tena ✦ even if the sky does fall

[Tena M.]

Tena Moonspinner —
Tzai.  Her family recipe sat highest on the list of what she owned.  Recorded carefully in her mind.  Her brother of course, knew the same recipe, similarly memorized.  The stories followed quickly after.  The most precious keepsakes of her home.  Keepsakes she often struggled to share.  All of it was too deeply apart of her to avoid, of course.  Tena knew one day she might share those stories with Elysium.  One day.

Lavi however... Lavi belonged to line... From the same desert.  A few free generations did not make them less a part of that culture.  But if the Skywalkers possessed a Tzai recipe of their own, Tena had never tried it.  Sadly, she realizes it may have been lost.  She doubts Lavi's grandmother knew it, and his great-grandfather had been separated from that culture so long...

The petite sand cat smiled, shrugging loosely.  "Thought it'd be nice before the fight.  You can have some when it's ready." She believed the drink something special to share.  A taste of family.  Of home.  Wherever that was now.  Tena found her smile falling away quickly at the conflicting thought.  Hadn't she been so sure before?  Elysium was her home now... Wasn't it?

Did Rin talk to me?  Hah.  "No." Why would she?  Tena had not spoken to Phoenix before assuming command.  Granted, she'd shown her face not too long ago, while Phoenix… The Demdji still wandered whatever happened to Phoenix.  Just another ghost of the past.  Tena was not.  She was still here.  Hadn't she been trying?

"I don't care." The words are bitten out.  Cold and determined to fight past the sting of betrayal.  She wouldn't pretend to have known Rin before.  Or now.  And does anyone really know me? Ebra.  Lavi, maybe.  The insight of a Jedi.  "It doesn't matter who's in command, Solo.  Just that someone's picking up the pace.  Especially before battle."

"If I wasn't cutting it..." Her paws ground into the wooden floorboards.  "Maybe it's because I haven't figured myself out." Her voice dips lower as she speaks.  Dropped to a murmur.  "Elysium should be led by someone at home in Elysium.  Honestly? I don't know if that's Rin, considering she hadn't committed to being a sworn Elysite before... But I don't know if that's me either."

Tasting home in the air, Tena rose up to her paws.  With her ears flicked back she trotted into the kitchen and quickly blew out the little fire with a gust of air.  "Let it cool for a moment, then we can poor some cups."
[align=right]— I tell you this story, save your life, set you free