#catch me at the back of the Imperial Parade breaking it down to this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sirthisisa-wendys · 3 years

Text

The General (Part 2): Geto Suguru x Fem!Reader

synopsis: Imperial life sounds nice on paper... but will it ever live up to reality? (the answer is always no).

wc: 2.2k

tw: none (again, backstory. I’m SORRY! The lemon-y stuff will begin in the next part)

masterlist

“There was this patch of mud I was sure we’d be able to get through...”

You’re sitting across from the Imperial Warrior and watching him scarf down your mother’s cooking, noting his ravenous appetite and the way he waves his hands around as he details how his horse is trapped in the mud from the storm that followed him here, and how he longed for death until he happened to find himself at your door, blah, blah, blah…

Your father and mother entertain him eagerly, nodding their heads and humming at his story, but you’re not having any of it. You just want to know what’s in the letter with the Imperial Seal on it so he can go and you can return to your mourning in peace. The letter is sitting with your father, untouched and forgotten while the man drones on and on.

There’s something about how he’s going on about his horse that’s stuck in the mud that bothers you; there are too many intricate details and he’s--

“I’m sorry, I don't think we caught your name,” you interrupt, and the white haired man stops mid-sentence, a long silence echoing in the room.

“Gojo,” he announces, holding his hand to his chest. “You can call me Gojo.”

“And Gojo, you say your horse is stuck outside? We should help you go and retrieve it.”

“Oh, no need, I was about to say that the lovely townsfolk helped me out with my situation. It’s in a stable as we speak.”

You eye the confident man with some skepticism, then look over to the letter with intent. “And the letter?”

“Ah! I almost forgot.” He motions for your father to open the letter, and when your father breaks the seal and slides out the paper, you angle your head to read the words scripted across the paper. You and your father read at the same pace, because your faces drop at the same time.

“The Imperial Matchmaker?” The image of the wizened young woman dances before your eyes, and you blink twice, dismissing the improbability that her visit to your village just six months ago had anything to do with you or your family. She hadn’t even spoken to you, let alone laid eyes on you. How in the world--

“My story was to conclude with why she was not picked this time. I regret that I was not on time to come and retrieve you, my lady.” When Gojo holds a hand to his chest again, you feel some sort of sincerity from him. “You see, there are three princes of--”

“But aren’t there more illustrious ladies of the Court that might suit their needs?” you ask, squinting your eyes. There’s absolutely no way you were destined to wed a Prince of the Imperial Court.

“What the Matchmaker has ordered will go as planned,” your mother announces, shooting up from her seat and hurrying from the table toward your room. Your father follows her, letter still in hand, leaving you alone with the white-haired warrior. You look over at him in disbelief, raising a brow in challenge to speak.

“I assume you had an eventful day,” he begins, picking at the rest of his food thoughtfully. “You should go and rest. We leave at first light.”

_______________________________________________________________________

Your mother, fussing over you as always, is crying as you wait for the horse and carriage to be brought from the town’s stables. Your father had neglected to come out of the house to see you off, even though you knew he loved you just as much as your mother. Perhaps seeing his last daughter off was even more painful than the other three had been.

You can’t help but feel somewhat uneasy at the thought of being thrust into marriage to someone who ranked so much higher than you. Would you even get accustomed to court life in time? Would you feel at ease among the nobility of the land? Or would you be a wife who was shunned and set aside, only to be pulled out and bred occasionally? The thought isn’t even complete when the horse and carriage parade through the gates, the white haired man reappearing.

“Oh...” Your mother breaks into a fresh set of tears, knowing wherever that carriage goes, she can’t follow you. “Oh, y/n, you’ll have to write as much as you can. Please let us know how you adjust. We’ll be here if you ever need to come home. We’ll be there for the wedding, too, don’t worry…” As she drones on and adjusts your clothing, you realize she’s saying all the things she needs to hear in order to feel comforted. You, on the other hand, feel nothing as they load your items into the back of the carriage and finally, place you in the modest-sized thing.

When you pull away, you watch your waving mother fade into the distance, waving back until you could see her no longer. The open-air hits your face, and as you leave the only town you’ve ever known, you wonder if you’d ever be back.

The letter - your future - is resting in your lap, and you finger the thing, flipping the edges of the letter around and around while scenery drifts by you.

Before long, you’re out of the town’s limits, and steering toward a path you’ve never seen before. Your nerves leap to extreme heights, and you release the clasp on the curtains that will shield you from sight. What did it matter that you were in unfamiliar territory? Wasn’t that just a metaphor for the rest of your life?

The steady rocking of the carriage and sounds of nature lulls you into a rhythm and then, slowly, into sleep. There was no point in staying awake the entire time; you might as well get some rest before you met your future husband.

_______________________________________________________________________

You don’t realize the carriage has stopped until you awake, your left hand knocking against the side of the carriage as you slide out of sleep.

“Gojo?” When there is no response, you peel the curtain aside, and notice you’re in the middle of greenery. When you look down, there are faint signs of a path, but it seems to be grown over by grass and moss. “Gojo?”

You have two options: you can get out of the carriage, risk staining your dress, and find the white-haired bastard, or you could stay put and wait for him to return. At first, the second option seems fair, but the longer you wait, the more you worry about him.

Finally, you gather up the courage to exit the carriage, planting your feet firmly on the ground beneath you and walking to the front of the carriage. The horse is still there, eyeing you as you walk around it, untethered to anything but remaining dreadfully still. You reason that if something were to have gone wrong, the horse would have taken off, and you with it. But there’s no sign of a struggle, and you’re alone.

Well, almost.

You hear a couple of voices getting closer, and one is unmistakably Gojo’s. But the other voice you don’t know. “Perhaps we should just go now and avoid riding straight into the camp.”

“No,” Gojo grunts. “It’s part of the show. We have to show her off before he gets her.”

Camp?

“Is she really as beautiful as Yuko said?” Yuko? What did he have to do with-

“I would say even more so.” The voices are getting even closer, and you have to make a choice , and fast: either get back in the carriage or confront the two on their words. “But we have to make her believe she’s still going to the Imperial Palace even though--” You’re out of time before you know it, and you’re stuck standing on the other side of the horse, facing Gojo and a shorter, black haired man with wide eyes, who is most certainly not an Imperial Warrior. His eyes widen even more when he sees you, but Gojo just moves to scratch the back of his head.

“I’m assuming you heard most of that conversation, y/n.”

Instead of responding, you take off into the opposite line of trees, weaving your way through the brush and grass with as much maneuvering as you can manage. Quick footfalls are crashing behind you, but you bob and weave through the branches, hoping one might catch the person off guard and buy you more time. You have no idea where the village is in regards to your current location, but perhaps if you could find the closest town, you could get ho--

You fall face first into the forest floor, a body landing on your back with enough force to knock the wind out of you. Fallen debris is scratching at your face and exposed hands, the dress covering most of your skin and protecting you.

“Y/n… you’re fast, I’ll give you that. But not as fast as me.” You’re hoisted up by your arms, and not-Gojo throws you over his shoulder and carries you back to the carriage, defeated.

“She’s dirty! Ugh, he’s going to kill me.” Gojo whines when you return, and the man sets you in the carriage with a thump, exhaling deeply.

“If she didn’t run, we wouldn’t have this issue.” The man breaks the handle off the inside of the door and shuts it, effectively trapping you inside. “And if you had done what I told you to do, she wouldn’t have gotten out in the first place.” You scramble to the far side of the carriage when he tosses you a dirty look, then disappears around the front. “Ride on, dumbass. And if you think you don’t have a true runner on your hands, you’re absolutely wrong. Keep an eye on her at all times, Satoru, and don’t stop for anything.”

Satoru.

You store that piece of information in your brain, the name registering somewhere deep in the annals of your memory as the carriage lurches forward again.

_______________________________________________________________________

You can’t sleep, even though it’s night.

Your captor is being guided by the moonlight, and when you hear the sounds and smells of crackling fires and shouts of acknowledgement, you know you’ve arrived somewhere that isn’t the Imperial Palace.

You tried to find out why Gojo had tricked you and your family, why you were being taken somewhere that wasn’t the palace, and why the letter even existed if you were simply being taken hostage. But every shout had only been met with silence.

You dared not to open the curtains now. Even when the carriage stops, you clutch yourself and attempt to squeeze your body as far away from the door as you can manage. Silence falls over the ruckus outside, and you hear footsteps approaching the door. It feels like an eternity before the carriage is flooded with moonlight and someone grabs you roughly, yanking you out into the open.

Your first reflex is to struggle to remain in the carriage, but when that fails, you rely on letting your hand loose and your fist fly into the face of your assailant. The sound of crunching bones as your fist makes contact with their nose is unmistakable, but your victory is short lived. Another pair of rough hands grab your arms, twisting them behind your back uncomfortably.

“Unhand me!” you shout into the night, but the person does not do as you ask. It’s only then you can observe your surroundings with clarity. As you pant into the chilly night, you see scores of eyes - male eyes - observing the scene with a mix of disbelief and amusement. You yank against the hands that are restraining you, but when Gojo appears in your line of sight, he clicks his tongue disapprovingly.

“You broke Haibara’s nose,” He looks over at the man clutching his face, blood running down his fingers. “That’s not very ladylike.”

“No, it’s not,” a deeper voice replies behind him, and a hand lands on his shoulder. Your eyes drag from Gojo’s face to the man now beside him, and you wonder for a moment if you’re dreaming an awful nightmare. Standing beside Gojo is a man of similar height; his long, black hair cascading around his shoulders and onyx eyes raking over your appearance lustily.

Before you is General Geto Suguru, one of your country’s most feared enemies. His presence makes your knees weak - and not because of his good looks. No, it wasn’t even his looks that preceded him. His name was known among your people to be synonymous with “curse eater”, which made him even more fearsome than just a bedtime story told to keep children in line. Because if a man was able to eat curses… could he not eat children just as easily?

“You’ll need to apologize to Haibara, little one.”

But for some reason, instead of finding your voice, you spit at his feet in a show of bravery. The men in the gathered crowd reel back, inhaling in shock. But Geto and Gojo just raise their brows, looking at the spit gathered on Geto’s shoe. Geto cocks his head to the side a little, eyeing you curiously. “Haibara, follow me. Oh, and Nanami, bring her as well. I can see she’ll need some discipline before she’s wed to me.”

#jujutsu kaisen getou #geto x reader #jjk geto #geto suguru #getou x reader #jujutsu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen imagines #jjk gojo #jjk megumi #jjk haibara #jjk nanami

172 notes · View notes

myserie · 4 years

Text

Emperor: Dooku

Crown Prince: Obi-Wan

Prince: Revan

TW: Brief mention of a trainer hitting Rex

Rex stared up at the Emperor in awe, then remembered his training and dropped to one knee, head bowed. “My Lord,” he managed, trying to sound less like the scared boy that he was.

“Your name, young one?” The Emperor asked simply.

“CT-7567, My Lord,” Rex answered.

It was Crown Prince who spoke next. “Your *name*, little one,” he said, voice gentle and kind. “And stand up, we wish to talk.”

Rex stood, wary, clutching his training helmet to his chest. “R...Rex,” he answered. The Emperor nodded, reaching a thin hand out (he had the Imperial Signet on his finger, Rex realised) and lifted Rex’s chin, a calloused thumb smoothing over a bruise under Rex’s eye.

“Training accident?” The Emperor ask, releasing him.

“I wasn’t fast enough, my lord,” Rex admitted. “The Trainer thought I needed re-enforcement.”

The Crown Prince scowled. “We’ll have him dealt with,” he promised. “Do you know why we’re here, Rex?”

Rex shook his head, swallowing.

“My son, the Prince,” the Crown Prince said. “Is becoming...restless, wishes to leave the Palace, see what will one day be his Empire.”

Rex nodded.

“We’d like you to come to the Palace,” the Emperor continued, and Rex’s heart leapt into his throat. “Your aging will be slowed to a normal rate, and we want you to...serve the Prince. As a friend. A protector.”

“Me?” Rex squeaked. “I...I’m just a clone, My Lords.”

“An exceptional cadet,” the Crown Prince corrected. “And intelligent, so we’re told. I think you’d be a good fit for the Prince, you’ll be coming with us when we finish our tour of the facility.”

It was two days before the Emperor and the Crown Prince left the facility, and Rex was given less than an hour to say his goodbyes and report to the landing pad where the ship was waiting to take the Royal Family back to the Imperial Frigate waiting in Kamino’s orbit.

It was a rare mild day when Rex stepped out of the Facility that had been his home his whole life, only a light mist of rain that clung to his Cadet uniform. He hurried across the platform, dodging full grown brothers preparing to ship out to their new assignments and droids loading the transports.

In front of the Imperial Transport, a sleek, shiny cruiser in bright crome with the symbol of the Empire painted in deep red on its side, were two men. Both were in Mandalorian armour, sans their helmets, the older one’s armour was silver with blue accents, while the younger’s was entirely pained a deep orange-gold with black accents.

Rex stopped dead, eyes widening when he realised who these men were.

He never thought he’d ever meet the Template. He was just a CT; a CT with a discrepancy, at that. Only the best got to train under Jango.

The even better ones got to train under his son.

“This the one?” Jango Fett asked, gruff and flat, as Rex clambered up into the Royal Cruiser.

Kote Fett nodded. “Best of his age range,” the man said, and laid a hand on Rex’s shoulder. Rex swallowed, feeling himself blush as Jango’s hard gaze studied him. The trainers never told them they were good, and Rex was unused to praise.

“He’s blond,” Jango grinned, sharp and feral, and reached out a gauntleted hand to ruffle Rex’s platinum hair. “What’s your name, kid?”

Rex opened his mouth to recite his number.

“The name you gave yourself,” Kote interrupted. “You’re a person, Cadet. We don’t want the number the Kaminoans have you.”

Rex nodded. “Rex, sirs,” he answered, and they politely ignored how his voice cracked with emotion.

Jango nodded, approving, and Rex tamped down the urge to preen. The Template likes me, he thought, almost giddy with the feeling.

He kept himself locked in parade rest, fighting back the grin trying to break out on his features.

Kote gripped his shoulder and gave it a light, playful shove forward, deeper into the ship. He tripped a little, and fought a blush as the Mandalorian Bounty Hunters chuckled at his little stumble.

“We’ll be briefing you on your assignment,” Kote called, and Rex hurried to catch up with them. “I’ve been the Prince’s primary protector since my father and I were hired to work for the Empire, but my job was simply an extension of the fact I’ve been close with the Crown Prince for the past few years.”

“Why can’t you continue as his protector now?” Rex asked.

“Because I can’t be in two places at once,” Kote answered. “My place is at the Crown Prince’s side, I can’t do that and stand watch over his son when they aren’t together all the time.

#star wars #captain rex #tcw #darth revan #jango fett #emperor dooku au #count dooku #obi-wan kenobi #commander cody

58 notes · View notes

ablogcalledrevenge · 4 years

Text

Potential (A General Hux x Reader Insert Multi-Chapter Fic, Rated T)

Chapter Three

The evening had started so promising and lovely. It was a simple gala to raise funds for the Order and a chance for you to meet the Council and higher Admirals. While General Hux did take direct orders from Supreme Leader Snoke, most decisions that concerned the First Order had to get approved by the Council. There were many nights where you listened to your husband rant about their incompetence and lack of foresight. Anything involving finances or major operations needed their say-so, and they did not grant it often. They were old members of the Imperial Army, kept fat by ancestral money and tarnishing reputations. You needed to figure out which ones to keep and which ones were expendable. When you took over you’d probably get rid of the Council entirely but for now they had power over the General and you needed to show respect.

Your husband had kept an arm around your waist almost the whole evening and you felt as though you were floating through the night. You were singing his praises, extolling triumph and virtue upon him and the First Order. Every nod in agreement was a credit in the coffers and point in your favor. Then it all went wrong.

You had stepped away to use the refresher and then gotten waylaid by some Colonel’s wife. While you found the lot of them vapid, you understood their usefulness in influencing their husband’s opinions, and so you spent a good few minutes exchanging pleasantries and gossip. They were loose with their tongues after some wine and you quickly learned how loyal some of the more affluent members were and to whom they were loyal. A good number viewed Snoke with indifference and merely cared about gaining control of the Galaxy again. They would follow General Hux before Snoke if the ideas were good enough and the rewards were large enough. These bloated old men just wanted the glory of the Empire restored and the status quo kept. You wouldn’t be doing that, but why burst their bubble so soon.

Excusing yourself, you searched the large hall for the flash of red that was your husband and found him talking with a handsome older gentleman. His eyes caught yours and your heart skipped a beat against your will. Under the glowing lights of the banquet hall, his cheeks flushed from the good food and drink, your husband looked resplendent. He was so full of vitality and power, oh your heart suddenly ached to be close to him. He would be magnificent when you gave him the helm of the galaxy.

“Ah, there you are my dear.” He said, grabbing your hand and rubbing your knuckles before pulling you to him and placing his hand back on your waist. The touch, even through your dress, was scorching. Touch with him always seemed to be one step forward, two steps back. He would kiss your hand or forehead every night before you retired but he never pushed further. Sometimes you would sit together in the evening after his shift, knees touching but if you even tried to get closer he would pull away. You couldn’t figure out why. If he wasn’t attracted to women, you wouldn’t have been offended. But if he wasn’t attracted to you, you’d rather know sooner than later. The rejection was starting to sting and you desperately craved some kind of intimacy.

“Forgive me for leaving you. I got a bit distracted by Colonel Paru’s wife. She just came back from Naboo and had so much to tell me.” You say bashfully, looking at the other man. He smiled but it did not reach his eyes. You turn towards your husband in a subtle move of solidarity.

“Not at all (Y/N), I was just speaking with Allegiant General Pryde.” Hux replies, pushing against your back towards your guest. Extending your hand gracefully, you allow Pryde to take it in a strong grip. His stare was very cold and dismissive.

“How nice to meet you Allegiant General. How are you enjoying the party?” You ask pleasantly, pulling your hand back with a strained smile. While you enjoyed socializing and subtly employing your influence, you were tired. Everyone around you felt like a statue, so stiff and impersonal. It reminded you too much of your mother’s parties, where everyone was trying to vye for meager power and hid behind invisible masks.

“It’s quite the glittering assemblage Lady Hux, made all the more beautiful by your inclusion. I was just telling your husband how lucky he was to have you as a wife. Not all of us are content to remain bachelors. How he can focus on his missions with such a becoming woman on his arm is admirable.” He said with a rueful chuckle that seemed fake and incendiary. You blush and look towards your General in exaggerated adoration but his face has gone tight. A few more people come over to join your conversation, clearly wanting to get in good with Pryde.

“Yes I suppose if one is forced to be wed, (Y/N) is an acceptable partner. Do not envy me, General Pryde, married life comes with it’s own struggles. The First Order and the Supreme Leader’s vision must always come first and I assure you, they do.” His hand drops from your waist and your smile follows it.

“In the next cycle I plan to pitch a great new weapon to the Supreme Leader that will cement the First Order’s place in the galaxy and take out the pitiful Resistance in one fell swoop. No one, certainly not an insipid girl obsessed with dresses and galas, can keep me from my purpose. My marriage is only proof that the galaxy needs the First Order, the crumbling Imperial kingdoms returned to their rightful place through the Supreme Leader’s brilliance. They could not do so without our strength and power. We have been extending our reach throughout the galaxy and soon we will be unstoppable.” He says, his eyes seeing far beyond the crowd that surrounds you, his fists tightening in their gloves. He has the look of fervor that comes over him when he makes a speech in front of the Stormtroopers. Pryde’s insinuation has insulted him and in response he is insulting you.

“Come now General, are you really that derisive of your wife? I managed to catch her speech on Ando and I found it very eloquent and inspiring. The First Order needs more than weapons to bring the people to it’s might.” A Major pipes up, though his comment does little to improve your mood.

Hux scoffs and stands in parade rest, a tell you’ve noticed him doing when he feels unprepared and uneasy. It gives him comfort to stand so tall and still and you clench your fists to stop yourself from pushing him over.

“My wife is skilled in many things, that is true. While we do have more systems under our banner because of her tour, I am sure they would have succumbed to our power regardless. Wars are won with strategies, not lunch meetings.” His accent has started to sound ridiculously crisp and pompous and you long to pull his hair and make him groan like a wounded animal.

The other men are agreeing with him, asking about this weapon that is news to you, commenting on how ridiculous their wives are with their clothes and petty squabbles. The noise rises to a static sound, everything becoming muffled as though you are underwater. Your vision tunnels on your husband’s face, severe and uncaring. He turns to you and gives you a look of such contempt and distaste, your gasp of hurt is clearly audible.

“I’m going home now, please excuse me.” You say quietly but full of venom, before turning on your heel and breaking away from the group. Laughter follows your departure and you tighten your lips in order to stop yourself from crying. You knew the General could be harsh, but never imagined it would be towards you. And to insult your intelligence and your partnership, to bring up a brand new idea out of nowhere, to hurt you so badly in front of your peers, cut deeper than any physical wound.

Pushing through throngs of people, you don’t excuse yourself or explain. Your happiness at the beginning of the evening is waning. Your beautiful pink gown, with it’s large skirt and train is a hindrance to you, slowing your escape. You’re so focused on getting past a large group of women in similarly large dresses, that you don’t see Lord Ren until he grabs your arm to stop you.

His mask offers you nothing though his grip is tight but not painful. You push your hand against his and try to pull away. He is an unyielding mountain in your path.

“Lady Hux, you-” He starts to say, the robotic voice sounding almost soft. But you’re close to crying and you will not embarrass yourself any further. Lacking any fear that you would normally have in this scenario, you manage to break free of his hold.

“Don’t talk to me. I refuse to suffer any more indignities tonight. Surely your reproach can wait.” You bark out before quickly running out the door. You do not see the way his eyes follow your retreat or the glare he levels at your husband.

You leave the party in silence and you return to your rooms in silence. He has not chosen to follow you and the dismissal is one more barb against you. If he thinks you’re going to forget about this by the time he gets back, he is sorely mistaken. Glancing around the room, your eyes catch all of his possessions, meager as they are, and you long to destroy them. But you won’t, you have consideration for people.

You rip off your tiara and sit down on the couch in a huff of silk instead. You’ll wait for him, pacing around your quarters and your temper getting higher and higher. How dare he humiliate you like that, in front of all those important people? And what of this new weapon? Did he have plans outside of the ones you made together? Why didn’t he tell you? Why didn’t he trust you?

An hour of this circular thought passes before the door opens again and he enters. You were sure you looked a mess, hair falling out of it’s style and face lined from worry. He doesn’t spare you a glance before taking off his gloves and setting them on the small table by the door like he always does. You hate him so deeply in that moment, the color of his hair fills your vision and you wonder if he can hear the warning bells pealing.

Your husband doesn’t say much, quite surprising considering how much he was talking earlier, and goes over to the liquor cabinet. He pours a drink for himself and does not offer you something, how typical. Though you wouldn’t take a drink even if he did; your head already feels hazy.

The memories of tonight start to swirl and bubble in your brain as you watch him take off his outerwear and settle at his desk. He’s not going to acknowledge you or your anger and that only fuels your fire. You push off the couch and up to his desk, sweeping an arm across the surface and knocking everything to the ground. His chair screeches against the floor as he stands abruptly.

“How dare you! That’s my work, you can’t just do that. You could break it.” He shouts, pointing a finger in your face. You relish his irritation, happy for some kind of reaction.

“How dare I? You can’t just ignore me after what you did. You don’t get to act like I��m some silly girl with hurt feelings! You blindsided me in front of all the Admirals and governors and made me look like an idiot. We’re supposed to be a team and you treated me like a stupid subordinate.” You shout, backing away from him and running to the bedroom. The door stays open because your fight isn’t over yet.

“You told Pryde about some new weapon you have, about your plans. What new weapon? I thought we agreed we were going to focus on taking as much ground as possible. We decided that gaining land and territories was more important than some large show of violent power. Are you drunk? You almost gave away our true ideas to the men we’re trying to get rid of!” You say through the open door, struggling to take off your dress. He makes a move as if to join you and help but you hold a hand up to stop him. Somehow you manage and glare at him in your slip, the chill of your quarters only adding to the loneliness that surrounds you. He scoffs again, the sound jarring.

“You’re just cross because I didn’t include you in my plan. Not everything in my life needs to concern you and clearly you don’t have the acumen to understand it.” Hux replies, focusing more on the items you pushed off his desk than you. It’s a small thing but the fact that he won’t even look at you as you yell is what snaps something inside of you. Running out of the bedroom, you slap him hard across the face. He lets out a gasp of shock and you kick a leg out to knock him to the ground. Flat on his back, you get on top of him settling your weight on his stomach.

“Listen to me, you pompous foolish child! You would have nothing without me. I made you! You would have no plan without me! You came to me begging for credits and I gave you purpose. I don’t need you, any high ranking official would’ve worked, but I chose you. Snoke would find you lacking and kill you soon enough. You need me! I won’t let you diminish me and toss me aside.” You sneer, your hands coming up to grab at his neck. You don’t squeeze but the small pressure you place is a reminder. He pushes against you, clearly not impressed with your behavior. He opens his mouth to speak but you cut him off.

“You want to rule the galaxy and get rid of Snoke, then you better start showing me some respect. I am not a stupid girl and you should be defending me in front of the Council! Pryde is your competition and a block in our path and you want to cozy up to him? Have some conviction in your goals!” You demand before he flips your positions, his body hovering above you. His hands push your wrists up above your head and against the hard floor as his legs bracket yours. Apparently it’s his turn to speak.

“How dare you strike me! I could kill you with barely any energy expended. Your ideas only work with me and you know it. You needed someone with power and an audience with Snoke to get what you want. You need me! I have every right to look at you and your weaknesses with contempt because they’re obvious. You say I have potential and yet you refuse to let me plot my own future. I was doing just fine before you came along and I will do just fine after you’re gone.” He yells back, spittle dropping onto your face as you squirm. His face is turning red with rage. You aren’t afraid per se, but you do feel uncertain. You’ve never seen him so incensed and certainly not at you.

It dawns on you then why he’s so incensed and why he’s fighting back with you like this. If he truly felt this way, he would’ve gotten rid of you long ago. This whole evening has shaken him and a smile forms as you laugh in his face.

“You are so transparent! You’ve realized you’re replaceable and you’re scared. You can’t hide from me General. You know that there’s nothing special about you and that I could become Empress with anyone else. Perhaps I should drop you and move on to someone like Pryde. He has true ambition. Or maybe I should leave you for Kylo Ren and back someone with actual power instead of a boy playing at General and begging for approval from Daddy. At least one of them might actually fuck me and make all this worth it.” His eyes widen and he rears back, his grip loosening. You use his surprise against him and grip his face with your nails. You hope he bleeds from the sharp points. No one speaks for a moment, the air around you is hot and tense.

It is eerily silent as his hand slides up to your neck. It does not push or squeeze, it just sits there in warning. A flash of fear enters you and the spark of triumph in his eyes makes you positive he’s seen it. You feel like he can see right through you in that moment, can see through to your very soul and pick up your deepest insecurities.

“Is that what this is about? Is that why you’re so upset?” He coos, his voice dark and low. He’s mocking you and your heart hammers inside your chest. His cheek is still pink where you slapped him and he pulls your hand away, the white indentations from your nails fading.

“You just need someone to fuck you and put you in your place huh? Someone to remind you that you’re important? My dear you could have just asked, I would’ve fucked you in a heartbeat if I knew it would keep you behaved.” He murmurs, his face very close to yours. You swallow down your disgust and mortification.

“I don’t want you to fuck me to keep me quiet. I want you to respect me and my ideas. I want you to acknowledge what I’m doing for you. I want us to be a united pair! I want you to fuck me because you care about me!” You plead, the fight in you draining in the face of his ridicule.

“I don’t know where this is coming from,” You continue, “we were working so well before and now, now you’re being very cruel. I didn’t think you would ever be like this. We’re supposed to work together.” You sigh, your body drooping and, to your horror, tears start to fall.

With tears clouding your vision, you don’t see the breaking of his cold facade or the guilt in his eyes. He pulls away and since his body was the only thing holding you up, you collapse onto the floor again, crying. The emotional whiplash of the evening has caught up with you.

All you wanted was to be important, to make change in the galaxy. You just wanted someone to listen and care about you. You thought that General Hux could give you that but clearly not. He was just going to use you like everyone else. You were nothing more than a bargaining chip for your parents, a pretty broodmare for some politician or soldier. But Hux, you were going to give him everything and all you wanted in return was someone to give you some control and freedom over your own life.

“(Y/N)... I…” He stammers out and you realize that you just said that all out loud. But what’s more degradation? What’s more pain? You keep your face down, speaking your anguish at the floor instead of the person causing it like the scared little girl you are.

“You already know my plan, you don’t need me. You can throw me out of the airlock and leave me to my fate. I can’t stand this anymore. You’ve ignored me for weeks and now you insult me and almost ruin anything. I’m sorry I’m such a disappointment.” You choke out.

Then, a change. Hux lifts you from the floor and holds you against his chest. You stop crying in surprise and look up at him hesitantly as he brings you to the bedroom. Setting you down gently on the bed, he pulls off his boots and sits down next to you. He hands you a tissue and you wipe at your face. The man in front of you is a stranger and you come to grips with how little you know about him.

Your husband looks very young right now, and you remember his age. He’s done so much in such a short amount of time, his inexperience is showing. You’re both children playing at being adults, playing at being Gods.

“I’m sorry.” He says quietly in the darkness of your bedroom. You look at him from the corner of your eye. “Before you came over, General Pryde was speaking to me and he was undermining my latest choices. I was very angry and I took it out on you. I shouldn’t have. You’re right, we should be a team. Everything that you said was right. I do need you and I should be more considerate of you.” The words sound difficult for him to say but he’ll receive no comfort from you.

“I am replaceable.” The word echoes around the room and the horrible truth of it is written across his face. It’s hard to come to terms with your own lack of importance, but it was a lesson he had to learn. Or at least, as he was doing now, admit out loud. To be truly great, you would have to bring him up from nothing and he had to let you.

“So much is riding on this,” He continues, his fingers digging into his palms, “I don’t want to fail before we even begin. We could be discovered for our treason and killed. I’ve been a disappointment all my life, I would never want to make you feel that way. I want to succeed and I think seeing you this evening, charming everyone and looking so beautiful, it made me realize how little I actually do. Ever since Starkiller, I’ve felt so adrift. Snoke is giving me nothing and I’m following the barest traces of the Resistance in order to have something to oversee. I feel useless in the face of your ambitions.” He closes his eyes and swallows. His drink is back in the sitting room.

Knowing his habits, you carefully open his hands to stop him from hurting himself more. You lean over and kiss each palm and each fingertip, still unsure of what you want in this moment. He pulls his hands away and stretches out to lie fully on the bed. It is the first time you’ve ever seen him do it. Hux has not joined you in the bedroom the whole time you’ve been on the Finalizer and the dark circles under his eyes lead you to believe he may have been sleeping on the couch.

You shuffle down as well, lying next to him in the grey light the stars give you. You yawn, feeling the exhaustion from the whole evening come over you. You clear your throat, wiping at your face again.

“I’m sorry if I made you feel useless or stupid. I want so badly for this to work that I guess I took over without thinking of your needs and position. I’m doing this for you but that doesn’t mean I get to make all the decisions.” You whisper, turning your head to look at him. His eyes are still closed and he takes in a breath through his nose.

He finally turns to face you, regarding you nervously. The normal verdant green of his eyes has turned into a darker shade, but they are still so expressive and beautiful to you. Even in your anger and sadness, he is breathtaking to you.

“Why me? Why am I so special? Why put all your energy into making me Emperor? This plan will uproot everything and change the power systems of the galaxy. Why bother?” He questions, sounding very scared and exposed. You scoot closer to him, your noses almost touching. One of your hands comes to caress at his cheek, the same one you hit only minutes before. He does not flinch and you sigh in relief.

“Because you are special. I was wrong to say otherwise. You hurt me and I wanted to hurt you back. You are so smart and capable and you’ve worked so hard to make the First Order great. You deserve to be in charge, to rule it all. You have so much potential and I wanted to help you towards greatness. I wanted to help you in the naive hope that you’d take me along.” You admit, brushing back some of his hair. It had come out of it’s gelled style sometime around the end of the party and you like it better this way.

“No, you were right. You are right about everything. I’m sorry I hurt you, the things I said were cruel and they were meant to hurt you. I knew what I was doing. I’m only special because you believe me to be,” He says, his voice breaking with emotion, “Everyone knows how worthless I really am. My father saw it and my instructors saw it, Snoke and the Council see-”

You kiss him then, unable and unwilling to restrain yourself. His lips are dry and soft under your own and he freezes next to you. You’re about to pull away, convinced you’ve made a huge error and everything really would be ruined, when his arms come around you and pull you flush against his body.

Your kiss becomes one of passion and yearning, making up for lost time. You have to reassure him that you care and he has to continue to apologize. You surge against him, trying to make every inch of your body touch his. You kiss and kiss again, biting and sucking at each other’s lips, pulling away to breathe only when you have to.

He mumbles out apologies between kisses, his hands traveling up and down your back. You shush him with kisses to his cheeks, his nose, his jaw. A moan breaks the silence and you realize it’s coming from you. The sound spurs him on and he lowers his head to kiss your neck.

“Yes, oh yes my darling, please. Leave a mark.” You gasp, your other hand coming up to tangle in his hair. But he doesn’t do anything in response except pull away. Breathing heavily, you look at him in confusion.

“Say it again… please.” He whispers, his eyes darting to your lips. There is a brief moment where your brain tries to catch up and then it clicks. You lean forward and kiss him softly.

“Darling, darling. My sweet darling. You’re so good, you’re so smart, I just adore you darling.” You whisper against his skin. The bite against your neck is it’s own reward. Any pain he bestows, he instantly soothes with his lips and tongue. It’s a very good apology so far.

“Let me show you how much you mean to me.” He whispers, the glow from the viewport illuminating you both. You nod, words bubbling up in your throat. You throw a hand over your mouth to stop them from escaping. You’re not ready yet and neither is he. But one day soon, you’ll say them. You’ll sear them into his skin and melt them against his lips. You’ll breathe them into his lungs and hear them repeated back to you. Not now, but someday you will.

Time passes strangely on a starship. With nothing but the cold, vastness of space at every viewport, a person has to rely on chronometers and artificial sunlight to remind them of the change. Time on a ship both rushes ahead and slows to a crawl and if you’re not careful, you can lose track of it all.

So perhaps it was only minutes that you and General Hux lay together on the bed, tucked beneath the blankets and enveloped within each other. Or maybe it was hours, officers from the late night shift saying good night and good morning to the ones replacing them.

Or it could have been days. Days wrapped up in each other, sighing and moaning as you chased your release. Days passing as you learned the dips and peaks of each other’s bodies and tasted skin and sweat and more. Days full of changes to your relationship, to your desires, to your feelings. Days that seemed to never end, and yet, were over in a blink.

When you finally finish, lying quietly next to each other and marveling at the ages old pastime that you have discovered, your husband turns to face you. Mirroring his pose, your bodies become commas giving you space to breathe.

“If you ever strike me again, I’ll cut your hand off.” He says, matter of fact. The words sink in as you gaze at his profile, admiring the rare look of peace.

“If you ever humiliate me again, I’ll frame you for treason and take the throne myself.” You counter, equally matter of fact. Another moment of silence before you both burst into laughter. A patrolling pair of Stormtroopers stop outside your door in confusion before rightfully deciding it’s none of their business and moving on.

Adjusting the pillow behind his head, your darling- because that is what he is now, that is how much he means to you- reaches for a matte silver case on the nightstand. Lighting a cigarra, he sucks in deeply as the tip glows red, before blowing out a stream of cloudy, blue smoke. His other arm wraps around your shoulders and pulls you close. The feeling of his skin against yours, even after your tumble in the sheets, is a revelation.

Stealing the cigarra from his hands, you take a drag before placing it back in his mouth, swollen red from your earlier lovemaking.

“So, what’s next my dear?” He asks. A fog settles around your heads as he lazily smokes in the afterglow. You curl and uncurl your fingers in a soothing pattern over the paleness of his chest. Despite your violent fight and emotional reconciling, you feel more confident than ever before.

“We kill the Council.”

Chapter Four coming soon...

Tagging: @babbushka, @livy1391, @girl-next-door-writes, @renaissance-mama, @peqchynero, @the-temple-pythoness, @cupofmoonlighttea, @sincerely-cronch, @brujademente, @potato-ren, @ah-callie, @rosirinoa, @niniita-ah

Please let me know if you’d like to be tagged in future chapters!

#my writing #general hux #general hux x reader #general hux imagines #star wars fanfiction #reader insert fanfiction #self insert fanfiction #fanfiction #not beta'd #potential #i hope you guys like it!#remember the rating has changed #i swear if i find a spelling mistake later i'm going to jump out a window

89 notes · View notes

randaccidents · 4 years

Text

Good Night

*crawls out of cave* I live! School did not kill me or my writing juices! And I come with an offering of extreme fluff with a side of angst!

For this fic, we’re going back in time! That’s right, this is before Abandoned Shadows happens! Timeline wise, it comes after Fractured (click the title for fic)

Shadow People AU by the magnificent @mine-sara-sp

TW: nightmares

Sleepover party!!!

--------------

Knock knock.

Groaning, Wels dragged his feet over to the front door. Who was it this time? He just wanted to rest without sleeping, was that so hard to ask?

He could hear the knocking grow louder and more intense the longer he took to get the door, someone else's voice weaving through trying to get the knocker to calm down. Oh, he knew exactly who was behind that door. Listening out for a longer pause in between the knocks, Wels pulled the door open, stepping to the side as he did so.

Good thing too, as Biffa’s leg came up to kick the spot where the door was and where he was standing just a second ago. Reaching out, he quickly grabbed ahold of the foot, lifting it up above his head and causing Biffa to land on his back with an ‘oof’, much to the gleeful amusement of Jevin. Grinning at the antics of his friends, heart already feeling lighter, he stood over the downed robot. He let his arms hang at a slightly raised angle. “So, what brings you to my humble abode?”

Biffa narrowed his eyes at him. “Do not do what I think you’re about to do.”

A chuckle made Wels look up, locking eyes with Jevin’s devious gaze. The slime-man slowly raised his arms to stand at a 45° angle to the floor. Wels grinned, raising his arms further to copy the action. “Don’t do what Biffa?” Jevin asked innocently.

Biffa’s eyes flitted between the two hermits above him. “You know what I mean. Don’t do it, or I will stab you.”

The two hermits looked at each other, mischief dancing in their eyes. In sync, they brought their arms up parallel to the floor, looking down upon the downed hermit. “So,” Wels began in a conversational tone. “What are you going to do now Biffa?”

Biffa groaned, defeated, covering his face with his hands. “I hate you guys so much,” he mumbled out, the impact ruined by the laughter that cut into his sentence midway through.

Openly laughing, Wels joined Jevin in hauling Biffa to his feet, giving them both a big hug. It felt like he hasn't laughed like that in weeks. Gently pushing himself out of the sticky hug, Wels asked the question he's been trying to get answered since he opened the door. "What are you two doing here? It's almost night!"

Jevin pulled his head free from Wels' arm to look at him, excitement sparkling in his eyes. "We're having a sleepover party! The whole server's coming. Surprise!"

Wels stared back in shock. "For me? But why?"

He could see Biffa frantically gesturing at Jevin to cut it out do not say anything and raised an eyebrow. Obliviously, Jevin continued talking anyway. “We noticed that you weren’t feeling too well, so we got the whole server together to throw a fun sleepover party for you!”

Wels glanced at Biffa, who was heaving a sigh of relief, and briefly considered calling them out. Then he decided, ah heck, he was having a bad day and a sleepover party with the whole server sounded like the perfect break. He grinned widely at them. “Then what are we still standing around for? Come in!” Grabbing them by the hands, Wels dragged his two friends into his mansion, practically pulling them down onto the couch.

After a bit of laughter, the trio finally untangled their limbs, sitting squashed together on the couch, talking about everything and nothing. Biffa jokingly teased Wels, who responded by squeezing himself against the armrest and boxing himself in with two couch cushions. “Don’t talk to me, I’m mad at you now.” Wels yelled over their combined laughter, trying and failing to actually sound angry. Suddenly, Jevin jumped off the couch, literally bouncing in place. “Oh oh, that gives me an idea! We should build a pillow fort! Using the couch mattress! And pillows! It can be our own empire!”

A pillow thrown in his face silences Jevin, who goes down silently. Biffa stands from the couch, stretching, face obscured from Wels’ view. “Well, I’m not sure how much of a good idea that is, but…”

And all of a sudden there was nothing but air beneath Wels, sending him tumbling onto the hardwood frame of the couch, clutching his two pillows tight. Biffa stood triumphantly over him, couch mattress held aloft. “We need a good base if we’re going to be building anything!” he said proudly, turning to lay down the mattress at the other side of the room. Jevin, already back on his feet, bounced after Biffa.

Wels watched as Jevin grabbed Biffa by the shoulder, pulling him into a whispered conversation. Cautiously, he got to his feet, both pillows still hugged close to his chest. They were planning something, and he wasn’t sure he was going to like what they had in mind. His worries were confirmed when they turned to face him with mechanical synchronisation, wide mischievous grins on their faces.

“You know Biffa, a fort needs something to protect, don’t you think?”

“You're right Jevin. I think I have the perfect candidate in mind.”

Two pillows met their faces with a phoomph, obscuring their view for a few precious seconds. “You’ll have to catch me first!” came the call of their target, already halfway down the corridor. Glancing at each other, the two hermits’ grins grew as they sprinted in pursuit of their quarry.

It was a few rounds about the house afterwards, with multiple close shaves, before they managed to capture Wels, Biffa having thrown Jevin at him. Quickly catching up to the downed hermit before he could scramble out from under Jevin, Biffa lifted him in a bridal carry, prompting a squeak from Wels. Laughing, he triumphantly paraded Wels down the hallway back to the main room, Jevin yelling "All hail his highness!" the whole time. Wels hid his face in his hands, embarrassed yet laughing.

Returning to the main room, Biffa set down Wels on the mattress, quickly taking a knee. Jevin bowed low to Wels. "All hail his royal majesty, King Wels of Pillowfortopia! May his reign last long and bouncy!"

Giving in to the roleplay, Wels lounged back on the nearest pillow. "Thank you, thank you! But this isn't a kingdom without proper walls! For my first order as king, the fort must be finished!"

Saluting with a laugh, Jevin and Biffa set to work on the pillow fort, building up the walls. Wels continued to lounge about, pointing out where to improve the walls and where to add details, as a true king should.

("Jevin if you slime up those pillows you will be banished."

"A little late for that."

"You're on laundry duty tomorrow."

":(" )

They were almost done with the walls when someone began knocking at the door. Wels looked up from his seat, glancing at the door. A wicked plan formed in his mind. “Oh Jevin~” he said in a sing-song voice, prompting the slime to look up from where he knelt near the foundations. Wels couldn’t hold back a grin as he continued imperiously, “There is someone at the door. Go invite them into this humble abode.”

Jevin’s eyes flicked back to his work. “I’m working on the foundations, send Biffa!”

Wels had to hide a snicker behind his hand as he watched Biffa’s face cycle through the five stages of grief, his chest monitor blinking frantically from one emotion to another. Eyes flicking between his two friends, Biffa could tell there was no convincing them to switch with him. With as much indignance he could muster, Biffa stood. “I put you on that throne, and this is how you repay me? Should I not have a better reward Your Highness?” he pleaded, still trying to weasel his way out of his new chore. Wels simply waved his hand at Biffa. "Exactly. You put a tyrant on the throne, you pay the consequences. Now go, it is your duty."

With no way out, Biffa gave a small hmph as he finally left to invite the new arrivals in. A beat, then two beats of silence. Jevin looked up at Wels, who met his gaze.

Then the spell was broken and they dissolved into laughter, giggling like teenagers.

"Did you see his face! It was priceless!" Wels gasped, bent over double in laughter.

"I wish I did when you say that! You're acting was so perfect, I could hear him struggling not to laugh!"

They were only just beginning to recover from their laughing fit when a distinct robotic voice drifted down the hallway. "We've been building a pillow fort, and Wels is bullying me! I did all the hard work, and he sends me off to be messenger? Unfathomable!" The offended tone of voice sent them spiralling into laughter yet again, Jevin having to pull away from the walls and lay down before he knocked something over.

And so it was that when Zedaph, Impulse and Tango entered the room, they were greeted by two hermits dying of laughter in their various positions. Biffa gave a loud sigh as he looked over his idiots. "You see? I have to do all the hard work around here, while they goof around!"

Gasping for air, Wels shouted in their general direction. "Hey! You put me on this throne, what did you expect? To be treated like royalty?"

"Maybe?" came the meek reply, sending not just Wels and Jevin but the ZIT into a manic laughing fit. Biffa huffed at the lack of support from his friends, mock-angrily stomping his way over to the fort. Gently shoving a giggling Jevin aside, he began to roughly build up the wall, his wide grin betraying his true feelings.

Impulse was the first to recover, slinging his arms over the shoulders of his fellow ZIT. “Well boys, if they have a pillow fort, then we just have to make the best blanket fort this world has ever seen!”

Zedaph’s eyes lit up, the sheep man’s tail wagging frantically in sudden excitement. “Oh oh oh can we make it look like a sheep? Please?”

One look from Tango and Impulse was enough to send Zedaph running off squealing, a big happy grin on his face. Wels giggled as he watched them split up to look for supplies to begin their wooly project. “Search the upper rooms! I have blankets up there!” he yelled down the corridor, the response coming back echoed and distorted with a happy note.

Biffa looked up at him, big dopey grin still in place. “I put a sign in front of the doors, so anyone else coming will know to just come straight in.”

Wels gave him a quick thumbs up, sagging backwards into his seat with a yawn. The past - how long has it been now? He assumed its been half an hour, the sun barely casting its rays into the room - half an hour, while it had been fun, drained his small reserve of energy, leaving him boneless in his seat. He sighed. He really wanted to hang out with his friends, but a nap, no matter how scary sleep was right now, sounded like an increasingly good idea.

...but they went through all the trouble of arranging a sleepover party, the least he could do was to humour them. Weakly, he began to push himself up into a sitting position when a curtain of darkness was thrown over him. Flailing disorientedly, he pulled his head out from under the constricting item, staring down at what he recognised as a blanket.

What?

Looking up, he found Impulse hovering above him, soft concern clashing with the mischief in their eyes. "You don't have to stay awake if you feel tired, you know." Impulse said, moving to lie down next to Wels, a blanket in his hands. "Everyone needs rest sometimes. We can join them again when we wake up."

Wels could tell that Impulse wasn't remotely tired, with his fingers fidgeting with the blanket over him. It should feel like pity, make him feel bad.

Instead, it just makes him feel warm inside, knowing that they didn't want him to feel left out. He shakes his head lightly. "Alright mum, I'm gonna sleep now."

Letting the resulting giggles of his friends wash over him, Wels pulled the blanket up around his shoulders and lay back down, snuggling up against Impulse without any hesitation. He felt an arm wrap around him and pull him in snugly, solid and firm. He breathed in, smelt the unique mix of redstone iron dirt that was Impulse, letting it soothe him as he drifted off to sleep.

-----------

Blue laughter questions bells sparks lights smiling crashing ringing all-consuming mind-numbing-

-tin knight?

Wels jolted awake with a gasp, clutching his hands close to his chest. Dimly, he recognised that he was only wearing cloth and leather, not quite sleepwear, not quite his normal wear. There was something rubbing between his hands, and he shifted his attention as fully as he could onto it.

Rubbing it between his covered fingers, he zeroed in on its features, picking out threads. Fabric, he was holding something fabric. Memories trickled in slowly, as they always did after an event like that. He quickly brushed aside any memories of his nightmare, shuddering as he did so. Never a good thing to remember those.

What was he doing earlier? He remembered laughter, and friends, and…

Head snapping up, Wels looked around to see if anyone had witnessed his awakening. He didn’t want anyone to know that he had nightmares, much less what kind of nightmares they were.

He found himself surrounded in a hollow made of pillows, with no one around. He supposed that Impulse must have gotten up at some point while he rested. That was fine. Muffled noises filtered in through the walls, louder and more chaotic than he remembered falling asleep to. Nightmare forgotten, blanket wrapped tight around him, Wels crawled out of the small cave to meet the chaos he could hear outside.

Four small pillow walls met him as he exited, Jevin and Biffa shouting excitedly across the room over them. There were two other people he could see standing on the walls, a red shirt and torn lab coat each. Ren and Doc, when did they come?

“Well, look who finally woke up?”

Jolting at the sudden voice, Wels looked around, trying to find who spoke.

The voice chuckled. “Behind and below you Wels.”

Oh. Oops. Embarrassed, Wels turned his attention away from the walls before him. In a corner of the fort, he saw TFC sitting with his back against the wall next to the hole he just crawled out of, two blanket lumps snuggled against him. Smiling, the old hermit waved Wels over. Obeying the unspoken request, Wels sat down cross-legged before TFC. “Hi TFC, mind telling me what I missed out on while asleep?”

TFC chortled, his laughter a balm on Wels’ still shaken world. One of the blanket lumps grumbled at the movement of its pillow, shifting to drag its blanket further over its head. Wels caught a glimpse of green plated armour before TFC began to speak, capturing his attention.

“I can’t tell you exactly what happened before I arrived, but the Sahara boys took over what remained of the couch, those ZIT boys managed to create a standing sheep out of blankets, and your friends over there made this pillow fort. I don’t know what’s happening now, Python and I were trying to get Xisuma to rest and now I’m trapped under two sleepy hermits.” He shook his head. “You boys don’t know how to take a break. You either won’t sleep or you start a war.”

That comment threw Wels for a loop. “Wait, a war?”

“W E L S”

The sudden shout was accompanied by a weight on his back, with only a singular arm around his chest keeping him from falling forward. He blinked down at the red-and-yellow arm around him and sighed, a small smile playing at his lips. “Hi Biffa.”

A weight dropped onto his head, heavy but familiar. “Hey. Finally wake up sleeping beauty?”

“Yes, but whatever have you two been up to while I slept!” Wels exclaimed, twisting around to face Biffa. Or, more accurately, Biffa’s chest, since Biffa still had his head set firmly on his own. The arm now at his back tugged him in firmly, and he didn’t resist the impromptu hug even as he kept talking. “Mmph, TFC said there was a war? What did you guys do?”

“Oh, that wasn’t us this time!” Biffa exclaimed, releasing his hold on Wels to gesture wildly. Wels whined at the loss of touch, prompting Biffa to slide an arm around his waist and pull him to his side. “You see, when the Architects arrived, they claimed what remained of the couch and dubbed it Woodlandia. In an attempt to acquire more resources for their build, they attacked us and Sheepent (that’s what ZIT built by the way). We only just managed to call a truce cause no one wanted to make Zed cry and TFC insisted on making our base into a bedroom, but tensions are rising once more. We must prepare to defend our homeland my liege, for when they come they will be swift and unforgiving.”

Wels pulled a face. “Another war? Can’t we just be friends?”

Biffa huffed, pulling himself and Wels to their feet. “Tell that to everyone else. They’re bloodthirsty. Nothing could possibly dampen their hunger!”

Wels’ response was interrupted by the slam of a door. Sharing a glance, the two scrambled to peak over the nearest wall. All around the room, hermits had fallen silent in various positions, all focus on the footsteps coming down the hallway. The question was in the air, who would join them in this fight for comfortable sleeping rights?

Scar stepped into the room, mouth open in preparation to speak.

And stumbled over his words, flustered and clearly not expecting everyone in the room to be looking at him. Clearing his throat, he tried again. "Hello, uh, everyone who is here! Concorp has arrived and we bring the feast with us!"

A towering stack of shulkers wobbled out from behind Scar. The room was so quiet that one could hear Scar whispering to Cub. "Are you sure you don't need help? I ca-"

"No no I'm fine. Just let me-"

Slowly, the tower inched forward, hermits moving out of the way yet keeping an eye on the shaking tower, instinctively aware that something was going to happen. Reaching the coffee table at the center, Cub finally put down the shulkers with a plop. Dusting his hands off, Cub stepped out of the immediate danger zone and spread his arms wide. "Let them eat cake!"

And with that, everyone burst into motion, scrabbling to get food. Wels looked out over the sea of children, observing how each hermit tried to grab dinner for themselves. Beside him, Biffa laughed at the mess below.

"What's this, the Hunger Games?" Came Doc's voice from his other side. The wall dipped slightly, and Wels looked up to see that Ren had clambered up to stand at the top. Arms held dramatically high, he shouted "May the odds be ever in your favour!", sending Doc roaring with laughter. Wels watched a still-laughing Doc push Ren off the wall, and a lightbulb went off in his mind. Subtly moving away from the wall, Wels gathered all his strength and gave Biffa an almighty push, sending the hermit over the wall, hands cartwheeling frantically. Barely holding back his own laughter, Wels shouted over the wall at Biffa. "Go get me some food!"

"You're sending me into this carnage? Your best friend?" Came the indignant reply.

“Yes.” Wels answered, completely deadpan. TFC's voice came over the racket, cutting off Biffa’s answer. "Grab some for these two too!"

Biffa instantly spun on his heel, sending one last comment over his shoulder as he entered the fray. "Alright I'm going, but only because grandpa asked!"

Giggling, Wels cast his gaze back to the crowd. There was an oddly empty split in the mess where only one person walked. Looking closer, he saw False, face set in a deadly scowl, stalking down the empty aisle. Yeah, nope, no one would willingly mess with that. He could see Iskall sitting on Grian's shoulders screaming, their combined height less intimidating when you consider their combined lack of height. A presence at his side alerted him to Jevin's arrival. Wordlessly, he slung an arm over Jevin, pulling him in close and silently watching the insanity unfold.

Hollering from his left, “Fire in the hole!”, and a trident went flying over the masses, Ren clinging to it. Hermits ducked instinctively as the trident flew its course, Iskall yelping and barely avoiding both the trident and falling off of Grian. The trident embedded itself into the top shulker with a thunk! Ren climbed up on top of the tower, laughing triumphantly, as the trident’s loyalty enchantment sent it flying back to Doc’s hand, the german creeper’s cackles mingling with Ren’s. “I claim everything in the top shulker for the RenDoc! Viva la Stock Exchange!” Ren screamed, laying down flat on the untouched top shulker. Wels watched the crowd shift. “Oh no, this is going to be hilarious.” Jevin whispered into his shoulder.

“Down with the Dog!” came a yell from within the crowd that sounded like a certain B-double-O. Like a wave, the hermits all moved to shake the shulker tower. Ren clung stubbornly to the top, unwilling to let go. Funnily enough, there was still a berth of empty space around False as she calmly collected two plates of food and headed back to Stress.

Movement before the fort caught Wels’ attention. With some light struggle, Biffa’s red and yellow armour could be seen moving towards them, a plate laden with food held proudly in the air above him. Biffa stepped over the wall under Wels’ eager gaze, only to sweep past him and present the dish to TFC, much to Jevin’s amused laughter. His laughter only increased when Biffa sauntered over and produced another plate for Jevin, a large shit-eating grin on his face.

Huffing, Wels crossed his arms, looking away in fake insult. His friends’ laughter peaked, then calmed down. A tug on his shoulder brought Wels’ attention back to them, to which Biffa offered him a third plate. “For you, m’lady.” he smirked, knee bent.

Wels’ cheeks puffed out in an attempt to reign in his laughter. Biffa quickly continued, weaving a story of the many perils he had to pass through to obtain such legendary meals for ‘his lady’. He got as far as being stared down by the angered False-dragon before Wels couldn’t take anymore, laughing uproariously as he accepted his dues. Biffa flopped against Wels’ right side, sliding into the gap that was made for him as they began to dig into their dinner.

The noises outside the fort suddenly gained a panicked edge, calling the three friends to attention. They peeked over the walls just in time to witness the shulker tower collapsing, boxes landing on multiple hermits. They could see Iskall finally being knocked off of Grian’s shoulders by a falling box, landing on top of poor Tango, another box bouncing off of Joe’s upheld book, still more bouncing about the crowd as some of the more excited hermits began a game of Pass the Shulker. Ren was lost among the crowd for a minute before bursting out from underfoot, shulker miraculously staying on his back as he ran on all fours and leapt over the wall into Doc’s arms, laughing breathlessly at their successful heist.

Giggling at the sudden hijinks, the trio settled into comfortable positions to watch and eat, Wels pulling the blanket off his shoulders to drape across all three of them in a warm bundle.

Gradually, as each hermit grabbed their dinner, the noise and chaos died down, replaced by happy chatter. The room was surprisingly clean after the chaos earlier, allowing Wels to put his worries of cleaning up the next day to rest. He basked in the warm environment around him. It made all his tired problems seem so far away and insignificant in the face of this overwhelming sense of belonging.

The front door opened and closed yet again, footsteps strutting down the hallway and coming to a stop at the entrance to the room they were in. The new entrant flipped her crimson hair over her shoulder, sighing dramatically. “Sorry I’m late guys, Karen the drowned and Lucielle the husk wanted me to deal with their little family drama.”

Joe practically popped to his feet, flinging himself at the person. “Cleo! You have finally arrived, after all the chaos of hunger has left us cold with nothing but the warmth of camaraderie to keep us up.”

Cleo chuckled, catching Joe and spinning him gently. “Hey Joe. Sorry I missed so much. Sounds like you guys had fun?”

Immediately, everyone was clamouring to answer her, voices overlapping in a disconcerting way. Wels flinched slightly, covering his ears with his hands. He could feel the concerned gazes of Biffa and Jevin on him, but he could care less at the moment. The multitude of voices was too much for him to handle.

“Quiet! Calm down you guys!”

And as suddenly as it started, the noise stopped. Wels slowly pulled his hands away from his ears, opening eyes he hadn’t realised he had closed. Looking up at Biffa and Jevin’s concerned gazes, he waved them off. It was only a minor thing, no need to worry anyone. Cleo huffed. “Jeez, you guys are like school children.”

Everyone in the room shuffled in embarrassment under Cleo’s stern gaze. She seemed to remember something, gaze turning even harsher than before, arms akimbo and looking like an angry mother. “Speaking of which, who hasn’t been sleeping? There are, like, 60 phantoms outside. There is no way twenty one of you could have summoned that many, especially since I know that only four of you are chronic sleepers. So, who is it.”

The room was silent, no one wanting to expose themselves or their friends. Cleo pinched her nose lightly. “Alright, fine, don’t spill the beans, but you guys have to go to sleep. The moon’s almost at its peak. Wels, which room can fit all these idiots in it?” Cleo said, her attention suddenly on Wels.

Luckily, Wels had just the room in mind. “The library on the second floor. It’s big and has a large window, can’t miss it.”

Cleo clapped her hands together. “Alright, let’s get up there and go to sleep. I don’t want to see any phantoms tomorrow, that many together results in so much gossip that I want to burn down a building.”

Slowly, reluctantly, the hermits picked up the various bedding and pillows lying around and headed upstairs. ZIT could be seen petting Sheepent goodbye as they dismantled it in seconds, the Architects rushing past them to claim a spot upstairs first. Wels felt a soft, questioning pet on his back, a request. Smiling softly, he nodded, letting Biffa lift him in a bridal carry similar to earlier. From his new vantage point, he could see Jevin collecting a pile of pillows, stacking enough for six people. Behind him, TFC was cradling Xisuma to his chest, Python hanging off his back. Shifting his focus in front, he could see Cleo hefting Joe over her shoulder, the poet holding his arms up in triumph as Cleo sighed a smile. Keralis had picked up Bdubs in a bridal hold similar to what Biffa had done to Wels, both hermits giggling giddily. Doc could be seen preparing yet again to throw a whooping Ren using his trident, aiming for the staircase. Scar and Cub were leaning against each other, shoulders pushing as they chattered.

Looking around with a content smile, Wels buried his face into Biffa’s chest, sighing happily. The steady footsteps of Biffa lulled Wels into a hazy state between the waking and sleeping world, the ambient noise of chatter fading into a distant hum. He barely noticed when Biffa laid him down, squishing him between friends and covering him with a blanket.

“Good night Jevin, Wels.”

“Night Biffa, Wels.”

Wels valiantly pulled himself out of the embrace of sleep, murmuring, “‘ight Biffa, Jevin.”

Two sets of arms hugged tight around his waist, Wels drifted off to the steady rise and fall of his friend’s breaths and the background drone of hermits finding places to sleep and wishing each other good night.

--------------------

A loud scream pierced the night, startling everyone awake. Scar sat up quickly in concern, lifting his hat out of his face. The scream had petered out to faint, heaving sobs that were loud in the silent room. He could feel Cub push himself upright next to him, worry palpable. Whoever had screamed was still sobbing, but they couldn’t see anything in the dark of the room. Someone was trying to comfort them, their shushing noises audible. There was a familiar tingle in the air, Vex magic, a call, one that Scar brushed aside. That wasn’t important right now, they could wait until later.

Then, there was light. Blinking spots from his eyes, Scar quickly began looking around the room for whoever was in danger, eyes flicking briefly to Ren and the torch he held. Identifying the source of the disturbance, Scar felt his heart sink, scrambling to his feet.

In the far corner of the room, Biffa and Jevin supported a sobbing Wels between them, gently trying to calm him down. The knight was wide-eyed, tears streaming down his face as his hands gripped painfully tight to Biffa’s arm. Scar recognised that look, he’d seen it before in Cub’s face on rough nights.

Nightmare. And a bad one.

Stress got there before him, hands moving to hold Wels’ gently. She shot Scar a look, a hundred words passing between them. Whirling around, he held his arms out to block the other hermits. “Let’s give him some space to calm down guys. We don’t want to overwhelm him so soon.”

A smattering of agreement, the rest of the hermits automatically moving to sit in a circle. Everyone looked concerned, whispering among themselves. Cub grasped Scar’s shoulder, both hermits sinking to the floor to wait for Wels.

After a few tense minutes of listening to Wels’ gut-wrenching sobs, Stress sank onto the blanketed floor beside Scar, catching everyone’s attention. She gestured for them to remain quiet. “I think we all can tell that he’s had a nightmare, a right bad one. Turns out, he’s been having them for the past few weeks, ever since that incident.”

Scar and Cub winced in unison. They remembered that incident better than most. All anyone else knew was that the Vex were involved. But they knew better.

Stress continued, “He’s been too scared to tell anyone, didn’t want ta be a burden. So don’t coddle him, ya hear?”

A round of nods. Satisfied, Stress stood and returned to the group huddled in the corner, whispering softly to them. Some shifting, and Wels finally spoke, his voice shaky with fresh tears. “S-sorry to make you worry, everyone.”

Scar joined in on the chorus of it’s ok and as long as you're alright that circled around the room. Wels shifted slightly, and Scar’s attention was drawn to how Wels fiddled with the gauntlets and bracers on his arms. Did he not take them off? Maybe he felt safer wearing armour to sleep, if this had been going on for a while. Second-hand guilt rose in his gut. Cub’s hand squeezed his shoulder, letting him know that he was being too obvious. He swallowed his guilt. This was about Wels, he could deal with himself later.

“Could, uhm-” Wels stumbled over his words, uncertain of what he was asking. Jevin reached over to hold Wels’ hand, which appeared to give Wels the courage he needed to get his request out. “Could we all sleep, a little closer tonight? I don’t want to be alone.” The last part was whispered, yet echoed so much louder than anything he had said previously.

Scar wasn’t going to say no. Without hesitation, he stood, grabbing a random blanket and moving forward slowly. He offered Wels a gentle smile. “Of course, anything for a fellow hermit.”

The smile Wels returned was so fragile and shaky that it almost broke his heart. He found a spot between Biffa and Wels’ feet, sliding in to fit himself against them. “Is this good?”

Wels’ answer, while no less shaken, contained a small, uplifted smile in his tone. “Yes, this is good.”

Someone settled in next to him. Scar turned his head and found himself face to face with Cub, who gave him a small smile. Around him, hermits found spaces to pile in, some laying on top of each other. When the noise of movement had died down, he could hear Stress ask, “Is this good Wels?”

A moment of consideration. “Yes, thank you.”

A soft hum. “Good night Wels.” Jevin’s voice said. “Sleep well.”

The sentiment rolled around the room, every hermit offering their own good nights before settling back into sleep.

Just before Scar drifted off fully, he heard Wels softly whisper, “Good night, everyone. And thank you.”

#shadow people au #uh oh man I wrote everyone in here #hermits #there no problems like that #been a while since I wrote something this long #and god its so fluffy #love it so much #aight trigger tags time #nightmares #and that's it folks!#yes I demand the fluffy from myself this time #the hermits have one braincell and its with cleo #who's LATE #my writing

19 notes · View notes

crqstalite · 4 years

Text

SHADOW OF THE SITH, Ch. 9

i said ‘hey 7k sounds like a good place to stop.’ but because i got expository again, i decided ‘hey lets add another 3.4k words to this mess so no one feels like they’re getting cheated out of a story!’ so here’s 10k words of a badass deciding she isn’t taking shit from anyone anymore.

disclaimer: i don’t hate quinn, tri’ama does.

inspiration : cosmic love, florence + the machine.

TRI'AMA._YAVIN_IV.

Another Revanite seizes up before the woman, a grin on the Inquisitor's face, strands of wet hair falling in her face delicately. The shadows cast a menacing look onto her face as thunder claps in the distance, lightning flashing as Tri'ama catches a glimpse of the lightsaber through the soldier's midsection, burning a hole through their uniform. The lavender blade disignites, and Nox hooks the hilt neatly on her combat belt as the person falls to the ground in a heap, eyes rolling into the back of their skull.

"Break?" She asks the two who'd accompanied her on the mission into the ruins. The soft, soothing voice of a mother is out of place on Yavin, and it sends shivers down her spine as Darth Nox acknowledges their presences. Her eyes are anything but warm and inviting, glowing a dark gold. It's as if she's offering them a midday snack instead of a break from the rampant hordes of enemies they've faced all day long.

She's pleased with herself over the murders of what feels like millions of people amongst the ruins, though Naji's presence has gone strangely quiet during their march through. Not a single Revanite has fallen to the Jedi's doublesaber, the occasional healing thrown out. Usually it tended to drive her up the metaphorical walls, but the Jedi Master hasn't said a word. Any Revanite that attacked her, she refused to kill, only to injure in any way possible. In sight or out of it, Mierrio often finished the job. Tri'ama nearly feels bad for the Barsen'thor, surrounded by so much death. The two of them thrived off it, but the Jedi typically didn't. If anything, she looked a little green around the gills as a splatter of blood soaks into her armor.

Nervously, the Barsen'thor -- Naji, nods and they move to a less populated area of the ruins to presumably rest. Thankfully, it's under a stone overhang, so the three have managed to effectively dry themselves for a duration of time. It seems whenever she ends up with one or the other, she manages to get soaked. Tri'ama chuckles to herself, there must've been a constant here somewhere.

The pale woman is a mystery, and impossible to decipher her true intentions even after all the years they'd known each other in passing.

And again after they'd both ascended to the Council.

And essentially attempted to kill each other. More than once.

Darth Mierrio Revel-Kallig is just like a rancor in waiting and a literal beast on the battlefield as she strikes down adversary after adversary with no remorse for the loss of life, but how prim and proper she ends up being while on Dromound Kaas in the sight of the Dark Council. Proper black formal attire, hair pinned up and away from her face, it's hard to tell which personality she's talking to half the time. Right now though, she's in her element. Torn armor, mussed hair, blood all over her robes, and happily pulls out a kolto patch and perches herself on a broken stone. Even Tri'ama has to admit she's still the epitome of grace post-battle, running a hand through her hair when a barely curved back, one leg crossed over the other. As if she's preparing for a photo-shoot instead of the battle of a lifetime. Rolling up a sleeve, she stretches out her arm and looks up to Tri'ama, "Sit for a bit, darling. There's still a lot I don't know about you after all this time that we've known each other. Good a time as any."

Blazes, so this was going to be one of those conversations. Those 'picking Tri'ama apart just because I can and because hypothetically I'm on the same power level as her' conversation. She hated talking about herself to begin with, and now she was concerned Nox may have known this and is taking advantage of it in front of Naji. The other woman is paying attention rather well though, even if she's attempting to appear as if she isn't, eyes closed and glowing dimly in the shadowed area. Can't figure why that would be good for either of them, but she figures she'll amuse the other woman for a bit.

"There's nothing you need to know, Nox." She answers, taking her own inventory after the last big fight as they slowly make their way out of the cave. Dealing with the puzzle within took time, and it was frustrating enough that she was considering just destroying the thing and finding Revan on her own, but Nox had deciphered it quick enough that she'd only had to defend the two against a few packs of wild beasts. She could cross nature excursion off her vacation list after all of this, and readjusts her hood to cover her hair properly before responding, "Nothing that's on a need to know basis, in your case."

Mierrio muses for a moment, pressing the salve onto her pale skin. While it soaks, she looks up to her with a pointed look in her eye that Tri'ama mistakes for the look of a hunting predator akin to that of the beasts they'd just fought off, "What about that Quinn fellow? Your wedding was wonderful to attend, where is he now?"

Tri'ama hesitates, attempting not to make her position on the matter too clear to the women in her company, hiding behind her respirator as to not make her emotions clear.. She's not sure if Naji knows the current state of her affairs with the man, or even whether Nox is just pressing her buttons or not. Does she know what she's been trying to get up to lately? Aghdani had never been close to her, as far as she knew. The Iridonian wasn't friends with many others on the Council as it was, and had never taken a liking to her either.

It wasn't like the divorce had gone quietly either. Quinn was still frustrated in his own way that she was no longer his wife, though made it clear he disagreed with her ruling. He wore his ring proudly, parading around the Fury as if he still owned the place. Well, in his own quiet rebellion that was. She often could sense him lingering in front of her quarter's door, never staying for long but the feeling of desire strong in his presence.

Desire and longing were the only things the man felt nowadays. It keeps her up at night, and she nearly feels bad for him, denying him his true feelings. At times, she even finds herself missing him next to her at night, the other side of the bed cold when she sleeps and when she wakes. But the ever-present scars on her body she can see in the mirror when she suits up for the day are a quick reminder to why. Why those blue eyes are constantly a lie, why his soft, caressing touches during her treatment will only lead to another cycle of pain.

Aghdani had refused the reassignment of the man after only a day with him just as she had feared, an email sent days later that she wasn't going to put up with this new assistant of hers and that Tri'ama could just kill him if she wanted to rid herself of him that badly. The connotation of the message had come off surprisingly well for just being a message as well, just as angry and spoken with a heavy Imperial accent as if the woman had been there herself.

She wouldn't say that she hadn't considered the thought rather heavily. But as much as she fingered the hilt of her lightsaber late at night at the door of the medbay, she couldn't bring herself to simply rid herself of him in such a manner. He didn't deserve justice like that, and she'd only prove herself no better than those on the Council.

It scared her to have his hands roaming about her body again after all the fights she'd managed to get into. Lana had been rendered unavaliable with her assignments with Marr, and she wasn't about to ask Satele for healing either. Naji was routinely gone with Whyatt on other missions to bring both sides of the coalition closer together, and she'd never trusted Nox with her body before. She didn't intend to start now. Though some injuries had become unbearable, and force healing wasn't something learned in a day either.

Naji may have been healing her at the point, she's not sure. There's a certain softness numbing her mind right then, and it feels like her healing.

"Why do you care, Nox?" Is all she can ask, not even looking her directly in her eyes as she processes how to answer her question, rolling her wrist and waiting for it to crack satisfyingly, "Quinn is Quinn."

Mierrio raises an eyebrow, obviously suspicious, "You didn't bring him on planet, you brought that little Twi'lek girl, the one who always talked too much. I remember you used to drag around the poor man like a pet -- blazes he used to act like one too. Waiting on you hand and foot, never an opinion deviating from your own. Kriff, that always gave me a good laugh. It was as if he was made to please a Sith. Breeded to, if you will."

Tri'ama doesn't laugh with her, though Nox is right in some capacity. Parts of their relationship made it clear one was clearly more powerful than the other. It had always been that way, and neither had ever bothered to ask why. Tri'ama had never tried to rise him to her side rather than beneath her, as most Sith-force blind relationships ended up being. Now, she didn't regret doing so considering what he'd done, how much more information he would've had on her. But she regrets her actions before landing on Yavin, even though she knows they were right.

"And in the end, I will seek you out among the stars."

"Quinn?" Naji questions quietly, pulling her own ponytail out and letting her golden curls dust her shoulders. Scarily, Tri'ama had forgotten she was still there amongst all her own scatter-brained thoughts. The Barsen'thor was rather innocent in the matter that she (or as far as they knew) didn't deal in the same sorts of relationships the two Sith did. Was she even married? Or with anyone, for that matter? The Barsen'thor was Jedi, and they had some sort of code against passion of any kind, and marriage seemed like it was in that ballpark. Or love in general. She figured all the people in the Republic were more committal than they were anyways. She wouldn't expect her to understand the struggle.

For some reason, that stings.

She'd been as silent as a mouse for the last few minutes, sitting cross-legged on the ground, and Tri'ama had assumed she was meditating and healing from the past few skirmishes, open wounds now visibly scarring over. Now though, her grey eyes are inquisitive, looking to Tri'ama first, "Is he the soldier who's been with you as of late?"

Mierrio laughs loud at the question before she can answer, nearly out of character for her as she regards the woman with a distasteful smirk that for some reason annoys Tri'ama, "Oh blazes no. Quinn would have a heart attack if he heard you compare him to the Lieutenant. That's Pierce, Quinn is a starchy old fellow who likes to grovel at our dear Darth Amarillis-Quinn's feet and play dutiful plaything."

Tri'ama grits her teeth at the hyphenated last name she'd been able to shed (though without official records being changed accordingly just yet), and Naji looks uneasy at the response, flickering her gaze to Nox, "Right." She's understandably uneasy, the answer was odd and demeaning, brushing her fingers through her tangled blonde hair. She'd been the only one without a hood in their small scouting party, and had gotten drenched, "I wasn't aware you were married, Wrath." She says curiously, the epitome of serene with the backdrop of the jungles as she drops a metaphorical bomb on her.

I'm not, is on the tip of her tongue, And I never will be again. Not to him.

Don't say anything about Theron either, is in the forefront of her mind as she considers that Naji may know more than she's letting on about her and the SIS agent. For a foolish moment, she wonders if they talk about her when she's not around.

"How odd. I believed you would've brought your dear husband with you, Wrath. What is he doing these days, running odd jobs for you in Sith Intelligence? I always despised that lot, poking their noses where they don't belong." Nox questions before she can even formulate a response. So that was her perogative. Either she knew the truth and was trying to get her to say it, or was genuinely clueless and was hoping to get a rise out of her. Tri'ama couldn't think of a time that the woman ever truly liked Quinn, mostly because of his uptight mannerisms. Given she'd never liked the informal manner of her husband, the pirate. Andronikos Revel had never sat quite right with her, and she often questioned how the man had accepted fatherhood so readily by the way Nox spoke of their relationship. Possibly because of her past, she wasn't attracted to such ruffians in the way Mierrio was. At the very least, Quinn had been an open book in his opinions of her.

All until the end.

"Then I suppose your husband has run off again if he's not here either?" If Nox wanted to be petty, she could be petty right back. It's childish, she knows, but she wants to talk about anything else other than Quinn. Anything other than the man that had forced his way back into her life, even though she'd thrown him out. Anything other than the man that kept her perpetually anxious as soon as she stepped on the Fury every night. Anything other than the man who ruined the one good thing in her life.

Anything other than the man who'd ruined everything.

She's scored a point, because her face goes ashen, eyes narrowing in offense as Tri'ama continues on her tirade, "Even if Quinn grovelled, I knew where he was at all times -- who he was with. More than you can say."

"Andronikos remains to be more independent than your fool of a husband though. He could stand up on his own two feet." She nearly growls. Tri'ama has struck a chord with her. Mierrio had always been oddly protective of her relationship with the pirate, and it's rather satisfying to feed off her anger. Nox's had been always been different than Aghdani's, or Lana's. Roiling, dark, hot, and strong. Oh, and it was so easy to get her all riled up just in time for a fight. Years after the Revel's spontaneous marriage, she still couldn't figure what was such a sore spot for her, other than that he used to never be around as often.

In a sense, she's almost right. Though there'd been more than a few times that the pirate had gone missing during one of her especially brutal moments, and Tri'ama had accordingly made note of that for use in later arguments. In the recesses of her mind, she wonders why Nox is even out here fighting with the coalition. According to passing gossip, she'd just recently given birth to her second biological child only a few months ago, not to mention that her Sphere still needed her on other planets. It explained her weakness on the battlefield and her more defensive tactics as well, "My children won't grow up with a pushover for a father, unlike your legacy."

"You and I both know I have no intention of raising a family of my own, Nox." Tri'ama laughs darkly at the proposition (it'd be discussed, but never picked up again -- for good reason), rough beneath the effect of the respirator on her voice, "Hypothetically though, I'll never live in fear that any children of mine will grow up with someone who could leave at a moments notice for their own gain. Or someone more concerned with fighting petty battles than the bigger picture."

The scowl on the other woman's face is enough for her to claim victory over the argument. She's successfully pissed her off, for lack of other wording. She nearly formulates another response, but she's concerned there may be another scathing answer afterwards. Mierrio had never been one to give up easily, especially when it concerned her. They had more important things to attend to anyways, and arguments about ex-husbands and fathers wasn't among them.

"Don't think I haven't taken notice of your interest in the Grandmaster's son, either." Her voice oozes with triumph as Tri'ama makes to leave the overhang. Her eyes widen out of sight of the other Sith, effectively stopping her halfway in between their shelter and the rain. Nox scoffs at the gesture. She'd effectively been caught, and Tri'ama's surprised. Nox has never been one for the small details unless they applied to her, "That's right. It's rather obvious there's something going on there, just so you know. I knew Sith took whatever they wanted when they wanted it, but because you were married I was sure you'd be more committal than this. Can't wait until the Council hears about it. Oh the scandal."

Tri'ama is quick to turn around and find Nox with her hands on her hips, close and with a smirk on her face. Mock surprise dribbles out of her voice, a pale hand coming up to cover her mouth as she laughs wickedly, "You're in love with a Jedi's son. Forceblind no less! I thought you'd hit rock bottom with Quinn, but you just keep sinking."

She won't resort to violence, that's what Mierrio wants. Just to piss her off. Revan won't wait around for Mierrio's playground taunts to shut off. Tri'ama takes a breath, closing her eyes and trying to soothe herself back to being unshakable. Naji picks up her doublesaber from where she'd been sitting and squeezes past her back into the rain, thunder rumbling in the distance. It's nearly akin to her own emotions now. The Jedi is apprehensive, her presence giving it away, and has effectively removed herself from the situation entirely at the risk of being attacked while their backs are turned.

One more word out her mouth, and Tri'ama won't hesitate to defend herself. Or Theron. Asking for a Sith to respect a Republic agent with anything less than a strong distaste was asking a lot as it was, but Nox has lit a fire in her. Flashes of their last conversation still haunt her, still frustrating her late at night as the rain lulls her off into a restless sleep. All that's been on her mind has been Theron lately, and Nox's calculating glare isn't helping the matter. Threatening to tell the Council, it has to be one of the most childish things Mierrio has given an ultimatum to, but to her family, it'd be a major blow.

"I always knew you weren't cut out to be Sith. You may have come from a pureblood family...oops I mean raised by a pureblood family, but you hesitate at the worst of times. Mercy isn't a luxury or a necessity, and your ruthless edge has been dulled over the years," Mierrio cackles, pale face close to her own as her eyes narrow, taking her in, "It's truly sad, you were so promising. As much as you wish it, you'll never be one of us."

She slaps her.

Tri'ama has had enough.

The Sith recoils, surprise evident in her amber eyes as fury boils just beneath the surface. Tri'ama tries to keep her face stoic, unmoving. She won't continue being pushed around by the likes of Nox, and this is just one of about sixty million reasons why. Why she's willing to protect Theron against her, she isn't sure right then. But she's not only insulted him, but herself as well.

Her palm had left a bright red mark on her cheek, and is already bruising her porcelain skin. Her own hand stings through the thin glove, and Nox meets her eyes, nearly ready to respond something fierce before Tri'ama starts herself, "I am Sith. I was born Sith, and I always will be. Just because I don't kick those who are already down like the likes of you and the Council, doesn't change that. Don't forget your own bloodlines before you try to dirty mine, Revel. I'm sure mine extend much further than your own."

And for once in their young lives, Mierrio Revel-Kallig is left speechless. Her mouth is moving for a moment before standing up straight and pushing her own way out of their small structure without another word.

Tri'ama pauses herself for a moment, considering what she's done. When they're no longer fighting Revan, she can't expect any assistance from Nox anymore. She's now nailed that nail into that coffin, and will pay for it down the line. As satisfying as it was to do right then, the consequences may be more than she bargained for. Nox had pull in the Empire, and a power base that could possibly topple her if she wanted to.

She chuckles, watching her hands offhandedly as they check over her own body, saber hilts in her hands and being ignited. Not too many injuries, not enough to warrant a new kolto patch or a request of force healing.

You weren't going to give up anything for Quinn, now you're willing to give up everything you ever knew for a man who'll leave you as soon as someone prettier than you shows up, or as soon as the war orders him to kill you.

No one speaks for a long while on their trek to the small temple amongst the ruins, and Tri'ama is happy to keep it that way. Surely Naji would have her own questions later, but whatever connection they'd had previously has given away to static. Her presence is well hidden now, wound up well within that mind of hers as they continue fighting through Massassi and Revanites alike. Occasionally there's a warm healing over a certain injury or bruise she takes note of, but she doesn't bother saying anything to her when she does do it in a break of their adversaries. They're sporadic as well, and the gouges and bruises are piling up again, bleeding freely in the tears of her armor. She's halfway to believing Naji has grown scared of her.

Mierrio had similarily cut herself off from the rest of the group, but hood lowered as to wear the bruise proudly. Maybe to make her feel guilty, but she smugly reminds herself she doesn't care. Some do deserve to be hurt, and Nox deserves to be knocked down quite a few pegs.

It wasn't intentionally that she brought her past into the issue, she knew that much. Many liked to acknowledge that she was raised by purebloods but never one herself, not even a speck of it within her DNA. It was a constant reminder that she wasn't really an Amarillis, didn't really belong to a great bloodline even though she had been adopted at the age of only a few months. Tri'ama had never known anything else, but had been distant with her family since then.

It was a point Mierrio enjoyed to poke fun at, even though her own bloodline couldn't even be traced further than her ancestor, Lord Kallig. The little Tri'ama had become privy to was that she'd been a slave for years until they'd run into each other on Korriban as teenagers. Also, her children had been fathered by an ex-Republic solider, and well known Imperial criminal. To say the least, Tri'ama considers whether the other Sith are right to whispers about the impurity of their family. With how she's been treated since they knew each other, she also wonders if karma will continue being dealt out like this.

For her own sanity, she prays it does.

"We couldn't keep him from coming. Sorry!" Is essentially the message Vette has sent her once they reach the staging area again, and Tri'ama isn't immediately able to deal with this all at once. Trying to wrap her head around the idea of two Revans is enough at the moment, but getting all the other coalition missions done at some point before the entire planet went up in smoke? She's so exhausted, so absolutely drained emotionally and physically that she's considering shoving Quinn out an airlock just to get back on track, the way Pierce had suggested he go. Deal with the fallout whenever she came down from her battle high.

"It's good that you didn't. I told myself I was not altered by my centuries in the Emperor's grasp. But my actions were those of a madman, consumed by rage. I am glad to have left such evil behind." Revan, the real Revan, had paused, maybe taking all three battleworn women in, and his glance had landed on Tri'ama specifically before continuing, "You must do what I could not, Wrath."

Wrath. That's what she'd been for years, that was her whole identity. She was one of the most powerful Sith in the Empire right now. People respected her as such, gave her credit where credit was due.

The Emperor's...

Or the Empire's, was the question. She'd struggled with the idea for years since the Hand had found her, and even worse she'd learned there'd been one before her that was running around with a Jedi now. There'd been pointed glances toward one another as they went about their tasks on Yavin, but she grew more and more curious about the man as the days passed. He was tall and strong, not unusual for a pureblood, but he had an odd presence she couldn't put her finger on. He was kind enough to Whyatt, and hadn't made any moves to get rid of him as far as she was concerned.

Tri'ama wondered why she was the replacement for him. An up and coming Lord of Sith against a three hundred year old who'd served that time faithfully to the Emperor? She was powerful, but there was no question that he could easily crush her should he will it.

A flash of red catches her eye, and she spins around to focus on it, assuming the worst. Another Sith with red robes, nothing more. They pass by with little more than a glance, and Mierrio continues on while Naji pauses to wait for her. Running a hand through her wet hair, she brushes off Naji's questions and follows after the other woman, nearly frustrated again. There had been too many close calls as of late, and Mierrio's pestering hadn't helped with the issue either. Tri'ama had wanted to cut this off entirely and just be allies again and nothing more. Even if there was a possibility they could continue this affair after Yavin, it'd be frowned upon. They'd be lightyears upon lightyears away from each other, and it was nearly inevitable that she'd fight against him directly one day. To be directly or indirectly responsible for the death of a lover would haunt her until the end of the days. Tri'ama reminds herself this was still the best course of action, regardless of her true emotions for the man. But there was something so horribly alluring about him that she was sure she was going mad, or it was a trick of the Force again. There was no understanding it, and if she could just focus for two seconds without thinking about it, there wouldn't have been a problem.

Even with Quinn, he wasn't nearly as distracting. Her thoughts of him weren't as intrusive as her musing of the agent. Half the time he'd been distracted by her anyways. Turning the tables on her so quickly was so absolutely frustrating because she hadn't expected it. And Tri'ama hated surprises.

Her mind is elsewhere as Naji debriefs Satele and Marr on their mission to the ruins, and Whyatt turns out to be successful in his own small missions for some of the more prominent members of the temporary alliance. The scrawny Iridonian Zabrak man was, surprisingly enough, good for something she found, and was adept with duel wielding. He'd single-handedly fought off hordes of Massassi according to reports, and came back to tell the tale with only a gash over his nose. Well, there were more forest green bruises Naji later fussed over after the meeting was dismissed, but that was all that Tri'ama had noticed at the time.

It takes a bit for her to collect her thoughts and prep with the others for the next, and hopefully, last mission into Revan's hideout. There are battle plans, their flight in. It's going to be haunting her all night, and Yavin doesn't exactly have cantinas where she can numb away the thoughts until morning. The fight against Revan is going to be one where their willpower is going to be tested beyond belief. It had been a long while since she'd been in such a high stakes mission, where it was either kill or be killed. Flashes of her memories aboard Malgus' stealth ship, her short time on Makeb before Aghdani and Nox took over the mission, fighting the cyborg in the sinking ship on Manaan. More recently, the fuzzy memories she has of the mission to the station jammer. All moments that she was convinced would be the end.

This...this might actually be the end. Might be something she won't be able to walk away from.

Tri'ama would be lying if she said she wasn't worried. Yes, the Grandmaster of the Jedi herself is assisting in the operation. Two Dark Council members would be fighting alongside her. A Sith of immeasurable power, the Barsen'thor of the Jedi Order and the Defender of Tython, along with her own power.

And Theron.

Yet again, she'd be caught in a lie, should she admit she wasn't fearful for his safety. Not that he couldn't defend himself, she'd seen him fight on more than one occasion, and win. But his last words to her are beginning to ring around in her head. Blazes if she doesn't regret not responding to him and his well-meaning concern, to at. Even the false hope, the false spark that would've been lit for him if she'd stayed, if she'd taken him then and there, would've been better than this strained allyship. Comforted him that she would be okay, promised him that she'd come back to him.

The thought slips through her fingers again.

She doesn't love him, that's what comforts her at night. Admitting that aside from a regretful conversation and mutual admiration, there isn't anything keeping them together. That's the way it should be, anyways. Tri'ama should be able to go about her life like any other Sith. No lingering attachments with someone forbidden to her. Stars forbid she begin thinking she wants to belong to him in such a manner. After this, yes after this, she'll return to the Empire. Maybe someone else will catch her eye, maybe she'll remain alone for the rest of her reign as the Wrath.

All that matters is getting off Yavin with all her limbs intact. And preferably, everyone elses'.

Still, she ponders whether she should speak to him. Before all of this, at least. An ancient evil that could probably snap her neck if he wanted to, flick the light out of Theron's charming hazel eyes right before her was going to face them only twelve hours from now. Either way, it could be the worst way for either of them to go, falling to Revan in such a violent manner.

The tanned ring line taunts her as she moves to slip her gloves back on from where they'd sat on the table previously, having to type rapidly on her datapad earlier with their findings from the excursion in the ruins, and the gloves had interfered with the response time. Theron is not her's, and she is not his. I don't love him, is her first thought. She'd told herself she loved Quinn, and had burned a fire of desire for him for years. In the end, she ended up charred, with scars to prove her naivity.

Before she can even stop the thought, her legs are already moving towards the staging area, where she'd seen Jakarro's ship touchdown weeks ago, and where Theron had left to only ten minutes prior. It's now or never -- and she is hoping it's now. Or, this will haunt her for the rest of her natural and unnatural born life.

You're making a mistake, she thinks, It isn't worth your time anyways. No SIS agent wants anything more than a fling with a Sith anyways.

You aren't worth it.

Shut it.

Red. Red, red. She's searching either side of the courtyard for the jacket, hands in a perpetual fist on either side of her lithe body. People part for her, maybe knowing she's a woman on a mission. Jedi and Sith alike, she's searching for his presence among the dwindling throngs of people as they head off to barracks or shuttles to get rest for the upcoming battle. Nothing stands out to her, and with how many force sensitives are here, she's sure they can sense her desire just as much as the blood pounds in her ears. It'd be embarassing to explain to anyone what she's looking for, and she refuses to do so no matter who comes up to her to ask. Stars forbid Naji had found her after the discussion they'd had earlier with Nox. The woman would know immediately. Even worse if Nox herself sensed it.

She's nearly ready to give up half an hour later, ready to accept she's missed her chance, and hard. It's growing darker, and though the storm had let up sometime ago, it's threatening to return. It's hard not to make it evident she's disappointed. There's barely anyone left, and knowing her crew, someone would come looking for her if she didn't come back soon.

Even the droids who regulated speeder travel over the infinite jungle had been powered down and stored somewhere out of the rain once she reaches the outcropping. It feels like it's been forever since she's been alone with her emotions like this, and it's stifling. Now she knows why she keeps other people around for so long, she physically can not be trusted not to do something rash. She drags a hand down her face, a grimace over her lips as her fingers itch for something to crush. Why is she so damned frustrated? Hell why is this bothering her so much?

Why can't she just be every stereotypical Sith that had ever been born into this hellhole of a galaxy, and not care about how anyone else fares over her own health? Tri'ama hates that she wants him, wants his arms wrapped around her again, wants those burning kisses all over her. Hates that she does want to spend just a little more time with him. Hates that her honest emotions are being spiked by her need to belong, belong to something, belong to someone. Quinn had essentially quenched that thirst for the longest time, but had left her waiting for someone to fill the void. Sith didn't need to belong, they didn't need to love. They needed passion to thrive, and for some reason the galaxy had given her passion as their code required -- in the worst way possible. In the form of someone she couldn't have, in the form of someone she shouldn't have.

But she wants him. She wants Theron Shan more than she knows.

And she hates herself for it. She wasn't going to cry over him, she wasn't going to be making this a spectacle. Her thoughts unwillingly linger to Pierce. she'd admitted she was over Ashley for months now, and here she was, wanting anyone to take her no matter what consequences waited for it. It wasn't right to keep leading him on like that, but all she wants is to fall back into old routines, old comforts to heal her.

"My lord?" A quiet voice questions, startling her out of her thoughts as the sound of boots against stone fills the air. A sinking feeling of dread fills her as she processes the accent that pronounced her name and title for years beforehand, growing ever closer, "The crew was beginning to fret over your extended absence."

"I'm assuming that means you were fretting?" She asks a little too coldly, but as he comes into view he doesn't even seem a tad offended by her tone, "Pierce, Jaesa and Vette know I'm fine and wouldn't have sent you after me."

"I will admit, it has been a long while since I was in your service, I will not attempt to understand the reasoning behind the change in protocol, but I will accept it if that is what you wish." For a moment, he's quiet and Tri'ama really begins to take him in properly. A few gray hairs have appeared since he was gone, a salt and pepper look beginning to take hold on him. A younger her would've appreciated it, had he not betrayed her she would be proud to call him her husband.

"I do not feel conflicted in the least. Not about anything. Including you." It had been shortly after they'd disposed of Moff Broysc, something she doesn't regret to this day, but it had been a welcome surprise about this. She had originally meant to return to her own quarters after the mission debrief, go over what she knew about the Hand, but raises an eyebrow at the admission, curious of his nature. He pauses, waiting for her to allow him to continue, "I've held back long enough. Been too rigid, too inflexible. I won't suppress my feelings and desire any longer."

"You were a tad slow out the gate, Quinn. Pursue me if you must." She'd played hard to get, even though she'd flirted with him only the day prior, "Someone else may have caught my eye while you waited around."

"I know you're only testing me." He answers, such a strong challenge to her. A welcome challenge, of course. Showing even a little backbone was good, but this was the first time he'd done anything, or not taken her words at face value.

"Oh really? But how can you be sure?" She'd asked, both hands on either hip. Flirting and making fun of Quinn had been a pasttime at the time, and she wondered what his response would be this time, "What if there really is some Pureblood out there thinking of me in your stead?"

"I'm sure if he is out there, he was slower out the gate than I was to realize what kind of woman you are. Come to my quarters, and I'll show you." Tri'ama had to try not to widen her eyes at the offer, aware of how important that had been to him, to take control and not follow her lead first.

Tri'ama didn't often like surprises. In fact, she despised being out of the loop about anything. But this one, she had liked the challenge that he'd alluded to, "Lead the way then, Captain."

He had made no move to leave at that point, maybe musing over his next actions, but instead he'd thrown an arm around her waist and kissed her hard. It had been her very first kiss, and looking back on it, she regrets that it was with him. At the time, she found it hot, and had allowed him to drag her off into pleasurable night in her quarters (she had decided against screwing him in the crew quarters).

Once she'd returned to the cockpit in the morning, pleased but finding the other side of the bed empty (a tad disappointed he hadn't stayed the night, but she shivers at the thought now) he'd been there, a smirk on his face and a now-forgotten datapad in hand, "I'm glad we got that settled. I'll return to my post. I hope to see you off-duty again soon."

Tri'ama had very quickly returned the favor, yanking him forward by the leather of his uniform to kiss him hard, datapad clattering to the floor. While surprised, he'd allowed her to, and when they broke apart she had a wider smile on her own face, "There's no doubt you will, Quinn."

But all she has now for his is distaste, and a lack of trust to go with it. The memories had been so wonderful at the time, things she fell back on when she needed an extra boost during battle to remind herself what she fought for.

She can't tell, but she's sure he's armed somewhere. Even with the lack of blaster present, and that sends a shiver down her spine. With no one else in the immediate vincinity, she's eerily reminded of the night aboard the transponder station.

She's reminded all too easily of walking it with her hand in his, and returning to the Fury with her's nearly cut off had she been anymore ignorant of his intentions. Steeling her gaze on the temple in the distance, she asks, "Why are you here, Quinn?"

"I am fully aware you're able to make your own decisions, and would never question your judgement, my lord. But you put me on leave for years, and as soon as I return, you attempt to change my servitude to another. I'm afraid she didn't want me there," He begins, still looking out over the canopy of trees before turning his gaze to her, "You've attempted to rid yourself of me, my lord. So I ask, if you really did not want me around any longer, why didn't you just kill me as Darth Aghdani had made so evident she would do if you did not?"

"I have no interest in acting rash over issues in the past." Tri'ama answers, averting her gaze from his as she takes a shaky breath, "Your death would serve me no immediate or long term purpose, and until Jaesa learns to force heal, you still serve a purpose aboard the ship, even if my own emotions do not align with wanting you here. You betrayed me Quinn, and instead of staying away as I'd requested, you returned against my wishes. I'm sure your astute observations lead you to the conclusion I wouldn't be pleased."

He pauses for a beat, maybe truly considering her words before relaxing out of his perpetual parade rest and turning fully to her, "My lord. I ask you to reconsider the reassignment -- and the divorce. You were frustrated and acted rather quickly, and I barely had any concern in the matter. You pretended as if your love for me disappated in only a few months. You may not enjoy the thought, but I still care for you, my love. You have never left my thoughts."

I still care for you.

My love.

If she wasn't already haunted by the uniform, by having to sit down with him at the opposite end of the table when briefing the crew on missions, if it wasn't bad enough to have him here now telling her all these things years upon years too late. Things she would never accept, things that she would've loved to hear if it were from anyone but Captain Malavai Quinn, she will struggle to recover now. Moving on had felt like such a great idea hours prior to this, but she's terrified now. He's going to be around until she can find another unlucky, lower placed Sith Lord to take him away from her.

Her chest feels like it's tightening around her, as if her heart will begin pounding out her chest if she doesn't get out of here now. She tries to regulate her breathing, but he grows closer to her and it's suffocating. And this time, there's no Pierce to request for something, no Vette to pull her away for other, fake responsibilities. There's no one here to save her from her nightmare, and she's not sure she can continue putting on a brave face in front of him.

She wishes she weren't here right now. Tri'ama wishes she could be anywhere else but here, with only a few inches separating them. She wishes her ex-husband weren't here, trying to win her back after everything he'd done. She wonders if he even thinks about the fact that he deserves the consequences she'd given him, thinks about what they mean.

Tri'ama may have all the armor she can have on right now, but she feels so exposed to him, as if he still knows all. As if he's still the one with all the answers, as if they've gone back to the day after the day she'd confessed she no longer wanted to be called Quinn, to be considered his. No longer wanted to be his wife.

The days she'd lapsed in her judgement.

"My lord. I regret that our paths must diverge. Out of respect, I wanted to be here to witness your fate." He'd said, not facing her in a large room on the transponder station. She'd been mildly suspicious at the time, confused what he meant. Not completely convinced about what was going on.

"Have you found someone else? If you say it's not me, it's you, I won't be responsible for my actions." She'd answered sarcastically, rolling her eyes as a dark chuckle following the response. Oh, how unprepared she'd been for what came next.

"It's not me or you. It's Darth Baras. I owe him more than you could imagine. It pains me, but this entire scenario is a ruse. There's no martial law, and there's no special signal emitter." She'd still been unbelieving, raising an eyebrow and ready for this all to be a joke to get her away from everyone. It's their anniversary, after all. He'd been too serious though, and she'd had a well-placed sinking feeling about this, "Baras is my true master. He had me lure you here to have you killed."

"I thought our relationship was real. I thought we cared about each other, Malavai." Her left hand had grown closer to her saber as it had set in. This wasn't some elaborate plan dreamt up by a man in love, this was a ruse. This was a murder by a skilled killer.

"I didn't want to choose between the two of you. But he's forced my hand, and I must side with him. Once you're gone, your crew will either join me with Baras, or be killed." The Imperial accent isn't so comforting anymore, and she draws the hilt of one saber. She had prayed she didn't have to draw it on him, but she's not so sure anymore.

"Baras will run the Empire into the ground, Malavai." She'd foolishly believed if she kept using his name, kept being familiar with him, that she'd win out and he'd see the right in his wrong.

"Baras has always been one step ahead of every enemy. He'll lead us to victory." He had finally turned to look at her, a regretful look on his face though his voice remained emotionless, "After all this time of observing you in battle, I have exhaustively noted your strengths and weaknesses." Two battle droids appear behind him, blast doors opening with a loud thump. She must've looked so horribly hurt, that he averts his gaze again, "These war droids have been programmed specifically to combat you. I calculate a near zero percent chance of their failure."

"I--" She pauses, watching as the war droids walk up behind him. Drawing both blades and igniting the rose read sabers, she had set her lips into a thin line, wishing the tears back, "I know how thorough you are, Malavai. I'm sure this will be greatest test."

"And if I'm right, your last. I'm sorry it came to this, my lord."

The absence of my love, had only confirmed that it really had been the end of her relationship with Quinn. Not the wedding they had shortly after, but the transponder station had been the end. Killing Baras, had done nothing to sate her broken heart.

"Quinn," His gaze doesn't waver from hers, in fact nearly reaching for her hand as she turns to face him fully. Her hands are shaking, and she pulls them away just as a finger dusts his palm, "I am not yours. I will never be your love again. You attempted to kill me, and then hid behind Baras as your excuse for not coming to me with the issue first. I do not trust you, and in this future or any other, I will never trust you again. Whether it has been two years or twenty, your petty begging will not change how I feel about you. You are the Captain, I am the Wrath. I have the final say on my relationship with you, and I say that you have been reassigned. I am not your wife, and I never will be again. Be lucky I have not ended your life prior to this for every transgression you've had since you've returned to my service."

For the second time that day, she's rendered someone speechless, and for the second time today, it's welcome. The surprise is evident in his blazing blue eyes, and then regret, disappointment, "Return to the Fury and prepare the ship to leave after tomorrow. Tell Pierce and Vette that Protocol Alpha is active, understood?"

It takes a moment for him to visibly collect his thoughts, and another for him to decide not to say anything more and face her wrath, "Understood, my lord."

And with that, he's gone.

She spends a few hours waiting there on the outcropping. Channeling her hatred, but halfway in between that and meditating. Tri'ama is far from relaxing, far from feeling as if a weight has been taken off her shoulders. The rain is battering down on her for ages, but she's kept warm by the hatred she has for the galaxy at the moment. Nothing registers in her immediate vincinty for a long time, nothing exists but her.

Something is relaxing her through her force signature. It's numbing the frustration, the anger, the desire, the longing, the sadness as she comes down from her fury. It's a tad frightening, she's not sure why it's there. It isn't her own guilt either, but its soft and calming. As if someone is comforting her through it all, but there isn't any other presence she can sense here in the staging area.

She's drenched when she returns to the Fury, but Tri'ama is at a crossroads, and for once in her life, she's more unsure of where she's going next than ever. No master, only an absentee landlord. No lover, only a man who can't give up and another that she doesn't want to give up.

The end all, be all of their existence begins tomorrow. If Revan succeeds, her life is over as she knows it. The entire galaxy, is over as she knows it.

Looking at herself in the mirror through the haze of exhaustion, she asks herself what kind of Wrath she was. Did she fight for the Emperor, who intended to devour an entire planet once he returned to full strength? Or did she fight for the people of the Empire, and now, the galaxy?

Her golden eyes, accentuated with the deep purple of corruption fade away into grey as she realizes the answer isn't so far out of reach.

Who did she fight for?

THERON._YAVIN_IV.

He's not sure what he's accidentally witnessed when he makes to return to his shuttle for the night. After running a few odd errands for his mother (mostly assisting Master Grace and Iresso with the debriefing of a few missions; with how delicate they were to the Republic, he was glad Nox and Tri'ama hadn't bothered helping), he's almost ready to turn in for the night with a datapad in hand. But, as the thunder rumbles in the distance, the black clad Sith lord is nearly glowing in the early evening moonlight. A storm is coming, nearly an analogy for what they're facing the day after.

He considers for a moment, and finding they're relatively alone, crosses the distance to meet her. There's a lot that's gone unsaid in the last few days, and they haven't exchanged a word, not even a look since she left him after he'd expressed his concern for her, and he's afraid he's really messed up now. Well, it was a given, he'd missed his opportunity by straying away from her, but he felt that his life probably would've been in danger if he'd bothered her with the issue any longer. Other than the odd quote she'd sent him (that had most definitely not kept him up at night, wondering if the Wrath was actually a master at a crypting messages), he's not sure what she truly thinks of him. Of course, she hasn't been hostile towards his faction, which is all he can ask for.

Before he can move any closer, (there's still quite a ways separating them) a well-dressed Imperial man cuts to her. Clearly he'd been coming from where the last shuttle had touched down, or he thought so. He'd been working so long the time had passed faster than he'd expected, and the other man made a beeline for the Sith. Theron almost has half a mind to move to stop him, or hurry his own pace to catch up to the two, but the rational part of his mind tells him to hold back. So he does, waiting and leaning against a ruin. He wouldn't be able to hear much (the Holonet connection was kriffing horrible on Yavin outside of where they'd set up further in the base; there were no other things he could connect his implants to, especially to listen any closer either), but just watching her body language as she realizes the man is there is enough to make him realize something is amiss. She tenses visibly, and keeps herself from making eye contact with him.

Taking a closer look at him, it isn't immediately evident that he's run into Malavai Quinn. It takes him a moment, but when he does recognize him for his profile, Theron knows that this wouldn't be a pleasant conversation for either party involved. Tri'ama had seemed stressed enough earlier in the day when she'd debriefed with Master Iresso and Darth Nox about their run-in with the spirit of Revan, and adding the man to mix doesn't sound like the brightest thought anyone could've had at that very moment. He wouldn't pretend he even began to understand the pent-up frustration and regrets the woman had for her ex-husband, but for some odd reason or the other, he can't bring himself to move to help.

The conversation is short, or he assumes it is for as long as he stands there. It didn't seem to be going well, and he doesn't creep any closer to figure out the true connotation of the exchange either. With Tri'ama wearing her respirator, hood up and that Imperials seemed to struggle with any other emotion than blatant straight faced disapproval, he's not sure that by the time Malavai leaves if one of them won out over the other. For a moment, he panics Tri'ama may have known he was there (Iresso -- the Jedi, not the well-meaning soldier, had mentioned that his presence was frazzled all the time and rather easy to pick out) as she sweeps her eyes over the staging area. But, instead of seeking him out, she kneels down on the speeder pad as rain begins to fall. He moves under an outcropping to keep the storm from doing its worst to him, and for the longest time she doesn't make to leave, changing from kneeling to sitting with her legs crossed. He wasn't sure whether Sith meditated. And figured if he asked, Nox would laugh and Tri'ama would figure he had been watching her and drift away further than she had been before.

By the time another fifteen minutes passes, she's so out of it he's able to leave without a stir from the woman. Theron's sure she knows he's there and just not acknowledging him, but makes it back to his shuttle. He runs the necessary checks, no Imperial tampering, no one has broken in while he was gone. Goes over what he's learned in the day past, finishing off notes, laying out battle plans to study when he got up in the morning. Taking apart his blasters, cleaning out the necessary components, replacing those that needed to be replaced. Putting them back together, recalibrating his implants into lower power mode, it's all routine now. Still going over reports from soldiers and sensors out in the jungle. He was sure Satele -- his mother could've assigned someone else to do this job, but she assigned him the task. The praise that was heavily overlain with professional courtesy was still welcome though.

Running a hand through his hair, he lets his mind wander to her for a moment. In the view of others, she's not exactly maternal. Whyatt is years younger than he is, but she praises him for his work, and there's clearly a connection there that Theron himself yearns for. After learning the Zabrak's story, Theron feels a little guilty for that. A boy -- a literal boy, only twenty two. Barely nine at the time of the destruction, he'd watched as Theron had watched the Temple on Coruscant burn during the Sacking of Coruscant. He'd been a pupil of Satele's after his old Master had fallen in battle, and while he'd been taken under Master Atiya when he became a padawan at seventeen, he still had a closer relationship with her than he likely would ever had with his own mother. Yes, he felt horrible about being bitter about it. Whyatt, like most Jedi, never knew his parents during the war, but according to records, they'd both died during the Imperial occupation. Satele was closest thing he had to a mother figure, and he figured Atiya had filled the role as a father as well. He'd been spiraling at the loss of his Master, which was clear in his facial expressions whenever he was mentioned.

Still.

There's one more thing he ends up doing before going off to bed. Lana (against her wishes, probably. The Sith was horrible with communications these days, but he's still bitter for what she did on Rishi. Childish or not, he still thinks she deserves his thawing cold shoulder) has mailed him a status report of his forces and Jedi on-planet, and he marks it for reading later. But he goes back to the message Tri'ama had sent him. He's seen it plenty of times, trying to decrypt it, see if every letter of every word created a sentence. Evidently, it didn't.

He didn't intend to die with regrets. And right now, the Wrath was one of them. He wasn't particularily attached to her, she was kinder than most and fought for the good of the Empire, but something kept dragging him back to pale, blonde Sith. Unlike how most would argue, it wasn't her body. It was her intellect, her strategic mind. Her battle worn courage, and her startling need to protect those of the Empire. Her soldiers weren't canon fodder, not like how many others would let them be.

He admires her for being a real person rather than a monster who happened to be breathtaking to lay eyes upon.

Hell, that was sappy, even for him.

He'd never bothered responding to her previous message, and curiousity gets the best of him because he responds late that night. Whether she'll respond or not is the real question, but he'll play that game. It's something that Doxie had once said to him, and as he drifts off into a dreamless sleep, he wonders if it's considered regifting. Cheesy, maybe. But inspirational nonetheless. Thought provoking, maybe.

"Some nights I wish to go back in life. Not to change anything subtle, just to feel a couple things twice."

In the early parts of the morning as he goes about his routine again, checking and rechecking his blasters, calibrating and recalibrating his implants. Considering eating something out of the MREs, drinking a cup of caf instead, he gets another surprise that he hadn't expected. Looking at the healing bruises in the reflection of the dark screen, he isn't immediately sure how to react to the message he's received.

"There is my heart, and then there is you. I'm afraid there may not be a difference - T.A"

He didn't know Sith ever signed their names. For the longest time before Lana, he wasn't sure that they even had names -- or were willing to share them with others.

It's nice to know that Tri'ama trusted him with her's, facing possible death.

Looking out in the viewport over the still storming jungle, he considered every single way this could end. Certain death were the words of the day apparently, but he would've liked to return to the Republic. There weren't a whole lot of people that would be devastated over his death, his mother maybe and his father if he was really grabbing at straws. Lana might be upset for a while, but Tri'ama may fight for a long time after he's gone. Or forget about him, that was a possibility, and probably the actual outcome.

With a somewhat renewed sense for survival against this ancient ancestor (something would always circle back to his heritage -- his mother, his father and apparently a very old grandfather with beef against both factions), he makes his way back to the staging area, her words still bouncing around in his head.

He'd fight for something alright. Yes, he'd fight for the Republic, everything he'd ever known and everything he hoped to return to. But there was something new alongside that.

He'd fight for her.

3 notes · View notes

thethespacecoyote · 5 years

Text

I have to work out every random kink I have with Kylux, so lets start with shotgunning!

“I thought you said you would quit, Hux.”

The emperor starts, though any minute motion remains hidden under the voluminous cover of his robes. He manages to keep the tapered end of the long cigarette holder clasped between his fingers, not losing the glowing red ash at the tip down below the balcony that looks out over the vast parade grounds. It’s a gift he purchased for himself—Chammian ivory, wreathed in the middle with ornate metal—upon the giddy realization of his life’s goal, though tonight is the first time he’s used it.

Hux realizes it would be bad for his image if the public ever saw him smoking, witnessed the vices of their new emperor. Hux wants to exude an air as close as godliness as possible, as to terminate all stirrings of rebellion in their infancy. Not one of cruelty, necessarily, but rather of indomitable power, so he will never be forced to bow to anyone else ever again.

But he’s been itching for a smoke lately. Even with the Resistance crushed and his reign mostly clinched, he feels his stress has mounted, though it’s difficult to uncover the source. In reality, he probably has less work now than he had as a general, but he feels more precarious, more in need of something to take the edge off. And indeed, there’s something relaxing about watching the pale smoke that drifts between his lips, curling up into the air before disappearing into the midnight blue of the sky above.

However, any calm he’s lulled himself into has now been broken by Kylo Ren. Hux sighs, turning away from the balcony to look over at the knight, watching Ren’s booted feet as he walks across the balcony towards him.

“You’ve intruded into my quarters,” Hux states, not bothering to hide the annoyance in his voice but without the strength to keep Ren at bay. He braces one hand back against the banister, straightening his posture as the other man stops, the space between them just barely above acceptable.

“I haven’t seen you smoke in so long,” Ren folds his arms over his chest, eyebrows furrowed. “I’d hoped you’d stick to your word.”

Hux frowns sourly at at the obvious disapproval in Ren’s voice. Really? The belligerent, delusional Force-user is going to lecture him now? Now that Hux is emperor?

Absurd.

It isn’t that Hux doesn’t remember the last time Ren had caught him smoking—alone in his office, collar to his uniform opened, bags reddened and heavy under his eyes—but he thought it’d been a one-off comment, something to say to interrupt the uneasy silence between them as Ren had born witness to the general’s most erratic, vulnerable state.

Hux rolls the cigarette holder between his fingertips, feeling the florid patterns, detailed in gold, along the shaft.

“One measly little smoke won’t kill me, Ren.” Hux purses his lips, taking a brief inhale of his cigarette and blowing a mouthful of smoke in the other man’s direction. “I think after all I’ve been through, I’ve earned it.”

Ren wrinkles his nose, unfurling one hand to pointedly wave away the air in front of him. Hux just barely resists the urge to roll his eyes.

“Is this the reason you’ve violated my privacy? Did you use your Force to sense what I was doing, and decided to valiantly step in and stop me from poisoning myself?” Hux chides, sweeping his other arm outwards. “And after this, surely you’ll haunt those reveling in my coronation, reminding them not to partake of too many sweets, yes?”

“Don’t be hyperbolic.”

Hux snorts.

“With you, Ren, I’m not sure there’s such thing.”

“You’re emperor now,” Ren presses, daring to breach the respectable space between them. “If you want your rule to be long and fruitful, you will have to learn to take better care of yourself.”

Hux stiffens, the casual disdain in his eyes sharpening into more of a glare. He has never been healthy, not since he was a boy. It’s almost inevitable that his body will fail him long before his mind does, and Ren need not remind him of his own shortcomings. After all, what’s the purpose? Ren is the one who’s thrown his allegiance in beside him, and if he wishes to undermine Hux he’s going to have to go for stronger stuff than a couple snide comments about his health.

“I don’t need you to police my vices. Stars above, Ren, you’ve been giving the title of Enforcer, not Imperial Nursemaid.”

Ren’s being quite presumptive, and it irks him. Hux doesn’t need to be told what to do, like a rebellious child. Half of him considers impudently flicking the ash of his cigarette on Ren’s boots and disregard him entirely. Instead, to hammer home just how much he doesn’t care for the knight’s nagging, he looks Ren square in the eyes and brings the cigarette holder to his lips, inhaling the spice smoke as deeply as he can muster. He purses his lips, holding the smoke in his throat for a moment, feeling it burn as his face practically glows in a smirk.

Hux doesn’t expect Ren to suddenly move in so close, but before the emperor can react he’s crowded him against the banister. Hux’s mind conjures up a quick reprimand, but before he can bring it to life, Ren leans in and with a little clumsiness, presses their lips together.

It’s been so long since they’ve kissed. Their encounters were few and furtive aboard the Finalizer, any physical pleasures stolen in the security of either of their quarters, concealed due to fear of both others and themselves. Neither have spoken on the precise nature of their relationship, not since the war’s upswing crawled into its inevitable denouement, not since Hux has found himself seated at the top of a new galactic empire, bolstered on the shoulders of a man he never thought would want anything but his death.

And now that man is kissing him, on the balcony of his new palace, clad in inky black robes that Hux must admit contrast poetically with his own deceitful white—forever tailored as his shadow, dealing death to his enemies in his stead and proving the strength of his reign to the galaxy. Seeping in around him as effortlessly as the fluid night, filling in those gaps Hux has never found the courage to patch over himself.

Hux exhales in surprise as Ren parts his lips, inadvertently filling the channel between their mouths with retained smoke. Miraculously he doesn’t choke, merely breathes as he lets Kylo shift the air, the fire from Hux’s lungs into his own. The emperor lets his eyelids flutter half-closed, suddenly lazy from the smoke and the motion of Ren’s lips against his own. Wanting to drink from the stained lips and parched tongue, to partake of Hux despite the innumerable flaws that mar him, even as the god-emperor of the extant galaxy. It’s strange—despite his earlier objection, Ren still willingly shares the poison inside of Hux, lifting the weight from his body, the ashy film plastered to the pinkest, most vulnerable pleura in his being.

Hux’s fingers grow slack, and the cigarette holder falls from his hand, tinkling against the balcony. He reaches over Ren shoulder, enveloping his now free grasp in the sable curls of his hair. This close, Hux can even smell him—a comforting musk, far more appealing than the acrid scent of smoke.

Finally, their lips part, just when Hux feels like his lungs might burst. He gasps, eyes falling back completely open, now watering slightly at the edges. He feels a little light-headed, but as his hand lifts to hold onto Kylo’s cape, he reaches out to grasp Hux’s wrist, strength flexing through his fingers. They’re so close, close enough that he should protest as he feels his lower back dig into the banister behind him.

“Every time you think you need to smoke,” Kylo exhales, wispy tendrils curling up from the corners of his mouth to make him look like some ancient, mystical presence, or a statue burning incense, “we will do this instead, until you no longer need it.”

Hux almost thinks to reprimand Ren, for presuming he would agree to his proposal following a single kiss. But his lips still tingle from the brush with Ren’s warmth, and his cigarette already lays dashed and extinguished against the ground. He’s craving something, to cradle close and catch between his teeth, and if his dear knight is offering, who is Hux to refuse?

“It may be difficult to completely break a habit,” Hux murmurs, admiring how long Ren’s hair has grown since last he’s drifted his fingers through it, “are you certain you’re up to the task?”

He doesn’t flinch, not when Ren leans in to rest their foreheads together, still smelling intense and animalic beneath the pall of smoke as it gradually vanishes into the cool night air.

“I think I can handle it, my emperor,” Ren says, and dips to kiss Hux once again.

#spacetext #kylux #fanfic #shotgunning kink #smoking #kylo 'smokings bad mmkay' ren #sw #emperor hux

88 notes · View notes

wavesofthewest · 5 years

Text

Chapter 6: The Thundercrack Parade

Fate: Writing

"Hey, can we play with you guys?"

The hatchlings that were playing in the clearing stopped and turned to face the two adolescents that had just come out of the cave.

"'Course you can?" one of them replied. "You've been here for weeks. You really don't need to ask."

"Ugh, you don't need to remind me of how long we've been around and what's happened. What, first we get stuck in a cage, then everyone says that we're no good because our parents were suspect for the elder's murder, then everyone has no idea how to-"

"Heaven, stop it. It's the past, let it go. Anyway, what are you playing? The same as yesterday and all of this week?" Ashes asked, prompting a giggle from one of the clan's younger hatchlings.

"Yeah. It's the last day of Thundercrack, though, so we figured we might as well even though we've played it all week and are getting kinda tired of it," a wildclaw replied, sighing. "Same rules."

The two grinned and joined the rest of the hatchlings in the game - a variant of tag where the player that was "it" had to alternate between flying and running every other step, imitating a lightning bolt that crashed to the ground. Ashes felt a little sorry for any snappers that were caught - they weren't able to fly, so others would take advantage of that by hovering in the air, forcing the snapper to jump in order to catch them.

They played for an hour or two before the black silhouette of Allumen's form appeared in the nearby cave. The hatchlings stopped playing and waited for the nocturne to come into the clearing, curious as to what he was going to say.

"Who's ready to go to the Thundercrack parade?" he called out, prompting a chorus of whoops and cheers from the clan hatchlings. Ashes shot Heaven a glance, who shrugged and followed the others as they raced from the caves.

The "Thundercrack parade" was, in fact, a perk for the clan being close to the Shifting Expanse. The Lightning dragons who held the parade would venture out a few hundred kilometres into their neighbouring territories to celebrate one of the few times during the year that the flights were able to see each other as friends, not enemies.

The clan came to the parade area half an hour before it came around, letting them prepare by funnelling their elemental magic into decorations and representations of lightning. The hatchlings ran around and played, not letting themselves get bored before the parade arrived.

When it came around, Ashes was surprised as to how big it was. There were dragons of every breed tagging along in the parade. He could see pearlcatchers doing some acrobatics and stunts with their pearls on top of bogsneaks, who in turn were balancing atop snappers. There were skydancers sending harmless electric bolts in every direction as confetti. Nocturns and imperials danced alongside each other on the floats, faes fluttering next to them. The guardian watched the dragons with awe, taking in the sight.

He was a bit startled when Abstract came up behind him, making the fae laugh. Ashes grimaced. The monotone way the faes spoke and expressed themselves got a little on his nerves.

"Having fun?" Abstract asked, watching as a pair of spirals twirled themselves around each other like strings of ribbon. "It's even better at Wavecrest. You'd get to join in then since you're a Water dragon."

"No way," Ashes replied, turning to see if Abstract was lying or not. He couldn't read fae crests, but he studied the fae's face even so.

"How else do you think the parade gets dragons to participate? I've heard it's even better for the Minstral Jamboree - the Wind dragons are super friendly and let anyone who comes across the parade to participate. I don't know if it's true, though. I've only heard stories."

"Why don't we go over there, then? It's in eight years, surely we'd be able to cross enough of Sea to be able to make it over there?" Ashes perked up. Since the Jamboree was right before Wavecrest, they'd be able to participate in two festivals in a row, and he and Heaven wouldn't look silly for not knowing how things worked when Wavecrest came around.

"I don't know. I'll talk to Blue, compare it to where we've been going this past year, but we could certainly try to make it work! Enjoy the parade," Abstract replied. He patted Ashes on the ankle and walked away, and the guardian went back to watching the lightning dragons march across the clearing and disappear across the horizon.

When the parade was over, Ashes tried to find Heaven through the crowd. Since everyone was leaving, though, it was a bit of a struggle to break off from the crowd and soon enough the hatchlings, who were smaller than him, disappeared through the gaps that he wasn't able to fit through. The guardian began to panic and looked around in a frenzy, searching for any sign of someone he knew somewhere in the crowd.

The rush of dragons leaving the parade area resulted in someone accidentally pushing Ashes to the ground. As others didn't notice him there and stepped on him, he found it difficult to get himself back up. As more and more dragons filled in the gap that was left from his fall, the guardian gave up and let himself just lie there and waited for someone else to help him up.

~ : ~

Heaven hovered above the majority of the crowd and searched for her brother. He hadn't come out yet and they were starting to get worried. Honestly though, why has nobody else flown out of the crowd? It's so much easier and snappers don't get in the way.

The fae shook her head and went back to scanning for grey guardian teenagers. Since the crowd was beginning to thin out, she had an easier time looking for him than she would have had half an hour ago, when the parade ended. She was glad, although her brother's disappearance worried her.

Heaven looked down to see a tuft of grey poking out between a group of pastel mirrors and dove down to see if it was him, weaving between the heads of various clans and packs.

When she came to the dragon, bruised, battered and bleeding, Heaven took a step back and screamed.

#flight rising #fr #tribe of clear waters #day 7 #lore #pinkerlocke #why do i get so many short posts i #wow look someones dead #totally #100%#yup #journey

2 notes · View notes

notbecauseofvictories · 7 years

Note

Hey so for your prompt thing if you're still doing those have you any thoughts about what might of happened if Jyn had been found by those storm troopers and been captured with Galen?

The expression on Saw Gerrera’s face is hard to read.

It’s hard to read, and that, more than anything—more than his band of scruffy Partisans, bristling with weapons and grinning like mnira wolves—sets Jyn teeth on edge. She doesn’t like being stared at.

“Is there a dress code I should have been aware of?” she asks narrowing her eyes at Gerrera.

Jedha has turned her Imperial greys to a sunbleached, dusty ash, but it wasn’t as though she’d had time to pack. Papa had woken her in the middle of the night, she’d barely had time to shove on her boots before he was dragging her down the corridor to the docking bay. (It was the only time Bodhi had smiled, the entire nerve-wracking trip from Eadu to Jedha. Your shirt is inside out, he’d said with a tentative smile, and Jyn had laughed herself breathless for the sheer, pressure-relief of it.)

The silence stretches on too long. “Well?” Jyn demands. “At least you could tell me where you took my pilot—”

“You look so much like your mother,” Saw Gerrera says, and it lands like a concussive missile.

The silence after that is worse, somehow.

Jyn exhales. “Oh,” she finally says.

She folds her hands together behind her back to keep them from shaking, even though she knows it makes her look like a cadet at parade rest. Krennic told her that once—she’d dropped out of the training program entirely just to spite him for it. (He dragged her back a week later, after he found her holed up in the base’s dense labyrinth of undertunnels, but Jyn had won that round.)

Gerrera is still looking at her. “I—yes, I know,” she adds hurriedly. “My father’s said. I have her eyes.”

Gerrera has a clear crystal on a length of cord around his neck, and he’s turning it over and over in his hand now. There’s something oddly familiar about the gesture, though Jyn can’t quite place what.

“Lyra was a brave and devoted woman,” Gerrera says. “She served our cause loyally, even—before there was a cause. We were…she was my friend.”

“I have a transmission from my father,” Jyn blurts out, before she does something embarrassing like cry, or demand he turn over the strange crystal to her, or storm through the compound looking for Bodhi. Anything to distract her from the way fearsome Partisan leader Saw Gerrera said ‘friend’ like it carries terrabytes of encoded data.

“Your pilot mentioned that,” Saw says, and there’s a cruel amusement in his expression now. Terror and anger flood through her, and she lunges forward.

“If you’ve hurt him—”

“He’s well enough,” Saw says, warding her off with a hand. “Maybe a little spooked, but the boy’s got nerves like manka cat. I get the sense he’d startle at loud noises.”

“Don’t talk about him like that,” Jyn says fiercely, even if there’s more than a little guilty agreement curling in her gut. Galen helped Bodhi wean himself off the stimulants the Empire poured into TIE fighter pilots like water, but his hands will always shake, and even behind the console of a freighter he’s skittery, anxious.

But when Galen had asked him to defect, to take his only daughter to Jedha and meet with the dangerous Partisan insurgents, so that they could deliver a crushing blow to the Empire, Bodhi hadn’t hesitated. He’d reached for Jyn with his shaking hands, and clutched her forearm in a grip like durasteel.

I’ll take her, Bodhi had said, and Jyn had been sure of him as the stars over Eadu.

Something thoughtful has taken over Gerrera’s face. He’s watching her—or studying her, maybe. It’s like being put under a scope, only now Jyn feels shy, wrong-footed. She wonder if he’s seeing Lyra standing where she is now.

“Someone go bring Miss Erso’s pilot out,” Gerrera says, and one of the Partisans breaks away from the mob, disappearing into the depths of the complex. Jyn exhales.

“Now,” Gerrera says. “I think you ought to show me Galen’s message.”

Jyn pops the first few buttons on her uniform, and is a little annoyed when Saw doesn’t react, merely raises his eyebrows like Papa did, whenever she was being particularly obnoxious. She feels herself flush, and after she fishes the transmit-chip from its carefully-hidden pocket, thrusts it at him.

“There,” she says.

He takes it from her gingerly. The chip looks so small, impossibly fragile in his enormous hand. “Have you watched it?” Gerrera asks, and there is gentleness in his voice.

Jyn nods.

(Jyn, my Stardust, never doubt how much I have loved you, how sorry I am—)

Gerrera passes the chip to another of his Partisans, a xeno in heavy armor and striking purple eyes. Jyn tries not to stare, but she’s never seen so many xenos in her life. She has vague memories of her childhood on Coruscant, one of her little friends having a Twi’lek tutor, another claiming that his father traded with Toydarians, but it was all secondhand stories.

It’s different, standing in a crowd of species she could never hope to identify.

They pull out an older holo-imager, and the xeno Partisan slips the transmit chip into the drive. Jyn sucks in a sharp breath as her Papa’s image flickers into view, and she braces herself—

Jyn’s almost grateful when Bodhi is frogmarched into the cavern, the sight of him enough to distract her from the holo. The Partisan guard isn’t gentle, and Jyn darts forward to catch him before he falls to his knees. “Hey,” Bodhi mumbles against her shoulder. “Did we do good?”

Jyn holds onto him tighter, until she feels his hand come up and cradle her elbow. And they stay like that, the cavern silent as a tomb except for distant water and the voice of Galen Erso, saying, Saw, if you are watching this—

The Partisans set out bedrolls for them that night. Bodhi collapses into his with the gratefulness of the half-dead-on-his-feet; Jyn’s response is to scowl and pointedly drag her bedroll from the other side of the room to stretch out beside Bodhi’s. One of the Partisans looks like he’s about to object, but Jyn glares and he backs off.

“Your girlfriend is a territorial creature, pilot,” Saw Gerrera says, and Bodhi’s eyes go wide as he stammers protests. At the same time Jyn snaps, “I’m not.” She can feel her face burning.

Gerrera just chuckles to himself before moving away to speak to one of the Partisans.

“What do you think happens next?” Bodhi whispers. They’re both curled up on the bedrolls with their knees almost-touching, and when Bodhi reaches for her hand in the semi-dark, Jyn interlaces their fingers together. An anchor.

“We can never go back,” Bodhi murmurs. “We’re traitors to the Empire, we can never…”

Jyn swallows. “I know.”

It takes Bodhi a long while to go to sleep, and Jyn waits until his breathing has even out and his eyes are flickering behind his eyelids before she dares slip her hand from his. She’s stiff and cold from lying still, so standing is a trick—but eventually she chases away the pins and needles and manages to take a few stumbling steps.

Saw Gerrera is standing at the mouth of the cave, staring out across the desert to Jedha City. The holy city lit up like a cruel parody of the Coruscanti skyline, hard blue light and the whir of machines. Above the city crouches an enormous Destroyer, like a brooding bird.

“Mining equipment,” Gerrera says suddenly, and Jyn startles a little. But Gerrera is just smiling faintly “That’s the sound you’re hearing. Jedha is rich in kyber, the Empire wants it to make weapons. They recently expanded production to a full local cycle.”

Jyn sucks in a breath through her teeth. “But—Jedha has a thirty-two hour cycle!”

“Yes.”

“That’s inhumane.”

“That’s the Empire,” Gerrera says, and there’s a deep enduing well of bitterness in his voice. Jyn wonders how many times he’s had this conversation.

Jyn turns back to watch the city. She’s heard stories of Jedha—mostly secondhand, from troopers stationed there, or Papa’s stories of her mother, who stayed in the temple on Jedha for the last months of her pregnancy, as protection against miscarriage. Jyn only knows what the official records have told her, and even those read more like fairytales than historical accounts—the Guardians of the Whills, and Jedi, kyber crystals and the Living Force.

“My mother worshiped the Force, didn’t she?” Jyn asks suddenly, then feels herself go hot. That hadn’t been her question.

But Saw only chuckles.“Your mother….was almost a Jedi. So yes, she believed in the Force.” Saw reached into his breastplate and pulled out the clear crystal Jyn had seen him playing with before. “Do you remember this?”

Jyn is silent, but she can’t take her eyes from it. (Trust the Force—)

“Your mother gave it to you, as the Guardians of the Whills gave it to her. I found it…”

“My hiding spot,” Jyn breathed. She remembered: the troopers dragging her up, out of the dark, even as she kicked and screamed and clawed at the walls. The cord of the crystal had caught on something, a root or a rock, and then snapped. The crystal had fallen back into the darkness.

“I was supposed to find you there, keep you safe,” Saw says. His eyes are wet, Jyn can see the light of Jedha City reflected in them. “But you were gone.”

“I didn’t close the hatch properly. The troopers found me first.”

“Yes.”

They lapse into uneasy silence again. Jyn watches a bright belch of flame rise up over the city walls, and then subside. She wonders what in the nine hells they’re doing, what kind of mining equipment would create a explosions like that. Her training had been in comms; Papa always had to help her with her geo courses, and every time he’d sighed that this was Lyra’s area of expertise, he was just a lowly engineer—

Jyn shakes her head, trying to clear the stickiness of memories from it. Bodhi was right—Bodhi’s always right—they can’t go back. She’s not a comms officer any more, and she’ll likely never see her father again. That’s simply how it is.

“What are you planning to do next?” Jyn asks. “About the transmit, I mean.”

Saw seems to come, shuddering, back to himself. He looks blank for a moment, then nods. “Ah, yes. Though I hate to lose anything to Senator Mothma, I believe yours is a job for the Alliance. I and mine are needed here, for the time being.”

Jyn exhaled. “You’re sending it to the Alliance?”

“No,” Saw Gerrera says. “I am sending you and your pilot to the Alliance. With the chip.”

Jyn thinks of the journey from Eadu to Jedha, the tense silence between her and Bodhi, how carefully they’d avoided major hyperlanes, relying on short planet-hops and unconventional runs to stay off the Empire’s radar. “Is that safe?” she asks.

“Oh, child,” Saw Gerrera says, and there’s something about his tone that makes Jyn wonder what it would have been like, to be raised by him, and not her father. How different would she be, as a child of Partisans and rebel violence?

Saw is still gazing at her levelly. “Child,” he echoes, and somehow his voice is even softer. “I am sorry to say safety is not a luxury you can afford any longer.”

Jyn turns away, setting her jaw. “Fine. Then—fine.”

She can feel Saw considering her again, with that searching, thoughtful look. She’s tired, too tired to rankle, and so she lets him. The sound of mining is less a sound now, more a vibration she can feel up through her feet.

“Why are you doing this, Miss Erso? Do you long for the Republic and balance to the Force as your mother did? Or is it your father’s guilty conscience you’ve inherited?”

“My father asked me to.”

“Is that all? Sentients do not decide to turn their backs on the Empire because they are asked.”

Jyn looks away.

(When Jyn wakes up the next morning, there is a datapad beside her bedroll. She only has enough time to power it up and memorize the string of galactic coordinates that appear on the screen—then it flashes brightly, and the drive is wiped.

The kyber crystal is sitting beside it, a small shining thing in the dust of the cave. Jyn can’t tell if it’s an apology or a blessing, and there’s no one to ask—the Partisans and Saw Gerrera are gone.)

#freakinamask #asked and answered #the warry stars #star wars #rogue one spoilers #this is a thing I made

310 notes · View notes

idiot-spy-boyfriend · 6 years

Text

So I wrote this for the Elite: Dangerous writing contest about the characters I RP as in-game. I have my CMDR name as ‘Vesh’ and then a Cobra Mark III for Sola and an Imperial Courier for Theodore.

Sola would have been more amenable to a discussion with her brother if he wasn’t standing so rigidly, so much like their father. It was often the talk of the high-class socialites that Theodore Vesh was alike to Hadrian in almost every respect, and Sola wished that she could say differently – that there was still a part of her twin that hadn’t been completely turned into a carbon copy of the man. But, the way he held himself now reminded her far too well of the aloof aristocrat whose only contact with his children was through family functions.

When they were young, Theodore’s resentment of his father almost equalled Sola’s. The twins hated how he was never there for them while their mother paraded them around like some sort of trophy before pawning them off to the servants rather than care for them herself. But, as they grew older, their father grew weary, and began to realise his own mortality. And so, he began to spend more time with Theodore, grooming him to be the perfect heir to the family business. All while Sola was left in the background; to be married off when it was most convenient.

The ultimate betrayal came on the day Sola had left that life. She and Theodore had often spoken of stealing away in one of their family’s shuttles and making their own way through the universe. It was early morning, and Sola had slipped into her brother’s room so that he may escape with her. Instead of agreeing to go with her, however, he had locked her in his room. Ignoring her angry yells, he fled to find their father in a desperate attempt to keep her there. In his haste, however, he had not thought to lock the window and Sola had made her escape by leaping out of it. It was not a terribly high window, but she had landed on the hard ground and had suffered several fractured bones and a dislocated shoulder. She spent the rest of the day hidden away in the shadows, tears running down her face from both the pain of her injuries and her brother’s betrayal. Once the cover of darkness had enveloped the estate, she stole away on a shuttle, as was her plan, and vowed to never rely on another person again.

Theodore had changed during the past five years, much like she had herself. He was taller, although only a few inches more than she. His rich brown hair which had once fallen freely to his shoulders had been cut short and styled to spike up in a more ‘masculine’ manner. His eyes were a steely grey that, if Sola weren’t so accustomed to the gaze, would seem to pierce right through her. He wore a tailored jacket which sported the colours of their family – white and gold – along with plain black slacks and an equally dark shirt. Sola was unwilling to break her tense gaze with her brother but, if she did, she was sure that she could find her reflection in his boots; his whole look was that polished.

Sola’s own hair was a similar shade of brown, but fell past her shoulders and was, more often than not, tied up to keep it out of her face. One eye was the same steel grey as her brothers’, but the other was brightly lit by the implants held inside. The pattern of the iris almost resembled that of a circuit board; from the white lines jaggedly running through the grey which connected to her pupil - framed by a circle of the same light. The clothes she wore were unassuming; a simple, sleek black flight suit with no heraldry of any kind. She aligned herself with no one, and would never wear the colours of the people she had denounced. She looked up at her twin with her arms crossed, a fierce stubbornness in her eyes.

“Theodore.” She managed to spit out.

“Solanna.” He nodded in return. The tense eye contact remained for several more moments, neither of them willing to be the first to submit; Theodore due to his superior attitude and Sola merely out of spite. But Sola had places to be and she wouldn’t allow her prick of a brother to get in the way of them.

“Well this has been fun, but I have better things to do than get in a staring contest with you.” She turned on her heel, fully intending to walk out of his life forever – or at least for as long as she could manage. But he spoke up once more.

“Anna.” She halted her steps, not expecting him to use his nickname for her during childhood. The way he said it gave her a painful reminder of how things used to be between them. Only he was ever allowed to call her Anna. To everyone else, it was either her full name or Sola – ‘The Vesh Girl’ was also a common one from the gentry. As she stood frozen, contemplating this, Theodore continued to speak, “Come home.” She gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, swivelling around to glare at him.

“Home? What home, Theo?” She spat, only feeling slightly guilty at the way he flinched at the nickname. “Do you think you can just say you’re sorry and I’ll come running right back to play happy families?” He sighed, dropping his gaze for a moment.

“I will not pretend that I didn’t make my share of mistakes in the past, Anna, but a matter has arisen and I would appreciate it if you were there.” She scoffed,

“Yeah, right. What kind of ‘matter’ could you possibly need my help with?”

“Father’s funeral.”

The words were so unexpected that Sola couldn’t seem to form a reply. She opened her mouth several times as if to say something, but was unable to form any kind of coherent sentence in her mind except for,

“How…?” Theodore seemed to catch her meaning, and Sola wondered if he could still read her just as well as he could five years ago; or if the time apart had dulled his senses.

“It was relatively peaceful. He knew that his time was rapidly approaching, but I cannot say he was fully prepared for it.” Sola caught on to a single word and raised an eyebrow,

“Relatively?” Theodore sighed and stepped closer, looking around cautiously before replying in a much lower tone.

“I don’t believe that father’s death was an accident, is all.” He admitted, “There was an unidentifiable substance in his evening scotch. I was hoping that you with your… various knowledge of prohibited goods may be able to identify it. Or at least point us to someone who could.”

Sola snorted, “So, essentially, you need the expertise of a no-good criminal like me?”

Theodore closed his eyes before pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. “I didn’t say that.” He sighed.

“You were thinking it, though.” Had she been an outsider to this conversation, Sola believed that she would have found it comical how they were bickering – just as regular siblings do.

Just then, the hairs on the back of her neck stood upright as a sense of foreboding came over her. She held up a hand, motioning for Theodore to be quiet. He seemed a little put off by the action but relented nevertheless. Sola scanned the room warily, stopping in her tracks once she saw the tiniest flash of movement from behind a stack of crates. Slowly, she reached down to her hip and pulled her gun out of its holster, the click it made sounding almost deafening in the silent room.

“Theo,” she whispered, “When I give the signal, run through the door on your left. My ship’s docked through there.” Then, ever so slowly, she took several steps forward towards the source of the movement. Before she could reach the crates, however, a man in a dark uniform stood up and raised his own gun, pulling the trigger. Sola ducked, rolling out of the way and yelling for her brother to make a run for it. He hesitated for a moment before deciding it was better to follow her orders this time. Sola almost laughed at the situation. Never would she have believed that she’d be covering for her twin ever again. Several more shots flew past her ear and she cursed, ducking behind cover while raining down cover fire to keep her assailant at bay. She heard a cry of pain and looked up to see him holding his shoulder, a charred hole where one of her shots had hit home. Seeing her enemy disposed for the moment, Sola grinned and dashed for the exit, shooting the controls for the door behind her as she went. Meeting Theodore at her ship, she dragged him inside and threw herself into the cockpit, preparing for take-off.

“Solanna, what is going on?” Her brother demanded. She waved him away with one hands while the other flew over the controls.

“We can talk about this later. Right now, I want to get as far away from this station as possible.” The Cobra Mark III began to shake as it lifted off the ground, and Sola barely remembered to pull up the landing gear as she tore out of the station as fast as her ship could manage. Several ships began to race after them – an Asp and two Pythons. Letting out a string of curses and ignoring Theodore’s scandalised look, she switched all the power to the engines and boosted forward. A siren began to wail as the three ships opened fire, steadily whittling away at the hull. She watched as the numbers on the display in front of her count down far too slowly until finally – finally – she was far enough away. Slamming down on the supercruise, the station and the three ships pursuing them became distant specks behind them.

#writing stuffs #elite dangerous #sola vesh #theodore vesh #disaster twins

1 note · View note

inyri · 7 years

Text

Equivalent Exchange (an SWTOR story): Chapter 24- Goodbye (Reprise)

Equivalent Exchange by inyri

Fandom: Star Wars: The Old Republic Characters: Female Imperial Agent (Cipher Nine)/Theron Shan Rating: E (this chapter: M) Summary: If one wishes to gain something, one must offer something of equal value. In spycraft, it’s easy. Applying it to a relationship is another matter entirely. F!Agent/Theron Shan. (Spoilers for Shadow of Revan and Knights of the Fallen Empire.)

Comments are always appreciated! Visit me at:

Archive of Our Own

Fanfiction Dot Net

Chapter Twenty-Four: Goodbye (Reprise)

16 ATC. Yavin IV.

She would have preferred a later start to the morning’s meeting, all things considered.

When Nine wakes to the beeping alarm her mouth is dry and she can feel her heartbeat pounding behind her eyes; she rolls over, pulling her pillow over her head with a grumble of protest, and briefly entertains the idea of falling back to sleep.

“If you don’t shut that thing off-” across the tent, Lana’s voice is muffled; when Nine peers out from beneath the pillow she can only see a blanket-covered form laying prone on the far cot and then one hand poking out, a faint blue-tinged light gathering around the fingertips.

“Don’t you dare.” Dragging herself upright, she reaches out toward the desk and pokes at her datapad until it quiets. “There. Awake. Under protest.”

Lana pushes the blanket off her face, rubbing her eyes. “Believe me, I know. I didn’t set today’s agenda.”

“And I doubt Marr’s battling this hangover, either. I’ve never even seen him eat, let alone being able to drink through that mask.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” As she sits up, picking her tunic off the floor and slipping it over her head, her tone turns sly. “He could use a straw, I suppose.”

“With a little umbrella?“ Now that’s a mental image- she’ll be thinking of it through the entire damned meeting now. She makes a note to tuck a pin into her jacket pocket. That’ll keep her from laughing if it comes down to it. “I ought to shower. After all the torches last night I smell like a cantina fire.”

(More like sex in a burning cognac distillery, frankly, but she can’t tell her that.)

Lana sniffs the hem of her tunic and wrinkles her nose. “I likely should as well. We’ve got half an hour yet- shall we?”

***

She downs three tablets of painkiller with her caf and steps into the Command tent, trailing two paces behind Lana, at eight o’clock sharp. It could have been worse. Marr was always spare with words and today’s no exception: no pleasantries and no small talk, just a sound-cancelling shield up to discourage eavesdroppers and a secure connection to the Intelligence mainframe as they set to work.

She would have thought it would be a shorter meeting. No matter how urgent the work this wasn’t the right place for operational discussions, especially with their temporary peace with the Republic still nominally in place- too many ears, shield notwithstanding, and poor form besides. Clearly, though, she’d underestimated the power of Sith bureaucracy. Three hours in they’ve got both Darth Vowrawn and Darth Acina patched in via holotransmitter and little settled but titles, ranks and whether Lana’s office ought to be in the Citadel or the Intelligence tower-

(Oh, don’t remind me. Lana groans. It took two weeks to even move in once we’d returned to Dromund Kaas. Do you know why it took so long to set the offices up?

I wasn’t there, remember- I was only home two days before you sent me off to Balmorra. But I assumed it was a protocol issue, she shrugs. A Sith Lord in the east tower. Goodness knows we mustn’t go against tradition.

That’s what I thought initially, too, but as it turns out it was rather more straightforward. When Intelligence personnel were all reassigned after the disbanding it left most of the building vacant, and the Citadel tower’s always been crowded- by her expression, she knew it from experience- particularly for the lower-ranking Sith. When word got around there was space for the taking, they claimed it.

That oughtn’t to have been a surprise. She’d just avoided the old headquarters building back then, after all- the Minister’s last act in office had been to build a remote access protocol for the archive, and there were far too many memories in those halls. Just like Sith. Always taking our toys away.

I took them back, Lana says with a grin. But a few of them didn’t take kindly to being evicted. It really made quite a mess.

That’s Intelligence for you. Two parts breaking and entering, a dash of poison, three parts embassy parties and one part wondering how people fit that much blood into their bodies.

Her smile broadens, teeth flashing white in her pale face. Yes, well. I was never very fond of parties.)

-and she simply starts pulling up dossiers on her datapad and ranking them in priority order as she keeps one ear to the conversation.

“I would advise returning the Watchers to service, but that decision will ultimately be yours.” Darth Marr gestures toward the hierarchical map projected above the table. “They were originally reallocated to the military and to Production and Logistics, however-”

She makes a noise despite herself: what a Force-damned waste. She remembers Watcher Sixteen working on a particularly tricky substitution cipher once, years ago; he’d had it decrypted and translated from Bothan before she finished her breakfast. Imagining all that brilliance gone to calculating troop numbers and patterning out fluctuations in grain prices- “Get as many of them back as possible, if they haven’t been ruined already.” Looking up from her notes as both Marr and Lana’s heads snap in her direction, she sets the pad down and folds her arms across her chest. “You know they were never meant for that sort of careless handling. You’ve taken-” oh, what’s a comparison they’d understand? “You’ve taken lightsabers and used them to toast your bread.”

Lana blinks and Vowrawn’s hologram scowls at her, but Marr only nods, impassive as ever behind his mask.

“An appropriate analogy,” he rumbles. “If we are to hope to regain an advantage over the Republic, we must use our resources to their full potential. Should you require any other former assets returned to your employ-” his gaze is turned toward Lana, now, but she can’t help feel as though he’s still partially talking to her- “that may be negotiable.”

“Yes, my lord.” They must have said that a hundred times in those few hours, the two of them; Lana inclines her head in a deferential half-bow. “I’ll prepare a list, with Cipher Nine’s assistance.”

“Then we’ll adjourn until tomorrow. While this truce served us against Revan, it will soon be over, and we have spent far too long having blinded ourselves to our enemies’ plans.” With a wave of his hand, Marr deactivates the projectors. “No longer.”

Well, she thinks as they step out of the tent, past the guards and into the midday heat, it’s about time.

***

And as we sat staring at the Republic, the Emperor destroyed a planet. Lana sighs. To say nothing of the Eternal Empire sneaking in through the back door.

Zakuul surprised the Republic too, to be fair, she shrugs. And I don’t know that handling Ziost differently would have done much good. Even without Kovach’s treachery, without Theron’s Jedi and Saresh’s absurd invasion attempt, he would have set our people to killing each other until he got what he wanted. How do we kill someone that doesn’t need a body, someone we couldn’t even see?

Interesting questions. In that moment Valkorion’s sitting beside her again, hip to hip, shoulder to shoulder, far too close for comfort. She tries not to flinch away when she catches sight of him out of the corner of her eye. How do you?

By the time she can turn to look at him fully he is gone.

That was then, old man, she says aloud, and hears Lana startle on her other side as the world snaps back into motion. I can see you now.

Lana’s hand is cool on the back of her neck.

***

At noon they gather in the center of camp, Republic delegates on one side and Imperials opposite, to say their goodbyes.

She doesn’t have to make a speech, thankfully. She isn’t nearly high-ranking enough for that. Instead she listens quietly, hands clasped behind her back, as Grand Master Shan and Darth Marr address the gathered crowd for the last time. (It reminds her a little of the speeches on Victory Day, when Coruscant fell- she was only a child then, still in primary school, but she remembers the parade, the figure of Darth Baras projected ten stories tall in the central square. All grand speeches were the same in that way, she thinks: the same platitudes, the same shallow promises.

The Sith Code has it right in one respect, at least. Peace is a lie.)

At the end of it the troops disperse to finish the work of disassembly, of loading the shuttles and troop transports, pulling down the tents and lowering the banners. They are left standing on the makeshift dais, turning to face each other, three and three, just as they did in their safehouse on Rishi.

It seems like so long ago. Has it really been less than a month?

“Are the terms we discussed still agreeable?” Satele’s tone is even, her hands folded neatly in front of her. “I’ve no particular desire for war today.”

“Our fleet departs for Dromund Kaas,” Marr replies, “the Mandalorian clans to Rishi and yours for Coruscant, and this is neutral space. We will not pursue unless given reason to do so.”

“And you shall find none.”

There’s an odd sort of formality to their cadence and when the two of them nod to one another the silence hangs in the air, almost palpable; beside her, Lana’s holding her breath. She catches Theron’s eye and he barely moves, one shoulder rising and falling in the slightest little shrug- if there’s something she missed he doesn’t feel it either, clearly.

More Force nonsense, then. It always came down to the Force in the end, no matter how hard the rest of them work, how many times they- Force-blind, defective, inferior- go to the wall in their masters’ names. It always will, probably. She’s used to it by now.

Doesn’t make it any less bantha shit, though.

“Then we will meet again on the battlefield, Grand Master.” As Marr speaks the breeze picks up, the air moving again. “But not today.”

Satele nods. “It will be as the Force wills it. I-” Then she stops, still looking upward at Marr as her head tilts subtly, and for a moment she’s almost staring through him, mouth still half-open around a word, her hands dropping to her sides. Behind her, Theron’s face scrunches in concern; he takes a step forward, but before he draws even with her Satele blinks and her gaze shifts rightward, straight at her.

It isn’t the first time she’s been stared down by a Jedi, but her expression’s something entirely different- in the past they always looked determined (the good ones, she supposes) or angry (the not-so-good ones, who often as not she didn’t need to fight at all, who only needed a little persuading). Satele looks-

-she looks worried, just for a second, before her face settles back into its usual calm solemnity and she keeps speaking as though nothing at all had happened, waving Theron back with a slight turn of one hand. “I don’t pretend to know the future, but yes, we will meet again. Until then, may the Force be with you.”

“May it serve you well,” Marr replies, and then they say no more.

(I don’t remember that, Lana says slowly. But perhaps it was a vision.

Of the future, or-?

She shrugs. It’s possible. With power like Satele has, the Force sometimes works in unpredictable ways.

You say ‘has’ as though you think she’s still alive.

I’ve no reason to assume she isn’t. I sensed Marr’s passing from halfway across the galaxy, and we had enough eyes on her to know that she survived the sack of Tython. She hasn’t been in contact with anyone- even Theron’s tried, without success- but if she’d died after that I would think I would have felt it.

She frowns, considering. I suppose. But they didn’t see each other again, did they- Marr and Satele? Before he died? It seems so long ago. It’s hard to remember.

Not in person, so far as I’m aware, though I suspect Grand Master Shan may have been meant to be part of the conclave on the Terminus but ended up delayed, just as I was. There were other Jedi there, yes?

There were, and Republic soldiers too. Still, it means she was wrong.

I can only imaging that interpreting the future might be rather subjective. It’s not a gift I share. Her nose wrinkling, Lana looks to her. Nor would I want to, I think. Imagine knowing what will happen and not being able to do anything about it.

An uncomfortable idea, indeed- a chill runs up her spine, prickling the hairs on the back of her neck. I wonder what she saw when she looked at me.)

Marr’s the first to turn away, dismissing her and Lana with a gesture as his guards fall in at either side. Opposite them, Satele starts to walk toward the far edge of the platform; Theron, turning, says something too quiet to hear at this distance and his mother shakes her head. I’m fine- her lips form around the words, then press together in a narrow line as he replies- leave it be, Theron. We’ll speak later.

He sighs as Satele descends the stairs, and then it’s just the four of them left- her and Lana and Theron and Jakarro, one final time.

She raises an eyebrow at Theron, a silent question, and he runs one hand through his hair and makes a face. Fair enough.

“So. I guess this is goodbye.” Theron’s looking at Lana, not at her, when he says it.

“I suppose it is. It’s certainly been…” Lana stops, clearly thinking better of whatever she way about to say. “It’s been an experience, hasn’t it?”

She can’t help it- she laughs a little at that, and Jakarro growls amusement and Theron grins as Lana flushes. “That’s one word for it.”

“I get what you meant,” Theron says. “And yeah, it definitely was. Maybe not one I’d care to repeat, but- well. We got through it, and now it’s back to real life. Like a really weird vacation.”

“Are you heading back with Theron, Jakarro? Much as I hate to admit it, the Empire isn’t the wisest destination for you.” Looking up at the Wookiee as he roars out a reply, she shifts her focus down to Dee-Four for the translation.

“We’re headed back to Rishi!” The droid sounds suspiciously cheerful, which never bodes well, and more to the point-

Lana says it before she can. “Jakarro, you hated Rishi.”

He gestures for emphasis, and Theron has to duck to keep from getting bowled over. “Exactly! That is why I must return!” Dee-Four keeps translating over a series of ever-louder roars. He clearly feels strongly about this. “Those pirates are the most pathetic thing I’ve ever seen, but they have potential. I’m going to whip them into shape.”

“Hear, hear.” Shae Vizla, walking past with a few of her clanmates trailing behind, raises a fist in agreement. “Not worth my time, but someone ought to do it. Plenty of credits there if you’ve got the stones to tame that mess. You catching a ride with our ships, then?”

“We have a few stops to make first, but we’ll be there shortly.” She wishes, not for the first time, she understood more Shyriiwook. She’s pretty sure that’s not what Jakarro actually said.

“Fair enough. And Cipher?” Shae pauses in front of the dais and nods her head in her direction. “You find any more fights that good, you know where to find me.”

She grins. Short a punch in the teeth that’s as much respect as she’s ever likely to get from a Mandalorian. “I’ll keep that in mind. Ret’urcye mhi.”

Her pronunciation’s shitty and her mouth catches on the glottal stop, but Shae just grins. “Not bad, Imp. Not bad. Ret’urcye mhi.”

“Well, then”- turning back to Jakarro as the Mandalorians continue across the courtyard, she holds out her hand- “good luck, big guy. Dee-Four, try not to let him rip too many arms off.”

Unexpectedly, he pulls her in for a hug- oh, stars, that might have just been a rib cracking- as he sweeps Theron and, surprisingly, Lana, in with his other arm, nearly pulling them off their feet. “Be safe, little friends.”

“I- oof- I will.” Extracting herself from his grip, Lana takes a deep breath. “And you too, Theron. Be well. I suspect you’ll have an easier time of it without me around.”

“Now you admit it?” Theron blinks, then chuckles. “You’re probably right, yeah- but you too, Lana. Try not to get in too much trouble, all right?”

“I’ll do my best. Cipher-” she looks toward her- “I’ll see you back at the tent. I’m going to go start packing things up and we can continue our earlier discussion.”

When she nods agreement, Lana steps down onto the cobblestones and sets off toward their side of camp; Jakarro, with one last wave, heads toward the Republic shuttle pads. After a moment, they’re both out of sight behind the rows.

Theron turns to her, then. “So-” too loud, meant to be overheard even if they can’t be sure anyone’s listening- “you’re finally getting rid of me, huh?”

“I will admit, I’m a little sad to see this end.” She gestures around them, at the little camp that was their home. “I’m going to miss you.”

“Me, too. C’mere.”

It’s a brief embrace, chaste and appropriate in sight of the soldiers still hard at work clearing the courtyard. If she had any sense that would have been the end of it.

He whispers in her ear, though, as his fingertips brush along her back. “Do you still think you can get away, or-?”

“I’ve just got a few things to take care of,” she murmurs in reply. “Give me an hour or two, but I’ll send you a message.”

“Good.” Theron takes a step back, his voice picking up volume again. “Take care, Cipher. See you in the ops reports.”

“Not if I’m doing my job properly,” she says, and he winks before he turns away.

(I should have known. Lana sighs. But-

We were careful, as I said. Not careful enough, of course. She raises one hand to her throat at the memory, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. Although I’ve been meaning to ask you- what happened to Jakarro? Do you know?

Lana shakes her head. He and Dee-Four did go to Rishi. When the war hit, though, Zakuul blockaded the hyperspace lanes. The pirates and smugglers didn’t stand a chance. I looked for him when I started to pull the Alliance together, but- she frowns. Nothing. And they weren’t exactly inconspicuous.

No, they weren’t. She sighs.)

Back in the tent, she throws her things into her duffel- everything needs washing in any case, so there’s no point in folding- and strips the linens off her cot. Lana’s still packing, setting everything neatly into her own bag, and looks up as she dumps the sheets onto the floor.

“I’ve got people coming to haul everything away. Don’t worry about taking those to the laundry crates.”

“Perks of rank, hm? All right.” The console needs to go, too; she starts an erasure program, setting the storage chips to purge their data. A hammer would be quicker, but the unit could be reused. Waste not, want not. “I’ll start making holocalls, unless you’ve got another task for me.”

“Hm? No, I think anything more than that can wait,” Lana says, rummaging under her cot for a stray tabard.

She nods. “Fine. You don’t have any particular objection to non-humans, do you? Some of my contacts are a bit on the unconventional side. I’ll need to reorder my list-” she holds up her datapad- “if you do, though it’ll be your staff. It’s up to you.”

“Define unconventional.”

“Nothing scandalous. Chiss, mostly. Twi’leks. One Nautolan, if she’ll hire on. Sweetest-looking face you ever saw and she could kill you in a dozen ways with a credit chit and a roll of spacer’s tape. Also a trained receptionist. I was thinking of her for a bodyguard for you, at least until Zhorrid’s been managed.”

Her bag fastened, Lana lofts it across the tent with a wave of one hand until it settles just next to the entrance. “I’ve no objections. If you think they’re suitable, I trust your judgment.”

“Famous last words.” Setting her transmitter on the desktop, she dials in the first address. “It’s been a few years. Let’s see if anyone remembers me.”

***

She oughtn’t have worried.

For better or for worse, people in her line of work have long memories. She learned long ago not to burn bridges unless she didn’t have a choice and it makes the calls that much easier; a dozen conversations later, she��s got their first agents heading back to Dromund Kaas- three Minders, two Fixers, five security specialists including the Nautolan and, in a stroke of excellent luck, Cipher Seventeen. Her only failures are Minder Eight (hugely pregnant, when she answers the holo; she only laughs and points to her belly before Nine can even ask. “I’m sorry, Cipher, but I’m afraid I’ve retired from that particular line of work,” she grins, and Fixer Twelve peeks over her shoulder and waves hello) and one old Nar Shaddaa contact who simply hangs up on her (in retrospect, she did promise she’d call him the next day, didn’t she?).

All in all, a good start.

Two soldiers peek through the tent opening as she disconnects the final call. “Sorry to interrupt, Lord Beniko- and Cipher. Thought you’d told us to come and pull the tent down, but if we should come back later-”

“I was just finishing up.” Tucking the holo into her belt pouch, she rises, stretching. It’s later than she thought. She should find Theron. “I’m sure I can find somewhere else to be.”

Lana nods, too. “I’ll find a sunny corner to meditate in. Once we’re home again, Force knows when we’ll next see actual daylight.”

“D’you want us to take your bags to loadout?” The second soldier chimes in, even as she’s already starting to take one of the desks apart. “We’ve got to head back that way either way, and it’s no trouble.

One less thing to do. Why not? “Fine. Let me just grab my rifle-” she picks it up from its resting place atop the duffel bag, sliding it into her back holster until it clicks; no one touches her guns but her and her team, a lesson she learned the hard way early on. That misfire nearly cost her a finger- “and it’s all yours. I’ll see you in a few hours, Lana.”

She barely sees her wave as she steps out of the tent- she’s already looking down at her commpad, typing out a message.

Did you still want to talk? Free now until shuttle launch.

His reply’s immediate.

meet me by the war table?

She smiles. On my way.

***

When she reaches the stone table it’s bare, now, all the monitors and equipment already hauled away and only faint outlines on the ground left as signs they were ever there. In another few weeks the vines and weeds they’d cut away will have grown back and there’ll be no trace of them at all save only the wrecked shuttle across the clearing and the perimeter sensors left in the field; in a year even those will be gone, rusted relics mixed in with the crumbling stones. It’ll be as though they were never here.

It’s a sobering thought.

She doesn’t see Theron at first. When she turns, though, there he is, leaning against the wall of one of the ruins, and he smiles at her when she

“For a little while there I thought you might be standing me up.” Taking her by one wrist, he draws her around until they’re out of view of the archway.

“Oh, you know,” she says, “no rest for the wicked. Plus, I had to pack.”

“More work already?” Theron wrinkles his nose at her. “It’s bad enough that we’re back to the same damn war, but they could have given you a day off, at least.”

“We’re not big on vacations in the Empire.” After a moment, looking at him still frowning, she reaches out with her other hand to touch his arm. “That came out less funny than I meant it. I wasn’t going to leave without saying goodbye, Theron, regardless of the circumstances.”

“Us being on opposite sides again, you mean.”

She sighs. She should have known he’d think of things that way- he never was going to be the no-strings type, no matter what he said. “Yes. But we knew that was going to happen from the beginning.”

“I- yeah. Sorry. I’m just not-” he shakes his head, leans down to brush his lips across her forehead and despite herself she tilts her chin up into the kiss. “I keep thinking that now I’ve got to go back to real life and make myself forget, that all of this was a mistake, but-”

“You do. I do, too,” she says against his throat. “And you’re allowed to make mistakes, Theron, whether you admit it to yourself or not. You’re allowed to want things even if you know they’re bad for you.”

“You aren’t- you weren’t bad for me. You saved me.”

She closes her eyes as he cups her head in his hands. “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“I know that. But you weren’t.” Another kiss, punctuating the words. “Somehow I didn’t picture this, that first day on Manaan.”

“Quite a ways from Mysterious Ally, hm?” She grins as he mutters something against her skin. “And to think I thought you’d be dull.”

“Really?” It’s only mock offense in his voice, and when she glances upward he’s grinning too. “Not roguishly charming?”

“You’re more the brooding type, but I had you figured for Standard Republic Issue- too serious. Hot, though.”

Theron laughs out loud at that, hands drifting downward, settling around her waist. “I take a while to warm up, ‘s all. Though I’ll admit I was wrong about you, too.”

“Oh, do tell,” she purrs, leaning against him. They’ve got a little time, still. She doesn’t need to leave quite yet.

(She doesn’t want to leave yet. She tries not to think about that too much.)

“Only if you promise not to get mad.”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Don’t be absurd.”

“You popped up on holo down in that base, covered in Selkath blood and half on fire, and I thought-” he stops- oh, stars, is he blushing again?- “I remember thinking, y’know, crazy doesn’t normally do it for me but damn- ”

“Ah, romance,” she says dryly, and winks. “You hid it well. I rather got the impression you loathed me.”

“Thought you said it was overrated. And no, I just- it’s hard training to break, you know? All we ever learn from day one on is you versus us, but once we knew each other better-”

“Oh, it is.” He’s still got a scratch along one cheekbone from yesterday and she traces it with an idle fingertip, curling in closer as his arms tighten around her. “And yes, I know. Though I meant what I said before. I am going to miss you.”

Theron’s quiet for a moment, his head tilting into her touch. “I’m going to miss you, too. I wish you-”

“Don’t.” She lets her hand dip lower, presses her finger to his mouth. “Don’t.”

“Do we just say goodbye, then?”

(She should have known better. Leaving is one thing; leaving is easy. Forgetting is easy. But she doesn’t want to hurt him and someday she’s probably going to have to and that-

That complicates things.)

She nods. “It’s easiest that way.”

“What time is it?”

Turning her wrist, she looks at her chrono. “Nearly four. Why?”

“We still have an hour, then, don’t we? Before we need to be on the shuttles?”

“Yes, but-”

“Then we can say goodbye-” Theron nudges her hand aside, catches her mouth with his and she shouldn’t but oh, to the Void with that; she is allowed to want things that she knows are bad for her- “in an hour.”

She lets him push her back against the wall.

***

And- well. Not exactly love at first sight, but you know what happened after that, she finishes, grinning, with a little shrug of her shoulders. He went back to the SIS, and I went back to work, and that was the end of it. No one else ever knew but Vector.

(His nose twitched as she slid into the seat beside him on the shuttle back to the Terminus, and after a moment he leans over to murmur into her ear. “We wondered where you’d gone. Agent Shan, hm?”

Killiks and their damned pheromones. She never could get anything past Vector, not that she’d ever really tried; he could read her like a book.

She sighed. “Spare me the lecture, Vector, please. I know.”

“Lecture? Never.” As he adjusted the harness straps across her body, he raised the edge of her collar to hide her neck. “We were only going to compliment your taste.”)

I do know, Lana mutters, rather too well. But you’re honestly telling me that nothing happened between then and Ziost?

Nothing happened. We never even spoke, and I was telling you the truth on Ziost. I didn’t know he was there until Kovach mentioned his name.

And after that?

She shakes her head. We spoke once, briefly, a few weeks later. Not in person- she clarifies as Lana’s brows start to creep ceilingward- I was shipboard off Alderaan and he was on Coruscant. I- I gave him the implant he wears now. He probably told you that.

He did. I’m not sure he meant to. Lana rubs her forehead. It was on Asylum, and we were both very drunk at the time.

And the next time I saw Theron, she says quietly, outside of five years of carbonite dreams, was here.

The day I called him, when I was sure you were alive, was the anniversary of the day we thought you’d died. I didn’t even think of it at the time, but- Lana sighs. He was a wreck, Nine. The war was hard on all of us, and I knew you’d been lovers, of course, but I didn’t realize how much he- she trails off.

(She remembers the night of the party. ‘I mourned you,’ he’d said, curled beside her, and she never really understood the depth of what he meant until now.)

Theron kissed me on Ziost. Did he tell you that, too?

Lana blinks, surprised. No. He didn’t.

Before it happened- on the orbital station, while we were in the medical bay; I’d told him that you knew. He was trying to prove your point about objectivity. I stopped him then, but-

Was I right?

She chuckles. What do you think?

I think that right now you deserve to be happy despite everything that’s going on around us, despite everything going on inside your head, and I think Theron looks better than I’ve seen him in years. And I think- Lana smiles- it would be awful of me to be anything but happy for you.

Thank you, she says; Lana stands, then, with a barely stifled yawn. But do me a favor, won’t you?

Hm?

She stretches out until she’s laying flat on the couch, sprawling across the space left vacant by Lana. Go talk to Koth. Don’t keep dancing around things- it’s better to have it all out in the open.

You ought to take your own advice. I saw Theron sneaking out of here yesterday morning.

She makes a face- guilty as charged. Do as I say, not as I do. Still.

But I don’t think I want-

I know that, she says. I don’t mean sex, or romance, if that’s not what you want. Just… talk. I don’t want something else ruined because of me.

You didn’t- Lana stops herself. All right. But tomorrow, I think- for now, I should sleep. As should you.

I will. I might see if Theron’s still awake, first. I…

(She isn’t used to any of this.)

I miss him.

I know. Lana smiles. Good night, Nine.

***

Up next- Interlude III: Liminal Space. A holocall, two leads, and a cure for insomnia as we return to present time.

(Don’t worry, we’re not skipping over the shuttle entirely, but that’s a memory better shared with someone other than Lana, I think. I leave it to you, readers- how much do you want to hear about that final hour?

And for those of you who are familiar with this week’s spoilers (5.4): yes, I plan to continue this story regardless of how things play out. How I’ll approach that particular turn remains to be seen, of course, but I do have an idea- one of the seeds of which appears somewhere in this chapter.)

#inyri writes #equivalent exchange #swtor fanfiction #imperial agent/theron shan #cipher nine #theron shan #writing is the best form of denial

19 notes · View notes

ssimpleandclean · 7 years

Text

Faith (Rebelcaptain week, day 3)

rebelcaptain week, day 3: undercover

Read it on AO3! Full text after the cut.

Why is it, Cassian wonders wryly, that when things go wrong, they always do so spectacularly?

It’s not enough that his cover got blown. It’s not enough that it happened too quickly for the rest of Rogue One to come to his aid. It’s not even enough that he got taken down too fast to do anything more than send a single, brief signal out into the void.

No, he just had to get caught in a base under the command of one of the few Imperial officers who’ve seen his face before.

“Well, well, well,” Commander Vantai tuts, circling slowly around Cassian and the two Stormtroopers currently jabbing him in the ribs with their blasters. “Lieutenant Willix. Or have you been promoted since you mysteriously disappeared from my command?”

Cassian takes a deep breath, flexing his wrists against the cuffs currently pinning them at the small of his back, and says nothing.

“I thought not,” Vantai says. He’s awfully proud of himself considering he didn’t recognize Cassian when he first entered the base, but then Vantai was always one to give himself more credit than he was due.

The commander loses interest when Cassian doesn’t rise to the bait. He glances toward the entrance to the hangar bay, squinting past the hazy blue screen protecting them all from the hard vacuum beyond. “Where is that prisoner transport?” he demands of a nearby flunky.

“They’re close, sir,” the man answers hastily. “Their codes cleared; they should be landing any minute.”

“Good,” Vantai says. He turns to regard Cassian again, a slow, nasty smirk curling the corner of his mouth. “It’s your lucky day, Willix. As much as I’d like to interrogate you myself, I have more important matters to attend to.”

Cassian can’t quite keep his eyebrow from quirking upward, but he keeps his mouth shut.

A flash of anger crosses Vantai’s face. Before he can act on it, the forcefield across the mouth of the bay crackles. The shuttle eases in, settling to the ground with a creak of the landing gear. Cassian resists the urge to peer into the viewport for a look at the pilot, even as hope pounds painfully in his chest. Come on, come on…

The ramp takes an eternity to open, the Empire’s signature white haze drifting out of the opening.

A diminutive form emerges from the smoke, flanked by an unusually bulky Stormtrooper. Cassian bites down hard on the inside of his cheek to ward off a grin.

“Took your sweet time getting here,” Commander Vantai says as the two figures approach. “I do have better things to do than wait around, you know.”

Jyn comes to a regulation-perfect stop in front of them, her back ramrod straight. If he didn’t know every inch of her body better than he knew his own, he’d almost have a hard time recognizing her. It startled the hell out of him the first time she did it; Jyn, as it turns out, is a chameleon. Whether it’s natural talent or the result of a life spent on the run, when she takes on a different role, it changes everything about her, down to the way she breathes.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” she says, her tone a spot-on mixture of deference and boredom. “We had a little engine trouble—“

“Never mind, I don’t care,” Vantai says impatiently. “Let’s just get on with it.”

Jyn’s eyes flicker to Cassian. She jerks her head once at the Stormtrooper behind her. He steps past her, heading for Cassian. Vantai’s eyes flicker from the new trooper to the two holding Cassian’s arms, and narrow slightly. There are small differences between Stormtroopers, even the cloned ones, but Baze (and of course, that’s who it is) is considerably bulkier.

Jyn picks that moment to produce a holopad from under one arm. “I’ll just need you to sign off to authorize the transfer, sir.”

Vantai eyes Cassian a moment more, then turns to take the holo. Cassian’s guards surrender him to Baze without a fuss; the Guardian’s grip on his arm is much gentler than the others, his blaster hovering a couple inches away instead of digging into Cassian’s ribs.

“There,” Vantai says, giving the holo back. “Now get out of my sight.”

“Of course, sir,” Jyn says. She executes a perfect parade turn and marches off across the bay. Baze and Cassian trail behind; Cassian puts up a small token resistance, but a glance behind him shows Vantai has already lost interest.

By unspoken agreement, none of them break character until they’ve reached the safety of hyperspace. Then, Jyn groans and stretches, letting her breath out on a sigh. “That act is killer on my back.”

Baze pries the helmet off his head, shaking sweaty hair out of his face. “At least you can breathe.”

“Everything okay down there?” Bodhi calls from the cockpit above.

“All aboard in one piece,” Jyn confirms.

Cassian clears his throat. “A little help?”

Jyn comes to sit beside him on the bench seat. Cassian turns so she can get at the cuffs; her fingers brush against his skin, and he suddenly feels like he could snap them in half if it means he could touch her again. But he can’t, so he forces himself to hold still.

“What happened?” she asks as she works.

He shrugs. “It’s a long story. I got unlucky.”

“Sounds pretty short to me,” Baze comments, pieces of armor clattering to the floor as he carelessly shucks them off.

“Vantai got a little suspicious,” Cassian says, glancing at Jyn.

“I noticed,” she says dryly. “We’ll ditch the shuttle at Corellia; Avan’s meeting us there to give us a ride back to our actual ship. There’s enough activity around there that they shouldn’t be able to follow us.”

“That’s a pretty good plan,” Cassian admits.

Jyn smacks his shoulder gently. “Don’t sound so surprised.” With a jerk, the cuffs finally give way. Cassian groans a little in relief, bringing his wrists around to massage them reflexively.

Baze glances at them, and wordlessly heads up the ladder.

Before Cassian can turn around, Jyn leans into his back, her head resting on one of his shoulders. Her hands drift down his sides; he reaches back to catch one of them, and only then feels the faint tremble in her fingers.

He casts about for a moment for what to say, and settles on, “I knew you would come.”

She butts her head against his shoulder once, lightly. “Don’t do that to me again. I thought…”

“I know,” he says quietly. He turns around then, and she meets him with a kiss, soft and insistent. He slips his arms around her waist, and feels hers do the same to his. She’s shaking, just slightly. Cassian thinks he might be, too.

What he hadn’t said was: he knew they would come, but. If they hadn’t gotten his all-too-brief message. If they hadn’t been able to find a cover in time. If he’d been carted off to some Imperial hellhole somewhere with no way to tell them where he’d been taken…

This could have been a lot worse.

It’s a ten-hour cruise to Corellia. They spend it together.

#rebelcaptainweek #rebelcaptainprompts #therebelcaptainnetwork #rogue one #rebelcaptain #ire writes shit

27 notes · View notes

jumpingjaxx13 · 7 years

Note

Writing Prompt: Fluffy Lystintine, please. Lyste finding the courage to ask Konstantine to coffee and Konstantine actually saying yes.

((BOI thank you so much for requesting this ^^ Sorry if it isn’t very good. I tried, but I dunno.))

What the kriff do you think you’re doing?!

That very thought had echoed through his head since the moment he’d stepped onto this path, accentuating every step with its message of imminent failure. Out of all the scenarios his active imagination had supplied, not a single one of them ended with acceptance (though there was one that came rather close). While the lieutenant often wished that reality would follow in the footsteps of fantasy, his prayers now held a different tone: please, let me be wrong. Most of the time, he could reason with his ambitions and come to a safe consensus- no, he would never be Grand Admiral, but he could make it up to Commander before he died; no, he would never travel the galaxy, but he would try his damnedest to make it off Lothal- but this situation dropped a roadblock in rationalization.

No, his little crush on his commanding admiral wouldn’t develop into anything substantial (hells, it wouldn’t even be recognized), but he could propose they out on a date- no, he could turn on his charming naivety- no, he could ask him out for caf--

Despite his every ion screaming that this was a bad idea, his drive buckled down on that idea with a ravenous fervor that couldn’t be satisfied by anything other than its fulfillment. No matter how ridiculous…. How preposterous… How utterly foolish this endeavor was, the internal conflict waged without impeding the progress of his stride as he made his way to the admiral’s office.

Don’t be ridiculous. First off, he’s your commanding officer! You are under his direct command. This would be highly inappropriate. Secondly, do you even remember the last time you asked someone out? If you’ve forgotten, allow me to remind you that it didn’t end well. Thirdly, what are you going to do if he says no?! That’ll make your professional relationship all the more awkward. Fourth-

“Enter!” a familiar voice called from the other side of a door, tearing Lyste from his thoughts harshly. Somehow, he’d managed to mindlessly navigate the corridors and approach the door, his raised hand implying that he’d already made his presence known. A hollow chill coiled in his gut, breath catching in his throat as the gravity of his position finally dawned on him: Unless he could fabricate a report in a moment’s notice, there was no turning back.

Blast…

Drawing in a deep breath, Lyste rolled his shoulders back to perfect his imperial posture and spared a moment to regain his composure.

It’s not going to happen. Just turn back while he still can’t put a face to you. Would all this trouble even be worth it?

He applied faint pressure to the door’s controls, the whistle of its opening signaling the sealing of his fate.

Yes. Yes it will.

“Lieutenant Lyste,” Konstantine greeted, features lighting up in a welcoming smile that made the younger man’s heart stutter lightly. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Lyste shuffled further into the office before standing a respectable distance from the desk in parade rest. While he tried his hardest to contain his insecurities, he wouldn’t be surprised if a few uncomfortable vibes leaked from his slapdash barriers. At the very least, Konstantine had no way of knowing just how ferociously hard his heart was pounding. He hoped he wasn’t sweating…

“Admiral Konstantine. I was wondering… Do you have a moment alone, sir?” he tried, wincing inwardly. So much for the naive charm…

Fortunately, Konstantine simply nodded. “Of course. Is something the matter?”

“No, no! Everything is… Everything is fine,” he assured, finding his words harder to pronounce as any remaining moisture evaporated from the cavern. There was still time to make something up… No. He may be a touch out of his league, but he wasn’t one to cower in the face of the enemy, who in this case took the form of his own doubts. “I just… You see, there’s something… W-Well…”

Lyste’s stomach bottomed out as that smile melted into a frown, lips pursed in a touch of concern as Konstantine rose from his place at his desk. Blast… Blast, blast, blast!

“Lieutenant? Are you certain that everything is alright?”

No. This isn't alright. You’re an idiot, Lyste! You can’t even condemn yourself right. Admiral Konstantine must think you’re plain strange now. Turn back while you still can and salvage what little dignity you have left.

Konstantine stepped forward, and Lyste could feel those cool eyes burning into him as he was scrutinized. A large lump swelled in his throat, temporarily choking off his words. How dare confidence escape him at such a crucial moment…

Then again, who needed confidence when one had impulsivity? Time and time again, he’d relied on split-second decisions to author his fate and experienced mixed results as a consequence. If he possessed a more tactical mind, he may have embraced countless promotions- or a stronger warrior’s heart to lead to greater command and respect from his peers. He possessed neither of these things, but what he did have, he would use: the willingness to lose for the worth of the trial.

“.......I would be highly… honored if you would consider sharing caf with me sometime,” he managed, drawing up to his full height with a false sense of conviction as he met that solid, considerate blue gaze. This assertiveness was fueled by his previous determination- running on fumes, but clinging to the hope of survival.

When Konstantine’s eyes widened that telltale fraction, however, Lyste felt his hammering heart stop dead in its tracks. Kriff he’d messed up… Yet his throat choked off any retraction or clarification or protest, leaving him standing tall in the implications of his request. Oh, Maker….

Lips pursing slightly, Konstantine cleared his throat, breaking eye contact to give the lieutenant a quick once over- Maker only knows what he’s thinking- before suspicion narrowed his gaze.

“Lieutenant,” he started, regarding him with a caution that seemed almost familiar to the younger man, “Am I correct in assuming that your proposal is not professional in nature? Are you asking me out on a date, perhaps..?”

Lyste felt nausea swim through his gut, trickling into his veins and making his head spin. How he was able to remain on his feet, he would never be able to explain. Was this a question he was supposed to answer? If so, was there a wrong answer? In this case, is honesty the best policy, or should he save himself the trouble of facing the consequence of this risk?

Oh, blast it.

“Y-Yes, sir. That was my intention,” he confessed, hoping his voice wasn’t as shaky as his hands were. Despite his efforts to save face, he could tell that his cheeks burned with an entirely different passion that undermined any of his efforts to be composed and suave (hells, that went out the window ages ago). The silence which followed his reply deafened him, his pulse pounding in his ears the only audible source of life. Konstantine’s expression never changed from one of bewildered contemplation, only stirring the already toxic anxiety in his gut. Lyste parted his lips to break this self-inflicted tension-- to take it back, beg for forgiveness, dismiss himself-- but was robbed of the chance when a smile broke through the mask.

“Very well,” Konstantine replied, reaching over to rest a hand on Lyste’s shoulder and pat it gently. The owner of said shoulder nearly melted on the spot. “We will meet in the break room tomorrow, say, around 1200 hours?”

Lyste blinked, the gears in his head whirring faster than he could comprehend as Konstantine’s suggestion struggled to process. Even the negating voices in his head fell silent, rendered obsolete by shocked acceptance. Eventually, he managed a nod, an enthusiastic smile slowly bleeding through his confusion. “1200 hours, then. Yes.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it.” His hand dropped from Lyste’s shoulder, prompting him to silently mourn the loss of contact. Though attempting to revert back to professional regard, Lyste, much to his delight, couldn’t help but notice a certain new lightness in his expression. Could it be that Konstantine was equally as pleased about this fresh arrangement as he was? The idea, no matter if it rang true or not, made his stomach flutter pleasantly.

“Will that be all?”

“Ah… Yes. Yes, that is all,” Lyste stated, trying (and failing) to wipe that stupid grin off of his face. He hoped it endeared him more than repelled him… With a wave of a hand and a hasty exchange of dismissals, Lyste found himself in the corridors of a ship whose walls once taunted him. Now, however, they were silent as he strode away, basking in his victory and feeling more like an excitable cadet than was warranted. Despite what his original demons declared, Lyste knew better than to believe them.

He did it, and, should things go well, he would do it again. And again. And again. For once, his risks paid off, and he’d never enjoyed a consequence quite as much as this. Smiling, he returned to his station to finish his shift, an extra skip in his step making him bounce the entire way.

((Hope this was okay! ^^ ))

Like what you read? Requests here . Optional tips here .

4 notes · View notes

egregiousderp · 7 years

Text

CHIRRUT, NO.

(have you guys ever written anything that makes you laugh and shake your head because Holy Shit I was trying to work on something and this happened. CHIRRUT. CHIRRUT, WHY.)

Somebody Please Help Baze Malbus Part ??????

——–

There’s a shocked moment of utter silence after the launcher goes off, red flare coursing off into the night.

“Is he looking?” Chirrut’s too-loud voice comes from above.

He’s almost invisible in his dark robes, and- Yes, he’s hanging by the knees off the side of the flagpole like a monkey-lizard, that ridiculous flash of red that shone like a flare in the daylight that had seemed so important that morning when Baze had wrapped it around his bare legs, like a flag on the pole.

Yael yanks him by the arm trying to dislodge him, flesh jiggling in a way that would be comical.

“The whole Empire’s going to be looking in a minute!” She hisses. Baze has seen her carry a man in each arm, so it says quite a bit that Chirrut’s so motionless against her yanking.

“Pah! The Empire. Is he looking, though?”

Baze mouthes the incredulous word what…?.

Sool gives him a look, modified eyes seeing everything in the dark. The vertical lines of scarring on her lips shorten with a pinch.

“…He’s looking,” she rasps, even drier than him.

Chirrut grins brilliantly, face tipping to where he thinks Baze is.

The roar of TIE engines picks up in Baze’s ears.

“MOVE!” He roars, “Chirrut, get clear!”

Chirrut laughs as Yael scrambles down with a swear, hoisting her launcher.

“Patience, my friend!” Chirrut lilts.

Baze doesn’t listen, charging his repeater and ducking for cover, cursing Chirrut Îmwe’s every precious reckless inch in his heart. Sool does nothing. She could be a shadow by the base of the spire. The look she gives him is cool, very cool.

“The force is with me,” Chirrut chants, arms spread wide over the city like he’s calling them to prayer with the warm of his voice, face tipped up in the darkness, the cloud of his breath wreathing out from his lips, “And I fear nothing, for all is as the force wills it.”

Yael screams a curse at him in Askaji.

“Bazey, he kills us, I’m shooting you!”

Baze says nothing, scanning the sky for disaster.

Sool gives him another cool look, saying nothing.

Chirrut’s laugh is pure delight. Insults are like caresses to him, Baze thinks incredulously, not for the first time.

There are three of them, Baze knows before he sees them, thinking of the collateral of the falling fighters in his city, and feeling sick deep in his belly.

Chirrut…

Chirrut hums something under his breath and does that gesture Baze has come to recognize, the breath into his curled fingers, gripping into a fist, hopping off of the spire pole with an entirely too-graceful flick of his leg, his sleeves spread like wings.

Yael fires her launcher a little too soon, the missile veering off over the city, missing the rightmost fighter.

Baze’s heart leaps into his throat. He pumps, fires, manages to hit the rocket before it can hit anything else.

Close… he thinks, imagining the apartments beneath, the sleeping people of the Holy City. The pilgrims and beggars.

There’s green laser fire strobing through the dark, splashing off of Yael’s cover, more fire and staccato pebblings of broken stone where Chirrut was not moments before, light and sure-footed on the rooftop. Baze can’t let his eyes follow the flutter and flash of red in the light.

He pumps, fires, watching the lead TIE pinwheel off, and crash into a stall in the street, sickened.

Worse will come if this is not done now.

The fighters follow Chirrut, firing as he dances along the bricks, sure-footed, impossible. Even Yael stares at him.

He whips with his staff, the crack of it striking something- no. Two hard things, the impacts barely apart. He leaps, launching himself upwards, and the fighters follow-

They erupt in flame, and Chirrut spreads his hands wide like a child watching an Empire Day parade.

Little shit stole his grenades, Baze thinks incredulous and impossibly relieved

“Baze!” Chirrut shouts, laughing.

“Chirrut, come down from there,” Baze hisses.

“How did it look?” Chirrut laughs, ignoring him, hands still spread wide, his grin huge. “Did you enjoy the stars I brought down for you?”

Baze swears in his heart he does know if he’s going to kiss him or murder him.

Yael starts screaming at Chirrut before Baze has to decide, cursing him and calling him all manner of things.

“Blind fool,” Baze manages, a catch in his voice.

Chirrut lowers his hands finally, sighing, smiling indulgently like he’s said something tender to him.

“Hoh. Well. I am sorry,” he says. (He isn’t.) “Beautiful women make me nervous.”

It’s the most bare-faced and audacious lie Baze has ever heard him utter.

Sool gives a snort even Baze doesn’t expect, and Yael goes gapingly silent. “Eight-Fingers” Sool is smiling.

“Come down,” Baze says more sternly, skipping his eyes from the mostly-silent women back to Chirrut.

Chirrut shrugs and vaults down easily, landing like a felinx.

“Get your fucking blood under control.” Yael snarls at him, pushing past. She clearly means to shoulder-check Chirrut but he steps aside, gesturing grandly. She leaves with her sandals slapping the pavement.

Chirrut brightens impossibly at that.

“Ah, brother, yes. You endure so much of my foolishness…” he breathes, smile gone wicked.

“Don’t.” Baze warns.

Chirrut snorts, leans on his staff in the subtle way Baze has learned is dangerous, means he’s more tired than he knows. He acts like Sool isn’t even there. Baze can feel her staring.

“Get to the ship and stay there,” Baze murmurs, pressing a hand to his shoulder.

Chirrut’s worrying mouth turns up at the corners. He might be there. He might not. He squeezes Baze’s hand once, firmly, “For you? Anything.”

Chirrut strides, sure-footed in the dark, “Don’t let him break anything I like,” he adds carelessly to Sool, “May the force of others be with you, Brother.”

“Don’t,” Baze barks after him.

Chirrut just waves, laughing.

Sool gives him a long look, calculating, as cold-blooded as any of Iron Shu’s. She says nothing, just gives him a slow nod, artificial eyes as blue as Chirrut’s, cutting through the dark.

She asks none of the questions. So he’s what happened to Oct and Bol?

Or I thought the guardians were dead and gone.

“…He’s blind.” she rasps. Less a question and more a statement. An observation.

“He is.”

Sool nods. She says nothing else, grunts, pointing a chin to the sky to say more Imperials will be coming.

Baze nods. In the street he can hear people shouting, trying to pick the vendor out of the wreckage of the tie fighter, screaming to one another for flame suppressant and help. He hardens his face so none of his guilt shines through and follows Sool like a shadow.

#skuun writes things #possibly a sneak peek at the next part of 'Like the Universe' right here: BULLSHIT FRIDAY NIGHT ANTICS WITH BOUNTY HUNTERS #spiritassassin #chirrut is a little shit #I can't believe him and I just wrote this what the HELL.#This pretty much sets the tone for the next few chapters after a certain point.#CHIRRUT YO ASS IS DESTRUCTIVE #WITNESS MY ASS BAZE. WITNESS IT.#Blind Asshole Griffindor Needs Captive Audience #Not sure if this is going in or not but I laughed so hard writing it I had to bury my face in a pillow and consider if I'd rather die #so you know #long post #Chirrut Îmwe: killer pole dancer and local baseball slugger who can't stop stalking his boyfriend at work #DAMMIT CHIRRUT #he has two modes: extreme thirst and extreme martial arts #what the actual fuck #BABY I'M TRYING TO DO HARDCORE MERCENARY THINGS HERE. CAN'T HAVE YOU HANGING AROUND BEING ALL ATTRACTIVE AND EXTRA AND NEEDY

25 notes · View notes

lazybarbarians · 7 years

Text

Aftermath: Life Debt by Chuck Wendig

Ragnell: This week’s selection was Aftermath: Life Debt, the sequel to Aftermath. Now with major characters from the movie!

All right, a lot happens in this book and some of the events are just such a joy to describe this recap’ll be a little long:

We ended the last book with Norra putting together a team to track down war criminals. This book begins with a flashback to Jakku, and a check-in with Leia before we catch up with her. Norra and company are collecting one of their targets, and the mission shows us the tensions in the team before establishing they can all work together. Jom is still a new element, and he serves to establish how far from general acceptance people like Jas and Sinjir are before turning into a love interest for Jas for the rest of the book. Once they’ve finished, they return to Chandrila, we get a little slice of the lives they’ve carved out, the status of the New Republic, and Wedge contacts them. Han and Chewie fell into a trap while trying to free Kashyyk, Chewie was captured and Han’s transmission was cut off and Leia needs a team to go on an off-the-books mission to see what happened.

They split into teams and chase different avenues before meeting back up, being thrown off the case by Angry Police Captain Admiral Ackbar, because they can’t officially devote resources to Kashyyk. Because now that the Rebellion is officially over everything’s political and Wookiees have nothing political to offer and other reasoning that you might hear from your local lukewarm center-left political party. Norra quits and decides to work for Leia as a private citizen. Wedge does not, which puts a little damper on a romantic subplot between the two.

On the villains side, Admiral Sloane is reluctant to trust her mysterious boss, Gallius Rax, who is using her as his public face, has formed a shadow government, leaked information to the New Republic to destroy allies he doesn’t fully trust, has no Facebook or Twitter, has been keeping several groups of the Navy in hiding, and is planning an attack on Chandrila when she goes to visit. Oh no!

So she enlists the help of her assistant Adea, who Gallius has helpfully smuggled off of Chandrila and seduced, and her trusted bounty hunter Mercurial Swift (named here because even for Star Wars, that’s a bit much) to investigate his past and find out he’s the kid from the prologue.

The heroes find Han and learn he’s trying to sneak onto Kashyyk to break Chewie out of prison. They decide to help. Jom goes AWOL and joins them partway through because the power of lust compels him he is worried about Jas. Han and the original characters go to Kashyyk and free a whole ton of prisoners including Norra’s husband Brentin. Norra and Temmin go home with the freed prisoners. Han, Chewie, Jas, Jom and Sinjir stay on Kashyyk to save the planet. Here is where we learn they have control chips in the Wookies, of some old New Republic technology reminiscent of that stuff that controlled the slaves in the prequels.

Jom and Sinjir destroy the central controlling module for these chips, because like a damned idiot the villain has it all centralized, and free the Wookies. Han, Chewie, and Jas knock down some prison camp forcefields and the rebellion is off. However, the governor of Kashyyk, who is a cross between the rich guy from The Most Dangerous Game and those giants who eat talking animals in The Silver Chair. He calls down orbital strikes because he is an asshole.

Back on Chandrila, everyone is getting ready to greet Admiral Sloane who’s asked to negotiate a treaty because Rax totally implied to her that there would be a space attack on the fleet over the planet. What actually happens is she has to sit through a damned parade and a new holiday celebration, “Liberation Day.” Leia plays hookie, calls in her trusty Cameron from the comics Evaan, and steals the Millennium Falcon which really should belong to her so why did she have to steal it? Either way, she leaves a note for Wedge that basically amounts to “Come help me out or I and my unborn child are SOOO gonna die” and that is why the guy who set up security for the Liberation Day event was not present when it all went to hell.

See, the Wexley family and all of the freed prisoners are supposed to be on the dais. But something’s been wrong with Papa Wexley, that makes him stun his son and leave him in a crate beforehand. Understandably concerned, the boy tries to interrupt the ceremony but is unable to actually reach the dais before his dad shoots Mon Mothma. Norra manages to interrupt his aim. Turns out that the same technology that turned all the clones into mindless murderbots who kill their Jedi friends in TCW/RotS was used on these prisoners. ALL of the prisoners fire all over the place, there’s mass chaos, running around, and we get a pretty cool fistfight between Norra and Rae. In the confusion, some jerkass minor character frees Tashu the Worshipper of Darth Sidious. Rae shoots Adea, because Adea broke the sisters before misters rule, gets beat up and shot by Norra, and still manages to run off with Norra’s husband.

Meanwhile, back on Kashyyk, Han decides to steal a Star Destroyer--which he has totally done before but that was when he had a Jedi and a short-fuse princess--it goes a little badly but that’s okay because just when he’s about to get shot his crazy pregnant wife shows up in his miracle junk-ship, followed by Wedge with a bunch of crazy X-wing pilots, and Ackbar with his own ship of fools. They actually manage to neutralize the Kashyyk blockade. Chewie decides to stay home, Han and Leia almost do but all the chaos on Chandrila sends them back there because they are needed to stabilize the government.

The story ends with Norra’s group signing on for vengeance against Rae (excluding Jom because Jas dumps him), Rae and Brentin headed to Jakku to find out more about Rax, and Rax headed to Jakku because the Emperor sent him back as a kid to accomplish some mysterious purpose. Because Emperor Palpatine/Darth Sidious should never be allowed near children.

The first thing that strikes me about this book, and one of the things making it fun for me, is that it works other parts of the new canon into it. Last book we had some nods to the animated series. This book we have nods to those, and the comics. Han references stealing a Star Destroyer, which is a plot I enjoyed a lot in the Star Wars comics (I’ve seen some grousing on tumblr about the art that arc but the story is just fun) and we see Evaan from the Princess Leia comic. These were great ideas and great elements so it’s nice to see them in a novel. It’s also nice to think that some of the elements from the comics or the novel might find their way into the movies or animated series.

Kalinara: It does however make Luke’s absence very notable. He actually gets mentioned in this one, but there’s still no real clue as to what he’s doing.

R: The next thing is all the romance in this book. It’s like with Han and Leia’s marriage as the kickoff and driving force for the plot that their love gets echoed with the other characters’ lives. But like in ESB, all of these romances get derailed by the events. Wedge and Norra start to explore a romance, only to be stopped by Brentin’s reappearance. Norra focuses back on her husband and just as she starts to think she has him back again, it turns out he’s been mind controlled and he runs away. Jom gets too intense for Jas, so she drops the romance to focus elsewhere. And Sinjir slips into a shame spiral about his old job as a torturer and dumps his boyfriend Conder so that Conder can find someone better.

K: I had mixed feelings on the romance. Maybe it’s just because of the nature of the story, but it was hard to get too invested in the romances on the table. Sinjur and Conder seemed cute, but they had all of two scenes. I cared about the break up because I’ve grown attached to Sinjur and it was sad to see him so self-loathing. Norra and Wedge were cute, and I do like both characters, but they spend so much of the book apart, that I still don’t feel like I get an idea of what they’re like as a couple. (It does fit with Wedge’s terrible luck that his girlfriend’s long lost husband comes back though. :-)) Jom and Jas...well. Jom wasn’t even as interesting as what’s his name from the first book. And I can’t even remember that guy’s actual name. (Edited: I was actually thinking of Lok from Moving Target, not Aftermath. Even so, that guy was more interesting than Jom.)

R: Among the new characters of the book, I rather liked Conder (though he didn’t get any really fun moments), Brentin, Oblivion, and Eleodie. I think Conder as Leia’s IT guy and Sinjir’s boyfriend should show up again. I think that’s a temporary breakup.

K: Of all of the new characters, I was most intrigued by Brentin. He reminds me of Ransolm Casterfo, oddly enough. Not because the characters have anything in common of course, but because I kind of think both characters serve as an example counterpoint to common fandom theories about Kylo Ren and (Armitage) Hux. Casterfo actually is the misguided Imperial-sympathizer who makes mistakes out of fear and trauma, and Brentin Wexley is actually an innocent victim brainwashed into doing things he doesn’t want to do. And when we look at these characters, and see how they’re portrayed, it makes it very obvious how weak these justifications are when we try to apply them to the actual villains.

R: I hated Lozen, but it was the kind of hate you should have for a villain. There’s a line in there with Lozen saying he likes the taste of Talz that creeped me out a bit. The Talz were a TCW species, they are sentient. It is a “We’re eating TALKING stag” moment for me and I was glad to see this guy’s end. It and the hunting sequence made him the most depraved villain in the Star Wars canon for me.

The little interlude saga of the red lightsaber is pretty interesting, but I’ll be surprised to see it wrapped up next book. This is the sort of thing that leads to a Luke plotline in a future series. I still wonder if it’s Vader’s lightsaber or someone else’s.

I’m glad Sloane survived, I prefer her as a villain to Rax. I’m looking forward to her and Brentin trying to deal with each other.

K: I think Sloane is really what Admiral Thrawn should have been in the Expanded Universe. I mean, yes, he’s got those Grand Manipulator tendencies like Gallus Rex, but there’s a reason that Sloane, not Rax, is our primary focus villain. It’s easy to get emotionally invested in Sloane’s arc. I don’t want her to win against our heroes of course, but I definitely want to see her rise in the Empire/First Order.

And I like watching Sloane come up against obstacles. I like seeing her adapt and redirect her focus. I like watching Sloane come up against things she doesn’t know, and the efforts that she makes to learn more. She isn’t magically omniscient when it comes to every single plot point like a certain blue Admiral, and I think she comes across as actually smarter and more formidable because of it. She’s tenacious, clever, and resourceful. She doesn’t need to be shilled by the narrative to be formidable.

R: I’m not sure where I want the Wexley-Antilles love triangle to go. It was interesting to see that Wedge has slid more easily into father figure role for Temmin than anyone else, even giving him a nickname. The next closest people are Sinjir and Jas, and Temmin seems to still have some serious defenses up with them. It’s an interesting situation I fear may end with Brentin’s death next book just to make a tidy family unit.

As for the majors, and the metaplot, I liked what this added. I was a little offput by Han at first, but on reflection this is exactly what he would seem like to someone who didn’t know him. Unpredictable, kind of stupid, relying mainly on luck. We normally see him with Luke, who relies on faith, and Leia, who relies on sheer willpower, so he seems kind of like the sensible of the trio in comparison. Leia, of course, topped all of his actions by being even more batshit crazy at the climax but seeming like she was in perfect control of everything all the time. (It’d be really interesting to see this group encounter Luke after how they’ve reacted to Han and Leia.)

Leia’s bits were the best part of the book, I loved the moment when she first experiences connecting with the Force and gaining knowledge from it. I loved her conflict with Ackbar and Mon. I loved her decision on what to do about all of it. I loved her calling in Evaan and I loved her playing the military guys like a flute.

I didn’t really care much for Jom or Hux, but none of their parts were big enough to drag the rest of the book for me. I really enjoyed it.

K: It was fun. I’m looking forward to seeing how the trilogy resolves..

#Wedge's terrible luck #Han's actually the sensible one #Multiple romantic failure #Luke Skywalker: Still MIA #We're eating TALKING stag!#Seriously who's lightsaber IS that?#Star Wars #Aftermath: Life Debt #Chuck Wendig #A Disney Prince(ss) in Space

2 notes · View notes