                                Star Wars 

                           Wizard's RPG Stories

          source : http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=starwars/newsarchive
          upload : 10.IV.2006


     A Mother's Memoirs, Continued

     By Morrie Mullins




     Mother Dariana of the Hiironi imparts more of her accumulated wisdom  and
discusses the Tarasin perspective  on  recent  events  in  Cularin.  She  also
addresses the arguments brewing over the recently recovered writings of  Reidi
Artom. It's all in our latest supplement to the Living Force campaign!

     Some time ago, Mother Dariana of the Hiironi released a  portion  of  her
memoirs. She spoke about life and the Force, and she revealed that even one so
revered as she had come close to walking the path to darkness. Not, of course,
that Mother Dariana seemed to think of herself as revered.  If  anything,  her
creaking voice made her sound tired, weary from the burdens she's  chosen  (or
been chosen) to carry throughout her life. For a time, her  health  faded  far
enough that many thought she might be preparing to become one with the  Force.
That time, however, has not yet come. In this recording, Mother Dariana  again
speaks about her life,  offering  lessons  she  has  attempted  to  learn  and
speculating on how they might relate to recent goings-on in her home system.

     Tell me when I should begin. The box you bring here has  so  many  lights
that my old eyes are near blinded, and all of them flash at once, and if I had
grown up with such things they might not befuddle me quite so much. But I  did
not, and so I can sit and stare at them, marveling that the Force is in  these
things, as it is in all things, and yet I cannot see how they work. There  are
threads of light, connections between your machines  and  your  body,  between
your machines and my body, but for all that, they do not speak to me.

     It is on, then? I suppose I shall begin.

     In preparing for these sessions, I always think to myself, "Imagine  that
you will be speaking to your children." I've spoken to my children  for  years
uncounted, and there is no better feeling for me than to sit atop  a  cushion,
look out at the faces surrounding me, waiting for me to speak, waiting for the
conversation to be renewed. There is a moment of expectation, a  tension  that
twists the air - - a pleasant twisting, mind you, as  one  might  get  at  the
anticipation of meeting a lover after long months apart - - and it is in  that
moment that the ties that bind us all, one  to  another,  are  strongest.  The
truth of communication is found not in the words we speak, but in the  silence
that precedes and follows our words.

     That would be my theme, I suppose. We must listen to the silence. Listen.

     If I pause, then - - if I seem to be waiting for someone else to speak  -
- it is not simply because of my years. The pauses in the  great  conversation
of the sentients, the spaces that exist when words are left unsaid, tell us as
much about the speaker and the listener as  do  the  words  themselves.  Often
more.

     She takes a deep breath, and exhales slowly with a wheezing chuckle.  For
several seconds, she doesn't speak, merely breathes.

     What occupies the silence? The vastness of untapped potential, the  empty
space between worlds in which we live when we speak  to  one  another?  Think,
during the pauses. Ponder what you are imagining, and why. Let  your  mind  be
free, and discover what it is that we are not saying, what it is that  we  are
not considering. Consider the emptiness.

     This is a lesson it seems we all need to be reminded of. Even I, for  all
the words I use to say that we must be vigilant, for all the warnings I  might
have offered about threats and darkness and the evil that  must  exist  within
each of us, in order to give the goodness of our actions meaning.  I  must  be
reminded that it is what I have not said that reveals the most about me. It is
what you hear in the words I do not say that reveals the most about you.

     Before you mistake me for a rambling old  crone,  allow  me  to  share  a
story. In the spring of my nineteenth summer, I met a Human  female  wandering
my jungles.

     I thought of them as "my" jungles, you see, because I could  not  imagine
anyone other than a Tarasin laying claim to them. Perhaps the kilassin or  the
mulissiki might have a legitimate  claim,  if  only  the  creatures  chose  to
exercise it, if only they had the force of mind to  realize  their  potential.
Each of us possesses the potential for greatness, after all. It is what  comes
of being alive.

     I met this Human in the jungle, and she met me, and our eyes communicated
lifetimes of information before either of us opened our mouths.  I  looked  at
her and saw someone older than myself, but by how much I could  not  say.  She
had long hair the color of Morasil at dusk, which she wore pulled  back  in  a
braid that flicked back and forth over her sweat-streaked neck. Her eyes  were
the color of horonna leaves - - calm, pale green, and very soothing.  I  found
her clothing strange - - my kind  do  not,  after  all,  generally  wear  long
breeches or shirts with sleeves that reach to our wrists  during  the  hottest
part of the day - - and I found the blasters she wore on each hip more than  a
little discomfiting.

     I can only imagine what I must have looked  like  to  her.  A  primitive,
wrapped in a shawl, carrying a short spear, wandering the jungle. A threat?  I
had a spear. She, two blasters. But life had shown me already that  those  who
do not know your ways may take any action for hostility, and those who respond
most quickly to perceived threats of violence are those  who  carry  the  most
violence in their own hearts. Which made things more than a little awkward for
me, as I struggled to initiate communication with her  while  not  frightening
her so much that she might attack.

     At the same time, though, I did not want to let the silence end.  Because
every moment we did not speak, I learned more about her. The way  she  shifted
her weight from right foot to left, the way her  too-rapid  blinking  betrayed
her fear of me, the way her eyes flashed to the trees above my head, as though
a great flying kilassin might swoop down on my command,  snatch  her  up,  and
make a meal of her.

     Through this, there was also calm. She was wary,  but  something  in  her
kept the wariness from bearing her  down  with  its  weight.  She  smelled  of
confidence, but not arrogance. She felt fear - - and perhaps I flatter  myself
that it might have been due to my presence, when she might have  been  nervous
about the jungle itself, which was clearly not her native environment - -  and
yet, she didn't allow herself to be controlled by it. She recognized the  fear
and moved past it, keeping pace with the moment.  Fearing  me  or  the  jungle
wouldn't help her if the fear blinded her to a real danger. So  she  continued
to search. After a time, I spoke.

     "I am Dariana, of the Hiironi."

     She made a small bow, a gesture I find even  more  amusing  now,  looking
back on it, than I did at the time. And at the  time,  I  almost  laughed  out
loud. Bowing? To me? Clearly, this must be an off-worlder. No one from Cularin
would bother bowing to a young Tarasin woman of no means and barely  any  name
of her own.

     "I am a Traveler."

     I waited. There had to be more. But there wasn't. And when she spoke  the
word, I heard it capitalized. Not just a traveler. A Traveler. As though there
were nothing else she could be, nothing else that made sense for her.  A  word
that defined her. So much, in a single word. It told me everything about  her,
but also told me nothing at all. What I learned of her came more from what she
did not say than from what she did.

     Then she turned and walked back into the trees, and  I  continued  on  my
way, and Cularin continued to spin through the galaxy.

     I had considered telling this story without returning to a  "lesson."  It
always seems trite, to me, to come back to the beginning of a story  in  order
to tell the listener what it is she should  have  learned,  because  doing  so
limits the listener. If I tell you what you need to know, then  you  will  not
choose your own lesson, you will not follow your own path.  You  will  instead
find yourself tied to the path I have chosen for you, and this may not be  the
best path, or even a good path, but it is certainly not your path. It is mine.

     So saying this, I will tell you my path, my lesson, what I take away from
this story.

     In the galaxy, there is much  more  apparent  emptiness  than  wholeness.
There is the vastness of space, dotted with rocks and gravity-bound spheres of
liquid flame. But the emptiness is not empty. It never has been. And  when  we
begin to assume its emptiness is also its  truth,  when  we  assume  that  the
pauses in the conversation bear no meaning, that is when the things that  live
in the dark begin to hold sway over us. They stand in the dark, and we do  not
see them, and then they are among us. Because we have assumed  that  those  we
did not hear never spoke. Because we have assumed that those we  did  not  see
were never present.

     There is more to this galaxy than what we see and what we hear. There  is
more to an individual than the words she speaks. The lessons of  history  that
we must be most careful to heed are the lessons that were  not  written  down,
were not recorded. The voices we cannot hear are the ones whose  warnings  are
shouted the loudest of all.

     Listen. They are calling to Cularin.