#He doesn’t need the Dark Saber

[myosotissoul]

[gremlingottoosilly]

Lego still not sponsoring me (dark!Konig x fem!Reader)

Konig is a nerd who needs to get sprayed with water for being a fucking creep. You're an adorable cashier at the Lego Store in Berlin who doesn't know any better and is too nice to lose. He will have you. Mostly because he wants someone to do his Lego sets with.

Details count: 2922 AO3 TW and Tags: Dub-con/Non-con, age gap, size difference, kidnapping, awkward colonel Konig, nerd Konig, hurt/comfort, Konig's POV(mostly), awkward German, yandere Konig.

You didn’t want to build Millenium Falcon with him. 

You didn’t want to shower or eat, you didn’t want to do anything besides crying, and even though your tears, as he expected, were beautiful and adorable, it was kinda hard for König to take care of your mental and physical needs while he was rock hard from watching you cry so sweetly. 

König is patient, kind, and a model citizen through and through. Why are you upset? He is doing everything he can, just to make you smile! Seriously, Schatzi, the desire to make him as miserable as you possibly can doesn’t make you pretty or cute or even the least bit adorable. Good thing that he is used to feeling sad and kinda of bullied – you’re lucky he doesn’t even try to feel good anymore. Not in his destiny book to live a good life. — I brought food. 

You groan lightly, whimpering somewhere in the corner of his basement. To your justification, his basement is a bit dirty. He forgot to visit the house for months after deployment, which was never enough to fill out the blanks of loneliness in the empty rooms. His dogshits methods of choosing decorations also made the mere existence in the house a hard mission even in itself. He looked at the anime posters in the guest rooms, which made him want to sell the property to anyone willing to pay 50 Euros for the processing fees. The posters(Sword Art Online because why the hell not, he likes cool swords and a power fantasy about a loser getting the chick) and artwork of his queen and savior, The Busty Blond Lady From Fate because, unlike those waifu-obsessed freaks, he did have a life and not enough time to actually remember her name. Something about light sabers. Or cats. — Are you going to kill me? 

He sighs because you sound like a broken record. All the time – the questions about his intentions, like you can’t see the tent in his pants every time you open your eyes, about letting you go, about at least allowing you to text your family that you decided to change your country of residence and would need to revoke your German visa. You’re way more soft than he thought you’d initially be – no fighting, no arguing, just pure terror and desire to die every time his hands brush over you. König is a sweet guy, as sweet as someone like him can be – but he only has a few weeks until his next mission, and even a few days of your moping around is bound to make him not just blue-balled, but also very, extremely, offensively hot-headed. 

He spent two days with you chained up in his basement and, he thinks, that should be enough for foreplay. He is extremely generous and kind – usually, at this point, he’d already start breaking the fingers of whoever poor fuck is his torture victim for the mission. 

— I don’t want to kill you. 

You whimper – somehow, his answer didn’t calm you down. Fucking women and their inability to talk to their kidnappers – he considers spiking your food just this once, so he could have a nice session with your little drunk self and some roofies but, of course, he is a nice guy who brought you takeout in a reheatable container, with a cute plastic fork and some sparkling water in a glass, just so you won’t feel like he is making you eat some garbage. It’s good food, too – he’d love to cook like this, but the heights of his skills are runny eggs and burnt coffee. He hopes you like the Italian because it’s the most inoffensive stuff he could have brought you without resorting to pizza and cup noodles. He will never let you eat cup noodles on his watch. 

— Are you going to rape me? 

He can’t exactly say no because, as a matter of fact, pulling your cute body under his is one of his intentions. He wanted to do it since he was you in this fucking store, but, of course. saying this to a pretty girl is lame. And completely counter-productive. And would make him a villain in your eyes, even though he tries so fucking hard to be a hero. He can make you feel good if you were to just open your pretty legs for him and moan under his tongue – god knows, he wants to make you feel good. He wonders what would it take for him to please you. If he could have a full-time job at this. 

— Nein. Thought I told you already. 

— I don’t…I shouldn’t believe you. 

He shook his head, pushing the plate(he had to go out of his way to actually put the pasta from the tray to a proper plate, enjoy this, woman) towards you. You’re adorable like this – naked, trembling, a bit too weak to actually fight him over not eating anything for the past two days – you’re repeating the same conversation over and over again and König wouldn’t mind living in a groundhog day if the loop would end with his fucking you on that thin mattress each time. 

Speaking of mattresses – he needs to get you a thicker one. 

Speaking of thicker mattresses – he needs to relocate you into his bedroom as soon as possible. 

Speaking of his bedroom – he is fucking bricked. 

— If you don’t trust me, why do you ask? 

You bite your lips. He can see you’re hungry and thirsty – he doesn’t want to forcefully feed you, so, yeah, you better be very hungry very soon. He pushes the plate towards you, hoping you won’t launch it on his head. He survived worse, a 6’4 British dude in a ski mask falling on him with the speed of Brexit, but getting hit by a plate when your angry girlfriend is being an angry girlfriend is…the best thing that could ever happen to him, actually. Gott, he is miserable. 

— I…I don’t know. Don’t want to get killed. 

— I won’t kill you. 

— But you will hurt me. 

— I don’t have to do that, Liebling. 

No, he doesn’t. 

But he sees the way your plushy thighs are squeezing into that tiny corner where your mat is, your squishy body getting all shaky and trembly, your lips in a tight line with tiny blood droplets from biting on them too much – and, by his fucking god, you’re beautiful. He wants to make you wet, to make you squirm, to make you beg and cry for mercy as he pounds into the sweetness of your cunt. He wants to try you on the inside and out, lick you all over from the inside, and then make you lick your love juices from his lips. 

König knows he is hard and can’t really hide it – it’s useless now, really, he is being very nice and considerate to you. Changing your life is hard, especially with how quickly you moved to his place – like a good boyfriend, he should help you adjust. And aid you in recognizing that he is, in fact, your boyfriend and future husband. The perfect partner to ever exist. — What is it? 

— Pasta. It’s…it’s good. Should be good. He is nervous, anxious. Seeing a pretty girl in her natural habitat – a Lego store – is one thing. He was barely able to talk to you properly, especially right after his deployment, where the only female attention he ever got was Roze asking to cover her or additional female soldiers groaning in pain as he stomped them. But you…he shouldn’t be colonel around you – absolutely not. You’re soft and civilian, you’re as polite as a girl in a basement could be, and you deserve to have something nice for once in your life. Licking his lips, König gently picks up a fork and presses a small amount of pasta – rich, creamy, with some nice cheese that smells divine - -against your lips. 

You refuse.

A smart move, he could have poisoned it – so he thinks for a few seconds, staring at you like a smart girlie you are, and then – lifts his hood. If only barely, revealing his scarred chin and bruised lips. The initial swelling after getting his head bumped by a guy who was speaking like an edgy teenager in the Counter-Strike lobby was already gone by the time he managed to get you into his basement – but no amount of rest could hide all other marks from his job. 

Despite being a seasoned mercenary with hundreds of killed targets and completed objectives, he feels…insecure. You’re a nice girl, a good girl, the type that used to look at him with hatred while he was bullied at school. Hatred or pity – but you only look at him with fear, and it cements his understanding that you’re not going to give in to loving him so easily.

König sighs deeply, his lips, curved into that awkward, boyish smile that creeps on his face every time he as much as thinks about you, now transforming into a scowl as you proceed to whimper and try to get lost in the wall behind you. Like he wouldn’t be able to track your scent if you would disappear. He slowly presses his fork towards his mouth, chewing on the food – showing you that it’s not poisoned. 

He smiles again when he sees you slowly parting your lips, expecting him to feed you with less of a fuss. He’d propose something else – maybe even untying your hands and allowing you to actually for yourself, but something in your helpless state made his cock throb in his pants. God, König knows he isn’t his strongest soldier, but could he please make you less adorable? He doesn’t want to push you on your knees and make you suck on him until he whimpers, but the way you lick all of the cheese from your lips and try your best to look presentable in front of him… The process of feeding someone shouldn’t really be sexual, but König gently pushes the hair away from your face and lifts up the fork over and over, sometimes only changing to bring a glass of water to your lips. He can do this all day. Every day. Pleasing you already becomes second nature – and he spends most of his life thinking that the only thing he can take care of is his rifle and a few tortured enemies that need their teeth extracted. You require gentle handling – and he wants nothing more but to give you that. Just…a bit later. Preferably after the already came in your pussy at least two or three times and made you choke on his dick as a little thank-you gift. 

You finish eating after a short while, thanking him for bringing you a napkin to clean your lips. König gently caresses your head, enjoying the sensation of your hair under his palm – it’s like petting a cat. A soft little pet just for him and no one else – if only he could actually bring you to like him. He has a few bond activities in mind, though. — You liked it, ja? 

You lick your lips again, and his breath hitches. This is going to be hard, this is going to be impossible, it’s worse than having to work with high Krueger on a ship that made everyone feel like they were the ones doing crack in the backroom of their makeshift base. 

— I…I did. 

He pets your head again like you’re his pet – and you gently move your head to lean into his touch. Perhaps you’re dumber than he thinks. Or way smarter – a clever strategy to make him relax and nice to you without making him too suspicious. You slowly get back into your corner, but König wouldn’t have any of it – he drags you back by your arm, making you whimper and sob in his hold. It’s bad, he doesn’t want you to squirm from under him as much as you do, but…if you don’t want to be a good girl, he might as well force you to. 

You cry as he pushes you deep into the corner, his hands roaming over your body. Thank god he ripped your clothes before you woke up – now there isn’t anything protecting you from his hands, not even that adorable bra he ripped in pieces because, as much as he loved wearing a uniform with straps and buttons everywhere, he could not figure out how to take this thing off you without breaking it. The last time he was sleeping with a woman, she wore a sports bra that could be taken off easily. It’s your fault that you decided to be more girly, really. Not his. 

His hands cup your breasts roughly. Tugs and twists your nipples, a few shaky moans telling him exactly how sensitive you are – he might not have a girl in a hot minute, too busy with being the best freaking mercenary in the world, but even he knows how to take care of a pretty thing like you. Your tits fit in his hands perfectly, even more, reasons to believe you were just made for him. Not for some lame job at a Lego store counter – you should be waiting on your knees in his bedroom, with your mouth open wide and neat to fit his cock right in. With some sweet things lingering on your tongue as he bullies himself right in, getting what he deserves for protecting peace – and installing violence – while doing his job. He might not be the best freaking guy around, but he deserves something nice. 

He pinches your nipples until they’re firm and swollen, every little cry escaping from your lips is only encouraging him to proceed. Licks on the open skin of your neck until his eneve stubble makes you whimper from how sensitive you are – it should be painful, he thinks, with how bloody the little bite marks from his teeth have become. 

König marks you as thoroughly as possible, smiling each time you cry and beg for him to stop. You’re changing between bad German and good English, between loud cries and small whimpers, which he can’t determine from pleasure to pain. Not like he cares, too determined to make you cry his name – even though you probably don’t know it. All of his desires to claim you taking full power now, not listening to the way you plead with him. Whimper for him. Your skin is a clear canvas, allowing him to paint you with hickeys and marks, enjoying the little blood droplets covering your collarbones. 

— Quiet, please. Don’t…don’t move, Schatzi. I don’t want to hurt you. 

— Please, please, just…anything but… — Won’t take long. Promise. 

— I don’t want to- — Quiet. I know you don’t, Liebling. Just…Scheisse, you…fuck. 

— Stop! — Can’t. I apologize, Schatzen. Relax for me, ja?

He whispers, he whimpers, he is almost out of his mind when he can finally put his tongue on your swollen nipples. For some weird, depraved reason, he almost expects the milk to start flowing from your chest, allowing him to drink up as much as he wants. If he could get you pregnant, he might enjoy it for a few months – although having a kid on his hip isn’t as fun as it could have. He tried to babysit Hutch kids once when he brought them to base – and it was the worst fucking day of his life. Besides, little children can’t be around Legos – it's already a deal breaker for someone like him. 

Speaking of legos…

You wiggle in his grasp, as good as you can with your hands still in the handcuffs – he should give you that one, at least you aren’t just laying lifelessly in front of him. At least you’re putting up a fight. At least he doesn’t feel too bad about restraining you without proper reasoning. You lick your lips again, that cute tongue of yours going over all the bite marks. You take a deep breath, shaking in his hold. God, he can just look in your face the whole day – barely knows how to handle himself around you. — I…I thought you wanted to…build this set with me? Smart girl. Way smarter than he gave you credit for – you know how to make him stop in his tracks and finally look at you differently. Maybe, you’re too good for him. Maybe, he doesn’t really care about that. Millennium Falcon, still sitting in the box – König hoped you’d start slowly putting it together but, seemingly, you need a bit of encouragement. The only thing that could tug him away from your breasts is the expensive set sitting just next to him. 

Might start bonding with you as well. He tugs away from your nipples with a loud pop, an obnoxiously wet sound emerging as a thin line of saliva connects your breasts and his tongue. You whimper when he smiles, that scarred face of his twisting in a huge grin. Knows he’s not the most charming person around, but it’s not like you have any choice now – not with the limited options he gave you. Like a good girl, you’d probably pick doing Lego Sets with him than taking his cock in that tight pussy of yours. He’d be satisfied with any outcome. — J…ja. I’d like that.  He has to give this one to you – you really know how to get a man going.

Bu building this insane set with him, that is.

[multi-fan-dom-madness]

the way i need enemies to lovers smut with cal where reader is a sith lord and gets hurt but cal being the good man that he is, takes her back to his place and things happen yk 😰

i love this so much and I hope it's alright that I changed the prompt a teensy bit. instead of being sith, reader is just a darkside-user more generally. also gender neutral. thank you so much for the request!

Balance (Cal Kestis x reader)

Summary: You encounter Cal Kestis a few too many times, and you can't explain the way that the Force seems to be conspiring to put you two together in a room.

Warnings: SMUT 18+ minors DNI; gn!reader; inappropriate use of the Force; reader is a darkside user and honestly doesn't know how fucked they are; semi-graphic injuries; porn with plot; toxic relationship lowkey; blowjob; mutual masturbation (sort of); penetrative sex; unprotected sex (pls be safe irl y'all); if I missed anything please let me know!

Word Count: 12,765 my hand slipped

The first time you encounter Cal Kestis, you nearly kill him.

You’d heard the rumors, of course, whispered with bright eyes and furtive expressions in shithole Outer Rim cantinas of a flame-headed being cutting down Inquisitors and Imperials. When you first overheard a snippet of the tall tale, you’d nearly choked on your cheap spotchka. Right, you remember thinking, a fiery figure opposing the Empire. Did they run out of good gossip today? 

Most rumors have at least a kernel of truth at their centers, and you figured it was the same with this one. And besides, you are indifferent to the Empire, at best; you’ve been avoiding their attention as much as you can, but you suspect that the thick cloak of the darkside you wear like a mantle has kept most of the Inquisitorius oblivious. They’re looking for Jedi, who cannot resist continuing to do good in a galaxy rotted to its core, and you stopped being a Jedi long before the Empire rose to power. They probably pay no mind to one lone figure who straddles the line of light and dark, temptation and virtue. 

But that doesn’t mean Jedi pay no mind to you. Most of them, you can avoid; you fight when necessary. Currently, you’re thinking a fight might just be necessary. You’re on some planet you’ve already forgotten the name of, densely populated and urban. You stand with one foot propped on the edge of a rooftop, neon lights glimmering on wet permacrete. Rain drizzles in a fine mist. You gaze placidly across the gap to the next building—to the flame-headed being. Without even needing to try, you feel his Force signature: he burns in the Force, even as he tries to hide it. His coppery hair ruffles in the slight breeze, stubble darkening his face. 

With a steadying breath, you tilt your head to one side. “Got a name, friend?”

“Not one you need to know,” he calls back. His posture is loose, casual, but you sense the whipcord tension in his Force aura; he’s on the alert. 

As he probably should be. 

“If I tell you mine, will you tell me yours?” You offer him a disarming smile. “Seems only fair, right? Equitable partnership.” 

He snorts. “There’s no partnership.” 

“Fine,” you huff. You tell him your name anyways, and he mouths it silently, but none of that tension dissipates. You take the moment to appraise him a little more closely: lean body, self-assured slant of his shoulders, faded burn scar cut across his face. Heat licks up your spine.

“Cal,” he eventually says. “Cal Kestis.”

You smile wide at his honeyed voice. “Nice to meet you, Cal Kestis. Mind moving out of the way so I can continue on my merry way?” 

“Afraid I can’t do that,” he says, but there’s no trace of regret in that gorgeous voice, only immense exhaustion. 

Your saber hilt twitches against your back as your hand flexes nearly out of habit. Taking another deep, cleansing breath, you shrug as if his answer means nothing. The dark tide of the Force surges through your body, tingling in your fingertips, sharpening the smoggy night air into fine detail. “Well, can’t say I didn’t ask nicely.” 

And then you leap, going from a dead standstill to a flurry of action in the space of a heartbeat. As your unstable crimson blade screeches to life, bathing the rooftops in flickering light, an answering snap-hiss echoes around you. Blue beam clashes with red, showering sparks over both of you. 

Oh, he’s strong, and for some reason that makes your skin flush. You bare your teeth in a mockery of a smile and shove. He staggers back, feet slipping for a moment in the gravel surface of the rooftop, before he recovers. 

“I’ll give you this one chance to stand down,” he says, voice thick and low and oh how it makes you shiver. His eyes glint in the blue light of his saber. 

“Funny,” you snap, “I was just going to say the same to you.” 

A frown tugs at his mouth. Lowering into a defensive stance, his eyes never leave yours as you languidly swing your saber in a half circle around you, content to draw this out. You’ve killed your number of Jedi in the name of self-preservation—necessary sacrifices to ensure the continued balance of Light and Dark—but there’s something about the way his green eyes harden into sharp gems the longer you twirl your blade, the casual power in his veined forearms, the absolutely pure gold energy he radiates in the Force. 

With an aggravated shake of your head, you press the attack. Overhead, backhand, thrust, thrust, parry—you and Cal settle into a dangerous dance. Bright light bursts where your sabers connect, sparks skittering across the gravel. For anyone watching nearby, the pair of you probably look like blurs of red and blue light—another light fixture among this technicolor urban landscape. 

But for anyone skilled in the Force, the radiance of your sabers dims in comparison to the pillars of energy you both become. One golden and bright as a thousand suns, shot through with faint tendrils of inky blackness; one glowing in shadow, a black hole ringed by its event horizon, smears of golden light. 

Both the light and the dark are present in this fight, and you smile grimly. In all things, balance, as your master used to say. 

The memory is a distraction, and Cal manages to break through your guard and punch your nose. Searing pressure spikes through your head, warmth dribbling down your face. 

You merely grin at him with blood-covered lips. “You’ll have to do better than that, Kestis.” 

And again the two of you become a flurry of attacks, parries, counterattacks, feints. In the distance, the low drone of a police siren reverberates off the tall glass buildings of the downtown area. You’ve been spotted. Time to end this now. 

You make a show of appearing to be tiring, breathing coming in heavy gasps, your saber still meeting Cal’s in time to stop him from separating your limbs from your body, but just a fraction slower than what you’d begun with. And you give ground. Just a half step at first, and then several steps. Cal seizes the opportunity to push you back, force you into submission, gain the upperhand—

Not knowing he’d lost this fight the moment he’d placed himself in your path. 

The Force is with you. In the Force, your arms seem to glow with terrible, purple-black ultraviolet power as you surrender yourself to its currents. There is no longer you and your saber; your saber is you. There is no longer you and Cal Kestis; there is you and the last piece of yourself that you’re willing to atrophy. Veins of golden Light criss-cross under your darkly shining skin—and as you stand firm once again with your back to the low roof edge, you will those golden veins to flush, to swell. You’re going to triumph here, and it’ll be with the approval of the full Force.

Cal’s face gleams with sweat, his brow furrowed, delicious mouth curved down in a frown. You lick your lips. 

“Yield, Kestis,” you say. One last chance. 

He just grunts, and in a blur of motion, separates the hilt of his saber. Another beam of blue snaps to life. Fear flares in you for a moment—but the Force remains with you, and you let the emotion siphon into your cracked, bleeding kyber. Plasma spits off the sides of your blade as you block attack after attack after attack; you’re an infinite well of patience—but that siren is getting closer, and you know that time, unlike your patience, is of the essence. 

In a flash of inspiration, you reverse your grip on your hilt mid-parry, then swipe the angry blade out and up. A cry of pain, and one of the blue sabers retracts as the hilt clatters to the gravel. Cal stumbles back, cradling his left arm to his chest, his remaining saber held in front of him. 

You can’t help the surge of pleasure at besting your opponent, even temporarily. As you twirl your saber again, a spotlight suddenly beams down on the two of you. With a grimace, you swing the saber down towards the soft juncture of Cal’s neck where it meets his shoulder—

And freeze when you catch a glimpse of the calm, resigned look in his eyes. Your blade hovers mere centimeters off his skin. 

Amid the roar of hovercraft, the police siren, and the rushing of blood in your ears, he murmurs your name.

“Kark it all,” you spit. Gathering the Force within you, you shove him back. A shout of surprise, a flash of blue, and then he’s tumbling over the edge of the building. You retract your blade and dash in the opposite direction without a second thought. 

Your master had always been honest with you about how little he, or anyone, truly knew about the mysteries of the Force. During your years as a padawan, you spent countless hours in meditation chambers deep below the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, feeling the constant ebb and flow of the Force around you. The first time he brought you there, your master explained in hushed tones how the temple had been built millennia ago over an old Sith temple. The Force resided in a nexus point there; streams of energy flowed from all over the galaxy and converged—and then diverged—from the temple. 

Sitting in meditation now, you breathe deeply and steadily as the memory crests over you. 

“But, Master,” you asked, “if the temple used to be a Sith stronghold, doesn’t that mean the dark side of the Force is strong here, too?” 

His kind, patient eyes crinkled as he smiled. “That is right, my Padawan. In all things, there must be balance. Light and dark only exist because of each other.”

A frown tugged at your lips at that, and you cocked your head to the side. “But aren’t we supposed to resist the darkness?” 

“Yes,” he said. “The darkness is an overbalance—an overabundance—of emotions, passions, fears. The Sith, and all who use the dark side, manipulate the Force to their will, instead of letting their emotions, like the Force, flow through them.” 

Something about that didn’t feel right. “But—” 

Your master held up one hand, forestalling the line of questioning you were about to launch into. He stepped through a large, arched doorway into a dim, echoing room. “Come, Padawan. Perhaps meditating will provide the answers you seek.” 

You inhale slowly and open your eyes, squinting against the bright blue glare of the hyperspace lane. No matter how long or how hard you meditated under the temple, you grew no closer to an answer than by asking your master. Despite your frustration, you kept returning to the chambers below the Great Hall. The Force there was...comforting. Balanced. And yet, so infuriating in its mystery. You could feel both the light and the dark, and neither were good or bad. The Force just...was. Perhaps it was the long hours you spent in the tunnels and vast echoic chambers there that you developed your keen sense for the composition of the Force.

Standing, you groan softly at the ache in your knees. As you settle back into the thinly padded pilot’s seat, you massage at the joints, wondering just when you’d gotten old. 

Probably when that droid shot through your master’s heart on Geonosis, and you’d physically felt the Force tip off-balance half a galaxy away, deep in meditation on Coruscant. The memory is painful, and digs its festering claws into your heart yet again. 

The Council hadn’t even needed to tell you your master had perished in the opening salvo of the Clone Wars. The morning after his funeral, with both his and your sabers in your pack, you’d fled the temple.

The old fool, you think, slashing the memory of him from your awareness.

By now, you’re used to the pit of emotions yawning in your very essence. You hold onto your fears, your angers, your anxieties—but also your loves, your passions, your desires. Without even really thinking about it, you reach for the loose compartment that holds your master’s saber. Its duranium-plated hilt is slowly corroding, matching the slow degradation of yourself. The blade jumps to life with a snap-hiss. The green glow it casts is almost sickly, the blade bright, but thin and tremulous. It’s been weak since he died.

As you stare, eyes burning, into the flickering core of your master’s blade, you reach into the Force for the kyber at its heart. No matter how many times you brush against the crystal with your mind, you’re never prepared. A screech, unending and agonized and fearful, rends through your consciousness. For a moment, the green sputters, crimson taking its place. 

You drop the saber, gasping. The hilt clatters to the floor and blade retracts, and you’re left again in the pressing silence of hyperspace.

In all things, balance, drift the words through you once again. Green against crimson. Crimson for blue. You think about Cal Kestis, his blinding presence; you think of your vacuous silhouette; and you take all the rage you can muster and twist it into your own heart like a dagger. The joists of your ship groan in response.

The second time you meet Cal Kestis, you almost wish you’d killed him all those years ago.

Just a few months after that first encounter on rain-slicked rooftops, you caught wind of a rumor that the flame-headed being attacked the Fortress Inquisitorius itself. This time, you didn’t discount the story, having witnessed first hand—for however short a time—the Force-empowered determination of that single human being. None of the rumors about Cal Kestis surprise you anymore. 

But you routinely have to curse his name as the Inquisitors have now turned their attention beyond just Jedi. The cloak of the darkness is no longer enough on its own to hide you from the long gaze of the Empire. You’ve taken to hiding out on barely populated Outer Rim worlds, hanging around long enough to establish some kind of routine, before the gentle ripples of the Force lapping against your subconscious grow into towering, dangerous waves. And then you hop back in your ship, barely more than scrap welded to a hyperdrive, and scuttle off to the next system. 

Which is where you find yourself now. Koboh could be promising. As you crouch at the edge of an exposed cliff, you study the cosmic anomaly that orbits the planet. The Abyss. You’re not sure what it is, but whatever it is, it creates a strong enough disturbance in the Force that you’re hopeful it will mask your own signature. And, you admit to yourself as your gaze lowers to the breathtaking landscape spread out below you, you’ve hidden in worse places the last few years. Koboh seems promising, indeed.

You spend a few days studying the locals, trying to get a feel for how life works here. For the most part, everyone here seems like they’re from off-world—which is good, because it means you won’t stand out for very long as a newcomer. Everyone here is a newcomer. And everyone here is more concerned, it seems, with the things that lie in the dirt than in the world aboveground. All the better for you. 

Concealing your saber hilt against your back like always, you make sure your ship, bucket of bolts that it is, is well-hidden enough to dissuade any potential scrappers. Tucked high on an outcropping, you hope most folks won’t care too much to check out the shiny metal bits not covered by plant matter. Not when it’s several dozen feet above solid ground. 

And you make sure you look as uninteresting as possible. With your saber out of view, you could pass for a refugee without issue. Force knows you’ve been weeks without a proper shower; you can feel the dirt and grime on every inch of your skin. Your clothing, usually neat and tucked in, is dusty, torn, and stained with dried blood. 

Yes, you’ll fit in nicely here. 

As you pass beneath a metallic archway decorated with a massive horned skull, you reach out in the Force, making sure that none of the town’s inhabitants can get the drop on you. You bypass squat, square buildings that are probably homes of some of the folks here. None seem of interest. Instead, your gaze is trained on the larger, multi-story building near the center of town. As you draw nearer, you realize the sign above the door reads, “Saloon.” Perfect. 

The door opens to admit you into a hallway; at the end, you wait in front of another door for a moment while a mechanical eye studies you. Chattering in a deep, unintelligible voice, the eye withdraws, and the second door whooshes open to reveal the barroom. 

No one turns as you descend the few steps to the floor. Crates and clutter stock most of the booths along the side wall, a few folks talking quietly at smaller tables or sitting alone and nursing a drink. Quiet, staticky radio music plays over the speakers. 

Behind the bar is a tall, four-armed droid who skids to a halt where you lean against the counter.

“You’re a new face,” the droid says. “Name’s Monk. What can I get you?” 

You quirk an eyebrow and give the droid, Monk, an alias, your sixth one in as many months. Then you say, “Got any spotchka?” 

“Indeed I do,” Monk says. “Shall I start a tab?” 

“I’ll pay up front,” you say with a shake of your head. 

Monk gives you the cost as he pours the glowing blue liquid into a clean glass, and you slide the credits across the counter. The alcohol’s familiar burn slides down your throat as you lean your back against the bar. Over the rim of your glass, you study the other patrons here at the saloon. Dusty, tired figures, the lot of them. In the Force, they are marginal, giving off only nominal signatures, no different than most other living beings. Most of them aren’t important enough to even warrant a clear affiliation with light or dark; they just are. Your upper lip quirks in a grimace.

Extending your awareness out farther, you’re not sure what you’re searching for, but you suppose you’ll know it when you find it. The hilt of your saber digs uncomfortably into your skin, but you ignore it, using the pain to sharpen your focus. You sense more townsfolk going to and fro outside the saloon, but none of them of any more note than those inside.

Something in you itches. Frowning, you lower the glass of spotchka and try to focus in on that feeling. It’s under your skin, out of reach, just behind your spine, but if you just push a little farther—

You gasp, cringing away from the sudden supernova that blinds your awareness in the Force. Cal Kestis. It has to be Cal. No one else burns quite like him. 

You yank your Force signature back into your body, hoping he didn’t feel you like you felt him. Figuring you only have moments to get out, you make a split-second decision between the several other doors leading away from this main room. Spotchka glass still in hand, you dart for the nearest door, and it slides open to reveal a staircase that winds upward. You take the steps two at a time. At the landing, you hiss at the sight of a second-floor loft. Stairs seem to continue along the other side, continuing to wind upward, but before you can run for them, a familiar voice drifts up from below. 

“Hey, Monk, good to see you,” says Cal Kestis. 

Your body flushes with warmth. Kriff. 

Monk says something you can’t quite make out. 

“Another newcomer?” Cal says. “I’ll make sure to say hi when I see them.” 

Grimacing, you creep across the floor toward the second staircase. Your foot just touches the bottom step when a voice behind you calls your name—your real name, not the alias you gave the droid. 

You sigh, chin falling toward your chest. “Cal Kestis.” 

“How did you find me?” 

His green gaze burns into you almost as hot as his Force signature. You roll your eyes; typical Jedi, thinking the world revolves around him.

“I didn’t know you were here,” you say. “I’m...laying low.” 

He crosses his arms across his chest, and you’re distracted for a moment by the way his muscles bulge against the fabric of his shirt. “I’m supposed to believe that.”

“Believe whatever you want to, Jedi,” you bite out. “I’ll go find my own desolate planet.” 

“Can’t let you do that,” he says, following behind you as you climb the stairs. 

“I’d love to see you stop me.” 

You feel the disturbance in the Force and brace for it. His attempt to yank you back down the stairs fails as you push against it—but you can’t push past it. Equally matched. Balanced. 

With a growl, you spin on your heel and point an accusing finger at Cal. “Are you really sure you want to do this right now?” 

His eyes narrow at you as you stand there, chest heaving with emotion, both of you crackling with energy in the Force. You down the rest of your spotchka and shatter the glass on the ground. Cal doesn’t flinch. The longer you stand there, the hotter your face flushes. Ignoring the impulse to shudder, you don’t miss the way his green eyes study your face, your posture, your signature. 

“I know you,” he finally says. “From the temple.” 

You snort in derision. “Good for you, kid.” 

“I was still a youngling when the Clone Wars started,” he says. “I...understand what it’s like to lose your master.” 

Your vision pulses black for a moment, and on instinct you reach out with a clawed hand. Cal’s eyes widen in fear as his hands fly to his throat, grabbing at the invisible hand you squeeze there.

“Don’t. Ever. Presume to know anything about me,” you hiss. “You know nothing, Cal Kestis.” 

“You’re—right—” he chokes out. “I’m—sorry—”

You shove, the Force exploding through your palm as he slams into the opposite wall. Sputtering, he coughs, rubbing at his throat. 

“I don’t need your pity, Jedi.” You spit the title like a curse—like the curse that it is—and turn to take the staircase up and out. The door at the top admits you to the open-air roof, the cosmic explosion of the Abyss looming overhead. 

You step over the edge of the roof, calling on the Force to cushion your descent. At the bottom, you ignore the flabbergasted expressions on a few of the locals as you stalk off. Past the saloon, past the stables, through the shallow river—you’re not sure how far you walk, but it’s dark by the time that you realize you’re lost. 

“Kriff,” you sigh. 

Thankfully, whether by luck or by the sheer force of presence of your Force signature, you’ve not been bothered by any of the (frankly terrifying) wildlife on this planet. Tentatively, you reach out, but you find nothing but a few docile Nekkos and, farther off, a dozing bilemaw. 

In the dim light provided by the Abyss and the Shattered Moon hanging heavy in the sky, you determine that a shallow cliff alcove nearby will be as good a place as any to rest until morning. Settling under the rocky overhang, you exhale a shaky breath. 

It’s been a long time since you let your emotions take control like that. You allow yourself to feel them, even to use them to your advantage—but you rarely lose control. Not recently, anyways. 

You bare your teeth at the thought of Cal Kestis. He’s by far only the latest in a string of former Jedi you’ve encountered, but none of them, even the ones who you remember from your years as a padawan, created this amount of turmoil in you. So why him? 

Should probably just ask him myself, huh, you muse, hearing a twig snap nearby. You don’t need to look into the Force to know who it is. 

“Who’s following who now?” you call. 

With a familiar hum, a blue blade sings as it springs to life, illuminating the alcove you’re hunkered in, as well as Cal’s lean figure. You’re too exhausted to be angry at this point, but a different kind of heat licks up your spine as you push up onto your feet. The warmth settles between your thighs, throbbing uncomfortably as he raises the saber overhead, his arm muscles flexing. 

“Had to make sure you didn’t hurt anyone,” he says, halting just a few feet away. 

“No one out here to hurt,” you say. “What are you really doing here, Kestis?” 

He hesitates, shifting his weight between his feet, eyes not meeting yours. Squinting, you extend a tendril of awareness toward him—past the burnished gold aura, past the shell of Jedi honor he projects like a shield, until you brush against one of those tiny black cracks in his signature. He stiffens, shifts his stance into a defensive half-crouch. There is darkness in him. 

And there is lightness in you, sighs a voice that sounds very much like your master’s. 

You ignore it. 

“Well?” you prompt. 

“I- I don’t know,” he says. 

You snort. “Well, when you figure it out, let me know.” Sinking back into a meditative pose, you let your eyes slide shut and effectively shut out all things Cal Kestis.

At least, that’s what you try to do. The karking idiot seems to have decided that you’re not a threat—a poor miscalculation on his part—as his saber retracts and you hear the sounds of someone settling into a meditative trance next to you. Peeking one eye open, you glance over to find him sat back on his heels, palms resting on his thighs, his face blank and serene. He’s beautiful like this, you think. 

“I could kill you right now, you know,” you say, letting your eye fall shut again. 

“You won’t,” he says, sounding so matter-of-fact that you’re almost convinced that you really wouldn’t. 

Then you shake your head. “Don’t be so certain.” 

“You didn’t kill me five years ago. You won’t kill me now.” 

Gnawing at your cheek, you find you have no response for that. 

The third time you face Cal Kestis, you want to hate him. 

Koboh proves to be big enough for two powerful Force users. You keep to the wilderness, and he sticks to the town. For the most part, anyway. You occasionally catch a glimpse of copper hair as he explores the planet, following all the inane rumors of the locals. Why he even lowers himself to their level, you’ll never understand. 

And besides, Koboh has turned out to be a perfect place to continue your search for answers about the Force. You’ve never wanted to stop knowing, never stopped asking “But why?” The Abyss above is a physical presence most days, nearly oppressive in its crushing weight. It absolutely deafens you in the Force whenever you try to reach for it, painful screeching assaulting your senses. There’s something behind the noise, though, but it’s too far, too deep, for you to reach it. 

You haven’t seen Cal in a while now. And you’re fine with that. You’d watched his ship take off in the early hours of the morning a few weeks ago, and it still hasn’t returned. 

Shrugging, you decide that today is as good a day as any to do some exploring of your own. You’ve watched Cal enough to know that there are hidden vaults on this planet, and from what you’ve been able to tell, they’re old. Maybe they’ll have some answers. 

The sunrise peeks over the craggy cliffside, casting a gentle pink hue over the world, still hushed in its predawn slumber. Dew collects on your pant legs as you pass through a small clearing of scrubby bushes. A couple dozen feet up the hill glints a hint of gold. None of the Koboh prospectors would have left this alone unless it were for a reason, you figure. Maybe this is one of the vaults. 

Resting a palm gently on its surface, the gold is cool to the touch. Glyphs in Basic and other languages spiral around the circular door-like structure. When you examine it through the Force, you feel the mechanism that keeps it locked, but no matter how much you push, pull, yank, shove, the door remains sealed. 

“Dank farrik,” you curse. “How does Cal do it?” 

“Very carefully,” a familiar warm voice says from behind you. 

You barely glance over your shoulder, flushing from the embarrassment of being caught unawares, but somehow unsurprised he’s managed to find you. You should have known that even thinking of his absence would cause it to revert. 

“Very funny,” you say. “What secrets are you hiding, Jedi?” 

“Wouldn’t you like to know, Sith,” he says. 

As he sidles up alongside you, you glare at him. “I’m not a Sith.”

“Coulda fooled me,” he says with a shrug. “Red saber, strong in the dark side, angry all the time.” 

Huffing, you roll your eyes. His hair is longer than it has been since you first met him, and there’s another scar, pink and shiny, on his upper bicep, like he’d been cut with a vibroblade. As you study him, you also realize he looks...older. More tired. More weary. 

“You look like bantha fodder,” you say helpfully. 

He hums noncommittally. “Do you want into the vault or not?” 

“You’re gonna let me in?” you say, eyebrows raising in surprise. 

With a half-shrug, he says, “I’ve already explored this one. Nothing left in it for you to gain, except maybe some manners.” 

He reveals a small, handheld device that, when he raises it toward the golden door, blips. The door expands open, revealing a turbolift in the center of the floor. 

“Why are you helping me?” you ask, not moving from your spot. Suspicion bubbles in the back of your mind. 

Cal pockets the device and gestures for you to go ahead, giving you a sardonic two-finger salute. “It’s in my nature.” 

With that, he takes a step back, then another, and then pivots and trudges back downhill, tucking his fiery hair behind his ears. 

The vault teaches you something, alright, but it isn’t manners like Cal hoped. Even two century-old tech and warbled messages from a Jedi named Santari Khri cannot lift the veil of jade that rests over your eyes. The Order has always been faulty. The Order has always been weak. Your master was always fated to die, and you to wander, adrift. You grind your teeth in anger. Is that all that exists for you? For anyone? To live and die at the whim of some cosmic, unknowable power? 

The vault also reminds you of your mortality. As you work yourself into a silent rage about the unfairness of the galaxy, at the cruel and nonsensical nature of the Force, you miscalculate the distance between two crumbling stone platforms. With a Force-assisted leap, your arms windmill as you keep yourself balanced, but your feet only just manage to catch the edge of the platform. You wobble, anger bursting into fear, as the stone grates against itself before your stomach is in your throat as you plummet straight down. 

The rush of frigid air steals the scream from your lungs. Try as you might, the Force refuses to help you grasp onto the quickly receding lip of this chasm. 

And then pain rockets up your legs in jagged, arcing lines from your heels to your hips, and you collapse. 

It’s only by sheer willpower that you don’t black out. Grit your teeth. Take a deep breath. Curse until the pain abates. 

You take stock of your body. Your legs are on fire, and any attempt to move them sends a fresh wave of lava licking up your nerve endings. Otherwise, you wipe away blood from scrapes on your palms and tenderly poke at the bruises already forming on your ribs. Around you, myriad rocks and small boulders litter the cracked, moist ground. Mist clings to the spaces in between. When you look up, the ledge you fell from is completely obscured. 

“No Jedi wisdom for me, Santari Khri?” you croak as you gently shift into an upright position. Your teeth squeak from clenching your jaw against the pain, but you manage to prop yourself up with your back against a sizable rock. 

The mist deadens your words. Instead of an echo, it’s like the words get clipped short before they can fully materialize in the air. The back of your neck pricks. But, studying your surroundings once more, there is nothing for you to do but meditate. Perhaps, for once, the Force will provide.

You have no way of knowing how much time has passed as you sit in meditation, methodically stretching your awareness to its limits, trying to snag onto any signature in the Force that might help you out of this predicament. Your butt goes completely numb, as do your legs—a fact you feel should incite panic in your already-tight chest, but you can’t find it in you to care. By the time that you’re ready to give up searching, your throat tickles with dryness and your stomach begins to feel empty. 

But just as you heave a sigh, rising out of the meditative trance, the Force tugs on your awareness. Furrowing your brow, you concentrate: up, up up up, and to the left. Something steadily growing closer. Something bright, and familiar, and warm. 

Cal. 

For once, you’re grateful for his annoyingly Jedi-like qualities. You track his presence through the Force, unable to do more than monitor as he seems to approach your location with frustrating slowness. 

“Come on,” you mutter, mouth thick. “I’m here. Come find me like you always do.” 

After what feels like another small eternity, you finally open your eyes and peer up through the opaque mist. Above, you swear you hear boots crunching on loose rock, and the distant bwee-boop of a droid. 

“Down here,” you half call, half croak. The words don’t seem to make it past your throat. 

For a terrible moment, you think Cal is going to search the seemingly empty vault and, not finding you within, leave. You can’t tell, through either his footsteps or his Force signature, what he’s doing up there. At the last moment, a burst of panic seizing your limbs, you lean forward with a groan and retrieve your saber, still miraculously tucked into your waistband. 

The spitting crimson blade is a comfort as it screeches to life in the oppressive space.

A voice calls your name, cautious. 

“Here!” you shout, voice cracking painfully in an effort to be heard. 

Blue flame bursts to life somewhere above—much farther above than you initially thought—and you nearly sob in relief. 

“Watch your eyes,” Cal shouts down, and you have only a moment to register what he means before you duck, retracting your blade. The unmistakable sound of saber scoring through rock reaches you, heated pebbles showering down on your covered head, and then the sound of two soft leather-clad feet touching down beside you. 

Wary, you raise your head. Cal crouches next to you, his face painted with a cautious kind of concern. 

“You came back?” You don’t mean to make it a question, but the softness in his eyes, the gentleness with which he ghosts his hands over your many injuries, makes you reconsider your previous anger toward him. At least, for a moment. 

“Like I said,” he murmurs, “it’s in my nature.” 

“Legs are the worst of it,” you say, gesturing weakly to your two limbs stretched in front of you. Both are angry shades of blotchy red and purple, but no bone peeks out from within your skin at the very least. 

Cal casts a questioning look up at you, his palms hovering over your legs. You give a small nod, and he lowers his hands until they make feather-light contact with your skin. Even as careful as he’s being, pain erupts all over again when he brushes over your shin, and you squirm, cursing. 

“Probably fractured the bones,” he says. “Need to get you back to town.” 

You groan. “Unless you plan on carrying me out of here, Kestis, I’m not in any shape to make it all the way back.” 

He studies your face for a moment, really studies it, and you can’t help the way your lips part at the intensity in his gaze. Despite the aching pain in your legs, you can’t suppress the heat blooming up your neck into your cheeks the longer his eyes roam your face. Surely he can sense the way your Force aura grows more agitated. 

Whatever he’s searching for on your face, he seems to find it. Shrugging his shoulders, the curious little BD unit you’ve noticed with Cal peeks its white-and-red head up. With a boop?, Cal jerks his chin at you.

The droid slides down Cal’s back and trots up to you. Tilting its head, the mismatched eyes whir and toggle as the droid seems to study you with the same scrutiny as Cal just had.

“What—”

In the blink of an eye—faster, even—a flash of green light dazzles you, followed by the sharp pain of an injection. But that doesn’t even matter, as a blissful, cool relief spreads immediately from the injection site through the rest of your body. The ache in your legs subsides to a dull throb, and you find that you can finally move the limbs without wanting to vomit. 

“Stim,” Cal explains. He rises to his feet, and holds a hand out. “Come on. It’ll wear off soon.” 

His hand is warm, achingly so, when he grasps yours and tugs you to your feet. Grimacing at the wave of nausea that sweeps over you, you cling to his hand until it passes. 

He’s studying the sheer rockface to either side. “I may be carrying you out of here either way. Come on. Hop up.” 

He turns to retrieve your saber where you dropped the hilt—he stiffens for just a moment, so quick you think you imagine it, before he hands the hilt back to you. And then he remains facing away from you. You realize, with a deep-seated groan, that he’s removed the jacket he was wearing earlier, when he let you into the vault. His shoulders are bare and so strong and pretty and freckled and— 

His soft question of your name breaks you out of your reverie. 

“Right,” you say, clearing your throat. Tentatively, you hook your arms over top of his broad shoulders, trying to ignore the way his skin feels against yours, and he crouches so you can more easily clamber onto his back like a pack. 

“BD, up,” Cal orders, and you squirm as the droid clambers up your back to rest with one foot on your shoulder and the other on Cal’s. 

Even with the stim working through your system much like coolant in your ship’s engine, and even with Cal doing all he can to keep you steady on his back as he Force-propels himself up the vertical rockfaces of this cavern, you bite into your cheek hard enough for it to bleed to keep yourself from yelping in pain. It’s bad enough that he had to save you from a slow death in this Force-forsaken vault; he doesn’t need to know the fire that licks up your nerve endings with every jostle. 

You shuffle off his back as soon as you’re able. A grimace contorts your features as you stumble a few steps, but you wave away Cal’s steadying hands.

“I’m fine,” you grit out. 

“Yeah, you look fine,” he says. 

You shoot him a glare, but you’re more exhausted than you are angry. “You didn’t have to come back for me.” 

“If it makes you feel better,” he says, gesturing for you to step onto the turbolift first, “I don’t expect anything in return. You don’t owe me anything.” 

“Ha,” you bark out. Your stomach lurches as the turbolift shudders into its ascent. “Of course I owe you, Kestis. It’s all about balance.” 

“Balance,” he says, his voice strangely hollow and contemplative. “You murdered Rexan Binette and Sarela Webb and the others for balance?” 

The names of the Jedi you killed reverberate off the curved walls of the lift chamber. Breathing through your nose, you avoid his gaze—and then shake your head at yourself, angry. Why should you be ashamed? It was them or you. 

The lift comes to a smooth halt at the top, and you’re somehow unsurprised to find that it appears to be dawn again. Your eyes find Cal’s green ones. They look nearly black in the early morning haze. His expression bares all of his emotions: hurt, suspicion, concern, worry. But he doesn’t seem...afraid. Not of you, anyways, and instead of filling you with rage, that realization makes you deflate. 

“The galaxy changed,” you say, voice flat. “You change with it, or you die.” 

He fixes you with his stare for a moment more, and then shakes his head and begins the long walk back downhill without a word. Heaving a sigh, you follow him. You can’t repay the debt you now owe him if you die from an infected wound. You tell yourself that the heat bubbling in your chest is hate, hate that you’re now bound to this life debt, hate that of all people you’re in debt to Cal Kestis. But hate has never felt so soft.

The final time that you and Cal Kestis cross paths, you remember why hatred is easier. 

It’s only a few weeks after when you’ve fully healed thanks to Cal’s quick intervention, the extra stores of bacta that you had the good foresight to stash in your ship years ago, and perhaps a nudge from the Force. You’ve retreated to your ramshackle abode in the wilderness; thankfully, the worst you have to deal with upon returning is a stray Bogling. No matter how hard you try to shoo the pesky creature away from your hut, it comes back again. 

“You’re lucky you’re so cute,” you grumble, watching the Bogling scratch at the dirt out front of your hut. It chitters as it works to burrow its den. 

Cal has disappeared again, which works just fine for you. It’s easier to attune to the Force when he’s gone. When you’re not distracted by his burnished radiance, his soothing calmness, his serene meditation posture, his hair that looks as soft as the Bogling’s fur, his...him.

Genuinely, who the kriff does Cal Kestis think he is? Where does he get the right to continue to do good in the galaxy when all the galaxy wants is to kill him? To kill everyone like him? How does he continue fighting? 

For that matter, how do you continue fighting? The sudden self-introspection is jarring. You squint a glare up at the Abyss, the technicolor explosion hanging heavy in the sky, as if it personally arranged your fated entanglement with the Jedi. As if it asked the question of your purpose, not your own conscience.

You have to squint in part because, in the Force, the Abyss is blinding. Stare too long and you’ll be blinking away spots from your vision for hours afterward. As your eyes start to water, you shake your head and bring your gaze back to terra firma. Kark it all, you think, bitter. You continue fighting because you have to. Because you have to know the answer. You have to understand the balance. 

In the Force, you’ve watched for years as the streaks of light in your otherwise void-like existence pulse and contract. Here, underneath the staggering presence of the Abyss, the galactic, even cosmic, struggle between Light and Dark, splashes across your own skin, a microcosm. It makes you angry all over again, as you study the vapors of golden lightness drift around you. The anger is good. The anger makes the darkness pulse and surge and rise; the anger makes you more focused. 

Gritting your teeth, you try to hang onto the anger. 

And then you don’t have to try at all. In your peripheral awareness, the Bogling has scurried in fright into your small hut as the sound of footsteps—many, many footsteps—echoes off the surrounding cliff walls. Your lips curl back in a snarl at being interrupted. Saber hilt smacking into your palm with a familiar weight, the unsteady red blade fills your small clearing with a threatening hum. 

Around the corner comes a full squad of Imperials. For a moment, you have to blink, to make sure that what you’re seeing is correct. But no. The hard white duraplast armor gleams in the midday sun, the mixed group of scout- and Stormtroopers advancing as one giant, grotesque organism. And at its midst, in the nucleus, are two black-clad figures wielding crackling electrostaffs. 

Purge Troopers. 

How dare they. How dare they come to your planet—and you hesitate only a moment over the possessiveness in your anger—and only another moment more when you find that you include Cal’s place on Koboh in that possession. This is your planet, together. The Light, and the Dark. 

In all things, balance. 

“Enemy located,” crackles the voice of one of the troopers. You don’t know, and don’t frankly care, which. 

As the white-clad troopers fan out in a loose semicircle, blasters and batons raised at half-ready, the two Purge troopers continue a few paces forward. They’re nearly identical, all the way down to the way that they settle their weight on their right feet, perfectly unbalanced. 

“You won’t get away,” the one to your left calls, his voice imperious and cold. “Not this time. You’ll be coming with us.” 

“Don’t be so sure,” you call back, feigning disinterest. Through the Force, you mentally draw the battle map, the path of carnage and rage and blood you’ll wreak through the ten troopers in front of you. 

“There are ten of us,” the other Purge Trooper says, voice cocky and self-assured. The battle map in your mind halts, then reasserts itself with a new pattern. One that places Mr. Cocky and Arrogant at the top of your assault. 

You snort. “Glad to know the Empire is teaching its troopers basic math. Let’s get this over with, shall we?” 

You twirl your saber in a half circle around your body, a familiar ritual, a reset button to remind you to keep your head clear. As blasters raise to full height, you take a deep, centering breath, and close your eyes.

A silence takes over your ears, your mind, your very being. You are one with the Force; the Force is with you. Despite all your issues with the cosmic Force, you know it will not fail you now. You don’t hear the order to fire, you don’t hear the clicks of triggers, you don’t hear the scream of blaster bolts. You don’t need to. Guided by the Force, void-like and in command, your arms—your saber—jumps into place. 

Four blaster bolts pelt your way. Four blaster bolts ricochet and catch their originators in the chest. Four troopers fall. 

You open your eyes, lips tugging back over your teeth in a mockery of a smile. Sound returns to you just as one of the scout troopers, shaken, stumbles back with a cry: “St-Stormtrooper KIA!” 

You enact your battle map. 

Gathering the Force to yourself, you push off the ground and shoot forward with a Force assist, your saber swinging up and cleaving back down at the critical juncture between the cocky Purge Trooper’s neck and shoulder. The glowing plasma sinks easily through duraplast, fabric, and flesh alike; the trooper’s groan of pain gurgles as your blade cuts through his lungs. Now there are five. 

You whirl, saber moving nearly of its own accord to intercept each blow that the remaining troopers rain upon you. It’s nearly child’s play to parry their attacks, send them staggering off-balance. In a crucial moment where all your opponents hesitate to move forward again, you bare your teeth. Reaching out with a clawed hand, you grip the throat of one of the troopers, lift him bodily with the Force, then yank down as hard as you can. There’s a satisfying crack when he hits the ground.

You’re doing fine. You’re going to triumph here; the Force has willed it so. The fear of the remaining troopers is palpable and you draw on it, siphoning it into yourself, into your cracked and screaming kyber crystal. With a leaping slash, two trooper heads bounce away.

The remaining two troopers look at each other. You don’t need the Force to smell the fear rolling off of the scout trooper in waves, and you fix him with a feral grin. 

“No more quips?” you ask, voice harsh. 

He drops his baton and runs.

“Just you and me,” the Purge Trooper observes. 

“How very astute of you,” you say. “Your friend was the smart one. You can still run; I’ll let you go. For now.” 

“Not a chance.” The buzzing electrostaff twirls through the air as the Trooper lowers into a defensive crouch. “Surrender.” 

“Not a chance,” you echo, matching his stance. “Now, why don’t—”

A voice, familiar and warm and distracting, shouts your name from above. Like a fool, you hesitate, turning. There’s a glimpse of coppery hair, a blue flame, and golden radiance. You growl at the interruption—

And cry out as the electrostaff comes down across your upper back, singeing into your clothing, biting into your skin. 

You drop to your knees, vision blurry. Stupid. That was stupid. 

The Purge Trooper immediately raises the staff for another strike, but before it can make contact with the back of your neck, a rush of energy steamrolls over you and shoves the trooper fifteen feet back. His heels dig into the soft dirt. 

“Jedi!” If the trooper is surprised to see Cal Kestis coming to the rescue of the likes of you, you can’t hear it in his voice. “Guess this is my lucky day.” 

“Don’t count on it,” you wheeze. Grunting in pain, you shove to your feet and reset, saber singing in the air, the smell of ozone stinging your nose. 

Your name again, gentler this time, and closer. This time, you don’t turn, instead waiting for him to come to you. And he does, just like you knew he would. In the corner of your eye, Cal Kestis and his supernova signature provide something like...comfort. Heat bubbles and sputters in your chest at his closeness. This feeling is hate, you reassure yourself. 

“You’re hurt,” he says, voice pitched low. 

“I’ve had worse,” you say. “You here to help, or to mock?” 

He fully faces you, and you sense more than see his eyes rake over your profile. With a shake of his head, his copper hair flowing nearly to his shoulders, he raises his saber, point-first, toward the Purge Trooper. With a satisfied smile, you swing your saber in lazy circles. Finally. 

The two of you attack at the same time, nudged along by the Force. Together, you flank the trooper, whose training seems to have prepared him for a moment such as this. But for all the training this trooper has, you and Cal have more. You and Cal have more to fight for. More to lose. More to gain. 

Cal’s blur of a blue saber slashes through the air, at every turn blocking the trooper’s pressing attack, forcing the Imp to recalibrate. And when he attempts to do so, tries to even catch his breath, you’re there, the Force driving your swings harder. You know the blows that land on the staffs jar the Imp’s wrists all the way to his shoulders. You know he’s going to falter. You know he’s going to die. 

When the fear once again rises from this trooper, you smile. 

Overconfident, you twirl, blade seeming to bend as it whirls through the air. It will connect with the trooper at his waist.

It does—but his staff connects with you once again at your own waist, and this time it bites into your flesh and holds. 

“No!” Cal’s shout is harsh and angry. With a final flash of blue, the Purge Trooper slumps sideways, body collapsing into the dirt. The momentum yanks the electrostaff out of your side. 

You drop your saber hilt to press against the bleeding wound, hands shaking. Kark, this hurts. Why does it hurt so bad? Cal’s face, with wide, scared green eyes, appears in your field of vision. 

A spark of anger temporarily distracts you from the pain in your side and along your back. “Kestis,” you grind out. “I had it under control.” 

“It’s in my nature,” he says, like that explains everything. You suppose it does. Your anger abandons you, and you stagger forward, into his embrace. 

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs against you as he ducks under your arm, taking your weight. “C’mon, we’ll get inside and I’ll patch you up.” 

“Got any more of those stims?” you ask, words slurring a little. You glance down at your side and blink dumbly at the amount of red staining your clothes. 

“A few more,” Cal says. “They’re yours. Just need to get you inside.” 

The several dozen feet to your hut pass in a blur and in a blink—you’re not sure which. Maybe it’s both. But you sigh as you settle down into the familiar comfort of your small cot. In the corner, you’re dimly aware of the Bogling cowering below the small kitchen table. Critter is cute, you suppose. Maybe it can stay. 

You’re delirious. That has to be it. You’d never willingly take in a stray. 

BD hops up on the cot next to you and, at Cal’s nod, ejects a glowing green stim canister. Cal catches it and then plunges the small needle into your side, just above the gash there. Cool relief tingles through you, and you smile at him. 

“That feels good,” you mumble. 

“I’m glad,” he says, an odd note in his voice. “You got medical supplies?” 

You gesture vaguely to the screened-off back corner, your ’fresher. “If I do, s’in there.”

BD stays with you while Cal rummages through your meager supplies, the little droid’s head tilted to the side as though studying you. You blink at him. 

Bwoop-beep? the droid chimes. 

“I don’t speak Binary, sorry,” you say. 

Cal chuckles, returning with a handful of supplies. “He’s wondering if you’re feeling okay.” 

You feel okay enough to feel annoyed at the question, and you shoo the little droid off your bed. When you return your attention to Cal, he’s hesitating, a roll of gauze, bottle of alcohol, and a needle in his hands. 

“What,” you ask, flatly. 

“Need to take your shirt off to clean the wound properly,” he says, and if you knew him better, you might think he sounds nervous. Embarrassed, even. 

But you don’t know him that well, and so you ignore his tone of voice. “Fine.” 

You struggle for a moment to lift your shirt over your head, hissing as the movement pulls at the wound in your side. Once it’s off, you throw it toward the ’fresher. 

Cal still hesitates, his eyes everywhere but on you. Another surge of annoyance flares in you, and you snatch the medical supplies out of his hands. 

“I’d really like to not bleed out here, Kestis,” you admonish. He at least has the sense to look abashed at that, and assists you in cleaning out the wound, stitching it shut, and wrapping you in gauze to keep pressure on it. You don’t let out a single curse, hiss, or groan the entire time, making the inside of your mouth bleed with how hard you bite down. 

“You okay?” he asks once you’re bandaged up. 

“What do you think?” you retort. “M’gonna sleep. You can go.” 

“I’ll stay,” he says. He withdraws, but remains in your small hut, slinging himself into the hand-hewn wooden chair at your dining table. “Rest. I’ll keep watch.” 

“Why?” You can’t help the way the question sounds equal parts frustrated and incredulous.

“Just sleep, Sith,” he says. His voice brooks no argument, and for once, you have none.

When you wake, it’s still light outside. Your mouth feels like it’s been stuffed with gauze and left to dry out, your head not much better. With a soft groan, you roll onto your side and peer into the half-lit room. 

Cal’s already watching you. His gaze meets yours and pierces you, pinning you to the small cot tucked against the wall. Swallowing against the dryness in your throat, you study his features. The dark scar across his face. The lean lines of his torso and muscles. The strand of fiery hair that curls over his forehead and teases his chin. Despite the lingering shards of pain in your side, heat flickers in your core.

“Why did you really come here, Cal?” you ask, voice low, the stillness around you demanding to remain unbroken. “Why did you come back for me at all? You know the things I’ve done. The people I’ve killed. I can’t be worth saving.” 

He is quiet as he contemplates your question, his hands loosely clasped in his lap. Silence stretches between you, slow and languid, and you nearly hold your breath waiting for his response. 

Eventually he gives a half shrug. “There was a time when I believed everyone is worth saving. Since the Empire, things have...been different. I’m not so sure everyone deserves to be saved.” 

“So why come back?” 

His eyes are soft when they find yours again. You want to be angry, want to latch onto the residual pain in your body and sharpen it into a vibroblade, hurl it outward from yourself and hope it hurts him as much as you’ve been hurt. In your gut, the darkness stirs, but in your heart, the light whispers patience. 

“I see too much of myself in you to not come back for you,” he says, so quiet you nearly don’t process the words. 

But when his confession does register, you blink in surprise. You can’t help the chuckle that escapes you. 

“We couldn’t be more opposite, Kestis,” you say. “Do you know what you look like, in the Force?” 

When he remains silent, shifting in the wooden chair uncomfortably, you push yourself up into a sitting position. A sigh sloughs out of your throat. 

“You’re the most...beautiful thing I’ve seen,” you say, hesitating only briefly over the words. “You shine. You’re a beacon of light. Stars, Cal, you’re practically a star yourself.” 

His lips part in surprise, and you can’t ignore the way your core twists at the expression. “But—”

You raise a hand. “There’s darkness there, sure, but you are the light, Kestis. And sure, there may be light in me, but believe me, I’m a void. The void. You’ll never carry the sins that blacken my soul.” 

His toned chest rises and falls with his rapid, shallow breaths. When he swallows, you watch the way his throat bobs, the muscles that strain at his neck, the tightening of his hands into fists. Without even needing to look, you can feel the way his Force signature roils with confusion and surprise. You’ve caught him off-guard, yet again. The knowledge sends a pulse of heat to the apex of your thighs.

“Show me,” he whispers. 

You frown, brows furrowing. “What?” 

“In the Force,” he says. “Show me.”

“I’ve never—” 

“I have a gift.” He grimaces. “Psychometry. It might not work. But I want to see.” 

Ah. You understand how he knew the names of the Jedi you murdered, and glance at your saber hilt resting on the table near him. How much has he seen? 

Apparently, not enough. 

Worrying your lip between your teeth, you shrug. “Fine. C’mere.” 

The cot groans under the added weight, not meant for two people, but it holds. You adjust yourself to sit with your legs crossed, your knees touching Cal’s as he mirrors your posture. A slight twinge tugs at your ribs as you move. Cal’s eyes soften again as you grimace. 

“Don’t,” you grit out. “Save your pity.” 

“It’s not—” He huffs. “Whatever.” 

Glaring up at him through your eyelashes, you nevertheless rest your hands palm-up, fingers outstretched toward him. Cal gently rests his hands over yours. His skin is heated, electric where it touches yours. The thought crosses your mind, fleetingly, what your odds would be if you decided to finally end it here and now; the thought disappears as soon as his calloused fingers wrap around your forearms. 

“Like this?” he murmurs. 

“Feels right,” you reply in the same tone. “Here goes nothing, yeah?” 

You inhale a deep, centering breath, and allow yourself to sink into the currents of the Force. For a moment you have to squint as Cal’s truest form explodes across your perception. This close, you’re surprised he doesn’t radiate any extra heat. You’re also surprised at the imperfections you find in his signature, the small nicks in the otherwise flawless, gleaming golden skin. You have to restrain yourself from leaning forward to examine him even closer. The desire to know him, to pick him apart and put him back together, rushes through you, pulsing in your fingertips. 

When you feel adjusted to his presence, this close, this intoxicating, you squeeze his hands. Focusing on the places where the two of you connect—your palms, your knees, your signatures—you will your unique sight to bleed into his awareness. 

Judging from the way he stiffens and gasps, you figure it worked. Your combined abilities and strength in the Force, overlapping just this once, let him see the world like you do.

“You’re so...” He trails off, voice strained. “Empty.” 

“Thanks for noticing.” You squeeze his hands again. “Do you underst— oh.”

You nearly choke as the Force nudges against your mind. For a moment, you’re no longer in your hut, but instead on an unfamiliar ship, palms pressed against a stranger’s—no, not a stranger—her name drifts to you. Merrin. You’re comparing palm sizes with her, and her hands are nearly as big as yours—as Cal’s. 

You rip away from Cal Kestis and the illusion breaks. 

Heat burns up your neck to your face. “What the kriffing hell was that?” 

“What did you see?” he asks, concern flashing in his eyes. He reaches for you, and you lean away, glaring. 

You don’t even know why you’re angry. Any emotions you’ve felt for Cal have been ones you can explain: anger, frustration, begrudging respect, competitiveness, hatred. You recognize his attractiveness, and you don’t deny the effect his presence has on your baser desires—but the nearly painful flare of possessiveness pulsing in you right now is foreign. Inexplicable. 

“It doesn’t matter,” you eventually mutter. “Did you see?” 

“I saw you,” he says. Tentatively, he skims his fingertips over your leg, up to your knee. When you don’t retreat, he gently snags your hand and threads your fingers together. “I’m sorry.” 

You bare your teeth and tug your hand away—or try to. His fingers tighten around yours, holding you in place. “I told you before, Kestis. I don’t need your pity.” 

“Then don’t see it as pity,” he says. “See it as an understanding. A mutual experience.” 

Sucking on your teeth, your jaw clenches for a moment before you sigh. “Fine. Who’s Merrin?” 

“An old friend,” Cal says, a little too quickly. “She’s... She went her own way a while ago.” 

Something like triumph glows in you. “Good.” 

He fixes you with a confused look, a crease forming between his brows. “Wha—” 

You cut him off, surging forward to press your lips greedily against his. The impulse to be closer to him, impossibly close, is overwhelming in this moment. His palm is warm and steady and grounding against yours. He grunts against you, going absolutely still. 

When you pull away, not moving more than a few inches away, you meet the shock in his gaze with a sense of pride. His eyes flit between yours, searching. You drag your eyes down to his lips, parted and damp and so fucking pink.

His other hand cradles the back of your head and pulls you forward into another kiss. 

You groan into his mouth. His lips are warm and soft and sweet against yours, moving slowly, uncertain. You tilt your head, nudging his nose with your own. With your free hand, you grip at his shirt and claw your way into his lap. You need more. More of him, more of his warmth, more of his touch, more more moremoremore. 

He breathes your name against your lips, and you shush him gently. His body is hard and lean beneath yours, his touch hesitant. Fingers still intertwined, you guide his hand to your waist. Without the barrier of your shirt, his touch burns, scorching you from the outside in. His fingers splay across your skin, trailing molten desire in their wake. Heat pulses in your core.

“Kriff,” you sigh, “please.” 

“Didn’t think you had manners,” he quips, trailing open-mouthed kisses across your jaw, down your neck. 

You reach up and tug on his fiery hair, earning a low groan. “Rude.” 

He chuckles against your skin, his lips brushing against a sensitive spot. A shiver dances up your spine, a quiet sigh passing your lips. When he bites down there, you moan. 

“Kestis,” you pant. 

“Shh,” he soothes. The hand on your waist trails down to your hip and squeezes in time with another bite to your skin. With another groan, you rock your hips down into him. A grin curls your mouth up in pleasure at the feeling of his half-hard cock beneath you. 

“Off,” you order, tugging on his shirt. 

He breaks away from you long enough to yank the offending article up and over his head. Your palms smooth over the rippling muscles beneath his pale, freckled skin of his stomach, and he shudders. Brushing your thumb over a blaster scar under his ribs, you press a kiss to his shoulder. 

“Did it hurt?” you ask. 

“I’ve had worse,” he says. 

“Show me.” 

His green eyes are dark, nearly black, when he meets your gaze with a questioning look. In response, you skim a featherlight trail over his torso, lingering at the scars that mar his otherwise perfect skin—mirrors, you realize, of the imperfections of his golden aura. 

When you trace the pink scar that bisects his face, he shivers. His hand catches your wrist, halting your movement. 

“That one,” he whispers, voice pained. “That was the worst.” 

You recognize, this close, the telltale signs of a saber wound. He’s lucky to have survived that, you realize. 

Kriff. You press your mouth to his once again, wrapping your legs around his torso. His body fits against yours, hard planes to soft edges, and you groan in unison. His kiss is still tentative, but he moves against you without hesitation when you deepen the kiss, your tongue licking across his bottom lip. His tongue is hot against yours. Spit slicking your lips, you groan into his open mouth. 

Fuck, you need more. Pulling at his hair, you urge his head to tip back, exposing the pale column of his throat. You lick a stripe down his skin, tasting his natural saltiness, delighting in the way his cock hardens against your clothed core. 

“Want you,” you mumble against his collarbone. 

He hums. “I’m yours.”

That possessive flare from before practically obliterates any coherent thoughts your brain was still capable of producing. Growling, you push him onto his back, shuffling down, kissing and licking and biting at his skin as you fumble with his pants. The buttons come undone; his hips raise to help you shuck the clothing off. His cock bobs as it comes free of the confines. 

“Oh fuck,” you moan. “Been holding out on me, Kestis.” 

“If I’d known—” His voice cracks. “If I’d known all you needed was to be fucked, we coulda done this sooner.” 

Tingles spark through your core hearing him curse—hearing him talk about something as base and dirty as fucking you. Stars, the heat in your core is nearly unbearable. 

You need to taste him. 

Wrapping your fingers around his heavy cock, you smear a droplet of precum over his flushed head. His body jerks in response, his eyes half-lidded as he gazes down at you, a smirk playing at his lips. Without warning, you envelope him in your mouth. Cal cries out, hips jerking up. You moan in satisfaction around him. Hollowing your cheeks, you sink your mouth further down onto his length, before sucking, tongue teasing the underside of his head. One hand cupping his balls, you relax your throat and take him deep. The curls at the base tickle your nose. 

“Oh stars,” he breathes. “You’re so good at that. F-Fuck.” 

You hum, settling into a rhythm. His hand, broad and strong and warm, rests on top of your head—not pushing, just there, feeling you. His chest heaving, you can’t help but admire the flush rising to his cheeks, painting him in sin. Spit dribbles out of your mouth, coating the parts of him you can’t reach. Your eyes never leave his. 

Snaking your free hand down your body, you moan at the pleasure that zings through you at the momentary relief of touching yourself. 

“No.” Cal’s voice is strangled, strained. He flicks two shaky fingers, and your hand is yanked out from beneath your body by the Force. 

An obscene pop echoes in your hut as you pull your mouth away from his weeping cock. “Either touch me, or I’ll do it myself,” you growl. 

“Then c-come here,” he stutters. 

Shimmying out of your pants, you discard the garments to the floor without a second thought and climb your way up his body. His hands skim your sides, his touch barely there, as your mouth reconnects with his. You don’t think you’ll ever get enough of his mouth, his touch, his cock. He feels too good. 

You hiss when his hand brushes against your aching sex. He breaks the kiss long enough for his eyes to find yours, a silent question there as his fingers find purchase at your core. 

You can only nod, not trusting your voice. When he moves his hand against you, your vision blurs and you press your forehead to his. 

“Stars, Kestis, just like that,” you hiss. 

He rubs his nose against yours. “Let me take care of you.” 

His touch is electric. Your body jerks against him when his fingers move just right, applying just the right amount of pressure. Heat and tension build in your belly, growing more and more taut by the second. Your legs shake on either side of his hips. 

“Cal,” you whine. “Gonna cum.” 

His touch retreats, and you whimper at the loss of contact. 

“You’re g-gonna cum on my cock,” he promises, pressing a chaste kiss to your lips. The sweetness of the action contrasts with the filth of his words, and your stomach lurches. 

“Fuck, yes, okay.” You spit in your hand and reach down to make sure you’re ready for him.

He slicks his own palm with spit and jerks his cock once, twice, getting himself prepped. With his hand at his base, steadying his length, you slowly sink onto him. He splits you open inch by inch, the delicious burn of him in your core drawing a pitiful moan from your chest. When he bottoms out, you twitch in his lap, chest heaving. 

“T-Take me so well,” he murmurs, ghosting his fingertips over your face. “Stars, you feel so- so good.” 

You whine. “Cal.” 

“I know, baby, I know.” 

The pet name seems to surprise him as much as it does you. The heat that’s been simmering in your chest for months now, since the first time you encountered him, dulls into something...softer. More muted. More pliant. 

Eyes locked together, you test the waters and raise your hips a fraction. Moans tumble from both of you at the friction, and that’s all you need. Rolling your hips, you work his cock, drawing the most delicious noises from him. He caresses your face, smooths a hand over your back, kisses you sweetly. You find just the right angle where his cock brushes against that bundle of nerves deep inside, and you shudder. 

“Cal, I—” 

“Yes,” he groans. “Don’t stop.” 

You don’t. You drag your hips frantically against his, chasing the sparks bursting in your core with each thrust. His touch turns harsh as you ride him; your hips will surely bear bruises tomorrow in the shape of his fingertips. You moan at the thought. Mine. Mine mine mine mine. 

Rutting against that raw piece of heaven in your core, you’re blind to everything else. Your injury forgotten, the empty void that yawns in your soul, your frustration with Cal Kestis: all of it is irrelevant right now. All that matters is that you keep fucking Cal. All that matters is the way his cock feels sliding in and out of you, dragging against your walls. All that matters is the way he moans your name like a prayer. 

“Need you t-to cum,” he orders, words faltering as you clench around his cock. 

“I’m close,” you say, voice hoarse. The tension in your belly draws hot and tight, ready to snap. 

Cal finally thrusts up to meet you when you bounce down, and you scream. That taut cord in your belly releases, snapping in two, and you see white. Pleasure explodes through you; every nerve lit on fire, tears dew in your eyes from the intensity. You claw at Cal’s chest, searching for purchase as he absolutely rails into you, chasing his own release. 

Through it all, he babbles. “J-Just like that, baby. Cum all over this cock. Fuck, you’re g-gonna make me— I— fuck, ngh, I’m—” 

He stills as he cums, his cock pulsing against your walls, and you jerk at the sensation, oversensitive. 

Your eyes flutter as you look down at him in the gathering darkness. His skin shines with a thin sheen of sweat. As his cock softens inside of you, letting some of his cum drip out, you groan softly. 

“This was a mistake,” you whisper. 

He swallows visibly, and nods. “I know.” 

You capture his lips in another kiss, one he returns with a fervor. Stars, you almost wish you really did hate him. This would be so much easier. 

“What now?” he asks, thumb brushing over your tender hips. 

You shrug. “Same time next week?” 

He huffs a laugh. “Very funny.” 

“Thanks.” 

He hums. “I’m leaving tomorrow.” 

All of the heat of the last few minutes dissipates immediately, and ice knifes your insides. You push away from him finally, his cum dripping down your inner thigh as you stand, bend to retrieve your clothes, tug them on. 

“Okay.”

“That’s it?” 

“What do you want me to say, Kestis?” 

He sighs as he reaches for his own clothes. “I don’t know. I don’t know.” 

“You should have left when I told you to,” you say, arms crossed over your chest as you stare out the single window of your home at the rapidly falling dark. 

“Yeah, maybe.” His hand is warm and familiar where he rests it on your shoulder. “You could...come with me.” 

You narrow your eyes. “And have to live by your Jedi code? No thanks.” 

“No code,” he says, quiet, contemplative. “Just the fight.” 

“Just the fight,” you echo. When he nods, something you sense more than see, you sigh. “I could...tag along. Just this once.” 

“Of course,” he says. His lips press against your temple. “Just this once.” 

Swallowing against the strange metallic taste rising to your mouth, you blink and summon the Force. You’re grateful for Cal’s grounding presence behind you. Your signature is...muddied. Marbled black and gold. When you glance down at his hand on your skin, you find that his aura is the same as yours. Mixed. Confused. 

Balanced.

Yes, you think. Hating him would have been easier.

[bearlytolerant]

Fandom: Star Wars: The Acolyte

Pairing: Qimir x fReader

Fic Rating: E

Chapter Rating: E (choking, force choking, vaginal sex, brief blowjob, mild dom elements)

AO3

ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE

SIX

A composition crafted by the insatiable craving for Qimir, a dream descends upon you. Layered with softness and simulated sensory aphrodisiacs, you step into your dream with wanton expectations for the stranger who knows exactly how to touch you.

Should be troubling. Would be if not for the comforting reassurance of sleep.

Here in the dark where stars shimmer through the black backlit canopy, there is a bed and the outline of the helmeted stranger who inhabits your dreams sitting on the edge of it. His upper half is disrobed and in the flicker of that campfire in the distance that’s always in your dreams now, your eyes drink in the muscle but drift to the scars. Slightly lifted on his skin, they meld one into the other and you know them for what they are. Naked and vulnerable, you step toward him. Briefly your fingers dust along similar scars lining your right side.

Scars of the past.

Scars of the saber.

Scars of the discarded.

Was he discarded too?

You reach out to him, chest squeezing tight with a longing for him. It’s easier to be brave in dreams. Easier still when you share something in common.

You dare to rest your hand on his shoulder.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” he says.

“Aw, you missed me.”

“And you missed me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he says. “Even if your mind drifts to—what’s his name?”

Qimir.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. To you.”

He’s right but you’re still not willing to gift the name. Makes it too real. But it is real isn’t it?

Not here. Not in a dream.

“I had the opportunity to take him,” you say quietly, unprompted, rubbing your thumb gently across the skin of his shoulder. “We were a heap on the floor, chests beating in synchronization. I still remember his breath on my lips, the way his hand fit in mine. Couldn’t treasure the touch. The want—the want was so overpowering—like being dragged underneath tumultuous waves. I couldn’t breathe.”

“So you came up for air.”

“I gasped for air. But that want—” Your eyes flutter closed.

“It persists.”

“Yes.” A whisper. “And I knew you could accept it. Maybe even mutually want it too. And here—in my dreams—it’s safer. Maybe even allowed.” Your eyes open again.

He stands, your hand slipping away from his shoulder, and reaches out, grasping your wrist tight as he whirls you into him. Practically a possession clutched against his chest, your back presses against the warmth of his skin. It’s been some time since you’ve been held in this way. Strongly. Tightly. Safely. A sigh of relief slips from your lips. His hand wraps around your waist, fingers sprawling as they gradually climb up your body. You awake to the current of his touch. Mapping out the curve of your breasts, he squeezes once and then trails his fingers over your shoulder and dusts them down your arm. Crawls them across your fingers and entangles them with his own before he lifts them to your sternum. Gently, he slides them further upward, caressing your throat.

That shame tugs at you. Memories of certain hands around your throat can induce panic but his hands—his hands induce thrill and excitement. You want more of it but you feel like you shouldn’t.

“Is this why you came?” His words break through your thought spiral and pull you back to him.

“No—and yes,” you admit. “I need you—to guide me. Teach me.”

There’s a shaky, modulated breath as his other hand smooths down your side and around your hip, pulling you tighter against his body. The helmet is cool against your temple as he rests his head against yours.

“But you still deny it. Suppress it.”

You swallow, your linked hands still lingering at the skin of your neck. Deny what? Suppress what? It can’t possibly be desire as it pools between your legs. You realize he’s speaking of the force.

“But I want—I want—”

His hand slips down your body, finger beginning to worry at your clit and the words you were going to say are lost in a small moan.

“Not enough. Not yet.”

“How do you—”

“Mmm. Your shame betrays you.” His voice robotically rumbles at a slowed cadence in your ear. “It holds you back. It’s why you still just stand here, not asking and especially not taking what you want.”

“I don’t know—” A small whine escapes as he circles your clit, the steady pressure of his firm cock bumping into your ass as he grinds against you. “—how to let go,” you whisper.

“Don’t know how or won’t?” His hand stills.

“Please—please don’t stop.”

“Release your shame. Loose your desire.”

“I—can’t.”

He untangles himself from you. Grasping you by the shoulders, he twists you to face him. Your heart hammers erratically as your eyes fall to his body as his hands slip from your shoulders. Sculpted arms dangling at his sides, he flexes his fingers as he holds himself tall and patient. His breathing is as ragged as yours, and in the lift of his chest, you spy a faint mole and search out more of them. They reveal themselves on his collarbone and further down his body where you instinctively reach out and skim along his side, thumbing downward along the angular line that defines his abs. You brush your index against the mole there. You want to kiss each of them but you don’t. You withdraw your hand and glance back up to the helmet.

A tilt of his head and those metal teeth mock you, tease you, smile at the pathetic way you waver between who you are and who you long to be. Or you imagine that must be what he thinks of you. But then he gently takes your hand and places it on his chest, assisting you in tracing his skin.

“You can,” he says, voice low and almost soft. “You are free here.” Of your own volition, your other hand traverses his body, fingers tucking in around his waistband. “That’s it. Keep going.” A sharp intake of breath. “Show me what else you can do.”

Enthusiasm builds in your chest and you remember what it’s like to have the force at your fingertips. It wouldn’t be so bad to use it here, right? You’re not really using it. Closing your eyes, you grasp at it with an open palm against his chest. A slight tug in your mind and his pants are on the ground. A push and he’s falling backwards onto the sheets. They wrinkle as he rights himself into a better position while your eyes drink in his whole appearance. His body is gorgeous and you can assume his face must be too and if not, it’s easy to picture Qimir’s easy smile and flirtatious eyes. His cock throbs in anticipation as you crawl onto the bed and briefly cup his balls, eliciting an expelled sigh. You run your tongue along the taut skin, tasting the salt from the bit of precum on his tip before you wrap your lips around and suck. He groans, then jerks impulsively, the head of his shaft hitting the back of your throat before you grin and withdraw. He pulls up on elbows, that helmet tilted as his chest heaves. You know he watches you eagerly but impatient now.

You straddle him. Slumping over his chest, knees against each of his hips, hovering just above his enthusiastic cock, you palm his chest. It’s just as you had imagined doing to Qimir—only better. Slipping up and back down his body, you carve out the lines and curves with your hands. Your fingers inch along his skin, savoring every placement and touch. Shudder and spasm of his muscles. The stillness he maintains as he allows you to explore all of him and act out what once was a fantasy of Qimir, quickly becomes a reality of this helmeted stranger who lives in your dream and he’s all that resides in your mind now.

“That’s it. Good,” he praises, tone dipping deeper and you swallow. “Don’t put that on a leash now.”

Bending over his chest, you press your lips to his skin, teeth dragging down to his nipple. You swirl your tongue across the peak, drawing it into your mouth. His modulated moan sends a thrill through your core and you bite down.

“Fuck,” he murmurs.

Your eyes flick up to where his would be without the helmet. “Too much?”

“Hardly. I was merely expressing my surprise. Didn’t think you had it in—”

You bite his other nipple before he can finish that sentence and his words are replaced by a hiss and swear as you run your fingernails down his skin, relishing in the way the flesh blossoms pink in parallel streaks.

This isn’t what you had planned for Qimir.

Those fantasies were laced with butter and sweetness—sculpted soft. Tender.

But something about this man makes you feel possessively primal. Like he can handle the claw and bite of every one of your demons. Thrive in the shroud of your shadow. Revel in your darkest impulses. Accept every part of you that you can’t even imagine accepting yourself. It’s the certainty that he will teach you in time that makes you need him even more.

You sink down onto him, unhurried, as every girthy inch fills your wet cunt. The thought of chasing pleasure is all that consumes you.

A curse. Yours or his? Doesn’t matter.

A praise. An encouragement. He utters words that coax out every raw desire that resides in you. Rolling your hips, your hand inches up to his neck, fingers clamping tight but not too tight, knuckles accessorizing the jutting line of that cortosis covered jaw.

“Do you like that?” You ask, as he thrusts upward from beneath you.

Your hips slam him back down, thighs squeezing tight to keep him steady. To keep control.

This is your dream. Your desire.

“Yes,” he breathes, stilted and shaking. There’s a bead of sweat gathered at the base of his neck. His own hand rises, cupped in a half moon and the force vibrates through your body, becoming a vise around your own neck. “Do you?”

Eyes darkening, you rise and sink down on him again in answer. “More,” you demand.

He obliges as you squeeze him tighter too. He lets out a groan as breathing becomes more difficult, driving you to ride him harder. A choked, almost pained moan slips from your lips.

“Better?”

You manage a nod, self-control snapping as you continue to ride the warmth of his cock, chasing your own pleasure heightened by his rattled, strained sighs. Faster. Rougher. Barely breathing but driven by greed. Chest nearly bursting. Your hips rise and fall with the rhythm of his harried breaths and the silent repetition of how good his cock feels stretching you.

Or you thought it was silent.

Until he responds, “you take it so well.”

Another curse spills from your lips.

That’s it,” he says in a ragged coo. “Keep with it. A little more. Just a little more.”

Your hands slip from his neck and dig into the soft skin of his chest, knuckles knocking against the tautness of his muscle as he meets your fervor with his own eager, swift thrusts from below. One hand falls to your thigh and he grasps tight as your air is still constrained in your lungs. It’s a new kind of feverish high. An ecstasy as your eyes roll back, whimpers buried deep in your chest as each thrust from him and grinding of your hips guides you to that climatic precipice.

You hover there in that plane of almost—almost—almost—

His hand skims up your thigh and he circles your clit with his thumb.

“Mmm, you are doing so well. Feels good doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” you answer, the syllable drawn out and dissipating into a whimpering sigh.

He stills and that force chokehold he has on you is used to his advantage as he angles himself deeper, hitting that sweet spot that jolts pleasure through every nerve of your body, constricting your airflow more. You’re afraid you might shatter. But still you fuck him, fast and fierce and freely.

“Yes, that’s it. Come for me,” he beckons.

That voice of his, those practiced hands, and the warm fullness of his cock extracts a broken and guttural cry. Hands flying back, digging into the flesh of his thighs as your walls constrict, your back arches with the internal coil of your body.

“Now,” he commands. “Let yourself go.”

Another thrust and you groan, all tension relenting and washing away with a few more staccatoed sighs and sputtered breaths. Eyes shut tight, you steady your breathing, settling into silent streams of satisfaction. Stars dot your eyelids and you drift—drift—drift in a thoughtless sea. The stars fade. The drifting ceases. Slowly, your fingers spread out, rubbing soothing circles into his skin.

“Mmm, such a good girl,” he says and relinquishes the force grip on your throat. “You did so well.”

Gulping in air, your eyes fly open as you crumple over his chest and his fingers thread through your hair.

—

“Stay with me,” he says, grasping your wrist and pulling you closer. His fingers skim across yours and he toys with them, helmet resting on top of your head. “Don’t withdraw into yourself.”

You press your lips against his collarbone and trail them along his neck, where he tilts his chin up just enough to give you better access under his helmet. You push away the questions that beg for an answer with the placement of kisses against his cooled skin. You can save them for another dream. Throwing your leg up over his, you note he’s still surprisingly hard. He commanded your pleasure but held back on his.

“Don’t you think it’s a little hypocritical,” you mumble against his chest.

His fingers scrawl amatory letters across the back of your hands. “What?”

“You tell me to unleash my desire while you hold onto yours.”

“Is it hypocritical if the reasons for denying such desires vastly differ? I feel no shame. Controlled denial for the sake of the exciting and inevitable release over a long course of time is rewarding. I don’t punish myself. You and I are not the same.”

“Why couldn’t you just say you enjoy edging?”

“Semantics.”

A chuckle against his chest and you wonder if you can work him back up into a frenzy with the tug of the force. It hums for you, begging you to access it again in the enclosure of the stranger’s arms. If he wasn’t wearing that helmet, you could give him a fuller, more exhilarating experience. Or at least you tell yourself that’s the reason when really you just want to see his face. Your desires have shifted. You now seek equitable vulnerability in this exchange of intimacy.

Skimming your fingers up his chest and hovering just under his chin, they curl around the edge of the helmet. Slowly, gauging his reaction, you lift. You spy the faintest glimpse of some facial hair. But his hands curl around your wrists; a plea.

“I want to see you. Your face,” you mumble.

“It seems you understand the lesson.”

“Do I? I unleashed desire, as you said, but the want has returned.”

His fingers are gentle on your wrists as he continues to hold them, thumbing up and down. “Desire can never be satiated. Not fully. When you thirst, you drink. When you hunger, you eat. But that want only goes away for a short time. You see, desire is a need. You need to want. Without it, you waste away. With it, you find passion. And passion—is your strength.”

“I was taught there can be no contentment if you chase every want. No gratitude. Taught that I must free myself from my emotions and find peace only in what is destined to come to me by a greater will than my own.”

“Peace is a lie,” he says. “There is only passion.”

Such a simple statement, yet very much against what you were told all your life. You were taught to suppress everything. Abide by a million rules and be over criticized when you break one. That untamed passion, the kind he speaks of, is the path to the dark side. But here, in the stranger’s arms, it doesn’t feel dark to be guided by passion.

No.

It feels unburdensome.

Warm. Safe. Light.

Though you will still abide by what you know best by day, you realize the numbness is all but gone here in his arms by night. And you're drawn to this man and his lessons. Sworn to them.

Your desire to see his face is even greater now.

Bargaining for more than you deserve, maybe even taking advantage of the lesson, you yank up on the helmet. But before you can register his face, the haze shifts and the screaming of your name tears you from sleep.

[gatorbites-imagines]

Some paz vizsla x sith male reader?

Paz Vizsla x Sith male reader

Headcanons

Because of my love for fanfic and the Kotor games, theres a lot of headcanosn in this. I will find a way to involve Revan when I can, so he’s also there, in the background. Theres also a single Revan x Canderous mention.

Theres so much about Kotor in this, it really took a life of its own, so I hope you enjoy.

I missed writing star wars so bad, can yall tell?

First of all, being Sith doesn’t immediately make you evil. It just means you follow a specific religious groups way of teaching and practice their rituals to some extent. This means you use the dark side, and have nothing against harming others to reach a goal.

You aren’t as power hungry as other sith in this time, and you aren’t under Palpatine’s thumb. Far from it actually. The dark side is to some extent fueled by your hate for the empire and anyone involved with it, as you were once a jedi youngling when the purging happened.

You were a padawan at the time, and your master had always been very interested in holocrons and the past. Their most prized possession was the holocron of Darth Revan, or one of his many holocrons that had been left all over the galaxy.

So, after you saw them gunned down by the clonetroopers you thought you could trust, you ran, taking an escape pod to get as far away as possible. It just turns out you had been carrying Revan’s holocron in your bag at the time, and after landing on a smaller less populated planet, you had hidden away in its vast cave system.

You feared going mad for a while, as you were just a padawan, one who had lost everything. You were almost consumed by this anger and rage, so uncontrollable as you cracked at the edges and fell.

Revan’s force presence must have felt this inside the holocron, as he appeared before you, and guided you through it, keeping you from completely shattering your mind and becoming a beast hellbent on revenge.

From then on, Revan became your new master, leading you around the galaxy to find his other holocrons and artifacts as he taught you everything he knew, and to the best of his ability.

He was kinder than any sith you had ever heard of or met, and he taught you a lot about the sith empire and how not all sith had been power hungry madmen, that before the rule of two, they had been more on the stable side, to a certain extent.

He never claimed they were good people, but you didn’t need that, you appreciated his honesty. Along these journeys, you even found holocrons of some of the other sith of his like, like Malak, who was Revans old friend.

Malak hadn’t been happy about you in the beginning, but he had ended up begrudgingly taking some kind of master role to you, almost like a standoffish uncle. But thanks to their training you are able to stay completely hidden from the empire, and live the life you want to live.

You go where the force leads you, which just so happens to be places that Revan and other great sith of made themselves at home in the past. You had almost started cheering and singing when you found what some would call the tomb of Darth Nihilus, much to your masters embarrassment, as Malak looked at Revan with a lifted brow.

Your interest in the past had been something you had picked up from your first master as a padawan, and it stayed. It was something Revan had to accept as his force ghost watched you fanboy over a mummified hand of Darth Sion, or leftover notes left over by Darth Malgus on saber forms.

Your greatest achievement was your helmet. Or rather, your master’s old helmet. Palpatine had pretty much ransacked the jedi temples after culling them all, stealing whatever he wanted, and the jedi had owned Revan’s helmet for many years, locked away far away from prying eyes.

With your master, and uncle-masters help, you were able to sneak in and steal it right back, taking it from right under Palpatine and Vader’s noses. The helmet barely looked like a helmet with how old and worn it was, but the power inside it made it clear. It was Revan’s helmet.

Revan had gifted it to you, almost beaming as you teared up at the trust he seemed to put in you. You were sith alright, and your emotions were what fueled you, and your love for your master and his love for you was the strongest there could be between family.

You were able to create a new helmet, using what was left of Revan’s and other materials, one of those materials being Beskar you stole from the empire. You even painted in similarly to Revan but added some of your own touches.

Little did you know, this helmet is what caught your future lovers attention first. Mandalorians love a strong partner, and those that follow the creed love some good armor, so Paz couldn’t keep his eyes off you when he saw you the first time.

You pretty much just bleed raw power into the air around you, letting it swirl around you like a second armor and letting everyone around know you were a possible threat if crossed. That was the kinda person that had Paz sweating and his blood pumping.

You would meet because you found yourself on the same planet as the covert hes with, hunting down something left by Canderous ordo, some piece of armor, like a pauldron he had left behind for Revan as some kind of marriage declaration.

Its after finding these pauldrons that you meet Paz, and some of the other older members of the covert. Apparently, words of a guy in scary black and red armor skulking around was enough to have them weary.

In the beginning they might think your Mandalorian, from the style of your armor and the new unpainted pauldrons you have added to your armor, making them hesitate, but that moment of hesitation if all you need to launch an attack.

You don’t kill any of them, wouldn’t want too, but by the force do you kick their ass, another thing that has Paz feeling hot under all that armor. He almost wants to drop to his knees to say the marriage vows right then and there when you fling him over your head using one hand, the other reflecting blaster bolts with little difficulty.

What can he say, mandalorians fall hard and they fall fast, blame it on living such dangerous and hard lives. So, when he sees you aren’t actually trying to kill them, Paz hopes there’s a chance you might stick around.

You end up getting away, ignoring the cackling of your master and the glowering of your uncle-master. The tables turn when Malak starts mentioning Ordo and the love declaration through the pauldrons, leaving your master quiet and mumbly as Malak smirks. They are definitely the reason you don’t fear the sith of old as much anymore.

Paz grieves a little as he doesn’t see you again for a while, even though he tries to keep an ear and eye out for you in your black and red armor and that flexibility that has him gripping the wall when he thinks about it too hard.

In the end its Ragnar, Paz’s son, that brings you before them again. He had ended up in some trouble, and the force had almost screamed for you to help him. Listening to the force was what you did, so you helped the helmet wearing kid out.

Ragnar was smart, and had heard his dads dreamy mumblings and the other mandalorians teasing, so he could immediately tell who you were. One way or another, and though it’s extremely against the rules, he gets you to where the covert is hiding.

Paz shows up and starts worrying about Ragnar, cuz he loves his son and doesn’t wanna see him hurt, and when he hears its you who saved him, he starts feeling hot under the armor again.

On the insistence of the force, you stick around the covert. Paz takes the time to go about romancing like mandalorians do, by peacocking and challenging you to spars. He never wins, not even the ones where you don’t use the force.

Its humorous to see that large hulking back being wrestled to the ground by you, or thrown around like he weighs nothing. You can tell how he feels about you, but you fear acting on it, even though Revan keeps bugging you to do so, much to Malaks annoyance.

In the end you two end up getting together like how many mandalorians do or did. During a fight. Things were getting tough, and a couple of your allies had gotten hurt, even Paz was down for the count.

You needed him up and at em though, so you had reached down and pulled him into a keldabe kiss, pressing your helmeted foreheads together and told him if he got out of this alive, you’d let him take you on a date.

That immediately had him standing, even though his leg wanted to buckle from a stab wound. The enemy were taken out in record time.

Your first date goes a little awkwardly, as neither of you actually have any experience dating. You spending all your life as a jedi and then sith, and Paz being part of a pretty hard covert. But you two work it out, and it ends with you sparring and scuffling in the sand, which maybe lead to something more. The helmets stay on the entire time.

No one is surprised when you two start dating, or when you start becoming a permanent fixture in the covert. Sure, they’re weary in the beginning because you are an outsider and because you are sith, but they come to appreciate you.

They really start welcoming you when you can use your dark presence in the force to hide them away from anyone searching for them, or to take out possible threats. You even start teaching some of the force sensitive members. You don’t force them to use the dark side, but you do end up teaching them about the balance between both.

When Din shows up again, he doesn’t fully know what to do with the information that Paz went and got himself hitched, and to a sith of all things, but he sees you well you fit into It all and their creed, and who is he to judge.

You get on well with Ragnar, as he was pretty much the one to bring you to his dad, and the kid grows attached to you. Who else but him can brag about his powerful dark sider warrior dad? That gets him some brownie points from the other foundlings.

When you and Paz marry there is no big ceremony, its just a vow spoken between you and that’s it. You always find yourself cackling at the memory of how jittery he had been to see your face for the first time, now that you were married.

During all this time you hadn’t been against taking your helmet off, but you just hadn’t had a reason too.

Paz spends a lot of time just holding your face in his hands and taking you in, with you doing the same to him. Expect many kisses from then on, every time you are alone. He is really bad at kissing in the beginning, since he has zero experience, but he makes up for it with his enthusiasm and willingness to learn.

Paz is still stoic around others and is a big presence, taking care of the dirty work and keeping people safe. But with you he gets to be soft, he gets to be weaker for once, which only fuels his feelings for you.

He never makes you feel like a monster for using the dark side, and he had marveled and just stared at your glowing yellow eyes for a long time the first time he had seem them, barely believing it was possible for them to look like that, just because of the force.

You are still a sith after all of this, and you still leave now and then to hunt down artificacts and other types of knowledge left by the sith of old, but you don’t feel as much urgency as in the past.

You even bring Paz and Ragnar along for the less dangerous ones, as a family trip. You can’t bring them along for most artifacts though, since you don’t wanna lose them to ancient sith traps or mind tricks.

It’s the stability you’ve needed for many years, and though you are still fueled by passion and emotions, it isn’t the same anger that you had harbored all these years. It was more the love you had for your husband and your son, and the fact that you would tear apart the galaxy for them if they asked.

The feelings are returned from Paz of course, and Ragnar too, as you guys’ care about each other deeply, as any family should. They do get a bit freaked out, even years later, when you tell them about force ghosts and how Revan is always present. Sometimes you say it just to see them subtly looking around, it’s hilarious.

[spectoris]

FOR YOUR LOVE | KYLO REN

pairing: kylo ren x gn!reader

summary: kylo's motivations come to light

contains: rivals to lovers, canon typical violence, elements of dark romance, obsessive!kylo, slight ooc kylo (he rambles), implied jedi!reader

word count: 0.9k

a/n: sentence starter from nightprompts, inspired by the song "for your love" by maneskin

“For being someone you hate, I’m on your mind a lot.”

Your words come out through gritted teeth, more of a spit than a sentence. Every inch of your body exerts as much force it contains to hold off against the clash of colors before your squinted eyes. Heels dug into the dark soil, your frame remains stagnant despite Kylo’s imposing bruteness. The crackling red of his lightsaber fills most of your vision, swallowing the color of your blade completely whole. A hesitant gulp runs down your throat. You hate how you can feel the heat of the blades across your cheeks, even in the wintery air.

Kylo sees past your sarcastic facade; you assume he can despite the helmet that obscures his face. His breathing comes out slow but heavy, signaling his exhaustion. To credit yourself, you did put up a good fight. The large crack on the side of his helmet where part of his singed hair peeks through sits as a testament to your force. Still, you’ve strained yourself far past your limits. The adrenaline may have given you a boost before. Now you can hardly keep your legs from shaking.

Despite the close proximity of the two blades, neither of them seem to come any closer. Through your fatigue, you notice Kylo hasn’t moved. His saber may be pressed against yours, holding position, but that’s all there is to it. There’s a sudden stillness to the air, a stark contrast to the tremors of the Force surrounding you two as you fought moments before.

“You are.”

The words take a moment to settle in your ears. You blink blankly at Kylo, grip loosening around the hilt of your weapon. In the split second you let up, Kylo’s lightsaber swings to attack your legs. Instinctively, your saber comes down to block him. You notice it again, the sudden stillness, the fact that he let you defend yourself before his weapon fully came down.

“You are.”

The helmet makes Kylo’s voice come out mechanical, as if programmed by a droid. Yet you can hear the slightest hint of his own unobscured tone. Desperate, like the confession pains him. Kylo’s lightsaber reaches for your shoulder, once again slow enough for you to block. Rather than hold the position, Kylo continues to barrel his lightsaber at you. His relentless attacks drive you further back. Though each clash covers part of his speech, you still hear the words clearly.

“I hate you. I hate you. I can never escape you, no matter how far I go.”

You can’t suppress your scoff. “You, escape me? If I’m not mistaken, you’re the one who keeps coming for me. You’re the one with the army and the forces and the utter brashness to spend your resources on me, Supreme Leader.”

Your foot catches in the root of a tree, throwing you back. You brace yourself for the fall, but an invisible force keeps you upright. Looking forward, Kylo’s hand is outstretched. It quickly falls back to his side. You bring both of your hands back to the hilt of your lightsaber, holding the burning blade between the two of you. Kylo’s still burns, though he doesn’t wield it.

“Everything…All I do…is for you.”

A hot flash of anger replaces the icy chill in your spine. “What in Maker’s name are you talking about?”

“Everything! The armies, the droids, the battles—I did it all for you!” Kylo steps closer. Through the helmet, you sense his face twisted in half anger and agony. “I wanted, I needed you to rule beside me. Create an empire no one else in the galaxy could touch. You could’ve had anything you wanted. I would’ve given you everything you wanted.”

Kylo takes off his battered helmet. You want to tear your eyes away. It’d be easier to dismiss his claims as a possession of the dark side of the Force if you couldn’t sense the genuinity in his pleading eyes. The Supreme Leader has toppled out of his throne.

“Of all things,” you manage to utter, “you thought I’d want destruction?”

“Power,” Kylo spits, his typical curtness returning for a brief moment. “Even the purest of minds want power. The power to heal, the power to help.”

You shake your head no as Kylo takes more steps toward you. You push your lightsaber foward, forcing a bigger gap between you and Kylo. “I’d rather be thrown to the rancors than take anything from you.”

Kylo’s lightsaber is disarmed, now a hunk of metal in his hand. Yours continues to burn and crackle. Drive it through him. Silence him. End this now. Your hands tremble as Kylo’s wraps around them, disarming your lightsaber for you. The leather is warm to the touch, softer than you expected. You imagine your eyes to be like that of a porg’s—round, dark, and helpless. What remains of the space between you and Kylo is only a few inches that shrink with each passing second. Your nose picks up the scent of blood, fuel, and earth from his skin.

To deny the curiosity that nags at your brain is to deny the strange warmth that blooms across your skin. Both run rampant, and in Kylo’s presence only grow. The dark side of his Force coming in contact with your light side creates a dangerous thrum you feel in your veins. Both of you can sense its potential growing, and neither reject it.

“Why?” you whisper as Kylo’s forehead nearly grazes yours. “Why did you do it?”

His hand holds you steady by the nape of your neck. You gasp when he brings his lips close to your ear.

“For your love.”

a/n: this is a repost... anyway if you haven't listened to the song pls pls do it's so obsessively slutty every time i listen to it i go yes!!! this is kylo's song!!!

[prahacat]

theory on the fluidity of minds and souls

The first three acts of Asajj’s life. A how-to on finding yourself. Experimental prose, 1k words | Read on ao3

How to be a Jedi

(1) Don’t listen to the old man.

(2) Child, he says, don’t cry. Here on Rattatak, we are Jedi the best we can. Here’s how to be a temple to each other: brush the red dust from your face before you go to sleep. Brush the dust from his face too. Share the dirty water without flinching, like trusting him comes natural and easy to you. Teach him what to eat, cook for him stews of insects and herbs and if he won’t eat those, tell him you’re sorry, this is all you have. This is all anyone has. Sit and guard the fire while he sleeps; trust him to guard you while you do the same. When you move up north, don’t light a fire at night so the warlords won’t spot you.

(3) Learn to be kind.

(4) When they kill him

don’t rage

don’t rage

grieve

but don’t rage, don’t let it consume you

How to be a Sith

(1) Don’t listen to the old man.

(2) All men are liars. So are the women, so is everyone, but the men are more dangerous to you, especially the older ones. Never let him know (he knows anyway). Forget. Never look back. Don’t cry when he throws lightning at you; when you’re alone again, press your fingers against your temples to relieve the headache. Make the silence your friend. Ask questions, but don’t ask too many or the wrong ones; his anger will teach you which are the wrong ones. Watch out for his anger, but learn to watch out for his sharp-edged smiles too. If he offers you food or a weapon, take it; if he gives you a name, hunt them down. If he offers you a glass of wine, sit and drink and look for the lesson: which tool is he trying to shape you into? A blade, a shadow, a shield, a smoke bomb? Be grateful for what you have because he is offering you more power than he offered anyone else, because he thinks you can take the lessons and not fail, the way so many others did.

So this is how you will live: be wary of cups you haven’t filled yourself. Hide daggers everywhere: in your boots, under the folded cloak you use as a makeshift pillow, in your dreams. Keep the holoproj next to your bedroll, make sure it’s always charged, make sure it’s never muted. Here’s a list of essential things you need to have at hand at all times: spare energy cores for your saber, medpacs and bactaspray, stimcaf and sleeptabs, protein wafers in an osmosis pack in case you can’t swallow anything. It’s better not to stare at the stars for too long when you’re traveling. Navigation is all they’re good for. Be grateful for what you have. It’s really all you need: a place for the pain to go and a place to come home to. It doesn’t matter if they’re the same place, and if one day you should catch him pressing his fingers against his temples, pretend you didn’t see. Go skewer some boys instead. There’s that Jedi again: flirt, tease, smile at him with your dewberry-colored lips and painted eyes, so he knows you want to be here, you enjoy what you are. And if you suspect or know that he too has a list of essential things, and that his list is the same as yours, the same as everyone’s these days, don’t let on.

(3) Never forget to hate yourself.

(4) Don’t fall for the blade, it’s not your friend; it will take away everything you own. It’s very simple. He won’t protect you. You can’t protect them. Always expect betrayal; always expect loss.

And when that day comes

—it will inevitably come—

remember your grief and how it was a dull, useless knife to you.

How to be a ???

How to figure out what who you are

(1) Stay alone.

(2) Boil the water before you use it for soup. Strain it and collect the pulp, the gritty dark things you don’t know how to name. Everything tastes like ashes and dust, that’s all you know. Buy some soap and scrub your hands. If you wake with a start in the middle of the night, pressure crushing your chest and your breathing quick and ragged in the quiet of your room, remember to inhale, count to four, exhale, count to four. Lie still and watch the darkness shed from the light. In the morning, roam the markets, buy something against the headache, something to hide your face, something to scrub your hands. When you walk through the streets, pull your hood low. Tell the spice dealers to leave you alone, always stop after one glass of whiskey, tell the men at the corner to fuck off. There will be days when you wake in unfamiliar places; at least try not to have two of them in a row if you can help it. Watch the sunrise. Tell no-one about your past (they know anyway; probably). Always expect betrayal, always expect loss. Forget. Never look back.

(3) Learn to be kind again.

(4) Get some credits, buy a saber; any saber you can find, as long as it’s still alive. Hold it in your hand, gently, feel the worn hilt that has passed through other hands. Were they cruel? Were they kind? Maybe. Did they protect, did they kill? Who knows. It doesn’t matter to you.

Here’s what you need to do to make this saber yours:

calibrate the focusing ring, install a strong core, toss away the parts you don’t need, polish the metal often, swing the saber daily, trust your hand again, close your eyes, listen, be patient, feel how your crystal talks to you, feel it resonate, feel it hum, learn a new language.

Yellow is a good color.

It’s going to take a long time.

[nothing-but-flowers88]

Thinking about a Dinluke fic I’ll never write but will summarize

Another siege starts on mandalore, perhaps a few clans who wish to take the throne from Bo Katan. The allied clan leaders, Bo Katan’s team, and many citizens are being kept in the throne room surrounded and trapped. The enemy’s leader sitting on the throne with the stolen darksaber, Din’s thinking of anything he can do, he’d already been threatened that if he did anything Grogu would be hurt and he’s not sure how to make sure everyone gets out of this safe. The enemy had planned ahead, infiltrating the castle and outnumbering their guards. The leader had even taken Luke’s lightsaber, seemingly prepared to try and leave the Jedi weaker. They trapped him where the children were kept, threatening their lives if he tried to fight. It seems like hope is lost, this traitor had taken the darksaber, had control over the whole castle, and even weakened their one Jedi…

Bo Katan dealing with the feeling of what she believes to be yet another failure, how could she or anyone else possibly reunite all mandalorians if one’s this villainous would fight to stop her. Everyone’s racing thoughts cease when they hears the loud sounds of fighting and screaming outside the throne room doors, the false leader on the throne revels in the sound, smugly something along the lines of, ‘we told you what would happen if you didn’t cooperate’.

The leaders pride is cut short when the large doors to the throne room burst open, revealing a mess of injured and some beyond injured enemy mandalorians on the ground, with Luke standing amongst the bodies. He keeps calm but Din can see the rage he’s holding back, the look of the ever serene Jedi still present, but Din knows him too well. His black tunic gone, he’s in his undershirt which in turn reveals the lightning like scars and other healed wounds Din has seen before but a shock to everyone else. If scars were trophies to mandalorians, then it seemed like Luke had won every battle he ever faced. His prosthetic hand is gone, seemingly crushed in battle with wires and jagged metal hanging from his wrist. On anyone else it would symbolize weakness, yet on Luke it was like another winning scar. It took no time for the Jedi to overcome most of the enemies keeping guard in the throne room, throwing them great distances with the force and seemingly ripping them apart with his bare hands. As soon as it was right the captured enter the fight, aiding Luke in ending every enemy. When the final enemy falls, Luke looks to the throne with calm but with controlled rage, telling the enemy leader to step off the throne. The false Manda’lor presses a button on their vambrace, panically confused when nothing happens until Luke calmly clarifies “no one is coming”. after a fearful second, realizing they are truly defeated, they surrender to Bo Katan, returning the dark saber. She sends the traitor away to await trail, everyone rejoicing in the victory and cheering to Luke and their manda’lor. Bo Katan gives him a look annoyance, but not directed to Luke himself more so to what she’s feeling “skywalker,” she starts out strong but her face softens “Luke…thank you. If you were not here, there’d be no victory for Mandalore today.”

Luke graciously accepts her praise, and Din can see he’s barely holding on, understandably exhausted. Din would’ve picked him up and carried him out of the palace if Luke needed it, and Din uses all his strength not to anyway. He’s still so completely in awe of Luke and today everyone else caught a glimpse of just one of the things about the Jedi that made Din fall madly in love with him. He assists Luke to a room to rest while Bo Katan leads the others in eliminating the rest of the enemy army, seemingly unaware of their demise in the throne room after someone messed with their comm frequency.

Din doesn’t leave Luke’s bedside until he’s made to for his own good, getting Grogu to leave Luke was almost even harder. The mandalorians sing Luke’s praises while he rests, mandalorians congratulating Din on catching such an impressive warrior. Many of them were the same mandos that had disapproved of a Jedi’s presence before, seemingly thankful for Luke now. Bo Katan discusses the victory with Din, it had never been said but Bo Katan had practically appointed him one of her advisors for Mandalore’s unification. She shares her realization with him, that if the mandalorians were to let go of the grudges they have with each other, then perhaps the grudges they have with other past enemy’s must be dealt with as well, including the Jedi.

[dingrogu123]

My take on what made me hop on the BoDin /DinBo ship

When Din is in trouble there is no hesitation she jumps to save him immediately in the Mines of Mandalore also when he’s redeeming himself you can see her respect towards him starts to increase

Also you can see her always hanging around Din in the covert and also when Grogu has to challenge Ragnar she immediately intervenes and asks if its a good idea also like a mom gives pep talk to Grogu and even compares Din to her father which I think is huge.

Also during episode 5 you can see her by Din’s side always when he wants to help anyone she intervenes and offers her help and during any important decisions which Din needs to take she’s present by his side always, also them sitting so close during the intervention when none of the Mandos in the covert are sitting that close, also the way they work naturally how everyone assumes they are a couple and act natural around them and there is very less friction

And during numerous instances when she takes some important decisions or gives suggestions she immediately looks at Din asking for his validation which means soo much to her, also this happens many a times and Bo asking for Dins opinion on things, the way they both look at each other numerous times and the way she looks at him and he’s already looking at her when the droid on Plazir says human life is short

Also Bo never smiles but you can see her smiling and happy in the presence of Din and Grogu

And the Synchronized walking between them

And throughout the season you can see Grogu getting closet to her so much that you can see him sitting on her lap which is huge because we know who Din cares about the most and where is Grogu? With Bo which implies they have some kind of family Bond

The way defends him before Axe Woves fleet and how she challenges him for the fleet and doesn’t challenge Din for the Dark Saber shows that she values him as a person more than some mystical weapon

During the pledge when she’s feeling low and standing alone and when Din walks up to her she assumes he might say that he’s disappointed in her* can be known via her facial expressions * when he tells loyalty, honor and character matters the most she still believes he isn’t talking about her when he says that’s why he serves her you can see her face glow up as she turns towards him because his opinion matters to her the most because HE SERVERS FOR FOR WHAT SHE IS AND NOT FOR THE THINGS SHE POSSESSES and you can see her smile gently after he goes off showing what his opinion matters to her

Also when he’s captured she becomes desperate banging her blaster towards the door indicates how helplessness she is that she cant save him

And finally in the last episode how he automatically says the kid is also safe says how much she cares about Grogu while fighting Moff even when she knows he has beskar she slides to protect Din and when they see the flames whom does she tries to protect instantly without any hesitation *GROGU* which shows her motherly love towards him and him saving both of them, the Kedabe rumors as the camera angle doesn’t change its them coming close to each other.

[nsewell]

actually yeah i'll put this here hello kotor 2 community. you know what this is about

Sensations seep sluggishly in and out of Atton’s awareness, like waking up to the cold sting of a duracrete floor pressed against his cheek after coming off a bender. The metallic taste of blood in his mouth. The blistering rake of Sion’s saber across his skin. Skull cracked against a stone pillar with his guts spilling out into his hands, and the only thought on his mind was that if the sith was here wailing on him, at least that meant he was far enough away from her. The agony has subsided now and all he’s left with is a numb, sunken state. Probably because he’s crossed the threshold of his tolerance for pain and is beginning to slip consciousness. It’s dark here, suspending.  Must be dying, he thinks, and it’s a resigned sort of observation, too foggy and lethargic to do anything about it, so all that’s left to do is give in. The part of him that riots against death, the part that gnashes teeth and claws his way back whenever he drops in battle has him mustering for a second wind. Get back up, Jaq. She still needs you, get back up. But the severity of his wounds wills out. And death has hounded him for so long he thinks it’s time he let it claim him . living had gotten stale and he was tired. Tired of all the war, all the killing, all the running. Now he’s weightless and none of that matters. Now he’s inconsequential. He can’t move or see. Can’t feel much of anything at all save for the heartbeat drumming against his chest, losing its rhythm, stuttering, faltering. He counts it like he counts the ticks in the power coils, to distract his mind from the inevitable.  And then, the sound of her voice.  The panic in her inflection calling for a stem to the bleeding, the shape of her words cutting through near oblivion. There’s the familiar oscillation of her energy, distant, at the edge of his perception like a long forgotten memory. She pulls him back from the edge and he thinks his body is being leveraged by someone, pressure at his chest, then his head. He tries to muster her name, a sound, verbalize anything. But his mouth chokes uselessly around a mouthful of blood and his thoughts are too muddled to project through the force. Instead , he uses his last vestige of energy to bat at empty air until his hand finds her arm. Fingers slip against her skin, wet and raw and red, and he gains purchase enough to circle her wrist. Holds tight with a white knuckle grip unassuming for a dying man, but he needs the assurance that she’s here. Solidly, tangibly here and alive. He grips until the siren call of his heavy lids is too strong to resist and then sinks away without much care if he wakes up again or not. So long as she survives, it doesn’t matter if he does.

[a-sin-to-be-rin]

Trust Only in the Force

*****JEDI FALLEN ORDER SPOILERS AHEAD*****

Cal doesn’t know what Order 66 is. He’s never heard of it. Won’t even hear the name for at least a few years.

But what he does know? He’s trapped on an escape pod with the cooling body of Jedi Master Jaro Tapal. The closest thing Cal ever had to a father.

---

“There’s an override just ahead.” Master Tapal’s voice is steady over their Force bond. “You must activate it if we’re to escape.”

Cal’s heart, already thudding so loudly that he can’t hear himself speak, slams into his vocal cords. Because Master Tapal didn’t say “we must activate it.” He said “you must activate it.” And Cal… Cal can barely see straight. He’s got no idea what’s going on. One moment, he’s in training and the next…

The next, he’s deflecting blaster fire from his friends. From Zeph and Todd and Ben.

“Y-Yes, Master.” Cal climbs up the shaft, squinting against the dingy light.

“We have Tapal pinned in the airlock,” a clone trooper - Gar? - says over his comm. “Send backup.”

Cal drops back onto the ground, rushing to the airlock. His master told him not to get distracted - to get to the override above all else - but he can’t help it. If all of the clones are in on… on whatever this is, then Master Tapal will need his help.

“Jaro Tapal is on the other side of that door?” another clone asks.

“Yeah,” Gar confirms. “But he won’t be getting through. It’ll take him far too long to cut through these doors with that lightsaber.” And he says it with such confidence, with such ill-intent and smug hatred, that Cal feels his stomach drop to his feet. This morning, Gar wished him good luck in his training session. They were friends. Why would Gar do this? How could he do this?

“We’ll just wait until he’s surrounded,” the second clone agrees, “then move in for the kill.”

Cal wants to vomit.

When Master Tapal enters the airlock, he immediately deflects the blaster bolts, spinning his lightsaber and taking out every clone trooper in the process. It’s easy and near-instantaneous. Cal doesn’t even have time to run in and help.

“Move, padawan!” Master Tapal calls over their bond. “We have to leave now!”

Cal tries not to panic. His master appears to be the epitome of calm, but Cal knows him well enough to see the careful walls that he’s placed in front of his true emotions. Cal doesn’t know how terrified his master is, but the fact that there are walls at all suggests that he’s not as unaffected as he comes off.

Blood pounding in his ears, Cal rushes through the next two doors, only to come face-to-face with the business end of a clone’s blaster.

Kriff. He’s going to die here, isn’t he?

But Master Tapal is a breath away. He headbutts the trooper, and his bright blue saber arcs overhead, taking out the clone hiding in the back. “The door controls!” he barks, spinning his lightsaber as an army of clones descend upon the pair. “Hurry!”

Cal is already at the controls, desperately typing in the override code. But panic makes his mind blank and his fingers shaky. He misremembers the code the first time. He presses the wrong button the second time. The third attempt is successful, but as Cal turns to alert Master Tapal of this, his master is hit one, two times. He stumbles, losing focus and lightsaber disengaging. Bolts three and four slam into his chest. Bolt five finds his stomach. Bolt six hits his knee.

“Master!” Cal shrieks.

But Master Tapal is crumpled in front of the open escape pod, no longer watching as a wall of clone troopers fire at him.

This is it. Cal can feel the tension in the Force.

They’re both dead.

The padawan cowers as he hears an ear-shattering scream through the Force. A collective upset. Jedi begging for relief. For healing. For an end. It’s too much.

And then there’s a loud clatter as armor slams against the ceiling. Master Tapal has recovered enough to slam a few clones into the ceiling. As Cal looks up, his master stumbles back into the escape pod, bolts seven and eight leaving dark burns in his chest.

“NO!” Cal screams, rushing in front of his master. The clones are his friends - were his friends - but he can’t watch this. He can’t let them hurt Master Tapal.

The clones don’t seem to recall Cal’s friendship. That, or they simply don’t care. They continue to shoot, and, weaponless, Cal feels a bolt burn across his cheek and into his hand. He reels back, crying out, but the pain brings him clarity. He taps into the Force with a desperate, unfettered fervor.

For a moment, the clones are frozen, bolts moving in slow motion.

Cal hurries into the escape pod, slams the door shut, and smashes the eject button over and over and over.

He really only needed to press it once. The pod jerks almost instantly, shooting out for Bracca.

For a long moment, Cal stands in front of the control panel, trying to process that the danger is gone. That the doors won’t open to reveal a whole platoon of his friends, all intent on killing him.

And then, once he’s realized where he is and what’s going on, Cal rushes to his master’s side, falling to his knees.

There are burns everywhere. Dark, round spots dotting Master Tapal’s armor. Melted metal and burnt flesh. Cal tries to size up the situation. Can he heal this? He’s never been very good at healing, but he has to try. Or maybe there’s some bacta on the pod? His hands hover over his master’s broken body, trying to figure out what to do first.

“Cal,” Master Tapal gasps, his hand finding his padawan’s shoulder. “Cal. I overloaded the ship’s reactors. The explosion will mask our escape.” His breath hitches, watching Cal with… concern? Pity? Hope? “This… war is not is not over, my padawan. Hold the line. Wait for the Jedi Council’s signal.” He coughs, death rattling in his lungs. Then he presses his lightsaber into Cal’s hand. “Remember, trust… only… in the Force…”

“Yes, Master,” Cal promises, voice smaller than ever.

Master Tapal’s eyes go vacant, his strong grip on Cal’s shoulder loosening and dropping to the floor.

Cal stares at the lightsaber in his hand. At his master’s lightsaber. And though the Jedi Code discourages attachment, Cal feels his heart break, eyes leaking hot, grief-ridden tears.

There’s a loud boom. The pod swerves, knocking Cal to the floor with a grunt. He gets up almost instantly, circuits around him sparking dangerously. He steps over his… his master… clutching the lightsaber tightly.

The Force screams at him, memories from the hilt assaulting his mind.

“- congratulations, Youngling. This is your lightsaber now.”

“I will defend this Order, no matter the cost. I don’t expect you to understand-”

“Cal. Trust only in the Force.”

The lightsaber is so full of broken memories, rife with so many forgotten Force echoes, so worn down with grief, that Cal can’t take it anymore. He can’t drop the lightsaber - won’t allow himself to drop the lightsaber - but he can’t remain calm anymore.

Instead, Cal curls up beside his master, ignores the dangerously-shaky escape pod, and screams.

---

Cal has to bury his master. There is no time for a proper Jedi funeral. No time for flames or a pyre. If Cal is to carry on his master’s legacy - to hold the line and wait for the Jedi Council’s signal - then he can’t be caught. And if he can’t be caught, then he needs to dispose of the… of the evidence.

Cal removes his padawan robes, leaving behind only the nondescript undershirt and pants. Even his boots are a dead giveaway for a Jedi, so he rips them off. Then, with shaking hands, Cal activates his master’s lightsaber and severs his padawan braid.

(This is not how he expected it to go. He expected Master Tapal to remove it after his Trials. He expected his master to be beaming with pride. His friends to be cheering him on. But he never expected… this.)

Cal places the braid beside his robes and boots. Then he holds the glowing blue blade close to the pile, watching as smoke begins to billow off of the robes before the entire stack is charred and flaming.

Then Cal deactivates the lightsaber and hides it in his belt under his shirt. It’s the only thing he intends on keeping. Master Tapal gave it to him. Master Tapal wanted Cal to keep it. So Cal will honor his wishes.

Once the fire has died down, Cal kicks the ashes away. They scatter across the junkyard platform and blow away in Bracca’s harsh atmosphere. Then Cal approaches the escape pod. He doesn’t have much time now. Placing one hand on Master Tapal’s forehead, Cal says goodbye, trying to sense his master’s spirit in the Force. He’s sure it’s there, but Cal is starting to go numb. He can’t feel much of anything.

“Thank you, Master,” he says one final time. Then he exits the pod, closes the doors, and Force pushes the escape pod off the platform, watching as the craft spins and tumbles before it disappears into the void far, far below.

For a long time, Cal says and does nothing more. He simply stands there. Stares out into space. Watches the remains of the Albedo Brave - Master Tapal’s command ship - drift away.

And all the while, Cal hears the begging and crying and desperation in the Force. The loss and betrayal and fear of the Jedi. The uncertainty of the galaxy’s fate.

---

“Hey, did you see the coolant lines?”

“What?” Prauf calls, fingers flying as he recalibrates the gyrostabilizers. “That they’re holier than a SoroSuub holoproj?”

“Yeah,” Morq replies. “I was gonna say ‘leaky,’ but same difference, I guess.”

“I’ll grab replacements,” Prauf offers. “The stabilizers need new bearings anyways.”

“That’s be great. Mind getting me a moof juice while you’re at it?”

“I’m not your butler, Morq,” Prauf replies, a smile lighting his face. “Buy your own drinks.” He eases himself down his rope until his feet touch the platform below. He’s unclipping his harness when something catches his eye.

“Hey!” he calls up to Morq. “You see that?” He points three platforms below his own.

“Who is that?” Morq yells back.

“I’m gonna find out!”

“Be careful!”

Prauf isn’t as careful as he should be, hurrying down the platforms until he finds the small figure staring out at a blown-up Star Destroyer. “Hey,” he calls out. “You okay?”

The figure doesn’t move. Just stands there and watches the sky burn.

“Hey,” Prauf repeats, approaching the edge. He places a careful hand on the figure’s shoulder, and the figure jumps back, nearly falling off the edge himself.

“Whoa!” Prauf grabs the figure’s arm to keep him grounded. And that’s when he sees the guy’s face.

It’s a human child with a red face and wet eyes. His clothes are plain but grimy, and a dark blaster burn is carved into his cheek.

“Hey, kiddo,” Prauf says gently, crouching so they’re at eye level. “What happened?”

The boy blinks, eyes full of tears. He looks away, jaw tight, but he doesn’t push Prauf away.

“Can I help?” Prauf asks, wanting nothing more than to hug the boy but knowing that that might only make things worse. He taps his own cheek. “That looks like a nasty burn.”

“Yeah,” the boy agrees, staring at the ground. He’s shaking, and Prauf realizes that the kid is barefoot.

“I don’t have any bacta,” Prauf says apologetically, “but we should get that cleaned up.”

The boy doesn’t reply. Just nods his head in agreement.

Prauf sits down and digs through his bag, searching for his canteen and medkit. His supplies are lacking, but it’s better than leaving the kid alone on the platform.

“My name’s Prauf,” he offers. “What about you?”

The boy sits on the platform, fussing with a similarly-concerning blaster burn on his hand. He still refuses to look at Prauf. “... Cal.”

“Okay, Cal. Let’s get those burns looked at, huh?” Prauf shifts closer, pouring water over each burn and then over some gauze. “What are you doing out here?”

Cal shifts awkwardly. Parts his lips to speak. Closes them again.

“Got any parents?” Prauf ventures, wrapping Cal’s hand with the gauze. “Siblings?”

For a moment, Cal does nothing. And then, ever-so-slowly, he shakes his head. “They… They killed my… my, uh… father. He was protecting me, and they shot him, and I don’t… I don’t know why.”

Prauf frowns, slinging his bag back over his shoulder. “Who killed him?”

But Cal seems to dislike that question. He shuts his mouth and shakes his head. He still won’t look Prauf in the eyes.

“Okay. That’s okay,” Prauf soothes. “We can worry about it later. Let’s just get you inside, alright?”

Cal nods, following as Prauf leads him back to his apartment. Prauf doesn’t know what’s up with this kid - where he came from, how he got here, what his deal is - but he feels responsible for the little guy.

So, for as long as it takes, Prauf will keep him safe. It’s the responsible thing to do.

“Um… Prauf?” Cal’s voice is small. Meek.

“Yeah, kid?”

“Thanks.”

[halfagonyandhope]

when the skies catch fire │ch. 40

first chapter (x); previous chapter (x)

“Remind me again why it has to be this planet?”

Obi-Wan turns to Wrecker. Easily twice Obi-Wan’s weight and a head taller than him, Wrecker occupies a considerable portion of the VCX-100 light freighter’s cockpit. But despite his normal bravado, Wrecker seems uneasy.

Obi-Wan can’t blame him. Dathomir tends to have that effect on most people.

But before Obi-Wan can speak, Ahsoka answers the clone trooper’s question. “If we want to get Cody back, we need to face Dooku. If we have any chance of surviving that encounter with Dooku, we need to chat with his former apprentice.”

Hunter puts a hand on the backrest of Ahsoka’s seat. “You sure she’ll feel up for a chat?” he asks. “Look, the Batch didn’t become successful by recklessly disregarding our limits. And I’m pretty sure Dathomirian witches are one of them.”

“Ventress’ bark is worse than her bite,” says Obi-Wan as he helps Ahsoka navigate the Ghost through the atmosphere.

Wrecker chuckles nervously. “How bad is her bite?”

Obi-Wan grimaces and shares a look with Ahsoka. Then Ahsoka looks back out into the atmosphere, and Obi-Wan follows her gaze.

As they move through the clouds, a red haze surrounds them, a byproduct of Domir, the nearby sun. Obi-Wan leans back slightly, noticing how uncomfortable the rest of the occupants of the cockpit look. Even those who aren’t Force-sensitive can feel the Dark side on Dathomir, he knows.

He shakes off the nagging worry in the back of his mind. He doesn’t have time to dwell on the fact that he can’t feel the Dark side here. He’ll dissect that with Satine when he gets back to Phoenix Base.

Before he’d left, she’d reiterated her promise to begin searching for Bant and Siri. He’d hugged her, grateful beyond words, and she’d pressed his lightsaber into his hand.

“Take it,” Satine had urged him. “If only to keep my worry at bay.”

To his surprise, he’d been able to hold the saber steady as he’d examined it, a feat he hadn’t been able to manage since before his abduction.

So he’d clipped it to his belt, and then boarded the ship, knowing that Phoenix Base was in no better hands than with Satine leading the charge.

“Any idea of where to start, Obi-Wan?” asks Ahsoka as they dip below the clouds.

He shakes his head. “If she’s indeed here as intelligence has indicated, she’ll find us.”

Mountains begin to come into view, as do what appears to be the remnants of burnt trees.

“What happened here?” asks Echo from the back of the cockpit, surveying the damage.

Tech speaks up from his place beside Echo. “A massacre toward the end of the Clone Wars,” he supplies. “Led by General Grievous. Because Dathomir is relatively uninhabited, news of the massacre did not become common knowledge.”

Obi-Wan’s pulse increases at the mention of Grievous. For the past few months, Obi-Wan had been able to focus solely on his recovery, relatively unaware of the progress of the fighting outside Phoenix Base. And progressed it had - both Dooku and Grievous are still alive, and Obi-Wan knows the fledgling Rebel Alliance must face them eventually.

He returns his attention to the cockpit.

“It doesn’t help that Dathomir’s Indigenous inhabitants are viewed with disdain and fear by many in the galaxy,” says Obi-Wan. “You’d be surprised how easy it is to kill news of a slaughter, if the group targeted was already discriminated against.” He breathes in. “The Jedi didn’t know of it until I crossed paths with Ventress soon after and she told me,” he adds, unable to keep the regret from his voice.

Silence descends upon them as they sink closer to land, and strewn droid parts and humanoid skeletal remains are visible amidst the burnt tree trunks. Eventually, they come across what appears to be a recently dug cemetery, with several rows of disturbed dirt.

“There,” says Obi-Wan. “Land just beyond there.”

He sighs.

“Before we lost contact with Quinlan,” he says to Ahsoka, “he said Ventress had taken him to Dathomir for training. They’d reburied many of her sisters while here. If she really is back on Dathomir - and him with her - I’d imagine they’ll be close.”

As the freighter touches down and Obi-Wan begins the post-flight sequence, Ahsoka glances at him out of the corner of her eye. “Why take Master Vos here to train?” she asks.

Obi-Wan swallows, thinking of Quinlan and how risky the mission had been, of the sense of foreboding he’d felt the last time Quinlan had briefed him on progress.

“Probably exactly the reason you’d think,” he finally says as the engines shut down.

Ahsoka’s eyes narrow. “If she brought him here to teach him about the Dark side…”

Obi-Wan stands. “I know,” he says. “And I’ve come to terms with what that likely means for him.” He scratches his beard. “A few days ago I thought Quin was dead. It’s not going to hurt much worse if I find out he’s alive yet…” he trails off.

“Not himself anymore,” supplies Ahsoka gently.

He nods tersely. “We’re going to assume the worst and hope for the best,” he says, turning around to glance at Hunter, Wrecker, Echo, and Tech. “That means monitoring for any approaching lifeforms but from the safety of the ship. If Quinlan indeed tapped into the Dark side of the Force while trying to complete his last mission, we may not be welcome here.”

Echo chuckles nervously. “I don’t think we’re welcome here regardless,” he says.

Obi-Wan can’t help but agree with him.

---

While most of the team eventually heads to their cabins to sleep that evening, Obi-Wan takes the first watch. He sits in the cockpit, monitoring the surrounding area for lifeforms. He wears the beskar’gam given to him by Satine, his lightsaber hanging at his hip, and his eyes follow the mist outside as it twists around the freighter.

The red haze hadn’t disappeared with the sun; rather, its four moons reflect the light from Domir at night, albeit more softly.

He wishes he could call Satine, but it’s also the middle of the night on her part of Dantooine, and he won’t risk waking her if both she and Léa are actually asleep.

The mist shifts suddenly. The dashboard of the cockpit beeps, and Obi-Wan sucks in a breath.

Standing in front of the ship, just before the burnt trees, mist parting around her, is Asajj Ventress. 

And what’s more - she’s staring directly at him.

Obi-Wan blinks.

He takes in her short blonde hair, undercut on one side, so different from the bald head he was expecting. And on her hip is one lightsaber hilt.

Quinlan’s saber.

His heart stops and then sinks.

Obi-Wan raises his wrist to speak into his comlink. “Ahsoka,” he says. “Get everyone up. I’m headed outside.”

And so a minute later, he’s walking down the boarding ramp, each step taking him closer to Ventress. He can’t feel the eyes on Ahsoka and the 99s on him, but he knows they’re ready to spring into action if need be. Though he’d asked them to wait in the ship so as to not spook Ventress, he has a feeling very little has actually ever scared the woman before him.

Ventress watches him with cautious and confused eyes. “Can it truly be you?” she says lowly, her voice as raspy as he remembers.

Obi-Wan tosses his saber to her as he approaches, knowing if Ventress wanted him dead, he’d already be so. Ventress examines the saber, one eyebrow rising, and then she flings it back to him.

“Why can’t I feel you in the Force?” she says as he moves to stand in front of her.

“There’s much we have to catch up on,” Obi-Wan says, and the fog of his breath joins the mist passing around them.

Ventress smirks. “Evidently,” she agrees.

“My connection to the Force has been severed,” admits Obi-Wan.

Ventress’ brow furrows. “I was unaware that that was possible,” she says. Then she takes in the beskar’gam he is wearing. “Explains the iron skin, I suppose,” she adds, crossing her arms against her chest.

Then she looks closer at the beskar’gam.

“I know those clan colors,” she says, and then one eyebrow climbs higher in realization. “Ah,” she says. “We do have much to discuss, it seems. There were rumors you left the Order before it fell. And now I know why.”

Then there’s a flash of pain across her face, and Obi-Wan thinks he understands the implication. 

“Where’s Quinlan?” he asks, nodding to the saber at her hip.

“Invite me inside first, Kenobi. Where are your manners?” She reaches out to brush past him and then looks back at him again, clearly noticing for the first time how much muscle mass he has lost. “What happened to you?” she whispers.

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath. “You’re right,” he admits. “Let’s bring this conversation inside. I have a feeling I’ll want to be seated anyway.”

He steps back to allow her to pass him up the boarding ramp, and he shows her the way to the lounge. Ahsoka turns on the lights with the flick of her hand, and Ventress’ lip curls up.

“Ahsoka Tano,” she says in what must be the warmest tone Obi-Wan has ever heard her use. “So this is twice now we’ve found ourselves working together. Times sure have gotten stranger.”

“You could say that again,” says Ahsoka, moving to stand beside Obi-Wan, and he notices the slightly protective stance she’s taken as he eases himself into his seat, joints protesting.

Ventress seems to notice this, too, as she takes in the 99s, who have gathered in the lounge as well. She hands Quinlan’s lightsaber to Obi-Wan and then sits across the room from him. “So nobody thinks I’ve got the wrong idea,” she says. “You going to introduce me or what?” she adds, looking at Obi-Wan.

So Obi-Wan makes quick introductions, and he gives Ventress a high-level summary of the events of the past few months.

When he’s finished, Ventress leans forward, her elbows on her thighs. “So it’s true,” she says, and it’s half a whisper, half a snarl. “I’d heard rumors of Sidious’ new apprentice. I never would have guessed it would be Skywalker.”

“Welcome to the club,” murmurs Ahsoka.

Ventress sighs. “There seems to be something in the water with maverick Jedi,” she says, leaning back and crossing her arms over her chest again. “Vos, too.”

Obi-Wan had known this the moment he’d seen Quinlan’s lightsaber on Ventress’ hip, but he swears he still feels the air rush out of his lungs. He turns the lightsaber over in his hands. “What happened?” he asks.

Ventress clenches one hand into a fist. “We were so close,” she hisses, “to finishing the mission. Vos was captured by Dooku before we could assassinate him.” She looks over at Obi-Wan. “Later, I took a team of bounty hunters to break him out, but when we tried, I realized Vos had turned.”

Obi-Wan doesn’t think he’s ever seen this particular expression on Ventress’ face. It takes him a while to place it before he realizes it’s regret.

“When I was Dooku’s apprentice, I was ordered to kill a Jedi by the name of Tholme,” Ventress says lowly.

“Vos’ master,” says Ahsoka.

Ventress nods. “I…unwisely hid this from Vos during our partnership. He learned of my lie from Dooku during his captivity.” She looks down. “I couldn’t bring him back - figuratively from the Dark side or literally from his cell. I had to leave him there.” She pauses. “This was before the fall of the Republic. I’ve spent the last few months here on Dathomir, biding my time, reburying as many of my sisters as I can. Obviously I have a lot of work to do still.” She extends her fingers as though trying to get rid of some imaginary thing that has touched her. “I eventually tried to contact the Jedi Council, but soon after that, word made it here that the Jedi had been eliminated.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes narrow. “Word made it here? To Dathomir?”

“You banished a Zabrak named Maul from the Mandalore system,” says Ventress, looking at Ahsoka. “He is here. I’ve crossed paths with him once or twice.”

“All the more reason for us to leave quickly,” says Ahsoka under her breath.

Ventress chuckles. “He’s on the other side of the planet,” she says. “You’re safe from him. For now.” She takes a look at Obi-Wan’s face. “Though maybe I should be more concerned about his safety from you, Kenobi? Considering he tried to kill the Duchess of Mandalore? I may be a bit out of the loop, but that news was spread pretty widely across the galaxy.”

Obi-Wan forces himself to let go of the tension in his shoulders, to take a deep breath. “My fighting days are behind me,” he says honestly.

Ventress glances down at his now un-gloved hands, his beskar ring clearly on display. “Whipped,” she whispers, in an almost sing-song voice.

Obi-Wan hears Wrecker snicker, and then he hears the sound of what he suspects is Hunter elbowing the larger clone. He sighs, and Hunter rounds up the 99s, guiding them out of the lounge, clearly satisfied that Ventress isn’t an immediate threat.

As the doors to the cabins close, Obi-Wan says, “There were whips involved that led to my current condition, but certainly not the type you’re referring to.”

Ventress’ grin fades immediately. 

“Immediately after dealing with Anakin - what we thought was dealing with Anakin - Ahsoka and I went to Mandalore to smuggle Force-sensitive children off the planet,” says Obi-Wan. “Thanks to Maul, I didn’t make it out.”

Ventress’ spine straightens. “Maul did this to you.”

“It appears both Quinlan and I were captives for quite some time,” confirms Obi-Wan.

“How did you survive?”

Obi-Wan gestures to Ahsoka. “My grandpadawan. And Satine, my wife. They extracted me. That was a few months ago. The healing process has been…slow.”

It’s an understatement, but Ventress doesn’t need to know that.

Judging by her expression, she already does. She studies him, sizing him up. “So now you do more of the same? Smuggling Force-sensitive children away from harm?”

Obi-Wan nods. “A little of that, a little of this.”

“And you were looking for me because?”

Obi-Wan takes a deep breath. “We received intelligence that my former lieutenant is being held by Dooku on Serenno. It’s obviously a trap to lure me there. I wanted to speak to you regarding what you know about Dooku before we attempt to break Cody out.” He clears his throat. “This was before we were aware that Quinlan is also being held there,” he admits. He looks at Ahsoka, who nods. Obi-Wan breathes out deeply. “I wonder if we could help do what your bounty hunter group could not - for Quinlan. If we got him out, could we help you bring him back?”

Ventress gives him a pitying look, but Obi-Wan has the feeling it’s directed more so at herself than at him. “You’re asking me how far gone I think he is.”

Obi-Wan nods again.

“I don’t know,” Ventress admits. “Not so far gone as I once was, and look how I ended up. Maybe there’s hope for him yet.”

The red haze of sunlight begins to sneak through the transparisteel of the ship, and Obi-Wan suddenly understands. “You loved him,” he murmurs, his voice gentle and unaccusing. “You love him still.”

Ventress holds his gaze, and Obi-Wan hands Quinlan’s saber back to her.

She takes the saber and hooks it back on her belt.

“Yes,” Ventress says simply.

[xxmarcxline]

003 - THE LIGHT OF FREEDOM ON MY FACE - “enchanted!”

Pairing: Edmund Pevensie x Wolfstar!Daughter!Reader

ENCHANTED MASTERLIST!

By no means do I support R*wling’s biased views! This profile is meant to be a safe space promoting escapism <3

TW: none ( although, please feel free to message me if you believe i missed some!! )

THE FLYING CAR BEGAN ITS DESCENT, and soon enough, you were able to catch a glimpse of a dark patchwork of fields and clumps of trees.

“We’re a little way outside the village,” says George. “Ottery St. Catchpole.”

The edge of the brilliant red sun was now gleaming through the trees, its radiance, Harry found, reflected your own as you grinned at the familiar sight of the Weasleys’ residence.

“Touchdown!” said Fred as, with a slight bump, you landed — a tumbledown garage in a small yard to your right, Harry looking out for the first time at Ron's house.

In all truthfulness, it was run-down, for lack of better term. The structure appeared unreliable at best, as though originally a large stone pigpen, but renovated to fit extra rooms and reach several stories high. It had been so crooked, staggering like the lightning-shaped scar on your friend’s forehead; however, like the mark etching his skin, magic had built and kept it ebbed stubbornly along the grassy surface.

Four or five chimneys were perched on top of the red roof. A lopsided sign was stuck in the ground near the entrance reading, ‘THE BURROW’. Around the front door lay a jumble of rubber boots and a very rusty cauldron. Several fat brown chickens were pecking their way around the yard.

“It's not much,” said Ron, rubbing a self-conscious hand along his forearm. He looked around the wooden walls of his home in uncertainty, just as he had when you first came over — a subconscious sign of his insecurity.

“It’s brilliant,” Harry was quick to react happily, thinking of Number 4 Privet Drive and the horrors he associated with its pale, perfected walls.

“It’s nothing short of wonderful,” you followed, smiling at the three brothers, meeting their silent gazes. As you exited the vehicle, the sun’s warm rays cast upon you, moving silently as your shadows crept towards the door.

“Now, we'll go upstairs really quietly,” said Fred, throwing a cautious glance at his surroundings, “and wait for Mum to call us for breakfast.”

He turns to face you and his younger brother, “Then, you lot come bounding downstairs, Ron going, ‘Mum, look who turned up in the night!’ and she'll be all pleased to see you and Harry, and no one needs ever know we flew the car.”

You raised an unimpressed brow at their careless grins. There were so many ways this could go wrong. . . for them. But you were never one for wiping off the twins’ smiles, no matter how stupidly aggravating their cheshire grins could be.

“Right,” agreed Ron, nodding his head in full agreement. He doesn’t give you a second glance as you go, guiding Bowie atop your shoulder. “You know your way to Ginny’s room, I’m sure. Now come on, Harry, I sleep at the top—”

Harry found it odd how his friend simply stopped, going a nasty green in complexion. Meanwhile, you exuded the opposite reaction, grinning goofily and waving madly, gaze set out the kitchen window. His eyes followed yours, blowing wide as he spotted Mrs. Wesley marching across the yard. Chickens scattered, Bowie took cover behind your hair, and for a short, plump, kind-faced woman, Harry found it remarkable how much she looked like a saber-toothed tiger.

“Ah,” muttered Fred.

“Oh, dear,” mumbled George.

“‘Ello, Molly!” you exclaimed shamelessly as Ron gulped. He appeared close to tears, you mused. How funny.

All of the above were telltale signs of the trouble you five were undoubtedly in, and if Harry had known any better, he would have taken off running and not looked back. But he didn’t, a stupid decision on his part, if Bowie were to say so himself. Mrs. Weasley came to a halt before the lot of you, her hands on her hips, staring from one guilty face to the next (then there was you, a smile peeking through her tough exterior for a brief moment). She was wearing a flowered apron with a wand sticking out of her pocket.

“Morning, Mum,” said George, grinning in what he believed to be a jaunty, award-winning means while you and Fred withheld a snigger.

“Where have you been?”

“Have you any idea how worried I've been?” said Mrs. Weasley in a deadly whisper.

“Sorry, Mum, but see, we had to—”

All three of Mrs. Weasley’s children towered over her, yet simultaneously, they cowered as her rage befell them.

“Beds empty! No note! Car gone — could have crashed — out of my mind with worry — did you care? — never, as long as I’ve lived — you wait until your father gets home, we never had trouble like this from Bill or Charlie or Percy —”

“Perfect Percy,” muttered Fred bitterly.

“YOU COULD DO WITH TAKING A LEAF OUT OF PERCY’S BOOK!” yelled Mrs. Weasley, prodding a finger in Fred’s chest as her voice rose an octave higher. At that, even you flinched, taken aback. “You could have died, you could have been seen, you could have lost your father his job —”

“They were starving him, Mum!” You were unsure how you felt about your friend speaking up. But you were all for liberation, so, nonetheless of your conflict, you internally cheered him on. “They put bars on his window!”

“Well, you best hope I don’t put bars on your window, Ronald Weasley.”

You loved Molly, you really did. But she had the ill temper of a mad dragon, burning fierce and easily triggered. You consider yourself lucky to be receiving special treatment from the woman — saving you the need to fear being on the wrong end of her fury.

It seemed to go on for hours. You had attempted to ease the boys of her full attention a good few times, although Mrs. Weasley had no intention of cutting her lecture short, shouting herself hoarse before she turned on the pair of you.

While Harry backed away on impulse, Bowie returned to the comforts of your pocket. Godric knows how greatly he fears the woman.

“Oh, darlings!” she beams, her deep frown fixing into a welcoming grin, “How wonderful it is to see you both! Come in and have some breakfast!”

You needn’t hear any further invitation before joining the family for a meal.

Long story short, life at The Burrow had been all but ordinary. Every day, you woke to the sound of small explosions from Fred and George’s room — having to comfort Bowie each waking moment —, and every night, you were kept up by the incessant racket of the ghoul in the attic. The howling creature was a pitiful thing. But your patience could only take so much, wearing thinner every time it had interrupted you and Bowie’s beauty sleep.

With summer coming to an end, it wasn’t long before you heard from Hogwarts again. It had been a sunny morning about a week after you had been welcomed into the Weasley residence. You were at the kitchen table, seated by Ginny Weasley (she always looked forward to your company, eagerly offering to trade all her brothers to gain you as a sister) when you heard the boys thundering down for breakfast.

You feigned ignorance as the younger girl stiffened up beside you, taken by amusement with how she fawned over Harry and the oh-so-holy grounds he walked on. You saw her pupils dilate into cartoon hearts, you swore. And as one would in a cartoon, her admiration blinded her from all else — including her bowl of porridge, until she knocked it to the ground with a loud clatter.

You sent Bowie a silencing look as he chittered merrily, poking fun at the mortified Ginny whose face glowed like the setting sun. Meanwhile, Harry, pretending he hadn’t noticed such interactions, sat down and took the toast Mrs Weasley had offered him.

“Letters from school,” uttered Mr Wesley, passing you identical envelopes of yellow parchment, addressed in green ink. “Dumbledore already knows you’re here, [Y/N], Harry — doesn’t miss a trick, that man. You’ve got them too,” he added as the twins ambled in, their hair askew, still in their pajamas.

For a few minutes, there was silence as you all read your letters. It was the usual, come to King’s Cross on September the first, the need for school supplies, and finally, there was a list of the new books you would need for the coming year.

‘Second-year students will require:

The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 by Miranda Goshawk

Break with a Banshee by Gilderoy Lockhart

Gadding with Ghouls by Gilderoy Lockhart

Holidays with Hags by Gilderoy Lockhart

Travels with Trolls by Gilderoy Lockhart

Voyages with Vampires by Gilderoy Lockhart

Wanderings with Werewolves by Gilderoy Lockhart

Year with the Yeti by Gilderoy Lockhart’

It was ghastly.

The man was one your father had spoken endlessly about, and not in the best sense. Upon every glimpse of his books the pair of you had encountered, his jaw would tick and he would give a subtle eye roll — one only you were trained well enough to see. He would go on about how Lockhart had gone to school with him, and how the Ravenclaw was most undeserving of his affiliations with the good house and his recent fame.

He was a freeloader, a credit-grabber. He would ask Remus to tutor him, and idiotically enough, he was able to provide the younger boy with the answers to his assignments, and all he would do was rephrase and reconstruct the wording. It was quite brilliant, yes, but it irked Remus to this day.

With that in mind, you couldn’t contain the grimace at the sight of that list. There was no way you would support his career by purchasing his books. No way in the seven bloody rings of hell.

Bowie, sensing your displeasure, was quick to attack the ink along the parchment, crossing every trace of Gilderoy’s name until it was but messy scrawls along ruined parchment. He made sure to keep the rest of it intact, however, that thoughtful beanpole.

Meanwhile, Fred, who took quite longer to finish reading his list, went to peer over at yours, eyes widening as he caught sight of the shredded patches. He instead turns to Harry’s. “You’ve been told to get all Lockhart’s books, too!” he said. “The new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher must be a fan – bet it’s a witch.”

At this point, Fred caught his mother’s eye and quickly busied himself with the marmalade.

“Or perhaps a fool. . .” you lowly muttered to yourself, wincing as you caught sight of Mrs Weasley’s tattered book displayed on one of the countertops. You’d momentarily forgotten you were in the company of a die-hard fan. And a fierce one, at that.

“That lot won’t come cheap,” said George, with a quick look at his parents. “Lockhart’s books are really expensive. . .”

“Well, we’ll manage,” said Mrs Weasley, but she looked worried. “I expect we’ll be able to pick up a lot of Ginny’s things secondhand.”

Just then, Percy walked back in. He was already dressed, his Hogwarts prefect badge pinned to his knitted top.

“Morning, all,” said Percy briskly. “Lovely day.”

It was a wonder how he got up and ready for the day so early in the morning. You may have awoken earlier than him, but you were by no means ready to start the day. Your hair was quite a mess, and you were still in your knitted sweater and comfy pajamas. Most often, you would be able to start your day early. But today was not one of those days. Rather, any day at The Burrow was not one of those days.

He sat down in the only remaining chair but lept up again almost immediately, pulling from underneath him a molting, grey feather duster – at least, that was what the pair of you (Bowie and yourself. . . plus Harry) thought it was until you saw that it was breathing.

“Errol!” said Ron, taking the limp owl from Percy and extracting a letter from under its wing. “Finally – he’s got Hermione’s answer. I wrote to her saying we were going to try and rescue you from the Dursleys.”

He carried Errol to a perch by the back door and tried to stand him on it, but Errol flopped straight off again so you cringed as the thud echoed loudly in the silence, and despite Bowie’s defiance, you went to pick the poor creature up and balance it on its two left feet. The bloody creature had no sense of balance left — well, if it had any to begin with. Laying him on the draining board, you overheard Ron muttering, “Pathetic,” in much dismay.

Meanwhile, from over by the dining area, Harry admired your care for the rugged creature. He couldn’t contain the small smile that erupted his expression, admiring the gentleness of your gaze despite telling the poor creature off.

Whilst he paid attention to you, Ron made haste, ripping open Hermione’s letter, its contents spilling out, and read her long-awaited message aloud:

Dear Ron, [Y/N], and Harry if you’re there,

I hope everything went all right and that Harry is OK and that you both didn’t do anything illegal to get him out, [Y/N], Ron, because that would get Harry into trouble, too. You both know how often [Y/N] gets injured, especially on the ventures that lack my assistance.

The majority, if not all your days as a first-year (that was an exaggeration, but it certainly felt like it) were spent wallowing (healing) on the second bed of the dull, cramped, sullen hospital wing. (Okay, that was yet again an exaggeration. It was clean and spacious enough, and well-kept, and Madam Pomfrey ensured it to remain as such. But by Godric’s beard, did it get tiring — its four walls became your home at some point or another. But at least, the madam was a good gossip, keeping you entertained during your stays.)

There was that one time a troll had knocked you against the bathroom wall, that “so-so” injury you sustained during that one quidditch match (“A broken arm is by no means mediocre, Ms. Black-Lupin!” you could hear Minnie’s yells echoing from a distant memory), those boils you’d gained from that one Potions class, that one encounter with Lord Volde— You cringed at the growing list.

Nonetheless, I’ve been really worried, and if Harry is all right, will you please let me know at once, but perhaps it would be better if you used a different owl, might I suggest Hermes, or perhaps Hedwig, because I think another delivery might finish this one off.

I’m very busy with schoolwork, of course – “How can she be?” said Ron in horror. “We’re on holiday!” – and we’re going to London next Wednesday to buy my new books. Why don’t we meet in Diagon Alley?

Let me know what’s happening as soon as you can, love from Hermione.

“Well, that fits in nicely, we can go and get all your things then, too,” said Mrs Weasley, starting to clear the table. “What’re you all up to today?”

Mrs Weasley woke the lot of you bright and early the following Wednesday. After a quick half-a-dozen eggs and bacon sandwich, you pulled on your coats and Molly took a flowerpot off the kitchen mantelpiece and peered inside.

“We’re running low, Arthur,” she sighed. “We’ll have to buy some more today. . . ah, well, guests first! After you, [Y/N], dear! Your father must be expecting you.”

And indeed he was. The pair of you had been exchanging letters almost daily throughout your stay at the Weasleys and agreed to meet at the Leaky Cauldron before heading off to buy your supplies. While some notes exchanged your plans for today’s awaited reunion, others contained sweet nothings and greetings, and others bore more pressing matters, such as your father’s well-being after the previous full moon.

Poor Moony had to deal with its aftermaths on his own this time around. . . You could only hope that your friends (the little critters that resided in the forest and those that took permanent residence in your room) were enough company to bring him some semblance of comfort while you and Bowie were away.

“I’ll meet you lot at Flourish and Blotts, yeah?” you turned to your friends for a moment, ignoring the puzzled gaze of Harry as Mrs Weasley offered you the flowerpot. You only smiled as he blinked in confusion, taking a pinch of glittering powder from the clay pot, stepping up to the fire, and casting the powder into the flames. You only faintly heard him ask about the wonders of the Floo network when a large emerald flame swallowed you whole upon exclaiming, “Diagon Alley!” and vanishing.

Remus had been looking forward to this day from the moment he waved you goodbye. It had been a quiet two weeks without your company, and he knew that it would be an even lengthier rest of the year with you off at Hogwarts.

There was something in his gut telling him that this year would be much unlike the last. Not in the sense that he would never see you again, but that. . . his yearning for you, his only daughter, would be strengthened twice fold. That something peculiar, even beyond Lord Voldemort’s reappearance the previous year, would occur.

Thus, he wished to make the most of the little time you had left before the school year began and planned to make it as memorable — if not more — than the last.

If only your (other) father were here to help him with that. After all, despite everything that went wrong, it was undeniable that Sirius Black loved his daughter endlessly. Once, the man compared it (his love) to the galaxy. Infinite and unmistakably immense. Neverending.

Your father always said he “loved you all the way from the moon, and to Saturn.” Always, he would say he loved you even more than that, but, like Saturn’s rings, his love for you orbited his entire world. It was his entire world.

But then again, if that truly was the case, why did he leave? Why did he betray their friends? Although, Remus always made sure to leave that bit out of your bedtime tales.

Every night, as you grew up, unlike most parents who read their kids fairy tales and books, he would recount the stories that consumed his youth. He would recall his days at Hogwarts, the escapades that filled the four marauders’ nights, and the laughter that filled their halls by day.

As much as he despised the love of his life for betraying you both as he did, for depriving your childhood of any sense of normalcy, he couldn’t bear to tell you such a thing. That your father, who claimed to love you so, had left you behind to serve the dark lord. That in his madness, he got himself sentenced to life in Azkaban, never to be seen again. Or so he could only hope.

His secrecy did little to shield you from the rest of the world, however. It was inevitable that you learn of what happened (or what was said to have happened), just as it was inevitable to recognize the fear, pity, and distaste in some passerby’s eyes. But you were strong. You did not let that deter you, if not for your own sake, then for your father’s, who worked tirelessly to provide for you both.

Remus, righteous as he was, was always too ashamed to take anything from the Black family vault, nor from Sirius’s own savings (which contained more than enough, mind you). Although, he did allow himself to use some of the latter to send you to school. He at least owed you that.

The rest, however, and all that you both spent as you walked the cobblestone path of Diagon Alley, he took from his own pocket. He enjoyed spending — so long as it meant seeing those light blue streaks highlight your head of hair.

He grinned as you shared a cup of butterbeer brittles from Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour, (though, thanks to his familiarity with the owner, received it with a discount), sniggered as you nearly tripped, having stepped on a cracked stone, and hid a scowl as you joyously greeted one of the subjects of a pile of your letters home from the previous year.

Cedric Diggory knew not what he did to receive a strained handshake from your father, but he shook it off with a nervous smile as you waved him goodbye.

Striding down the rest of Diagonal Alley with an occasional smile, wink, and wave (you were quite popular amongst your peers, you learned the previous year), you caught a glimpse of a shop or two that caught your fancy. There was Ollivander’s Wand Shop, where you’d received your wand (the old man noted it a peculiarity, albeit you hadn’t a clue why), then there was Quality Quidditch Supplies, where you made your rounds, though exited with nothing.

Finally, you reached Flourish and Blotts, where you were immediately tackled into a hug.

Hermione Granger, hair bushy as ever, had weaved through the crowd to greet you after a summer away from one another. You missed each other greatly, yes, but you seem to have underestimated just how much.

“Oh, [Y/N], how I missed you!” Exhibit A.

“‘Mione, oh, love of my life! You haven’t a clue how I missed you! In fact, the parchments of my notebook are drowning in inked sonnets of just how much!” Exhibit B.

“You’re exaggerating,” she hid a grin behind a shake of her head.

“Oh, but I’m really not,” you blinked innocently in reply. Indeed, you really weren’t.

In your trunk was a notebook filled with little things you had noticed about your best friend — how her eyes set alight when she reached certain parts of her books, how she straightened in her seat and furrowed her brows upon a particularly page-turning plot twist. You noticed it all, and being the poet daughter of a Black and Remus Lupin, you turned these simple moments into words, etching them along the pages of your notebook, and on occasion, annotating them by particularly relevant lines of your books.

Truth be told, there was once a time you mistook your affections for her to be beyond platonic. You thought, at some point or another, that Hermione Granger would be the person you would love silently for the rest of your life. But of course, you were only twelve. What could you have known about love?

Not far later, you traded those faux butterflies with the realization and contentment of a sister. That was what you were to Hermione Granger, and what you learned, she truly was to you.

That didn’t stop you from admiring the beauty in her simplicity, however. Rather, you carried on, albeit, now also noticing the others that composed her background. You would smile wider upon Blaise and Theo’s bickering, giggle (though you despised the word) more heartily at the tickle of Bowie’s movements, and drown in grief, albeit momentarily, as professors spoke of your likeness to your fathers, once believing you to be out of earshot.

But that was nothing. You would shrug it off after a moment or two.

Like then, you went on with the remainder of the day. After a short reunion with your friends, Blaise and Theo, as well as a mini meet-and-greet with your father’s favorite schoolmate (he wished to strangle the man in his place), you ran into a bit of trouble with your not-so-distant relatives, the Malfoys.

Lucius was pretentious as ever, taunting Arthur Weasley and your father for their blood and financial status, while his spawn, Draco, was unbearable as the previous year. He, like his father, simply had to taunt Harry with every waking moment, and in doing so, only managed to piss off the rest of his company, and in particular, a temperamental metamorphmagus.

In later retellings and biographies of your life, some would state that it was accidental magic on your part that dropped a particularly heavy book atop Malfoy Senior’s head. Meanwhile, others would say you knew exactly what you were doing, and performed some degree of wandless magic or that you had simply thrown it with your fantastic, Quidditch Chaser aim.

You couldn’t be bothered to correct any of them.

It wasn’t long before dusk made its return, the sun slowly setting to signify the day’s end. Exchanging brief promises of “see you later”s and meetings at the train, you eventually parted ways, gripping your father’s hand as you headed in the direction you first came.

It wasn’t long before you disappeared into the crowd, leaving behind a proud set of twins, a starstruck Ginny, a content Ron and Hermione, and a wistful Harry.

The boy was smiling to himself again, staring at the grounds you once stood. It was a strange, dopey-looking smile that left Hermione amusedly rolling her eyes at her friend.

“A sickle for your thoughts?” she asked him, breaking him out of his [Y/N]-induced daze.

“What?” he could only stammer in response, blinking up at Hermione in confusion.

“I see the way you look at her, Harry,” Her tone was almost teasing as she smiled at him. “Don’t worry though. You have plenty of time to win her over.”

“I’m sure of it.”

He couldn’t be bothered to deny her insinuations. After all, it was useless to argue against Hermione — she wasn’t even wrong to begin with. She never was.

Harry took comfort in her words. She was right. He had more than enough time to win over your affections. It couldn’t be that difficult — if Cedric Diggory and Oliver Wood could do it within a year, why couldn’t he? And he had seven!

What could possibly prevent two best friends from becoming more than that?

Meanwhile, as night came upon London, a young boy of the name Edmund Pevensie, gazed out his windowsill in contemplation.

Earlier that day, he had overheard his parents speaking of sending him, alongside his four siblings to a family friend — some professor, if he remembers correctly. He recalls his mother fretting, expressing her worries about the four of them, when they heard a distant creek along the wood of the floor.

They retreated into their room, and somehow, Edmund couldn’t make out a sound.

The rest of the night, he was left to worry, silently and to himself, of whatever was to await them in the coming days.

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[dapurinthos]

not watching the last episode of obi-wan kenobi at this time because i don't want to be laid out on the floor for the rest of the day.

so it's 'end of initiate trip to the senate time'

“Come and meet Senator Palpatine,” calls Master Gallia. No thanks. Not unless someone gets real cool real fast about me attempting to turn him into a ’saber-kabob. I make a strategic retreat behind the tallest and most cape-wearing of the nearby adults. I slide around Sifo-Dyas and squeeze up next to Dooku like I’m a burr catching onto a loose thread. I duck against his leg and pull his cape back into place, completely submerged in the darkness except for my feet. There’s probably a metaphor in that. Dooku twitches his cape back. I grab for it. “What are you doing?” “Senators have bad juju.” Sifo-Dyas hides a laugh in a cough. “Juju?” asks Dooku. I can see Sidious heading this way. Great. He’s probably going to say hello to his good friend Count Dooku. I tug at his cape again. No luck. “Baaaad juju,” I repeat, ducking around behind him to the side further away from Sidious and not made useless as a hiding spot. I peek one eye out. “The Senate is a wretched hive of scum and villainy filled with delusional Inner Core dwellers who think they can go on ignoring the exploitation of Rim-outward planets by the very same companies they were bribed into letting sit in the Senate. They get fat off their profits while not paying the taxes needed to fund the socialist programmes the Core Faction wants to establish in the outlying regions who are correct in saying that the Core Faction doesn’t understand what life is like further out.” Sifo-Dyas looks Dooku up and down. “Taking up ventriloquism at this stage in your life?”

[jaimebluesq]

always found it interesting that despite the fact he clearly wants the sect to remain in the family, nie mingjue literally never made any attempts at continuing his bloodline, foisting it off on huaisang instead along with the sect leader title. what if it was he couldn't have had kids even if he wanted to, because taking up baxia too early caused him to become sterile? and admitting as much would have been too humiliating? anyway, brotherly scene where he's forced to come clean about it, and whether it ends in a decision to adopt or huaisang agreeing to take up a political marriage in the future just for heirs or whatever is up to you.

Oh Anon, you have no idea how close this idea is to my heart because of my own life experiences. I love that you came up with it, and thank you for sending it to me... now let’s see if I can do it justice.

~ ~ ~

Nie Huaisang stood outside his brother’s office, his hands twisting upon his closed fan. He’d been anxious for days, trying to figure out how to broach a particularly sensitive topic with his brother – had practised with both Nie Zonghui and Jin Guangyao to try and get his words just right. Oh, it was something he’d tried asking many times before, but his brother had always brushed him off and directed him to the training field for saber practice.

Not today. Today, he would get an answer whether his brother liked it or not.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he knocked on the door and entered when his brother called out. He was careful to close the door behind himself before approaching his brother’s desk.

“What is it?” Nie Mingjue asked tiredly, his fingers rubbing at his temple. “Isn’t it time for-”

“Saber practice was this morning,” he replied, “and I actually attended today.” He’d attended only to leave one less thing to anger his brother on the day he came to seek answers – though Nie Mingjue’s fatigue made him wonder if he should have chosen a different day. But then, his brother looked tired most days since the end of the war.

“If you’re asking about-”

“Da-ge?” He waited until his brother finally looked up at him. “I... wanted to talk to you. About something important.”

Nie Mingjue looked him over, then picked up his papers and set them aside. He sat back in his chair, hands on the arms and fingers drumming along the cherry wood, waiting for Nie Huaisang to speak.

The first thing Nie Huaisang did was sit down to face his brother. “I heard from Zonghui that you received a request for an alliance from Yao-zongzhu,” he began, wanting to ease into the subject he wanted to address.

His brother sniffed. “He’s trying to pawn off his sister to anyone who’ll have her, all to tie himself to one of the great sects. I’ve no desire to ally with the Yao.”

“But what about the He,” Nie Huaisang prodded. “Or the Lan – Er-ge told me he has a younger cousin that’s quite lovely and kind and would make a wonderful furen. Or the Jiang – I know Jiang-xiong doesn’t have any blood relatives, but he has some promising lady disciples that would-”

“We don’t need another alliance,” Nie Mingjue ground out through gritted teeth. “Is that why you’re here? To harass me about getting married? Leave it alone – it’s none of your business.”

It was the same answer he had given Nie Huaisang before – but it was one he could no longer accept.

“But Da-ge... it is my business,” he said with a shaky voice that grew stronger with every word he spoke. “It’s my business because this is the reason I’m your heir, and I have the right to know why.”

Nie Mingjue narrowed his eyes, his face turning dark. “If this is just another argument to get out of saber practice-”

“I don’t want this!” Nie Huaisang’s voice broke mid-sentence. He tightened his grip on his fan. “I don’t want to be sect leader one day, you know this. And the Elders don’t want me either – you’ve heard what they say about me when my back is turned.”

“If you would only practice your saber more-”

“It won’t do a thing, Da-ge, because I’m not meant for this!” He took in a shaky breath. “Please, Da-ge, don’t make me do this anymore. You, me, the sect, we all deserve better, don’t we? Please don’t tell me you genuinely think me being heir is the best thing for Qinghe Nie?”

“This sect must be led by a member of our family’s main line,” Nie Mingjue insisted.

“Then why haven’t you started a family to inherit the sect?”

“Because I can’t!!!”

Nie Huaisang felt glued to his seat. There was something in the tone of his brother’s voice... it wasn’t anger, not just anger, but it was painful to hear. And then his brother’s shoulders dropped and he brought a hand to rub at his temple, and Nie Huaisang could have sworn he saw a glint of wetness in his brother’s eyes.

“I can’t,” Nie Mingjue repeated, slower and a little calmer.

When Nie Mingjue looked up, their eyes met. The two of them breathed heavily for several moments, broken only when Nie Mingjue picked up a document and threw it across the room. Nie Huaisang heard a rattling nearby; he glanced over to where Baxia trembled lightly in her stand.

“When one of us becomes sect leader,” Nie Mingjue explained, “there are many different rituals and sect secrets we learn from the Elders and other sect officials. And one of the very first things they tell us is that we need to work immediately on birthing an heir. Because our lives are so short, and one never knows when we’ll be taken out by a Yao or a qi deviation, or some tyrannical sect leader who doesn’t like being opposed.”

Nie Huaisang swallowed hard. His brother had only been fifteen when their father had died... he couldn’t imagine being told he had to become a father when he was only fifteen.

“None of the other sects helped me try to bring evidence against Wen Ruohan for what he did to A-Die, and I certainly wasn’t going to ally with any of them.” Nie Mingjue grimaced. “It was suggested to me that we find someone outside the sect, someone completely apart from the cultivation world, who wouldn’t have known enough to vie for power. I... I had no idea what to do, who to look for. All I’d ever done before was train, and when I did have tender thoughts, they weren’t about the girls they brought before me.”

This didn’t surprise Nie Huaisang – he’d seen the looks exchanged between Nie Mingjue and his ‘sworn brothers’. He nodded.

“So we finally settled on someone to try with,” Nie Mingjue continued. His voice already sounded lighter than when he had first begun explaining, and Nie Huaisang wondered if his brother had ever told this story to anyone else before – if Er-ge and San-ge even knew. “She was kind, and patient. The agreement was that if she became with child, then we would officially bring her in as a concubine. But after a year of trying once a week, every week... nothing happened. And then the Elders insisted on trying with another woman because the problem ‘obviously’ wasn’t with Nie-zongzhu, and before I knew it, I had four women I didn’t want that I had to lay with, all to try and do my duty to my sect.”

By this point, Nie Mingjue was no longer looking at Nie Huaisang, but rather staring out the nearby window. A part of Nie Huaisang wanted to tell his brother to stop, to tell him he didn’t have to say anything more – but the other part of him really wanted to hear the answer, to understand what had gone wrong, both for his brother and himself.

“After another two, three years of nothing, the Elders called in a highly respected physician. He looked me over, did a few tests, and then the Elders discussed the results. And then they told me that I was a rare case – that training so aggressively from such a young age may have made me stronger than anyone else in our sect, but it also had the side-effect of rendering me... barren, so to speak.” He sighed. “We called off the women after paying them handsomely for their efforts, and we helped them find husbands who would honour them properly. And then I named you my heir permanently.”

Nie Huaisang’s shoulders felt heavy even as he tried to roll one of them back. “Why didn’t you tell me, Da-ge?” he asked softly.

Nie Mingjue snorted. “Your voice hadn’t even begun to change when all this happened. The only things you knew about such matters were from spring books – and yes, I know you’ve had them since you were twelve, I’m not an idiot. There was no way I was going to lay this on you.”

“I may have been young, but so were you.” Nie Huaisang tried to offer a smile when his brother finally faced him again. “And... this is something we’ve needed to discuss, for the good of our sect. After all, I’m not a boy anymore.”

“You’ll always be a boy,” Nie Mingjue countered with a wistful smile. “The tiniest little thing that Xiao-Niang brought out to me and told me to protect it for the rest of my life.”

“Da-ge,” Nie Huaisang whined, mostly to break the seriousness of the moment.

Nie Mingjue let out a chuckle. “Well, you know now.”

Nie Huaisang nodded. “And now we can figure out what to do about it.” His brother’s eyebrow lifted. “Because the way I see it, the moment you die – which you’re not allowed to do, by the way, not without my permission – this sect will immediately undergo a challenge to leadership, because there are far too many people who don’t see me as a proper leader. And quite frankly, they’re right. So... I’m presuming adopting is out of the question, or else you would have done it already...” As he spoke, he began counting off fingers from his hand.

“Ideally, the leadership would remain in the main family line,” Nie Mingjue explained tentatively.

“Well, I suppose that leaves us with only one option left,” he concluded with a nod to the growing confusion on his brother’s face. “The only question is, do we work to ally with another sect, or find someone outside the Jianghu? Because I don’t mind getting married or taking a concubine, but I do not want anything to do with Yao-zongzhu’s sister. Just because I enjoy pretty ladies does not mean I want a part of that mess>”

“You can’t be serious!” Nie Mingjue huffed. “You’re just a boy!”

“I’m the same age as Jin Zixuan,” he countered, “and he’s marrying Jiang-guniang in a few months.” He absently chewed on his bottom lip. “And just the other day in Lanling, I was chatting with Madame Qin – she is very much not in favour of Qin Su’s little crush on San-ge, by the way – and she was trying to encourage me to ask her to walk in the gardens. She is rather pretty, and-” He paused at the stare his brother gave him.

“You don’t have to do this,” Nie Mingjue sighed. “Just because I can’t do this, it doesn’t mean you have to give up your life like this.”

He met his brother’s gaze in a way he never would have done as a boy. “I’m a Nie,” he explained, “and we both know we have had to fulfill our duties to our sect. I know I can’t fulfill mine on the battlefield – I was never meant to be a soldier or even a cultivator – but I can do this.”

The corners of Nie Mingjue’s eyes crinkled, and he nodded. “Qin-zongzhu’s daughter does seem like a good choice,” he finally agreed, “but the girl is still enamoured with A-Yao no matter how he has tried to dissuade her.”

“Then I imagine San-ge would have a vested interest in helping her get over him,” he grinned, “don’t you think?” Nie Mingjue nodded. Nie Huaisang stood up and stretched out his back. “I’ll go write him a letter and see what he has to say, and we’ll go from there.” He began walking to the office door, but stopped at his brother’s voice.

“But for the record,” Nie Mingjue announced, his tone steady and strong, “you and the Elders are wrong. You might not be meant for the battlefield, but... a sect needs a different kind of leader in peace-time, and you would make a good one.”

Nie Huaisang swallowed through his suddenly tight throat. He made no sound, nothing to indicate he’d heard his brother’s words, and continued on his way out the door.

But his heart flooded with warmth at one of the few compliments he’d ever received from his brother.

[grilledcheese-savage]

Ahsoka Episode 7 Spoilers

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Some stuff I need to get off my chest before I forget

- Sabine using the blaster and the lightsaber at the same time is so reminiscent of season one Kanan and Ezra using his first lightsaber.

- Sabine telling Ezra that Shin hati would be like him if she had a sense of humor or really any personality at all 💀😭 the roast

- Ezra telling Sabine to keep the lightsaber makes me wonder if he’s afraid of it somehow. Like maybe he thinks it’s been too long and is afraid he won’t be as good with it (unlikely) but maybe he’s been away from the Jedi life for so long, he doesn’t feel he’s worthy anymore? Or maybe he wants to give up that life and he doesn’t want the pressure of being a Jedi anymore. That would make sense for his character I guess.

- Him using the force to fight instead of a lightsaber is a reference to Kanan 😭 the parallels

- I really wanted to see him relate to Sabine about losing a master, but I think he could assume that it wasn’t something he wanted to push. He knew she lost someone, he just doesn’t know the full extent of it yet. When he said “You thought she was dead??” I’m sure he was like “girl…. I was close to her first you could’ve told me 😒” haha jk

- I still need to see her and Ezra relate about the dead family thing

- I also have two theories on how he’ll react to how she got there. One, he’ll understand because he’s been there before (tons of episodes where he chooses family over the war but then realizes the consequences) or two he’ll argue with her about it and tell her he was not worth rescuing in comparison to the galaxy’s safety and she’ll be all like “MY FAM IS DEAD YOU ARE ALL I HAVE LEFT” trials of the dark saber style

- Ezra protecting his turtles makes so much sense for his character and I love this development.

- ALSO HE GAVE THEM SLINGSHOTS LIKE HIS OG ONE AGHHHH ADORABLE.

Anyways I have more but those are the main ones