#either i got lazy or she updated her pinned post because i find out everything i can about someone before i follow them

[dont-open-dead-inside-25]

oopsie... apparently i was following a radfem. was wondering why that (previous post minus my addition) was on my dash

[crqstalite]

pt. 1, unexpected (andronikos && mierrio)

this is gonna be bad, i’m just warning you now (i also think everything’s bad, but you be the judge of that). but i really wanted to write mierrio n andronikos to kick off the heritage universe, so this happened.

lowercase intended, primarily for aesthetic n bc i’m lazy sorry.

written 7.6.19. word count: 2,839.

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mierrio usually didn’t need a lot of prompting to relax. the ghosts are finally quiet (still binded to her, but hey, they could have some power she might need in the future), and the fury is a nice ship. with some particularily frivulous updates by her hand, it’s more like a castle than a ship to be completely honest.  feels like her own private getaway, if she didn’t share it with five others.

and she adores it. running a brush through her hair, her eyes flicker to the dress she’d picked out, sparkling in the dark light of her cabin, a gorgeous purple that she’d saved specifically for him. tonight, she’d asked khem to keep ashara and xalek under a watchful eye (she didn’t care what talos did as long as he didn’t tear her ship apart), because she and andronikos were going out tonight. a small miracle, after not even having a proper marriage ceremony (becoming a dark council member and finally getting rid of thanaton was a good replacement though), and she intended to enjoy it without any interruptions.

not that ashara and xalek were much of any bothers. ashara was always willing to learn and xalek was often… quiet at his post, the best any master could really ask for. talos mumbled away to himself in the cargo bay and khem kept to himself in the crew quarters. that left her and andronikos plenty of time to get up to things that would most likely make her mother roll in her grave, wherever she was. she didn’t know what it was, maybe his uncanny charm, maybe the way he made her scream his name in the darkness of their quarters, she didn’t know or care. she figured the dress would give him enough provocation to continue on with her after they returned to the ship.

satisfied with her hair, she pinned it back into the small bob she was now known for. she was going to shave it like andronikos had once suggested, but decided to keep it short and around her neck for now. privately, she’d told him he’d have nothing to pull on in a fit of passion, and that changed his mind quick enough. mierrio liked this look, being a darth often meant not running through trials and finding artifacts for a madwoman, so longer hair was no longer an issue. she found she loved showcasing her feminity and not being threatened or predated on for it, and her hair and choice of clothing was just one of those displays.

as a slave, she previously had no choice. now, she was as free as she’d ever be, so she took anything she could get.

stepping out of her cabin, she wraps her arms around herself underneath her poncho. it’s a little chilly, nothing she can’t handle, but personally she likes her room a little warmer. it takes a moment for the temperature change to settle in, but she catches the tail end of ashara’s cloak as she quietly steps out of the hallway leading to the exit of the ship. mierrio had been aware her apprentice had been out today with andronikos (doing what she didn’t remember or have enough willpower to care), but hadn’t been aware they’d need to sneak around to return. “ashara? i wasn’t aware you’d be back so soon.”

ashara froze, andronikos behind her as she held something close to her chest underneath her outer robes. “master! ah, i’m sorry i didn’t call ahead, something…came up is all and i needed to get back!”

“what came up?” now she’s curious. what could’ve prompted ashara to be so worried to drag andronikos all the way back to the ship? it could be heat stroke, but she doesn’t look terribly sweaty or hot. they’d gone out with plenty of water this morning, but they weren’t supposed to be back for another few hours. it must’ve been important, especially if andronikos didn’t stay out by himself.

she opens her mouth to inquire, when the…thing underneath ashara’s robes wriggles. mierrio freezes mid-step just before she’s about to reach her apprentice and husband, and locks eyes with her, stifling her yelp of fear. “ashara. what was that?”

“uh…nothing master!” she says a little too quickly, making moves to step backwards into the engine area, where she usually resides during the day, andronikos attempting to block mierrio’s view of her.

narrowing her eyes, mierrio raises her voice a bit, crossing her arms over her chest. “ashara zavros, what did you bring aboard my ship?”

she and andronikos nervously make eye contact, almost having a whole conversation between just those looks. and mierrio revel hates being left out of anything. however, her apprentice doesn’t need any more prompting before undoing the top of her robes and tenderly pulling out a tanned, yellow blanket. it’s clearly covering a bundle of some sort as mierrio tiptoes forward, brushing a loose hair away from her face as ashara hands it to andronikos softly, muttering “you explain it to her.”

“explain what?” she asks, almost getting a glance of what was in the bundle as andronikos holds it closer to his chest just out of view. “andronikos…”

“i’ll explain in a minute, sith. just promise you won’t have my head.” he says defensively. she gives him a look that makes him blush a bit in the dark lighting before she sighs, and nods.

“i won’t have your head, not for now at least.”

ashara visibly gulps as andronikos pulls a sliver of the blanket off the bundle. beneath it, is a sleeping green twi'lek infant. it’s tiny fists are balled up, close to their face, clearly dreaming as they breath softly, barely audible among the other sounds of the ship. they’re face is darker than their hands, so she figures he must’ve been out in the sun unprotected for a while (not unusual on tatooine at all) before they’d brought him back.

“andronikos revel, you brought a baby onto the ship.”

“yes?”

“why?”

“well, it’s kind of a long story.” he shifts the bundle to cradle them better as mierrio cocks a suspcious eyebrow, her eyes continually being dragged back to the baby as they shift ever so slightly against andronikos’ arms. “we were out in the dune sea, right? out there looting some of the pirates, business as usual. then, ashara wandered off, so i had to go find her,” ashara jabs him in his side (a move mierrio had once taught her during basic training without a saber), light enough not to make him drop their visitor, but hard enough to make him yelp ‘ow’. “not hard, obviously, but when i found her, she said she heard crying somewhere. so i followed her for a bit, and in a little camp nestled away near a cliff, we found a tent. that tent had this one in it.”

“there was nobody there, and with closer inspection, no one had been for a couple of days. to put it plainly, we figured no one was coming back for him.” ashara shrugs. “i’m sorry master, but we couldn’t just leave him out there all by himself.”

mulling over her present thoughts, she took a deep breath and exhaled. “and what did you intend to do with him once you arrived back on the ship?” they surely didn’t have the supplies to be raising a baby, they’d been running on fumes since they landed in mos ila. now that she thought about it, she had forgotten to remind the rest of the crew of that.

“well, we didn’t get that far once we got back to the spaceport. our immediate concern was making sure he stayed cool and hydrated.” ashara responded. “andronikos suggested raising him ourselves.”

“you did what?” she asked, quieter as she steeled her eyes on her husband.

“ashara suggested giving him to an orphanage, and i agreed.” he said, stepping back a bit from her nervously as she puts her hands on her hips. “'less you had another idea?”

she could hear the hope in his voice, that she would have another idea and possibly agree with his original suggestion. “my room, now. give him to ashara, we need to talk.”

“good luck.” mierrio could hear from her apprentice as she turned around, stalking right back to her room (well, their room, but it was difficult referring to it as such).

“nice knowing you, jedi.” andronikos responded, following after her.

-

“alright, what do you want to talk about, mier?” she must be giving him a sour look, because he’s trying to butter her up again. “c'mon babe, you’re not actually mad are you?”

“mad is an understatement, andronikos.”

“okay.” he takes his arm away from around her shoulders as she leans back against the wall in their quarters. “look, maybe not my best moment, but you sith are all about family right?”

“is that what you intended for us and this twi'lek to be? a family?” she sounds completely and utterly sarcastic, and she doesn’t care either. “stars, what’s gotten to you?”

“well, you don’t have to be so upset about it, sith.”

“i’d be less upset if you’d told me first.”

he rubs his temples as she’s trying to keep her simmering anger from boiling over. he had no bad intentions, she knows that. andronikos has never tried to hurt her, and she doubts he ever will, but for her to…to. to be a mother? is that what he intended for her to do if they did take this baby in?

oh stars. she can barely keep her own crew (much less herself) out of harm’s way. much less an infant that couldn’t even wield a blaster yet, and depended on her to keep them safe and warm and fed.

she panicking unnecessarily now, she can tell, but having to take care of the children of the dancers had when she was still a slave on nar shaddaa hadn’t ended well. she missed those that survived, and often felt that she’d failed them in some way. and while she’s not a teenager anymore, she’s also aware there’s at least a decade seperating her and her husband. something they’d never discussed, but something she was always mildly aware of.

“look, mierrio. i know maybe this isn’t…well perfect-”

“far from it.”

“but i mean, not saying it’s always been a dream but i like entertaining the idea of you and i…y'know raising a kid or two. you don’t have to say yes, i’m not forcing you to, taking him back to dromound kaas probably isn’t advisable. but-” he’s searching for words as she goes through her own thoughts. she’d never taken andronikos for a family man (he’s a pirate for star’s sake, and she’s a sith. either of them could die, leaving the other a single parent or in the worst case scenario, leaving their child as an orphan), but she’d be lying if she said she never entertained the idea of children as well. especially after all of the talk about leaving a legacy behind when she was dead. maybe force-sensitive, maybe not. darker skin, lighter skin. brown eyes, green eyes. black hair, brown hair. an adventerous little girl, a quickshot little boy. she’d never gotten over the idea of having one of her own, holding an infant in her arms with the surname revel and part of the kallig legacy.

them being hers. being theirs. being a product of her love for this insufferable pirate.

“i never said no, andronikos.” she eventually says, breaking the silence.

“i-what?” he looks stunned for a second.

“i never said no. i just said i’d be less upset if you’d informed me of your…find, earlier.” she muses for a moment, before continuing on, partially daydreaming (also very slowly realizing his comment about sending him to dromound kaas held some truth with him being a twi'lek), “it is true, sith do value family. and while i am most definitely not ready to carry ours… i would be willing to raise this one as our own.”

“you would?” it’s not elation in his eyes, or maybe it is, but he’s most definitely happy. something that sometimes takes a bit for mierrio to figure out if he’s not directly smiling (she’s always been bad with emotions, apparently having a resting bitch face and more oblivious than she’d like to be). “means a lot, mierrio.”

“oh, i know.” she smirks, sidling up to him as she leans up against his body. his kisses are like fire as they battle for dominance for a moment, though as always, she let’s him win. “alright, don’t get yourself too excited, andronikos.”

“fine, fine.” he doesn’t pull away from her though. some days she feels like his eyes stare into her soul, and unlike other men, she welcomes it. she has nothing to hide from him, and she’s not afraid he’ll wound her if she says something wrong. he brushes a loose strand of hair from her face as she kisses him again. there’s one of those mischevous smiles on his lips again, and it’s absolutely infectious. “we might as well get back before your apprentice assumes i’m dead.”

“if we have to.” she responds, as her eyes wander to her small cabinet that stored her more…personal effects, almost groaning as she imagines the dress. “you also ruined my evening, andronikos.”

“ah, i’m sorry sith. know you were looking forward to it.” one hand snakes down her hip, and she smirks, figuring what he’s implying. “guess we have one more thing to celebrate tonight, don’t we?”

“it seems that way, doesn’t it?” she asks, allowing herself one more kiss in the darkness of their room. her entire life has just changed, most likely for the better, hopefully. she hasn’t met a lot of other mothers, especially those that are sith, so she’s going in blind. she’s praying to whatever deity that’s out there she doesn’t get herself or this baby killed.

-

returning the communal area in the ship, ashara still has the baby with her, but talos is with her now, as well as khem and xalek lurking a few feet behind her. she’s seen ashara smile before, but there’s something absolutely whimsical about seeing her smile at the twi'lek infant. she looks up once she sees mierrio return, though her smile fades to her disappointment. “master.”

“ashara.” she’s mulling over how to respond, sitting down next to her as her apprentice straightens rigidly against the couch. she’d have to talk to ashara later, and possibly xalek about not being as afraid of her as they seem to be. softening her features requires a bit of concentration, but she does so. “may i hold him?”

“yes, of course.” she says, carefully handing her the small baby. she seems as if ashara truly does not want to let him go, so instead of heading back to her quarters as she’d originally wanted to, she stays on the couch.

he’s a cute little thing, with startling purple eyes that stood out against his jade green skin. she’s not sure whether he’s even directly looking at her, as they wander from person to person. but, mierrio can feel herself internally relaxing, allowing herself a smile. it becomes more and more of a reality that this is her son, or at least would be legally once they registered him as such.

“he’s cute, ain’t he mierrio?” andronikos asks, standing behind the couch as he leans over to look at him. “told you we wouldn’t die, ashara.”

“i had my concerns, i’ll admit that.” she says, smiling.

“what shall we do with him, my lord?” talos questions.

she scans the others faces, ashara’s hopeful, much like talos’. khem…well khem doesn’t seem to have any, nor does xalek. however, she tilts her head backwards to meet andronikos’, who while surprised, understands her. it’s a brief kiss, one that leaves her wanting more, but she figures it’s enough of an explanation. it’s the first time they’ve ever kissed in front of the crew, but turning back to them, she smiles. “we’ll keep him.”

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god this is so bad. i’m actually crying with how bad this is. i can’t promise it gets better but i can promise more of it.

i also like to headcanon my companions bonding together. the companions of the week? mierrio’s apprentice n her husband. i headcanon andronikos as very,, per se chaotic at times. ashara is most likely still pretty gullible,, but also p chaotic in her own right.

tl;dr i think they’d be good friends, bonding from taris to hoth without anyone else but khem val n his possession by zash.

[eleanor-writes-stuff]

maybe i’m a crook (for stealing your heart away) [ficlet]

Eight months after Crait, these are the facts:

1. The Resistance needs money - a lot of it, and soon. 2. The Force Bond is still alive, and things are heating up. 3. As ruler of the First Order, the Supreme Leader is one of the richest men in the galaxy.

OR: the one where Rey makes Ben pay for something she was gonna do anyway.   

If you want some post-TLJ Reylo (featuring survivor!Rey, conflicted!Ben, and post-coital cuddles), this is the fic(let) for you. It also turned out oddly sappy towards the end, if that’s your cup of tea.

UPDATE: now available on AO3.

“I’ve never–” Rey whispers into the darkness, her eyes intent on Ben’s as her hand halts his path downwards. “I’ve never done this before.”

Ben stills, gasps softly, and Rey feels a tendril of victory curl low in her stomach.

“It means something to you, doesn’t it?” she murmurs, watching the way his Adam’s apple bobs nervously even as he looms above her. Her fingers lace with his and their joined hands are warm on her exposed skin, and for just a moment she hesitates to go through with it, this insane plan of hers.

But she thinks of their starving troops, of the soldiers they’re losing to perfectly curable illnesses, and her resolve returns.

She brings her free hand up to card through Ben’s hair. “It means something to you that you’re the first, that no one else has ever touched me like this.”

Ben drops his head to her shoulder, burrows into the curve of her neck. “Stars, Rey–” he groans, lips warm on her skin.

Rey lunges forward, rolls them over and straddles a dazed Ben into the thin sleeping pallet of her quarters, the plush mattress of his. It’s dizzying, the way their surroundings shift from his to hers to his again in the blink of an eye, so she keeps her gaze firmly on him, solid and present and unchanging.

“If it means something,” she recites from memory, from a lesson she learned on Jakku a lifetime ago, “then it’s worth something.”

Confusion pierces through the cloudy haze in Ben’s eyes. “Rey, what–”

She allows her lips to curve into a smirk as her eyes flash with a challenge, and Ben tenses as she leans forward to pin his hands in place on either side of his head. “What’s more important to you, Ben? Letting the Resistance starve to death, or being the only one to ever have me?”

Only, not first. She realizes her slip-up the second she speaks, but thankfully he doesn’t seem to catch on. Confusion slowly gives way to understanding, to conflict, and she watches his throat work as he tries to form a sentence.

“Rey,” he says slowly, hesitantly. “Are you…”

Something in her breaks at the sound of his wavering voice, at the sight of the little furrow between his brows as the situation dawns on him. But there’s no going back now.

“You have until tomorrow night to decide,” she tells him, and then she slams the bond shut and collapses onto her cot as the solid weight of him disappears from underneath her.

Rey lies awake all night, sleepless with equal measures of anticipation and regret.

“Bet you the First Order never has to worry about food,” Poe mutters over lunch one day, his forehead creased in concern as his eyes sweep the rest of the mess to find everyone splitting decades-old rations that will barely sate their hunger. “Can you imagine how much money those bastards probably have?” 

“A lot,” Finn tells them, his eyes gazing into the distance, into memories he usually does his best not to think of. “A whole kriffing lot.”

Rose scowls. “So what? It’s blood money, all of it.”

Poe shrugs. “I’m just saying,” his voice is neutral, calm, everything his worried eyes aren’t, “blood money or not, it must be nice to send all of your troops to bed at night with a full stomach, to have the resources to patch up each and every wounded soldier.”

All four of them turn to the swinging doors of the mess, beyond which lies their makeshift med bay and two dying men they can’t save.

“Yeah,” Rose says faintly after a moment. “Yeah, I guess you’re right.”

They go back to their stale wartime rations, and the barest hint of a plan begins to take root in the back of Rey’s mind.

(Three days later she asks the General how much the Resistance would need to get back on its feet, and is presented with a figure so inconceivable her mind crashes trying to process it. “A whole kriffing lot,” Finn had said. She hopes he’s right.)

After, with Ben’s arm slung around her waist and her cheek pressed against his heart, Rey feels her bones grow heavy with sorrow. 

“I’m sorry, Ben,” she shifts in his arms to look up at him. “I’m sorry our first time had to be this way. I did what I had to do, but–”

Ben tugs at her and she follows willingly, allows him to pull her closer so that she’s fully on top of him with her hands folded over his chest and her chin tucked into the cradle of her arms.

“Just tell me one thing,” he says quietly, his eyes dark with emotions she can’t read, isn’t sure she’d want to even if she could. “If it had been anyone else – if someone kind and charming and good suddenly appeared and offered you double, triple… would you have done it?”

“No,” Rey tells him instantly, without a moment’s thought. She can’t even bear to think of it, won’t let him do so either. Her next words she picks more carefully, weighs the cost of her confession against potential future gain and decides to hell with all of that. “It was always going to be you. It’s only ever going to be you.”

Ben smiles at her, slow and soft. “Okay,” he murmurs, hands coming to rest on her lower back.

“Really?” Rey feels a matching smile tug at her lips. “We’re okay?”

“I don’t know about you,” he grins, all lighthearted and happy and Ben as his hands move to skim along her sides, his warm fingertips dancing up and down her ribs and waist and hips in a decidedly playful move, “but I’m more than okay.”

Rey allows an unfamiliar giggle to bubble past her lips. Tomorrow she’ll present the General with the credits, assure her they were gained through honest means and implore her not to ask more questions. Tomorrow the Resistance will get back to its feet and gear up for yet another fight against the First Order.

But for now she’ll allow herself tonight, allow her and Ben this one moment of peace before they’re forced to lock this memory away and focus on reality. And who knows – if the conflict in him ever turns to resolution, maybe she’ll be able to tell the General where the money really came from after all. Knowing that he helped them long before his defection might endear him to the Resistance when the time comes.

“What are you thinking about?” Ben asks, watching her with a lazy, fond smile as she rolls off of him and burrows into his side. He’s warm, and she’s comfortable, and her eyelids are starting to feel heavy.

“Us,” she tells him simply, pressing a kiss to his shoulder, “and our future.”

Ben holds her close and brushes his lips along her temple. “We’ll have one, Rey. I don’t know how, but I promise you we’ll have a future together someday.”

Rey sighs happily and allows her eyes to fall shut. “I know,” she whispers, her voice and his touch drifting further away as she gives in to the pull of sleep. “I’ve seen it.”

This turned out... weird. But let’s be real, it was weird from the start. A while back I had this idea about Rey realizing how whipped Kylo is and using that to get him to send food and bacta and all sorts of stuff to the Resistance, and Kylo would 100% see what was going on but he wouldn’t mind anyway because it makes her happy and screw the First Order, he kinda hates them now.

Then things got out of control and this tiny fic happened instead. It feels really OOC to me, which is saying something considering the fact that I usually write the most ridiculous modern AUs. 

Anyway. I hope y’all enjoyed even a tiny part of this. And as usual, please don’t hesitate to like/reblog/comment if you liked it or have any thoughts you’d like to share. Thanks for reading!