#anYWAY thank you for the tag jinn!

[daddy-ul]

in my head: where the Hell is the word seed on this album [starts checking them off….] not the singles not YMB not Sleepwalk not ….. oh come on [stares at Inamorata] it’s you. isn’t it.

despair. i’ve actually only listened to it 3 times. because it causes me to physically implode. too much to bare. the thought of it all….

*pat pats*

I mean, i know my head wanted to connected dots just to connect them, bc James uses seed as a metaphor/simile quite enough, it's in his repertoire. He uses it even in interviews.

The funny thing is that the first other song that came to my mind after hearing "seed" was not the obvious one, the one with seed in the title.

No, sir.

It was, of course, Bleeding me.

And how could I not? When Innamorata sounds like that, feels like that, is a song like that--

I don't blame you, brain. I don't.

[imabeautifulbutterfly]

STAR WARS FIC ROULETTE

450 FOLLOWER CELEBRATION!!

STAR WARS FIC ROULETTE

HELLO LOVELIES!

First off, let me say a huge thank you to a completely unexpected following. I never imagined I would hit 450. So as a thank you I'm going to do a lovely celebration

Now, you may be wondering what the heck is a Star Wars Fic Roulette. Well, let me explain...

You can choose two prompts from the two lists below, pick a Star Wars character of your choosing, and I'll write a fic for you.

Now here comes the Roulette part, you won't know what kind of fic it is, until I post it. It could be from any genre, romance, thriller, action, angst, hurt, comfort, etc.

There will be no smut. As you know, I do not write smut. It may lead to spicy, but it'll be like a one or two dot on the spice level. Maybe a three depending.

Anyway, enjoy; and thank you for following, even with the hiatus of some of my other stories.

Special thank you to @novelbear @nightprompts @me-writes-prompts @scealaiscoite @promptlywritingideas @dumplingsjinson @apparentlytheproblem @promptsbytaurie @iken @justmemethings for the prompt lists. And @firstofficerwiggles who always has my back.

Love oo

Tag list:

@liadamerondjarin @badbatch-simp24@spicymcnuggies@lady-ren @firstofficerwiggles @darkangel4121 @discofern @kavecika @monako-jinn-stories @ladykatakuri @avathebestx @theroguesully @furyhellfire66 @carodealmeida @ciramaris @sprout-fics @twinkofthedink @dindjarin-mandalorian @ulchabhangorm @littlemisspascal @tortor-mcgee @vodika-vibes @clonethirstingisreal

[agent-darkfest]

Last Line Challenge (take 2)

Rules:

In a new post, show the last line you wrote (or drew) and tag as many people as there are words (or however many as you like).

Tagged by the amazing @tunetourmoline , thank you! <3

So, I have written one thing:

"Alright, then," you say as you sit up and pull out your small graphite pencil and old worn leather notebook. You lick your finger as you turn to a new blank page and glance up at the two Jinn hovering in the room. "How is a new Jinn created?" You ask with genuine curiosity in your voice.

Actually, that was more than one last line, wasn’t it?

Anyways, here are partials of the two sketches I was working on. Both are from GITM AUs (DBD and Band). Not canon!

I already tagged everyone in the previous challenge, :) so I’ll just leave open to whomever would like to try it! Have fun! <3

[deniigi]

this is me asking about qui-gon

thank you, dear. You're a real one.

For the last several weeks, I have been running into people shitting on Qui-Gon in every tag on every platform I go on. And I am emotionally bored and intellectually fascinated with this take.

It's like there is this dichotomy in the Obi-Wan side of Star Wars fandom (we are disregarding the anti-Jedi people rn because I respect zero of them and zero of their takes).

Qui-Gon was the worst and cannot be redeemed. He is nothing but an abuser and never did he ever like, let along love, Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon was the softest, most gentle master ever. He only ever loved Obi-Wan and tenderly taught him how to be a jedi while also being his adoring jedi-father.

Naturally, as someone who has read a few of the Jedi Apprentice stories, begrudgingly watched The Phantom Menace, and recently seen the Kenobi show, I am just baffled by both of these takes.

To start, TPM and the Kenobi show are all about Obi-Wan grieving his master, and then trying to reconnect with his master, so that is clear and obvious so we will set that to the side.

JA Obi-Wan, however, is honestly hysterical in how annoying, disobedient, and bratty he is.

And like, maybe I don't agree that Qui-Gon should have left him in a Civil War, but in these books I read Qui-Gon as an adult who has been through some serious shit (lost a child, lost a master, lost a partner) and who has been pressured into taking care of an especially energetic, overenthusiastic dependent with pre-existing self-worth issues before he himself is ready to. He is also someone who's teaching style involves allowing a child to see the consequences of their actions and stepping in only when the child is truly out of their depth, which is also a form of compassionate teaching that respects a young person's agency, believe it or not--so his methods and general being is not inherently good or inherently bad.

But forgive me, I am applying nuance to a character. I must digress.

I think what baffles and fascinates me about fandom tendencies towards Qui-Gon is

1) They are almost entirely fandom-made, and rather than do their own research and thinking, folks are by and large content to just do what everyone else is doing.

2) Even when people do go back and read the source material for Legends, they come at it with a fandom bias which they then do not recognize/point out in their analyses, which is hilarious and so faux-intellectual I want to ask them if they feel very very smart.

3) Qui-Gon exists in fandom almost entirely to further Obi-Wan whump narratives.

To be clear, I'm okay with that last point because Obi-Wan whump is like, a whole narrative in Star Wars itself (although I personally, can only endure so much Obi-whump as I prefer characters with agency in their stories), but it does make me wonder if people ever think about Qui-Gon as a character on his own.

The answer is no. Don't worry, I'm not that naive.

Anyways, I just wish there was some variety in the tags and that one could find material on Qui-Gon without having to navigate the 'Qui-Gon Jinn's A+ Parenting' 'Qui-Gon is a good jedi but not a good man' 'Qui-Gon is a good master' tags.

Like it should be ludicrous and hilarious to people that this minor character is so polarized in fandom that you have to tag things like that such that one trench of people doesn't come in and attack you in your comments section.

It's wild!!

I truly hope people can look at what they're doing and go 'oh, this is actually absurd' because just admitting that might help us in the longer term to write interesting stories.

Thank you for letting me rant ❤

[roselightfairy]

10 First Lines:

Rules: Share the first lines of your ten most recent fics and then tag ten people. If you have written fewer than ten, don’t be shy—share anyway! tagged by @tathrin - thank you for the fun!

“So,” said Mace Windu, his eyes boring through the hologram transmission as surely as though he were standing in front of them, “explain it to me once more.” (Diverging Paths)

“How are you feeling?” (From Knowledge, Ignorance)

She drifts, mostly. (A Thousand Times)

There were things Obi-Wan had not been warned about when it came to becoming a padawan. (Unexpected Lessons)

I am an instrument of the Force. (Only Through Surrender)

Amidst the many heartwrenchingly emotional and side-splittingly hilarious moments, storylines, and character journeys of the popular D&D roleplay podcast Dungeons and Daddies, perhaps none has upset me quite as much as the Glenn Close trial and subsequent prison/punishment arc in the first season. ("The Doo-Doo Zone": a queer abolitionist reading of the Glenn Close trial arc and the carceral imaginary in the podcast Dungeons and Daddies)

At first, she doesn’t want to use the Force to bury the bodies. (Anchor)

Qui-Gon Jinn is thirty-six years old, and he believes in the will of the Force. (In Alignment)

There are times when his isolation gets to him. (Double Suns)

“Sit still.” (The Unassisted Physical Training and Self-Defense Circle)

Hmm, methinks one of these things is not like the others. ;) (Good to know that my tendency to start in media res has not decreased at all since the last time I did one of these!)

Tagging @enide-s-dear @deheerkonijn @unnamedelement @the-dwelf-ao3, and anyone else who sees this and wants to do it!

[aspoonofsugar]

Hi! What's your thoughts on why that specific group of character fell to the Ever After? I think they're the ones who grieved the most after Beacon and this is gonna be a bookend for that, while the Vacuo characters have a different narrative going on on their own. Not to say Ren and Nora didn't grieve after Beacon, but they were used to loss and both times have resolved their arc in a separate narrative: both of them slaying the source of their trauma in vol 4 and now Ren having realized his growth while Nora is going to realize hers.

Hi!

I am gonna get this chance to also properly apologize for not having answered your other ask yet :''') It is in my draft, but I still did not find the time to work on it.

Anyway, as for this ask, I understand where you are coming from, but I am not sure I 100% agree. Sure, grief is gonna be a major theme next volume (and in general it is a key theme for the story as a whole), but I disagree it is exclusive only of the characters that fell. For example, grief is a key theme in Ren and Nora's arc, while I would not say it is so prominent in Blake or especially Weiss.

Just quickly thinking at the characters stuck in Vacuo, we have:

Renora - their whole background is about losing a whole town and their parents. Moreover, they lost Pyrrha and now think they lost Jaune. They keep losing their family and end up always counting on each other.

Emerald - she has just lost Hazel and this loss and grief has yet to be unpacked.

Winter - oh boy... she has lost in 1 day Ironwood (father-figure), Penny and Weiss (little sisters). Her last scene in volume 8 screams grief.

In general, all the characters in Vacuo are gonna grieve the protagonists. Similarly, self-discovery is another theme shared by all characters equally and the trailer of volume 9 has made it abundantly clear:

What are you?

In short, self-discovery and grief are key themes for the whole story hence they permeate everyone's arcs and not just a specific set of characters'.

I think RWBY + J fell simply because they need more focus than others next volume. To be more specific, RWBY are almost always the ones involved in strange magic shenaningas (see Jinn in volume 6) since they are the titular characters. Every time a male lead tags with them according to character arcs. In volume 6 it was Oscar because Jinn's story had a specific value for him and Oz. This time it is Jaune to unpack what he did in the finale of volume 8. In general, it is also probable characters who are on the island need to interact with each other. As for Neo, I think she fell to drive Ruby's conflict. She is linked to her and she can work as a perfect foil to our girl ;)

Moreover, Ruby and Oscar needed to be separated this volume imo because of their inside/outside motif. On the one hand Ruby's heroine journey leads her to explore her own interiority. On the other hand Oscar's hero journey leads him to go out of his own head and to explore the world outside. Ruby externalizes, while Oscar internalizes hence they are challenged in opposite ways. Ruby falls into a world who mirrors her own head (Alice), while Oscar faces the real world with all its complexity (hopefully like the Little Prince).

Anyway, I really think they just wanted the girls + another MC to fall, so that they can focus on this specific set of characters. Apart from Oscar, the other characters stuck in Vacuo are either secondary protagonists (Renora and I would say Em too), important non-protagonist characters (Winter) or side characters (the Schnees + the Happy Huntresses). Usually, mains are gonna experience the most significative journeys in stories.

Thank you for the ask!

[deadstarsrisingsblog]

WIP Game

RULES: post the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPS.

Thanks so much for the tag @alamogirl80 💜

1. Even as a Shadow (Even as a Dream)

2. Your Departure Is (Not) A Tragedy

3. Prompt: Can’t Go Home

4. Test Tube Origin Snippet

5. The Light Of Distances

6. Prompt: Nowhere To Run

7. A Little Out Of The Ordinary

8. Prompt: Honest Conversations

9. Jango Fett Is A Slut AU

10. Qui-Gon Jinn Is A Slut AU

11. Jedi Have Baby Energy (Chapter 2)

12. Sith Lightning, Paperwork, and Other Extreme Sports (Chapter 5)

13. And We Drown

14. The Kettle Chronicles (Chapter 2)

15. Tripping Forward, Turning Back (Chapter 3 and 4)

16. Padawan Omega AU (Chapter 1)

17. The End Of Love (Is A Haunting)

18. De-Aged Shenanigans Scrap

19. A Little To The Left (Chapter 6)

20. Midnight Oil (Chapters 2-4)

21. A smattering of fics titled “codywan au” or some iteration thereof 😭

…. After looking at this list, I should probably finish some of these before I start any new projects…….

ANYWAY

I cannot possibly tag 21 people, mostly because I’m not sure I even follow 21 other people, and a few of my mutuals are already tagged, so….

No pressure tags! @thegreencarousel @foreverchangingfandomsao3 @swbumblebee @thekraftcryptid @imrowanartist

[sanerontheinside]

I posted 2,120 times in 2022

That's 595 more posts than 2021!

150 posts created (7%)

1,970 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@davaia

@wrennette

@firondoiel

@quiobizine

I tagged 2,119 of my posts in 2022

#beautiful things - 851 posts

#cue the queue - 687 posts

#art reblogs - 460 posts

#obi wan kenobi - 435 posts

#qui gon jinn - 266 posts

#quiobi - 238 posts

#cue the cuteness queue - 160 posts

#cue the fluffy queue - 148 posts

#kenobi show - 114 posts

#kenobi series - 111 posts

Longest Tag: 124 characters

#😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I sent 1 gift in 2022

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

how can I be expected to work under these conditions, while Obi-Wan is right there being sad and uncivilized

48 notes - Posted May 4, 2022

#4

Chapters: 3/3 Fandom: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy Rating: Mature Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Relationships: Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Padmé Amidala/Sabé, OMC/OMC, OMC/OFC Characters: Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Padmé Amidala, Sabe, Original Characters

Additional Tags: Hanahaki Disease, various planetary traditions and hanahaki lore, Jedi Philosophy (Star Wars), Not Actually Unrequited Love, they're idiots your honor, Hurt/Comfort, Qui-Gon Jinn Lives

Summary:

Obi-Wan thought he was terribly obvious, really. Qui-Gon thought it was Obi-Wan’s secret to share or keep, as he wished.

My warmest and sincerest thanks to @davaia, @meggory84, @willowcrowned, and @oddlyexquisite for keeping me from going feral throughout the writing of this monster. 

50 notes - Posted May 27, 2022

#3

Look, Goncharov is an excellent movie. It has the sense of inevitability about it, of ever-encroaching tragedy. Its execution of both the suspense and the despair, the mounting fear of what you knew was coming all along—it’s staggering, the perfection of it.

But at the same time, this isn’t a Scorsese, not truly. It’s a Matteo JWHJ 0715. It is, in some ways, a little hamfisted in its execution, and I would argue the American audience is not wrong to analyze it in terms of very American themes. They are! Hollywood movies set the tone for much around the world, from fashion to storytelling in a media as globalized as film.

And as I’ve said, I do love this movie. I love it even for its anachronistic quirks—many of them deliberate and thought-through stylistic choices. I think the fact that goncharov’s primary activities are moving drugs and guns are one of these stylistic departures. Guns and drugs are easy to understand; goncharov is the bad guy, the antihero we’re meant to sympathize with. Certainly, he makes for a rather charming and impressive bastard.

But I think the movie, this particular script rather misses out on the poignancy of the alternative: that goncharov likely wasn’t dealing drugs and weapons, at least not at the beginning. Truth is, you could make an unimaginable amount of money just by smuggling ordinary European goods across the Iron Curtain.

Painfully ordinary. Shoes and coats and and dresses and suits, like all those pretty things that Katya wears. Turntables. Jeans! Plain old dishware. Sure, maybe eventually goncharov didn’t have much of a choice and got into the hard stuff

(this would actually serve the narrative—Goncharov stepping clear over his own lines in the sand, over and over again until he no longer recognizes who he is—perfection)

(anyway)

but you see, the Soviet Union didn’t have a whole variety in production, nor even necessarily great quality of it. There was no (legal) access to imported goods. I’ve already seen mention of the bootleg copy of the film that became a cult classic in the USSR itself (and probably inspired generations of bratva in years to come 🙄) but I wonder if it simply didn’t occur to anyone to consider that the Soviet bloc had largely isolated itself after WWII, and with a struggling economy, with creakily functioning infrastructure, did its best to achieve the impossible and pull itself ‘up by its bootstraps’.

So just think about it: almost every item that Katya owns is like those pretty gowns and crystal shoes in old fairytales; the moment she steps out of this magical realm—the moment the scales fall from her eyes—all of it will begin to melt away into nothing. She would never have had anything like it, were she not married to Goncharov. And he gave her the keys to this magical kingdom, didn’t he? Her Prince, who in the end is not a prince at all, not a fairytale. The illusion, the glamour falls away from him as well.

And then there is Sofia. Sofia, for whom all these clothes and shoes and jewels are very real. All right, sure—Sofia’s backstory tells us she lucked into this world, and in some sense it is also a sort of fairytale space for her. But the thing is, Katya’s grasp on it is far more tenuous. Sofia is nowhere near as richly dressed as Katya, but when everything goes to pot Sofia will still have something of her own, hard-won with sacrifice.

Katya will not. And how unfair is that: Katya is her own woman, she survives her husband’s world and makes her own way, only to be left with nothing if the worst should happen.

170 notes - Posted November 23, 2022

#2

gonna get real personal here for a little bit, which is not what I tend to use this blog for, so y'all don't freak out and just ignore the bit of navel-gazing going on, nbd

183 notes - Posted August 13, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

my ideal ship dynamic is ‘They Deserve Each Other’

but like. they both suck

1,429 notes - Posted September 24, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[kckenobi]

I posted 4,563 times in 2022

320 posts created (7%)

4,243 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@lightasthesun

@gffa

@katierosefun

@kckenobi

@just-another-product-of-today

I tagged 3,871 of my posts in 2022

Only 15% of my posts had no tags

#obi wan kenobi - 783 posts

#anakin skywalker - 294 posts

#kenobi series - 270 posts

#❤️ - 218 posts

#obi wan kenobi spoilers - 214 posts

#asks - 161 posts

#ahsoka tano - 153 posts

#commander cody - 150 posts

#leia organa - 148 posts

#codywan - 146 posts

Longest Tag: 131 characters

#seriously the artists in this zine are 😍😍😍 i can't wait for you too see their work. and the fics?? again 😍😍 people are amazing

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

okay but the way obi-wan couldn't even ignite his lightsaber at the beginning, didn't dare touch the force, but then at the end we see him start in the soresu opening stance, the obi-wan opening stance? that was such a beautiful way to make his character arc so visible, so abundantly clear that he's healing

2,178 notes - Posted June 22, 2022

#4

the way you can see the ground just drop out beneath obi-wan's feet when he learns anakin is alive. when reva says "you didn't know, did you?" and you can see something collapse inside him, and then Leia asks if he's okay—Leia, when he's just had to confront the fact that she is so Padmé's child and, though he can't let himself go there, Anakin's child—and his eyes slowly fill with tears? THAT IS THE SHIT RIGHT THERE

2,642 notes - Posted May 27, 2022

#3

Qui-Gon Jinn's first words being "took u long enough" is somehow the most in-character thing I've ever seen. What an asshole. What a legend. I love him

2,773 notes - Posted June 22, 2022

#2

this book is cracking me up bc first of all, PADAWAN OBI-WAN PADAWAN OBI-WAN and second of all—have I mentioned Padawan obi-wan? but anyway in this scene a kid grabs his Padawan braid and says he doesn't like it and OBI-WAN ANSWERS LIKE THIS??

THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNSOLICITED OPINION lmao WHO SAYS THAT. OBI-WAN KENOBI THATS WHO. And from now on that'll be my default response to every insult

3,194 notes - Posted July 27, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

even after everything, when Leia asks about the force obi-wan still describes it as turning on a light, after you've been scared of the dark. Even in unimaginable pain he still finds comfort and goodness in the force. And he'd cut himself off from it

5,333 notes - Posted June 1, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[mortimerlatrice]

So this is a bit belated but I was tagged bye @ahdriking for

10 Fandoms, 10 Characters, 10 Tags!

I'm bad at tagging people but let's assume 10 people will see this and they should all consider themselves tagged! ;)

This is so difficult! Characters and their stories go in one side and out the other unless they really strike a chord with me. It's pretty rare that I remember them explicitly and even rarer to seek out fandom. However! I pulled together 10 characters that did mean the world to me so here we go!

Howl's Moving Castle - Specifically the absolutely wreck that is Howl Pendragon (book version is best but Ghibli had that clutterbitch aesthetic and I dig it). He's fussy, he's a bitch, he's got THE worst case of 'gifted child syndrome' and I love him. Also Sophie looks at him and thinks, "You could fix him? Well I can stoop to his level," and that's grand. Bad bitch solidarity.

Teen Wolf - I encountered this show and read fanfiction about this show before I watched the show. Thank god I did. The show has a definite campy quality and it fits the typical questionable taste of every CW show I've sat through, but STILES STILLINSKI makes it all worth it. Silly little ADHD boy who's literally the best friend ever (even if his loyalties often narrow down to the friend only and not the friend's loved ones) and no one in this show deserved him. Also Void Styles was just sofucljlsdkfjlsjkj.

Hannibal - While I love Will dearly, Mads Mikkelson's Hannibal Lecter made this show for me. I watched this with a friend and we cackled like crows every time he made a cannibal joke. His fashion is immaculate (and awful? but it works) and he openly murders homophobic assholes. What's not to like?

Sens8 - Can I consider them one entity? Just the whole entangled lot of them?? I love them so much. I love the dynamic of them being there for each other and connecting with each other across varied experiences, beliefs, and ideologies. I love them learning to cope together and becoming something greater than any one of them individually. If the polycule cluster doesn't count as one, then I'm going with Amanita. Who is decidedly not part of the cluster but is the best individual character with her 3 dads.

American Gods - So sticking to season one on this? I honestly didn't make it super far into season two and haven't seen a scrap of season three. Gossip would have me believe it was downhill from there but idk. Anyway. SALIM and his boyfriend sweater. Salim getting what he thought he always wanted and practically throwing it away because the Djinn/Jinn/Ifrit(?) railed him so good and he's in love. Did I mention his BOYFRIEND SWEATER???

The Untamed - I spent soooo much time in this fandom and I have a lot of feelings about a lot of the characters but most of all Lan Wangji. He's just so... everything. I related to him so much—to being misunderstood, to loving too hard and too impotently. There's a lot of tangled up feelings in him but I just love him.

What We Do in the Shadows - Guillermo de la Cruz, the badass hunter himself. His character arc from obsessed doormat to insane assassin (who is still kind of a doormat) and is now finally coming into his own... Ugh. I don't know if I want him to bag Nandor because he deserves whatever he wants or for him to finally finish growing out his spine like an amphibian and fuck off with his life because he honestly can.

Our Flag Means Death - Jim. Just Jim. They are feisty and sexy and intense and their relationship with Oluwande is so sweet. Their story meant a lot to me and to other folks I know. While a lot of us have stories that don't go so smoothly (their friends accepted them with only a few questions, their parental figure accepted them with barely a blink, and their love interest never gave a damn either way) I think it's so beautiful to see a world where coming out just... goes right. I mean, sort of. Fingers crossed for season two.

Kinnporsche - I love all of them and I want to bundle them up in little terrariums and keep them on my shelf. Porsche is my favorite though, so he would get extra yard time. In the same vein as why I like Jim's story, I love how Porsche's story was handled. He and Kinn really do have some of the best chemistry I've ever seen and Porsche just fills space so beautifully and it was great to see him begin to come into his own.

The Sandman - This one's a bit different. I liked the show well enough but I'm not sure I'd really say I'm in the fandom? I don't find myself desperately wanting more beyond just "next episode" but that could be because Kinnporsche has me by the throat. Except Lucifer Morningstar portrayed by Gwendoline Christie is just so stunning that I want her to do anything to me. This is just pure, unadulterated lust. You should see her boots. I also really want a crossover of her Lucifer with Tilda Swinton's Gabriel because they would be the best snide siblings.

This got WAAAAY long. Oops. Thank you for tagging me ahdriking!!!

[delta-magnetic]

i have been tagged by the extremely cool @daddy-ul thank you friend!

post 10 pictures from your camera roll that describe you without downloading anything new!

i use my phone a lot less than my computer n therefore also don't download as much but let's see what we got :3

tagging @mustaint @cliffburton @fluffonthefloor and whoever else wants to! as usual no obligation if you were tagged uwu

[daddy-ul]

I know this is a long shot, but do you have that pic of lars wearing a blue robe, sunglasses and holding up a bottle of Jegermeister as he’s sat at like a picnic table with immense amounts of swag. If you don’t, don’t worry :) if you do you are an actual god thank you so much 🙏🙏

Ehya, dear duder.

Long story short: sorry, I dont have that pic and I dont think I ever reblogged it. The blue bathrobe + sunglasses isnt in my memory.

Idk how long this ask was in my inbox, sorry. In this period my mind is... elsewhere.

BUT!!

Luckily for you, this is a insanely good fandom at hunting down stuff, so...

Does anyone have the pic our duder here is talking about?

@larsmybeloved? Sorry for the tag but you are very knowledgeable in this area, eheh.

[sleeperswakewriting]

I think we're alone now

Rating: M

Summary: Soulmate AU.

Soulmates were fucking dumb. It turned even the most level-headed people into absolute imbeciles, and Levi wasn’t about to become one of them.

Enter Petra Ral, the woman who could make even his wildest fantasies come true.

Word Count: 5.3k

Tags: soulmate induced sex, nerd Levi, cheeky Petra, virgin sex, Levi's into cat girls

Happy belated Birthday @atthebrinksofstories! Thank you for all your contributions to the Rivetra fandom. Here's my little way of saying: I'm so glad we exist in the universe at the same time. This fic was inspired by you and this piece by you!

By all accounts, Levi should be a happy man.

It wasn’t often you found your soulmate in your early twenties—stories were written about people traversing the world for years until they stumbled upon theirs. Or, for the less fortunate, they never found their soulmate and settled for a regular relationship, knowing full well that it could all be shattered in a second. Many lived and died with their non-soulmate partners, and this didn’t stop the wheel of the time. Especially with the youth, who dated and fell in love as if the soulmate factor didn’t exist. Until it did.

For Levi, he lived by two facts:

1) Soulmates were fucking dumb. It turned even the most level-headed people into absolute imbeciles, and he wasn’t about to become one of them.

Take Eld Jinn, one of his most respected friends who had a volleyball scholarship lined up post-high school. He meets a cute cheerleader at a game, who also received a scholarship, except on the opposite coast. All of his plans, flushed down the toilet, taking a degree in business so that they could start their life as soon as possible with a steady career.

“You hate desk work,” Levi snapped to him as he loaded Eld’s moving box into a U-haul. Six months of dating and he was already moving in with his girlfriend. Eld said it was inevitable anyway, that they were so sure they were in love, so why not speed up the process? The promise of their pheromone-induced sexcation was also a plus, a fact Eld did not mind bragging about much to the rest of their groups’ chagrin.

That was the other freaky thing about soulmates, and in an animalistic way it made sense, but once a couple had sex, there was no stopping them. At least for a week, is what the scientists said. Ever since the idea of soulmates became quantifiable, billions of dollars of research had been flooded into the science of soulmates. This led to public policy, and a week-long paid leave after you coupled with your soulmate to get it out of your system. If the couple didn’t have sex after the first initial encounter, they became irritable, grumpy, and in the worst cases, violent.

With the advent of the honeymoon law, as it was affectionately named, parties were thrown after said honeymoon. Claps and light teasing became the norm in office settings, and the endless amounts of congrats on the sex! emails bordered on sexual harassment reports to HR. All in all, it was better to get it over with before you start any long-term projects or commitments, and even better if you were younger to avoid the pitiful looks for someone with less stamina.

Levi didn’t get what the big deal was. People had sex all the time.

Well, he didn’t.

Enter fact number two:

Levi had a thing for girls dressed in animal outfits. More specifically, cat outfits, and he discovered a dark hole of the internet that he didn’t emerge from for a week. Dick sore, but with a newfound understanding of himself, Levi kept this part held tight to his chest. Maybe a little too tight, if his friends were asking since he was still blissfully a virgin due to his specific preferences, and penchant for not communicating.

Sure, a part of him ached for some companionship, but he would rather die before letting that part of himself be known. He had porn and his hand, and a lively imagination when all his friends were out on double, triple, quadruple dates.

He almost made it through college without a serious thought into sex.

Almost.

Halloween night, senior year. Erwin and Hange took him to their frat party despite his protests. He opted for his normal wear, khakis, and a button-down, and also in typical fashion, he watched his friends pound down drinks within the first fifteen minutes of arrival. To avoid spillage and the loud music, he made himself comfortable on a corner couch and counted down until he could leave without notice. Erwin was on his third drink, Hange on their second, and Levi was already scoping out a path to the exit.

Lost in his calculations, Levi barely heard the squeal, a splash of blue curaçao, and an upended skirt and panties in his face.

Petra Ral. He had seen her passing since they had mutual friends, but they were never this close before.

Junior, animal science major, and his soulmate.

Both of them felt it as soon as their eyes met. The surge of electricity in their hearts, the way the room stilled, and their surroundings blurred. Everything else was a dull roar in the background, save for their breaths that were now in time with one another.

He noticed her eyes first, and from that day onward, it would still be the first thing he saw she entered a room. Hues of caramel, fucking golden flecks, and a doe-eyed expression coupled with matching ginger cat ears were his wildest fantasies come to life. An orange cat tail sat right above her ass, and the body con suit she wore left little to the imagination. A leather collar with a bell wrapped around her neck, and the gloves in the shape of paw prints should not have turned Levi on.

It took approximately three seconds before they started kissing. Petra went in first, adjusting herself so she sat on his lap, and pulled her gloves off so she could run her fingers in his hair. Her collar jingled and a rush of heat crashed down his body while he let out an unrecognizable gasp. Face flush, there was an inevitability tethering his soul like the planets were aligned, his universe now in order.

Breaking their kiss, Levi’s eyes widened as Petra pouted and attempted to pull him in by the shirt collar. He leaned back and tried to avoid bumping his growing erection against her soft skin with a sheepish chuckle.

“I…uh…” Fuck. It wasn’t like him to be tongue-tied, but the growing irritation in Petra’s eyes sent another flame of desire into his stomach.

“I’m not imagining things, right? We’re soulmates,” Petra deadpanned, hands on her hips. Her scowl wondered how he could not be attracted to her with this newfound information, and with a deliberate squeeze of her tits together, Levi gulped. What was he about to get into? People who tried to run away from their soulmates, like ones already in relationships, reaped the consequences. It ranged from daily vomiting, lack of sleep, anxiety, depression, and any other unfortunate consequence one could think of. It varied by person, and Levi thought this was exactly why he wanted to stay away from women in general.

“I mean, yeah,” he replied lamely, trying to avoid looking at her chest, her cat ears, and thigh-high stockings that cut off just above her knees. Black combat boots finished the ensemble, and Levi knew if he didn’t pull it together, he wouldn’t be leaving his apartment for a week.

This girl was dangerous. He tried not to note her long stiletto nails that also matched her ginger hair.

“Soooo,” she taunted, scooting herself further onto his lap until they were only inches apart, “is there something wrong? You have a girlfriend already?”

“No,” he said quickly, and the gleam in Petra’s eyes brightened.

“What’s the problem, then?”

Where to begin? He was a virgin. He had a plan. He would be graduating in seven months, and taking a week off from school was not part of Levi Ackerman’s plan to retain his summa cum laude status. He wasn’t about to tell a stranger that, even if it was his soulmate.

“I have a test tomorrow.” It was a shitty lie, but he knew despite his unoffending flair, he came across as a nerd.

Petra cocked an eyebrow while placing both hands on his shoulders. He flinched; Levi wasn’t used to such close contact with anyone, let alone a woman that looked like she stepped from his dreams. His heart thudded, blood was pulsing in his ears, and he knew he was blushing and dammit, he hated this.

She moved in closer, her lips to his ear and he could catch the faint scent of booze and sugar. He had to restrain himself from moving in closer, to beg her to bite down on his lobe, but he held his breath steady while she whispered, “Bullshit. You enjoyed that kiss.”

Levi swallowed. His soulmate was feisty, a fact he deeply enjoyed by the tent in his pants. Petra looked down between them as a smirk drew up her face.

“You definitely have a girlfriend,” she sighed, reaching for the fanny back along her waist to draw her phone. “Can we exchange numbers, at least? You’re not gonna last long with her, I can see it in your eyes—“

“It’s not that.” The words came tumbling out of Levi’s mouth before he could stop himself. He could feel it—that thing that everyone wrote songs and movies about, the undeniable truth he’d been running from for years—Levi Ackerman was capable of love. And despite the short amount of time, he could already feel himself slipping. The cadence of her voice. The way she was still sitting on his lap, her desire to be close to him even though he was turning her down.

Her bravado dropped when she noticed his flustered expression, his eyelashes flickering downward while he moved, no dared, touched her waist with the lightest brush of his fingertips.

Petra shivered and their eyes were still locked as she asked, “What, then?”

Levi contemplated for a beat, again reassessing all the old tales he heard about soulmates. One of them was that lying was incredibly difficult. You could, it wasn’t some truth serum from a spy movie, but you would be up late, tortured for days, in worst cases, your senses went foul the moment you told the lie.

“I don’t want to sleep with you tonight,” he admitted, opting for the kernel of veracity, but he didn’t want to drive her away. “Can we at least go on a few dates first?”

She laughed, and Levi quite liked how her body rumbled against his legs. Her giggles erupted higher until people began to look at them, and Levi grit his teeth. “Okay, call me old fashioned—“

“No, no,” Petra shushed him with a peck to his lips. “It’s just…well, you’re perfect.”

Confusion arose in his brows, though he didn’t hesitate in dipping his lips in for another kiss. Jesus Christ, he was already whipped, her touch like some drug he couldn’t get enough of, but she wasn’t protesting as she hungrily lapped his unpracticed movements.

“I’ll explain on the way out, I live in Fair Ridge.” At his hesitant expression, she rolled her eyes. “I’m not going to eat you, I promise. Let’s just talk. Where do you live?”

Levi lived on the opposite side—the grimier one, but his feet were already hitting the ground as Petra took his hand and pulled him through the crowd.

He smiled to himself, watching as she led him down the same path he was going to take.

—

7 months later

“Happy graduation day, Levi!”

Petra thrust an armful of flowers into Levi’s hands the minute he returned from the ceremony. It was May, and the flowers were freshly in bloom as he descended upon the steps of the building he’d spent many hours studying in. A black graduation robe covered his frame, accompanied by a golden tassel, and a medal around his neck indicating he graduated at the top of his class. Petra’s warm hand held his, the only one to celebrate his success other than his classmates. A wide smile stretched across his face as he kissed her, she looked divine in this sundress, and her wedge heels made them equal height.

“Thank you,” he said, giving one last kiss to her forehead. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“That’s a fucking lie,” she teased, threading their arms. “You were doing just fine without me.”

She was right, as usual, but that didn’t stop the stupid grin on Levi’s face as he thought about their future. He had a job lined up—a well-paying salaried just a few towns over from their university. They already signed a lease for next year, just the two of them, and he couldn’t wait to fund Petra’s vet schooling. He met her parents and they adored him despite his hesitancy to join their family.

“They’re not soulmates,” Petra explained to him one rainy afternoon while they did homework together, feet sole to sole on her bed. “But they went ahead and had me anyway. They’re not worried about the soulmate thing, but they’ve told me they’ve fought about it since they got together. It has its ups and downs. But what’s the point in life when all you do is wait for something?”

“They’re not married?” Levi asked, unfamiliar with how marriages worked in non-soulmate situations. His parents were dead, he was raised by a good-for-nothing uncle that dropped him at 18.

“Nah. It’s their failsafe, you know? In case things get messy.”

If either of them found a soulmate. Suddenly, Levi understood the privilege of their situation. No matter how much you loved someone in this world, the glass floor underneath could give out at any moment. Even before Petra, Levi had always felt like this, waiting for his world to shatter. The sure-footedness that love provided him eased his sensibilities and the tranquility he was afforded could not be put into words.

Despite Petra’s eager disposition at their first meeting, she explained between kisses and moans that she also wanted to take things slow. Growing up with non-soulmate parents distorted her understanding of love and views on soulmates, and she wanted, no needed to know Levi was all in.

“I’m dedicating my heart to you,” he said after their first date. They took a trip into the city and read while ordering a full platter of high tea. That evening, they took a walk, and Levi couldn’t remember the last time he was so distracted. They wound up on the other side of the city, and too tired and exhausted to return to campus, they bought a hotel room for the night where he fell asleep on her chest. Aimless fingers roamed through his undercut, a soothing and unconscious habit Petra slowly picked up over time.

It was the greatest day of his life.

The threads of their connection begged them to push forward, to consummate their revelation, and Levi had to separate himself, three pillows apart. She was intoxicating. Her lithe laughter, the dry humor that matched his own with a touch of tenderness. They logically knew being soulmates meant more than just wanting to fuck each other, but Levi was startled at how deep the connection went. From their values to their preference in cuisine, maybe there was some science in how the universe matched soulmates. That was the only explanation for how Petra was dressed in a kitten costume on the night they met, and how his confession to her on how he envisioned their first time was met with eager kissing.

“You don’t think it’s weird?” A rosy blush dappled his cheeks while Levi hid his face in his hands. His back was faced towards her while they sat side by side on Petra’s bed and she jokingly brought out the cat ears she wore on Halloween night.

“Of course not,” she purred and nuzzled her nose into his neck, breaking his embarrassment. He jolted from how cold the tip of her nose was and met her eager expression. “I love exciting you. Turning you on turns me on.”

They decided to take things slow, and while Petra was ready and eager, Levi was not. She respected his choice and even made a game of how far she could push him, goading him with blow jobs and skimpy outfits. Ever since Petra had found out about his kink, she had gone as far as to recreate her Halloween costume.

Needless to say, Levi had to leave for the night.

It didn’t stop her from sending Snapchat after Snapchat, ranging from tasteful cleavage to suggestive remarks on why she wore a collar.

They had Christmas break. Spring break. Hell, Levi knew he could manage to take off a week or so after spring semester started. Erwin and Hange teased him relentlessly, taunting him on whether she was actually his soulmate since he was so determined to keep his status as a virgin.

“Maybe it’s a one-directional soulmate situation,” Hange snickered while acing another strike at the bowling alley. Their name flashed on the screen and scored a high five with Erwin while Levi scowled at the two of them.

“It’s definitely not.”

“I dunno, it’s hard to believe you have a gorgeous woman like Petra on your arm and you refuse to sleep with her.” Erwin remained silent but Levi caught the worry in his eyes.

“I told you, we’re taking our time. As you like to remind me, I haven’t even had a girlfriend before. I just thought it’d be nice to date before we went straight to—“

“Fucking,” Erwin finished for him, a grin sliding up his jaw, and Levi kicked him in the shin while cutting him off.

“Marriage.”

Hange dropped the bowling ball in their hand, and the group beside them flinched as it rolled across the floor with no one in the present party eager to retrieve it. Levi crossed his arms, offended by his friend’s shocked faces, and scoffed.

“What?”

“I never thought I’d hear those words come out of Levi’s mouth,” Hange gaped. Levi turned to pick up the ball and threw it lazily back onto the machine while he picked up his.

“We’re soulmates.” The statement was matter-of-fact, and he fought down the goofy grin that always threatened to emerge when he said it out loud. “It’s only natural. But…I like dating. Sex makes things complicated.”

Erwin snorted. “That’s what someone who hasn’t had sex says. Come back to us when Petra’s popped your cherry and you won’t be feeling so complicated about sex anymore.”

“For the record, she’s a virgin too,” Levi said, but instantly regretted it as Hange raised intrigued eyebrows. “And that’s more than I should be saying. Keep it between us, okay? She acts all flirty, but she’s just as scared as me. We all know what they say about sex between soulmates.”

“Oh come on Levi, those are just tales to romanticize it. Of course, having sex with your soulmate is going to be mind-blowing. Worst case scenario, you have really good sex for a week. I don’t see what the downside is.”

Levi slumped his shoulders as he landed a perfect strike. “I don’t want to disappoint her. Then she’s stuck with me for the rest of our lives, having disappointing virgin sex.”

“Those two words are entirely in conflict with one another,” Erwin noted, picking up his ball and assessed the scoreboard. Levi was in the lead, as usual, but if he could throw him off for the next two sets, maybe he’d have a chance…

“Whatever,” Levi finished, sitting back down and sulked as he crossed his legs. “Let’s talk about how we’re going to crush Zeke Yeager in the next league.”

—

Petra adjusted the sash around his neck and trailed a hand down his chest. She paused at his heart, and Levi felt himself lean into her touch. The sunlight hit her ginger locks at just the right angle; glowing, vibrant, and he couldn’t stop himself from staring. A breeze fluttered through the alleyway where they stood, and he tried to savor the moment, not thinking about what was to come after.

Anticipation reverberated in the air, and Levi’s breath became labored as Petra made way for the car, tugging on his hand. A glittering smile touched the edges of her cheeks, her feet scurrying faster than he’d ever seen, and Levi knew they wouldn’t be going out to dinner tonight despite the reservations they made. While he knew Petra had no qualms about waiting until graduation, she had been gracefully patient with him. He hated himself a bit for his apprehension, and Levi wondered if it weren’t for the whole soulmate thing, that Petra would have chosen him. He was cantankerous, moody, and if it weren’t for the tightly wound leash he kept on his emotions, labile. Relationships weren’t all about sex, he knew this the moment they connected, but his reticence would make anyone doubt.

Soulmates fought and had issues just like any other couple, but the threads that bound them in this strange universe had a poetic inevitability about it. If he wasn’t such chicken shit, he would have brought it up with Petra, but he knew he was too afraid to hear it: I wouldn’t have chosen you. And yet, the same damn connection had him believing Petra with every heartfelt confession and gesture. Her, packing lunch for him because she knew he wouldn’t take a break from studying. Her, texting him good luck on an interview. Her, not being offended when he needed space during finals week.

Carefully, he set aside his graduation gown on the clothing rack and layered the sash and medal atop the robe. He hooked the cap on the side and wondered if it would fall at that angle, but he shook his head as he hung it up in Petra’s closet for safekeeping. Levi was a plain dresser—he liked nice things, but he kept his ensemble simple, and the navy polo and dress pants he wore suddenly felt too juvenile. What were people supposed to wear when they lost their virginity? Petra had called him a nerd, a fact he neither confirmed nor denied, but on paper, yes, Levi Ackerman was a fucking nerd. He was proud of it; nerds got degrees and well-paying jobs.

Petra knocked on the door, her voice airy, “Levi? You good? You didn’t fall into Narnia, did you?”

Levi chuckled under his breath. She was also nervous by the fast pace of her speech.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Closing her closet, Levi opened the bedroom door to find Petra stumbling in a completely different outfit than she was wearing before.

Ginger ears. Collar around the neck. Thigh-high stockings and heels, coupled with a bra with the shape of a cat cut out in the center, Levi wasn’t sure where to put his eyes first. Then there were the matching tail and wrist cuffs that completed the entire look.

She was trying to kill him.

“Fuck,” was Levi’s only word as he took in his girlfriend. He circled her and shut the door, and he could feel his eyes bulging from the sway of Petra’s hips.

A coy smile drew upon her lips. “You like it?”

“You’re so….fuck.” Levi didn’t know where to start. His clothes felt too hot and he wasn’t sure if he wanted her on the bed or for her to tell him what to do. Either way, Petra was about to pounce as she undid his polo button and slid a hand down the center of his torso.

“Are you nervous?”

He let out a long-held breath. “Yeah. Petra, you didn’t have to do,” he gestured up and down the length of her body, “all this for me. I would’ve been happy if we did things, er, normally.”

“You only lose your virginity once.” She winked. “Thought I’d make it special.”

The gleam in Petra’s eye barely made Levi notice she was backing him to the frame of the bed. His calves knocked against the frame and he gave a low whine as Petra pushed him onto the mattress. Plush blankets and pillows met his fall and Levi moaned when Petra dropped to her knees.

“Baby, you don’t—“

Petra giggled, “I’m just taking off your pants, relax.” But the image of Petra sucking him off already made Levi hard, and Petra noticed as she climbed on top and nuzzled herself into his neck. He smelled of cologne and paper, and Petra adored how his hands clung to the sheets of the bed.

“You can touch,” she encouraged, dipping her chest for him, the tips of her cat ears touching his cheeks. “I want you to take your time with me.”

Levi cursed under his breath, but he wasted no time in crashing his lips to hers. He voraciously grabbed her waist, then trailed eager hands up and down her body, memorizing each string that held her ensemble together. This was like his favorite fantasy come to life, no, this was better than it. Petra was perfect, his fucking soulmate, and all at once, Levi felt that familiar shudder come over him. Moaning through Petra’s lips, their tongues dancing and curving long each other’s mouths, Petra paused to check-in.

“You okay?”

Shaking his head, Levi chuckled from the darkened gaze in Petra’s eyes. “Uh, yeah. Just nerves,” he replied sheepishly, and Petra shrugged while she made work of his shirt.

She hummed as she took in his toned body and counted his abs as she normally did.

“They haven’t gone anywhere,” he dryly remarked and Petra rolled her eyes while kissing his chest. “My guy is fit, I get to admire it anyway I want.”

Levi laughed. Fair enough. The strain in his pants grew, and as Petra situated herself over him, her tail swishing behind her and occasionally brushing his legs, they both gasped when Levi cupped her breast.

“Oh,” she moaned, begging him to keep going. He’d felt her up before, but this time, the wetness between her legs would serve a purpose. Emboldened, Levi pulled down the elastic of the bra and suckled along with the round of her tits. He buried his face between them, wanting to get lost in their fullness while he played with her nipples. Flicking and pulling, Petra let out a wild cry as a jolt went through her body, and before she could stop herself, she shoved Levi’s hand down her panties.

He cried her name while she begged for him to touch her.

“Right there,” she ordered as his fingers curled on her clit. One hand on a breast, the other drenched in her pussy, Levi watched as Petra panted and rode his hand. He moved with expertise, his thumb sliding a line up her center, only to be brought back down and swirling through her folds. Petra was bright red, her mouth gaping and begging for him to go faster, and the collar around her neck jingled as she bounced further.

It was like she could read his mind, the way she knew to grab him right before he went too far, and how a fist in his hair sent him reeling while he trailed a searing kiss down her neck. The moan that escaped her lips heightened his desire, her pants his favorite melody, and he knew, right then and there, he never wanted to leave her.

Another surge of energy flew between them and Petra leaned back as if electrocuted. Both of their gazes hungered, a beautiful storm of sexual desire brewing between them, and all predilections of trepidation escaped them. Even though there was the whole sex bit, Levi finally understood the carnal need to be closer to Petra. It wasn’t just about fucking, it was the overwhelming urge to be wrapped in her forever. To claim her as his, and vice versa.

She crawled to him, this time on all fours while reaching up to cup his cheek.

“Hey, I love you.”

They had whispered it dozens of times after their first date. Another side effect of the soulmate equation, they both knew they were being honest, and the words came naturally to Levi’s lips. It wasn’t during their kisses nor some grand romantic gesture. They were sitting on the couch, her arms draped over his lap, and watching an animal documentary. He rubbed her feet, aimless circles, and enjoyed digging his thumb into each sore plane of her foot.

Petra said it first.

Monkeys were screeching in the background and then it flashed to a jaguar about to pounce. Levi thought it was a trick of the narrator at first, but when he turned to her, a warm smile on his face, the only thing he could say in return was, “Yeah. Me too.”

He echoed those words again and a lazy grin donned Petra’s lips. She beckoned him closer to the pillows, their hearts beating in time, and she laid back, looping her arms around his neck.

“Kiss me,” she pleaded, but Levi didn’t need an invitation. Slowly, they tasted each other. Already hard, Levi made sure she knew how fucking beautiful he found her, rubbing the length of his cock against her stomach. Petra whined and touched him over the boxers, first feeling his heat, then pulling down his waistband.

“Can you keep this on?” Levi asked, his gaze returning to her exposed breasts and the cat keyhole cut out.

“Of course,” Petra giggled, biting his earlobe. “I wore it for you.”

Another groan tore through Levi and he wasted no time grinding on her. Petra keened, her little moans bolstering him forward as she rocked in time to his rhythm, the hardness of his cock against her pale soft skin. She moved her thong to the side, granting him entrance to her slit. A low rumble emitted from Levi’s throat as he observed her arousal, slick and shiny, all for him.

Fumbling, he went to kiss her once more while kneading her tits again. It had to be perfect. Make sure she feels good. She deserved better—

“Levi,” Petra sighed, a mixture of anticipation and annoyance. “Don’t overthink it. Just push.”

Like two magnets, they drew each other in perfectly. A mutual oh passed between them, and they waited for a few moments to take it in. Neither moved, but their eyes were locked while fascination took over.

“You feel amazing,” Petra breathed, clutching his hands. Levi’s cock twitched at the praise.

He grinned. “Thanks.” A laugh passed between them.

“Should I move now?” Levi asked, giving an experimental thrust of his hips and a wave of pleasure shook them both.

“More,” Petra gasped, meeting his rhythm. It was instinctual, this joining, and Petra wrapped her legs around Levi’s waist, taking him fully. Levi let out a guttural moan, not being able to fathom being so tightly wrapped inside Petra, but he knew his soulmate wanted more.

Rush after rush of euphoria engulfed their senses, and Levi saw little black dots every time he looked to the white ceiling. It was too much and not enough, and before he could help himself when skin slapped against skin when he just knew it would bruise her, Levi dug his nails into the soft skin of Petra’s ass.

“Mine,” he growled, pumping harder, enjoying the jingle of her collar. Petra’s eyes were closed, too lost in ecstasy as he could feel her growing closer. She clenched herself around his dick, her wails begging him to keep going, and with a final thrust, she came.

An animalistic cry erupted from Levi when she orgasmed, and as she ascended, so did he. There was only one word, one name that reverberated in his soul: Petra. Petra. Petra.

Suddenly, it all made sense. They lied side by side, spent, gasping, covered in sweat, and neither wanted to move. Time stopped and Levi wanted to spend forever, right here.

“Wow,” Petra giggled, resting on his chest. “You know what’s crazy?” she asked, kissing his chin.

“Mm?”

“I wanna go again.”

Tugging on her cat ears, Levi traced the line of her lips. “Not crazy at all,” he chuckled. “I was just about to say the same thing.”

[tennessoui]

this is probably too many prompts lol but uhhh obikin: #6 meeting at a coffee shop au; #24 literally bumping into each other au; #40 exes meeting again after not speaking for years au (i'm a sucker for breaking up and getting back together again lol); #42 star-crossed lovers au; #48 meeting again at a high school reunion au

hi!! you probably forgot you sent this at all and I wouldn't blame you in the slightest. I'm pretty sure someone else already asked for 24, 40, and 42, so I wrote #6 instead! warnings for this one: bittersweet in that both anakin and obi-wan are sad, also the author is sad, also this takes place in the midwest in america (this is the first fic that is obviously set in america!!! wow!!)

6. Meeting At A Coffee Shop Diner AU (1.9k)

“Have a seat anywhere you want,” the hostess tells Obi-Wan without looking up from her phone.

Obi-Wan blinks and then looks around the deserted seating area. “Thank you, uh.” She’s not wearing a name tag.

“Angel’ll bring you the menu and take care of you, thanks for coming in,” she says, glancing up at him and then away.

Well then. Obi-Wan reminds himself that customer service isn’t everyone’s strong suit, that she might have had a rough day, that he’s here for the quick food on his way through town, that his ego isn’t fragile enough that he needs to be led to a table with a smile.

The restaurant is almost completely deserted. There’s two truckers eating their weight in bacon and eggs at the counter, and a family of four seated around a table, resolutely picking at their food instead of talking to each other. And then there’s Obi-Wan.

He chooses a booth by the window, one that overlooks the absolute nothingness of midwestern American scenery. If he cranes his neck, he can probably see corn.

God, Obi-Wan’s sick of seeing corn, and he’s only been in this part of the country for a few hours. He needs to go right through most of it to get where he’s headed. He’s not sure how he won’t die of boredom.

The thought sends a pang through his chest. It’s too soon to think of death even in an offhand way. He taps his fingers on the cover of his leather journal, before a line of dark brown under one of them catches his eye. He studies his hand critically.

It’s been two days since the funeral. Surely he wouldn’t still have grave dirt under his nails. Surely things like that wash away eventually.

“Hey,” a voice says from in front of him. A man is turned around and kneeling up in the booth in front of Obi-Wan’s, leaning over the garishly red vinyl of the empty seat with a menu clutched in one hand. His hair is short and dark blond, an undercut with a long fringe settling over his forehead. He has a nice sort of smile, one that looks genuine but doesn’t touch his eyes. Obi-Wan notices how long the man’s neck is and how predominant his collarbones appear in the loose white shirt he’s wearing, before he forces himself to focus only on his face. “I’m Angel,” the guy says, passing over the menu. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

Obi-Wan accepts it gingerly. It looks like something that’s perpetually sticky. “Water is fine,” he says politely. “Thank you.”

“Will do,” Angel salutes him and ambles away. Obi-Wan watches him go before shaking his head to rid himself of any sort of thought, and opening the menu.

It’s standard food fare, of course. Breakfast options served all day if anyone were to come in and request them. Lunch and dinner options are also served all day, probably for the same reason: a diner like this can’t afford to turn anyone away, even if they want a hamburger at nine in the morning.

A glass of water clinks down onto the table next to him, making him look up at Angel, who’s looking at him curiously.

“You ready to order?” he asks, even though Obi-Wan is still very much looking at the menu and it’s also only been a few minutes at most since Angel gave it to him in the first place.

“Do you have any suggestions?” Obi-Wan asks politely. “I’ve never been here before. What’s good?”

“The water,” Angel says and then laughs like he’s said something funny. Obi-Wan finds his own mouth curling up at the sound. Sometimes people’s laughter is contagious, like a yawn.

And then Angel says, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No,” Obi-Wan admits. “North of Boston.”

Angel whistles, like Obi-Wan has said something impressive. “Boston, huh? What are you doing all the way out here?”

The pit in his stomach intensifies. He does his best not to look at his nails and the grave dirt that might still be under them. “Driving,” he finally says. “And are you...from around here?”

Angel’s eyes grow distant for a second, and when he focuses again on Obi-Wan, they’re cold. “Born and raised,” he tells him flatly. “Never got out.”

“Oh,” Obi-Wan doesn’t know what to do with the sort of bitterness in Angel’s tone. It complements his own well enough.

“If you like eggs, I’ll put you in for the house special omelette,” Angel declares suddenly, all business again. “It’s four eggs, tomatoes, peppers, cheese. The usual.”

“What makes it special?” Obi-Wan asks, closing his menu and setting it down on the table in front of him.

“For you?” Angel drawls, “I’ll watch the cook to make sure he doesn’t get any egg shells in it,” and then he winks, holding out his hand.

Naturally, Obi-Wan shakes it. Naturally, Obi-Wan realizes a second after feeling Angel’s warm, calloused rough palm against his own that the man had meant to take the menu from Obi-Wan.

He can’t remember the last time he’s blushed this red, but he is absolutely regretting everything about this road trip. God, he’d pay money just to be able to leave now.

He should get in his car and drive back to Boston. It had been a stupid idea to come out here anyway, a result of stir-craziness and a desire to outrun the death of his father.

And now look what he’s doing. Shaking hands with his handsome waiter, as if he isn’t thirty-nine and perfectly aware of social norms.

Thankfully, miraculously, Angel laughs and this time it sounds real. “It’s okay,” he tells him, reaching out to pick up the menu.

Luckily for everyone involved, Obi-Wan finds it very easy to laugh at himself. “Well. It’s nice to meet you, Angel, I’m Obi-Wan.”

“I’ll go put the order in,” Angel says, “Obi-Wan.”

He’s back within five minutes, sliding into the seat across from Obi-Wan. So much for no eggshells in his omelette, but he can’t bring himself to be disappointed. There’s something magnetically fascinating about Angel. He’d like to know more.

“So you’re driving?” Angel asks, picking up a thread of conversation from several minutes ago. “Where are you going?”

“I was thinking of Alaska,” Obi-Wan says. “I’ve--I’ve always wanted to go.”

“You’re driving from Boston to Alaska?” Angel whistles, raising his eyebrows in shock. “I think the gas money alone would cost me two months of work.”

Obi-Wan shrugs. It’s not like he makes much himself as a teacher in Massachusetts. “My father was a lifelong gambler,” he discloses without really knowing why he’s telling this to a stranger. “He came into a bit of luck near the end. A bit of a fortune as well. And when he...died, I inherited it and his house.”

Angel touches his hand softly. “I’m sorry,” he says. “When did he pass?”

Obi-Wan huffs out what might be a chuckle. “A week ago, actually. It’s summer break in Massachusetts--I’m a teacher--and I suddenly had nothing to stay for, for a bit. It was either leave for Alaska or find some other way to cope.”

He runs a hand--his free hand, the one Angel isn’t touching--over his beard as he gives the man a rueful smile. “Dad always wanted me to see more of the world.”

“My mom was the same way,” Angel leans forward to tell him, as if it’s a secret. Obi-Wan feels like it is a secret, that there’s something delicate and fragile in the air. Something that matches whatever emotion is filling up Angel’s eyes. “Always telling me to leave, go get famous, go get happy, come back and tell her about it.”

“You didn’t?” Obi-Wan asks, his chest tightening at the thought that the man before him could be unhappy.

“I couldn’t,” Angel sneers, looking out the window and propping his chin on his hand. Some things must be too close to the heart to tell someone to their face. “Mom got sick. I wanted to get out, I was so close. Graduated high school, packed my stuff. I was going to go to California. To Los Angeles, really make it big.” He rolls his eyes and scoffs, as if there’s something inherently funny about the dreams he must have cherished for so long.

“Then mom collapsed going down the stairs. Just passed out in the middle of the day. Doctors told us she was sick. Then life became all about treatment plans and monitoring symptoms and getting the money for the medicines and I never left. Got a job here when I was eighteen years old, right before I graduated high school. It’s all I’ve ever known, I guess.”

“And your mother?” Obi-Wan asks, mouth dry and heart all tangled up in itself for this stranger man, for Angel with the hard, sad eyes.

“Died a year and a half ago or so,” Angel says flatly like he’s repeated the words so often in his head that the truth digs no barbs into his flesh. Obi-Wan knows that voice is a lie. How often has he looked in the mirror this past week and told himself, ‘Qui-Gon Jinn is dead’? He can’t imagine a year and a half would make the pain go away.

“I’m sorry,” Obi-Wan says seriously, reaching across the table to touch Angel’s hand this time.

Angel shrugs but doesn’t pull away. “Is what it is, I guess,” he says. “I’ve made my peace with it. And the fact that I’ll never leave this godforsaken town.”

“You could,” Obi-Wan points out hesitantly. “You could leave tomorrow.”

For a second, a wild and previously undiscovered part of Obi-Wan wonders what it would be like, if Angel did leave tomorrow--with him. If they got into the same car and headed to Alaska together and Obi-Wan wasn’t alone at the wheel and Angel wasn’t alone in this town. If Obi-Wan could look over at the man in the passenger seat, asleep against the doorway as they crossed into Canada.

Obi-Wan wonders. Obi-Wan aches.

“I could,” Angel says, laughing once. “I guess I could. I guess I just can’t think of a good enough reason to.”

There’s a call of his name from the kitchen, and Angel stands and stretches, checking the time on his watch. “That’ll be your omelette, sir, which is perfect timing considering I’m off shift as of five minutes ago.”

“Thank you then,” Obi-Wan replies, ignoring the pang in his gut at the knowledge he won’t be able to keep talking to him. “It was nice meeting you, Angel.”

Angel’s face grows dark for a second as his jaw clenches. “That’s not my name,” he finally says, scratching at his neck with one hand. “That’s just what they called me when I started working here. Angel, like Los Angeles. Cause I told everyone for weeks this was a temporary thing, you know? I’d be going to California soon as mom got better. Guess they knew better than I did.”

Obi-Wan has never wanted to kidnap a grown man away from a place more, so he hides his hands under the table instead. “Would you tell me your name then?” he asks, wondering if he’s overstepping but needing to know too much to censor himself.

“It’s Anakin,” his waiter says, sticking his hand out, no menu to grab.

Obi-Wan takes it gently, turns it over, and cradles it between both of his hands. “Then it’s nice to meet you, Anakin.”

Maybe, he thinks as he picks at his omelette and watches Anakin shoulder his way through the front doors of the diner before disappearing down the street, maybe he can stay a day in this nowhere town. Just an extra day.

Yes, he thinks, taking a sip of his water. He’ll try the pancakes next.

[kittyprincessofcats]

RWBY Volume 8, Episode 13 (Worthy)

Well, wow. That sure was an episode that happened.

Thoughts under the cut.

Anyone who leaves spoilers for episode 14 on this will get blocked.

- First of all, I want to now talk about the spoiler I saw for this episode last week, to put the anger from my last post into context: After I had just finished watching episodes 8-12 and started writing my post about them, I went into one of the RWBY tags bc I’m dumb and saw a post that said (I don’t remember the exact words, but more or less): “I’m so glad Yang is finally dead, so now her fans can shut up about her and everyone can ship Blacksun instead.”

… Yeah. Imagine seeing that when you haven’t seen the actual episode and have no idea what really happened. I honestly completely panicked for a few minutes, before remembering I don’t actually know anything and this might just be a “Weiss gets impaled in Volume 5, but one episode later it turns out she’ll be fine” situation. So then I had to look up what actually happened to Yang, because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to sleep. So, to the person who made that post: Fuck you. Not only did you freak people out for no reason (because come on, there’s no way falling into the void actually kills you – and even if it does, we at least definitely don’t know that for sure after episode 13), but even if Yang had actually died, it’s super shitty that your first reaction to a beloved queer character’s death would be “yay, now people can ship my m/f ship instead”. Like, I don’t care if you personally dislike Yang/ dislike Bumbleby/ prefer Blacksun – show a little bit of decency.

Phew. Sorry, I had to get that off my chest because it really made me angry. Now let’s get into the actual episode:

- “Worthy” as a title pretty much already made me predict that Cinder would succeed in her plan, since “you have to be worthy” was what Watts told her in his speech. She’s gotten the message and is now back to efficient plans – and while I love to see it, it also very much scares me when it comes to our heroes’ survival chances. The last time Cinder was doing well, we lost Pyrrha, so… help.

- And gosh, this whole episode was so intense! I feel like it mostly set up a bunch of very intense situations that are going to escalate in the last episode that I’m very much not ready for.

- I still think the whole central location between the worlds is really beautiful, if dangerous. (They should have specified to Ambrosius that they want handrails or something.)

- Nora using her hammer like a witch’s broom was amazing.

- I also loved the scene with Jaune and the people at the train station; that was really funny.

- The middle of the desert might not have been the best place for the exit. Didn’t the group consider that there might be a sandstorm or something else unpredictable out there? Couldn’t they have picked a better exit point?

- Cinder causing an explosion in the middle of the evacuation that throws multiple people into the void was bad and all – but it was still one hell of an entrance!

- I love that now that Cinder realized that she has to rely on teamwork, she’s suddenly being so nice to everyone. Apologizing to Neo, complimenting Watts on “tearing the kingdom apart with nothing but his intellect”, that soft “You deserve this, Arthur”, complimenting Team RWBY on their plan, thanking them for teaching her “one last lesson”. Yeah, maybe she’s just talking to Neo and Watts like this because she needs their help, and to Team RWBY because she’s confident she’ll win – but it’s still amazing to see the shift in her attitude and how she’s clearly changed her tactic.

- It’s insane to me that some people correctly predicted that Cinder would ask Jinn the last question based JUST on the fact that there’s a part in the opening where everyone else freezes in time while she walks past them. Holy hell! I love trying to guess stuff based on the intro, but I would have never thought that far.

- Cinder’s question to Jinn seems like a waste considering it was Jinn’s last question, but maybe it just seems that way to us as viewers because Jinn didn’t reveal anything we didn’t already know. Was it the right thing for Cinder to do? I don’t know, to be honest. Yes, it did give her the chance to ruin the heroes’ plans, but I have a feeling Salem won’t be happy about the question being gone. Pretty sure Salem was going to ask Jinn how to get the Beacon relic, and now she can’t do that. (Cinder ruining Salem’s plans for the beacon relic? Let that be foreshadowing, please.) I mean, maybe it’s worth it from Salem’s POV if it gets them the staff and then she’ll have 2 of the 4 relics – but they could have still gotten the staff later, while I don’t know if Salem has any plan B for the beacon relic. And I’m a little worried about Cinder now. I always thought that Salem wouldn’t kill Cinder no matter what, because she still needs the Fall Maiden for the beacon relic – but if she now has to wait another 100 years for the beacon relic anyway, I’m not sure if she’ll have a reason to keep Cinder alive. (And I’m still worried about that “Some lives will end much too soon” line playing over that scene of Cinder clutching her Grimm arm in the opening.) I also wonder if Cinder even knew that this was Jinn’s last question. Did Jinn even tell her that? Also, when will the 100 years even be up? Do the questions just reset every 100 years regardless of when they were used? So maybe we’re already at year 80 or something and will only have to wait 20 years?

- The cut from everyone at the central command place screaming to them being dead was kinda funny in a “very dark humour” way.

- When Harriet first jumped onto that ship with the bomb, I, like an idiot, thought that she was finally being sensible and trying to get the bomb as far away from Atlas and Mantle as possible, not that she was trying to still drop it on Mantle. She and Ironwood might as well be working for Salem’s team at this point, because they’re doing everything to help the villains’ plan. And the villains are even counting on it! Watts freed Ironwood from his cell and is piloting Harriet’s ship. Those two are just straight up helping Salem’s team in their attempts to… what was it? Save Atlas?

- Ironwood killing Jacques was awful and proves once again that Ironwood has zero morals left. And I didn’t like Jacques, but that was the kind of death that absolutely no one deserves. He had no way to escape or fight back, he was defenseless, locked up in a prison cell with nowhere to run – that’s not just a murder, that’s an execution without a trial. And Jacques wasn’t even a threat, he wasn’t in the way of any of Ironwood’s plans. Ironwood killed him literally just because he could. And no one who thinks they’re the good guy (and Ironwood still thinks he’s the good guy) should go around just killing people who aren’t even a threat.

- And then we have Yang falling into the void. Honestly, as heartbreaking as Blake’s sobs and anger are, I kind of love this from a “supreme angst, let’s see my faves suffer” perspective. That said, Yang better actually be fine or else.

- Actually, my prediction is that the rest of team RWBY will jump into the void to save Yang in the last episode. Because they’re all falling in the opening, and because “Sometimes it’s worth it all to risk the fall and fight for every life”. That’s pretty much the only prediction I feel somewhat confident about, for the rest I have no idea.

- I wonder if it would have been better if Penny had just gone through the doorway and gotten the staff to Vacuo. I get why she didn’t, because Yang just fell and her other friends were in danger… but at the same time, she was supposed to protect the population and the staff (and she has the maiden powers that I’m sure Cinder still wants). If she had just gotten out of there, at least the group in Vacuo would have had some help against the sandstorm and the Grimm. But then again, it would have also severely weakened Term RWBY’s chances against Cinder and Neo… it’s a tough call, really.

- “Why didn’t you just learn your lesson?” “Oh, Penny… I did.” Okay, but that’s the thing: She really did! Just not the lesson Penny wanted her to learn. And notice how Cinder called Penny by her first name again? She didn’t use to do that. I still think somewhere down the line Penny has earned her respect.

- I wonder if Penny’s technically weaker now because she’s human (?? is she??). She’s definitely not used to fighting without her robotic parts (as you can see when she tries to reach for her swords and realizes they’re not there anymore). I summoning those swords like she then did her semblance or another maiden power?

- Blake now has to choose between helping Ruby and helping Penny and Weiss – gosh, the suspense…

- I’m glad Vine at least finally tried to stop Harriet now! (Better late than never.) But I really wouldn’t blame Qrow and Robyn for crashing into their ship. It’s not like they had any way of knowing that Vine was trying to talk sense into Harriet. Also, Qrow crashing through Harriet’s windscreen was amazing.

- Winter and Ironwood are going to fight to the death and I’m so scared of it. (I just need Winter to survive, please…)

- When Weiss described the doorway as a “one-way ticket to Vacuo” last episode, I briefly wondered if that meant they wouldn’t be let back through, but then I brushed it aside and didn’t think about it too much anymore. Oh, damn. You really do have to be very specific with Ambrosius.

- I’m not even sure which location is the best to be in right now because they all seem very unsafe: Atlas and Mantle are unsafe because Atlas is falling, because Mantle might still get blown up by Harriet, and because Salem might still come back any time. The place between worlds is unsafe because of the void and because there’s a big fight happening right there. And Vacuo is unsafe because of the Grimm and the sandstorm. So really, they’re all awful for the civilians right now.

- And now I’m thinking the volume might actually end with the protagonists split into three groups as well: Team RWBY in the void (that they’ll spend Volume 9 finding their way back from), one half of the other characters in Vacuo (Oscar, Ren, Emerald, maybe more?), and the other half still in Atlas/Mantle (Qrow, Robyn, Marrow, Winter, maybe more).

- I’m super nervous about the last episode. I haven’t seen any spoilers at all so far, and I plan to keep it that way. I’ll probably completely ignore anything RWBY-related until next week because the anxiety would kill me otherwise. I’m really worried we’ll get a character death or even several. And ironically, my first prediction on who might die this Volume (Penny, Nora, Winter, Cinder) hasn’t changed all that much. I’m worried about Penny because she has the Maiden Powers and the staff, so Cinder will come after her (but I really think it would be an awful writing choice to kill her off after we just went through so much to save her). I’m very worried about Winter because she’s engaged in a duel to the death with a man who has a big canon that he just blew someone up with. I’m worried for Cinder because of the opening and because Salem might be pissed at her for using the last question. I’m worried for everyone who’s still on Atlas and might get blown up by the bomb (Qrow, Robyn, Marrow, Winter again). And I’m very worried for the characters who are in the in-between realm. Not so much Team RWBY, but I’m worried about Nora, Jaune, and Penny. So yeah, I’m pretty much worried about everyone and very much not ready. Now let me ignore RWBY’s existence for a week – or only reblog posts I already have saved as drafts – because it’s the only way I’ll know peace.

[fanficsforheartandsoul]

Enemies | [Darth Maul x Fem!Reader] | Part II

Notes: God, this took a while. I’m sorry xD Also, my subscription for grammarly ran out and now I’m probably making a lot more mistakes again, sorry about that but I’m broke right now, it’ll take a while until I can get it again xD Also,this part is mostly showing the Reader’s life after Maul’s supposed death.

Fandoms: Star Wars, The Clone Wars

Warnings: Non-Canon Story, Angst, Depression, Slight OOC, Original Characters, Time Skips

Summary: Y/N mourns for something she can never have but Maul won’t let her.

Word Count: 6′672

Taglist: @princessayveke​ @pinkiemme​ @thats-not-very-roger-roger​

If you want to be tagged in my stories send me a pm with the fandom/character name! Or comment on the fic :)

Masterlist

Part I

They held a funeral for the dead Jedi, and her Master asked her if she wanted to attend. 

Y/N declined with the reason that her injuries hurt too badly, although that was a white lie. 

She would probably break down if she was surrounded by grieving people, and with his permission, she left Naboo in a hurry and returned to the Jedi temple on Coruscant.

When her feet touched the surface of the planet she lived on for the last 16 years, she breathed in. It felt like a massive weight was crushing her lungs and was dragging her shoulders to the ground. 

She wanted to crumble right then and there, but her Master seemed to have announced her return to the High Council, and she was surprised to see Master Yoda standing at the transporter landing platform. 

They weren't even close to the Jedi temple, so why...? 

Y/N breathed out and straightened her back.

She respectfully cupped her hands and bowed before him, although there was a bad taste in her mouth that left her with a bitter feeling. 

The old Jedi, who had trained her from a young age, looked at her with worried eyes. He could feel that the force around her was unstable. Very strange for the usually composed padawan. 

It reminded him of Y/N's first few weeks in the temple. The same sadness and grief, if not a stronger one, weighted in her force presence, and it caused him to raise an eyebrow. 

He had already heard that the padawan had met her childhood friend on Naboo, the boy for whom she had cried in her sleep for months when she was younger. 

Suddenly they had met again, the Zabrak had turned to the Dark Side, and his destiny not only seemed to have shocked the young woman but his death deeply affected her too.

At first, he was doubtful when Master Ra'eli had told him that because the padawan he knew was collected and never let her emotions get to her head. She let it happen in her youth but not anymore. 

That's at least what he thought.  Now that he saw her empty eyes and the detached expression, he understood that he had been wrong. 

His tone was soft when he said: 

"About your mission, we should talk, Y/N."

The padawan squinted her eyes but she didn't voice any objections. She couldn't. Yoda was the grandmaster of the Jedi, after all. 

Although she would rather cut her own arm off instead of having to discuss the events on Naboo. But she knew she would eventually have to face the council.

"Yes, Master," was all she replied.

He hummed and let his eyes scrutinize her, before turning around and leading Y/N to a taxi which seemed to have waited for them.

When they reached the Jedi temple, the padawan quietly walked beside Master Yoda, and they climbed the stairs in silence. Same as it had been with the short trip in the taxi. 

The atmosphere was tense and almost unbearable for her. Every step she took seemed like one step closer to suffering, and her legs got heavier and heavier. 

Thankfully, the grandmaster wasn't in a hurry, and she could adjust her pace to his, take a breather, and mentally prepare for the Council meeting that would definitely follow. 

Her chest was tight from nervousness but also the bandage that stabilized her broken ribs. 

Her Master had advised her to get into a bacta tank when she had returned to the temple, and she had nodded, although not understanding why she would need to go to such measures. 

She didn't feel any prominent pain, she was fine. Everything was alright. 

When she reached the end of the stairs, she noticed that Master Yoda was missing from her side. The padawan turned, and her eyes searched for him. He was standing a few steps under hers and looked at her with a thoughtful expression. 

"Master?"

She shifted, hiding her faintly trembling hands in the long sleeves of her robes.

"Tired, you are, hmm? Discuss your mission tomorrow, we will. Go, heal, and rest."

Y/N watched him with a vague expression, but her eyes showed surprise. She lowered her head and bowed.

"Yes, thank you, Master."

The padawan turned and walked away, but Yoda had been able to see her quivering lips. The thoughtful expression disappeared, and his face turned grim. 

The council, I must inform. 

.

Y/N walked through the temple, but instead of taking the stairs to the Halls of Healing, she went straight to her quarter in the northern parts of the temple. 

She was sure that the first aid she had received on Naboo was enough for her. Her head had stopped hurting after a medical droid treated her wound and gave her some painkillers, and the pressure on her chest was weak. 

She would heal in time. After all, everyone did, right?

When she reached the dormitory, she walked past some rooms and suddenly froze when she saw a particular nameplate. 

All this time, he was practically my neighbor?

His blue eyes and auburn hair came to her mind, memories of two children playing hide and seek in the Jedi gardens and many sleepovers. Anguish spread in her chest, she gritted her teeth and walked past Kenobi's room. 

Five doors later, she finally reached her quarter, and she pushed her code into the panel to unlock it. 

When she was finally in her own four walls, she felt a big void in her chest, and her emotionless expression crumbled. She stood frozen in the middle of her room, her shaky breathing the only sound.

Y/N closed her eyes, and she tried to concentrate on taking deep breaths. She focused so hard on it that she didn't even realize how her fingernails dug into her palm and tore the skin.

Focus.

Focus.

Focus.

While she tried to get control over her emotions again, she tightened her grip on a grey broken object with sweaty hands. 

I’m fine. I’m fine, everything is alright.

Then, finally after a long time, her breath slowly calmed down, her fists unclenched, and the force stabilized around her.

When she opened her eyes again, Y/N's face was perfectly stoic, and her whole body was numb. The tight feeling in her chest was gone. Everything was gone. She was functional. 

There is no emotion, there is peace.

-

When the High Council called her the next day, Y/N had already acquainted herself with her body's numbness. 

And when the most respected Jedi of the temple asked her about the fight, they were surprised by the lack of emotions in her force presence and the neutral tone in her voice. 

When she talked about Maul, she used detached words, and instead of addressing him with his name from his childhood, she said The Sith Lord, The Dark Side User, or just simply The Man. 

The members of the council stared at her with curious eyes, only Master Yoda's expression was somewhat grave. 

Then Master Windu asked the most important question, and the other Jedi held their breath for Y/N's response. 

"Is it not true that he was your childhood friend?" 

The question was justified, and everyone in the room knew that. The padawan stiffened just a little, and Ki-Adi-Mundi and Shaak Ti slightly leaned forward in anticipation. 

She breathed in and straightened her back. Her expression was indifferent, but it looked oddly superficial.

"The person that killed Master Jinn was not my childhood friend, no. I believe that the Zabrak I once knew was already dead. The Sith had destroyed him." 

The grandmaster tilted his head, and his hand traced over his chin. 

"Us the truth, you must tell, padawan. Your feelings...?"

Y/N's eyes and force presence held no trace of a lie when she answered:

"I'm fine, Master."

And it was the truth.

It was the truth for the next days, the next weeks, and the next years. 

She was fine.

.

After her Master had returned, and she was allowed to recuperate for a month, the High Council decided to grant her and Kenobi the rank of a Jedi knight. 

The young man received his title because he killed a Sith lord and passed the Trial of The Flesh, while she... 

Y/N didn't even know what she achieved to obtain the title. 

She had acted like a fool as if she had forgotten all her training. She got injured, couldn't stop her former childhood friend from killing a Jedi, and was useless in general. 

But Yoda knighted her anyway. 

According to him, her Master said she was ready. But she wasn’t. She really wasn’t. 

But like so many times before, she remained silent about it and didn't object.

What use was it to protest? She just wanted to be left alone.

The new rank didn't fill her with pride. But neither did she feel shame. The numbness was the only thing in her heart. 

And if she had to take a hard guess, she would say that it was because of Maul. When Kenobi had slashed him in half, the Jedi killed part of her too. 

It tormented her in her sleep. Almost every night, she would wake up in cold sweat, hateful yellow eyes haunting her. 

Only then did she feel something again. But she definitely preferred the numbness over the fear and anxiety. 

It cost all her concentration to ignore all the pain she felt from Maul’s death. The grey object she took from Naboo became her companion, and in the darkest nights, she held it tightly in her sleep.

The Jedi knight ignored her nightmares, and she plunged into work, following her former Master's footsteps; she became a Jedi Sentinel, a Shadow like him. Partly because her Master had mostly taught her about a Sentinel's duties, but also because there was a flame in her heart. 

A flame that couldn't be quelled. She wanted to extinguish the hateful fire that burned in her chest and finally achieve peace but for that, she needed to obliterate everything that had something to do with the Sith and the Dark Side.

For Y/N, it was like a duty. Something she owed him.

Strangely, she believed that his soul would find peace in the force if she found the one who had done this to him, the one who had forced him to turn into that furious beast. 

She had already decided not to remember the Zabrak as he had appeared before her during their last meeting. 

In her heart there was only space for the shy boy with the biggest smile and the beautiful sun-like eyes from Dathomir. Not the angry, snarling Sith who held no mercy for any life form.

That’s at least what she told herself. But in her dreams was no happy little boy. Her illusions of a grown-up, laughing Maul had been destroyed. 

How could her subconscious still project that version of him she had imagined over the years? 

The man Y/N had dreamt about never existed in the first place. 

The Zabrak didn’t grow up to become the courageous and prideful warrior she had assumed he would. His presence hadn’t been relaxing. His eyes hadn't been filled with warmth.

The Maul in her dreams was cold. The touch of a single finger of his would cause a shiver to run down her spine, and when he choked her in anger, it felt as if her whole body was frozen. 

He would always strangle her. 

It was the same scenario over and over again. A replay of the fight. Only that she was alone. Her Master, Kenobi, Master Jinn, none of them were there. And she and Maul would fight.

And she would lose. Every god damn time. 

She couldn’t even remember how many times he had strangled her. Always with one hand. Always with an ugly grin on his face and hateful eyes. He would lean forward, his breath tickling her ear. 

His mouth would move. He would tell her something, but she could never understand. Could never hear what he said. Only a ringing sound filled her ears. 

Like the last time, they had held eye-contact. 

When he had died. 

And then he would clench his fist, and she would wake up with sweaty robes, a damp forehead, and a phantom pain in her throat.

People always said that Jedi Shadows controlled their emotions with an iron hand, but that wasn’t true. Y/N was sure that the Jedi Shadows, in fact, all Jedi, couldn't control their emotions at all. 

They just buried them under the hypocritical rules of the order and their Jedi duties. That’s what she did too. And from what she had seen, she wasn't the only one. 

She could name so many examples.

The Jedi knight ignored the desperation she felt when she couldn’t understand what the Zabrak tried to tell her in her nightmares. She ignored the instability in the force when she was alone, and she moved on. 

If she couldn't sleep, she meditated. If she couldn’t meditate, she sparred.

It was a test of the mental barriers she had set up. Dark thoughts lurked at the border of her peaceful meditations, and it took a lot of restraint to not let them in. 

But the wall of numbness protected her. She was happily bathing in the numbness of her body and mind. 

And Y/N was fine.

Fine enough to receive her first special mission from the Council of First Knowledge. It took a while though. 

Apparently, the High Council was worried about her mental health at first, but when they noticed that she seemed alright when she visited the library or went to meditate and train, they allowed the mission after two months. It was an easy task. 

Find a Holocron, retrieve, and destroy it.

"Don't forget this, Y/N."

Her former Master had said, one day before her mission. He gave her back her lightsaber. The one she had lost on Naboo. 

She took it silently, not able to look him in the eyes. The memories of him losing control of his emotions were still vivid before her eyes. 

She could feel his stare on her body and she knew, he wanted to talk about that day, but she couldn’t. There was nothing to talk about, at least in her opinion.

When she touched the cold metal of her lightsaber, it felt like a bolt went through her body, and she almost dropped it. 

This weapon held the darkest memories of her life. She would never use it again. Never. 

Things would well up when she touched the hilt. She couldn’t handle it.

So, she continued to use the blade she had borrowed from the temple guards.

After the mission, I should ask the High Council if I could pay a visit to Ilum. 

And so she left.

.

They sent her alone.

And when she came back, she had finished her task with outstanding results. 

It only took her two weeks. 

The councils were very pleased and praised her. 

Y/N smiled bitterly in secret, remembering all the lives she had taken, for the sake of one stupid Holocron about an already destroyed Sith temple. 

And the truth slowly revealed itself, if she wanted to or not. But she ignored it. 

Like so many other things and signs.

She held onto the rules of her Jedi life, as if they were a lifeline. The code was the only thing that kept her from crumbling.

The woman’s reputation was soon overshadowed by a rumor of a padawan. The boy Master Jinn had saved on Tatooine, the one he entrusted to Kenobi. 

Anakin Skywalker. The Chosen One. 

She had laughed when she first saw him train. 

This was the child everyone was talking about? The savior? The one who would keep the force in balance? 

Wishful thinking.

If the Jedi entrusted the destiny of the Republic to that mere boy, she couldn’t understand why the Sith went into hiding. The Jedi were clearly vulnerable and the High Council members were old fools.

She swallowed her bitter laugh and blasphemous thoughts and went on with her days. 

She received the permission of the High Council to get a new kybercrystal on Ilum after she told them about her "accidental” loss of her lightsaber. 

She traveled with some padawans, and she knew that they watched her with eagle eyes. 

Her reputation may have been overshadowed by Skywalker's, but people still knew about The Prodigy. 

She ignored them with clenched fists. Her acquired inofficial title now seemed like a curse. 

Anyways, the trip was successful, and 4 months after her former best friend's death, she got a new lightsaber.

Y/N also chose to become a Jedi Sentinel because they rarely stayed at the temple on Coruscant. When she was a padawan, she had a lot of duties in the Archives, but now that she was a Knight…

She could finally leave and get stationed somewhere far away. Far away from her former Master. Far away from the man who killed Maul. Far away from the watchful eyes of the High Council. Far away from all the hypocrisy. 

And when she arrived on Dantooine, it felt like she could finally leave the turmoil, that waged in her heart, behind.

Dantooine was far from the Core Worlds, and although its Jedi temple was abandoned, the Council of First Knowledge sent her anyway, because there were rumors that a local gang was going to trade some Sith artifacts. She was supposed to infiltrate the group and find out more.

It was a welcome change. 

Y/N could take off the Jedi robes for a short moment, and when she changed into civilian clothes, there was a weight taken from her shoulders. It wasn’t that she disliked being a Jedi, it was more the things that came with being one that burdened her.

Aside from the obvious restriction of letting your emotions run free and the fact that she always needed to restrain herself, there was also something else that had caused a bitter taste in her mouth.

The prohibition of marriage and love had shocked her when she had joined the order. 

As a child who was super excited about marrying Maul... It felt like the world came crashing down. 

It had stacked on the fact that she would never meet her best friend again. However, that shock slowly faded with the progress of training and the increase of her knowledge of the Jedi philosophy. 

And so she thought she was alright.

But now that she had been reminded of the feelings she had held for Maul... It felt like a great loss. 

She would never bear children. Her bloodline wouldn’t continue with her. There would never be a legacy. 

Y/N L/N would never teach her own blood anything.

Of course, if she wanted to teach someone, she could take a padawan, but that also wasn’t in her hands. 

The council would decide if she was ready for one, though she highly doubted they would ever say she was. But that wasn’t the problem. 

Even if she had a padawan. She could never love them. She wasn’t allowed to. Like she wasn’t allowed to love Maul.

Attachments are forbidden.

Forget him.

The words of renowned Jedi echoed in her head, and it felt like she got strangled.

There was a tiny, bitter voice in her heart that whispered that there was always another possibility, another choice, free of any Jedi rules.

But these feelings and imaginations were not appropriate for a Jedi.

So she closed off all the forbidden thoughts and concentrated on her mission. It would take a while to establish a trusting relationship between the locals, but she welcomed this period with open arms.

And so time passed.

-

The mission on Dantooine had unexpectedly turned into a giant conspiracy. 

It involved not only the planet in the Raioballo sector but also planets from across the galaxy. The thread puller: The Hutt clan. The Sith artifacts were used by a corrupted Hutt who was drunk on the powers of the Dark Side. Y/N's planned 8 months operation turned into 10 years undercover. 

And in all this time, not once did she let herself break down and grief. 

Not for Maul, not for the friends she had made on Dantooine and who then died in a battle. 

Her walls around these emotions were invincible. They always emerged victoriously. That's at least what she believed. 

Still, Y/N had changed. The years far away from Coruscant had influenced her far more than they should have. 

She lost the humble attitude, wore jewelry, used her charm as a woman to get information, drank alcohol outside from investigations, enjoyed bare hand brawls, talked in a crude manner, laughed about the Republic and the Jedi, and found pleasure in visiting loud cantinas with drugs and dancers. 

She let go of the restrictions the Jedi order had set on herself and she changed. 

The smooth edges of her character hardened. Mercy wasn't her first choice anymore. 

She told herself that this was only part of her cover, but she had slowly stepped off the supposedly rightful path, which was dangerous for a Jedi. But she hadn't felt like one in a long time anyway. 

Although she was undercover, Y/N regularly meditated. In the deepest hours of the night, she trained her forms. She didn't allow her body to get rusty. It was her weapon after all. But the philosophies of the Jedi were far away in the Outer Rims… 

At some point, years into her mission, the code didn’t help her to meditate anymore. 

And one day, she found herself in a dangerous situation, and the first thing that came to her mind wasn't a Jedi technique. 

Magick.

It was only a small trick she had been taught on Dathomir, but it was a dip into the Dark Side. 

Only a toe, just for a second, but it changed Y/N's views fundamentally. 

The feeling was familiar, it trickled through her body like warm summer rain, and the supposed hate, fear, and violence that the Jedi associated with the Dark Side was nowhere to be found. There was only her own sadness and pain.

And the questions she had long buried rose again.

What if all Dark Side users were like Maul? Corrupted? What if one uses the Dark Side to do good? What if there is more than just black and white? 

She had met ambiguous people in her time on Dantooine and later in the Hutt space, and although they had done bad things, they were not evil people. 

Some were forced to do bad things by others, some had never done something else in their life since the had been a child, and others were just hurting too much to understand what they had done. 

But in all of them could Y/N feel and see good.

Was it only their protectiveness over their comrades, or the way they treated their ships with fondness, they were living, which meant they made mistakes. Everyone did. 

Had the Jedi realized that? 

Although her walls around her emotions crumbled and she slowly began to see through the veil of her years in the Jedi order, she stopped herself from probing further into unknown territory. 

After all, she still felt obligated to the Jedi and found momentary peace in their principles.

They had raised her, fed her for years, they gave her a place to sleep, they taught her morals and showed her a path to her true heart, to the force. 

After such a long time on Dantooine where she saw the slums and the circumstances, some people had to live in… She had lived like a queen in the Jedi temple compared to them.

Y/N acted as if there were two people inside of her. Her cover as the smuggler and the Jedi. And she treated them differently. 

Y/N L/N was banned to the shadows of the night and only moonlight. While Dove reigned over the days and bathed in the sun.

She had been taught that a Jedi Shadow always needed a perfect cover, it was supposed to be natural. And Y/N was good at playing a determined, slightly crude smuggler with big ambitions who disliked the Republic.

Another padawan had told her once that undercover missions brought out the secret character traits of a person but she hadn’t believed him. She didn't realize that he was right. 

Both Y/N and Dove were one. Both were a part of her. And their attitudes and beliefs slowly mixed. 

Y/N L/N’s true colors slowly manifested on the canvas.

What once was covered up, bled through. 

However, she desperately tried to hide it once again. Or else she believed she would lose her footing in the Jedi order.

Aside from her slightly worrying character changes, her mission was doing great.

She had finally met the man behind the whole conspiracy, and soon he would be arrested. In the worst case, she would have to kill him, but she wanted to avoid that. Her small encounter with the Dark Side had made her hesitate.

But then it happened.

She received a holo transmission from the Council of First Knowledge. Something that had only occurred twice in the ten years she had been undercover. Her contact person was usually someone outside of the order. But this time it was all the high tiers.

Y/N had a bad premonition, and it was linked to a nightmare she had a few days ago, where the force had cried out to her in unexplainable pain. 

The fact that she had dreamt about something else than her friends’ deaths, was already a shock for her.

"Y/N L/N, it's good to know you're still alive." 

The woman frowned a little. Did they believe she had died? She had contacted one of her informants of the Order just three weeks ago.

"Masters", was all she responded, and she nodded at the council members instead of bowing, too used to this greeting after all these years undercover. 

She recognized only one of them, the Caretaker of First Knowledge, the others seemed to be new members.

Which was understandable, ten years had passed and the four members rotated every five years. She had seen two generations of masters during her mission.

All of them seemed to be relieved in a way, she could feel it through the force. 

She raised an eyebrow.

What is happening?

Y/N understood that her mission was a rare case. 

Usually, undercover missions wouldn’t go on for that long, mainly because the order wouldn’t let a Jedi be this deeply involved with the galaxy’s underworld but the council had worried that the Hutt, who had stepped into the world of the Dark Side, would cause havoc for the Republic, and they obviously wanted to avoid that.

So, she understood their concern but their relief seemed slightly too big for only that reason, after all, they didn’t really know her.

After thinking about it for a second, she hesitantly asked: 

“You seem concerned. Did something happen?”

The older members shared a look and then the caretaker said with a grave and urgent undertone: 

"You must have heard it. The Galactic Republic is at war with The Confederacy of Independent Systems. We would like you to-"

"WHAT?", she interrupted with a loud voice. 

A war had started? How?! When?

She was currently staying on Nal Hutta, but she was sure that news about a war would have been told to her. After all, Dove held a high position in the Mantis gang right now.

The Jedi Master on the hologram looked at her with worried expressions. 

"We can't talk for long, this channel will be closed soon. L/N, we will delete all Jedi Shadow names in the Archives. It's a security measure. But we would like you to finish your mission and then go to the coordinates we'll send you. You’ll meet with other Shadows and receive further instructions." 

She just blinked. 

What was happening? They were wiping out the records? Why? How where the Jedi involved with the war? 

A sinking feeling appeared in her gut, and she realized that the voices she had heard in her dreams must have been dying force users, Jedi. 

So many lives... 

This can’t be true!

Her hands clenched, and she hid them behind her back. Soon she could probably do that in her black robes again. Maybe even on a battlefield... The thought made her gulp.

"Masters, will there be another way to contact you?"

They shook their heads.

"It's not safe anymore, child", said a female member of the council. She smiled sadly at Y/N.

"The Dark Side of the force revealed itself again. You must stay safe. May the force be with you."

Before she could even ask what that first sentence was supposed to mean, the transmission ended. Only the blinking of her comlink announced that she had received the coordinates of the council and that the conversation really had happened.

Y/N breathed in slowly. Her hands slightly shook, but she clenched them into fists and closed her eyes. 

The darkness in the force showed itself again. 

The icy feeling in her chest was slowly burned away. A determined fire began to stir in her heart.

Whatever this meant, she would find out. For him.

-

"S9, how far away are we?" 

After the holo transmission, Y/N had continued her task. Although it ended abruptly and not how she had planned. 

How could she know that the big boss would commit suicide? 

That wasn't a move somebody had pulled on her before. Even in all those 10 years, no one had rather killed themselves than surrender to her. 

But it had happened, and she couldn't do anything to stop it.

It was a bad outcome for her mission because there were definitely some secrets left that should be revealed and the corrupted Hutt had been able to use the force in incredible ways, but Y/N didn't care anymore. 

He was dead and there were more urgent things she had to take care of.

The news she now received every day of the war between the Republic and the Separatists worried her. 

The Republic had somehow gotten ahold of a giant army of white armored men. They were clones. 

She couldn’t find out how that happened, or where they came from. But she had heard that Jedi knights, especially Jedi Guardians, had been appointed as generals for the clones.

The Peacekeepers of the Galaxy had turned into soldiers. 

Y/N didn’t know if that was a choice the High council had made or if the Senate wanted them to do it but either way, the thought made her intestines churn. This spoke against the beliefs of the Jedi. She couldn’t find a reason to why the councils would have allowed that.

After she had left her cover in the dark of the night, she had only limited resources for information gathering. 

The reason; the gang she had stayed with for 8 years had put a bounty on her head. And because she was partly the reason for their success and wealth, but also the death of their boss, it was a big one.

But she thankfully had no problems to leave Nal Hutta apart from a run-in with a clumsy bounty hunter, and she reached the coordinates which the council had sent her without any delays. 

The droid that had accompanied her for the last decade whistled, and she sighed. 

They had arrived on Corellia. 

The planet in the Core Worlds was inhabited and it could be seen from space. Why the council chose this planet... Y/N didn't know. She never set a foot on it. 

But now when she did she immediately felt a shift in the force. 

This...! 

The familiar calmness of her former Master's presence in the force seemed to wrap itself around her and although it had soothed her in the past, it now felt like an intrusion of her space. 

She automatically hid her force presence and strengthened her mental walls. She could still feel him in the force and he could feel her but it seemed like he could no longer locate her as easily. 

This pleased her and she slowly made her way to his location. 

To tell the truth, Y/N wasn't ready to meet her former Master again. After she had left Coruscant and the order for her undercover mission, she had a lot of time to think about the events that had occurred on Naboo. 

Her Master's heartbroken face from that time had haunted her for many years. 

It was because she couldn't find any reason why he looked at her with such an expression. No, that wasn't true. 

There was a reason she could imagine, but it didn't make any sense, so she never acknowledged it. Because it spoke against the Jedi code. And her Master wasn't a person who would break it. 

But now that she thought about it... Maybe she didn't know enough about him to actually be able to say that. 

She had also believed that she knew Kenobi well, they had been friends for years after all, but in the end... 

And from all the things she had observed in her 16 years of living with the Jedi order, she knew that almost no one had a completely white vest when it came to the code. 

So maybe it could be that her Master had felt more than just basic companionship for the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn. 

But she didn't want to think about it. Her beliefs were already shaken, there was no need to shake them further. 

The meeting point seemed to be at a backstreet right behind the daily market. Y/N assumed that they would take the actual discussions to a secondary location. 

The Council of First Knowledge had always been careful in regards to information distribution, that's why she didn't question her lack of knowledge about the upcoming meeting. 

Before she turned into the alley, she told her astromech droid to stay put and keep an eye out, then she walked into the shades of the houses and joined the other eight shadows who were already present. 

"Identify yourself", demanded one of them, a man with a big build and a deep voice. 

She recognized him as one of the former council members, Anatosh, or something like that. 

"Y/N L/N", she stated and she turned her head to one of the other hooded people.

Her eyes found the ones of her former Master. 

The brown color was still the same but Leon Ra'eli had developed deep circles under his eyes and she could see that he had gained more wrinkles in his face. He had aged and his former rather handsome attributes had dulled. Maybe from the war but probably mostly from aging. 

"Y/N, it's good to see you alive and well." 

His voice was also familiar, however, the soft undertone was missing and his exhaustion shined through. 

Oh, Master... What have you become...?

"Master", she replied and greeted him with a bow. 

A whisper from the other present members of the Jedi order took her attention away from her former Master, and she gladly stopped facing him. 

"Is she the one who people called The Prodigy? I thought she had died?" 

Y/N frowned but before she could say anything, the former council member, raised his voice: "Now that we're all here, we should find a better place to talk." 

She turned her head a little and noticed that six more people had joined them, there were now 15 Jedi Shadows attending this mysterious meeting. 

The 34-years old Jedi bit her lip, she hadn't been able to feel the other six approaching, they were like ghosts. 

Y/N knew immediately that they were masters of the force concealment that she had practiced for such a long time. She expected herself to be a skilled user but the newcomers were way out of her league. 

"It's good to see you again, Anatol", said one of them, and the voice seemed familiar for her. 

The former Council member just nodded at the other and then ordered:

"I sent all of you our secondary location, we meet there at 1600. You have 15 minutes, now disperse!" 

The military tone slightly put Y/N off but she ignored it for the time being. She turned her back on the group and walked out of the alley, back to R7-S9's location. 

"We're going", was all she said to him and he followed her obediently with a whistle. 

Under her long sleeves, she checked her comlink for the coordinates. 

It wasn't far away, she would only have to cross the market, and then she would arrive at the steps of the bar where they would meet again. 

"It's probably going to be a room in the back", she muttered to herself and the droid agreed. 

This method reminded her of the countless rendezvous she had held when she was part of the Mantis gang. Only that she wasn't the one leading the meetings now. 

While she traversed the market, she inspected the food at some stalls, bought a couple of old holo-music-tapes, and acted like a tourist, just to make sure. Anatol didn't give them 15 minutes for nothing. If they had traveled together as a group full of cloaked figures it would cause a lot of attention. 

But while she acted like a relaxed market visitor, her mind was elsewhere. 

She hadn't been sure if this meeting would be held with all Jedi Shadows present, still wasn't sure, but if it was... 

Where was the rest of them? 

Although she had never met all the Jedi Shadows scattered in the galaxy, she had seen more than just 15. She had met at least 40 members of the special group of the order, so what if...  

She couldn't finish the thought, it was too worrying. 

Although she had distanced herself from other Jedi, mainly involuntary through her mission, but also because of the events she had been through, she still held the feeling of companionship for her fellow Jedi. 

Especially Jedi shadows. It had weakened, yes, but after everything, she was still a part of them and the knowledge that they also wanted to get rid of the darkness in the galaxy strengthened the feeling of the connection.

So she worried. That they were the only ones left. That they had been killed, destroyed by the newly revealed darkness in the galaxy. She remembered the stories of the war, the rumors about the Separatist's generals, how cruel they were. 

And her resolve only strengthened, she would cleanse the galaxy of the darkness. No Sith would ever be able to prosper again. She swore on the death of her best friend, all evil shall be annihilated.

And if she had to follow the Jedi rules for this, she would.

If she had to work together with her estranged Master, she would.

If she had to join a war for this, she would.

-

[Somewhere on Lotho Minor, 20 BBY, 2 years later]

"This is where you live? How long have you been here?"

"Years and years and years."

He inhaled sharply.

"Through victory, my chains are broken. The chains - The chains are the easy part", his voice turned soft, vulnerable and he mewled: "It's what goes in here that's hard." 

Savage frowned at the creature that was supposed to be connected with him through blood, he could say creature because the being before him was more like a beast than a man. 

The sobbing and clanking and screeching irritated him and he replied:

"You have been lost, my brother. Do you remember who you are, where you came from?"

The spider legs began to rattle as if they shook from fright and their owner growled: "Always remember I am fear. Always remember I am hunter..." 

The yellow-skinned Zabrak raised a brow when he felt the shift in the force, the fury and hate now so prominent like a signal flare. 

Oh, this creature was definitely his brother, the strength was undeniable, although he questioned the sanity of him. But if his brother had stayed here on this doomed garbage planet with this body for years... 

It was understandable.

His brother continued, but his tone had changed, once again it was spiked with pathetic desperation but an angry and seething undertone had joined.

"Always remember I am filth. Always remember I am nothing." 

Like an animal, he snarled and his body twisted. Savage watched the poorly constructed legs with questioning eyes. 

"Your legs...", he began but his brother interrupted him hotly.

"That scum! He took them from me! He took them!", he screamed in wrath and clenched his hands into fists so tightly, that the rough and coursed skin of his palm tore. 

"Who? Who took them?", Savage urged and his brother answered.

"Jedi." 

He repeated it and then slumped over the fire, his voice turning to a soft murmur. Savage took a step forward and knelt on one knee. 

"You remember?", he asked but the other didn't reply to his question. Instead, he whimpered something, and the Zabrak leaned even more forward over the fire to hear what his brother said.

"They took her... They took her... They took her... I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you too." 

Suddenly he grabbed his brother's arms, and Savage almost plunged into the fire, had the red-skinned Zabrak not held onto him with his strong grip. 

"They took her!!!"

Savage had no idea what his brother was talking about.

"Who? The Jedi took who?"

His brother's voice had an emotional undertone that Savage couldn't quite place.

"Y/N, Y/N", he only muttered over and over again.