Noventa - A Star Wars Story

She waved as she headed off.

/Scene

"Rest soundly." He said after a pause needed for escorting her to the ramp and letting her out.

/Scene?

"Yep," she agreed with a smile, then stepped away, toward the door. "Have a good night, Sharn. See you tomorrow."

The touch surprised him, and he shivered slightly. "...Of course." It felt as if he forgot the tongue in his mouth for a moment. "One thing at a time."

She smiled and rose, her hand coming up and landing in his hair, running through it a little. "Let's start work on it after we get our current project sorted out, how about? In the mean time, I should head home and get to work on that, speaking of which."

"Good you see it clearly. I could in fact start whenever." He snorted slightly and straightened his spine, huffing a little as he turned toward her, the shade of indigo on his cheeks more vivid by a single tone.

"To do it entirely for me would be... But I wouldn't say no to a bit of help," she replied with a smile. "It would be foolish to ignore the superiority around me."

"I... I could build one that would be a perfect fit for you just to prove I can do it better but..." He looked away. "I infer that would be needlessly disrespectful." His hand gripped the edge of the table.

"Yup... That's my plan," she said with a nod. "Dad's style isn't quite right for me... and it's a rite of passage, anyway."

"Six Principles is not the worst code to live by." He shrugged. "It emphasises genetic and memetic kin preservation." He looked at her. "You don't seem to be having the armour. Can you build it yourself?"

"Yeah... I know Dad wanted me to really embrace being Mandalorian. He made sure with mom when they had kids that we'd be raised that way," she continued with a nod, musing about what he might have wanted for her. "Still, with human aging, it can be had to interpret when you're 10-13 what they wanted."

"If they didn't articulate it when they could, the most plausible interpretation is that they implicitly wanted you to self-define. If parents have set expectations about their progeny, they usually manage to communicate it from an early age." Sharn commented, deriving his assessment from some psychological studies he had read during the time when he had been coping with his mommy issues and daddy issues as a child.

"Respect where they came from and honor their choice to have me, mostly. I don't have the most concrete idea about it yet," she sighed. "Partly because I don't really know what they wanted for me. So... yeah."

"I haven't realised I have to make my interest more explicit for you to be acknowledge it." He teased back. "How would you define that responsibility? By like them? Continue their work? Act on their aspirations? Or just honour their choice to have you by living up to your potential?" He mused, looking at her from over his shoulder, his fingers spread on the table space between them. "And yes, I am interested in your answer so that I can have a better idea what path are you likely to carve for yourself."

"You want it, huh?" She teased with a chuckle. "In my case... My family, mostly. I feel like I have a responsibility to them. And my Clan. Nothing too mysterious, I think, but... yeah."

"I know you can. You know I want it. All it takes is an act of will that I'd rather not impose on you as it is lessened if it does not come from you. Feelings are algorithms and I abhor skewed equations."

"If you want me to answer it as a personal question, I can," she offered.

He swallowed the snap retort, and sat back down. After a pause, he pressed his lips together.

"Indeed. You weren't."

She looked slightly annoyed. "I wasn't not being open."

"Ah, so it was an abstract remark, not personal. And here I thought you were about to reciprocate my openness." He shrugged, looking at the table before him, then rising back from the place near her. "There are ways to neutralise inclement weather, as any other physical phenomenon. It is what engineering is for."