Coruscant- Monday Fandom time

[solo_sword]

A lack of incidents requiring Jaina to explain why anyone was walking around sporting holes in their neck meant that by now, letting Eric see the Jedi Temple didn't seem like a bad idea. She thought he might as well see where she lived... or where her dirt stayed, at any rate. She'd never shown the place to anyone before, either, which she hadn't realized till now.

Luckily running into Jacen had happened towards the end of the tour. There were more awkward situations out there, yes, and Jaina promised herself that from now on, she'd try to keep better track of where he was to avoid things like this. Introducing Eric as "my terrifying friend" probably hadn't helped, either. And when she was able to extract them from that little meeting, she thought it might be better to get out of the Temple and find somewhere else to go for a while.

"Sorry for cutting the tour short," she said as they stepped outside.


[For said terrifying friend.]

Comments

[texted3times]

"Your brother is quite--" there were any number of adjectives he could use here, and he settled on "--short."

[solo_sword]

Jaina frowned up at him. Up. "Had to go with that one, huh?"

[texted3times]

"It was a tie between that and pompous," Eric admitted.

[solo_sword]

"Pompous I can get behind," she said. "I swear that's a relatively new development."

[texted3times]

"And he doesn't own this entire temple, right?" Eric checked with a little smile.

[solo_sword]

"Not even close. Though I don't think he remembers that most of the time," she said, still a little grumbly. That tended to happen after talking to Jacen these days.

[texted3times]

Eric glanced way, way down at her with a small frown. "He's not usually that...charming?"

[solo_sword]

She sighed a little, which really just gave her the time to figure out how to phrase it.

"Jacen's basically a good guy. And he can even act like it," she said. She'd seen it, which made it all the more frustrating when things got weird again. "He just seems to forget he's not in charge of everything ever and it really comes across sometimes."

[texted3times]

Eric nodded. "I've met vampire royalty with less sense of self-importance than he just displayed, but not often."

[solo_sword]

"Probably shouldn't be a surprise that he and I don't get along much these days," she said dryly. "Sorry you had to deal with that."

[texted3times]

Eric waved that aside. "Family can be like that," he said.

[solo_sword]

"The rest of them are fine," Jaina said, just in case he thought now that she was descended from a long line of pompousness.

[texted3times]

"I'm sure they are," he said with a grin. "Are we going to run into any of them around here?"

[solo_sword]

"Possible. My aunt and uncle are here, and my cousin should be. Why?" she asked, eyeing him. "Do you want to?"

[texted3times]

"I have no objection," Eric said, "but if you'd rather me not meet family, I can understand that too."

[solo_sword]

Jaina shrugged. "I don't have a problem with it," she decided. Though her brain simply wouldn't process what say, Luke and Mara might think of this. "Though if you end up meeting my dad at any point I'd have to warn for the possibility of him calling you 'kid.'"

[texted3times]

Eric burst out laughing. "That'll be a first."

[solo_sword]

"Yeeeah," she said, but she was smiling finally. "You could see how much I'm not kidding about the endearments and nicknames."

[texted3times]

"And what do they call you?" he asked.

[solo_sword]

"I'm amazed I didn't grow up thinking my name was Sweetheart," she answered.

[texted3times]

Eric chuckled. "That was not a problem in my house."

[solo_sword]

"No Viking word for sweetheart?" she asked teasingly.

[texted3times]

"Not that my father would ever use for me," Eric replied, smiling back.

[solo_sword]

"Tough father or were you just difficult?" she wondered.

[texted3times]

"A bit of both," Eric admitted. "It was a long time ago."

[solo_sword]

"Did I cross into a bad subject?" she asked.

[texted3times]

He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. "It would be amazingly stupid to be holding onto issues with a man who's been dead a millennium."

Which wasn't a no.

[solo_sword]

"I don't know about that," she said thoughtfully. "You did kind of get gypped out of closure for a long time."

[texted3times]

"And now that vampire's buried in a parking garage," Eric said with no small amount of satisfaction.

[solo_sword]

"And once again I remind myself to never piss you off," she said, reaching for his hand.

[texted3times]

Eric took it and squeezed her fingers. "You're no shrinking violet--is that the phrase?--yourself."

[solo_sword]

"Aww, and here I didn't even need to decapitate anyone. With my bare hands," she added.

[texted3times]

"I'm sure you have your own methods to get a similar message across," Eric said, turning his attention back to gawking a bit at the temple. "Your brother certainly knew when he was about to cross a line with you."

[solo_sword]

"He'd better. We're twins," she explained, "and even if I'm blocking him, he knows how to read me better than most people. And he's seen some of my worst blowups."

To say the least.

[texted3times]

"Blocking him?" Eric repeated, then looked less confused. "Oh. Mind thing?"

[solo_sword]

Jaina nodded, figuring this wasn't one of those skills she shouldn't let him know she had. "We can read people's emotions, and Jacen's more empathic than most. When I block someone, they can't get a read on me. Feelings, thoughts, nothing."

[texted3times]

Eric nodded. "Like Sookie can," he said, looking appraising. "She can't read vampires, though."

[solo_sword]

"The no brainwaves thing?" she remembered. "I don't know if any of my powers would work on you either because of that."

[texted3times]

Eric wondered if it was odd that he was glad to hear she hadn't tried.

"Let's say no. My thoughts aren't that interesting anyway. Not to mention generally in Swedish."

[solo_sword]

"Don't worry, I'm not telepathic myself," she assured him. "I meant other stuff." See, totally reassuring.

"...You think in Swedish?"

[texted3times]

Eric nodded. "When left to myself, yes."

[solo_sword]

"Now I sort of wish I could check if that's true," she said, mostly joking. Like 95% joking.

[texted3times]

"It's mostly Swedish pop songs," Eric lied.

[solo_sword]

Jaina made a face. "I was going to say that maybe I just like the Swedish, and now you said that and it's ruined. Thanks, Eric."

[texted3times]

"//You're quite welcome,// Eric replied.

[solo_sword]

There was one problem with liking the Swedish, though.

"I have no idea what you just said, but it sounded good."