#but qimir knew osha wasn’t mae

[crookedfandomquill]

👁️👄👁️

[avocadotoast0]

I'm sorry, but trying to tell Qimir's story without Osha is like telling Anakin's story without Padmé—it just doesn't work. Qimir and Osha are integral to each other's character development, whether some fans like it or not. That's just the reality of their story.

Many fans overlook the "lone wolf searching for connection" aspect of Qimir’s character, which is why Mae’s betrayal cut so deeply. He genuinely cared for her as his student, even though she wasn’t who he truly wanted as an acolyte. Despite her constant failures, he never abandoned her; he was always there, encouraging her and staying by her side. His approach as her master may have been flawed, but his care was undeniable until the moment of betrayal, making that switch in him all the more compelling to watch.

His scars from betrayal run deep, stemming from whatever happened between him and Vernestra when he was a Jedi. This further highlights how vulnerable he is as a person, adding layers to his character that make him even more intriguing.

What makes Qimir so fascinating is that he’s not a traditional Sith. He doesn’t see himself as one; he’s more of a dark-sider who believed the Sith path was his only option. We see this when Osha kills Sol—Qimir wasn’t happy; instead, he looked sorrowful, almost like he was grieving for her, understanding that she had now reached a dark place he was all too familiar with. That’s why he tried to comfort her afterward; he knew the weight of what she’d done.

This is why Leslye wanted to explore a third option—where being a dark-sider doesn’t have to mean becoming a Sith. There’s potential for something different, something more.

Then there’s his romantic side. Qimir never hid his desire for Osha; he actively pursued her without ever trying to force himself on her. He nearly dies trying to get his helmet off her—a girl he barely knew, but because she represents the connection he’s always been searching for, and he’d do anything to protect it.

In fact, Qimir falling in love could have been what saved him—or both of them—from descending further into darkness, especially with Plagueis lurking in the shadows. The show made it clear that Qimir would do anything to protect what’s precious to him. We might have seen Osha being pulled into the darkness, perhaps under Plagueis' influence, and Qimir realising that this path isn't meant for them.

It would have been incredible to watch him and Osha fall in love and try to find a different path, one that steers them away from the chaos and the doomed narrative. How could anyone not want to see that?

[lokislady17]

I guess it could be argued that Qimir’s infatuation with Osha feels a bit rushed but I beg to differ. I get the feeling that while Mae trained with Qimir/ the Stranger, she probably told him all Osha, how much she missed her and I’ll even venture she talked about how sorry she was for what happened that night on Brendok. Qimir probably took all that and put faith in the fact that if Mae was serious about anything, it was her desire for revenge. That desire is probably what incentivized Mae’s loyalty to her master. As for Qimir, I’ll bet anything he already suspected that his relationship with Mae wasn’t going to go the way he hoped. But he kept training her anyway, maybe he figured having a fake student/ companion was better than real loneliness. Then one day, Osha comes along, in the flesh. Once Qimir realizes this, Its obvious he is intrigued. Like, here is the person I have heard so much about. So, when he finds Osha, out cold and abandoned, he probably can’t help but feel compassion for her. In a way, I think he felt like he knew her already. Yes, part of it is that he sees her as a potential student. But, I’d like to think that deep down, he just wanted to take care of her. In a way, Osha has been as much a part of his life as Mae has via the stories she probably told him.

[chevelleneech]

Leslye’s latest interview kinda makes me seem like a writer or something, idk🧐

J/k! But on a serious note, I do think my interest in screenwriting informs a lot of how I interpret the things I watch. I’m not pretending to be exceptional or better than anyone else, but I am going to pat myself on the back the tiniest bit, because I said something similar to what she said about Qimir knowing Osha wasn’t Mae in the apothecary. He knew, and her power drew him in almost instantly.

As well, in this post about Sol confusing Mae and Osha when they were younger, I said I was pretty sure it was done to highlight just how little Sol understood his emotions and his supposed connection to Osha. He felt one, yes, but that doesn’t mean he knew enough about the twins to decide he had a right to act on it.

Anyway, this was fun to read and kind of learn what I (and many other people surely) were right in our interpretations of. Sol meant well, yet acted wrong. And although Qimir was painted as the antagonist this season (even though I think the secret of what happened on Brendok is the true villain) he still sees Osha for who she is, no matter the fact that he wants her to tap into her power for personal gain, to an extent.

This understanding also informs why and almost how Leslye foresees Oshamir coming about. Because in other parts, she speaks about how Qimir still doesn’t say directly he is a Sith, and above she mentions how he feels the pull of her power and wants to train her same as Sol, and how that points to who her true Master will be.

If her words are to be taken at face value, Oshamir will happen, I think, because their Master and Pupil relationship won’t work. Sol was a Jedi raised on honor, peace, loyalty, control, and authority. Yet he struggled well into adulthood with most of those things, which caused mass murder. Qimir, based on what he’s said, was also raised on those things yet realized the latter three were unsustainable. Which Osha has felt since she was a child that unquestioned loyalty to authority figures whom only give you a semblance of control wasn’t what she wanted forever.

So Qimir is going to be training someone who is almost too much like him in beliefs, yet someone who likely isn’t as non-discriminate in her killing. Meaning they’re going to butt heads over what is right and wrong, and end up having to talk more to understand each other’s side better. And getting to know each other’s moral lines and triggers to avoid, inevitably grows them closer together. Therefore, their Master/Pupil dynamic is thrown out the window, because there’s already sexual tension between them and they haven’t even fought for real yet, lol.

[aniseya]

i saw some things on the hellsite of twitter that i’ll just rant about here because god knows i don’t have the strength to deal with swtwt.

i feel like there’s kinda a misconception around qimir kidnapping osha being something that stans gloss over. like yeah, it is kidnapping, and more problematically in his head it’s justified, but people forget that’s how so many ships/especially enemy ships happen. how i take it is that qimir took osha not only because he was interested in her power but because he also knew mae was gone/the jedi were too.

in his head, he sees that they left osha for dead or were gonna kill her anyways because she’s dressed like mae. and so what, he’s just supposed to leave her there to be murdered for a misinterpretation or worse, killed because they don’t want anything to do with her (in his mind)? not saying that was SOLELY his intention, because he’s got warped perspectives left and right, but like even if he was on the light side would anyone do any different than this? and was he supposed to just tend to her wounds on the goddamn battleground of fallen jedi awaiting to be slaughtered by jedi and have osha get slaughtered with him (in his mind)? he basically HAD to take her even if he didn’t want anything directly from her. his own personal mantra was that he strikes down jedi, but others, so even if it wasn’t osha i believe he would’ve done the same thing for a person who had been abandoned and left to die by the people he considers his own oppressors.

once again, i am not saying he doesn’t also not want something from her, but i do think he’s just a low that while he does want something from her, he doesn’t necessarily expect her to believe or join him. he is vulnerable, feeling a little hurt from mae, and now has to reorganize his plan to strike down jedi because his cover was blown. they could find him easily now if they wanted, ESPECIALLY since he is with osha. remember him saying that her place in the force is what drew people near to her? he’s basically in a position he could quite literally not gaf if he was killed, just a frayed wire with no intention right away of having himself reconnected and at the height of his power.

even leslye said that qimir was ready to die if osha wanted to ignite the saber, genuinely. so many vibes i picked up from him this episode were depressed and defeated. he’s vulnerable with all these emotions and while he’s interested in osha, at the moment of the episode he’s just ready for whatever happens, even if that meant death.

manipulation/inherent toxicity is present in *just* about every star wars ship that starts off on enemy frontlines. but what everyone means when they say there’s no manipulation they mean the kind of manipulation that leslye is referring to: twisting the truth to make osha submissive to him, wholeheartedly knowing what he’s saying is just a power play to get her to become his toy. leslye admitted that he’s being honest, as much as he thinks his version of honesty is, so even in his own honesty he could be using that to “enlighten” her, but not in the way where he knows he’s being disingenuous and purposely trying to create an unequal dynamic with him in the lead.

this is the kind of manipulation that so many have thrown at the ship as a reason against it, which is why so many stans talk about it and celebrate that leslye had our back because the idea of a more equal, non-manipulative (in that above sense) etl relationship being confirmed allows us to shrug off discourse like that without feeling the weight of its dogpilling.

[unhinged-summer-fun]

common grounds (oshamir) - chapter 1

Pairing: Osha Aniseya/Qimir "The Stranger" Themes of note: Modern AU, coffee shop AU, boxing/fighting AU, slow burn romance, personal identity exploration, sports injury & recovery, angst yada yada. First few chapters are rated T, but bumps to M eventually. Summary: One cold winter night, Osha meets a stranger while she's working late at the cafe. Like the spark that lights a very long fuse, there's no way this doesn't end in fire and upheaval.

A/N: Mehmehmehmeh I ain't back on tumblr this is just another horn of mine to toot lol it's also on my AO3 is why. This is also written for da bestie and is held hostage by them (affectionate). Dividers by @firefly-graphics

series masterlist

chapter 1: round one

Somehow, the mysterious problems with the espresso machine returned.

Not that anyone asked her, but Osha didn’t believe it was pure coincidence that this was the fifth time she’d been called in to fix the machine immediately after Yord was on the schedule. It couldn’t wait for her next shift because most people who needed espresso needed it in the mornings, and Mae worked the morning shift.

Regardless, it wasn’t a coincidence. Osha just wanted to get quietly pissed at a fixable problem so that by the time it was fixed, she’d forget what she was pissed about. With just the lights on behind the bar and the small flashlight in her mouth, she tried not to think about how eerie the cafe looked at night. The snow swirling in the windowsill outside served as an unhelpful reminder that her car was still in the shop, and the walk back to the apartments would be very, very cold.

But the hot water tap had priority over that. This was the most temperamental part of the whole unit, a half dozen little fastenings keeping it pinned to the machine wall to prevent it from lashing out all over the place every time anyone pressed a button. Each gentle click of her spanner sounded like a clap of thunder in the deserted shop, and a sensation of deep, deep dread she hadn’t felt in years rose in her chest. “Shit,” she whispered, forgetting about the flashlight in her teeth and spitting it out onto the floor. “Damnit.”

When she stood, a man was standing behind the machine.

“Fuck!”

The man was lucky; Osha might not have had the left hook her sister did, but that didn’t mean she didn’t still have one hell of a swing. She almost threw the flashlight at him but held on, wielding it like a four-inch baseball bat.

The man’s face went from neutral and stony to overly expressive in a heartbeat. “Oh! I’m so sorry; I didn’t mean to startle you!” he said, laughing nervously and scratching the back of his head. Osha took him in, the baggy hoodie and jeans, the glasses, the toothy smile, the black bag slung over his shoulder. All in all, he didn’t look harmless, but he didn’t look like he meant her harm either.

“We’re closed.”

“The door was, uh, unlocked.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the door, giving her a shrug as if to say, what can you do?

“Even so, we’re still closed. You have to go.” For a moment, she considered grabbing the portafilter as a potential weapon. It’d certainly work better than the flashlight.

He put both his hands up. “Alright, alright. Can’t I just… step out of the cold for a minute or two? I’ll stay over here by the door.”

She shouldn’t. This man was undoubtedly a stranger, and a strange stranger, at that. But she knew the biting cold wasn’t pleasant, and her kind streak had never entirely been snuffed out.

“Fine. Sit there.” She pointed to a table where she could get a complete look at him while she continued working. He went willingly but faced her when he took his seat.

“Thank you,” he said, head tilting slightly to the side. “Not many people would be so kind.”

She didn’t look over at him, only answered him with a grunt as she tore into the hot water line with more ferocity than necessary. How in the hell did Yord mess this up? Nobody even touches this but me!

“I thought this place was open 24 hours,” the stranger said conversationally. When he realized Osha wouldn’t answer him, he continued. “Didn’t it used to be? It was always packed, classes at midnight and sunrise and sunset.”

That piqued her interest. Osha paused her crusade against the tap and frowned at him. “Are you a member at the gym?”

Even from here, she could see his jaw clench a little, one muscle feathering so quickly it might have been a trick of the light. “Oh, a long time ago. A lot must have changed if you’re the only one on staff right now.”

It sounded threatening. It should have been threatening. A strange man had come in, told her he had some measure of fight training, and pointed out she was alone. Yet, Osha couldn’t put her finger on why she saw it as bluster. The dread in her chest had entirely dissipated, and her heartbeat had returned to normal following the stranger’s sudden appearance.

“How long ago? I’ve been here a long time, too. Know everyone here.” She kept one eye on him as she worked, uncoupling the wall fastenings for the line to the group head. 

“It was a long, long time ago. But hey—there might be a few days of overlap if you’ll answer a question for me.”

She frowned and kept her focus on the machine. “Go ahead.”

“You’re Osha, right?”

Her hand slipped, and she dropped the spanner deep into the machine’s body. Biting back a curse, her attention warred between the stranger knowing her name and grabbing her tools.

“H-how do you know that?” C’mon, where is it?

In the seconds she’d been looking away, he had stood up to prop his hip against the table he’d been sitting at. “I remember two little girls coming in for one of the children’s sunrise classes I was in. Twins, and I swear they looked just like you and your sister.”

For an instant, she tried picturing this strange man as a child, but she hardly remembered anything from her first few weeks at the gym when their dad had taken them to train. Her imagination wouldn’t be of any help here.

“You know my sister?”

“Mae? Oh, I’ve met her a few times in passing. It’s a small city if you get out enough. I only knew your names as a child, though.” He gave a breathy, goofy laugh, pulling at something like interest in Osha’s belly.

She supposed he was near her age. He looked young, but some people’s genes aged more gracefully than others. “It—yeah. I’m Osha. What’s—what are you doing?”

Slowly, he walked toward the counter beside the machine. The conversation had thawed the ice of their meeting a little, which could have permitted a closer boundary, but it was still a little alarming. “My hearing isn’t the best. Get your bell rung enough times, and it never stops singing, does it?”

He tilted his head in the light to show her the slightly blue shell of his ear—it’d been likely drained from a hematoma to prevent cauliflower ear. You didn’t have ears like that without being in the ring for a while. She also saw a pair of charming little twists in his hair to keep it off his ears, which shouldn’t have been so… cute. This guy was a lot of things, but cute didn’t seem like one of them. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” he said, leaning on the counter with his forearms. The hoodie covered his body shape well, but from where it dropped off at the shoulders, he must have been incredibly broad. “It’s incredible, actually.”

“What is?” She shook off her single-bed shoulder musings.

“You look… exactly like her.”

His voice had dropped, along with the convivial squint to his eyes. His voice sounded dark and rich as his near-black irises and every part of her perked up in response. “Um.” Osha racked her head for an intelligent comeback, settling on, “Well, that’s not uncommon for twins.”

The playful lilt to his voice returned. “Yeah,” he grinned. “But really, down to how you frown at me, you two look so alike. It’s impressive.”

Osha frowned at him, then tried not to and failed. The stranger only smiled, a flash of that darker look shining through. Now thoroughly flustered, Osha turned back to the machine. “How’d you know I wasn’t Mae when you walked in?”

“I just knew.” She saw him shrug again in her periphery and continued wrenching back the hot water tap. “What’s wrong with it?”

“What isn’t wrong with it, more like.” She grunted and released another fastening. Now that there was an open entrance for her to stick her hand in, she felt around for the spanner she’d dropped. “This thing has to be like 25,000 years old.”

“That may be truer than you think.”

She met the stranger’s eyes, charmed by his easy smile and laughter. She’d never been one to make fast friends; that was more Mae’s speed, but whatever this conversation was, she wanted more of it.

She found the spanner and made a slight noise of victory, carefully maneuvering her hand back through—

The tap line went taut quite suddenly, and without any fittings keeping it in place, the hot water line suddenly contracted, snagging a jagged edge into her wrist and pinning it to the inner wall of the machine. She could feel the water getting hotter around her wrist, and she tried letting go of the spanner to yank her hand out, but it wouldn’t budge.

“Shit!”

Suddenly, two huge hands were there, one wrapping around her forearm to still her and the other reaching into the machine without hesitation. The line loosened around her wrist, and she was pulled free immediately. After that, the stranger hit a sequence of buttons to shut down the machine but still didn’t let go of her forearm.

In the fading whine of the machine, Osha’s heartbeat sounded like a stampede in her ears. She could feel the body heat radiating off the man this close. The callouses on his palms spoke of hard work and discipline. His knuckles bore the permanent blush of a fighter’s hands. Carefully, he pulled back her sleeve and hissed softly, revealing the minor burn over the top of her wrist.

“Poor thing.”

Heat flared up Osha’s neck as if she’d swallowed the hot water line instead of basically wearing it. The stranger leads her to the sink and runs the cool tap before parking her wrist beneath the faucet.

Burns weren’t uncommon in the cafe, and little cuts and swollen bruises weren’t uncommon in the attached boxing gym. As such, the first aid kits for both were well-stocked for each common injury. The stranger moved with confident grace to the red box on the wall, leafing through the contents before finding what he wanted: an antiseptic wipe, burn cream, gauze, and medical tape.

“Let me see.”

He took her wrist back in his hands, gentle but firm, just as he’d held her before. On the spots where his skin touched hers, it burned differently.

He kept his head down as he dressed her wound, using his teeth to tear off pieces of tape. He had a serious aura; the goofy guy he’d been now shifted into an intensely focused man. When satisfied with his work, he didn’t let go, using the last few seconds of soft quietude to draw his thumb across the top of the bandage.

“How’s that?” he said, bouncing back to the playful person he wanted her to see.

But Osha had seen that other side, the rock-steady intensity that had come over him the moment she’d been in danger. That version of himself hadn’t left until he knew she was out of harm.

Osha had hardly been able to blink, let alone breathe, during his treatment of her. Something about his light touch made her wonder how he fought. No soft-handed, theatrical fighter would have been capable of aching gentleness like this.

“It’s—good.” She cleared her throat and fought to look him in the eye. “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me. It was the right thing to do. Anyway, it should be less dangerous when it’s off.”

“I don’t know why I didn’t do that,” she muttered, embarrassment taking over from flustered.

“It’s late, and we’re all prone to mistakes in the dark.”

Her eyes snapped to his at the statement. It sounded so familiar that she could have sworn she had heard it before, but the stranger was already moving, pushing his sleeve past his elbow. Time stood still for a fraction of a second, and Osha could see his forearm, all corded muscle, and scars. And then he reached into the espresso machine, carefully pulling out the spanner.

“There. That what you were looking for?”

Osha blinked owlishly before taking the tool from him. It was impossible to avoid brushing her fingers against his, and the spark of his touch ignited something deeper inside her than skin could reach.

“Thank you, uh…”

“Of course!” Dutifully, the stranger returned to his post, and the counter was put back between them as it should have been. But Osha couldn’t understand why she’d been so adamant about it before. Maybe he was right; it’s late, after all. 

The rest of the work was fast, ticking away minutes as she found the culprit: an overenthusiastic portafilter had shifted the group head an inch out of place, which made every piece of fussy machinery within the casing rebel. “Yord, I swear to god…” Osha grumbled, taking a second to write a warning on scrap paper once everything was packed up.

“Ah, a consistent problem, then?” The Stranger had stayed quiet the whole time Osha worked, and only when he spoke up again did she notice he hadn’t pushed his sleeve down. Her eyes snagged on the sight the way her wrist had snagged on the jagged metal inside the machine.

“You could say that. Hey, um, I have to run it a few times to make sure it’s operational. And… thank you for helping me out. Can I make you something?”

His head tilted in such a way that she could finally see the look on his face was a smile. It felt like looking into one of those dichroic prisms, finding a flash of blue here, a flash of red there, but only at one specific angle inside the glass. “Whatever you want to give me, I’d be happy with.”

Ignoring that, she fell into another set of muscle memory. Even tired and irritated from the burn on her wrist, her hands never faltered as she made up a shot on each group. When the machine shouted itself awake, she watched as two twin porcelain espresso cups filled with darkness, noting the flow, the steam output, and the lack of grit in the pour. “Perfect,” she murmured to herself, satisfied with her work.

Osha assembled a drink to-go for him, sliding it over the bar. Unfortunately, muscle memory took over again, and she shouted, “I have a two-shot Americano at the bar for—oh my god, I’m so sorry, that was so loud.”

He threw his head back and laughed almost as loud as her barista voice had been. That toothy grin was back, and his hair fell into his eyes when he sat back again. “Thank you, I’m oh my god I’m sorry that was so loud, yes.” Their hands brushed again when she realized she hadn’t let go of the cup yet.

“I know it’s pretty late for caffeine, but it’s the least I could do,” she said, a little bashful. His laugh was nice. His smile was nice. He was nice.

He didn’t hesitate to bring the drink to his lips and take a sip, eyes locked with hers. All at once, her mouth went dry, and her blood sang. The smile evolved into a smirk when he set the coffee down again. “Never too late for me. I hardly sleep.”

“I know what that’s like,” Osha sighed, cleaning and shutting the machine down for the night. “I hope that drink’s okay.”

“It’s my usual.”

“No wonder you can’t sleep if your usual is twice the amount of caffeine normal people have.”

“The power of two is a potent high.” He shrugged.

“That’s a slippery slope to tread, stranger. It took me a while to quit.”

“Are you saying I’m an addict?”

Osha almost blanched at his words until she saw the playful tilt of his head. “I’m saying indulgence is a dangerous path.”

He shrugged. “Semantics.”

With the machine shut down for the night, she started flicking off the lights. The stranger took the hint, edging toward the front door.

When the main lights were off, he stood silhouetted against the storefront, snow swirling darkly around him like a smoky aura. He’d pulled up his hood; it gave him a more menacing outline than she’d thought him capable of. Like this, she couldn’t see the goofy smile or the glasses, the glittering dark eyes. He’d shed all of the attributes that made him approachable and safe.

And still, she was not afraid.

She walked to him, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder by the time he turned. “Thank you, Osha,” he said. The soft light from outside cast his features in sharp planes of shadow, concealing most of his features save his nose, lips, and chin.

“Don’t mention it,” she said softly, feeling trapped in a bubbled moment she didn’t want to leave. She’d reflect on this later; she wouldn’t scorn herself for doing what felt right in the moment.

His lips quirked in a half-smile she couldn’t resist returning. “I’ll see you around.”

And then he left in a blast of swirling snow and cold.

CHAPTER 2

[flythesail]

You Give Me

“I know how you’re feeling, Osha,” said Qimir. He was too comfortable with her name in his mouth. How long had he and Mae known each other? What had Mae told him about their life? About her? Osha would be foolish to think Mae’s side of the story wasn’t laced with lies, though she also knew there was truth to be found in any lie.

Osha stared at him. “The blood of my friends is on your hands.”

He held up his hands, examining them. The warm light of the setting sun showed through his fingers. He turned them for Osha to see. Compared to the rest of him, his hands looked clean.

Read on ao3: Osha wakes up.

[emeraldcast]

Ok I know I’m late to the party but I only just managed to catch up on the acolyte and I have so many thoughts. Chief among them being the fact that Qimir had to have been carrying his ‘Sith’ outfit with him in his bag right? Cause he wasn’t wearing anything close to what he wears in that fight before then and it was only what…15 minutes?

So that begs the question…did he have an inkling he was going to be betrayed? Why else would be bring it? Unless he thought Mae wouldn’t be able to kill the Wookie and he would need to step in as the master but then how would he have explained it to Mae? As her master he’s been hands off from what we’ve seen up till then so why show up just for this one fight?

Bro had to have know something was going down, he must have sensed Mae wavering after seeing Osha so brought along his essentials just in case. But I think he thought he could walk away with both of them. I think what tipped the scales from pissed off to murderous is when Mae said she would tell the Jedi everything. After that he knew there would be no forgiving her

Also not that I’m jumping on the whole Qimir is hot bandwagon but come on, he is. The duality between him as the goofball to the stillness and savagery when he’s the Stranger is unreal. Dude took on a dozen Jedi and barely broke a sweat. Only Sol survived and he was broken from what happened. Dude almost gave into the dark side because of Qimir

I know a lot of people are criticising The Acolyte but I’m loving it. The story, the choreography, the acting is amazing. I don’t think it does break continuity. Qimir said that the Jedi might call him Sith, not that he is one, so the whole there not being a Sith defeated in 1000 years could still be true.

If he really does embrace all aspects of himself, at most he could be seen as a fallen Jedi or dark side user but I think he’s more closer to a grey Jedi, simply because he uses both sides of the force. Sort of like the Father in the Mortis gods.

[roseinretrograde]

Is it just me or did “kill a Jedi without a weapon” feel like a riddle as much as an instruction?

Osha had to give up her lightsaber when she left the order, but do you ever really stop being a Jedi? I don’t know, but I don’t necessarily think so. The force is a part of her and they didn’t take away her training.

Osha might’ve been the Jedi without a weapon - Mae’s final test in the way that killing Han Solo was Kylo Ren’s final test from Snoke to prove absolute loyalty to the dark. Qimir wasn’t surprised at all that she was still alive and knew very quickly who she was in the Apothecary.

If this is the case, it seems like meeting Osha for himself changed Qimir’s mind about whether she should die - he realized immediately that she would be what he wanted more than Mae could. That’s why he was so quick to let Mae go, he had immediately shifted his sights to Osha.

[ncfan-1]

There’s something really, really fairy tale about the way that the Osha-Qimir plotline and Mae-Sol plotline seems to be shaking out.

Mae was presented with her silly friend Qimir and her terrifying Dark Side master, and was given an implicit test by Qimir, one that she failed. She failed to divine that her silly friend and her terrifying Dark Side master were one and the same. She failed to grasp that these were two faces of the same man.

Osha spent her entire time under Sol’s tutelage and afterwards unaware that her kindly teacher/surrogate father had another face: that of her mother’s murderer. Sol told her a lie that the fire her sister set killed her mother, and even as the years wore on, Osha never grasped that there was something to this story that was off, because she trusted him. Because she never thought to go looking for her master’s other face.

It's just… It just feels very much like failing to recognize that the handsome stranger from your dreams and the animal bridegroom are the same person. It feels very much like failing to grasp that the friendly stranger and the wolf of the woods are the same person. Like not grasping that your new husband, Bluebeard, murdered all of his past wives until you’re standing in the room where he hid all of the bodies. So many archetypes have multiple faces in fairy tales, and I’ll admit that my understanding of it is not as deep as it could be, but it still speaks to me on a level I instinctively understand.

Meanwhile, you have Qimir admitting to Osha that he didn’t know Mae as well as he thought he did, that he thought that Mae wanted the same thing that he did, and moreover that he thought she wanted it with him. And Sol has mistaken Mae for Osha twice now. Granted, both were in moments of high stress, but still, it suggests that he doesn’t know Osha nearly as well as he thinks he does.

Mae was presented with a fractured image of Qimir, split into two faces, and meanwhile there was a third that she did not know at all. But she has now seen all of Sol’s faces. She has seen the face of her mother’s murderer. She has seen Sol in anger, nearly overcome by rage. She has seen his affection. She’s seen parts of him that I don’t think Osha knew very well—his grief—and she’s seen parts of him that I don’t think Osha has seen at all—his guilt and his shame. Mae knew a fractured image of Qimir. She will know Sol completely.

Osha was presented with a fractured image of Sol, so that just as with Mae and Qimir, she never knew him completely. But she has seen that third aspect of Qimir, the one that Mae never knew, and it follows that this is his true face. Osha has seen Qimir naked, she has seen him laid bare. There are no and there will be no secrets between them. Osha knew a fractured image of Sol. She will know Qimir completely.

Qimir did not know Mae as well as he thought he did. He will know Osha far better. He knew Osha wasn’t Mae at a glance. He is immediately struck by her upon meeting her. He does not need to read her thoughts to know what is on her mind. He will see her in her entirety, will see the sum of her as she reaches her full potential.

Twice now has Sol called out to Osha, a girl and later a woman whom he loves, for it to turn out to be Mae. He constructed an image of Osha in his head when she was a child, projecting his desire to be a father onto her. He saw her lack of desire to be a witch and failed to see anything else. And when they reunite when she is an adult, he tellingly responds in surprise to the idea that Osha might still be plagued by grief for her lost family and anger and resentment for the sister she thinks killed them. When Osha and Mae were children, Sol made a choice between them. He has already grasped the cruelty of the choice he made, but now he will see that there are other sides to Mae than just her grief and her rage. Twice now has he called out to a woman he loves, and has it been Mae.

From ignorance, they shall come into knowledge.

--

There’s something else to this, some other motif that the two pairs seem to be fulfilling as well in mirror image: that of the otherworldly bride and her mortal husband, and the taboo he breaks that makes her flee from him.

Before I go any further, let me be clear. I am not saying that these are literally two pairs of lovers who have now switched partners. Osha and Qimir’s dynamic seems set to be romantic, and who even knows how things are going to shake out between Mae and Sol when the dust has settled, but I am not literally saying that they are two pairs of lovers. It’s just the paradigm I know how to present, and honestly, my understanding of these things is not the deepest. But I can see the way they’re mirroring each other.

Osha and Mae are, in a sense, otherworldly beings. They are not simply Aniseya and Koril’s daughters. They are born of a vergence in the Force; they are the children of the Force. Both were at some point “claimed” as companions to ease the loneliness of Sol and Qimir respectively.

In the stories, a man will marry a mysterious woman, a fairy or some otherworldly being in disguise, who tells him that she will stay with him provided that he abide by a condition she places upon him. In effect, the otherworldly bride will stay with her mortal husband provided that he does not break her trust. But in the end, he always breaks her trust, one way or another. Take for instance the tale of Mélusine, who is in alternate sources named a water fairy or a dragon. She in one source agreed to marry Guy de Lusignan and remain with him on one condition: that he never intrude upon her privacy while she was bathing. When he, overcome by curiosity (or, one might argue, the need to possess and control her completely), broke his word and did attempt to conceal himself nearby while she was bathing, there was no hope that his breaking of this taboo would go unnoticed. She knew he had betrayed her trust at once, revealed her otherworldly nature, and fled from him, never to return.

Qimir violated two taboos, breaking Mae’s trust in two different ways. First was deceit: he fundamentally deceived her about who he was. Second was violence against her person: he choked her and threatened to kill her. Qimir violated two taboos, and upon discovering this, Mae fled from him, and went off with Sol. As of the end of Episode 6, whether she is safe with Sol is still questionable, but Sol has never lied to her. In the matters of truth and lies, he offered her a truth she did not expect in Episode 2, the truth that her sister was still alive, and though she immediately named him “liar,” she learned that he was, against all odds, telling her the truth. He offered her a precious truth, one that gave her back the hope she thought was gone forever.

Sol has violated the taboo of deceit, breaking Osha’s trust by fundamentally misrepresenting what happened during the defining event of her life. As of the end of Episode 5, when they were separated, Osha had yet to learn for certain that he had broken the taboo, but she had begun to suspect it. And while you can certainly and rightly argue that she did not “go off with” Qimir, the result is still the same. The mortal husband has betrayed the trust of his otherworldly bride, and now she is gone from his side. Qimir has not deceived her. He has offered her truth at every turn, even when these were truths that were difficult for Osha and which she did not want to hear. Though it was in service to breaking down Sol’s restraint, Qimir nevertheless attempted to apprise Osha of his deceit; he attempted to expose Sol’s lie. Osha does not trust Qimir, but he doesn’t ask her to take what he says about what happened on Brendok on faith. He never once asks her to trust him. He has offered her the means by which she may divine the truth herself. It’s not clear if Osha will use the cortosis helmet in that way, but nevertheless, Qimir has offered Osha truth, the truth that she needs in order to finally grow past the tragedy of her family’s deaths.

Osha and Mae both need honesty, both need the truth. They have both left the side of a man who has deceived them, and gone off with a man who has been honest with them. Sol gave Mae her hope back. Qimir has offered Osha the means to overcome her feelings of failure and misplaced resentment. They have both offered those they are now paired with what they need to move on from the tragedy of their burned childhood.

I think that Osha and Qimir will come to trust each other in the wake of Osha’s revelation of what truly happened on Brendok. As for Mae and Sol, though it seems that Sol has made a serious misstep in the way he approaches Mae, because these stories are mirroring each other, I believe that some epiphany will be reached between them. Mae’s hope and Sol’s remorse are not meaningless.

I also firmly believe that the mirroring reinforces Leslye’s Headland’s assertion that Qimir is not manipulating Osha in Episode 6. The mirroring does not work if Osha has left the side of a man who deceived her to stand at the side of another man who deceives her, this time about what he wants from her and what he wants for her. It is a discordant note in the song of this story that makes the whole song fall apart if Qimir has just been manipulating Osha all along.

Now, though I have been waffling a fair bit these past few days where Sol in particular is concerned, I am confident that all four of them will survive the season finale. I am also confident that they will part ways in pairs. The otherworldly bride does not return to the side of the mortal husband who betrayed her trust, even if she might still love him. I think that Osha and Qimir will go off in search of greater truths, and Mae and Sol will likely find themselves on the run from the Jedi Order, or else going into exile together.

Once we were in ignorance. Now we meet face to face, blessed with understanding and with truth.

[fandomsandflyingstingrays]

My contribution for Acolyte Week day 3: Healing/Hurting!

The rational part of Osha knew it wasn’t going to work.

Bunta trees only grew on Brendok. It was why she’d been able to identify Mae immediately by the poison she used, why Mae had used that poison in the first place. When she’d been homesick in the Temple, Osha had spent hours in the library scouring for a mention of it on any other planet. She’d never found one.

But there were a lot of things that the Temple hadn’t told her. A lot of things she’d assumed were impossible, until they weren’t. The seed she carried in her pocket wouldn’t be planted in Brendok soil, but it would be tended to by a person who was every bit as connected to the planet, and infinitely more powerful.

Osha dropped the seed into the plot she’d dug with her bare hands, right in the line of sun that streamed between the rocks that towered around it. She scraped dirt over it until it was good and buried, then pressed both hands to the ground and focused on her energy, her life force, her Thread. She tied it to the Thread of the seed, sending a pulse of power between them, giving it a silent command.

You will grow.

She would come back every day with the same actions, the same words. She would make it so.

Osha stood, brushing her dirty hands off on her dark dress, and wove her way between the rocks, down the path to where the sun set over the water. She unhooked Sol’s lightsaber from her belt, turned it over in her palm.

Sol, who had cut her from her roots. From her tree, from her family.

Sol, who had loved her.

Sol, whom she had killed.

She took a deep breath, feeling the fury that still rolled through her with as much force as the waves that crashed at her feet, matching the energy that roiled within the crystal she held.

Qimir left the ship a moment later. She sensed rather than saw him, walking towards her, not so much as hesitating at the sight of the saber in her hand. Instead, he wrapped his own around it, holding it with her. Helping her bear the weight.

“Where did you go?” He asked, his voice barely audible over the foam crashing against the rocks.

“Somewhere that isn’t for you.”

He would have killed her sister. He had wiped her memory, rather than taking her with them. Osha hadn’t forgotten— would never forget.

But Qimir seemed to understand that. He didn’t push her, didn’t ask again. To a woman who had been required to share everything, for as long as she could remember, it was a greater gesture than his hand around hers.

Qimir would help her bear the weight, the ash that clogged her mind and the rasping breaths that dogged her ears. Qimir would help her learn to harness the anger she’d spent sixteen years trying to bury. Qimir would let her be powerful— and one day, she would become more powerful than him. Powerful enough to undo what he did.

I’m coming, she thought, sending the words above the sea and through the stars.

She used the same tone she had used when telling the tree to grow. It was all connected, after all. The trees of Brendok would grow in new soil. The witches of Brendok would find each other in a new galaxy.

I’m coming, Mae. Just hold on.

…

As soon as the seed disappeared beneath the dirt in Mae’s hands, Vernestra squeezed her shoulder and left her… well, not alone, because there were still figures in masks of white and gold who watched her every move. But in solitude.

Mae ran her fingers over the dirt, wishing with a ravenous ache that she could tell what lay beneath it. They had found the seed in her pocket when they searched her. It was the only thing they’d let her keep. And Mae had the sense that it should be familiar, that if she could just recall where she’d seen it before, all the broken shards in her mind would slot neatly together. But no matter how far she reached, she came up empty.

So Vernestra had let her plant it in the Temple gardens. It was a touching gesture, especially considering that Mae had allegedly killed two of her colleagues. The Jedi’s compassion was clearly even greater than rumored.

Or at least, that was what Mae told herself, trying to calm the anger that beat constantly at her skull, unending and without source.

With a disproportionate amount of effort, Mae lifted her hand. The past would come together for her, or it wouldn’t. As far as she’d been told, there was nothing she could do to speed the process. She would have to look towards the future or risk losing her sanity altogether. She turned from the seed and made to follow Vernestra.

I’m coming.

It was a child’s voice that whispered the words, right in Mae’s ear, so close she could feel the little girl’s breath on her neck.

Only, when she turned around, no one was there.

[bereft-of-frogs]

Ok yes, I did a rewatch of the back half last night while waiting for the neighboring nightclub to close (they were really loud last night for some reason, I think they might have partially been outside? it was a nice night. Idk but I wasn’t going to sleep until at least closing time, so I watched a star war. or. 3 star war.)

this got SO long (did you guys know there are character limits on text blocks? WHO KNEW) so I'm cutting it

it’s so funny how immune I am to shipping. Totally cold. The High Republic has got me a couple times: Xiri and Phan-Tu's arranged political marriage that turns to genuine love and shockingly Xylan/Cair. (Why does Xylan drive me so crazy and yet this ship gets me EVERY time it comes up. He's the WORST but I love him and his cute husband and their dog. Argh.) Elzar/Avar is like...background radiation, you can't not but it's not like...I'm that gripped by it if you know what I mean? But yeah, I'm sorry, I tried to watch this latest episode through a more romance focused lens and was just left with....no.

There's arguments about whether or not he was being manipulative or genuinely vulnerable, if you really want to read it as genuine that's cool for you, I'm a bit more on team manipulation, because I was really appreciating on the rewatch just how good he is at being the exact kind of person needed to 'collect people.' Kudos Manny Jacinto, his range and the number of characters he's playing in one is so good. With Mae, he's a kind of bumbling smuggler she can feel like she's bossing around and an ally against their distant master (like she was kind of bossy of Osha when they were kids, and in the way might have felt she and Osha were allied against their moms/the coven/the galaxy). With the Jedi he intends to kill, he relishes in being their boogeyman. (I think that's closest to his true face, tbh, because he doesn't need anything else from them but their deaths.) He pushes the exact right buttons with Sol to hit at his emotional weak points (the raw grief from Jecki's death, what he's been hiding about Brendok), and now with Osha he's giving her what she wanted. Someone on reddit actually really nailed exactly what he was going to offer her: belonging, transparency, a way to connect with powers she's always struggled with that neither the coven nor the Jedi seem to have been able to draw out.

(A Sol 'Night' aside before I get back to the latest episode: there really is a good chunk of time after Osha wakes up where we don't know where both he and Jecki are, and I'm more solid that ever in my headcanon that he was getting her out of the main fight, probably instructing her to apprehend Mae, which yeah is dangerous but not 'Sith' level dangerous, and sit tight or head back to the ship, especially because then the first thing he does when he's back in the fight is order Osha and Yord back to the ship. Checkmate, Qimir, you ass.)

Okay, so, I want to note the exchange where Osha lists off that he's killed Yord and Jecki and he deflects because ow. Two things: 1) he's not even objectively right in what he's saying, 2) huge red flag that he...really doesn't see them as people, and only focuses on what they can *do* for Osha.

1) His response to her bringing up Yord is something like 'yeah and he totally would have turned you in' which is outdated information, my guy. Yes, he did think Osha had killed Indara but...it wasn't an unreasonable conclusion to draw. Osha had motive (if she was bitter Indara advocated for her training to stop), means (training), and opportunity (she had a day off and apparently no alibi, it's a bit clunky writing because she says that to a coworker and not Yord but...we have to go with it), and a witness identified her. Literally, once they figure out she's innocent Yord immediately stands up for her (when he follows her in the Temple), and all of their other interactions have been like...sibling-bickering level disagreements, him saying some pretty insightful stuff about facing her past, and trying to protect her in the forest. Justice for Yord, he was totally reasonable in suspecting Osha and was loyal to the end.

As for Jecki....yeah there's NO way of knowing how that would have gone, Qimir, because you killed her! Literally who knows! This was a teenager with a crush on the cool older girl, it could have fizzled naturally, Jecki could have decided that being a Jedi was more important than her feelings for Osha (what Qimir suggests as an inevitability), or it's totally possible that it DOES grow into something deeper and Jecki decides to leave the Order and they go get married or whatever. We'll literally never know, because he murdered her.

2) Which leads to point two: He literally only points out what they can *do* for Osha which I think glosses over the point that...they were people. It doesn't matter what they could have done to or for Osha, he shouldn't have killed them because they were people. He was the clear aggressor in the attack, they were defending themselves. (And you KNOW he had a lot of fun doing it, him being like 'oh I had to' yeah right bro.) They deserved to live just because...they were people. That's it. The response to all of this is 'that doesn't matter...you still killed them.' And I think that encapsulates the exact difference between Sith and Jedi ideas of love. The Jedi ideal of love is allowing these people to exist and grow outside of your ideas of them and what they can 'do' for you. And the Sith love is about usefulness and possession, not loving them as full people who have deep internal lives and can make their own choices. Idk. I've already seen the inevitable 'he has a point though, the Jedi suck because they don't allow people to feel as deeply as Osha, wow', but...what the Sith offer is not real love. Real love would not dismiss these relationships and the weight of their deaths just because they didn't have 'use' to Osha...

Anyway, I don't know how articulate that was, but no, Qimir did not 'have a point' with that scene any more than he had a point about...pretty much anything else. Boooo

Sol and Mae's back and forth on the ship is so interesting, especially trying to pinpoint the moment Sol figures out it's Mae. I think it is when they are talking in the dark. Basically everything after a certain point in that conversation can be interpreted as him poking at her to see if she'll slip up, or could be interpreted as being also addressed to Mae.

I also saw people saying Sol seemed to be taking a dark turn, and I definitely think the episode was meant to get us to think that (get more into Mae's headspace), but at least with the scene where he takes a minute downstairs to lash out and regain composure is pretty classic emotional regulation, I don't see that as particularly out of line. That fight was a huge emotional blow, it makes sense that he needs to go have a moment to feel those big feelings and he does seem to come back more focused. Where he's starting to make mistakes, is letting his feelings of guilt about Mae and Brendok guide his actions. I think he wants the chance to explain himself to her without the Order getting involved but...it's also not a great move to ignore a command to stay put and then disappear.

Another Problem: Bazil is seeing a lot of this without context. My 'Sol gets framed and that's how the Sith goes unnoticed and that's the solve to the how to kill a Jedi without a weapon' going stronger than ever. I think Bazil is going to be a problem if he survives (and they can find someone else who can talk to him without Yord.)

Also speaking of perfectly reasonable accusations, people are being So Mean about Vernestra and her apprentice but...as much as it's going to be a huge tragedy if/when Sol gets framed, it IS a reasonable accusation. Sol is the only survivor of the massacre and has done a couple of pretty shady things. I agree that Vernestra doesn't seem to fully buy it (and may have additional information), but I think in that scene, she's trying to talk herself out of it and running up against the evidence. I kind of liked the Socratic teaching vibes of that scene. Like she could have just said it herself, she clearly knew, and people are interpreting THAT as manipulation (leading her apprentice into making the accusation so she doesn't have to), but...it seemed like a teaching thing.

I also 'get' all the accusations that Vernestra was Qimir's master (his Jedi master at least, there is NO way they'd make Vernestra Sith, and if they did they'd immediately lose a bunch of the book readers, given the state of the subreddit after the episode aired and the theories started rolling out. Including me, if they make Vernestra a Sith I would immediately stop watching.) but: 1) lol that's my girl, if she was, she was probably right to kick him out of the Order, 2) I hope they leave that for a potential second season. Headland said there's 4-5ish mysteries that remain to be potentially explored later, and it's definitely centered around Qimir, so I'm hoping they just don't address it and I can later choose how invested I get in a second season (too late for this one, I'm already invested).

I am still holding out hope that it's a red herring though. That seems like it would have been the perfect time to drop a heavy accusation to Osha and continue driving a wedge between her and the Jedi, but he really lets that hang. I'm holding out hope that in fact he was 'thrown away' by a Sith master. Like he washed out of the Sith like Osha washed out of the Jedi, which would be a nice parallel for them. Apparently we're still missing a cast member? Someone has been confirmed in the cast and hasn't shown up yet, I'm betting they're the real Sith and they're going to come in like, right at the end as a lead-in to a second season focused more on the Sith side.

these are partially just hopes and dreams so I can dodge them trying to do something #Bad with Vernestra, but I also just think there's too much to wrap up in one final episode (not counting the next since it's probably all flashback) to also get into a whole Qimir backstory. I don't think people are going to...love that.....but it makes sense to me to set up a bridge to the second season, while wrapping up Sol, Osha, and Mae's storyline primarily.

I love immediately going back on everything I say 'I'm not going to post theories' *immediately posts theories*, 'I'm going totally offline' *writes essay-length posts on both reddit and tumblr*. What can I say, I was bored and had a lot of thoughts.

tldr: more power to the shippers, hope this doesn't come off as being an anti but I am not feeling it, Qimir is Not Correct, and I'm really holding out hope the lightwhip was just a Vernestra book easter egg like the hyperspace visions reference (which, btw, people are also misinterpreting rip)

[sapphicvampyy]

Alright here’s my Star Wars wishlist. Things I want to see Star Wars do next.

First off I’m going to need them to renew the Acolyte, I want to see more I want to see if Qimir knew Plaguesis was there, how dark is Osha going to fall is she going to be able to be brought back? Is Mae going to try and save Osha once she learns what happened will both twins merge? Or will they ever both be in the light? will Osha and Qimir drive each other darker or will there care for eachother drive them into the light, I don’t think siths can truly care about someone once they become full sith that goes away and if they do that’s the one little piece keeping them in the light! So I do wonder about all those questions and I want to see more Plaguesis. Maybe similar to those knights of the old republic trailer how Osha is going through sith trials at some point like that mother and daughter trailer.

Rey’s new Jedi order film I want to see Plaugesis be the big Bad, I’d love to see Rey going all over the world and finding force sensitives, I like the idea that the people have turned against the Jedi. And maybe Plaugesis is like a voldermort type of situation like he’s sort of alive but not really and he needs to do a ritual to fully come back but then he does , and he’s a massive threat and it’s very mystical maybe we get into some of George’s ideas about the whillis) also I know some of this is a long shot like I want Rey to meet another skywalker how in the thrawn movie I want Luke and Mara to be a thing and Mara has a child with Luke but Luke doesn’t know and he thinks Mara is dead and she gets killed not before hiding the child ) so Rey meets this person and there an adult. and we break the to old to train thing.I also want to see Finn and Rey train together and Finn be a Jedi in this, but one thing that really upset me about the sequels was how much Finn and Rey liked each-other in the first one but then they put Rey with Kylo which I’m sorry they’re always going to give related to me. But I liked Rey and Finn and wanted to see more of them together.

Dawn of the Jedi ) it’s very mystical in origin, we see the first person turn evil and why I’m thinking this an epic biblical like story similar to lord of the rings the Simaraillion and we have someone just pure evil like Morgoth. and it also deals with George’s ideas about the whillis, I also hope George gives ideas on this.

The Filoni film: I’m really only excited about this if we recast the big 3!! I need them recast if your going to tell this story it’s just going to fall flat if the big 3 aren’t real breathing people, I have had enough of these cgi robot things like in mando I’m sorry but that wasn’t Luke he was so soulless there was nothing behind the eyes, I feel no emotionally investment for that character at all. I also didn’t like how Luke was portrayed either. So recast the big 3 find people who look like the big 3 and also have the energy, I do think finding people who look like them is important because they have such an iconic on screen image already to not look like them is jarring for the audience. ) so Luke, Leia and Han are a lead in this and we meet Mara Jade and her and Luke have a thing I’d love to see this story play out. And then of course these movies end tragic because Mara gets killed which is better reasoning for Luke ending up on the island and we think his child is killed as well but before she dies Mara hides the child. and Rey meets the kid. I know this is pretty unlikely but I do thinking making new movies would be easier with skywalkers and it’s a lot harder to get people to care without them and that was a huge mistake of the sequel trilogy. Among many. Without the big 3 this movie falls flat for me and makes me wonder what the hell are Luke and Han and Leia up too and I can’t help but think the EU had better storytelling there but bringing them back is a way to redeem it and it also leads better to Luke’s characterization in the The last Jedi which I didn’t think was written well. ( yeah I didn’t like the last Jedi but that’s a story for another time )

A Plaguesis and Palpatine hbo quality tv show adaption of the book, where we see how terrible they both are, and we do not get give Palps a sad back story or maybe we get a little bit of one but at every chance to do good he chooses the evil thing but I think all he ever cared about is power. and this shit is dark there’s no good guys at all.

Beyond that: I think each of these movies should not be one offs, but instead take however long they need to take they don’t have to be a trilogy but can develop more.

That’s years of Star Wars films on the big screen, Rey , dawn of the Jedi , and big 3 come back.

I think the key is telling stories in the future and in the past I think Star Wars desperately needs to move forward and not just have filled stories about side characters. Stuck in the same era. The key to Star Wars staying alive and fresh is taking risks like the Acolyte going into the future and the past and the moving forward. And If we do have a tv show it’s very main character focused and can influence the whole story that’s personally what I’d like to see. Maybe we introduce a new main character then they could get a show?

Or an old republic tv show similar to the games? but hbo level of quality. and yeah also after we do the Rey films with Plaguesis maybe Rey has kids or doesn’t and we go into the future or we do another Rey trilogy with the Yuzon Vong , and then Abletoth perhaps what little I know of Abletoth I feel like these would be good villains to do next after Plaugesis. Which is what Snoke should have been) sigh. But we can still do it now!!

[jabbasyogainstructor]

Breaking my self imposed posting ban for this…

Whether he’s the master (and I’m absolutely inclined to think he is,) I think he has more than one motive towards the twins. I think in that moment, when he realizes Osha is very friendly where Mae is standoffish, the master came out, he basically broke character. I do think he was attracted to her, but I also think that will be secondary to whatever else he wants from her. Same with when the master showed up after Kelnacca’s death. He got really close to her, like he was looking hard.

We’re seeing a consistent theme of all the Jedi in this series (in the overall saga too, but it’s almost ad nauseum here) of “jedi form no attachments.” Do the sith have a similar rule? How attached is Qimir/Darth Teeth to Mae, that Qimir went and found Kelnacca in those woods for her? Would he really kill her if she failed? As long as she gets her revenge, why need the test of no weapons? If she simply wants revenge, wouldn’t that stoke the dark side flames in her to just let her go ham and slaughter them? I think there’s not enough actual anger in Mae, she’s irritable, but not much more.

But Osha couldn’t let go of her past and failed being a jedi. Osha snaps at Mae as children frequently, Osha wants to give up her family and leave the coven. I wonder, if in this Rashomon syle flashback that we’re promised, if Osha isn’t the angrier one and we don’t initially see it that way because episode three is so much from her point of view. I don’t think Mae is really responsible for the fire, there wasn’t anything to burn there but that book. It was all stone. Someone else did something, and just before she drops off the broken ledge, she asks Osha “what did you do?” Like she isn’t sure what’s happening, and I don’t think it was Osha joining the Jedi that prompted that question.

I think Darth Teeth wants Osha as his next student, and if he manages to snatch her after this cliffhanger, Mae will follow. He gets a force dyad under his control. Ones who were trained by witches who clearly knew some things about the thread/force/etc that are not taught by either the Jedi or the Sith. Whatever that move was that Aniseya put on Torbin was a new trick, and I bet it wasn’t the only one she had up her sleeve.

I’m also predicting that his attraction to her will be his downfall, as we know the timeline of sith leading up to Darth Sidious, and this guy isn’t on it so he probably doesn’t last too long. Darth Teeth here is probably serving either Tenebrous or Plagueis (unless there’s another 2 out there about to be introduced) and he’s probably only an apprentice like Dooku was apprenticed to Sidious but secretly trained Asajj Ventress while using her as his personal assassin. This show was initially pitched as an Asajj Ventress show and rewritten for the High Republic. You can see the elements of Asajj’s character all over the place. But making him closer to the age of Mae and Osha gives a lot more flexibility to change the way it’s going to go.

any qimir and osha girlies out there? just me? okay…

[chevelleneech]

Osha’s age and Oshamir

Does anyone else think there’s pushback regarding not only Oshamir, but the fact of Osha having agency while at his home, because it’s easily forgotten that Osha is not a teenager?

Amandla has been acting for over a decade now, so even if people don’t know their name they know their face, and it’s easy to trap a child star at the age you knew them most. As well, lots of child stars who still look as young as they do are often cast as teens. I even did it with the first few episodes, before remembering the show says it’s been sixteen years since the fire on Brendok. So I’m not faulting anyone for potentially forgetting, but I’m wondering if that is part of the reason someone people are so adamant that her falling for him can only be a result of Stockholm syndrome?

Because in a good portion of the reactions I watch and am seeing on Twitter, people are saying Osha is naïve, Osha is falling into his trap, or even on the flip side, they can’t see Qimir wanting Osha for real since he didn’t attempt to seduce Mae. And since we know The Master presented as more of an oppressive figure to Mae, while Qimir presented himself as a bumbling sidekick, it’s easy to take Mae’s naivety and her need for validation, and apply it to Osha. Except, Osha is actually far more independent.

Of course we don’t know how much of Mae’s life The Master or Qimir was part of, and we don’t know how long she was trained by him, but we can kind of get an idea based how little she knew about Qimir.

For a man she trusted to guide her places, give her appropriate poisons to complete her tasks, and whom she assumed wasn’t skilled enough to get out of a pretty simple trap, I think it’s safe to assume they were together for at least two years. They weren’t close, but they had a rapport good enough for her to tell the clothes he stole from the apothecary keeper weren’t his. Yet she had no idea what his connection to The Master was or what it is he did in general, beyond being a drunk grifter.

Circle that back to Osha, and it’s possible people are stuck on “complete manipulation”, because he did manipulate Mae by making her believe he was someone else, and not the man traveling by her side. So they can’t comprehend him being honest with Osha, and potentially wanting a romantic or sexual relationship with her, since he didn’t want one with her identical twin, who they still might view as underage because that’s honestly the energy Mae gives, and because Amandla has a very young face (they’re 25, but you get what I mean).

I don’t know either way. There’s other reasons people don’t like it and they don’t have to, but this is a thought that came to me a little while ago. Osha looks young, Mae comes across as naïve, and Qimir comes across as older + Manny looks his age. So despite Osha being independent and stating herself she doesn’t trust Qimir, people have a hard time removing their blinders to at the very least, accept Osha is an adult who chose not to kill Qimir, and Qimir seducing her isn’t a sole attempt at trying to harm her.

[unhinged-summer-fun]

common grounds (oshamir) - chapter 6

Pairing: Osha Aniseya x Qimir "The Stranger" Warnings lol: blood and violence <3

A/N: Dividers by @firefly-graphics

series masterlist

chapter 6: the masquerade

Was going through her sister’s phone unethical? Sure. Was this whole thing a huge fucking risk she shouldn’t be taking? Certainly. Was she doing it anyway?

Hell, yes, she was.

After going their separate ways, Osha turned over the half-promise she’d given the stranger two days ago. 

I’ll think about it.

It was a curse. Here, in the unforgiving clarity of Wednesday, she could think about nothing else. Training with someone who saw potential and value in her sounded better than heaven.

But he’d left her with no way to give him her answer. He told her he couldn’t risk stopping by the Temple as often as he had been. I am banned, you know.

That was how she justified this insanity. I have no way of getting through to him like normal, and Mae was the only person who regularly met with him. She’s the best bet for finding him. And besides, she’s been lying to me for two years; I deserve to be a little ethically questionable.

Even still, the air was thick with tension—but that could’ve just been steam from the shower.

None of the contacts she scrolled through looked like they fit the stranger. Would she even save his number in her phone? She checked the text threads next, her eyes entirely focused on the unsaved numbers. Perhaps resignation had her gliding past the threads with Sol, and the multiple group chats Mae was a part of—places where Osha didn’t belong.

She must have deleted his shit the second she cut ties with him.

Osha bit down hard on her lower lip to bury her frustration. Where else, where else…

NYAAAAA!

“Fucksake, Pip, don’t be a fucking narc,” she whispered, removing the kitten from the room and resuming her shady behavior.

Mae dropped a bottle in the shower, nearly sending Osha jumping out of the window in fright. It was a miracle she stayed quiet. She refocused, ignoring the slight tremble of her fingers. 

Oh shit, why didn’t she check there first?

She found the list of blocked numbers in Mae’s call records and, instead of screenshotting it and sending it to herself, took a picture of the screen with her phone. It was old school, but it left no trace.

One of these better be him.

Mae shut off the shower, and Osha quickly put her phone back where it had been and walked out of the room without looking back. She was jumpy through dinner, but since she and Mae still weren’t talking, she didn’t have to explain herself.

Afterward, she retreated to her room and performed a round of isometric poses to steady her nerves. It helped soothe the persistent ache in her leg immensely. The pleasant burn in her calf licked flames across where her ligaments usually felt brittle and iced over. Doing the exercises before bed was a double-edged sword: on one hand, she’d be warm and loose all night; on the other… it made her think of him.

The dreams left her feeling hotter than the exercises did.

What was it Mae said? You’re playing with fire? It certainly felt like it—but in this weather, she didn’t mind a bit of heat.

To temper her obsession a little, she gave herself only ten minutes to research each phone number from the photo. She quickly ruled out telemarketers, spam numbers, and various persons who wanted to contact Mae about her car’s extended warranty.

The last number on her list felt… different. It brought up zero results online, not even on a reverse number lookup. She’d been about to type it into her phone to send a probing text, but her ten minutes were up. She couldn’t get in over her head, lest the stranger consume too much of her life before she knew his name.

And what if this wasn’t even his number? She didn’t want to go to sleep disappointed if the gamble didn’t pan out. She saved the number in her phone as ? and tried not to think about it.

Everything seemed to have lost its shine on her next shift at the cafe. The coffee smelled stale, and she could not ignore her sticky hands like she used to. Every painful hour spent on her feet felt like an eternity. She needed something new.

She’d needed a lot of something new for a while now.

The silence between her and Mae continued at home. The next time family dinner rolled around, she excused herself. She only saw Sol and Mae at the Temple.

Even the classes Sol led felt off. Try as she might to put in maximum effort, she’d grown out of Sol’s tentative instruction. Her jabs landed harder on the heavy bags, some sounding like thunderclaps that split the empty air. Her legs itched to kick and thrash beneath her despite the backlash it would yield in the gym.

She even tried a few kicks on the bag in the apartment gym, which saw more of her the following week than in the last six months. What it didn’t see was the stranger.

The stranger had her fucked up. Big time.

She couldn’t rely on luck or coincidence when she wanted to see him anymore. Next time she got lucky, she promised herself, she would get his damn number at the very least.

“This is a shit idea,” Osha muttered to herself as she walked down the street. “You’re fucking nuts, Osha.”

She’d been so focused on watching out for black ice on the sidewalk that she didn’t see that the Unknown Planet neons were all off until she’d opened the front door halfway, finding nothing but pitch-black silence within.

Every light was off, save for one at the far wall from the door. Osha stepped back a little, letting the door fall shut. The operation hours stared back at her: moonrise to sunrise.

Under the perpetually overcast sky of winter, she couldn’t tell, but she was pretty sure it was a new moon. You can’t have a moonrise with no moon, she reasoned.

But then, why was the door still open?

Osha retrieved her can of bear spray from her backpack and flicked off the safety with her thumb. She entered the empty bar quietly, on cat-light feet. When the door closed behind her, the cacophony of the city changed to a stark, screeching silence. She didn’t dare move a muscle.

Her eyes acclimated to the darkness, her ears to the silence. Very faintly, she made out the sounds of raised voices, cheers, and jeers. She stayed alert as she crept around tables crowned with upturned chairs. She stopped to listen again when she reached the singular lit sconce at the end of the cavernous bar.

The noise had grown louder, but Osha could still hear the familiar ding-ding! of a match bell. Was there a boxing gym upstairs? Nobody at the Temple cheered that loud at the events hosted there.

A set of stairs she hadn’t seen a week ago led up to a steel door on a small landing. A tattooed and bored bouncer wasn’t looking down the staircase at her; instead, he was peering through the small window in the door, looking in on whatever was happening inside.

Osha pulled back into the darkness. What was she doing? She was in an unfamiliar area of the city, chasing down hope of seeing a guy whose name she didn’t know, and she had no way of knowing where her damned curiosity would take her. She thumbed off the safety on her bear spray but kept the tube tucked in her sleeve just in case.

The bouncer frowned as she walked up the stairs. Up close, she could see two matching cauliflower ears, a split lip, and neck tattoos—and explicit confirmation that he was built like a brick shithouse. Osha met his eyes anyway, saying nothing.

“You’re coming in pretty late, miss. Half the fights are already done.” His voice was as gravelly and deep as she imagined, but the politeness took her a little off guard.

She tried channeling Mae as she told a small lie. “I was told the wrong time.”

The bouncer looked her over with a more critical eye, grunting. “Well. Hope whoever told you gets their shit rocked tonight.”

He opened the door for her, and she was instantly hit with a wall of noise. Hot air, humid from effort and shouting, hit her next, followed by the scent of sweat—and a little bit of blood. She tugged her hood over her head as she walked in, embracing a bit of stifling heat in exchange for a concealed appearance. It was doubtful anybody here would recognize her, though.

Though the area was centrally lit to highlight the festivities, she could tell this wasn’t a boxing gym—a fighting gym, but not for any discipline she knew. What she thought were people standing on the wall turned out to be body-opponent bags lined up with military precision. All the equipment was set with evident respect and intentionality, not a thing out of place as far as she could tell.

And in the center of the room stood a cage.

She’d done some research into what he’d been talking about. She knew most MMA fights took place in a fenced-in open-air ring, but those rings never had a lid. The cage walls were pretty high, about twice the height of the average man. It seemed less like a fighting ring for humans and more like an inhumane, fucked-up snow globe full of violence.

Surrounding it was a crowd of around seventy-five people, bunched so close it almost seemed they were part of the platform. Three sets of bleachers held the rest of the observers, and a half-dozen more leaned on the rail of a balcony overlooking all at one end of the cavernous space.

Inside the cage, two men fought with wicked-looking spears—halberds, if she remembered correctly. The crack! of the shafts connecting jarred her from her drifting fugue, and Osha approached the crowd so she wouldn’t be seen as an outsider and garner unwanted attention.

Was this where the stranger trained and fought? It had to be—one of the fighters slashed the other across the chest in a small spray of blood. Instead of crying out or screaming, the injured competitor groaned in frustration over the sound of mixed cheering and grumbling. It was the single most confusing reaction to violence she’d ever seen.

She got closer despite her self-preservation screaming otherwise. The heady scent of spilled blood hung in the air like incense, and this brutal, lawless place suddenly felt more sacredly profane than anywhere else she’d ever been. This was no church or temple, but it was powerfully holy nonetheless. 

Osha found a place for herself in the stands.

As the previous fighters left the cage and melted away into the locker rooms, two more took their place. The announcer, a tall, pale man with spindly old-man arms, called their names like a pro wrestling emcee. Some matches had both fighters wielding weapons; others only had one weapon thrown in the middle to be fought over for advantage. Very few matches were unarmed, and when they were, it was indescribably brutal to see. The rules of engagement became clear in one of those bare-knuckle fights:

First blood wins the bout but doesn’t stop it—only the timer, submission, or unconsciousness did. Only one submission happened during the night, and when it had, the crowd was in an uproar, near-humiliating the poor soul who didn’t want his shoulder dislocated.

It seemed that for legal purposes, some holds were barred here.

She traded off between watching the fight and watching the audience, and she couldn’t tell who was more bloodthirsty.

After about an hour of fights, some unspoken signal rippled through the crowd. All at once, a hush fell over the entire space, reverent as a moment of benediction.

“For our final match,” the announcer called, “we have moved away from spears and swords to return to Pure! NHB! Fighting!” The crowd joined in his excitement, rattling the old aluminum seats beneath her. A quick glance at the balcony showed it empty. 

“—I’ve got eighty on White-Top tonight.”

“You’re a fucking idiot.”

“Smiley can’t win every time.”

Osha listened in on the conversation beside her, keeping her eyes on the announcer grandstanding at the center of the ring. He vamped while two expedient workers squeegeed off the blood from the floor mat.

“If you’re still betting on that, you’re welcome to lose your money. The thing place worth placing bets on is in the inner-ring particulars.”

“Like what?”

“—bring you eight of the finest fighters this gym has to offer! In one corner, the rookie in yellow—”

“—Who goes down first, who does Smiley take down first—”

“The Dizzykid!”

“—and how long it’ll take to put ‘em down.”

Mild applause started as a shirtless man bounced into the ring. He did a hopping lap before settling against one of the corners. Rookie confidence, Osha’s fighting mind said. The yellow balaclava he wore looked fucking nasty, half stained with old blood. The two gamblers beside her spoke in unison.

“He’s going down first.”

She probably shouldn’t have laughed. She’d done her best not to draw attention to herself for the last hour of fights, but at the unanimous and bored condemnation of the Dizzykid, she couldn’t help herself. Luckily, the gamblers didn’t seem to hear it; even if they did, they didn’t care.

The announcer spoke through the rest of the introductions, men and women fighting in one bout together. Most of the contenders were fresh to this competition, but many bore scars that must have come from previous fights like the ones she saw before.

They all had ridiculous names, too: Dizzykid, White-Top, and a handful of others she didn’t care remembering.

The final two were introduced as repeat champions from the month before. The penultimate fighter, who wore a purple hood, was called Daybreak. She looked well-sunken into her role in the ring, all quiet confidence and restrained power.

“Daybreak was one of our two-left-standing last month and will get to defend her name and title just like her final counterpart: your nine-month reigning champion here to make it ten, the undefeated, the terrifying, SMILEY!”

The eighth fighter walked into the cage, and it instantly felt like she’d gone into freefall. Distantly, as if underwater, she could hear the crowd going wild for him. The seven fighters in the ring were already honed to precision, each beautiful and strong, but this one was heart-stopping. She clung to one solid second of denial before accepting the truth of who those huge, beefy biceps belonged to—

That was her stranger in the mask.

He wore a black balaclava. Stitched in silver to make a horrifying toothy smile, Smiley’s moniker was straightforward.

God, she hoped Smiley wasn’t his real name.

“Welcome, gentlemen—welcome, ladies.” The announcer addressed them directly, shifting from entertainer to referee. Osha did not need to strain to hear him speak because the room had gone quiet as a crypt in respect and anticipation.

The rules were simple: 30 minutes on the clock, eliminations by knockout, submission, or heavy injury.

“When you hear this whistle—” he blew a whistle four times.  “You will grab the cage with both hands and stand still until we drag out the fallen. When you hear this bell—” Ding! “The fight resumes. If you make it to the final two, congrats. If you don’t, it’s not my problem. Now: Fighters!” He blew his whistle four times.

Sixteen hands found the fence.

The announcer left the ring.

The crowd’s excitement built.

And when the bell went off—

Chaos.

Four of the fresh fighters descended on the stranger, hunting the biggest game in the cage. Osha watched in awe as he leaped straight into the air and grabbed the top of the cage. Two of the fighters whiffed their punches beneath him, and he came down right on top of them.

There were probably other things happening in the cage, but she could only watch him.

Brash and eager, the Dizzykid went down first, knocked out by the kick to the face the stranger gave him. White-Top went down next. One of the gamblers beside her groaned. Osha grinned.

The stranger was a blur in the cage, all his punches and kicks coming too fast for her to track at times. When he paused, facing away from her, her breath stuck in her throat at the sight of the thick, purple-white scar tissue slicing across his back. It made more sense now: why he was so dedicated to injury recovery and proper form.

Wouldn’t you, if you had your back broken in four places?

Her chance at melancholic reverie passed as her stranger continued to put down his remaining opponents. The other two had gone after Daybreak—if she went down, they might make it to the cage next month.

The bubbling energy of the crowd was infectious, and Osha gave in to the temptation to get a little reckless, joining the cheers. “Let’s go, Smiley! Put ‘em the fuck down!”

The stranger froze mid-swing.

Fortunately for him, the ref blew his whistle four times right then, and the fight paused.

Unfortunately for her, the stranger stalked to the closest fence near Osha. He held onto it but pressed closer, forehead against the chain links. He’s looking for me. The other fighters faced inward, but not him, readying themselves for the fight ahead.

His eyes blazed with heat as he scanned the crowd. He was like a rabid animal, an overheated gun, a bloody, jagged edge digging deep wherever he wanted to cut. When he found her, she felt it in her bones. She raised a hand and gave a cheeky wave, smiling.

He tilted his head to the side before sticking his fingers through the fence, waving as much as possible.

The body haulers left the ring.

The cage door closed behind them.

The stranger was still not looking away—

Ding!

The stranger took less than fifteen seconds to put down the remaining rookies, leaving him and Daybreak standing. The crowd rippled with unease. Even Daybreak seemed baffled, staggering a few steps back from the sudden total violence.

The stranger returned to where he’d been standing fifteen seconds before, pressing his face fully against the fence like Osha was nothing but inches away from him.

The crowd around her was stunned. “How’d he do that so fast?”

“Smiley is just playing with his food whenever the fights go longer than five minutes, isn’t he?”

“I think his first fight lasted eight.”

“How long was this? I can’t see the—”

“Three minutes?! What the—”

“Five takedowns tonight? Daybreak looks like she just shit her trunks.”

“Nah, Smiley respects her too much to—”

“I don’t think Smiley even looked her way tonight.”

Osha could feel eyes on her, but she didn’t look at them. She was still staring at the stranger. As the last bodies were dragged out of the cage, he drifted backward to the center for the results. After they were announced, he said something to the emcee, who nodded but didn’t seem surprised.

Daybreak and Smiley disappeared when they left the cage, and the crowd dispersed to mingle or otherwise leave. To avoid the curious stares, Osha found a dark corner to stand in. She’d become damn near nose-blind to the scent of blood, but the sight of it being squeegeed off the mats was still slightly morbid.

Someone approached her hiding spot.

“Are you Osha?”

It was the announcer. This close, he loomed—even taller than the stranger. Only then did she remember the bear spray in her sleeve.

“Who’s asking?”

“You can call me Mr. Wise. Smiley asked for you.” She could see the glint in his eyes. He was dangerous but in a different way than her stranger. “Will you come with me?”

Alarm bells rang like hell in her head, but she chose to dance along to the tune. “Lead the way.”

Mr. Wise led her to a small door near where she’d come in; stairs led to the level above and the bar below. It smelled more like cigarettes than blood in here. “Just up there. The black door at the end.” Then he left her alone.

At the end of the long, twisting flight of stairs, Osha found... dressing rooms? The landing she stood on was connected to a hall of doors, as well as an open archway to access the balcony from before. The doors she passed matched the balaclavas of the cage fighters: yellow, white, blue… and black at the end of the hall.

The first six doors were open and empty, but the black and purple doors for Smiley and Daybreak were closed. The second she stood before the black door, it swung inward, and there he was.

He’d taken off the mask. His hair was damp from the shower he must have taken, and some of it was twisted back out of his face with little fasteners, just like the night she met him. The body heat radiating off of him was felt even standing out there in the hall. It’d been six days since she last saw him, and the bright smile he gave her had her insides scrambling around like a game of musical chairs. Six days, and he still looked just as good as he did in her memory.

“Osha.”

His eyes burned with a fire she knew well—the last time she felt it, she’d been given a great shiny trophy and belt. Her stranger’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, and she spotted the darkening bruise forming on his jaw. The cut on his cheek from several days ago had healed, and the bruise around it had faded from a red-purple to a pale yellow-green. One bruise out, one bruise in. That was the price of fighting.

“Tell me your name isn’t really Smiley,” Osha blurted out.

His smile widened. “I’m only Smiley sometimes. Come in; I was doing cooldown.”

He opened the door wider for her to come in. His dressing room was sparse but not gross like the others she’d seen in the hall. After all, this room had been solely his for the last ten months. She spotted a few things she recognized on the small table: the black hoodie, backpack, and glasses. Hanging off two small clips was the mask he’d worn to fight, dripping wet.

She approached it curiously. “It’s a little freaky, isn’t it?” she said over her shoulder.

“I didn’t choose it.”

She turned to look at him. He was in a pair of low-hanging sweatpants, barefoot. Red blotches bloomed across his body, lucky shots while he made felling blows. He was holding his hands over his head, stretching his biceps, triceps, and other muscle groups that looked too good for her to think straight. He stood very still for her while she looked at him, and a little zing of pride and power zipped down her spine.

“But… I have to win it again every time I wear it.”

She didn’t know what to say when she met his eyes again, her gaze snapping up from where it had drifted to the waistband of his sweats. He was smirking a little. Caught.

He moved them away from the potentially awkward silence by sitting on a yoga mat and resuming his cool-down stretches. She took a seat on the only chair in the room.

“How’d you hear about the fights?” he asked, falling into a deep stretch. His flexibility shouldn’t have set her heart to stutter, but she’d never seen a man go so deep in her life. The scars on his back stood out in sharp relief from this angle, and this close, she could see that they were a mix of traumas: surgery and injury twisted over themselves in a snarling knot with no end.

It’s what her ankle looked like.

“I, uh, didn’t,” she said after a few seconds of silence. He turned his head to peek an eye at her. Go on. “I didn’t even know there was a gym. I just wanted to go to the bar, but the lights were off.”

“And you just went in?”

“The door was open. And…” She pulled the bear spray out of her sleeve and showed it to him before putting it in her bag. “I wasn’t without protection.”

“Smart girl.”

She nearly choked on air but quickly recovered. When her bag was zipped, she crossed her legs and cleared her throat. “You don’t live in the city this long and feel safe without a can of bear spray,” she said.

“You could carry an actual weapon.”

“I’d prefer not to.”

“Why?”

“I’d probably hurt myself before I hurt anybody else.”

He released the pose and adjusted his grip to stretch his feet and ankles. She recognized the different stretch combinations he was doing—she did them every night before bed. Her mind threatened to teeter into that can of worms, but he pulled her out of it.

“Don’t count yourself out, Osha. What’d I tell you? You’re a lion.” When he gave a breathy laugh and showed her his languid smile, she recognized more than the exercises—she saw more of herself in him than anticipated. His goofy grin wasn’t just part of a conjured persona. This was how he truly smiled when he hit that fighter’s high. It was how she smiled.

“I didn’t mean to distract you earlier.”

He laughed at the half-apology, pulling his feet in for a groin stretch. He tugged his shorts up his thighs for better flexibility, and he watched her reaction from the corner of his eye. His expression said, now, who’s distracted?

“You didn’t distract me,” he said, giving her a break and looking down. You surprised me, sure. I thought I got my bell rung and was hearing what I wanted.” He leaned into the stretch, groaning softly at the deeper burn. “I was glad to see you,” he said tightly. She wondered how much of it was from muscle strain and how much was from emotion.

Her heart galloped behind her ribs. Hearing him speak like that, make sounds like that—god, she was in trouble. She took a shuddering breath and held it to try and get her shit together, but it only half-worked.

“I was glad to see you, too.” She could only see a sliver of his face, but she saw him smile. “I liked, uh, seeing you fight. I’d been wondering about it for a while.”

“Oh, I’ve been on your mind?” he smirked at her, but his expression wasn’t remotely malicious.

“Can you blame me?”

The stranger seemed pleased with her answer, a shared refrain from several conversations together. He released the stretch and rolled seamlessly onto his back, holding one knee to his chest. He lolled his head to the side to look at her, self-satisfied. “Why did you come to the bar tonight, Osha?”

He was going to make her say it. Bastard.

“Well, Yord hasn’t broken the espresso machine, and you said you weren’t coming around anyway. You haven’t been at the apartment gym, and I couldn’t find anything about you on the internet to track you down. You’re very hard to get ahold of, you know.”

“I know.”

“So the last place I knew you might be… was here. Well, downstairs.”

He nodded, idly tracing his thumb over his kneecap. It was distracting. “You’ve been looking for me, then?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Damnit, hadn’t she said enough for him? He blinked at her, lazy as a cat but twice as sharp.

Fuck it.

“I wanted to see you.”

He made a pleased noise, switching to hold his other leg. He settled into the stretch, breathing slowly like he was savoring those five words he’d dragged past her lips. “Have you thought about my offer?”

She supposed she’d gotten what she wanted. If she was pursuing him this hard, she had her answer. Why did she go looking for him? She wanted to see him. Why did she want to see him? Because she wanted to train—or perhaps another reason she wasn’t being honest with herself about.

He released his leg and sat up fluidly, kneeling before her. He rested both hands on his thighs and tilted his head to the side, considering her openly. Messy-haired, skin still bright and flushed from the fight, kneeling on the floor, he looked penitent, beseeching.

“What do you want, Osha?”

“In order?”

“If you wish.” His lips twitched, suppressing a smile.

She held up three fingers, ticking them off one by one. “In order: I want your number, I want a drink, and I want you to train me.”

CHAPTER 7