. It's like that."

[Salem Ave]

The cookie slowed it's spin, until it became motionless, hovering just above Beatrix's hand, as though waiting to be claimed.

"Can you feel the energy pushing and pulling around you?"

[Beatrix]

She smiled, as if he'd said something silly. "Of course. I am not a fish."

To further make her point, she tugged upon the cookie, pulling it back toward her own control.

[Salem Ave]

"Of course," Salem said, his lips a tight line as he suppressed a smile of his own. Sitting forward a fraction, he reached for the gilded pot on the tea tray.

"Can you feel how the energy interacts with other people, like me?"

[Beatrix]

"I'm really not supposed to."

Lifting her stuffed shark from the floor of her bedroom where it had fallen during the night was one thing. As long as she were alone. Her mother had been quite clear about not doing anything of the sort around anyone else, let alone prod someone with it.

But neither had Beatrix confirmed or denied that she could.

Mischievous, was the look on the little queen's face now. As though she knew something she had no intention of sharing.

[Salem Ave]

Salem lifted the teapot, steam rising from the spout as he poured.

“Who told you that?” he asked, his eyes dipped, watching the teacup slowly fill.

[Beatrix]

The impish expression on her face vanished. In it's place was something else. A blank expression with her little bow of a mouth compressed into a thin, unsmiling line. Lira would take this to mean the final word on a subject and wisely let it go. Beatrix was not sure about him though.

"That is how it is."

[Salem Ave]

“For an ordinary person, perhaps. But for the Hapan Queen?”

Salem set down the teapot and lifted his white eyes to meet hers. For a moment, their expressions were so alike, the resemblance would have surely warranted comment had they not been alone.

When he spoke, his lips did not move, yet Beatrix could hear his voice loud and clear.

“The Hapan Queen answers only to herself.”

[Beatrix]

Still not sharing whatever she had been smiling about, Beatrix tried not to show her surprise at the voice inside her just then. Could he really do all of the things her mother could? She would have to ask.

"Mother says something like that, only it ends with, 'and her mother'.", ​she thought, and wondered if he'd heard that.

[Salem Ave]

Salem nodded along with her words. He knew them all too well. Razielle had been dilligent in ensuring that her daughter knew the boundaries of her power, knew that there were certain spaces in which she could explore it and others in which it would be dangerous to reveal what she could do.

"Your mother is the reason I'm here to see you, Beatrix."

Settling back into his chair, Salem laced his fingers together.

"She has asked me to help you learn more about the Force."

[Beatrix]

Something about the way he had said that.. The Force... gave Beatrix a strange sensation.

"Is that what it's called?"

Sliding down from her chair, the young queen moved closer, until she was standing just in front of Salem. She had seen him enough times in her life to feel comfortable being close.

"She can do a lot of things. Have you seen? Can you do all of the things that my mother can?"

It was a telling show of excitement from the otherwise restrained child.

[Salem Ave]

“Mm-hm.” Salem nodded to each of Beatrix’s questions. “I can. You see, when I was a boy, about your age in fact, my mother and father sent me away from home to live with the Jedi, to learn how to use the Force."

Salem gestured towards the steam rising from the teapot. Shapes began to appear in the cloud and the steam coalesced into the ghostly silhouette of a building with five towers: the Jedi Temple.

"I learned a lot from the Jedi, and I taught your mother everything that the Jedi taught me.”

[Beatrix]

​She did not say anything about it, but it made her sad to think he had been sent away. What would she do if her mother sent her away? Well, she would not go. That was that. Decision made, Beatrix refused to even ponder the idea. In fact, she blew on the steam to get rid of the image.

"You taught my mother?" Her dark little brows shot up in astonishment. That possibility had never even occurred to her. She supposed it should have. "That's.. great!", she decided.

It was nice to think that there was a time her mother didn't know everything..

"And.. you're going to teach me too?"

[Salem Ave]

A royal guardswoman passed the window on her patrol, briefly casting a shadow over Salem’s face and the room as a whole.

“That’s right. I’ll be staying with you and your mother for a while, so we can start your lessons very soon.”

[Beatrix]

"Why?"

Arms folded before her in a telling gesture of determination, Beatrix waited. "I mean, why would you want to?"

It seemed just a little weird to her that the one thing she was not supposed to do was suddenly something she was going to be taught? Also she would not be in any trouble, she never was, but wouldn't he be? If it was such a forbidden thing? The longer she thought about it, the more questions came to mind, until her perfect little face began to frown.

[Salem Ave]

“Because you are a very clever child, with gifts that many other children don’t have.”

The puzzled, somewhat distrustful frown on the girl’s face didn’t waver, so Salem went on. “I want to help you because you and your mother are both… important to me. I want both of you to be strong, to be the best that you can be.”

Based on the intense look on Beatrix’s face, that didn’t seem to have convinced her either. In fact, it seemed to have made matters all the more confusing. Salem nodded to himself, realising then what it was he needed to explain.

“You weren’t born when your father left Onderon (https://theholo.net/forum/showthread.php?19191-The-Once-and-Future-Prince), and I don’t know how much your mother has told you about him, but... there is one thing that you're old enough to know, now. Tristan Alastor is not your father, Beatrix.

“I am your father.”

[Beatrix]

None of his replies had really answered what she had been asking. Yes, she was special. Beatrix knew this already, it was practically sung to her day and shadowless night. She had figured that she and her mother were somehow important to him too, just not in what way. She was five now, not four. She was older now, and had a good memory and in her memories he was there.

Beatrix listened as he spoke about her father. Tristan Alastor, a man she had never met, and therefor could not really be sad for the absence of in her life. She had a small portrait of him in her room on the mantle, but that was really her only connection to him. There had never been a great story to how her parents had met, or how she had been born. Just...Mother Ishara had said they would marry, they did, and here she was now.

That was the truth as she had always been told but.. was it the truth at all?

Or was this the truth? That Salem Ave was her father.

Beatrix thought about that, really thought about it. She did not really look like him, did she? She looked like her mother. Her mother.. was always better when Salem Ave was here and not off 'dealing with the Alliance' was what she had overheard her say to Lira.

Beatrix realized she had been quiet a really long time. She was probably expected to say something.

"Oh. I suppose that.. is better."

[Salem Ave]

“It is the truth, and it’s up to you to decide how you feel about it.”

In the moment’s silence that followed, Salem reached for his now cooling tea. As he sipped, he looked over the cup at his daughter. She looked uncertain, vulnerable in a way that the people of the Consortium she ruled over would never glimpse.

“It’s also up to you to decide when you want to start learning more about the Force, but when you’re ready… I’ll be here.”

[Beatrix]

There was something about the way that he said things that seemed to make them true. Beatrix was not sure what it was, but just like she could sense what he had called the force she could tell that what she was hearing was the truth. She could feel it inside her, and she knew that saying it was not so would feel like a lie.

So how did she feel about it? She had not lied when she had said it was better. Tristan Alastor was really just a name to her, but Salem was someone she knew. Was it not better to have a living father, than a dead one that she had never met? Salem Ave had been kind to her, although that was expected of course. He also brought her presents sometimes, and had even made sand castles with her. Like her, and her mother, he also had the force. All of these were things that made her feel happy and connected. She decided she liked it, although she did not say so.

"What.. should I call you?" It just occurred to her that if he really was her parent, did that mean that things were going to change? She had only ever listened to her mother, and to Lira. Having someone else's opinion to consider would be weird.

[Salem Ave]

Salem tipped his head to one side, as if he were giving the question some thought, weighing up the options.

“Well, that’s up to you. Lots of people, including your mother, just call me Salem.”

[Beatrix]

"Hmm." Beatrix neither confirmed nor denied what, if anything, she would call him.

It might be alright to have a father, Beatrix had decided. But she had done so with advantageous knowledge. An awareness instilled in her since birth that in the end if Salem Ave ever disappointed her, or made her unhappy in anyway, she could always just get rid of him.

"When can we start?"

[Salem Ave]

Salem felt a flicker of some emotion inside of Beatrix as she looked thoughtfully at him, and what he felt almost made him smile.

“As soon as you feel ready.”

[Beatrix]

There was something a little exciting about all of this. As a queen, she was never really in trouble. This was the one exception to being able to do whatever she wanted, Beatrix had not really been able to use the Force, only under special circumstances.. Now she could, and they were going to let her learn more too!

"I'm ready now."

[Salem Ave]

“While you’re learning, I want you only to use the Force around your mother and I.”

As he spoke, Salem rose from the armchair. Setting down his cup, he motioned for Beatrix to follow him towards a more spacious part of the library: a wide patch of hardwood floor, right in front of a well-stocked bookcase. Arms folded behind his back, Salem looked down at the young Chume.

“Now, show me everything that you’ve learned so far.”

[Beatrix]

Beatrix followed, compelled by the promise of being to do something exciting. Stopping just before.. her father.. she looked up expectantly, ready for some serious secrets to be revealed. Much like her tutors in other subjects,he wanted to begin with review it seemed. Fine.

Holding out her little arm toward the bookcase, Beatrix tugged with the Force on the book she spied first. It floated off the shelf with only moderate wobbling, toward her hand which was not big enough to wrap around the binding. She reached up with the other hand to claim it, and turn it around to see what she had chosen. The Defeat of the Lorell Raiders, and The Rising of the Queen Mothers. She scrunched her face up, obviously not interested in that subject. Releasing the book, she gestured with one hand in a push and it floated back to the shelf, but when it got there she couldn't get it back into place. The cover kept opening as she pushed it into place. Lifting another finger from her free hand, Bea twitched one finger to the side, closing the book and shoving it into position.

"Like that..?"

[Salem Ave]

“Like that,” Salem agreed, with a small nod. The girl’s command of telekinesis was serviceable. If she had been a Padawan at the Jedi Temple, in the days of the Republic, more would have been expected of her, but given her relatively recent introduction to the Force, what she had accomplished was impressive.

“How did it feel, when you couldn’t get the book to fit back onto the shelf?”

[Beatrix]

Happy that she had started correctly, the queen beamed a smile, proud of herself.

Beatrix considered how she had felt when the book would not fit back properly. "It was annoying. It should have just gone back in the same way it came out."

[Salem Ave]

“How we feel when we use the Force can… change what we are able to do with it.”

Salem interposed himself between Beatrix and the bookcase.

“Try it again, but this time with your eyes closed.”

[Beatrix]

The queen looked skeptical. Beatrix was sure the point was not to hit him with the book. To be able to control it enough on her own that the fact that he was in the way would not be a problem. With a little shrug, she did like he said and closed her eyes.

Nothing happened at first, she did not even lift her little arm. For a minute she just tried to picture the book shelf in her mind. Where on the shelf had that book been? How far from her was it exactly? How had it felt when she'd managed to grab it the first time?

When she felt ready, her little hand reached up, fingers splayed, awaiting the book. Between it and her was him, but it was not a problem for her. She already knew she didn't have to move it in a straight line, the trajectory adapted a curve around the obstacle and the task was completed. She felt the book as it bounced gentle into her fingers, but she did not claim it, or open her eyes.

"Should I.. put it back too?"