#valath legacy

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because @magicallulu7 has been working very hard to compound my brainrot about Kitiver, I now have a sappy little piece about him and Theron set shortly before Umbara. So. I made the sap angsty. anyway

Theron awoke to the feeling of a montral bumping up against his nose. Kit had curled up again, seeking out Theron like a tooka hiding in the crook of their owner’s knee. Theron smiled and wriggled back slightly to get a good look at him.

There was a little puddle of drool on the sheet beneath Kit’s face. Probably not what any of the Force-users who gave Kit a wide berth in the Enclave would expect, but he’d always been contradictory. Terrifying one second and sweet the next.

Not that Theron hadn’t been surprised when they first met, too. The dossier on the man who killed the Emperor had been thorough, listing his most heroic moments and his cruellest in even, clinical terms. Made an honorary general but never a Jedi Master, due to Satele’s concerns about Kit’s fall, he had seemed to accept the decision. The folks who compiled the dossier hadn’t been so sure, which was how Theron knew now that none of them had ever spoken to Kit. He hated the title of General, and he hated not being a Master – but he didn’t blame Theron’s mother. He blamed himself.

Anyway, the stories had led Theron to expect a skilled fighter with a predilection for violence that outstripped the Jedi way. Kit was all those things, but in conversation he was shy and retiring, always asking for clarification or looking to someone else for instructions. Theron had been a bit too distracted back then to put the pieces together about him, but he’d figured it out when they met up after Tython: Kit turned all his anger inward. Every perceived failure had compounded to make those yellow sparks in his eyes. So long as a person didn’t do something wrong, he wouldn’t blame them.

The thought wasn’t as comforting as it had been a year ago. Theron had done something very, very wrong. Just because it was the right thing to do didn’t change that.

Still, Kit didn’t know yet. Theron was selfish enough to take advantage as long as he could.

“What are you looking at?”

During Theron’s reverie, Kit had woken up. He uncurled his spine, wincing slightly as he stretched. He always held awkward positions too long in his sleep. Now that he had a clear shot, Theron gave in to the urge to put his hand against Kit’s warm, strong chest. Kit looked bemused, but he wriggled a little closer.

“Memorising you,” Theron said.

“Are you planning to go somewhere?”

Yes. Theron swallowed.

“I do this a lot,” he said, not lying. “You don’t usually wake up.”

“Oh,” Kit said. He looked genuinely surprised – as if all the things they’d said and done still didn’t add up to one hopelessly in love Theron Shan. Theron wanted to prove to him, once and for all, that he was worth it. He also knew that all Kit would see for a long, long time was someone who’d thrown him away.

“I…” He needed to say it. No hesitation, no distraction, just vulnerable honesty for once in his life. “Kit, I’m not great with the grand declarations, but you know I love you, right?”

He looked even more startled.

“Wow,” he said. “You’re – I know. You told me that last night, too.”

“That was a little different energy,” Theron said. Kit laughed.

“I love you, too,” he said. “Even if you are weirdly sentimental this morning.”

“Hey, you bring it out of me,” Theron said, only too happy to leave the sincerity out of his tone and return to the usual teasing. For a little while longer, at least, Kit would know the truth.

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...found this post on my own main blog while looking for something else and. i know in my heart of hearts that this is basically what went down when Ven was on Rishi pretending to be a pirate.

True oc question: who is most likely to pull the psych "hwheevil" bit as their grand master plan

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Exchei! The kind of Sith Inquisitor who zoned out during most of the Sith Code out of a petty hatred for the Sith who were using her but zeroed in intensely on the "through the Force my chains are broken" part. Undeniably Sith in emotion and method (big fan of killing people who piss her off), she refuses to allow slavery or any similar thing in her presence and prefers to let people live if they don't spark her hatred, building her power base through gratitude and trust rather than out-and-out fear.

Some of my more merciful Sith are that way out of pragmatism, knowing that gratitude means people will do things for you; Exchei is on some level aware of this kind of thing, but she does things solely because they feed her feelings. She will kill you if she hates you, and she will spare you if she feels sorry for you or you've impressed her. Her time as a slave means that, although she very much craves power, she refuses to subjugate others to get it. She spends a lot of time with Khem being like "ok but what if we weren't bound to each other. what if I just said 'go do whatever' and then we can just be friends" while Khem is like. "Did you miss the part where I want to eat you?"

Her relationship with Andronikos is a good example of how impulsive her feelings and actions can be - she goes from "this is some guy I guess. nice to flirt with. we might have sex." to "I have never loved anyone like this" in the span of one conversation, because he gives he a gift and no one has ever done that before. Luckily for her, he backs this up with various other kindnesses and affection, but her quickness to trust people who are good to her has definitely hurt her at times. She's jaded enough not to trust Zash, as she sees her apprenticeship as being a continuation of her enslavement, but when people she sees as equals are revealed to have lied to her it blindsides her every time.

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Posting more little bits and pieces of my ocs' shenanigans - this is Andronikos/Exchei (my SI) but like. it's about how Exchei and Talos are besties. That's all I ever talk about with her whoops

Andronikos didn’t usually let pillow talk turn to the subject of other people, especially men who wouldn’t shut up about Sith ruins or whatever. But Exchei was excited about something Talos had told her.

“Sorry,” she said after a minute, realising Andronikos had nothing to say. “He went on about it for hours.”

“I don’t know how you put up with the guy,” Andronikos said. To his surprise, Exchei scowled.

“He knows more about all of this ancient Sith business than any of us, even Khem!” she protested hotly.

“Sure, but he’s…” Andronikos didn’t even know if there was a word for it. He waved his hand desperately. Exchei would know what he meant. Everyone knew what Talos Drellik was like the minute they met him.

“I can actually learn from him,” Exchei hissed angrily. She stood, gathering her robe around her. Andronikos scrambled to his feet as well, cursing his stupid mouth for ending a good night this early.

“Hey, I’m sorry,” he said. “What is this, huh? You want to invite him in sometime? I wouldn’t mind, I guess. He’s… all right. Bet there would be fun ways to keep his mouth shut.”

“It’s not like that,” Exchei said, but she rolled her eyes fondly. She was still holding her robe closed with one hand. Considering she’d once walked around the ship half-naked to get a bottle of wine for the both of them, heedless of Khem and Ashara both trying to avert their eyes, it got Andronikos a little worried.

“What is it like?” he asked.

“I can learn from him,” she said again, sullenly. “I’ve never – Zash hardly counts. Harkun is a pile of shit masquerading as a Sith. No one has ever… taught me things.”

Gently, he reached out, easing her hand off the closure of her robe. It fell open again, and he looked at the scars across her breasts. She hadn’t seemed to mind them, but now her shoulders caved in slightly as if to hide.

“I wonder, sometimes,” she said in a small voice that he would never have known was hers, if he wasn’t watching her lips. “If maybe Talos would be as kind if I wasn’t Sith. If anyone would, but – he’s so excited to tell me things. To teach me. I think maybe he would.”

Andronikos doubted it. Drellik was Imperial, through-and-through. A quirky one, but one who’d never had cause to doubt that his way of things was the right way, simply because that was how it had always been.

But hey. What did he know? Nothing, except what Exchei needed to hear right now. He could even say it without really lying.

“Maybe,” he said. “We can’t know. But now that he knows you, the next slave he meets, they’ll for sure get to see that kindness. You got that kind of effect on people.”

“If you tell anyone about this I will kill you,” she said. Andronikos grinned. Familiar territory at last.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’m sure you’d make it fun for me, though.”

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Ok, ok, I am totally capable of continuing to post about dumbasses I made up without an anxiety spiral and to provide it I'm posting about the guy whose entire story is an anxiety spiral:

Kitiver Valath, a Jedi Knight who really thought he'd be a supporting player and can't understand why people keep making him into a starring role. As a young Jedi, he spends most of his time unsure if what he's doing is right. Unfortunately, in the midst of war "right" is hard to find even for people without his level of doubt.

In his youth, Kit never made a decision if he could help it, always looking to his master, Kira, or Satele for clues on how to proceed if they were options, and if they weren't he'd turn to the nearest Republic official. Running around the galaxy trying to stop all these superweapons and then fight the emperor meant he spent a lot of time being told the best thing he could do was kill every last Imperial. As much as Kit wanted to be a good, compassionate Jedi, it started to wear him down. As full of personal doubt as he was, if so many people said violence was the only thing to carry them through, who was he to argue?

But every kill made him angrier at himself, more convinced that he was too weak to be trusted as a Jedi, launching a nasty spiral that only got worse with every responsibility the Jedi Order gave him. By the end of the class story he's found a kind of confidence, and the ability to make snap decisions, at a great cost: he no longer believes he's capable of being a good Jedi, or even a good person, but he knows he's a good fighter and killer and trusts that people in his life such as Kira or his best friend Kaoja (my consular) will put him to use for the sake of good. Fully fallen and emotionally withdrawn from anyone who he didn't already know, the only two paths he saw for his own future were dying in battle or, should the war end, running away to be a hermit who couldn't hurt anyone else.

In the canon of my soul, although he's not my official Commander, he's the first of my characters to meet Theron. His skill in a fight and disconnect from the Jedi Order makes him an ideal choice for the whole Tython/Korriban shenanigan, and the Revanites were almost right in expecting him not to be an issue - he doesn't believe he'll be a good ally for Theron and refuses to help the investigation, though he's also the one who recommends my eventual Commander for the ensuing intrigue. He spends his time a hermit if Kaoja or my Commander don't drag him into things, and when he does go into a fight his anger and self-loathing are the driving factors behind everything he does. Even the feelings that spark between him and Theron are subject to the same issues: Kit adores Theron, but thinks that anyone who loves Kit that much must have something deeply wrong with them.

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Ri'gastio! I may feel bad about all the killing he does, but he never has. A former slave turned bounty hunter with a deep hatred for pretty much everyone except for pretty women who could kill him, his defining character traits are the desire to piss everyone off and his tendency to kill people he should probably have kept alive. We're talking about a guy who gets along with Skadge.

So Rig's name is not an accurate Chiss name really, and this is both on purpose and because I: do not understand Chiss naming. If you do, please save me. Anyway he's just faking it til he makes it as far as being Chiss goes, having grown up completely separate from that culture as a slave in the Empire. There is one person in the galaxy he completely trusts, or would actually do something nice for with no ulterior motive, and that's his fellow ex-slave Exchei. Of course, he appreciates that she ends up on the Dark Council and therefore he can trust that she'll always have a job for him, but once upon a time they were two fucked up kids relying on each other to get through an awful situation.

After the slave transport ship he was on got hijacked and the slaves released, he decided to set himself up as a bounty hunter for two reasons: killing with impunity sounded like a fun time and a way to get out his anger at the world, and if he got good enough the Empire would rely on him in a way that means he can actually choose to deny them services if he wants to. Secretly desperate to feel like he belongs someplace, instead of actually pursuing a positive relationship he belittles the people he thinks have rejected him or would reject him - the Empire, Mandalorians, the Chiss - and ignores any overtures of friendship. His crew he keeps around because he feels like he has control of them, and that's as close to a family as he feels safe having.

His relationship with Exchei starts to fall apart as she finds people she cares for elsewhere, and after Zakuul comes onto the scene he starts taking jobs for them - they can pay, after all, and to him that's all that matters. This does not make Exchei terribly happy, as she sees them as the Enemy. Though they still occasionally slip into bed together when they meet up and she still will hire him if she needs a bounty hunter, their relationship never recovers from figuring out how fundamental their differences in morality are.

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There were a lot of things Corso might have imagined about the first time he got hurt bad, working with the captain. Figured he’d say something like that it served Corso right, maybe that he should have known better than to chase after the captain like a lost pup – but that wasn’t how it happened. It happened like this:

They went around a corner prepared for Imps, and got a Sith. Corso barely had time to register the agonising heat in his gut before he was sprawled on the ground as the captain danced around the Sith’s increasingly frustrated lightsabre strikes. Had the captain shoved him? Corso had thought he was all height, no muscle. He tried to sit up, to pull his blaster, to help, but all he could do was cry out in pain as the world whited out. When his vision came back the Sith was dead, a smoking hole between his eyes, and the captain was at his side.

“Risha,” the captain called grimly over comms. “Get your ass out here.”

He tugged Corso’s shirt off the lightsabre wound, pulling kolto from his pack as he did. Carefully, the captain smoothed kolto over the wound, unflinching as Corso hissed in pain. Whatever Risha said to him, it didn’t make him happy.

“I don’t give a damn,” the captain said. “We’ll come back later. There were Sith here. We need a new plan anyway.”

Corso frowned – this job was important – but the captain fixed him with a cutting glare before he had a chance to do more than open his mouth.

“This is only going to dull the pain,” the captain said as the burning sensation faded slightly. “I’m going to pick you up. It’ll hurt. Don’t shout.”

Corso tensed, half expecting to be thrown over the captain’s shoulder like a sack of vegetables, but the captain’s hands were surprisingly gentle as he eased his arms around Corso, carrying him like a bride. Corso blinked, then shook the metaphor from his mind.

It did hurt, every couple steps jarring his wound, but Corso had an easy time of it. He could occupy himself with trying to figure the captain out, like always. He looked grim and angry. Captain always did. But this time he wasn’t angry at Corso. His grip was still almost tender around Corso.

Corso had figured the captain’s variety of battlefield medicines were mostly for his own benefit. Guy got into a lot of scrapes, after all, and didn’t make many friends.

But this – this was something else.

Risha met them about halfway to the spaceport on a stolen speeder. The captain bundled Corso into the backseat, strapping him in carefully without a word to Risha. As he slid into the seat next to her, Risha glanced over her shoulder at Corso.

“That doesn’t look pretty,” she said. “I’m sure your farmboy will survive, though.”

“Drive,” the captain hissed. If either of them said anything after that, Corso didn’t know what it was. He passed out as the speeder took off.

He woke to someone’s gloved hands on his bare skin. He groaned, lifting his head just in time to see the captain step back sharply like he was afraid of Corso knowing who’d cared for his wound.

“Aw,” Corso couldn’t resist saying. “You really do care, huh, captain?”

The captain smiled for a split second before scowling.

“Don’t get yourself stabbed again,” he said. “I don’t have the time or the patience to train a new sidekick.”

Corso laughed, then winced. The captain frowned and took a step forward, but Corso waved him off.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I won’t make you look after me too much longer. Be back up on my feet soon.”

“No, you won’t. I’m the expert here, and you’re off your feet for two days at least.”

Corso choked back another laugh. Who’d have thought the undernourished jerk with the itchy trigger finger was so nice to invalids? Then again, Corso should have. He’d seen the number of times the captain went out of his way to help someone without even pretending to put up a fight.

“Well, thanks for the save at least,” he said.

“Hey, what am I gonna do? Drag Risha out of the cargo hold?”

“She came out when you called,” Corso said. “Bet that’s got you feeling something.”

“Yeah,” the captain said. “Pissed she couldn’t do it before you got sliced up.” He wrinkled his nose, looking annoyed for a second, then pulled his gloves off and squeezed Corso’s shoulder gently. “Rest up,” he said. “We’ll be back in no time. Enjoy the break while you have it, Corso.”

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👀 Describe your OC through the eyes of another person! (bonus + specify who)

for kit 👀

Thank you for the ask!!! also the chance to cry over kit So I saw this ask and thought "ooh I could do a follow up on the Theron/Kit stuff!" and then immediately that snowballed into its own thing so. That's coming in a hot second because it's twice as long as this. but first have a little bit of Kira looking at baby!Kit back in the early days pre-fall

When Kira first heard about this super great padawan, she had not expected a young Togruta tripping over every third word. The fighting was a little more impressive, she could give him that – but it really was like pulling teeth to get a decisive answer out of him. She got the feeling that if he could pull his lekku across his face to hide, he would. Like a kid in an oversized sweater.

At least Kitiver was nice, though. All that anxiety made for one gentle master, and he was pretty apologetic about the whole “we’re the same age but suddenly I’m in charge of you” thing. Kira had to drive most of their conversations, which usually ended with some variation on Kit telling her that he wasn’t sure what she had to say was in line with the Jedi code, but also he wasn’t the expert. It wasn’t how Master Kiwiiks had run things, but Kira appreciated he took her thoughts seriously.

Even if his awkward, noncommittal dismissals made her think twice about most of them, somehow, anyway. He was kind of hard to disappoint. Like a baby animal. All big brown eyes set into a soft purple face that smiled easily even when he was nervous. He walked around with his broad shoulders curled inward and his head ducked, even though he ran no risk of his montrals hitting anything on the ship even with his height. Kit just never seemed to want to take up space.

Kira would just have to do it for both of them. Honestly, in a lot of ways, she suspected she was the master in the relationship. If she needed to call Kit that to boost his ego, then maybe the way Masters Orgus, Kiwiiks, and Satele had set this up was the right way after all.

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🌼 Write a short drabble from your OCs POV meeting their LI (or if they don’t have a love interest, their best friend. If you don’t want to do a drabble, describe their first meeting instead!)

For Kit

this is actually so funny because I was just thinking about how little I've written for Kit and Theron rip. thank you for reading my mind and also just sending me this ask in general!!!

It is late and writing is hard, but their first meeting is just how it goes in the game where you get recruited to fight on Korriban, albeit on the inevitable day when I do write that part out it'll be flavoured with a lot of Kit's self-loathing disguised as introspection and a smattering of "this guy is hot. now what" because Kitiver Valath has never had a single thought that didn't send him into a panic spiral. Theron being Theron is very focused on the mission at hand the whole time and only kind of notices that Kit is unusually flustered around him. Also, Kit immediately asked if Theron was related to Satele upon meeting him, because he was thinking Theron might have preconceived notions about him being a fallen Jedi, and Theron took that to mean Kit had preconceived notions about Theron. Because they're dumb like that.

However, I do have this little not-technically-a-drabble from deep in the vaults about one of their slightly later meetings, because the fact that Theron says "I need a drink" to signal that he wants to talk to your character is... too good to pass up.

“I don’t know about you, but I could use a drink,” Theron said meaningfully. Kit blinked, too stunned to muster a response as Theron walked past. It had obviously been an invitation. Maybe in a darker tone than Kit might have expected, but it wasn’t like Kit had ever asked or been asked for this kind of thing before. And Theron was – not that Kit had noticed, being a Jedi. Even if he was a terrible one. Honestly, would meeting a man for drinks be so bad, given the ways Kit had already fallen? And Theron didn’t seem to flinch back at the sight of his eyes, had only raised an eyebrow when Kit accidentally let a little lightning loose. It would be nice to be around someone who wasn’t afraid, and who wasn’t trying to push Kit one way or the other. “Jedi = meet Theron?” T7 asked. “Yes,” Kit said. “Yeah, I – will. A drink sounds good. Uh –“ “Have fun,” Kira said, and Kit didn’t know what expression he’d find on her face if he looked but he knew from the incredulous tone that he wouldn’t appreciate it. “I’ll be wandering the fleet.” Colonel Darok didn’t even acknowledge them as they left. That was for the best. Even as Kit rehearsed the things he might say to Theron – how did people flirt – he couldn’t shake the feeling that something with those attacks had been very, very wrong.

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The problem with having distinct universes for my ocs is that i have to jump through some weird hoops to get Nalyan and Vyme in a room together. Like - we have an unflinchingly rude hero medic and an unfailingly polite menace to society. Nalyan hates Sith so much for everything that's been done to him and his family, and Vyme has no political or religious opinions whatsoever beyond the knowledge that if he spouts the Sith Code other Sith are probably going to be nicer to him. They've both been hurt so deeply by their relationship to the Force through no fault of their own, and Nalyan wishes he could bring himself to use it and Vyme wishes he could bring himself to leave it behind. They're so polar opposite in a lot of ways -

and then they're the most devoted older brothers who were ever separated from their younger siblings for huge swathes of time. They both dedicate their lives upon reuniting with their siblings in the Alliance era to making sure their respective alliance commander siblings can succeed in everything they do. Nalyan does everything he does for Ven, and Vyme for Caibos, and they're both the kind of person who would see that in the other person and immediately decide they're kindred spirits even if they still hate and resent everything else about each other. Like they wouldn't be happy about it. but they'd be ride or die from the moment they realised they're both defined by being big brothers

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Thavi Eidobe (queen of the autogenerated name but shhh), a Sith warrior with no particular ambitions or predilection toward cruelty and yet somehow more dangerous than most of my Sith. She only kills who she's tasked to kill, and likes to ensure people are left alive to owe her favours. She has no desire to rise in rank, instead preferring to be her master's most trusted servant and so use her influence more subtly, without risk of someone targeting her to take her place.

In-game, of course, she goes through the Sith warrior storyline, during which she falls for Malavai Quinn. They're very well-suited in many ways - a serious disposition, awareness of who's in charge, a pragmatic approach directed toward achieving the best possible outcome for those they serve. In the story of my soul, she's actually part of a second generation of ocs, and her version of Quinn is... less easily persuaded away from his prior employer, if you know what I mean.

The consummate officer Thavi falls for is a little too old for her at seventeen; usually Thavi is on guard for people using her, as she knows from experience with her master what that looks like. However, she's secretly a romantic. He is kind and caring and says wonderful things, and she ends up blindsided when it turns out he was watching her on behalf of the enemies of her second master, Exchei.

Not that Thavi would blame him if he would just apologise and change. Her first meeting with Exchei was when she still served her previous master, who had Thavi attack one of Exchei's apprentices in an effort to dent her power base. One of Thavi's only unsuccessful assassination attempts, this event went unpunished, but Thavi and Exchei each knew the other was aware of what really happened. When Exchei finally killed Thavi's previous master, she didn't want Thavi coming after her, and she didn't want to waste the young Sith's life - after a long period of mistrust, Thavi eventually came to believe in Exchei's sincerity and even began to have some level of belief in Exchei's cause.

Her work for Exchei and her subsequent falling-out with her ex led her to working for the Alliance, where she ended up forced to work alongside a Jedi padawan, Xillagne, who she'd previously fought. Slowly, reluctantly, their relationship blooms into a romance that forces both of them to adjust their views on the galaxy far beyond even what the Alliance asked of them.

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Since one of my favourite things in fanfic is writing tropes that force characters to look at their own character development and how things have changed (amnesia, time travel, de-aging...) and since I shouldn't/can't/probably won't write a different thing for all my ocs (don't think I haven't thought about it, rip). Here's a little list of what kinds of things each character would experience in a story like that and what would freak them out the most about who they become:

Kitiver is really easy, since he'd be deeply horrified by his own fall. The fact that he's still recognisably anxious and still friendly to the people he trusts makes it hurt worse, really, because in his mind it drives home just how close to a fall he is. He's also very, very confused by the fact that Alliance Era him is married to some spy, like. He never really thought romance would be a thing for him and now there's future!Kit getting all touchy and soft over a dude but apparently that had nothing to do with his fall, either? Lots of panic attacks and existential crises in this hypothetical story.

If this is a story where Kaoja meets her future self, she doesn't know why future!Kaoja smiles so much. If this is one of the other options, everyone else is very uncomfortable around her because young Kaoja is so grim and controlled. By the time of the Alliance Kaoja has a husband and a daughter, and her relationship with her kid is extremely fraught for Reasons I'll save for another post, meaning young!Kaoja is walking around like "why does this child hate me???" and nobody wants to tell her because trouble with loved ones has always been the button you don't want to push with her. (Her daughter would have a whole slew of fucked up feelings about the situation, too... oh god i want to write it.)

Exchei is much the same person she was, but her surroundings/circumstance are so vastly different she would feel like she just did a bodyswap. Being on the Dark Council? absolutely insane, no way that's her. All these people who claim to like and trust and obey her? She believes them, or she wants to so badly, but the sudden influx of them makes her feel like there's some ulterior motive to all this. She resorts to seducing anyone she halfway likes the looks of, because if people think she's sexy or are trying to get something out of her that means they like her for a reason. Andronikos takes this in stride, though he proceeds to scare the shit out of her by talking about feelings while the sexytimes are happening since for him that's just normal. Talos is, understandably, deeply appalled. This confuses Exchei even more because why does he like her then

The funniest thing about Rig (funny-sad but also funny-this-is-your-own-fault) is that at first he wouldn't notice a major difference. Still working as a bounty hunter. Still alone. Now he's got clout, apparently, and his childhood best friend is a Sith Lord so good for her, but he doesn't seem to have changed much. Then people keep dancing around certain subjects when they talk to him. Then he meets people who see him and switch directions, people Exchei tells him used to be on his crew. Then someone he's never met before gets mad at him for missing a memorial to Torian, who he also doesn't know he knew, but from the sound of it that's just how this person expected him to act. He starts to see holes, the shapes of people and things he gained and then lost, and maybe if we're very lucky he actually introspects about why that might be (not fucking likely. sigh.)

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the funniest thing about the companion conversations at the end of the class stories when one of them that you didn't/couldn't romance is like "I will help teach your children" or whatever is that I'm almost always out here shipping polyamorously so like.

Elara: I will educate the kids you and Jorgan will have if you want me to!

Ven: or you can just. Have them. Have the kids with us.

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aaaaand here is some pre-relationship Aric Jorgan/Trooper nonsense. if you think there's some weirdness about Ven yes i made her a time traveller and i regret nothing. it really doesn't matter to the snippet that much it's just fun flavour

Ven bit her lip, trying to stay hidden as she peeked around the corner. They were almost to Taris, and therefore to the mission. Jorgan would no doubt chew her out for bad leadership or something if she started a conversation that was about anything other than that, never mind that they wouldn’t be able to plan any more until they touched down and heard from the local troops. But they’d been a team for months now, on Ord Mantell and Coruscant, and she felt like she barely knew him. Not that she wanted to know him, really. He was an ass.

But they were stuck together. She ought to be nice to him, and if he kept up his usual behaviour at least she could walk around feeling superior that she’d been the good one of the two of them. Just like when she fought with Nalyan as a kid.

Ven had never been above petty revenge.

“Armory still have the same number of blasters as yesterday?” she asked, leaning casually in the doorframe as though she hadn’t waited behind the wall for minutes, debating with herself. To her disappointment, her entrance didn’t faze him at all.

“This may shock you to learn, Lieutenant, but blasters require regular care,” he said. Ven scowled, snatching the one in his hand up before she could think better of it. Deftly, she disassembled it and inspected the pieces. He’d already cleaned it, to her chagrin.

“Missed a spot,” she grumbled, shoving the offending piece back at him. He narrowed his eyes, but said nothing as he cleaned out the small cranny she’d pointed out. When finished, he held his hand out expectantly. Ven passed him back the blaster pieces one at a time, hating herself for rising to his bait.

“You’re pretty good with a pistol,” he remarked, startling her. “Seems smaller than your usual.”

“We all get pistol training, Jorgan,” Ven said. “And blaster rifles, sniper rifles – Basic training hasn’t changed in the past… how long’s it been since you went through it?”

He glared at her.

“Most heavy gunners don’t bother to keep the skills sharp. And I don’t remember those flourishes from Basic training.”

Ven blinked. Was he talking about the casual spin she always gave a pistol when drawing it, the same spin she’d used to snatch this one from him? She didn’t even know where she’d learned that. It just felt better.

“Military family,” she said. “Including some very… unorthodox fighters for uncles. My uncle Cody used to give seminars on the best ways to punch droids without breaking a finger.”

To her surprise, Jorgan laughed.

“So this was a family thing for you?” he asked, setting the pistol down. Ven couldn’t muster any words for a second, startled. Was he actually reaching out? The thing she’d been trying to convince herself to do so she could have the moral high ground?

Damn him, now he had the moral high ground!

Ven refused to be outdone.

“You mean the army,” she said. “In a manner of speaking. I’m not exactly some officer’s daughter, if that’s what you’re implying.”

“I was just curious,” he said. “Touchy subject?”

“My family’s great!” Ven snapped. Jorgan bristled at her tone.

“Excuse me for asking,” he said. “Sir.”

Ven grimaced. That one was her fault. Moral high ground, indeed.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them,” she said. “I… may not ever get to see them. Again.”

“Sorry to hear that,” he said.

“My dad’d be pissed that I bit your head off just for asking,” Ven admitted. “Especially – commanding officer and all. I’m sorry.”

He studied her for a long moment.

“You mentioned him before, when we… talked about leadership.”

Ven snorted.

“You mean when you confronted me and all but accused me of not being good enough?”

“I don’t think you really want me to apologise, given how happy it makes you to prove me wrong,” he retorted. Ven laughed, startled. Was Jorgan actually smiling?

“Take it your dad’s the reason you ended up here?”

“He raised me to fight,” Ven said. “We never really had another choice growing up. So he taught me what a soldier should do, and what a commanding officer owes the people under them, and – he taught me how many people don’t do right by that code. So I do right by it.”

That might have been too much information. It certainly left Jorgan quiet and thoughtful as he checked another rifle.

“You grow up in Imperial space, then?” he asked finally. For a moment, she wanted to really answer his question – yes, but she was born Republic, and the Republic she’d known only briefly had her heart more than this healthy one ever could, because it was her father’s. Yes, but the Empire was a revenant, a parasite, not a being in its own right the way the Empire Jorgan knew was. Yes, but nothing Ven could tell him would convey the truth.

But she didn’t owe Jorgan the truth anyway. They were a team, and a good one, but they didn’t have to be friends. Ven didn’t think he wanted that any more than she did.

“Believe me when I say this isn’t personal, Jorgan,” Ven said. “But that’s really none of your business.”

[relevant-url-incoming]

all i know is how to make vaguely shippy story snippets. anyway. spoilers-ish for the companion quests with Corso, right off the bat, though honestly if you don't know it won't make much sense anyway I think? it's super minor. anyway have Corso and my smuggler totally not being gay for each other or anything, along with hints of said smuggler's very concerning past

Corso thought he'd be alone out here, but that didn't mean it was a surprise when he heard footsteps. It was the captain, of course.

“Can’t sleep?” the captain asked.

“Can’t stop thinking about those Balmorrans,” Corso said. “I guess you put it out of your mind.”

“No,” the captain said. “No, I don’t think I can.”

He settled into the seat on the other side of the cockpit. For a crazy second, Corso wished he was closer.

“It happens,” the captain said at length. “We all put on somebody else’s uniform, and just hope our allies will be smart enough to ask questions before they shoot. Wish Magar had thought to say anything, but I know how living like that warps your head. All you ever see is the blaster in front of you.”

“You’re never gonna tell me where you grew up, living like that. Are you?”

He smiled faintly, looking over his shoulder at Corso.

“We travelled,” he said. “Look, Corso – don’t let it go. Learn from it. But don’t let it eat you alive, either. That’s the best way to get yourself killed before you ever meet the wrong end of a weapon, the slow death of guilt. No way to live. No way to die, either.”

“What about you?” Corso blurted before he could think better of it. “You have any guilt to live with?”

“Too much,” the captain said. “And I’m the kind of idiot who borrows other people’s guilt, too. Don’t do it, all right? One moron on this crew is enough.”

Corso couldn’t help but laugh.

“I don’t think I’ll ever understand you, captain,” he said.

“Yeah, well,” he said. “It’s better that way. You know I’ve got a name, right?”

The sudden belligerence didn’t fool Corso one bit.

“Sure,” he said. “You finally gonna tell me it?”

He scowled, looking away.

“It’s Nalyan,” he mumbled. “Guess I ought to – I mean, you people all seem to want to stick around. Can’t have you just calling me ‘captain’ all the time. I don’t actually have that big an ego.”

“No, it just helps keep people at arm’s length,” Corso said. At Nalyan’s glare, he held up his hands. “Look, I’ve had a long time to pick apart your act!”

Nalyan snorted.

“Whatever.”

“Nalyan,” Corso said, testing it out on his tongue. “Suits you.”

“Yeah, well,” he said. “If I knew who named me that, I’d pass it along.”

“It wasn’t your dad?” Corso asked, turning his body fully to face him. He was surprised. Nalyan’s dad was all he ever talked about, practically. The dad, the sister, the cousins. Never any specifics about Nalyan outside how he was with them.

“Nah,” Nalyan said. “I’m adopted. Didn’t I say that sometime? One of my cousins is Pantoran. Shiny’s Nautolan. Dad went nuts when she was about eight because he found out she was supposed to be swimming regularly but we all lived on a spaceship. Now there was a man who never expected to have kids.”

Corso nodded along, unable to stop looking at Nalyan. It was like he was a different person all of a sudden – there was the surly captain making jokes at everyone’s expense, refusing to even give his name to people he worked with and trusted, and then there was Nalyan. He lit up talking about his family, telling Corso about something he and his kid sister had gotten up to when their dad and uncle left them alone with the ship.

“And I mean, in my defence, I never said we should blow the place up,” Nalyan continued, waving his hands animatedly. “I mean, I made sure we cleared the place out first, so if anything, I was the good guy in that scenario. And she’s always been good with explosives, so it’s not like we were at risk.”

“Your dad chewed you out pretty good for that one, huh?” Corso asked.

“My uncle,” Nalyan said glumly. “Three hours of shouting. It wasn’t a big deal, but then Dad swoops in when he’s done with the litany of rules we broke – not mad, just disappointed, he says, but he’s practically shaking with it – and then Dad tells Uncle Fives he’s in charge of discipline. You ever had to clean an entire ship with a Rodian toothbrush?”

“Your family loves a nickname, huh?” Corso asked. Nalyan’s face shuttered. Corso shouldn’t have felt as disappointed as he did. He knew the captain wasn’t going to stay open and happy forever. Wasn’t in his nature.

“Yeah, they do,” Nalyan said.

Corso had wanted to ask if Nalyan had one, but he didn’t think the captain would be forthcoming if he did. He settled back in his seat, trying to think of something else he could say. He didn’t want Nalyan to disappear again.

“I’m gonna tell Risha my name tomorrow,” Nalyan mumbled, startling Corso. “But you don’t have to, I don’t know, keep quiet about it or anything. With the rest of the crew.”

“Captain,” Corso said, trying not to laugh. “Are you asking me to make the introductions for you?”

“No,” he said defensively. “No, just – You can call me that! Whenever. I don’t know, I thought you’d appreciate that.”

“Well, it works pretty well for you keeping it quiet around other people,” Corso said. He couldn’t say why, but it felt strange to think that just anybody could call him Nalyan now. Like that was something Corso had to earn, so maybe he wanted to hang onto it just for himself and the rest of the crew a while.

“Yeah, fewer questions,” Nalyan murmured. “What, you don’t mind keeping a stupid little secret like that?”

Corso would keep any stupid secret his captain asked of him. He knew the captain would keep all of his.

“Hey, you know I got your back,” he said, trying to sound easy about it. It was hard to tell how successful he was, but at least the captain smiled.

[relevant-url-incoming]

Venjess Valath, which is not actually her real name. At this point, she hasn't gone by an actual legal name since her earliest full memories, so the name she borrows from the Jedi who helps her get started as a trooper in the Republic army might as well be real. Her backstory wins for 'most convoluted,' but her personality is straightforward: she wants to be a hero and fight for freedom. Traitors get little to no quarter. Emperors? Even less.

Ok, the thing with Ven is sometimes you create a character just to visualise an oc, and then you start thinking about how that oc would actually end up in the storyline you're playing her in, and suddenly you have crafted a heartwrenching tale of time travel and familial separation. Such is the metatextual story of Ven, who began life as an oc I made for a Clone Wars fic where Dogma (yes the clone) adopts a child.

A lot of who she is can be explained by that upbringing - on the run from the Empire thanks to her family's fugitive status and her own Force sensitivity that she clamps down on out of fear her adoptive father will leave her, she wants to be the perfect rebel soldier. In her eyes, Dogma was the quintessential hero, and even separated from him by thousands of years she does most of her early work to make him proud. At the age of five, she told her family she would kill the Emperor (Palpatine, not Vitiate, because again I'm insane and write too much time travel) and that kind of set the tone for her entire life after that.

As time wears on, Ven's intensity wanes, overshadowed by her desire to help people and do good. She starts to see more and more people who could be good, if they were given the choice, and working with people like Lana and Marr to bring down Revan and fight the Sith Emperor sparks an easing of her once-strict moral policies. At twenty, she would have killed Arcann. At thirty-something, she looks at him and hears Senya's voice and thinks about what her father might have done if she had fallen, and she holds out her hand instead. After being separated from three families - her birth family, her adoptive one, and the squad she wanted to dedicate her life to - she refuses to split anyone else's family if she can help it.