"Tahiri here. I'm a little bit busy right now so tell me what you need and I'll get back to you. Sorry about the delay. Stupid Jawa-forsaken primitive piece of tech . . ."

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This was a conversation she'd been putting off for a while, but -- especially given that yesterday had been one of the bad days -- really needed to be had, so Tahiri had handwavily called a couple of people and then gone to see about getting some snacks. Because snacks always made awkward situations slightly less so, right?

There was . . . well, okay, there was a box of cookies, one of those tins with all the different-shaped butter cookies that all tasted the same except some of them had sugar crystals on them. And a couple of pints of ice cream. That part was a given, really.

A few weeks to mull over the idea that Riina had slipped out and done something to help someone hadn't made it any less weird; maybe knowing more about that would change things. Not to mention she did owe Tara an explanation for the whole "hi, I went crazy and kind of scary on you and then didn't remember any of it" thing.

. . . maybe she should have gotten more ice cream.

[OOC: For the boy, and for Tara, and specifics of conversation resoundingly NFB, please. :)]

Tahiri was sound asleep, a slight frown on her face, and despite having kicked the covers off hours ago she was sweating.

( This was why she never got a good night's rest any more. )

She awoke and blinked sweat out of her eyes as she sat up, breath coming in ragged gasps. Stumbling to the bathroom, she splashed water on her face and hurried out of the cottage to a spot by the lake. She wasn't going to move from there until after the sun came up.

[OOC: Establishy, OOC okay. Oh so very loosely adapted from Force Heretic II: Refugee by Sean Williams and Shane Dix, whose prose I would not inflict upon you in its original form, with bits and pieces adapted from Star by Star by Troy Denning and Edge of Victory I: Conquest by Greg Keyes. I've been meaning to do this for days but writer's block kept foiling me.]

Just because she'd gotten accustomed to never really having her brain all to herself any more didn't mean that Tahiri had to like it. The bad moments came and went; the past few days they'd never really gotten horrible, but they were more frequent than they had been. Her brilliant solution to those moments when they hit was to hide out, more often than not in some quiet spot in the preserve, or out here on the beach: natural spots, well away from as much technology as possible, and more importantly away from people. She didn't want to take the risk of a repeat incident like the one in the salle.

Sitting still was never something she'd been very good at, but spending time in meditative trances seemed to help. When she'd woken up this morning feeling more . . . fragmented than she liked, she'd picked her way out to a quiet spot and had been here ever since. Eyes closed, breathing slow and even -- it had taken a while to get calm enough to manage that -- and completely silent. Which, yes, for her, was strange.

It was working, at least. For now.

[OOC: Establishy, but open if you want, though as a warning she's not so much with the stable right now.]

It was raining syrup outside. Well, that pretty much answered the question of whether Tahiri was going anywhere today . . . or it was a convenient excuse, anyway.

She expected she'd go stir-crazy holed up in her room after a while, but even if she was feeling more stable today, Wednesday night's incident with Raven and Karla in the salle wasn't something she could just brush off. Which could have had something to do with the fact that in between the time she remembered getting agitated by Raven's offers to help her and seeing Raven and Karla recovering from a telekinetic blast that she'd apparently thrown, everything was a blur.

That was new. And not at all welcome.

Yeah. Tahiri wasn't going anywhere today.

[OOC: Which does not mean you can't bother her, so the post is open even if the door is closed and the wee Jedi is not in the best of moods. She'd been in a good mood too long, dammit. I don't think canon allows that. ETA: Aaaaaaaand let's say the details of the conversations with Ben and Karla are NFB, please? Yay crazy head!alien?]

The girl who came back to room 529 and rested her head against the doorway for a moment before putting her key into the lock and heading inside was the same one who'd left a week ago, but looked like she'd been gone for a lot longer. Because she had. (And had, as of yet, no idea how long -- or relatively not -- she'd been gone.)

It wasn't just the hair, which had been even shorter than the almost-shoulder-length it was now; there was a subtle difference in the way she walked -- spending more time wearing shoes than you normally did would do that -- and she looked a little older. Definitely tired.

Sometime on the shuttle trip back it finally hit Tahiri, the reality of the pilots she'd lost in that gigantic kriffing battle. As first experiences went, it was not near the top of the "Fun" list. She'd kept that locked down so far but, as she dropped her backpack beside her bed and curled up on it quietly, she figured she'd have to talk to someone about it eventually. As far as people with experience in that sort of thing went, Fandom wasn't without its options.

For now, though, she was just going to be glad to be back.

[OOC: Hahaha up super early because I am heading to Disneyland for the morning, but back in the afternoon, so open but SP for the next few hours and don't think I wouldn't tag from the ride lines because I have so done that. *is dork*]

Tahiri had never been a fan of waiting, but she'd been doing just that for so long now it might have been days, and as she sat in the cockpit of her X-Wing (really, these boots could come off any time now), half listening to the comm chatter, she wondered how much time had passed in Fandom. She and her pilots -- who'd dubbed themselves Barefoot Squadron, much to her self-conscious amusement -- had trained and drilled for weeks on end both as a squadron and as part of the fleetwide Jedi Force-meld strategy. The past three months had been spent in a series of diversionary attacks against Yuuzhan Vong-held Core worlds, per Admiral Kre'fey's plan.

The concept was fairly simple: they'd hit a poorly defended planet and win by virtue of numbers, and in the process the novice pilots would gain experience, the fleet would build morale, and most importantly they'd cover up their ultimate destination of Ebaq 9. Jaina and Twin Suns Squadron had been on that hellish little asteroid for a while; although Admiral Ackbar hadn't outright said so, Tahiri knew the Yuuzhan Vong would do anything to capture one or both of the Solo twins and thus Jaina was bait in a trap. Tahiri was curious as to how she was doing. She worried about Jaina, maybe more so than she did about the one in Fandom, since her Jaina didn't have the same kind of support structure. She suspected the other Tahiri was in the same position.

( She was just extending her senses toward Ebaq 9 when a shockwave of horror lanced through the Force, and she knew where it was coming from. )

[OOC: NFB, NFI, OOC okay, pi to the fifteenth decimal point. Plot points of the Battle of Ebaq 9 taken from Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams, but guess who disappeared from this part of the narrative, forcing me to make stuff up? I shouldn't be allowed to make things up. One more later today and that's it.]

She was used to being pulled in two directions at once; she'd had to make the choice between her Jedi training and her life with her Tusken tribe seven years ago, she'd lived with Riina Kwaad's growing consciousness for months now, and she still had trouble with the whole concept of "moving on doesn't mean betraying Anakin." So -- used to it. That didn't mean she had to like the feeling. ( Which was why when Jacen came looking for her after dinner, Tahiri wasn't sure what to think. )

[OOC: NFI, NFB, OOC-okay, John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, his acronyms are my acronyms too. Adapted, again, from Destiny's Way by Walter Jon Williams. Hey, I didn't have to make up this part either!]

This, Tahiri reflected as she adjusted her uniform for the fifth time, could be considered absolutely ridiculous. There was a lot that was absurd, actually: that she was in a New Republic military uniform (though insignia-free, since she wasn't actually part of the military) to begin with, that they let her get away without wearing regulation boots, that she was at this meeting in her new capacity as a squadron commander.

The cherry topping on the ice cream sundae of absurdity here was the fact that here she was, sitting in one of the leather armchairs in the Ralroost's conference room waiting for the strategic planning meeting to start, and her feet didn't touch the floor.

Seriously. Under less strict circumstances this would be hilarious.

( Tahiri had to revise that opinion fairly quickly, though, when Jacen took the seat next to her and gave her a smile, and she had to remind herself not to freeze up or move away. )

[OOC: NFB, NFI, OOC okay, insert gratuitous acronyms here. Adapted from (and dialogue taken from) the short story Ylesia by Walter Jon Williams, and WTF canon, WHY DO YOU HAVE A SEPARATE SHORT STORY SET BETWEEN TWO CHAPTERS OF THE BOOK?!?]