Aboard the Jade Shadow [Tuesday, Fandom time]

[momslilassassin]

Ben was grabbing a quick snack as he waited in the galley for his father to finish docking the ship on the first human-majority planet they'd seen in months and taking the chance to catch up on more reading about the Aing-Tii Monks. As soon as they restocked their supplies and checked for physical mail (Ben hoped that Tony's package would catch up with them here), they'd be heading into Aing-Tii space, which was a challenging enough flight that Luke Kriffing Skywalker looked slightly apprehensive about it.

Ben stopped being nervous by remembering that if Jacen had been able to do it, Luke would be able to do it better.

...it had never been said that Ben could not be very petty if the occasion called for it.

[OOC: Open for calls, texts, visits from the boy who's in space with him, care packages from home full of YA gay literature...]

Comments

[momslilassassin]

"Hey, look who's had space flight longer," Ben replied, grinning, "and ignore the droid spoken word albums."

[endsthegame]

"Ah, what see'st thou else, in the dark backward and abysm of time?" Ender asked, with another nudge of his foot.

[momslilassassin]

"We see'st stone-carved creatures with tongues to feel your thoughts, and starry vistas to take your breath away," Ben replied, poking Ender's knee back.

[endsthegame]

Ender quirked a smile, settling in further against the pillow. "And how dost thou see such miraculous things?"

[momslilassassin]

"Just open your eyes and look," Ben said with a smile. "Beauty's everywhere."

[endsthegame]

Ender chuckled softly to himself, and shook his head, and opened his eyes obligingly.

"Word over all, beautiful as the sky," he murmured after a moment, quoting, and shut his eyes again. "Beautiful that war, and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost; that the hands of the sisters Death and Night, incessantly softly wash again, and again, this soiled world: my enemy is dead. A man divine as myself is dead."

[momslilassassin]

Ben felt a little shiver go up his spine. "What's that from?" he asked softly.

[endsthegame]

"Walt Whitman, an old American poet," Ender said, letting his head thud back against the wall. "It's called Reconciliation. 'I look where he lies, white-faced and still, in the coffin—I draw near; I bend down, and touch lightly with my lips the white face in the coffin.'"

[momslilassassin]

Ben shivered again and shifted closer. "That's beautiful. He was a soldier too?"

[endsthegame]

"He volunteered to be a nurse during the American Civil War," Ender said, opening his eyes up for the second time, and keeping them that way. "I think one of his relatives was a soldier. I'm not actually the biggest enthusiast, or anything, but that poem always stuck by me."

For obvious reasons.

[momslilassassin]

"I can see why," Ben said softly. "It has a way of getting under your skin."

[endsthegame]

"I remember thinking: it's quite revolutionary," Ender said, quietly. "Kissing your foe - that's the act of a renegade, at least in the middle of war."

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded, reaching out for his knee again. "It's not that easy in peace, either," thinking, always, of Jacen.

[endsthegame]

"Or in any time," Ender said, taking his eyes off the wall opposite him, and back to Ben at the contact. "Most people find it hard to swallow even the idea that someone else might hold the enemy in their hearts; it's the only way to stave off realising how similar we all are."

He rubbed at the leg of his pants. "But give me renegades any day."

[momslilassassin]

Ben nodded again, dragging his eyes away from how comfortable Ender's shoulder looked at the moment. "That's what made the last war so ugly," he said. "It was very difficult for people to look at Corellians and see an enemy and not...Uncle Han, or General Antilles. It was a family fight, beginning to end, and not just my family."

[endsthegame]

"People prefer their wars to be clean," Ender said, "But they never are. So we play pretend 'till the enemy is less human than we are, until we can't. And then, inexperienced with the concept as we are, we flail around to create the difference. Because most of us don't really think that the beautiful part of a ceasefire is the end of carnage, we think it's the knowledge that the other is vanquished, and everything is us now."

[momslilassassin]

"Explains a bit about the negotiations we left," Ben said.

[endsthegame]

"Explains a bit about a lot of things," Ender said, wryly.

[momslilassassin]

Ben leaned out to ruffle Ender's hair. "Maybe," he agreed. "We don't really live in the galaxy. We live in our heads and the galaxy there might be vastly different than reality."

[endsthegame]

"Ah," Ender said, shooting him a glance that was somewhere between amusement and affection. "Now that's a heretic thought, Jedi."

[momslilassassin]

"Maybe," Ben said, "but I'm pretty sure the galaxy I live in and the one Daala does are really different places."

[endsthegame]

"And how about Luke's?" Ender asked, diverting his eyes back to the hull on the other end of the room.

[momslilassassin]

"I think his and mine have more overlap," Ben said, "but my time in Fandom has helped give me more, um, non-Jedi perspective on things?"

[endsthegame]

"Like I said," Ender said, his lips curving up, though he wasn't looking back at Ben. "Heretic."

[momslilassassin]

"I probably learned it from you," Ben said.