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He's not sure what to make of her. Cara couldn't stop saluting when she made the introductions, and her spine had stood at strict attention. Despite this, the woman doesn't seem particularly imposing. While he's heard her reputation, or to be precise he's heard stories he is only now realizing were about her, General Syndulla seems amiable and polite rather than a bloodthirsty radical hellbent on the destruction of every last spark of the Empire. He's met his share of insane Twi'leks, and she's not in their number. She's nice.
"Call me Hera," she tells him over the tea he hurriedly put together for her. He nods, and doesn't say anything.
The boys are playing together off to the side. Her son looks to be about nine or ten, and appears to be more or less human. There's a story in that, and he decides not to ask. There are more pressing questions. The kids haven't spoken a word to each other. They're playing a game that to the unwatchful eye might be mistaken for Catch.
She follows his gaze. "It's not easy. When Jacen was little, he used to have temper tantrums that shook the entire ship. And when they get older, you're in for an entirely new set of problems." She takes a sip of the tea. "Let's just say that teenagers with the Force have some very awkward growth spurts." A smile touches her face. "Teenagers without the Force aren't much better, but you get fewer night terrors that upend everything in the galley while they sleep, and a lot more paint all over their walls as they express themselves."
Adolescence was hard enough for him. He can't picture what it would be like with these magic powers. He wonders if he'll live to see what passes for adolescence in his boy's long-lived species.
"Kids are kids," she says. "They're unique to themselves. You have to deal with the people they are, not the people you think they ought to be because they wave around a lightsaber or wear beskar armor. The ones you take in will cry for the parents they lost. It's not because they don't love you, it's because they mourn the life they could have lived."
She can't possibly see his face. Even his eyes are carefully shielded. Nevertheless, he has the unsettling notion that she is reading his expression now, and can see his own sobbing nights from long ago. No wonder Cara lives in a combination of terror and thrall around her.
He nods, allowing her words to simmer inside him for later. Avoiding her gaze, he looks at the children again, examining the human boy more closely. She's taken in children that weren't her own, but now that he knows what to look for, he sees her features stamped all over her son even as the child opens his hand and allows the toy they're playing with to float into his small palm.
"He's a Jedi?" The word is still strange to him.
"No." A flicker passes through her face and is gone, a flash of emotion and history he could never hope to unravel and doesn't try. "The Jedi were a semi-monastic order of people gifted with the Force. It took a lifetime of training and discipline to become a Jedi. Having the Force doesn't make you a Jedi."
"Are there others?"
"A few. They're scattered. I can put you in touch with the people I know."
He rests in his seat. "Will they take him?" He's not asking about her son.
Hera fixes him with a stare. He wonders if she can read his thoughts like they say the Jedi could. "No, not unless they had to. He's yours to care for and raise. We'll help as we can, whatever you need."
"He should be among his own kind."
She looks at the children again, taking in the Mudhorn around the small, green neck, and the flashes of pure happiness he shines their way in a bright smile as he reassures himself Djarin is still there before returning to his game.
"He is. He's got you."