a visit from grandma

[nabooedup]

While not strong in it - like everything that had ever been alive she too existed within the Force. When she appeared it took a lot of effort on her behalf, but Padme had never been anything but incredibly resilient. Her grandson’s conflict and anguish was more than enough of a pull towards the physical plane, even for someone without the Force with them in the way that it was with her children, or her husband.

“Ben,” his name came in an echo from somewhere within his quarters, the air in the room dropping a few degrees, acting as a morbid herald for her arrival, but when his grandmother materialized there was nothing frightening about the sight at all. Haloed in warm blue light Padme hovered just an inch above the ground, her dark ringleted hair still adorned with the jewels she had been dressed in in death, her hands clasped at her middle, resting on the ornate fabric of her gown, more angelic than ghostly though her face was drawn in concern. She had visited him before though perhaps he was too young to remember it. There had been many nights when the spectre of his grandmother had held vigil over a sleeping Ben Solo, expending what limited energy she was granted in death to stave off the nightmares and the insidious dark influences that forever seemed to bite at his heels.

Gliding across the floor towards him, she extended an arm, her small hand resting on his arm. “Darling Ben, there’s so much pain inside you,” it pained her to think that death had stolen away her ability to protect the boy. That there was nothing for her spirit to do but watch and burst forth whenever it could, but she was as persistent in death as she had been in life, and her grandchild needed her.

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i dont have icons yet but just pretend i do and that they're of finn wolfhard

[dyaddyissues]

Ben Solo was not unfamiliar with hearing voices in the darkness. He'd heard them as long as he could remember, the voice that spoke to him when he doubted, whenever his parents were gone, after he had been left behind with his uncle.

However they were not often as kind or as warm as the woman's voice, the one that just pulled him from yet another nightmare, but only there to reaffirm what he already believed about his family. His only friend, isn't that what he calls himself during their talks? Ben thinks he's heard her before, but can't be sure. A dream, perhaps? In a dream? He could be dreaming now... it's more than a voice, there's an actual form attached that appears before him. Glowing blue and dressed in ornate clothing. Uncle Luke had taught them that they pass onto the Force after their deaths, and that sometimes they can manifest as spirits to commune with the living. The woman was not familiar too him, but she had a kind -- if not sad face, and radiated ... concern?

And even as she moved closer to him, hand placed on his arm, Ben didn't feel any fear. For a moment the voices in his head were quiet, the nightmare he'd been having nothing more than a distant memory.

She knew who he was, knew of... the darkness, the voices, the fear and doubts he held. The teen sat up further in his bed.

"I..." Somehow, the denial sticks in his throat. "How do you know me?"

waltzes in 9 years later

[nabooedup]

"I've always known you," the ghost said gently, lifting her hand away to hover close by without getting close enough to somehow overwhelm him. "I'm your grandmother Ben, and I've been watching you for a long time." She didn't bother to explain just how tricky it could be for one not strong in the Force to push through the barrier between worlds as she had for him that night. He would either already be aware or come to learn in time, but for now, for the ghost, it was simply enough that she was able to conjure up the strength to be there for him.

"My name is Padme, do you know me?" It was impossible to say - especially given the flaming disaster her husband had sent the galaxy into - just how informed Ben was when it came to his ancestors, but she hoped anyway, hoped that her son, or her daughter had felt her relevant enough to include it at least one story.

[dyaddyissues]

"You have?" He has never felt another with him, not like his presence. Perhaps it was simply so all consuming that Ben could never feel anyone else but his cold, dark.

But he has heard her name before, just not mentioned as his grandmother. His mother had brought him to Naboo once as a child, one of her diplomatic meetings. Ben remembers hearing her name, there had been a memorial? But never a mention of her as a grandmother, Leia Organa talked of Breha and Bail Organa, her parents.

Ben has always got the idea that there was something else, something in a far off distant look in her mother's eyes whenever family came up -- but he had chalked it to grief at the matter of their deaths. The subject was usually changed quickly before he could get in too many questions.

And he wasn't about to guess that she was somehow from his dad's side.

"Mom does--didn't really talk about family all that much. I think there was a lot they never told me." He frowns, why did his family keep so much from him... "And my father, he -- I doubt he even knows who his parents were."

[nabooedup]

The boon of death was that it was difficult to feel the same kind of sadness a living person might. When her grandson spoke of his mother she felt longing and loss, wishing she had known the children she had been given and the lives they led, but it wasn’t sadness - not like Ben might know it.

“They didn’t tell you, and I wish they had. Perhaps I would have been able to visit you sooner,” the spirit studied his face with equal parts concern and love. “You’re not happy here Ben. There’s a shadow around you” While she was no Jedi she could still sense that much. There was darkness there and it ate at him, just like it had done to her husband.

“He had it too, that dark, but I couldn’t help him,” her regret was evident in her voice. “I thought he was strong enough that the good in him would rise above it, but fear and pain are powerful lures. They can make a person do things that aren’t right, not for them, not for anyone.” Her eyes fixed on him and she frowned, more determined than forlorn. “I want to help you, Ben.”