#he got a rude shock when he saw return of the jedi

[merlinsbudgiesmugglers]

Hey,

alright so I’m super obsessed with the way you write Tedromeda. Everything from the characterization and the dialogue is simply AMAZING! I hope one day I’ll be able to write them good enough like you do 🥺

Also, for the kissing ask 👀 not sure if you are up for a challenge in combining two asks? (It’s ok if you choose one, no biggie!)

7) to shut them up.

46 or was it 47? 🤔) envy or jealousy

I hope you have a great day and know that your writing always makes my crappy day better!

Thank you so much!

I have already written Jealousy from both Ted and Andromeda's points of view, so I went with just number 7.

Shippy Kiss Asks

[Slightly NSFW so putting this some of this one under the cut.]

Andromeda loved going to the cinema ever since the first time Ted had taken her to the small movie theatre near their first flat. She adored it when they were showing older films, the glamour of classic movie stars, Audrey Hepburn, Deborah Kerr, Grace Kelly. Love stories played out on screen in sweeping landscapes to rousing scores.

Ted liked action.

Ted liked guns and explosions, and the good guys winning the day.

They could never agree on which movie to see, so they took turns choosing on their rare nights out, and unfortunately, this time was Ted’s turn.

And he hadn’t stopped talking about it since.

All through the walk home, getting ready for bed, up the next morning, getting Dora ready for the day. Thankfully he went to work, or she just might have strangled him.

She still might. Because apparently, he’d spent all day at work thinking about it and had even more to say.

While they were making dinner together, ‘What a way to open a movie…’

Bathing Dora and putting her to bed, ‘A young boy finding out about powers he never knew he had…’

While they were in bed and she was trying to read, ‘...and talk about world building…’

Andromeda tried everything to get him to stop talking about it, agreeing with him, humming in vague interest, all out asking him to be quiet and let her enjoy her book in peace (admittedly, he did fall silent at that for a while, until he had another thought about lightsabers).

‘...and it doesn’t talk down to the viewer at all.’ Fed up, Andromeda closed her book, sitting up to look at him properly, ‘It’s like we were watching a movie made for someone in…’ Ted trailed off as she rolled over, straddling him as she pulled her nightgown off over her head, ‘...uh,’ 

‘Oh good,’ she mused, running her hands over his bare chest, ‘you can concentrate on something other than that stupid film.’

‘S’a good movie,’ he mumbled, but it faded into a moan as she ground against him, her lips finding the sensitive spot on his neck. His hand found her arse, and he rolled them over, his hips pressing her into the bed. ‘I thought you’d like it, poor boy helping to rescue the princess. It’s a good story.’ 

She would have rolled her eyes if he wasn’t doing such wicked things with his fingers. Instead, she took his face in her hands so his mouth could be put to better uses and kissed him deeply.

Because, though she’d never admit it to him, the poor boy helping to rescue the princess was a good story.

Even if Han Solo was far sexier.

[anakiinhighwalker]

|| 𝙻𝚘𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚈𝚘𝚞

↳ anakin x afab reader. tw for a man roughly grabbing the reader and being rude in general. Sorry if Ani is ooc :(

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

Biting your nails, you stood there hunched over. Anxious. Worried. Upset. You stared at the wall, covered with the paintings of your family.

Not just any paintings, though—wedding paintings. The brides, always dull faces but covered in the most exquisite jewelry your country could muster, was haunting to you. To think that in a couple hours that could be you.

It horrified you. And it was worsened by the fact you had to marry a man you didn’t love at all.

Your love laid with another man. A Jedi who was tall, handsome and one of the best men you have ever met. His name was Anakin Skywalker, who was the love of your life. Standing there, you thought about how much you loved him, how much you needed him in your life. You began to think about how many times your most personal maids and butlers shushed you and ushered you into the dark corners of your castle so you could spend a couple more intimate minutes with Anakin. He drove you crazy but in the way you wanted him to drive you crazy. And you knew that you drove him crazy back.

You loved Anakin so much that you had told him of the forced proposal from a prince from a planet you hadn’t even recognized. So, there you stood. Waiting for Anakin’s hurried arrival.

You didn’t have to wait longer as the giant painted doors opened with a strong force and you saw him once again. You could swear he got handsomer everytime you saw him; sharp eyes, sharper scar and his bellowing robes showing his prideful ways as a Jedi and a General. Anakin was so ethereally handsome, you wouldn’t doubt it if someone said the Maker had sculpted Anakin to be one of the most handsome men of the galaxy.

Your lover stood in front of you, long strides halting to meet you face to face. A moment passed before you two embraced a strong hug—a hug that could been read as intimate and passionate even from Naboo. Melting into his dark red and black robes, you sighed and smiled at the familiar chirp of R2D2 trailing not too far behind him.

He spoke up, still holding you, “When did you find out?”

Then you spoke, “This afternoon. I was so mad, Ani. I called you as soon as I could.”

Anakin, in his tall and confident stance, had one of the most loving, most softest look in his blue eyes, “Don’t worry. I’m not mad.”

“Anakin. I know you.”

“Is it really that hard to believe I’m not mad?”

“Anakin.”

“Okay yeah, I’m a little mad. But at the guy, not at you.”

“Not like I’ll marry him over you anyways.” You soothed his worries. He smiled and there you went, swooning over a Jedi and making him bend the very strict Jedi rules of no attachments. If Yoda or any of the Jedi saw him now, they would die of shock.

His dumb yet smug smile was charming as always. “Good. You know I wouldn’t—won’t—let anything happen. Maybe I can talk to your dad.”

“I don’t know. Dad has his mind made up on this guy.”

He scowled. “What does he have that I don’t?”

“What? Anakin, you know I don’t want to be with this man.”

“No no, I know I just…” He sighed obviously frustrated and upset. “I’m not saying that you wanna be with him it’s just disheartening to see your dad set on this guy.”

You leaned up, kissing his blushed cheek and then pressing another intimate kiss to his lips. Caressing his cheek, you whispered to him, “I understand. It’s okay Anakin; we’ll solve this. My dad’ll hear us out and he’ll stop this whole ordeal and in a few years, the war will end and we will have a family.”

Anakin couldn’t help but smile which made you smile in return. It felt like nothing could’ve separated you…Almost nothing. The loud steps of your soon to be husband echoed and caught your, and Anakin’s, ear. You both untangled from one another as fast as you had embraced eachother.

There he stood. Your betrothed. Truth be told, he wasn’t bad to look at but he just couldn’t live up to Anakin’s handsome features. He was slightly taller than Anakin but even so, you loved the Jedi more than you did the prince. And sometimes, it felt as if the prince knew about you and Anakin. But that was just in your head, right?

“Master Skywalker. My betrothed.” He greeted you both so formally—so coldly if you really read his tone of voice. Anakin’s stance stiffened; he stood proud and tall like how he stood in front of his army of men before going out into battle. The both of them stared at eachother, unmoving,

“It’s nice to see you, Your Royal Grace.” Anakin said smoothly, giving a small head bow to the prince. The prince nodded in return and turned to you,

“Come, dear. We have an afternoon planned together.” You saw Anakin’s brows furrow and his fist ball up within his long, coffee colored robes. Wanting to avoid any conflict (and also to avoid any impulsive actions from Anakin), you made something up on the spot,

“I can’t go. His commanding grace said I needed to see him.”

It was the prince’s turn to furrow his eyebrows, “The king? He’s asked to see you—?”

“And Master Skywalker.” You added a little too quickly.

The prince crossed his arms and stood covered in medals upon medals of gold splayed across his navy blue uniform. He looked at you and Anakin, questioning yours and more importantly his motives. Anakin mirrored the Prince’s crossed arms, his giant Jedi robes making look slightly bigger than he was.

Your betrothed broke first. He softened his glare, “Alright. I’ll call off everything for today. It’s best you two get moving now since his commanding grace will be busy.”

With a little quick bow and a nod, you and Anakin were on your merry way to your dads office.

———

“Anakin please!” You giggled, feeling kiss after kiss on your jaw and neck. You and Anakin stood in the hallways of the giant palace you called a home. You felt like a teenager, letting the familiar feeling of your boyfriends kisses soothe you.

He made you so happy. You couldn’t let the engagement happen. Not when Anakin was right there. You loved him too much and you didn’t care about Jedi codes or rules. All you cared about was the man who was peppering you and showering you in affection right now.

“Can’t I kiss my beautiful princess?”

“Not in the hallways. We still have to talk to my dad.”

“I thought you only said that to get away from Prince Charming?”

You bit your lip feeling anxious about telling him the next part, “Partly. I really do wanna talk to dad. I wanna talk to him about us.”

“Well alright…But if he starts getting mad, I’m not sticking around.” He half joked half stated.

Your father wasn’t quick to anger, much less to upset. He was always a very understanding man and he could always, always read your motives. Your father knew you pretty well so you hoped that when you entered the giant, marvelous marble office of your father’s room, he wouldn’t be able to tell why you really wanted to cancel the wedding.

Anakin, with an awkward smile, gently pushed the oak brown door open. The doors were large, imposing and stood strong as a show of strength and pride for your country’s leader. Even as a kid, the doors to your fathers doors never frightened you. You simply saw them as any other giant palace doors. But now, standing next to Anakin, you felt yourself finally feel that fear. That mild terror that isn’t exactly bone crushing but it was enough to make you feel as if your legs were weak and not there, even.

And there he sat. Your father. He looked pretty human for the great and grand ruler, hunched over millions of peach, white and even some red letters. They came from all over the planet, often asking for more budget or more resources—basic king responsibilities.

“Father?” You called.

“Yes dear?” He said inattentively.

“Me and Anakin want to talk to you.”

Your father raised his eyes at the name Anakin. “What does Master Skywalker need?”

“Your Highness”, Anakin took over and gave his courteous bow, “I have been speaking to your daughter about the upcoming wedding. We, uh, we believe it is not as beneficial as it was once proposed.”

“Why do you say this?”

Your boyfriend swallowed hard, you could see the little, most minuscule tremble of his bottom lip as he spoke. “I have reason to believe through my meditations that this wedding won’t be beneficial to your family. The Force spoke to me in a meditation session and it showed me the consequences of this marriage if it were to happen. Trust me when I say this, Your Grace, it was abysmal.”

Your father rose from his seat, the medallions of peace and humanitarian help splayed on his chest as well as his long, kingly robes making him look grand and majestic. He was much shorter than Anakin but still was he as intimidating as Anakin.

“These are serious accusations, Anakin. Do you have proof?”

“We don’t.” You spoke up, letting your anxiety subside. “But I can vouch for Anakin.”

“How do I know this is not just a plot to stop the marriage for ulterior reasons?”

Truth be told, it really just because of that. A plan to stop a wedding only because of your love to another man. You weren’t even sure if Anakin’s visions of the future were fact or not but you wouldn’t let that stop you. Regardless of the truth or not, Anakin was your beloved whether your father accepted this or not.

“Why else would we stop this wedding? What eason would we have?” You said as formally as you could, your old maids words coming to you about standing upright and keeping your hands docile yet attentive.

Your fathers silence meant either you or Anakin could continue, so you continued. “Truth be told, dad, I really don’t want to marry him. It’s nothing he did wrong, it’s just I don’t wish to marry. Anakin’s visions just put more distress onto me about the situation—Why else would he see horrible visions if it didn’t mean anything?”

“It could be bias—“

“Father, please. Jedi are not allowed attachments nor are they allowed biases; they’re peacekeepers not politicians.”

He sighed and laid his crown down on his elegant desk. “If this truly worries you and Anakin then, I will see what I can do about this matrimony. But the prince must not know you two came up to me to talk me out of it. It would be seen as treasonous for another man to speak up about a royal engagement.”

You held back the smile forming on your face, “Thank you dad. Really.”

“Of course. Run along you two.”

———

In your room, you and Anakin sat together embracing and simply being. He had pressed so many kisses to your face you began to worry your nerves would have gone numb. He sighed and brought you closer if you could even get closer.

You two stayed in silence, his silence in deep thought and your silence in deep worry. You shifted a bit to stare up at Anakin who was already staring down.

“What do you think is gonna happen?”

“Not sure.” He said, looking a bit worried, “I just know your father was taking us seriously.“

The silence grew again. A knock at your door made Anakin reluctantly let you go to allow you to get up, with Anakin getting off the bed as well to sit on corner chair that was as luxurious as it looked with its pretty ingrained swirls of wood.

Opening the door reveal your maids, all various heights but all as loving as a mother would be to a child. Anakin sighed in relief, letting his guard down and relaxing into the chair. Instantly, you were bombarded with questions, concerns and comments about your opposition to the wedding. How they found out, you didn’t know. Your maids simply had a way of getting around the palace.

That’s how they knew about you and Anakin.

Your eldest maid, a sweet lady in her 40s, shushed her colleagues and spoke in a soft voice—one that couldn’t be heard from anywhere but the room. “We need to take Master Skywalker to the guest room.”

“Why?” You inquired.

“The prince is on his way here. He will take it personally if he found out Master Skywalker was in your quarters.”

Anakin, already on his feet, walked alongside two of your maids. Once he gave you a small kiss to your cheek and palm, which made your maids squeal a little, he left in a hurry. You immediately took your seat at your vanity, which was decorated by extravagant pearls, jewels and other beauties. The prince entered your room as soon as you heard Anakin’s step fade into nothing. The maids positioned themselves around your room and locked the door.

The prince looked at the back of your head as you toyed with the many cosmetics on your vanity’s surface. You couldn’t look up at him, he looked livid.

His voice sounded strong, angry, and unnecessarily demanding, “What’s this about the wedding I heard from the king?”

“What?”

“Don’t play coy with me. I want to know why you and Master Skywalker are plotting to undo this engagement.”

“We are not planning to ‘undo’ anything. Master Skywalker’s visions agreed with my stance that maybe this wedding should be postponed or revised—“

“Don’t give me that shit!” He practically snarled while slamming a hand on your bed frame, making your maids jolt and look up startled. The echo of the loud thud of the bed frame surely traveled into the hallway even with the locked door.

You finally turned towards the prince, seeing his red face and his almost feral snarl that was gnawing and forming on his face. “I am not giving any shit. I’m only saying what I thought would be the best for us.”

The prince neared you dangerously, stalking over to you and towering over you as you sat. You gripped your table with uncertainty.

“What does Skywalker have to do with ‘us’? If you’ve forgotten, you’ll be my woman and give birth to my child, not HIS children.”

“That’s—“

“That’s not debatable!” He shouted, grabbing your face and roughly pulling you to him with a grip that would surely leave angry marks on your cheeks. Letting out a noise of surprise and exasperation as you put both hands on his arm and dug your fingers into his princely robes.

“Let me go!” You muffled. He just kept glaring.

“You listen to me. You’ll do NOTHING to keep me from marrying you. By law I have a right to you as the man.”

“Get off me!” You struggled, returning his glare and snarl. He was about to quip back before loud, deafening pounding at your doors interrupted him. The prince stared over at the door and rushed a maid to open it.

Anakin stood there, his glare more lethal than anything the prince could try and muster. The small height difference didn’t matter with how livid and menacing Anakin stood in the middle of the doorway. He didn’t move. But you saw his hand at the shiny metal saber hilt.

“Let her go.” Anakin spoke in the voice you heard him only use on Separatist. You struggled again yet couldn’t break out of the prince’s grip on your face. His fingers dug into your cheeks as he stared up at the dangerous Jedi.

“This is who you want to leave me for?” The prince mocked you. And you just about had it with his mockery and emotions.

In a fury, you slapped the living daylights out of the prince and shoved him with enough force to knock him onto the marble floors. Without question, Anakin walked to you and although he restrained his physical affection, the care and amor in his eyes made up for it.

“You do not get to touch me like that as if you rule this planet.” You never heard your voice tremble with this much anger. The prince stood up rather quickly and shoved Anakin, or at least tried to. The battle-harden Jedi moved not even an inch. Instead, that’s when the true brawl began.

Anakin’s strength was in full display; the way he tossed the prince was shocking even when you absolutely knew Anakin would get into a fight when the royal put his hands on him. The fool that Anakin made of the prince in that very moment was embarrassing, humiliating, disgraceful. Anakin’s battle wits were on full display as, for the lack of a better term, he rocked the absolute shit out of the prince.

The brawl left the degraded royal covered in blood and forming dark purple bruises. Anakin on the other hand? Had a few scuffles and red marks here and there. The maids had to pull your Jedi off of the trashed man, who only laid there touching his wounds. The way Anakin stood over the man, imposing and striking, was nothing short of attractive to you in all honesty.

“You barbarian.” The prince wheezed making Anakin scoff. You tried to help the prince up but he only slapped your hands off of him and stormed off to only Maker knows where. Probably to cancel the wedding with your father. You couldn’t care less as you turned back to Anakin and began to lay your hands on his cheeks.

“You have a little scratch on your chin, Ani.” You smiled. Anakin sighed in relief at the fact you weren’t upset with him and leaned into your touch. He placed both hands on yours and pressed kisses to your palms, knuckles and fingers.

“Who cares? That idiot couldn’t even get one clean punch on me. I’m not worried about some little mark.” The smug smirk and tone made you perk up and give a little kiss to his chin scratch. The maids quickly excused themselves and let you alone with your Jedi.

You two melted into a tight and loyal embrace, his arms feeling so strong and deliciously protective after what he had done for you.

“I love you so much, Ani.”

“I love you too.”

You looked up as he looked down and shared an extraordinary kiss with Anakin.

———

“Ani! Ani!” You cheerily called, hurrying through the Senate building. Your long dress and robes trailing behind you.

It had been nearly a year since that scuffle in your room. The wedding was called off, the prince with his wounded pride returning to his planet to marry another princess from the Mid Rim. Your father at first was unsure of what to make of the altercation but eventually came to conclusion Anakin was simply protecting you from what could’ve been a bad situation.

Anakin stopped walking with his master Obi Wan Kenobi and stared back at you, making a sneaky getaway towards you. He spun you and hugged you tightly, setting you down to share many light kisses with you.

“Ani…I’m so glad you’re okay. I heard so many rumors that the 501st…”

“If the rumors weren’t of our glorious victory, then there’s nothing to hear out.” He stated, landing a kiss to your temple.

The smile on your lips was mirrored by Anakin’s. The ring on your finger shined at the 5 o’clock sun. Your wedding and commitment to Anakin would be in only a few days, your maids and R2D2 being the only witnesses. Your eldest maid had agreed to bless you and wed you both in the secret gardens of your palace.

You only had to wait until then. Anakin had express his joy constantly, stating he couldn’t wait either. He simply had to be one with you.

You were so glad that you had met him and that now and forever, you’d spent your life with him. :)

[waatermelon-sugaar]

Under My Skin: Chapter 1

Series masterlist

Word count = 4,6 k

Chapter Warnings = swearing, canon-typical violence, bad writing

Summary = You hate Poe Dameron. Simple, right?

Edit = Cross posted to AO3

Part 1 of 4 (I think)

Poe Dameron didn’t like you and you didn’t like Poe Dameron.

“Because!” You grouse to Rose as you make your way to the cantina, “he thinks he’s so much better than everyone else, no one could ever come close to his skills, and he always gets the best missions, and he’s good, but he’s not that good, he acts like he’s god's gift to women - no scratch that - to the galaxy, and he’s so arrogant!” You’re growling in frustration as you round the corner, suddenly lowering your voice as much as you can because Dameron is right there at the end of the corridor, deep in discussion with General Organa and Finn.

Rose’s only response is to whack you over the head as she walks through the swinging doors in the centre of the corridor. You’ve never been so glad you don’t have to walk past Dameron in your life. “What was that about?” You hiss as you catch up with Rose, grabbing your own tray and helping yourself to dinner. “You didn’t have to hit me in front of General Organa.” Rose snorts. “Yeah the General was the one you were worried about.”

Trays full, the two of you spot an empty booth and hurry towards it, sitting opposite each other. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You won’t shut up about Poe.” She jabs her fork at you, causing bits of potato to fall to the table. You can only gape, words escaping you momentarily.

Momentarily.

“What! I won’t - Dameron - he - he and I - urgh! - never in my life - he’s annoying!” You settle on finally, fully aware that you’re now whining. “He frustrates me!”

Rose raises an eyebrow, “Well maybe you need to work out those frustrations.” You shake your head, deciding to ignore her for now as you concentrate on eating. “You do need to get laid.”

You yelp, coughing when you try to swallow too quickly in shock. And then- “I can help with that, sweetheart.” You whip round, eyes narrowing when Dameron’s behind you, his flight suit tied around his waist, exposing his dirty vest and irritatingly strong arms. The only person who can beat him in arm wrestling is Finn - you can no longer count the amount of times he’s beaten you.

You take another scoop of dinner before talking with a full mouth. “Ok, one, I’m not your sweetheart, and two, Rose is wrong, and even if she was right, I definitely don’t need your help with-” you pause, swallow, and gesture vaguely in his general direction. “That.”

This, annoyingly, only seems to make him grin more. “That? You’re not gonna call it what it is?” You lean back, pulling your most unimpressed look onto your face, as he continues, still smirking, even having the audacity to wink at you. “Hot, animal sex.”

Rolling your eyes, you scoff, turning back to your dinner. “Whatever you say, Dameron.”

“Does it make you feel better, being mean to me?” Dameron asks as he squeezes onto the small piece of bench next to you. You huff, moving up so that you’re not touching. You don’t like him, but you’re not rude. 

Ignoring his question, you deflect. “Where’s Finn? Don’t you want to sit with him?” It takes more effort than it should to sound like you’re asking out of interest, and not because you want him to go away. Which you do.

“He’s still talking to Leia.” Your eyes flick to Rose, and she knows what you’re thinking. You twist your body to face Dameron, bringing a leg up under you. “Is this about the mission?” Her voice is low as she leans across the table, forgetting about the rest of her dinner.

The last few days have been hell. Rumours have been flying around base, centered around a box full of Jedi crystals. Kyber crystals, you’d told Rose the other day, not that the name cleared anything up. You’d poked around the base’s library on your datapad when you had the odd chance, but the Jedi were now the stuff of legend, just stories told to children about ‘the good old days’.  

The rumours made things worse - you’re not sure how much of it to believe - there were so few people who were even Force sensitive but as far as you were aware there were no Jedi left. Luke Skywalker was lost, and therefore probably dead. And even if Jedi did still exist, weren’t they supposed to be the good guys? Why hadn’t they come to help fight along with the Resistance?

But Dameron decides to play dumb. “What mission?” His eyes are too wide to be innocent and it annoys you. “Finn’s talking to Leia about…” he pauses, eyes desperately searching the cantina as he tries to think of a good excuse. “The quality of the food!” Turning to you, his eyes are intense. “I know you want more chocolate pudding.” You ignore how he knows that, instead focusing on glaring at him. “Dameron do you think I’m a good pilot?”

“Look,” he turns to face you, ignoring his own food even as you continue to eat, “it’s nothing to do with your skills as a pilot.” He pauses, but you interrupt before he can give you some empty platitude. “I think it is - otherwise why am I not being included?”

“Hey, will you listen,” he turns to you, poking his finger at you for emphasis. “This mission is top-secret and the risk of the First Order finding out is high so-” This time you properly interrupt, flicking his finger out of your personal space.

“So you just decide to talk about it in the corridor by the busy cantina, where everyone and their mother will see you?”

This shuts him up.

The two of you are looking into each other's faces, inches apart. And it’s annoying because Dameron is unfortunately handsome. Why? Why is he of all people so good looking? Rose coughs obnoxiously loud, causing the two of you to break eye contact and turn to look at her. You lean back from him, trying your best to look thoroughly unimpressed as he stands, picking up his tray and when he speaks, huffing, his voice is sharper than it was before.

“Look, I only came over to say that we’re going to have a mission briefing tomorrow at 6. Ok? So, just-” He leaves, mumbling the rest of the sentence under his breath as he walks across the cantina towards Rey, leaving you with your mouth hanging open, looking and feeling like an idiot.

“Well,” you say as you turn back to Rose. “That’s why I hate him.”

“You’ve got a mission, aren’t you pleased about that?” You can tell you’re annoying her now, but you roll your eyes. “Yeah, with Dameron. He’s just going to be hanging over my shoulder and passing judgement whenever he can. I’m not getting my hopes up.”

Every time you came back from a mission Dameron was there. Always. Just waiting to tell you what you should have done, how you should have flown, how he would have done it. As though the only reason he hadn’t done it was because he was too important.

You knew you didn’t fly how most people did, it had cost you marks in your final exams at school, and it cost you a place in a higher squadron, but it was hard to find the will to change when the poster boy for the Resistance saw nothing but incompetence when he looked at you. Bastard, you couldn’t help but think as you stabbed the last of your greens, wishing it was his face.

***

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

The mission had been going so well. You’d dropped into the planet’s upper atmosphere, bypassing the planet’s security, got inside the compound, obtained the uber-secret box (your briefing hadn’t quite covered what was inside, annoyingly) and you’d been about to sneak out when you’d decided a bit more snooping was necessary.

The box had been in the centre of a library/museum set-up and even you could tell that these were rare books. So you’d told Dameron to inspect the objects while you scanned the books, pulling out a few that caught your eye.

The first warning you had been given was a blaster grazing your arm, causing you to yelp in pain, dropping the books and duck to the floor as another shot had ripped through the shelves - an inch or two above where your head had been. So a crap shot then.

Paper had fluttered down around you as you looked for Dameron. The shelves would provide good cover but unfortunately it also meant you couldn’t see your shooter. Pulling your blaster out from its holder, you aimed a couple of returning shots into the darkness at the edges of the room as you looked for Dameron.

You found him near the exit, standing over a number of droids. He’d been holding the box with one arm, the other bleeding heavily, but you’d managed to escape, tangling with another droid who’d punched you as you left the way you came, avoiding the crap shooter on your way out. You didn’t want the First Order to know who’d been there.

So now you and Dameron were walking back to the ship, cutting through undergrowth as you desperately tried to remember the way, face throbbing in pain. Dameron had fallen quiet very quickly, and you were alarmed to see how much blood he had lost so far. His face was pale and all you could think was that it was your fault. If you hadn’t’ve tried to poke around and look for other useful bits and pieces, you would have got out with no trouble.

Oh shit.

You were definitely lost now. You’d taken a gamble on the last turn and this was wrong. There should be a stream somewhere to your left which led back to the ship. Where was it? This was so wrong. And how were you going to admit this to Dameron? “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” You swore under your breath.

“What’s wrong?” Dameron’s voice wasn’t right. He’d lost a lot of his power, and you turned to face him, watching as a small drop of blood fell to the floor. You don’t want to say it, you know he’s going to hold this over your head later, your first truly important mission and you’ve fucked up so bad. “I -” you hesitate, mouth open, so unwilling to say it, especially to Poe, you have to force it out. “We’re lost...I don’t know the way back.”

And...oh god, you’re not going to start crying are you? You can feel the familiar burn on the back of your eyes so you blink, looking away from him. But Dameron starts struggling, using his injured arm to try and reach down, looking for something. You move closer, grabbing his wrist and forcing him to stop moving, to stop aggravating his injury. “What are you doing?” And your voice is mean and you don’t know why but his skin is cool, cooler than it should be causing your heart to skitter out of control.

Dameron looks up into your face and his eyes are a little unfocused. Shit. “Looking for a tracker - the ship -” His voice doesn’t sound normal. But you have to be the calm one, you have to be the one in charge so you push the panic down, trying to speak normally. “Where is it? You shouldn’t be using that arm.”

“In my pocket, I -” But you’re one step ahead, unceremoniously dropping his wrist and reaching in, pulling the tracker out. A thin disc with a central button, which you press, and a red light spins around the edge before settling a direction to your left, forcing you to turn about 45 degrees.

You set off, pushing through the undergrowth and snapping branches from trees, kicking any debris out of Poe’s path as he stumbles behind you. Panic is still rising in you, you can’t be the reason the Resistance’s best pilot dies. Oh fuck, oh fuck, fuckin’ motherfucker, please, please, plea-

You pause for a second, trying to get your breathing back under control, even as it skitters away from you. You glance back at Poe, who nods at you.

BB-8 is waiting back at the ship, preliminary checks before take-off having been completed. You help Poe lift into the co-pilot’s chair you’d been occupying earlier and squeezing into the pilot’s chair. You don’t remember the flight back, don’t remember dodging the planet’s security as you took off, all you remember is how pale and quiet Poe is. He watches you the whole way which would normally annoy you, but you don’t think his eyes are fully focused.

You’ve done better landings when you get back to the base, but you don’t really care, Poe’s breathing is different, you can’t stop the panic rising in you, and the second you’ve opened the door you’re yelling, voice already hoarse. “Medic! Medic! I need - I need a medic!” People swirl around you, when did they get here? But you don’t want to let go of Poe, one arm around his back, his uninjured one around your neck while you keep a tight hold of the box.

You fight as someone tries to unfurl your fingers, Poe’s weight disappearing and you’re crying now, hardly able to open your eyes. You don’t feel the sharp sting of the tranquilizer, instead blindly fighting the rising darkness inside you, unable to recognise it for what it is. Voices are all around you, muffled like you’re underwater and lights are appearing in bright spots above your head. You’re floating, falling backwards, further and further, until everything turns black.

***

The debrief was not fun.

Barely out of the medbay, you’d relayed to General Organa what had happened, how it had been your idea to stay back, how you’d got lost in the forest after, how you made a mess.

Due to your injuries, it had been just you and her, and even now, safely in your bunk, you couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than having to tell a whole command room. Sure, you’d been spared public humiliation, but at the cost of having General Organa’s full attention on your failure.

You’d pulled your curtain across your bunk, and you felt as though you might have to stay buried under your covers for at least a week to emotionally recover from the whole ordeal. The worst part of it was that General Organa hadn’t even seemed disappointed, or angry, just...like she expected it.

And Dameron was still in the medbay. It was coming up to 4 days later, but you’d maintained your distance, not sure your fragile heart could stand the pain of knowing his condition was your fault, no matter what anyone said.

You wanted to see him, to apologise, but at the same time the idea of facing him made you feel sick. It was your fault he was in the medbay, you should have prevented it. In fact, the only reason you even knew he was still in the medbay was because you assumed there would be some kind of announcement or celebration when he was better.

A knock on your door made you jump, and then frown, however the door began to open before you could respond which you supposed was kind of your fault, you should have locked it, now you were going to have to talk to someone-

And General Organa walks into the room.

You stand up so fast, you get a rush of blood to the head, your vision going black slightly at the edges. “General, I-” you start talking before you even know what you’re going to say, so shocked to see your hero in your room. Your eyes flick over to the mess of clothes you haven’t bothered to wash in the last week, tissues on the floor, half eaten snack bars and their wrappers littered around as you wished the room was a lot tidier.

“I wanted to check how you were getting on.” Her voice is soft, but still carries that familiar authority as she pulls out the chair from your desk and sits on it.

Your mind goes blank. General Organa...wanted to check...on you?

You manage to pull yourself together, sitting back down on your bed with a suddenly excellent posture. “Good, thank you General.” You can hardly look at her, it’s like she emits light, and it’s too bright, too much.

You’re hyper-aware of your every movement, this is the first time you’ve properly talked to her, you want her to like you, and oh my god she’s in your room? Her eyes never leave you, so you stare at your hands, fingers twisting in your lap. “Call me Leia.” She pauses, but it’s not enough time for the implications of that to sink in. “It’s understandable if you’re still feeling rough.” Oh stars you’re going to cry.

Your eyes are watery and you know looking down only increases the chances of them falling, but if you look up, she’ll see. “I wish I’d done things differently.” You say, and your voice sounds rough.

The room is swimming when you finally look up, but General Orga - Leia is smiling softly at you. “I think about every second of that mission and for every decision that I made, I wish, I wish I did the opposite thing.”

“Why?” The question is asked so simply, and there are so many answers, they crowd your mind. “You were successful, weren’t you?” Still you can only gape at her. Successful? Dameron is still in the medbay-

“I know what it’s like to blame yourself for a mission going sideways.” Leia continues, “But you retrieved the box, you’re both alive, Poe is healing well, the medics say the bleeding has stopped and his stomach is on the mend now.” His stomach? You frown, his stomach wasn’t injured, it was just his shoulder, but Leia mistakes your frown for further dissent.

“I know you think it was your fault because you said let’s stay behind, but what if you had found something important? And Poe agreed, didn’t he? It’s not just on you. You just have to learn when the risk is worth the reward.” With that, she stands, so you do too. “I’ll formally debrief the two of you together when Poe’s out of the medbay, but I thought you needed to know this.” You nod, unable to speak again, but this time for an entirely different reason.

It’s almost too late before you can speak again, Leia halfway out of the door, but she turns back when she hears your voice. “Thank you.” And you mean it. Leia didn’t say much, and nothing new, but she was right. The mission was technically a success. Things went wrong, but you were both alive.

Sitting back on your bed, you feel lighter, more like normal. And a part of that normality is annoyance towards a certain pilot. He was injured in his stomach? The more you think about it, the more a cold fury rises in you. Why wouldn’t he say? He was carrying that heavy box and - you let out a growl, surprisingly loud in the quiet room.

You make your way to the medbay, becoming angrier and angrier with each step. No wonder he had so much blood loss! How dare he not say anything! How could he not tell you? Did he not trust you?

You ignore the signs that tell you visiting hours are over, and maybe it’s the look in your eyes that stops any medics from reminding you as such when you march up to the front desk. “I need to see Poe Dameron, which room is he in?” You feel a tiny bit bad for being so demanding to an overworked medic, but you can’t think past how Poe Dameron lied to you.

You’re shaking as you walk to Dameron’s room, not bothering with pleasantries as you bang open the door. He’s lying in the bed, BB-8 charging in the corner and had you been calmer you would have noticed how Dameron jerked awake when you slammed his door shut. You ignore how he’s hooked up to various machines and drips, bandages covering his body.

“You were shot in the stomach?” Your voice is mean again.

Dameron just blinks groggily at you, a combination of drugs and tiredness, but you push down any pity, letting righteous anger flood your veins with fire. “What?” His voice is hoarse from misuse and sleep.

“You were shot in the stomach?” You repeat, keeping hold of that cold fury as you look down at his face. This extra minute is all Dameron needs to wake up properly and realise why you’re so upset. “No- just, just stabbed.”

“Just!” - and it’s like you’re watching yourself, no control over your actions and even to your own ears you sound hysterical, the volume of your voice rising.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” You demand as he presses a button, lifting the top half of his bed up. Tears are once again pricking your eyes, but this time you will not be crying, so you wipe them away quickly, past caring.

“Because,” Dameron huffs, realising that's not a full sentence. “I don’t know - you...you had enough on your plate, I didn’t want to add to it.”

“You should have told me.” Your voice is dangerous now, your whole body thrumming with an unshakeable anger, even as you stand completely still. A strong undercurrent continues to carry you onwards in the conversation, and you know you’ll need to leave before it runs out. “You carried that box for fuck knows how long, and what? You were just hiding your injury? You just wanted to be a hero, or embarrass me?”

Dameron stays silent, glare heavy in his eyebrows. It’s too much, you want, you need answers.

“ANSWER ME!” You roar, lashing out in defence.

“I had to!” He’s shouting now too, pushing against the bed with his strong arm. “It was hard enough to snap you out of it when we were in the compound - I wasn’t going to add to it - I had to know you could fly us home!”

His words are like they punched you, a heavy exhalation, and it’s as though all the anger was tightly held in your lungs. “I flew us home.” Your voice sounds small as you take a step back. Dameron’s found the one chink in your armour again, just like he did when you first met, the one weak spot of your insecurity and smashed it to smithereens.

There’s silence in the medbay, pushing against your eardrums as though to emphasise just how the loud the two of you were. There’s a brief flicker of curiosity in the back of mind, wondering why the nurses haven’t intervened yet.

You can’t look at Dameron anymore, instead taking in the number of different machines he’s hooked up to, watching the drips, how his heart rate starts to lower as he forces himself to calm down. “So you didn’t trust me?” You don’t want the answer, but you can’t stop the words.

He takes his time answering again, but you still don’t look at him, hands playing behind your back with the hem of your jumper. “If you don’t trust me - you should have asked Leia to switch me out!” Shut up, shut up, shut up, why can’t you stop talking, you stupid-

“Maybe I should’ve!” His voice doesn’t change, there’s no difference in his heart beat, although it’s on the high side of normal, matching yours, but something changed. There’s a split in the room, a chasm separating the two of you that wasn’t there before.

“Well why didn’t you?”

“Because I felt sorry for you!” Your eyes snap up, looking at his face in terror. “I wanted to give you a chance! I didn’t think you’d fuck up like that.” If Dameron’s earlier words were a punch to your gut, these sent you sprawling. Short of an atomic blast inside you, any feeling left inside you was obliterated. Hot embarrassment crawls up your arms and you want Dameron to feel the same pain.

“Fuck you.”

The words hang there, each second an eon. Poe instantly regrets his words, knowing he’s gone too far. He opens his mouth to apologise, but the words don’t come.

Neither of you say anything, glares still spitting red-hot fire, when you suddenly want to leave. You don’t want to see Dameron’s face again, not for a long time. So you clench your jaw, throwing up your middle finger and slamming the door behind you.

***

Isolating yourself doesn’t seem quite so appealing once you’ve left the medbay, so instead you make your way to Rose’s room, grabbing a bottle of firewater from the cantina as you pass. You need a drink.

When you arrive, you’re not sure you want to talk about the recent shitstorm your life has recently become so the first words out of your mouth when Rose opens the door is- “Do you like Jannah?”

It’s a little mean of a conversation to spring on your friend, but you’re a lot of things, and blind is not one of them. You’ve seen how the two mechanics look at each other. Especially when they think the other won’t see. Holding up the bottle as a peace offering, Rose smirks at you before leaving her door open as an invitation.

Rose denies having a crush on Jannah as you work through the bottle, only conceding on the point that Jannah is very pretty. You’re probably a little too quick to agree, blaming it on the drink that’s currently making you feel like you’re floating a couple of inches above the ground.

Comfortable silence falls on the two of you as you sit there, the floor a little cold under you, leaning against Rose’s bed.

“I’ve been thinking-” Rose starts but you interrupt before she can get any further.

“Dangerous.”

Rose doesn’t dignify this with a response, instead waiting until you wave a hand at her to continue.

“We’ve got a coordinating day off next cycle, if you wanna go to Sanctuary III. They’ll have a festival then, I can’t remember which but it should be good fun.” You can tell she’s keen, so you’ll go with her, but you find it hard to inject any enthusiasm into your voice.

Rose picks up on this, sighing as she refills her glass. “Alright don’t seem too keen on the idea.”

Your shrug, not really wanting to talk about the real reason you can’t find any excitement. “Sorry. I’ll go with you. It’ll be fun.”

“What’s wrong?” Her voice is gentle, and her hand is on your arm, and it’s so reassuring, so warm, your skin sings under her palm.

You talk to your feet as you tell Rose what Dameron said. “-and he - it was horrible, Rose,” you sniffle, tears springing into your eyes again. “And I - we’ve never got on, he’s, y’know, annoying, we’re always bickering, but I just - I never thought that he actually - it’s my fault he’s injured, and maybe he does hate me and-”

You stop your tirade and for the first time, just let yourself cry and breathe for a second. Rose’s arm comes around your shoulder and you lean into it, slightly. “It’s fine - I mean I never liked him anyway, now I can just move straight into the dislike section, maybe even hate I dunno.”

“Ok you should know that that’s not healthy first of all.” Rose’s voice floats out from above your head. “Second, I’m sure he didn’t mean it, and anyway, who cares what he thinks? Leia thought you did well. And third, this is all the more reason to do something on our day off!”

You give a weak chuckle and nod. You spent the rest of the night, playing cards and chatting about lighter topics until both of your eyes start to burn and you make your way to bed.  

***

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Chapter 2

[hunterscoffee]

Masked Crush

Oneshot Masterlist Din Djarin/The Mandolorian x Reader Warnings: angst, violence, the usual sw stuff Word Count: 1.6k A/N: Tell me if you want a sequel/part two.

He was laughing on the inside, he really was. He had never seen your face, your body and he knew nothing about you. What colour were your eyes? Your lips? Your skin? What did your voice sound like without the modulator in its way. Even though he had never seen you, he was in love with you. The way your beskar curved over your chest, the rasp of your laugh through the helmet, your impulsiveness and most of all, no matter how closed off you seemed to others you were so open and caring to him and the child. Whenever he realised he didn’t know who you were beneath the armour he got the unhappily reminder that you didn’t know who he was either or what he looked like, to be frank he sometimes forgot who he was too.

Din’s latest reminder of his crush on you was when you had breathed a heavy sigh, one that the modulator picked up. He just cocked his helmet at you like your breath of relief was a massive insult to his flying. And as if you were reading his mind.

“That was an insult to your flying, we nearly died!” you clarified to him. He breathed his own sigh, but his of frustration and slight anger.

“I saved our asses,” he bit out, “not my fault the New Republic dropped out of nowhere.”

“It was New Republic space,” you reminded him, he could only guess what your expression looked like right now, eyebrows raised, mouth slightly quirked in the corner, eyes shining with amusement at how defensive he was acting.

What he did know of you was very little to go off, he knew that you had joined the clan when you were 13 by your own choice and you were born on Mandalore during the Clone Wars. And of course he knew of your reputation as a bounty hunter and he had witnessed your skill.

“You also did a shit job of trying to fix it,” you unhelpfully commented.

“Thanks,” he grumbled.

“Do you know the name of this super special Mandalorian?” you asked, abruptly changing the subject.

“No.” he said, you groaned at his unhelpful answer.

“Great,” you muttered to yourself. "I'm going to get some rest." 

You must have fallen asleep because you woke to the Razor Crest beeping out an orchestra of warning sounds and the ship herself rattling as you essentially fell to the planet's surface. Din was grabbing her controls with what must be a white knuckled grip. If all that wasn't enough a woman's voice was echoing through the coms warning your partner that you were coming in too fast. 

"Holy shit," you breathed as you took it all in, powerless to do anything except watch and hold the child. Out of some miracle he managed to land the ship, on the platform, perfectly. But of course that didn't last long. Razor Crest tipped over the edge and plummeted into the water surrounding the platform. 

"Fuck." that's all Din said, that was it. 

"I'm flying next time," you growled. 

"No, your kiffin' not," he snapped at your blatant rudeness. 

"Mando look at the fucking transparasteel, you can't see see shit out of it, no to mention the state the metal alloy." you bit back, he huffed, chucking a few credits at the Mon Calamari by the spaceport and asking him to fix her the best he could, which to be honest couldn’t be that good by the looks of her.. You were too busy staring at the ship to realise he, the child and the frog lady had walked off, happily enough you got there in time to watch the reunion of the frog lady and the frog gentleman, it warmed your heart, just the joy you needed after such a shit day. In return for her passage the frog couple took you and Din to an Inn not far from the port and mostly filled with amphibious species. Just as you sat down a Mon Calamari approached you, asking what you wanted to eat and as quick as ever Din had just very coolly slid some credits across the table.

“Chowder and… information.” you would have killed to see his face when he said that, just his tone of voice sent shivers of arousal down your back.

As Din and the Calamari spoke you watched the kid and his chowder with jealous and hungry eyes, your stomach rumbled as if to acknowledge your hunger.

“Maker, I’m starving,” you murmured, not loud enough for the voice modulator to pick it up. Suddenly part of the child’s dinner launched itself at him, the baby let out a startled gurgle that turned to scared baby language. You pulled the dagger you had strapped to your thigh and slid it into the edible creature, then greedily watched as it fell into the bowl of probably disgusting chowder. What drew your attention from the child’s meal was a Quarren walking with loose shoulders towards you. 

“You seek others of your kind?” he asked, his tone rough like someone who’d been hardened over the years.

“Have you seen them?” Din asked, overly curious.

“Aye, I can bring you to them,” he added, then he started chuckling and your blood ran cold with fear and adrenaline. 

“Where.”

“Only a few hours sail, it’ll cost you though,” he added, getting up from the table. Without even consulting you Din slid even more credit across the table as if you weren’t broke enough.

“When do we leave?”

“What the fuck were you thinking?” you scolded under your breath to him, “You’ve put the child, me and yourself in danger.”

“You didn’t have to come,” he scoffed, though he had badly wanted you to come.

“And let you get killed, I think not,” you huffed, glancing over to the child’s cot. Your little conversation was interrupted when a shipmate came to stand beside you.

“Ever seen a mamacore eat?” he asked, you blinked, “Quite a sight, child might take an interest.” as if on cue you glanced over to the baby, he had his chin tilted up so he could watch his father. “You should come over, take a look.” the Quarren invited, Din hesitantly pushed himself away from the banner and followed the alien to the hatch in the middle of the ship.

You had seen Jedi, heard stories of how they could predict the future, get feelings about what was about to happen. You weren’t force sensitive but you had a devastatingly bad feeling about what was about to happen. You were right. It happened in seconds, the hatch door slid open and the crew fed the beast, the Quarren that had led you there began blabbering on about feeding the thing and then with the end of his staff the bastard knocked the child’s crate into the hatch and Din, without a thought dived in after him.

“Close the gate!” the alien shouted, the sudden shocked expression you wore turned quickly into a scowl.

“Demagolka,” you growled, planting your feet on the ground as you drew both guns. The hatch finished closing, and you shot your first victim, you had barely three dead when three beskar armoured individuals landed on the ship, the painting they wore was familiar but you couldn’t quite place it, no room for it, you were too worried about Din and the child. You had no choice but to put your faith in the strangers, taking off in the sprint to the control panels, trying to get there as fast as humanly possible, without hesitating shooting the Quarren that stood there. 

“Maker, which one? Which one?” you tried to picture how the shipmen had opened and shut it, then without time to think you grabbed the leaver and pulled back. To your utter relief the gate slid open, you moved quickly to the edge of the hatch, reaching your hand down as Din came back up. With all of your strength you pulled him out of the water quickly. “Shit, Mando, are you okay?” you didn’t let go of his hand, he couldn’t see it but your eyes were wide with worry.

“The child,” he gasped out. One of the other Mandalorians dove into the water only to emerge seconds later with the child. Both you and Din breathed a sigh of relief as the child as child was placed back into Din’s hands. But, your partner's somewhat relaxed demeanor was cut off when the ‘leader’ removed her helmet and you were met with a face you never thought you’d see again.

"You're not Mandalor-" Din started before you cut him off curtly. 

“Clan Kryze,” you spat out, so much uncontrollable venom in your voice. Her head snapped to you. You placed two hands on either side of your helmet then smoothly pulled it off.

“Y/N?” she whispered.

“Bo-Katan,” you had no room in your heart for pleasantries.

“Ad’ika please,” she started.

"Please what, mother?" you growled. Mother? Din nearly coughed in shock, then he saw your face, gone was the sarcastic, but kind Mandalorian Din knew and in its place was the living image of anger, grief and sadness. He wanted so badly to reach out and pull you into his arms, try to comfort you. Then he suddenly remembered the code, you had broken the code. 

"Give me the child, I'm going to see if I can help with the ship," your voice softened when you spoke to Din, then hardened again when you turned to your… Mother? "If you so much as follow me I'll kill you." that wasn't a threat, it was a promise. Without another word you picked the child up and cradled him in your arms then ignited the jetpack on your back, and left Bo-Katan with tears in her eyes.

[kenobis-kyber]

From The Stars

Hello everyone! Thanks again for likes, comments and follows!

Rating: M Violence, swearing, abuse, and later smut

Chapter 4

The next morning Obi-Wan awoke just as the sky was beginning to turn pink, having being used to this schedule since his master was definitely an early riser. He got up and opened his door very quietly as he didn't want to disturb his gracious host. Making his way into the living room he began to look around. One thing he noticed is that there weren't many pictures or holograms around, just various knick knacks. One of the focal points of the room is what looked like to be a primitive holo-viewer. It is definitely more primitive here.

Looking out towards the porch his curiosity piqued, he wanted to go investigate where Vanessa and Hershey found him. Maybe he would find more clues. Slipping out as quiet as a ghost and walked towards the wood. He reached out with force to see where her presence had been and followed that. A few minutes later he arrived at a small clearing where the glass was slightly singed and flat, the force was distorted bit here and he figured here would be the best to do his early morning mediation since it was the closest point to where he came from. He sat down cross legged, took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

It was different here but not necessarily unpleasant. Different animals could be felt around him and the stillness was actually quite nice. He was usually used to the faint sound of the ever busy city around him. The breeze kicked up and he could smell the plants and earth around him as he slipped into a deep mediation and focused on the here and now.

The sun shone in her room and started to wake her up. She sat up and stretched her limbs letting out a big yawn. Hershey awoke from the foot of her bed hearing her wake up.

“Good morning boy. Let’s get you into the backyard.”

She opened the door slowly as to not disturb her guest and tip toed out. Passing by his room she noticed the door was opened and she peeked inside. He wasn't there but the bed was freshly made and tidy. She smiled to herself liking the fact that he was considerate as such. Walking into the living room he still couldn't be found. She found it quite odd but continued about her normal routine and let her dog out to do his business. Standing on the porch and inhaling the fresh air she closed her eyes and relished in the crisp morning. Her peace was interrupted by Hershey yapping excitedly. Looking up she saw Obi wan emerging from the woods. He walked up to the dog and gave him a good pat and scratch before turning his gaze to Vanessa. He smiled as he approached her.

“You look well.” She stated

“Thank you. Sorry if I had you worry, I am an early riser and usually meditate in the morning. I went to find the spot you found me to see if I can find any clues.”

“It is fine. Any luck?”

“No, unfortunately, maybe the force will reveal an answer later.” he said with a sigh.

“Like I said you are more than welcome to stay here until such a time. Lets go inside and eat breakfast and then we will do some clothes shopping and grocery shopping, figure out some things you would like while you were here.”

“OK, though I still feel guilty that you are doing this for me. I have no way of repaying you.”

She chuckled. “Oh don't worry I could put to work on some of the repairs around the house.”

“Its a deal.”

They sat and ate breakfast and conversed about a variety of things, before heading out. Walking out to the car he hesitated.

“Ugh I hate flying.”

She quirked an eyebrow on him. “Cars don't fly here. Its all along the ground, sorry to say. We are way behind.”

“Oh.” he said while climbing in.

It was a bit of a drive, so she played some music. Obi found it quite agreeable and tried to learn the lyrics. Getting to the mall they went from store to store shopping for a few things for him to wear. He seemed to favor jeans, t shirts, and tennis the most. She also bought him a few beanies because she noticed people were starting to stare at his unusual hairstyle  and she could tell it was making him uncomfortable. They passed by a book shop and she saw his eyes go wide.

“Do they not have books where you come from?” she asked

“They do but they are so rare as everything is technology based.”

“Well why don't we go inside and you can pick up a few you might like”

He shook his head frantically “Oh no I couldn't ask you of that you are doing so much for me. As it is Jedi don’t keep a lot of personal items.”

“Relax. I wont tell the Council that you indulged while you were here.” she said while patting him on the arm.

“Very well.” he said with a sigh and smirk.

They went inside and about an hour later, came out with a few things. His face lit up with his new posessions. He got a history book, some poetry, as well as a few random other things. They loaded their items and drove to the grocery store. While they were shopping he asked her what everything was. And she told him.

“Well if there is anything you would like to try let me know.”

“Sorry. I don’t know where to start. Just get what you usually do or things you think I might like” he said with a smirk.

“Alright. No problem”

Later on they arrived home and he put all the clothes she had bought him away. And went out to the living room to watch a movie with her. She insisted on educating him in the best of entertainment they had to offer on this planet.

As the weeks continued on, they settled into a comfortable routine, including Obi helping out with chores around the house. He was always eager to help and she found that endearing. She always had a pleasant demeanor and was always kind. She was also funny and a bit sarcastic. But there was something that was bothering him about her, it seemed she lived as a bit of hermit and he hoped it wasn't because of him.

“Vanessa? May I ask you something?” he said turning to her while they enjoyed the dusk on the porch.

“Sure….” she replied a little apprehensive

“Forgive me if I seem to be a little rude. But I have noticed that you live kind of isolated and don't socialize with anyone besides me and Hershey. And I hope I am not the cause of it.”

He noticed….damn.

She cleared her throat. “Well its definitely not because of you so don't worry about that. Its just I had to start over.”

He looked at her curiously. “Start over?”

“Yes. Its a hard story to tell.” she said looking down at her hands. He reached over and grabbed one and held it. Raising her head to look at him he saw that her eyes were watery.

“I am sorry I didn't mean to pry.” He said while gently bringing a thumb to wipe a stray tear.

She sniffled. “No its OK. I need to open up about it some time.” She turned to face him and he squeezed her hand in reassurance. She took a deep breath before she spoke. “I was married at a young age. In matter of fact I lied about my age to get married. I was 16 and he was 19. And I absolutely fell in love. It was wonderful at first, but a few months in I noticed some things. He was mean and would constantly put me down. Then not that long after that is when he began hitting me. I was shocked but I didn't leave because I made the excuse that I was the one that caused it. I wasn't allowed to leave and was forced to take care of him in any way he wanted to….” she trailed off.

Obi wan’s jaw clenched as he could see her memories of the pain she endured. She continued, “One night it all changed. He came home from work and saw that I hadn't finished folding the laundry and he lost it. He beat me so bad, he broke ribs, my cheek bone and worse he raped me. The next day, I realized the hell I was in and had to get out. So I painfully walked to my neighbors house who promptly called an ambulance and the police. He was arrested and found guilty and is now serving a sentence in prison. This house belonged to my Aunt and Uncle they left it to me, thankfully he doesn't know about it. But I never want to take my chances of him ever finding me. So I broke off all ties.” she said with tears running down her eyes.

Obi-wan had never felt so heart broken and angry in his life. What kind of monster would do such a thing to a kind soul as her. Knowing he had to get control of his emotions he decided to pull her into him tightly to comfort her. She sobbed into his chest and he ran his fingers through her hair doing his best to soothe her.  Something in him that night had changed. He felt a protectiveness over her and an affection. He kissed the top of her head feeling that, she looked up into his blue eyes and saw a determination in them.

“I promise to protect you as long as I can. No one, especially you deserves that. You did nothing wrong and you are so strong to survive that.” he said looking at her with soft eyes when he finished his sentence.

He titled her head and kissed her forehead. Closing both their eyes they rest their foreheads against each others and relishing the feel of being so close together. They stayed like that for awhile until she relaxed finding his presence soothing.

“I am going to go to bed, all this has exhausted me,” she said while pulling away from him.

He gave her a small smile. “OK just know that I meant what I said, good night Vanessa.”

She returned his smile and headed into the house. He sat on the porch with the dog just enjoying the serenity of the night. Giving the dog a scratch on the head,

“Lets head in for the night, boy” Wagging his tail, Hershey followed behind Obi into the house before laying on his bed for the night. “Good night boy.” he said before heading into his room. He settled on the bed to try and get some sleep, but alas it would not come.

He laid awake in his bed organizing his thoughts.

I've never been affectionate to someone like that. Why did that happen to her? She is amazing for dealing with so much and coming out of it so kind-hearted. To be so close to her was heaven. I wonder how it would feel to kiss her…

At that last thought he shot up in bed. He shook his head as he realized that he was starting to develop feelings for her. But he couldn't act on them as it was forbidden by the Jedi code. But he already knew it was too late, He had formed an attachment to her against his will and he honestly felt conflicted about the whole thing. Who knew how long he would be here or even if he would permanently. Was this is the will of force, he didn't know what to do.

Tagging: @supermoschi @blondekel77 @princessxkenobi @ayamenimthiriel

[jesterlady]

Rise of Skywalker review

After Watching Episode IX for the second time, I feel like it’s finally time to make my feelings known regarding the sequel trilogy and to vent some of the negativity by getting it down in somewhat rational fashion.

If any one recalls the 6k I wrote on Avengers Endgame, you’ll know what to expect.

Now it’s been a while since I saw either Ep VII or VIII, so my memory is likely rusty on details.

 My feelings on this trilogy in general have been extremely negative.  It’s interesting, but after I saw Force Awakens, I actually had a very positive reaction at first.  It felt like a Star Wars movie (following the New Hope formula).  But after a while, even before Last Jedi came, I realized that I actually was disappointed, not necessarily in the movie as a movie or the new characters, but the direction the whole trilogy was likely to go.

 I must confess a great deal of this feeling probably arose from watching Clone Wars and Rebels in the meantime and becoming very caught up in those time periods and what they represent for Star Wars.  And that’s just it…the sequel trilogy takes what came before, what those people bled and died for, and basically said it didn’t matter.  They didn’t actually save the galaxy.  The victory at Endor has become incredibly cheapened by the First Order’s existence…and it doesn’t even matter that apparently it was Palpatine all along so it’s suddenly very connected in a haphazard fashion.

 They could have told a much more interesting story about the struggles of rebuilding a galaxy. They could have had the same characters, they could have had the same arcs (terrible ones mostly), and the galaxy could still be in danger.  But starting off with a brand new evil empire like destroying the old one didn’t even matter, not even letting Han and Leia stay together…like, that’s just creating drama for the sake of drama.  We have to destroy everything that was built before, because we’re really unoriginal and don’t know how to create new stories or build on top of a good foundation.

 Say what you like about the prequels (I am a fan in general) they had a very cohesive story, building toward a single point.  The sequels…did not.

 Now, we must all acknowledge the elephant in the room.  That of the atrocious planning and divided directional control that went into making these movies.  I don’t know what Disney was thinking!  The MCU for all its faults is a cohesive whole.  With a franchise infinitely more popular and lucrative and with a fraction less of the movies, you couldn’t pull off having a story that makes sense?

 And I’ll just say that even if JJ didn’t like what Rian did with TLJ, basically completely doing a 180 and trying to go the other direction, was selfish.  It destroyed further rather than fixed the problem.  I don’t have anything else to say, other than the lack of unity is probably the ultimate problem after the initial direction in the first place.  I didn’t really approve of TLJ.  The Rey/Ben parts…sure, but the slowest chase scene known to man and completely superfluous side ventures to a gambling planet were utter drivel.  So it’s not that I’m a Rian vs JJ person.  I think the lack of unity and that they both screwed with each other’s narratives is the problem.

 Anyway, we’re here to talk about TROS.  (And how about that, coming up with a title that is super confusing since we already have Revenge of the Sith.  I guess that’s ROTS…but come on!

 So…this will be fairly chronological but as I get deeper into character arcs and plot points, it will delve all over the place.

 The intro of a Star Wars movie is usually fairly jarring.  We’re dropped into the middle of a situation and all we know is three paragraphs long, to tell us what’s going on and what happened.  But this felt even more jarring than usual.

 Suddenly knowing Palps is alive in the credit titles is so off course.  Knowing he was alive at the end of TLJ would have been preferable, leaving us time to stew over how he was still alive and giving them time to come up with something more coherent than the absolute zero explanation we were given.  The return of an essential character/villain like that deserves way more gravitas and planning than the shock value we were presented with.  The idea of him being alive is not so shocking to those familiar with the EU, but that was explained and explained well, whereas how long he’s been planning this, Snoke, the ships, how…it’s all completely ignored and I guess we can come up with explanations on our own.  So…is Snoke his clone?  Or a part of him?  How many Snokes were there?  There are so many questions regarding their relationship…how it relates to Kylo/Ben, how it relates to Rey, how it relates to their bond, but I’ll get more into that later.  And more on those ships.

 Pretty sure a blow no one can be faulted with is Carrie’s death.  If she had been alive, I have to believe so many things would have been better.  She uttered the only sensible line in the movie…never underestimate a droid. Something everyone else went on to ignore even though droids made the whole movie possible.  Ugh.  I do think it’s funny that since TFA we’ve all been told to call her the General now…no more princess cause princesses are apparently weak, but she was suddenly a princess again this movie.

 The Jedi texts, I’d like to know more about that.  Very plot device-y really, if you think about it.  All this info about new and improved powers and places and things and considering how much lore we know as an audience who actually have been exposed to when the Jedi were still around, opposed to Luke onward…it’s just an excuse for story. Same thing with the Sith wayfinders and that dagger.  I guess you could make the argument for Palps having them made after ROTJ, but…that makes no sense.  But it’s the only thing that makes sense since how could anyone make a dagger the exact shape of a crashed Death Star before it crashed?  But the Jedi texts…super old texts…reference the wayfinders. And it was already in the vault of the crashed DS.  All I’m saying is that doesn’t make a lot of logical sense and someone needs to explain it to me.  And to stop making mysterious keys and clues to things.  It makes sense the Sith loyalist would have it since he needed to go back to Exegol to deliver Rey, (though he had clearly already left Jakku and killed her parents, so was he just going back to say, oops, I messed up? Palps clearly got the message somehow) but maybe it would have been better for them to keep all the Oracle stuff in and explained all this stuff properly.  Like I’m confused about Palpatine’s plan and he’s usually the master of strategy.

 Okay…Poe is so unlikable in this movie.  And he really doesn’t have an arc.  Maybe a little one, struggling with the burden of leadership.  But he mostly seems to be there to argue with people and be rude to Threepio.  This is a waste of a good character.  He was barely in TFA, he was a total mess in TLJ, and here he’s just a jerk.  I got nothing good to say for him.  Which is a shame because he could have been awesome.

 We will talk about Rose and her complete lack of presence.  Up front, I never cared for Rose in TLJ…didn’t see the point of her. She brought nothing to the story in my opinion and whether she was supposed to be a love interest for Finn or to symbolize hope or just be representative of WOC, I don’t know.  But her being shifted to the sidelines of this story is a blatant statement of disrespect.  The actress has been very publicly discriminated against online and instead of taking care of her, the director and studio pretty much stated they agreed with that by what they did with her character.  Aside from that…makes zero sense for someone who was so built up and had such a big part in TLJ to be so downplayed and have her story just stop in the middle.  It’s bad storytelling.  Especially while you’re bringing in a troop of new female characters to do…what? Basically things Rose could have accomplished and would have made more sense doing.  

 Along the lines of pointless things…what is the point of the Knights of Ren?  They were so built up…such an ooh, scary prospect and they play zero role in this.  They have no point.  They have no purpose.  We know nothing about them unless we hunt for backstory in comics and things like that. But you shouldn’t have to do that to understand the point of someone in a movie.  I’d also just like to point out, if they’re really Force sensitives who were Jedis in training…maybe?  Then they should be a lot harder to defeat and why don’t they have light sabers? And…why are they the Knights of Ren if there isn’t at least a discussion about what their leader is doing when he comes to Exegol.  Like they’re just trying to kill him from the second he enters.  I’d be like…hi, boss, so why aren’t we killing the girl…or something like that.  And if they’re the Knights of Ren, his…family for lack of a better term, people who trained with him since boys, I’d like to think he at least would have some compunction of striking them down…would try to reason with them first.  They might still be brainwashed like he was, but he would know that better than anyone.  I don’t know if that makes sense, but that’s my knee jerk reaction. A waste of possibilities.

 Want to talk about another waste?  Hux! Never liked him and his Hitler youth attitude, but really he was not important in this trilogy, like at all. DG is too good an actor to not have his talents used better.  He, Phasma, and Kylo were built up as this villain trilogy to stand against the Rey, Poe, Finn good guy trilogy, and basically none of them got any kind of development other than Kylo.  I knew Hux was the spy and I believe it is funny that he is the spy solely because he hates Kylo so much, but other than that…he was a waste of space.   Better to have him finally rise and become the commander he’d always wanted to be instead of Pryde suddenly being there and being all evil and competent for some reason.  Having him be significant for having followed Palpatine before would only actually be significant if we had seen him serve Palpatine before.  It’s just another instance of this brand new character suddenly taking the place of an established one for no reason.

 We can talk about Finn now.  Finn, who also suffered from lack of actual character arc and purpose in the movie other than running after everyone and being worried about them.  The whole Force sensitive thing is old news…we all knew about it a long time ago.  And this way of revealing it…such poor methods!  As far as I know the only reason you’d start thrashing around and declaring you never told someone something is because it is going to be a declaration of love or like a super big confession of guilt.  I mean, that’s what they wanted us to think by keeping it in suspense for so much of the movie and it’s just…not that big of a deal. Like it’s not a surprise, it’s not a death confession topic.  It was just stupid.  

 As for the idea that he only left the First Order because of the Force, well, that just implies that only Force sensitive people know right from wrong and can make moral decisions…it’s just not a good message.  Now whether Jannah’s whole platoon is Force sensitive is not clear, but it’s strongly implied.  And the fact that it’s what he wants to have told Rey is also not clear.  Like you have to figure that out (possibly with online help), it’s not inherent in the narrative.  Also…could have been told to Rose, Jannah not needed.  In fact, this whole storyline would have actually made much more sense and been better if it’s something Finn had been dealing with in TLJ and perhaps came with an army of defectors or been out convincing people this whole time.  Potential storyline wasted.  Plus…for someone who’s an ex Stormtrooper, watching Finn run down hallways and strike down troopers is pretty insensitive and OOC if you ask me.  Just a super bad way to take the character.  And he really didn’t do that much else other than be the main person who does the thing that destroys the thing so everyone else can do the main thing they’re there to do.

 Wow, and can we talk about Threepio’s treatment in general and in this trilogy in particular? I will be the first to admit that Han and Leia especially weren’t all that great to him all the time.  But it was how they would have treated anyone, I think.  Poe particularly just laid into him all the time for no reason, even after he sacrificed himself for them.  Like…just really made me mad at Poe and really mad at everyone the whole movie. It appears that Threepio, one of the two original droids of the whole franchise, gets the least respect out of any of them.  With all the fanservice going on, you’d think he’d be treated better.  I love the HISHE part where he talks about taking a last look at his friends and it certainly ain’t none of this trio!  You want to talk about underestimating a droid!  I know he’s not everybody’s favorite and I’m probably biased, but if we’re ranking droids in the SW universe, which we all do, Threepio’s not at the top for me either.  That spot belongs to Chopper.  But I’m still going to accord Threepio the respect and dignity he deserves for seniority if nothing else.  Because he tries so hard and no one ever thanks him for it.  I like BB8 and all, but he goes under Threepio and R2 both in ranking!  And let’s not forget if not for a droid’s knowledge of Exegeol (so convenient) and the way to get there, you resistance jerks are all toast, so respect!

 Zorii, Zorii, Zorii, frankly another superfluous new character.  But I liked her best out of all of them.  I can see that little something something with her and Poe and I think it would be cool for it to flourish now that the war’s over and they can put the really convenient past and betrayal behind them.  Poe being a spice runner isn’t bad but isn’t good either. It’s just convenient, because they suddenly needed black market stuff.  Also…like how’d she survive?  Really. Because it’s such a big deal for her to have gotten that thingamajig and it’s not like people have warning when the bad guys blow up your planet.  There is no evacuation time.

 I’ve mentioned her a bit so Jannah, again, other than it’s cool there are more women in the galaxy, just took up screen time for other characters to develop.  Were they trying to insinuate she could be Lando’s daughter, because that makes zero sense!  And why all of a sudden he’s champion of finding the lost families of the galaxy is super weird.  Also, it was cool to see him flying the Falcon and all, but did he really add anything other than gravitas from the original trilogy?  I’m usually a huge fan of fanservice, but I didn’t really feel like a fan being serviced.  I felt like someone constantly having nice things thrown at me so I won’t notice the murder being done in the other room.  A nice shot of Wedge, too.

 So many extra resistance people always there.  Like I love Dom, but why was he there?

 But talking of other people really who the heck is Maz?  I mean she just shows up out of nowhere and knows everything about the Force and the Jedi and people’s pasts and what their decisions are and we don’t have a clue why.  Like who is she?  How does she know these things?  Where does she even come from?  Like why does she talk about Leia trying to reach Ben and why does she smile when Leia dies, what does she know that we don’t and why?

 I guess now for the really hard stuff.  Rey and Ben.

 They were the only ones who really got developed and even then, I think Ben got robbed out of his ending.

 So Rey’s heritage. Being a Palpatine, very disappointing. If there’s one good thing I liked about TLJ it was the idea that you didn’t have to be part of some great bloodline to be special in the Force.  The Force doesn’t care who your parents are.  Most of the great Force users we know have literally nothing to do with who their parents are.  If anything, it has more to do with their lineage of training.  So JJ basically saying screw that idea and forcing Rey into that was very disappointing. And apparently electricity is very genetic…Dooku aside, of course!  It also implies the Dark side in her is because of the Palpatine heritage.  But the Dark Side of the Force exists for a reason, for balance, and provides something important to the galaxy.  It’s already proven even the Lightest of users and bloodlines have that pull.  

 Rey has been alone and searching for family this whole time.  Having someone to belong to was important to her.  But…the message of her finding a family and joining one, I think is a lot more important than her finding out her past and heritage.  Just being Rey at the end instead of having to say she was Rey Skywalker or Rey Solo would have made more sense!  Of course…I also think Solo makes more sense for her anyway given her connection with Han, her training with Leia, and her bond with Ben. She did train under Luke as well, granted, but she had more Solo connection than Skywalker.  They just wanted the cool name.  But also doesn’t make sense since Palps calls Ben the last Skywalker in the movie as well.  But whatever, I don’t really care.

 Let’s talk about this whole dyad in the Force thing and the grand plan.  Because I can’t logically reason it out myself.

 So Palps apparently has a plan to bring Rey to him as a girl so he can have her kill him and his spirit can go into her body and he can reign through her because his old body is like super fried and the clone thing ain’t working so hot.  Doesn’t happen, but he’s also working on his other plans to corrupt Ben and bring him to the Dark side, under the influence of Snoke, to do what?  Like what is his plan there apart from just general evil and revenge and nasty stuff? But all along there’s apparently been this Dark prophecy against Ben (and we all know Palps is the manipulator of the Dark).  Luke said Leia gave up her Jedi training because she sensed that at the end of that journey was her son’s death.  You’d think then they’d honor that sacrifice by not killing him, but whatever.

 Palps created or controlled or was at the back of Snoke (however he was at the back of Snoke) and so he’s pulling the strings during TLJ.  He knows everything Snoke knows.  So if Snoke created the bond between Rey and Ben, then he’d be very aware of that.  So how does the whole dyad thing work?  Because it’s made very clear Palps doesn’t know about the dyad, otherwise he likely wouldn’t have tried to do the dark ritual/strike me down plan first when it would have been so much easier to get them both together to drain them.

 So…have they always been a dyad from birth?  Was the dyad created separate from the bond when Snoke created the bond?  A Light balance to the Dark bond?  Regardless of how, clearly they are one soul and connected more powerfully than anyone else in generations.

 But Palps and his plan…he tells Ben to kill Rey.  What was he actually trying to do since it’s clear he didn’t want Rey dead?

 My only thought is that he thought Rey would actually kill Ben and thus give in to her Dark side and be more ready to be Empress…

 But Leia’s sacrifice and all of that still confuses me.  Palps said that Leia interfered with his plans.  

 Now in that fight Rey was the instigator, was the one trying to wreak damage (freaked out by her vision and revelations, I’m sure) and Ben was the one winning that fight. Like he was going to win until Leia stopped him.  But was he going to kill her?  Because I think it’s pretty clear that Ben has never wanted to kill Rey even if he was trying at first before the bond really started.  Either way, Leia stops him from doing something and Rey stabs him instead. Then Leia dies and snaps Rey out of it. Was it the reaching out to Ben or the death that Palps was talking about interfering with his plans?  Because again…he didn’t want Rey dead at that point.

 I don’t know. Having a fleet full of ships hidden for how long, when did those weapons go into place, who’s manning the ships? Because apparently there’s the regular First Order fleet still out there conveniently being taken down by the rest of the galaxy after this fleet burns, so have these recruits just been sitting out there, chilling at Exegol for years, waiting for this order and attack? Total side tangent and question really, but it all makes no sense.

 Leia’s death…so much speculation on why her body didn’t vanish until Ben died.  There has to be something significant there and I’d really love to know if it’s a future plan or if it was part of the original end of the movie since clearly it was changed.  Maz smiles, remember.  Also…is she somehow giving her life for Ben’s to bring him back?  She’s clearly a Force Ghost at the end of the movie.

 Okay…so Han memory.  I did like that and I did like that Ben could get absolution from his dad and have that be the final thing that turns him from Kylo to Ben.  I wasn’t sure I could forgive Ben ever after TFA.  I cried so much and I was so mad.  That’s Han Solo, y’all.  HAN FRIKKING SOLO.  I mean how do you even kill Han Solo?

 Granted, I think we were all robbed of a story where Han and Leia are a united front raising their kid and trying to protect him from danger, but that’s just me.  I mean we could have had The Mummy 2 in space, guys. ROBBED!  Someone write that AU, please.

 And can we just talk about Adam Driver’s acting for a moment?  I mean, the boy is phenomenal.  He goes from being one person to being a completely different one effortlessly.  From the moment he throws the light saber in the sea, his mannerisms and physicality is so different.  It’s amazing. Kudos to him.  Absolutely.  Oscar worthy! He does it without having any lines whatsoever apart from ‘ow.’  And I like Ben Solo and I’m sad we didn’t get to see more of him.  He’s so Han’s boy, so Han’s boy.  Love that!  He’s an awesome character in his good boy sweater.  (Love the sweater and while we’re on the subject, could him and Chris Evans have a sweater off with the good boy sweater and the white knit sweater please?)

 Hey, Luke got to raise a X Wing finally.  That’s the kind of fan service I’m talking about.

 One of my favorite parts of the movie actually was the whole Jedi from the past bit.  Mostly because I saw my boy Kanan getting his recognition and rightful spot as one of the great Jedi, up there with Obi Wan and Anakin and Ahsoka!  I also loved Ahsoka being there and the other Clone Wars greats.  Really cool.  I do kind of wish they had included Ezra, too, but that’s just me loving on my Space Blueberry!  And wishing James Arnold Taylor who put so much into Obi Wan could have at least done Plo Koon since Ewan took his place as Obi Wan.  Either way, that was the only homage and respect paid to the other two trilogies and the Star Wars legend in general.  The only acknowledgement of how much sacrifice and history went into this franchise before now.

 Now…can Rey kill Palps now and not have his spirit go into her because he’d already made himself revitalized with their dyad energy or was it because no ritual had been done?  Just wondering.  Or was it a loophole since all she did was defend herself and his own lightning killed him?

 There’s a lot about energy and healing and the Force in this and so you can speculate all over the place about what the rules are.  (You’d think in the Clone Wars healing each other would have been a thing!) And since we’ve never deal with a dyad before, we don’t know how it works.  But it really kind of feels like even with how drained both of them were after Palps took their bond…it either should have been returned to them when he died or their combined energy should have been able to keep both of them alive. Or something.  Two in one means connection and honestly, I feel like both of them should have died or both of them should have lived.

 I know a lot of people think it was the perfect end for Ben because he redeemed himself (like Anakin) and there would have been no place for him in the galaxy after all the evil Kylo had done.  (Much less if you read the comics!)  But I’m a sucker for a redemption story and I think the hardest punishment always is to face your past and work through what you’ve done instead of taking the easy way out of death (not having to actually atone).  I think it’s a beautiful potential for forgiveness and grace and realizing none of us can really save ourselves.

 And whatever you think of Kylo/Ben or his ending, it’s clear something was changed at the last minute.  There’s a whole lot of editing done on that last scene when he revives her and they kiss and on Tattoine.  There are apparently screen tests people swear they saw where he didn’t die.  I won’t go into the scene analysis some Reylos have, but jaw moving and talking on Rey shots that were cut, it looking more natural for her to have been pulling him back up rather than him falling down, it looks like his hand is the one in the burying lightsaber scene…  He was obviously supposed to live at some point and why they changed their minds, I don’t know.  He is one of the most popular characters and they lost a cash cow when they killed him off.  Silly idiots.

 As far as Rey goes, I also think that’s terribly unfair, to give her the connection she’s been yearning for her whole life and instead of giving her a future, you stick her back on a sand infested planet, sliding down in a parallel to TFA, and burying the past sabers, and being alone.  I know she’s still got friends and stuff but I think she won’t know her new place in all of this and she’s going to feel very lonely.  

 Also, where did the yellow saber come from?  Did she cleanse Ben’s saber?  Did she find a new kyber crystal of her own?  Come on now…don’t be mysterious and weird.  Normally I can take mysteries being unsolved if great care is taken to resolve relationships and characters and this trilogy and story did neither, so no love from me.

 As for shipping them.  I didn’t really through the first two movies.  I was curious to see what would happen, but I could have gone either way. I did ship them after this one.  I do love two broken people finding solace in each other.  And I think there is such potential there for these characters and as a relationship that could have been done so much better and wasn’t and that’s what is the saddest thing of all.

 I really have an urge to write an AU…Luke Skywalkers’ Academy for Sensitive Younglings (title patent pending) and rewrite the whole stupid thing.  I fear I have neither the time nor inspiration for that. But I would dearly love to see awkward teenage versions of these characters growing up and learning and being stupid and given a chance to become the best versions of themselves. My vision of the future.

 Probably in another 30 years there will be a fully formed, all ready to go evil Empire that no one has done anything to stop anyway…

 So there we go. I probably have more to say but that’s all I got and that’s with taking notes!

[crqstalite]

SHADOW OF THE SITH, Interlude.

against my better judgement, this became a 7k angst fest for both parties involved. a lot of stuff is vague regarding Tri and Theron because I am currently underage and I’m not actually sure whether I’m allowed to write anything explicit. For now, it remains as vague as possible to allude to what the two got up to. (legal side of tumblr bail me out) -

TRI'AMA._THE_FURY.

"You sure he's coming?" Vette asks incredulously, arms crossed as Tri'ama zips a different armor set on. More relaxed and less plating than what she'd worn on her trip through Rishi, and though her Twi'lek companion didn't have natural eyebrows, she raises them anyways at the change of clothes, "I mean you did invite a secret agent from the other faction to your ship, with more than a few personal secrets aboard. Might want to rethink that part."

"He'll come." Tri'ama answers, reassuredly squeezing her shoulder as Vette sighs. It's not even particularily late, they're still parked just outside of Raider's Cove, as they'd finally touched down after Marr and Satele left. But, they were supposed to be off to Vaiken ages ago for a restock, and even she's getting a little nervous Theron may have cancelled on her, "And don't be so quick to distrust him."

Vette grumbles something about Balmorra that stings, and she disappears back into the Fury.

They also didn't have much time to spare either. The Barsen'thor had taken off nearly three hours prior with her two companions (lovers?) in tow. The flight to Yavin's fourth moon was no simple trip and probably would take her own crew a few days to get there. Jakarro would meet them on Nar Shaddaa, and Theron would join him for that half of the trip until they arrived. It had taken a bit of convincing, but it would be two and a half days with the SIS agent and her crew before they arrived on the Smuggler's Moon.

Her hair was still damp from the rushed shower she'd taken, plastered on her forehead wasn't exactly how she wanted to be presented, but towel drying it always seemed to make it worse. Vette was lucky, she had no hair to primp or have ruined by finnicky freshers. But it wasn't as if it really mattered, did it? Theron had already seen her at her worst, bloodied and bruised to get him from Revan's clutches, a few curls wouldn't change his image of her.

She hoped.

Why in the blazes did he make her so damn nervous? She hadn't even cared about...Quinn seeing her in a state of undress days after they'd met, but Theron even seeing a hair out of place puts a fear in her she can't quench. Is she afraid of what the next two days will bring, yes. There's a bunk cleaned out for Theron (Pierce wouldn't tell her which one, she has a fear that he'd given him Quinn's), and the other two are playing it by ear. They've made arrangements for Jaesa to also be picked up on Nar Shaddaa (she'd been out for days prior, and they figured giving her more time would gain her approval) when they drop Theron off, and there's nothing that can go wrong.

Tri'ama hopes. She happens to do a lot of that these days.

Vette hasn't even formally met Theron, in fact. She's acting on just little tidbits of information from her. The Twi'lek has been rather protective over her lately, and has made a few scathing remarks about the SIS agent in her free time, mostly circling around the botched date in the cantina few weeks ago that she tries to forget. Tri'ama can't blame her, her friend is only worried about her getting hurt again. In her own way, making fun of the man every time his name crosses her lips. It's rather frustrating if she's being honest, but changing her opinion won't be easy. Pierce hadn't been so hard to convince of it being a good decision, and had even rewarded her with a friendly, if not also hesitant, kiss on the temple for her so-called 'moving on'. He was shocked she didn't hit him for it, but it felt like the end of an era for the two that she reciprocated with a hug. Pierce had never belonged to her (and at risk of seeming rude, she never should've wanted him to either), but she hoped whoever came next took good care of him. He deserved that much after staying with her through it all.

Tri'ama spends a bit more time waiting, pacing back and forth in front of the Fury, before resigning to sit on the extended entrance platform and wait a little less than patiently as she waits for her vision to stop swimming in front of her (the Barsen'thor's healing had been welcome, but some injuries hadn't been healed and stupidly she'd pushed off Pierce's healing in favor of getting a shower and dressed. She regrets it already as her body aches everywhere). She considers calling him, asking him where he is and when they can take off, but she's already forced herself on him more than once in the last week. Doing it again wouldn't be in her favor, and she already feels like she's on shaky ground with him anyways. She chuckles to herself, she's Sith, at one point she was having everyone else bow to her. Screw their schedules, she needed to waited on hand and foot because stars forbid she do anything for herself.

It's commonplace in the Empire among her 'kind', but looking back on it, it just seems so out of place. Not that she was going to go full Jedi and start trying to meditate (she'd tried, never again) on her previous actions, but she's afraid Theron is trying to bring her over to the light. Unintentionally, or otherwise. She was actually going to wait for him instead of brushing off his late arrival and leaving on her own. Even if it's hot and the only presentable clothes she didn't wear into battle were black and she's overheating.

She stands a little too quickly, head spinning when she sees the all too familiar red jacket flash by her vision that she trips just a bit, nearly having to push herself up with the Force when Theron dashes over and catches her mid-fall. He readjusts his own bag, a smug smirk on his face, "Does this count as a rescue?" he asks, hazel eyes twinkling in the midday sun. Infuriatingly.

"Maybe." She rights herself, trying not to roll her eyes as she dusts her clothes off (that hurts still, a headache pounding at her temples). Her ankle stings for that very moment, but it can be ignored in light of the fact that the man who'd taken over her dreams for days was finally here. He hadn't changed from what he was wearing earlier, obviously, and runs a hand through his hair. For a moment, she's nervous about whether she's gotten too dressed up in the black armor with a billowing half skirt and red leggings, hastily pulled on. Tri'ama was a lot of things, but desperate wasn't one of them. He's looking at her, up and down before pulling her into a quick but rather rough kiss, as if it's been days instead of a few hours since they saw each other last. He makes to pull away before she takes a fistful of his shirt and pulls him back. He softens the kiss this time, and she's nearly begging for time to stop so that she can just have this. Not Revan, not the Emperor's hand. Just her and Theron, together. Stars, what she would've given to be raised Jedi, or even just in the Republic to see him more often. Power be damned, who needed a Dark council seat when you had him?

Stars, she has changed.

He makes to wrap an arm around her waist, and it's beginning to creep further down bellow her belt before they both hear someone clearing their throat very loudly at the top of the steps of the Fury. They pull away from each other so quickly she almost gets whiplash trying to turn around to find who had so rudely interrupted her fantasy. Her face flushes once she realizes it's only Vette, her own eyes averted from the two for the time being, "Pierce has the ship fired up. Ready to leave, or do you need more time with Spy Boy?"

"I'm coming, Vette." She tries not to be frustrated with the Twi'lek's intrusion, she had only come to let her know. Besides, she figures this will be the one and only time anyone catches them outside of closed doors anyways. Might as well be Vette instead of someone like Satele mid Yavin excursion.

"That's what she said." Vette whispers just loud for Tri'ama to hear, which only manages to make her want to playfully (or not so playfully) slap the girl more, "Hurry it up, we don't have all day!"

"So that's Vette." Theron snaps her out of her thoughts, once Vette has gone back inside the Fury, "Somehow, just like how I imagined her."

"You'll come to love her antics, just not at this very moment." Tri'ama answers, hands on her hips as she tries not to meet his gaze, but she smiles anyways, "What took you so long coming over here anyways?"

"Couple of wild jungle beasts is all. Slowed me down, but I'm good to go if you are." He answers. He doesn't look too shaken up, or roughed up for that matter other than his matted hair, and she leads him up the stairs, punching in the code as the door slides open. He's more curious about the ship at first, eyes turned upwards before following her inside the dim lit ship. He doesn't see Broonmark behind him in the hall at first, before he nearly jumps as he makes sense of the four eyes that are all pinned on him. Theron turns to her in question, fear in his force signature and in his dilated pupils, "Friend of yours?"

"Of course. Broonmark, I told you to make yourself appear more friendly." She says sternly to the Talz. Given, he had no reason to listen to her, but it had been a friendly request rather than a demand, "And to not scare Theron when he arrived."

"We tried to. Little spy man not ready." Broonmark roars (is there a touch of sarcasm in there? Tri'ama's curious, he'd never used it before), and she shakes her head in good-natured disapproval. Hopefully, Broonmark would keep more to himself, no need to have Theron absolutely terrified while he stayed on the Fury. The Talz wouldn't have much reason to stalk him either as he was an ally for the time being, but she'd have a talk with him later.

Vette has returned, Pierce in tow. The latter had changed out of his armor into a black tunic and trousers, and she figures it's the least threatening the man is ever going to be out of his plated armor, "If we're doing introductions, I might as well start. Name's Vette." The Twi'lek starts, crossing her arms. Her blue eyes are judgemental as she takes the agent in, but she's curious. A good sign she hadn't put him off completely just yet, even with the less than respectful introduction, "Pilot and associate to the Emperor's Wrath."

"Lieutenant Pierce. Imperial Black Ops." Pierce answers clippedly, in a similar stance to his smaller crew member. He'd been so open to meeting Theron before, but his force signature cries out in apprehension. She wonders why initially, before realizing Vette must've told him about she'd caught them outside. Not to mention, as close as she is with Pierce and interacting with him as often as she does, his personality changes drastically around strangers.

"And this Talz is Broonmark." Tri'ama says, motioning to the Talz as he comes to stand with the others, towering over even Pierce, "You'll meet my apprentice when we land on Nar Shaddaa, Jaesa Willsaam. You may like her, you may not."

"Noted." Theron says. He's uncomfortable, as he's trying to hide through his closed off mind. But his anxious stance is clear, "Theron Shan. Ex-SIS." he hesitates before adding, "For the moment."

Vette grins in a way Tri'ama doesn't like, "Oh please. No need for any other introductions, we already know all about you, Shan." A similar smirk crosses over Pierce's face, Theron tightening his grip on his bag. Her face flushes, and now she has no excuse for why other than her embarassment. Vette was overexaggerating, as she often did, but she had confided in the two about the aforementioned agent more than once. Theron's eyes flicker to hers, and she puts her hands on her hips.

"Don't torture the poor man, he only just got here." Tri'ama says as sternly as possible as Vette pouts playfully, sticking her tongue out, "Vette..."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll play nice with Theron. Can we get going now?" She asks, motioning towards the cockpit. Vette is partially only excited because she'd allowed her to pilot the Fury to Nar Shaddaa. It hadn't been the first time she'd ever piloted, but it had been the first time since she'd piloted in the captain's chair. Being held up by Theron probably didn't put him very high on her list of likeable people at that very moment.

"Of course. I'll get Theron settled in. Has Toovee made lunch yet?" Tri'ama questions as Vette hurries off without answering her question. The droid is nowhere to be seen, and Broonmark wanders off into the bowels of the ship with less than even a nod.

"Droid's been tinkerin' in the kitchen all afternoon, m'lord. Figure because you told it we'd have guests it's makin' somethin' nice." He smiles bitterly, "Not that it's a bad thing, of course."

"I figure not. Poor Toovee is going to short circuit himself trying to make a meal. I haven't updated his drivers in a while either." Tri'ama says sheepishly, hoping her ship droid wouldn't implode while Theron was onboard, "Either way Ash, you're dismissed. I'll see you at dinner?"

He nods in a sort of halfbow before following Vette into the cockpit. Now left alone, she beckons Theron to follow her into the opposite side of the Fury, where the crew quarters lie empty. Thankfully, the two that shared the room for the time being had cleaned as requested. Pierce's armor was nowhere to be found (surely in the cargo bay), and Vette had left her blasters on her bunk. Jaesa's was free of wrinkles, though she'd left the holdout blaster Pierce had purchased for her (even though the three of them had requested the fallen Jedi take it). The only one free and not stripped of it's sheets was, and she inwardly groans, Quinn's empty bunk. Tri'ama wishes that she had gone all that time never knowing and just inviting the Captain into her quarters at night instead of finding him at every location she could. She raises her eyes to the agent instead, trying to slow her breath and quiet the memories of dark nights prior to now, "This one--" She says, trying to keep her eyes from it, "Is yours. Do let me know if Pierce and Vette bother you too much at night, you can-" She cuts herself off, letting him step past her into the room and look around while he waits for her to continue. When she doesn't, he throws a curious look over his shoulder.

"I can...?" Theron trails off, mocking her as he sits down on the bunk with his bag. Tri'ama had just barely caught herself from offering her own bed to him as she used to do with Quinn, and a shiver runs up her spine as she wonders what the fast fingers on a datapad can do to her bare skin. She shakes the thought from her mind, but stores it away for later use (later use, the hell was she on right now?), "Well, Pierce and Vette seem nice, you talk about me with them?"

There's sarcasm hiding beneath the remark as the door closes behind her, as she comes to stand in front of him with her arms crossed, "They're typically kinder." she pauses,  "And no, not as they allude to."

"Is there a reason they weren't to me?" He asks, surprising her as he pulls her in closer to him fast enough that she has to regain her footing, hands resting on his shoulders for balance. There's a certain sparkle of lust in his eyes as he quizzes her, arms around her waist. She indulges him after a teasing moment, leaning down to kiss him before pulling herself away because she knows where this is going to lead if she stays much longer, a disgruntled noise made by Theron in disapproval.

"As much as I'd love to spend the entire day with you, Theron, I have a droid to fix and a ship to run." There's a hidden 'I also don't want to make out with you on my ex-husband's bunk' beneath that. Just being in here still makes her uncomfortable and indulging Theron further in here especially is a challenge in itself. As much as she hates it, she does need to begin distancing herself from him at some point. Maybe it won't hurt so much when they inevitably have to split after their mission to Yavin is over.

A ringing holocom stops her before she leaves and before he can say anything to contradict her. Meeting Theron's hazel eyes while he lays back on the bunk, she makes to answer it as he fills the little blue holo before she can check who had sent it to her.

"You may not see this, my lord. But I was told you'd be arriving on Nar Shaddaa in a few days by your apprentice when we met on Dromound Kaas. I am off your extended leave by three days, and will be returning alongside Jaesa when you arrive." He bows politely, and she can now see this was recorded instead of directly calling her because of the lack of reaction of seeing her, "I will see you soon, my lord."

Even through the holo, it feels like his piercing blue eyes are most literally piercing through her soul. Yavin IV was supposed to be focused on Revan and inadvertently teasing Theron. Quinn wasn't due to be back until after Yavin, but he must've met Jaesa along the way, and Jaesa would've unwillingly told him where she was going if he asked her. Given, Tri'ama had never distinctly told him what he was to do after the leave was over, but returning to her service wasn't supposed to be in the cards for him. He was supposed to stay gone, even him staying on Dromound Kaas was better than waking up to him working in the cockpit every morning. Those lingering gazes for someone who wasn't his anymore, the shadows he cast in the dimlit Fury still haunted her.

"Crewmember?" Theron asks, as she slips her holocom back into her pocket, hiding her clenched fists inside before pulling them back out, trembling. He's probably able to tell she's upset, but she puts on a diluted smile anyways and ignores the curious look in his eyes.

"Captain Malavai Quinn." She swallows over a lump in her throat, a ball of anxiety winding itself up in her stomach as she pronounces the name with mild distaste, "Pilot and our medic."

He raises an eyebrow, "He hasn't been back in a while?" He quizzically asks, gesturing to the stripped bunk. All Tri'ama can do to keep from bolting out the room and hiding in her own is nod. The man thinks to himself as she moves to leave, "Wasn't he on Manaan with you?"

"That's the one." She tries to says jokingly, her back turned to him. Tri'ama doesn't want to explain much further than just that, and leave the explanation there in case she makes Theron feel threatened by him. What was there to be threatened by? Quinn was a lowly captain and Theron would be out of here in a few days. Her ex-husband, maybe, would get pushy and ask Vette or Pierce about it. Vette would surely answer about Theron (sarcastically and pointedly), and then she'd have Quinn quizzically asking her about the relation between the two. Quinn had never harassed her before their divorce, but she wasn't putting it past him now. He'd become rather sarcastic and cold when he'd found out about her and Pierce, and to say the least, she's more than concerned about the idea of what he would do now about an SIS agent.

Detour. Detour to Dromound Kaas after Theron was dropped off to formally get rid of him. She has to, or she'll go mad.

She leaves the crew quarters just as the agent moves to talk to her. Tri'ama has to make a decision soon, and whether or not this was worth continuing in the next few months. She might hurt him, but he's had other failed affairs before, he'll get over it, she thinks bitterly, people have gotten over me for less. Theron's no different.

She hopes.

-

THERON._THE_FURY.

Theron Shan doesn't get attached easily. Mistakes in the past hammered that home quick enough (a certain Cathar specifically), and still he stands looking at where she'd just been standing longingly as if, if he stares long enough she'll come back. The blonde Sith had taken over his thoughts in a way that shouldn't have been so distracting. He figured in the beginning she was only teasing and didn't actually think all that highly of him, as he'd learned from his dealings with Sith previously. The teasing manner she'd flirted with him on Manaan, the lingering touches after their mission on Rakata Prime. Lana had even had half a mind to tell him that the Wrath did talk about him in a complimentary manner. He'd laughed it off and they'd gone their separate ways after that.

But for some reason the two years in between last seeing her and now, Tri'ama has been unforgivingly on his mind. Caught himself about thinking how she spun through the air with her double sabers, the way her (now he knew they were grey when she wasn't pissed off at the entire galaxy) amber eyes glowed as she fought. He'd be lying if he said she wasn't a beautiful force of nature to be reckoned with, and for once he was glad a Sith was on his side and not against him.

Theron had never seen her in an environment outside of fighting before, but he was beginning to see her without her respirator more and more often. Those encounters tended to end up with a small kiss here or there, and he was taking notice of the scars that adorned her face. They weren't immediately obvious, but upon closer inspection, he could see there was a faded scar above her eyebrow, another on the corner of her left lip. One on her neck was a fading blue bruise, another just under her chin. It serves as a reminder that he's probably on egg shells with the woman, and that she is most literally one of the most dangerous people he knows. How he'd ended up with the Emperor's Wrath taking a less than professional interest in him, he wasn't sure. She'd even gotten redressed before he'd arrived, the half armor and battle boots traded in for what felt like a silky material against his fingertips, a laced front with a half skirt and eye-catching red leggings. It was sleeveless and a high collar, something that Theron wouldn't have imagined she'd ever wear. Not that it wasn't stunning on her, but the Wrath seemed more like a rough and tumble kind of woman than someone who'd dress up like she was attending a gala.

Left alone in the crew quarters now and taking in his surrounding, he's curious about this Malavai Quinn person. Maybe it's not his business, but the way Tri'ama's skin had paled at that holorecording and hurriedly left without even saying goodbye makes him think there's more to the story than he's been privy to. Given he never paid much attention to her company on Manaan, but he wonders if there was something he could've done. Not that he would've gotten involved in something personal between the two (it literally couldn't have been any further from being his business), and Tri'ama wasn't obligated to share either. He doesn't push this issue. People he'd been with before tended not to want to share with their one-night stand very calmly.

The next two days are rather uneventful, but welcome. He learns the Twi'lek (Vette) is an escape artist from her past (she doesn't elaborate, and Theron's not sure if he wants to know), and also one of Tri'ama's confidants alongside Lieutenant Pierce. At first he's not sure what to make of the Imperial soldier (his own upbringing effectively making him wary of anyone flying the Empire's flag), but the gruff man is surprisingly not plotting his downfall. How easily she relaxes and jokes around her current two companions is a nice change from the wound up woman he'd met on Rishi. Whatever emotional toll had happened with the Captain is gone from her, or as far as he can see. Under the guise of needing to fix things here and there in the cargo bay, near the hyperdrive, stars anywhere that Tri'ama could get him without garnering the attention of her companions he swears that these are the best two and a half days he's ever had with a woman. She's gentle, sometimes, luring him in with those surprisingly innocent grey eyes of hers and soft kisses, others he's careful to leave the collar up on his jacket. The skin bruised where she'd broken it rather easily, and for some reason she liked to run a finger over them she thought he didn't know she was there. It's hot, if he's being honest.

Tri'ama was different than some other women though, he'd get tantalizingly close to having his fingers run over any bare skin he could find, one hand sliding up her shirt before she chuckled darkly and forced his hand back out, a smug smirk on her face while she leans in to kiss him, loosely straddling him. Theron's sure she has her reasons for doing so, but he'd be lying if he said she wasn't frustrating in that regard. How close she is, how close she stays is not going to be easy to forget after Yavin. The way she caresses his face in her callused hands, how her accent becomes so pronounced when she whispers his name in the darkness of the cargo bay, the taste of something sweet on her lips. It's intoxicating, and he's not sure any woman in the galaxy has the right be this beautiful and forbidden.

The darkness of the Fury is enough to remind him that he isn't exactly among friends. (though he doesn't have the same reaction to the Talz twice, the fluffy murderer still sends a shiver down his spine, it didn't help Tri'ama told him he had acquired a stealth generator at some point too) There's no way that this is going to last, as much as he wants it to. If her rampage through Rishi didn't prove it, she's pure Sith. Not the pureblood kind, but she also has a certain aura about her. She had clashed hard with the Barsen'thor and had proven she could be ruthless and relentless no matter the circumstances. He had yet to see if she was an Imperial loyalist or just someone proficient with the dark side that ended up on that side of war. Her actions weren't easy to discern either, whether she was neutral or sadistic beneath her actions for justice.

Theron's curious about her. Her file had landed on his desk straight after their Manaan excursion by request of some higher up in the SIS, and it wasn't extremely informative (that was the point apparently, they thought he could fill more in for them). No one in the SIS was sure of a lot of things because of her reclusive manner on the battlefield, only that most turned up dead or missing after a violent meeting with her. She was a one women wrecking crew and had broke frontlines across the galaxy, winning quite a few battles for her faction. Tri'ama was a Darth, 23, and her file had read Amarillis-Quinn as her surname.

Now really thinking about it, he lies awake on the night of the second day wondering whether it had anything to do with the Captain. To say he was nosy was one thing, but he also wonders if that's what had her so nervous the first day, breathing hard and near tears. A passing thought is that she's still married to him and has taken Theron as a...mistress of sorts. He feels it wouldn't be outside what he knows Sith can do and will get away with, but he has a lot of questions he'd rather get answered before they land and he lets it seep into his work on Yavin. Hell, she's going to be on his mind the whole time anyways, might as well know where he stands now.

He slips out of the crew quarters, only Vette rolling over in her sleep being the evidence he'd left. The door soundlessly closes behind him, and luckily he finds Tri'ama laying against the lounge couches, holocom playing a soft song and datapad in her hands. She doesn't see him at first, enamored with whatever she's working on (he's still learning about their culture, but he was surprised Tri'ama did any of her own work, unlike others he'd met), but a mischeveous smile crosses her face as she puts it down, her eyes a blazing amber, lust clouding them over but some sadness beneath the red corneas, "What has you up at this time of night, Theron? Not me, I hope." she purrs.

"And if it is?" He asks, sliding in next to her. She leans against him, though a shaky sigh escapes her. From the sound alone and the muffled sniffle against her nightshirt, he doesn't have to be a genius to deduce she's not doing so well right now. Whatever tears there were she's already dried from her face as she turns to look at him. He doesn't go looking for evidence that she'd been upset or, but she's oddly aggressive today when she turns to kiss him. One hand in his hair, the other lying on his shoulder as she most literally smashes her lips on his with little regard for the person beneath her. At first he doesn't see anything unusual about it. It seemed that was just how Tri'ama was, aggressively taking what she wanted (and for the moment, that was Theron), until the teasing that often got his hands shoved away from goes unpunished. It's an oddity in itself, and though this is technically what he's been waiting for, but she isn't composed the way she is typically. As much she can nip at his bottom lip and make him want more than she's giving, her racing heart beneath his finger tips is concerning as he puts a hand on her bare waist.

His eyes linger to the game table turned workspace. She's beginning to tell he's distracted, and she gives him a pointed look, "You're distracted."

"A little." He answers, and she frowns but pulls herself off from his lap where she'd been seated previously. The best way to phrase this was outright, she'd made it clear she didn't like it when people beat around the bush with certain issues, but she was already disraught and making it worse probably wouldn't bode well for him. His eyes flicker to her datapad for a moment, and then a glinting gold ring next to it.

All prepared for Quinn's return, he supposes.

His eyes linger too long, he thinks, because Tri'ama won't meet his eyes anymore, "Tri'ama, are you married?"

Shock is the first to go through her facial expressions, before she glances at the ring and her eyes harden and glow a darker gold. Well Theron Shan, you screwed up the most dangerous romances you've ever been in. Close your eyes and it'll all be over soon.

He braces for something, anything. A slap to the face, a force choking, shouting maybe, but all she does is shut off the datapad with defeat written all over her face. She's angry, but not with him. Tri'ama twiddles the ring in between her fingers, before using the Force to levitate it above her palm. Theron's sure her mind is running like a freight train, but he doesn't question her. It takes a while, she considers the ring as it floats, and she lays back into him. Theron chastises himself for a moment, he wasn't supposed to get involved in her personal life that much, but here he was at an ungodly hour of the morning asking about her marital status, "Just, forget I asked."

"No. The easy answer is no. Legally, it's complicated." Tri'ama answers quietly, the anger flowing out of her as the bottomless silver eyes return, "I was married to Quinn shortly before I met you. I wished to be divorced, but I was too tied up in other matters to really pay any attention to the process. It was denied for some odd reason. I sent him away for as long as I could, but he's due back tomorrow."

"And you don't know what to do with him." Theron finishes. She makes a noise in confirmation.

"I apologize for keeping you in the dark about this. I didn't think he'd return so abruptly and--" she gestures to him as she runs a hand through her hair, "I don't know what we are, Theron. If I chose to be...I don't know, your girlfriend in the long run, it wouldn't end well for either of us. You'd probably lose your job, I'd be scorned and lose my seat. I can't say I don't have feelings for you, but maybe we should slow down and brace ourselves for Yavin."

"What-what is that supposed to mean?" He's thought of this already, but the way she chokes up over girlfriend isn't reassuring, "I knew we weren't dating, but what does this mean?"

Tri'ama makes to leave, but not before pressing a lingering kiss to his lips, "It means I think this should end before we make it harder on ourselves to leave."

He isn't even thinking rationally at this very moment, holding one of her hands in his, "Tri'ama wait. Is this because the Captain is coming back tomorrow? I can leave earlier if that's the case."

Her eyes are misted over with unshed tears as she grips the ring in her fist, "Maybe, maybe not. Theron, there's no other connection other than that we find each other attractive. I barely know anything about you, I couldn't get in contact with you for two years. Once Yavin is finished, I'll never see you again. All this--" she's getting frustrated, maybe with herself or maybe with the situation, "I wish I could have longterm. But, the last time I got attached too quickly I was married to a traitor for years. Make this easy on yourself, and enjoy the rest of the night."

They've trailed to her quarters, and she steps inside, "Tri'ama."

"Theron." She hesitates, possibly considering her previous statement before kissing him hard. He can't even breathe, and then it's over and the door closes behind her. He doesn't even know why he's upset, she's right. In every single way she's right. He just hadn't wanted to consider it, say it out loud and admit it, and her emotions are amplified by her ex-husband's return the day after. There's a loud crash behind the door, and he winces before heading back to the crew quarters. Both companions are still in a blissful sleep, but Theron can't get a wink of it the rest of the night. He eventually pulls out his datapad and starts working instead. Keeping busy would keep his mind off of her.

When Vette and Pierce begin to stir a few hours later, he finds he hasn't slept.

-

TRI'AMA._NAR_SHADDAA.

"Jaesa. You're looking well." Tri'ama is trying to distract herself from the fiasco that had been the night prior. Theron is still looking like someone kicked his akk puppy, and she's steeling herself into being a Darth again. Back in her more Imperial styled armor than what she had been in the last few days, it feels...off. Her respirator has been snapped back into place, and thankfully it makes her feel safer instead of constricted, "Welcome back to the Fury, apprentice."

"It is good to be back." Jaesa deadpans as she bows respectfully, "The missions went well."

"I'm sure they did, with you at the head. Good work." She praises the young woman. Jaesa has the inkling of a smile on her face, but quickly drops the smile when they both hear boots on the ground and Vette sucks in an apprehensive breath, "The Captain managed to get your schedule from me. I apologize."

"It isn't your fault, Jaesa. I blame you for nothing." Tri'ama stands up straighter, facing Quinn for the first time in nearly four years. She's trembling, but hides her hands behind her back, "Captain."

"My lord." He bows, a bag by his feet. She keeps her eyes trained on him, as if that will soothe her anxiety. It doesn't, her breath only quickening as his eyes land on her's. One of the first thing she noticed about him was his eyes, how they were so similar to her own.

Her neck is covered, her hands are covered. No skin can be seen except for her face, and even that is hidden beneath a cowl. He can't hurt her, "I am grateful you've brought me back into your service."

"Of course, Captain." Detour, detour, detour. She hopes the divorce papers went through and so did the reassignment. To Darth Aghdani specifically, hopefully the pureblood wouldn't call her in a fit of rage wondering why the man was annoying her. If she's lucky, she'll get him killed on a backwater planet somewhere, or stab him outright for his uptight behavior. If she's not so lucky, she'll take a liking to him and the cycle will start again, "Welcome back."

All Tri'ama wants is him gone. If things work out, Pierce will take him back to Dromound Kaas under false pretenses and Vette will join her on Yavin. Then, smooth sailing from there. Out of sight, out of mind.

Two days.

It will only be two days. She can do this.

Can she?

You hurt Theron because of this, one annoying thought says, He probably hates you now.

"Darth Amarillis." Theron's clipped voice startles her out of her thoughts he steps out of the Fury. There's a sad aura about him, one of melancholy and possibly longing. However that's as much as she gets because he's closed himself off again. He looks more tired than he did the night before, and as much as she wants to run up and hug him, she stays firmly planted as he comes up to her, "I'll be taking my leave."

"I will see you again on Yavin, Agent Shan." Theron's name nearly slips out before she corrects herself. He'd never called her Darth Amarillis before, he'd always referred to her as simply 'the Wrath', and most recently her first name. But if he wants to play professional SIS agent and act like they aren't friendly (Tri'ama's burned that bridge and she didn't even explain herself fully to him, instead throwing a crate across her room in anger and sadness. Her room's a mess right now and she has no intention of cleaning it), she can do that too, "Safe travels, agent."

He doesn't even respond to her farewell, leaving the hangar and taking the lift down at a brisk pace. Quinn raises an eyebrow as he leaves in a perfect Imperial accent that she's come to hate coming from him, "If I may ask, a friend of yours, my lord?"

"An ally in our fight with the Revanites, yes." She responds, watching Theron leave. Hopefully, her face doesn't betray her emotions, "You and Jaesa can re-organize yourselves on the Fury, I'm sure Toovee will be ecstatic to see you again."

"Of course, my lord." He and Jaesa head inside (the latter seems emotionless about it, but is radiating annoyance in her force signature), and Vette narrows her eyes at the Imperial Captain's retreating form before coming closer to her.

"You could've just refused that jerk back onto your crew, Tri'ama." Vette says, visibly frustrated as she throws up her hands in the air, "I don't want to deal with him for however long you're going to drag this out for." Pierce nods, a grunt of agreement from him, "We should've just taken Theron in instead." she adds, "Least he had a sense of humor".

"I'm sorry Vette. I would make him go if I could." She can feel the tears welling up in her eyes and her voice shakes as she apologizes, but hopes the cowl shadows enough of her face so that the two remaining companions can't see them, "He'll be out of our hair soon. But for now, I'll have to put my prejudices behind me and get to Yavin before people question where I am and begin the fight against Revan, regardless of my personal opinions."

Vette and Pierce are silent for a moment, before Vette hugs her outright and Pierce puts a comforting hand on her shoulder, "We're here for you, and I know Jaesa would be down her too if she could be."

For once, Tri'ama hugs back tighter than she ever has. It hurts, all she wants is to run away to the Outer Rim, blazes anywhere else but here and show Theron just how much she appreciates him away from all the stereotypes and racism and prejudice that the Empire and Republic have for each other. Be away from Quinn, just take Jaesa, Pierce, Vette and Broonmark with them. Still, she's not sure she ever wants commitment again, the ring heavy in her pocket, but she wants just one more night with the SIS agent. One more night to explain everything, one more night to press her body against his, feel his warm and nimble fingers against her again.

And now he's gone.

-

THERON._JAKARRO'S_SHIP.

"Have fun with your Sith friend?" Jakarro asks as Theron boards the freighter ship with an ugly groan at the question, "You were eager to be with her. Hope you had fun."

"Don't push the questions, Jakarro." He nearly growls at the Wookie in frustration. Jakarro doesn't press for more answers as Theron stalks down the hall to the crew quarters. They were empty, as always, and it's enough that he sinks onto one of the bunks. He's nearly tearing his hair out in anger. The blonde Sith had basically told him she didn't want him anymore. He has half a mind to think she lied to him and really is still married to Quinn. If she only wanted him as a plaything, he's rather offended.

But it's not like he didn't go into this thinking it'd be a one night stand and nothing more. Why did he still think of her like she was his then?

Because you're infatuated with her, you just don't want to admit it in fear of committing to a Sith lord, he thinks. Stars, what would his father think if he had taken her as his--girlfriend no less?

Does he even care what he thinks?

He spends the rest of the trip to Yavin busying himself with work to get her dismissal off his mind. According to the reports, the Imperials were bringing in a certain Darth Nox alongside the Wrath, and the Barsen'thor would return with her own crew in tow. All force users. Nox wasn't much better than the Wrath in terms of her record with the Republic, but at least she could foot the bill with some serious damage if push came to shove and her reputation within the Empire respectively would help with the coalition. It would've been nice to have another Jedi, but he can't complain.

He's going to miss her, but enough work and some alcohol should be just would the doctor ordered to keep his longing for the Sith under wraps. Yavin would be one of the biggest battles he'd faced in years, and he didn't intend to fail.

He hopes.

[crystal-siren]

A Bright Beginning (Obi-Wan x Reader) Pt.3 /3

Requested by the ever lovely @dovies666 :)

Part 1  Part 2

Author’s Note: This marks the end of the first of three stories. Disclaimer: I take no credit for the characters other than any OC’s that may appear.

“You get me. There’s no other way to put it. When I am a whirlwind of a person, a mess of bad moods and even worse ideas, you move in slow, wrap each of those arms around me and in an instant, I am understood. When I am blind of all else, I see the way through you.” ~ Beau Taplin || The Way

“For the last time Y/N, the answer is no.”

“But why?” She tried hard not sound like a youngling that wasn’t getting their way.

“Because it is not our mission, that’s why.” Tahl gave her apprentice a look that would have caused any other person to back down.

“What if something happens and they need our help?” Y/N knew she was clutching at straws.

Master Tahl put down the datapads she had been carrying and turned to her apprentice. “Master Jinn and Padawan Kenobi are more than capable. They will be able to handle any trouble that may or may not come their way.”

Y/N said nothing. It was unfair. Unfair that she was stuck at the Temple while her friend got to go off-planet for the second time that month.

~ ~ ~

“I don’t understand Master,” Obi-Wan said as he and Qui-Gon went to meet the Nubian Queen. “Why does she want to go back? She’s walking into a death trap.”

“It is not for us to question the Queen’s motives. We are to protect her, not fight a war for her.”

“Yes Master. Forgive me.”

Qui-Gon smiled down at his apprentice. He would make a fine Jedi knight and dare he hope, a Master. His attention was diverted when their transport docked where the Queen’s cruiser waited, with the Queen herself.

“Your Majesty,” Qui-Gon addressed the Queen and he and Obi-Wan bowed respectfully.

Any conversation between the Queen and his Master was blurred out when a flash of familiar brown fabric caught Obi-Wan’s attention. Not wanting to appear rude and inattentive, he stayed beside his Master and wondered if he had imagined it.

Bringing his attention back to the present, Obi-Wan saw Anakin standing a little off to the side and looking a bit unsure. Before he even thought of doing anything, Qui-Gon approached the boy and crouched down so that he was at the boy’s eye-level.

“I’m not allowed to train you, so I want you watch me and be mindful. Always remember, your focus determines your reality.” Qui-Gon spoke gently to the boy.

“Qui-Gon sir,” Anakin twisted his hands together and looked up at the Jedi Master. “I don’t want to be a problem.”

Standing up, Qui-Gon smiled down at the boy, “you won’t Ani. Just stick by me and I’ll make sure you’re alright. Ok?” Anakin nodded, smiling.

~ ~ ~

The flight to Naboo was a short one. The sight of the blockade made everyone nervous. Anakin, ever the curious one, spent the entire journey in the cockpit.

“Why hasn’t anyone tried to stop us?”

One of the pilots, a young woman, smiled at Anakin. “No doubt they know the Queen is on board. They need her alive. Down on the planet.”

Anakin nodded thoughtfully. “Then why is she going there? It sounds very dangerous.”

The pilot nodded. “It is very dangerous. But the Queen wants to help her people.”

“Her people are very lucky.”

The young woman smiled slightly and nodded, “indeed they are.” Anakin watched closely as her slender fingers flew over the control panel in front of her. They had begun to enter the atmosphere.

Having landed in one of Naboo’s numerous grass plains, the Queen and her entourage, as well as the two Jedi, disembarked.

As they waited for Jar-Jar to return from speaking with his superiors, Obi-Wan approached Qui-Gon. “Jar-Jar is on his way to the Gungan city, Master.”

Qui-Gon did not respond right away. Silence hung between them like a heavy curtain, they had not spoken since they had left the Capital. He sounded a little distracted when he answered with one word, “good.”

“Do you think the Queen’s idea will work ?” Obi-Wan crossed his arms in the wide sleeves of his robe.

“The Gungans will not be easily swayed,” Qui-Gon answered, referencing the plan the Queen had proposed before they had landed. “And we cannot use our power to help her.”

Obi-Wan said nothing for a short while. But when he did, he did not meet his Master’s eye. “I apologise for my behaviour Master. It is not my place to disagree with you about the boy. And I am grateful,” he looked up and smiled slightly, “that you think I am ready to take the trials.”

Qui-Gon turned to face him and smiled. “You have been a good apprentice Obi-Wan. I foresee that you shall become a great Jedi knight.”

Obi-Wan nodded in acknowledgement of the compliment.

Their conversation came to an end when Jar-Jar returned with news that the underwater Gungan city was deserted.

“Any idea where they might have gone ?” Qui-Gon asked.

The gungan shook his head before quickly nodding as he seemed to remember something. “When in trouble, Gunguns go to sacred place.”

“Will you take us there?” The Queen spoke up. Her handmaidens and pilots standing close behind her.

Jar-Jar seemed to think for a short before sighing heavily and nodding. He gestured for everyone to follow him.

The group soon came to a glade and true to his word, Jar-Jar’s people were there. Peering at the newcomers in suspicion and thinly veiled hostility.

On the fallen head of a statue stood the chieftain of the Gungans, Boss Nass.

The Queen stepped forward and began to speak, “I am Queen Amidala of the Naboo, we come before you in peace.” Her words caused Boss Nass to laugh, he clearly did not take her seriously.

One of the handmaidens stepped forward and glanced briefly at the Queen before looking up at the Gungans. “I am Queen Amidala.” Shocked whispers echoed around the glade. “This is my decoy,” she gestured to the young woman beside her. “My loyal bodyguard. I apologise for the deception, but it was necessary.”

Silence followed her statement. Obi-Wan glanced at his Master, did he know about this ? A slight movement to the right of his Master caught his eye. One of the Queen’s pilots had stepped forward and stood beside one of the handmaidens. It was clear that the pilot was female but this was nothing unusual. What was unusual was the sense of familiarity that Obi-Wan got from her.

“Although we do not always agree, Your Honor, our two great societies have always lived in peace. The Trade Federation has destroyed all that we have worked so hard to build.” Amidala’s voice broke his train of thought and diverted his attention back to her. “If we do not act quickly, all will be lost forever. I ask you to help us... no, I beg you to help us.” With those words, she dropped to her knees, everyone following suit.

“We are your humble servants.” The young Queen bowed her head. “Our fate is in your hands.”

There was a pause before the Gungan replied. “Hmmmm.” He seemed to think for a moment before continuing. “Yousa no tinken yousa greater den da Gungans? Mesa like dis. Maybe wesa... bein' friends.” His words were met with cheers from both sides.

~ ~ ~

Near where they had landed, Queen Amidala and her party now planned their retake of Theed Palace. A holographic model of the palace allowed the Queen to clearly illustrate her strategies.

Obi-Wan stood to the side with his Master and did his best memorise their part in the plan. He briefly wondered if that young pilot was near, she seemed so familiar, he had yet to find out why.

Having explained to Gungans their part in the overall plan, the Queen and her group made their way to the transports that would take them to Theed.

~ ~ ~

Theed was crawling with Trade Federation droids. Staying out of sight, Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon, along with Anakin, accompanied the Queen.

Receiving a coded signal from their counterpart across the street, Amidala and her team all but mowed down a group of droids headed their way. Gesturing for everyone to follow her, Amidala led the way to the main hanger bay.

They had scarcely set one foot in the hanger when more than five Droidekas intercepted them. Shots were fired from both sides, with Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon deflecting what they could.

“Get to your ships,” Amidala commanded the pilots, who immediately ran to their respective crafts. Some made it, some did not. One did not go at all.

The remaining pilot stood beside the Queen. Her holster was empty, from her belt hung another weapon. Obi-Wan’s eyes widened as he noticed this and they narrowed when she reached for it and activated it. Without hesitation, she proceeded to block the Destroyer’s deadly bolts before they could harm the Queen.

With the help of Anakin who now sat in the cockpit of a Nubian starfighter, the young woman destroyed the droids.

Making to follow the Queen to the hanger’s exit, the young woman felt a gentle yet firm hand on her arm. She smirked beneath her helmet when she saw who it belonged to.

“Who are you ?” Qui-Gon asked the young pilot. He had his suspicions but he prayed he was wrong.

Choosing not to say anything, the young woman took off her helmet and let her H/L H/C hair tumble out.

“Y/N ?”

Nodding, she tossed the helmet to the side. “The one and only.” She winked at the stunned Obi-Wan.

“What in the name of the Force do you think you are doing here?” Qui-Gon’s usually calm voice held an undercurrent of anger.

With a look in her eyes that reminded them both of her Master, Y/N spoke. “I figured the both of you could use some help,” looking around the hanger, she smirked. “And it seems I was right.”

“Does your Master know of you being here?”

Qui-Gon’s fears were realised when she shook her head.

“You could be expelled for this,” it was not Qui-Gon who spoke, but Obi-Wan. He approached her slowly, as if he didn’t really believe she was there.

“It would have been worth it though,” Y/N said with a slight smile. “The Queen is safe. You’re safe. That’s all that matters.”

Obi-Wan made to speak when Qui-Gon beat him to it. “You will remain here, where it is safe.” He held up a hand to stop her protests. “You have broken enough rules already. You’ll be lucky to even be considered for the trials when Master Tahl hears of this.”

Anyone else would have looked down, ashamed. Y/N simply looked Qui-Gon in the eye and lifted her chin. “I do not wish to appear disrespectful Master. But, knowing what I do, I cannot leave you or your Padawan to face the danger we all know is coming.”

Silence met her statement. Obi-Wan glanced between her and his Master, she was right and knowing her, she would blame herself if anything happened.

“Very well,” Qui-Gon relented and Obi-Wan sent a small smile her way. “But you stay with me at all times, is that understood?”

Y/N nodded and grinned, “of course Master.”

Amidala, as though sensing the ease of tension, announced that it was time for them to leave. As they reached the hanger’s doors however, the doors opened to reveal a hooded figure and Y/N felt the temperature in the hanger drop.

Y/N took an involuntary step back, her heart hammering in her chest.

“Y/N? What is it?” Obi-Wan sounded far away.

She shook her head and whispered, “Sith.” What she said was confirmed when the figure lowered it’s hood and revealed it to be a horned Zabrak. It’s yellow eyes seemed to pinpoint everyone at the same time.

“We’ll handle this,” Qui-Gon said to Amidala, who led her team back the way they had come.

Y/N remained frozen to the spot, even when Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan ignited their lightsabers. Her eyes followed their every movement, yet her muscles refused to move.

It was only when the Sith all but threw Obi-Wan to the side, that her instincts took over. Igniting her own weapon, she launched herself at the Zabrak. She became a whirlwind of blue light, interrupted only when Qui-Gon struck their opponent.

Soon it became three against one. Two Padawans. One Master. One Sith Lord. At times it looked as though the Jedi had the upper-hand, but then the Sith would throw them off with aggressive yet highly skilled strikes and parries.

It was only when they entered the palace’s power generator complex, that Y/N suddenly became very aware of her surroundings; narrow bridges that were built high above each other and a thick column of electrical energy that pulsed in the centre.

Not being too fond of heights, Y/N tried to stay away from the edges and tried not to look down. She kept her attacks as central as she could and prayed she wouldn’t go tumbling over the side. She became so focused on her own safety that she failed to notice that her attacks were leaving her open in many places.

The Sith, Darth Maul by name, noticed this however and took full advantage. The young woman had proven herself to be a force to be reckoned with, her attacks were fluid and almost elegant. Impressive for a mere Padawan learner. While defending himself from the other two Jedi, Maul noticed her technique beginning to fail. The fluidity vanished and he could see in her eyes that something had shifted. Taking advantage of the many openings she now unwittingly presented, he struck.

Obi-Wan watched in horror as she tumbled from the bridge, her severed right leg following her. “Y/N!” He screamed her name, not caring who or what heard him. His best friend now lay unmoving on the bridge below, her severed limb and weapon were nowhere to be seen.

His heart hammering, he struggled to control the emotions now running rampant through him. Tightening his grip on his lightsaber, Obi-Wan launched himself at the gloating Sith. He and Qui-Gon drove him further and further into the generator complex.

It was only when they entered a sectioned-off area that Master and Padawan were separated. A short passageway that was sectioned off with lethal energy shields. Obi-Wan remained trapped in the last one as his Master took on the Sith alone. Unable to keep still, his eyes followed every movement the Sith made and tried to find any weaknesses. The image of Y/N lying unmoving and injured flashed before his eyes. White-hot anger flared up and rushed through him.

His sea-shaded eyes followed his Master as he struck and parried and struck again. Obi-Wan hated this, not being able to help his Master.

A second scream tore from his lips as he watched the Sith mortally wound Qui-Gon. “NO.” The scream echoed through the chamber and grief flowed through him and anger soon followed. He watched helplessly as his Master collapsed, his lightsaber rolling away from him.

Tearing his eyes away from his fallen Master, Obi-Wan clenched his jaw and glared at his opponent, who prowled and gloated before him.

When at last the timed barrier gave way, Obi-Wan all but threw himself at the Sith. His anger and grief fueled him. Lashing out, he launched a lethal series of attacks and skillfully dodged the Sith Lord’s strikes. His emotions soon began to cloud his judgement. With a swift kick from the Sith, Obi-Wan lost his balance and fell backwards.

Grabbing onto the first thing, Obi-Wan prevented himself from falling down into the incineration pit. Taking a series of deep breaths to calm himself, Obi-Wan brought his rebellious emotions under control. Hanging on for dear life, Obi-Wan began to think of ways for him to rectify his current situation. Maul hadn’t left the chamber, he lurked at the edge of the pit, pacing back and forth, striking at the edge with his lightsaber.

Gritting his teeth, Obi-Wan looked over in the direction where his Master lay, and his lightsaber close by. Narrowing his eyes in concentration, he called on the Force for help as he pulled Qui-Gon’s lightsaber toward him. Hope surged through him as the weapon moved closer and closer until, once again calling on the Force, he launched himself out of the pit and caught the lightsaber and ignited it. Without warning he struck, and watched with grim satisfaction as the Sith tumbled backwards, his severed torso following him down.

Without second thought, he hurried over to his Master and knelt by him, gently resting his head in the crook of his arm.

“It’s too late,” Qui-Gon breathed out.

Obi-Wan refused to believe this, “no!” He shook his head to emphasis his point.

“Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon swallowed hard, almost painfully, “Obi-Wan, promise... Promise me you will train the boy.” He knew of his Padawan’s reservations, but this had to be done.

Not bothering to hide his tears, Obi-Wan nodded, “yes, Master.”

Qui-Gon reached up and gently wiped away a tear, “he is the chosen one. He will bring balance. Train him.”

Obi-Wan nodded a second time and cried out when he felt his Master go limp. Letting his emotions run free, he held Qui-Gon close and let the tears come.

~ ~ ~

The Council came to Naboo once they had received the news. Master Tahl had come with them, having learned of her apprentice’s involvement and of course, Qui-Gon’s sudden death.

Obi-Wan had relayed his Master’s last request to Master Yoda, who now paced before him. “Confer on you the level of Jedi knight, the Council does.” Obi-Wan suppressed a small smile, one that soon vanished when Yoda turned to face him and continued speaking. “But, agree with you taking this boy as your Padawan learner, I do not.”

Obi-Wan knew this was coming. His Master’s request was bound to be met with skepticism. “Qui-Gon believed in him.” For now, that was good enough for him.

Yoda let out a resigned sigh, “the Chosen One, the boy may be. Nevertheless, grave danger I fear in his training.”

Obi-Wan was in no mood to take ‘no’ for an answer. “Master Yoda. I gave Qui-Gon my word. I will train Anakin. Without the approval of the Council if I must.”

“Qui-Gon’s defiance I sense in you,” Yoda shook his head, “need that, you do not.” He paused briefly and took a deep breath before continuing, “agree with you, the Council does. Your apprentice, Skywalker will be.”

Obi-Wan didn’t know whether to be relieved or surprised. Maybe both. He didn’t know if he was ready for such a task. Bowing in respect to the Jedi Master, Obi-Wan left the room. Worry for Y/N shot through him and he hated not knowing if she was alright, or if she even survived.

Finding his way to the palace’s medical wing, he found Master Tahl. She sat silently by her Padawan’s bed. Y/N lay still on the white bed, the extent of her injury was hidden by starched sheets.

Most likely feeling the waves of worry radiating off of him, Tahl looked up and smiled sadly at the young knight. “Come in Obi-Wan.” She gestured for him to join her.

“How is she?” He struggled to keep his voice calm. His eyes wandered over Y/N’s sleeping features.

“They say she will pull through.” Tahl’s words were music to his ears. “Her body went into shock, that and she hit her head rather hard when she fell.”

“That’s why she’s not awake,” Obi-Wan asked, “because of that ?”

Tahl nodded, “I’m afraid so. They don’t know when she’ll wake up.”

Obi-Wan let out a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. “But she will wake up, won’t she, Master?”

Tahl sighed and stood up, “there is no reason why she shouldn’t.” In passing him, she lay a gentle hand on his shoulder. “I am so very sorry for your loss Obi-Wan, I cannot imagine how you must be feeling.”

He simply nodded in acknowledgement, not trusting himself to speak with a steady voice where his Master was concerned.

Obi-Wan waited until she had left before going to Y/N’s bedside. “I need you to listen to me very carefully,” he spoke to her as though she wasn’t in some coma. “You made me a promise some while ago. I know we were only children but I have never known you to break a promise.” He took a deep shuddering breath. “You promised me that should you ever go anywhere that I did not, that you would always come back.” He swallowed hard as unexpected tears came, “I need you to fulfill that promise Y/N. You can’t go, you simply cannot. Not after everything that’s happened.”

She lay still as he spoke, the light of the setting sun casting a soft glow into the room. She lay still as he lent forward and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead. She didn’t move a muscle.

~ ~ ~

That night, Obi-Wan, Anakin, Queen Amidala and the Council stood beside Qui-Gon’s funeral pyre.

Anakin was, understandably confused and saddened. Looking into the flames, he asked Obi-Wan in a forlorn voice, “what will happen to me now?”

Turning his attention to the boy, Obi-Wan spoke in a low, reassuring tone. “The Council has granted me permission to train you. You will be a Jedi. I promise.” This seemed to reassure Anakin somewhat.

Not far behind them, Master Windu spoke with Yoda, “there’s no doubt that the mysterious warrior was a Sith.”

Yoda nodded in agreement. “Always two there are, no more, no less. A Master and an Apprentice.”

“But which was killed?” Master Windu turned to look at the pyre, “the Master or the Apprentice.”

~ ~ ~

The next day proved to be beautiful. The streets of Theed were alive with celebration as the Gungan procession made their way to the palace where Amidala waited.

Beside her stood Obi-Wan with his new Padawan learner by his side. She was further flanked by the Jedi Council, her handmaidens and her advisors.

Waiting until Boss Nass and Jar-Jar had dismounted, Amidala accepted the Globe of Peace from her Governor. When the Gungan chieftain finally stood beside her, she passed him the Globe and the crowd erupted into cheers.

As this was happening, Obi-Wan felt something behind him, a wave of relief, one so strong that he turned to see who it came from.

There she stood, leaning on both her Master and a crutch for support. Her prosthetic leg shimmered in the late morning sun. Her smile was brighter than the twin suns of Tatooine. 

His joy and relief at seeing her awake made him smile back. She had kept her promise. She had come back.

See you all for Story #2 :) Which will roughly follow the story-line of ‘Attack of the Clones’.

[cdc1345711]

The Prime Order: A New Player

(The Prime Order a Group whose soul purpose is to maintain order in the Cartoon Multiverse have done their best for years at their job with no reason to threat.....until now)

MY HERO ACADEMIA UNIVERSE

(A figure enters an old abandoned warehouse which so happens to be the base of the League of Villains)

Stranger:League of Villains I presume?"

Shigaraki:Yes And just who are you?"

Stranger:Honestly...not important but what is is the task I ask of you Villains"

(Everyone seems ready for a fight)

Compress:And what pray tell is 'task' you ask of us?"

Stranger:Just to send a message to a 'Dear Old Friend'.(as he brings out his blades)

PRIME ORDER WORLD

(Starla aka the Dream Maker had just finished shopping with her friends in the Star Wars Universe on the planet Coruscant)

Starla:So how did you guys enjoy the Coruscant Mall?"

Trevor:Man I didn't know an Alien Mall wasn't so different from our own"

Devon:And best of all I got to have awesome selfies with the Jedis and Clone Troopers especially with Anakin and Rex(shows a picture with him Anakin Skywalker and Captain Rex posing)...man if I didn't promise Mr.Seriphos to be loyal to order I'd warn them about the Chancellor"

Starla:But I'm grateful you didn't either"

Tamyra:All because you want to be the Next Sleep Master"

(Over hearing them other Members Accel Set Zero and Zella come into the room)

Accel:Wait Sleeps is seriously teaching you? I thought it was a Joke?"

Devon:Well he saw I got some 'Magical Potential' like Dr.Strange with Clea"

Starla:Or Eda with Luz from Owl House"

Rachel:Oh Man that world was awesome"

Starla:I know"

Set Zero:Heh your friends really like knowing your secret life huh?"

Darrel:Well not really secret since she told us about them before"

Zella:But you never believed her until now huh?"

(Friends make an embarrassed half assed laugh)

Starla:It's okay least now we can hangout more in different Cartoon Worlds"

(Just then the base Alarms go off)

Trevor:Holy Cow what's that alarm mean?"

Starla:A disturbance in the Multiverse has been done....someone is disrupting Order"

Devon:Is it that Coburn Cat Guy and his Army of Cartoons?(makes a Kung-Fu Pose) because I can defeat him with my Magic....."

(In the War Room with Sleep Master their leader Repulse Maze Void-avoiding getting picked up by Rachel- and Marlon)

Marlon:It ain't Coburn"

Devon:GAHH MAN!!!"

Sleep Master:(Puts his hand on Devon's shoulder)You'll face him one day Apprentice"

Marlon:(Mutters that he thinks it strange he has an Apprentice as he looks at the problem)Seems to come from the My Hero Academia Universe"

Rachel:OH MY GOD ARE CLASS 1A OKAY?(everyone looks at her)hey it's my favorite Anime"

Marlon:So far the kids are alright but.....Holy God"

(Images of the slaughtered League of Villains are so gruesome even Sleep Master is disgusted)

Sleep Master:My God.....this....idk what to make of this"

Repulse:Hell this can't be the CFs"

Sleep Master:Nor Charles....because he's never been this Violent before"

Starla(As Dream Maker Now):Wait....I think I see something back there"

(Marlon enhances the images to see words......words in blood)

Marlon:(Reading it) 'I disrupted your precious order....come and get me you.....'WHOA that's a big bad word"

Maze:Uh uh he did not just call us that"

Void:(Being hugged tight by Rachel)Yep.....the perpetrator called us 'cunts'"

Starla:How rude right Grandpa....Grandpa?"

(Sleep Master stares at the threat until he hears someone)

Devon:Uuh Mr.Seriphos are you okay?"

Sleep Master:We need to set things right there a find the Killer.....('And pray it isn't who I think it is')"

(They enter and fix the bring the dead League of Villains back to life as Compress tells them to meet in a dimension called X010......the universe where they fought Lexington the Exiled Beard)

DIMENSION X010

Repulse:I hate this place......left some bad scars"

Maze:But don't you heal fast hon?"

Repulse:Mental Scars babe....since last time"

"You mean since the last time you got your asses kicked?"

(As they heard the Voice everyone gets ready to fight)

Set Zero:Whose there?"

Accel:Show yourself"

???:I would but....this is more fun"

(As the Stranger talks he quickly slashes at Repulse)

Repulse:GAAAAAH....why did that hurt?"

Maze:REP!!!!!!!????(seconds later the Stranger knocks her out)"

Zella:Where is this Guy?"

Accel:I got a plan(touches the ground)time for a lil landscaping(as he accelerates the grounds atoms finally revealing the Villain)Got ya...(Accel runs up to try to knock him out but the Stranger grabs him breaking his arm kneecapping his gut and flinging him against the wall)"

Stranger:Whose Next?"

Zella:(Trying to use her Internet Links only see the Stranger dodge them and hit her in the head with a Rock knocking her out)"

Void:Let me(he opens his mouth wide so he can suck up the Stranger)"

Stranger:Holy Fuck you do have a Black Hole mouth....wonder if you give shitty blowjobs"

Void:Gaaah(disgusted by the comment)"

Stranger:Oh well(gets out small balls and hurls them at Void which detonate and unleash a gas that knocks out Void)Nighty Night Kitty"

Starla:It's just us Grampa.....who is this Guy?"

Sleep Master:I....."

Stranger:Oh......seems you remember me huh? Well tell her 'Sleep Master' let your Granddaughter know who I am.....(and in seconds he's sliced in his gut and stabbed with 2 Whips while punched repeatedly)Gaaaah how the Fuck.....?"

Set Zero:You forgot me"

Stranger:Oh yeah the Tranny....oh sorry Trans person"

Zella:Time to spill the beans....who are you?"

Sleep Master:I know who he is....(walks up and removes the Stranger's hood to reveal.....)His name is Chipston Damocles Cosmas....."

Starla:(Shocked and Confused)Cosmas....then he's...."

Chip:.....His Nephew""

(They chain up Chip and return him to their base as Marlon and Starla's Friends see him)

Trevor:Uuuh whose this?"

Starla:Apparently he's my Grandpa's Nephew making him my Great Cousin that I had no clue existed(everyone looks at her)yeah I had the same reaction"

Marlon:Chip...."

Chip:Marlon....."

Sleep Master:Take him to the Cells.....we'll interrogate him soon(to Starla) yes Granddaughter?"

Starla:Why didn't you tell my I had a Great Cousin?"

Marlon:You never asked him kiddo"

SM:Come...I'll explain more on the way(and on their way he tells her that Chip is a Metal Organic created by his Brother who was an Alchemist wanting to use Life Alchemy to make life and that his brother was killed when Chip was but 11 years old causing him to turn to violent anger for the first time....as well as him being trained in every form of fighting including the now dead Athma Kauai technique....and how Chip was changed forever)so now you know"

Starla:Oh my....poor Chip....(sees Chip in his Cell in their highest security restraints)aren't those a bit much?"

Chip:(Laughing)Caring for a prisoner......you really are Junior's Kid.....(Him know her father Puts her in a state of shock"

Sleep Master:Chip this is your uncle....why did you disrupt the Natural Order of the My Hero Universe?"

Chip:1....they were Evil Cunts...2....it was to send you a message to come and get me"

Sleep Master:Why did you want us to find you....unless?"

Chip:You finally figured it out huh? I didn't just wanted you to find me and kick your ass but to send a message....(just then the base rumbles and shakes making it hard to stand)the message....."

KITCHEN

Devon:Balls what was...(looks out the window)Oh Balls"

Chip:....'To see the the Prime Order face their match"

(The Prime Order's Base has been transported to another world and it is surrounded......BY CHIP'S PEOPLE. Will the Prime Order survive the attack or fail...find out next time)

THE END

[inkognito97]

Ok in the next segment of the baby kitsune au does obiwan get found by a kitsune Jedi who knows how to calm him down?

@mostie01

He won’t be found by a kitsune Jedi, but he gets found by Tahl… I hope you enjoy.^^

When Tahl finally reached her destination, she was first frozen in shock. There were a lot of people gathered around a demolished looking speeder bike that also appeared to have been in an accident. But the bike was not what caught the crowd’s attention and Tahl already feared the worst. 

The Noorian Jedi moved forward, pushing people and aliens out of her way that were at least twice her weight, perhaps even more. She growled, “I am a Jedi, let me pass,” and most of the assembled let her through, but a few were just too stubborn. The holo camera of the rude teenager was thrown away by the Force and crushed, after Tahl had passed him.

“Oh no,” she gasped out, when she saw the tiny being that was rolled to a ball on the dirty street. She madly dashed forward and kneeled next to the whimpering and shivering fox, hoping that it would not be too late.

Tahl picked up her comlink, “Qui-Gon, contact the temple, we need a healer, immediately.” 

The dark skinned female was not sure if her partner was in any state to do what she had told him, but it did not matter right now. Gently, she reached out and laid a hand on the animal, whose pained blue-green eyes opened widely and in shock and fear upon spotting her.

“Sshhh,” she send the small being calming Force energy, hoping it would be enough. “It’s me Obi-Wan. You remember me right? I am Tahl.”

The fear from the fox’ eyes vanished again, only a little bit of it remained. Slowly, the fox demon lifted its head a few inches from the ground and he licked her finger in a sign of friendship and recognition. The head fell back to the ground, as if it was too hard to hold him up.

“I am going to pick you up now, there is no need to be afraid, Obi-Wan.” Somewhere Tahl had heard or perhaps she had read it, that it was also better to talk with the injured person. As long as your voice stayed calm, it might help the other person too. And informing said being was a good thing as well.

The female Jedi quickly scanned the mammal’s body, making sure that she would not cause further damage by lifting the small being. Upon receiving no warning from the Force, she reached out and gently lifted the fox onto her lap, cradling it close and offering warmth and comfort.

“Can you turn back Obi-Wan?” she asked in a quiet voice, her hand running through the fur on his head.

A loud whimper was the only answer she got.

“Can you try? Just for me, please.”

A small, almost inaudible, bark was her answer. She smiled as she felt the shift around her young and injured charge, before she found herself with a lap full of a young, suffering boy. In this form, it was also easier for the Jedi to assess his injuries. 

There were definitely a couple of broken bones. She hissed in sympathy, when she felt the broken leg, the sprained shoulder and all the bruises that would undoubtedly form on his right side, where the Padawan had been hit.

“I am going to stand up now Obi-Wan.”

Ignoring the crowd’s surprised and astonished mumbling, Tahl stood up, making sure that she had a good grip on the poor lad, without hurting him much further. She just hoped that no rib was drastically broken, it could end very badly. And the healers might better take a look at his spine as well.

Tears filled blue-green eyes and the young one was desperately clutching the female’s tunics. He was also clinging to staying awake, that was a good sign. It meant that he had not given up.

“I’ll bring you back to the temple,” a spark of fear ran through the Force and it caused the Noorian to stumble. Tahl never lost her grip, but she was surprised at the despair and insecurity she could feel from the boy. 

It left the Jedi Master wondering, what went one in the kitsune’s head and if the whole affair had just been a grave misunderstanding or miscommunication between him and his Master. Surely Obi-Wan should not be scared of returning to the temple, the place he was supposed to call home.

“Don’t be afraid little one,” she continued with quick steps, “nobody is going to hurt you. We just want to help you, make the pain go away, alright?”

A few moments, nothing happened. The ginger haired boy seemed to think about what the seemingly nice female, who was holding him, had said. Then, he nodded tiredly in understanding and agreement. Tahl breathed out a sigh of relief. 

At one point, a panting and worse for wear looking Qui-Gon Jinn joined them and when he reached out to offer comfort to his Padawan, the boy actually flinched violently away from him. A shocked and hurt expression appeared in his bearded features, but he did not try again. Over ginger locks, Tahl mouthed a silent, “Later” and together, they continued towards the Jedi temple. At some point, Obi-Wan had fallen unconscious…

[mostthingskenobi]

CHAPTER 9: THE PROPHETESS -- The Dark Side of Obi-Wan Kenobi - Part 2

SUMMARY: Obi-Wan opens the forbidden holocron and discovers the shock of a lifetime.

Friends! Your response to chapter 8 was so fun to read. Thank you for all the awesome comments, both here and on AO3!

OK, things are going to get a little weird in this chapter. Remember how I said I love mythology?? This chapter is definitely a myth builder. Just stick with me and we'll get through this together ;)

--------------------

CHAPTER 9: The Prophetess

Coruscant – Jedi Temple

Obi-Wan was sitting on the floor in the middle of his living chamber. The hour was very late and his quarters were dark and quiet. The holocron sat across from him in the middle of a small table, its eerie blue glow gently spilling into the darkness. He had not yet worked up the courage to open the forbidden box; he stared at it for the better part of an hour, methodically stroking his beard, his brow knit in concentration.

It was not too late; he could sneak back into the library and return the holocron before anyone noticed it was missing.

But what if it contained the answers he was seeking?

Even if it does, he thought, the knowledge is forbidden.

Surely the holocron would reveal teachings he should not be exposed to.

But if that were true, then why had it seemed like the holocron knew him, like it had been expecting him?

“You should be ashamed of yourself, Obi-Wan.”

He nearly jumped out of his skin with surprise as Satine effortlessly knelt by his side. Her spirit had first appeared to him while he lay in agony in the medical ward; she had comforted him while he worked to master his pain. She had not spoken to him since his release, though she constantly hovered around his mind’s edges.

“I did what I had to do,” he said quietly.

“You tricked that poor old woman.”

“Madam Jocasta is by no means helpless, Satine. She’s a Jedi.”

“She was helpless against your influence.”

“It wasn’t done to be cruel. I would never hurt her.”

“Intension is paramount, Obi. You did it for self-gain.”

Anger flared in him as he finally turned to look at her. “How can you call this self-gain? I’m not trying to unravel the mysteries of the universe; I’m trying to learn what’s happening to me. You have no idea what it’s costing me, the fear I’ve been trying to master, the toll it’s taking.”

“Does it feel like everything you’ve worked for is falling to pieces? Like all the sacrifices you’ve made over the years have amounted to nothing? Like all the progress you’ve fought for has been undone by a few cruel, selfish beings?”

Obi-Wan snapped his jaw shut, biting back his anger as he remembered Satine’s final months. Death Watch and Maul had ruined everything she created, manipulated and destroyed her world through careful, calculated action.

“Yes, you’re right. I could never know how you feel, Obi-Wan.”

He looked down at his hands, ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry, my love,” he whispered.

Silence hung between them for a moment before she spoke. Gesturing to the holocron she said, “Are you sure this is the best way? Can you not seek help elsewhere? Why don’t you go to Yoda for guidance?”

Obi-Wan snorted. “Yoda will not help me. No, I want to do this myself.”

“And what if this holocron contains knowledge that will alter you forever?”

“I am already altered. I can feel inside me that something horrible is taking over, and nothing I do will silence it. This holocron can show me the way; it can help me understand what’s happening. Armed with the proper knowledge, I can begin to undo the damage that has been inflicted.”

“What makes you so certain?”

He thought for a moment but he could not come up with an answer. “I don’t know. It’s just a feeling, a sense.”

“I hope you’re right,” she said as she stood. “If you’re wrong, it may be a costly mistake.”

“I know I’m right,” he said firmly.

Suddenly her arms slid around him from behind, her hands clutching his chest, her chin resting on his shoulder. He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his cheek against hers, savoring the warmth that ran through him. “Good luck, my love,” she whispered in his ear. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

When he opened his eyes she was gone.

The remaining pang in his heart filled him with sadness. How desperately he missed her.

He looked across the room at the solitary holocron, glowing faintly in the darkness. Now was the time.

Obi-Wan got to his knees and sat back on his heels. Then, using the Force, he reached out for the little box, levitating it slowly toward him, stopping when it hovered just above his open hands. Keeping it suspended in front of him, he closed his eyes and began to concentrate, letting his mind reach across to it. The energy the holocron emitted was incredible for something so small; it pulsed and crested, making him almost sick with its intensity. Obi-Wan let his own Force wrap around the holocron until he could not tell where he ended and it began. He could sense there was something strong at its core; he brushed against this power and the box suddenly opened, its paneled sides sliding back to release the Force that dwelled within.

The energy burst forth like a great blast of air, throwing Obi-Wan backward several feet as the holocron tumbled back onto the table. Waves of the Force spilled out into the darkness, filling every corner of the room with an oppressive, crushing presence.

A horrible gasp rose out of the glowing cube, like a living creature had just been shocked out of hibernation. Obi-Wan felt a surge in the Force, felt the life form writhing from across the room. He inadvertently backed away, afraid of what he had awakened.

The holocron began to shake, violently bouncing around on the tabletop. A blinding purple light shot out of the box’s six sides, followed by a harrowing scream. Obi-Wan shielded his eyes; as he stepped back he tripped and fell, hitting his head against the wall. He tucked his knees up, covering his face with his arms as sickening waves of energy swept over him.

In an instant, like a flame being snuffed out, the purple light disappeared and the earsplitting scream was silenced. Obi-Wan slowly opened his eyes and peaked out from behind his arms. What he saw shocked him so completely that he reached for his lightsaber before he could stop himself.

“Peace!” shouted the ghostly creature that floated before him like lavender smoke.

Kenobi obeyed her, freezing in his tracks with his lightsaber raised, ready to strike.

She was beautiful yet fierce, her eyes sharp and piercing. Her body was not fully formed, its figure hovering just over the holocron, a translucent purple haze outlined in sharp relief.

Obi-Wan could not believe his eyes. He watched as she looked down at herself in wonder, holding out her hands, turning them over as though she had never seen them before. Her chest heaved as she held back a sob.

“Freedom,” she finally whispered. She looked up at Obi-Wan. “You have given me freedom.” She saw his lightsaber still raised, glowing in the dark. “Put away your weapon, Master Jedi. There is no need for violence.”

He felt almost hypnotized by her beauty and her deep, rich voice. He lowered his lightsaber. “What are you?”

She arched a brow. “That’s a rather rude way of putting it. I’m a woman, obviously. No doubt you have seen one before.”

Taking in her ghostly form he said, “You’re like no woman I’ve ever seen.”

She beckoned him closer. “I have been waiting for you, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

His eyes grew wide. “How do you know who I am?”

“I recognize your Force signature. I was told long ago that you and I would meet.”

He stepped toward her. “Are you a memory?”

Her eyes grew sad as she beckoned him closer still. “I am a sentient being, a consciousness imprisoned by a cruel master.”

“A consciousness? That is impossible.”

“Why do you say so?”

“How can a consciousness be preserved without a body?”

“I have a body,” she said lightly, gesturing with a smile to her smoky lower half. “I did not create the mysteries of the universe, Obi-Wan, therefore I cannot tell you why the Force allows preservation of consciousness.”

“Are you a Jedi?” Obi-Wan asked warily. Even though she was eerily lovely he did not completely trust her.

“I was once, centuries ago, before my master trapped me inside this terrible box.”

“Why would a Jedi imprison a sentient being in such a cruel fashion?”

“Why indeed?” she said archly.

“That wasn’t a rhetorical question,” Obi-Wan retorted.

She smiled at his impertinence. “What does your heart tell you?”

“That you must have done something terrible to deserve your fate.”

“What a narrow way of thinking.”

“A Jedi would never do something so heartless unless you were a threat.” His pulse skipped a beat as a thought occurred to him. “Or a Sith.”

She shook her head, smoke spilling across her undulating edges and floating over her face. “Not all Jedi are so noble as you presume. Do I look like a Sith to you?”

“You are stored in a forbidden holocron.”

“I am not stored, you fool.” Her voice seethed with sudden anger and ice. “I am held against my will.” She took a deep breath, barely regaining her control before speaking again. “My master was very wise. He knew that if he wanted to stuff something away for hundreds of years where it would never be discovered, a forbidden holocron was the perfect hiding place.”

“But why would he do it?”

She smiled mirthlessly. “Because I carry what the Jedi call forbidden knowledge."

Obi-Wan became very still. “What kind of knowledge?”

She tilted her head, her piercing gaze evaluating his worthiness. “I have learned to preserve my consciousness after death.”

“But that’s impossible,” he said firmly.

“Yet here I stand before you.”

“Life after death is not possible.”

“You believe that your corporeal self will join the Force when you die?”

“Yes.”

“This is no different. You simply maintain your identity. If you are pure of heart, the Force will preserve your form and allow you to retain your consciousness. There is no dark magic involved. It is a great mystery that not every Force wielder will understand. Only a chosen few are allowed access to this knowledge. For example, when my master learned of my studies he accused me of blasphemy and had me banished from the Jedi. His mind and heart were not ready to see the truth.”

“How did you end up in a holocron then?”

“When I was young I studied in the Jedi temple. I had many questions but my master would never answer them. After he banished me I went in search of knowledge, learning from anyone willing to teach me. I studied with Jedi, priestesses, and Sith. I learned to face my inner demons and to commune with the Force in a way the Jedi could hardly begin to understand. My master tracked me over the years, sent spies and villains after me. One day he offered to meet, said he wanted to reconcile, said he had acted rashly and wanted to make amends. When I arrive he murdered me.”

Obi-Wan was horrified. What Jedi would do such a thing?

“He said what I had learned was too dangerous, that I had to be prevented from teaching others what I knew. Once he killed my mortal body, he captured my consciousness with a kyber crystal and locked me in this infernal holocron. Only a Jedi of inordinate power will have the ability to fully release me.”

Obi-Wan waved at her misty body. “Are you not free now?”

“Not entirely. You have released me from my cage but my prison is the kyber crystal. If you were to destroy that, I would be free to enter the Force properly.”

“You’ve been trapped in there hundreds of years?”

Her lip curled almost in a snarl. “Yes.”

“But if you’ve been in this holocron for hundreds of years, how can you even know that I exist?”

“It was prophesied centuries ago that you would be among the chosen Jedi, the few who would learn to preserve their living Force after death.”

Obi-Wan was taken aback. “I’m sorry, what?”

“Only a handful of Force sensitive creatures will have the fortitude to perform the transformation. It requires mental aptitude and strength of character that is not commonly found.”

Obi-Wan snorted. “And you think I have this aptitude?”

“The prophecy mentioned you by name, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

He shook his head, his mind reeling. “This is impossible.” His brain was unprepared for this information; he could hardly contain the aversion that reared up inside him. Before he opened the holocron he could never have foreseen this unexpected turn; he thought he would learn secrets about the Sith, not be told he was part of some ancient prophecy.

“Your Jedi training, though impressive, is limited compared to the power of the Force. The Jedi have not allowed you to see the full truth. However, you, Obi-Wan, are the only Jedi currently living who is strong enough to question everything you think you know.”

He turned away, rubbing a hand over his beard, unable to process her words. “I’m in no condition to be questioning anything. I’m…” he was not quite sure how to admit his truth. “I’m afraid I have been compromised.”

Her voice became gentler. “What has happened?”

He thought he would feel ashamed but he suddenly felt ready to accept all her possibilities and confess all his darkest turmoil. “I was taken prisoner by a Sith. Since my release I have not been the same. My thoughts have become angry.”

She listened patiently, nodding as he spoke.

“I hear a voice in my head that isn’t mine. It’s filled with hatred, seething with jealousy and cruelty. Can you help me?”

She looked at him warily. “Step forward, Jedi.”

He did so, standing only inches from her, nervously setting his jaw. He opened his mouth to speak but she silenced him. “Hush, Obi-Wan. Be silent and look into my eyes.” He did as he was told, and as he stared into her floating lavender smoke he felt himself grow ethereal and lightheaded. He was not sure how long he remained under her spell but she suddenly released him and he fell back, catching himself as he landed artlessly on his behind. He stared up at her wondering what she had seen inside him.

She floated down and placed herself across from Obi-Wan. They sat on his floor for many minutes before she finally spoke. “I believe you already suspect what has happened.” He nodded. “My suspicion is a parasitic infection.” As she spoke her face was emotionless and analytical. “Does that match your suspicion?” She saw his jaw tighten with fear as he nodded his assent. “It is very rare and it requires a particularly powerful Sith.” She could see his entire body tense. “A bond is made, usually against a victim’s will. You can be forcibly turned at any moment. The fact that you have not yet fallen either indicates that you are very strong or your parasite has not yet exerted full control over you.” She took a deep breath before she continued, certain that her next words would upset him. “I’m afraid this is all part of the prophecy, Obi-Wan.”

He looked at her quickly with sharp angry eyes. “What?”

“It was foretold that you would fall to the Dark Side.”

“No,” he almost shouted. “I’ll never turn to the Dark Side.”

“It is how you will question everything you know. You must learn to face your fears, you must learn to embrace your darkness before you can fulfill your destiny as the beacon.”

Obi-Wan snorted. “Beacon of what? Failure? Falling from grace?”

“No, Obi-Wan. I learned how to preserve my Force as a consciousness, as an individual. It was not done to cheat death, it was not done for self-gain. I listened to both Jedi and Sith teachings, being seduced by neither philosophy. As I communed with the living energy of the universe, the Fates revealed to me a chosen few who would learn this skill and carry it honorably. You will teach future generations how to harness the Force and use it to balance the galaxy. You were one of the prophesied, one that the Force hand selected. Now you must learn from the Sith as in the past you learned from the Jedi.”

“But if I’m turned against my will, I will have no control over what I learn. I could be lost forever, trapped as a puppet, a servant of the Dark Side.”

She knew her next words would be awful for him, but he must face the truth. “You must not be turned against your will.”

His face fell. He stared blindly for many minutes before he finally spoke. “You’re saying I must choose it. I must turn before I am forced.”

“Yes.”

How could he ever do such a thing to himself, to his training, to Qui-Gon’s legacy? He would be branded a hypocrite. The life he knew would be over.

Obi-Wan rubbed a hand over his brow, overwhelmed. “This doesn’t make any sense. I’m nothing special. Why would the Force do this to me?”

“You’re wrong, Obi-Wan. You are a chosen one, the vergence of light.”

“I’m not the chosen one,” he argued. “My master found the chosen one years ago. My Padawan is the chosen one.”

“And from the very moment you met Anakin Skywalker was not your life plagued by constant heartbreak?”

He could not deny it, but he had never truly attributed his misfortunes to his Padawan.

“Anakin Skywalker is a dark vergence. You are the light, the very embodiment of goodness.”

Obi-Wan shook his head disbelievingly. “I’m not a vergence. I had a mother. I had a father.”

“So you did,” she said kindly. “Excellent people. You descend from a lineage that understands duty, honor, and empathy. Not all vergences are immaculately conceived. The Force chose your parents very carefully. By your nature you are unique. But your ancestry is not all that separates you from your fellow Jedi. You were born under the asterism that contains the ‘Stars of the Servant,’ the hero chosen by the gods as a slave. This is a very rare sign and you are the only being in the history of the galaxy to be born under this alignment.”

Obi-Wan’s mouth hung open in shock. He barely managed to speak. “But those are just old wives tales.”

“Only for those that do not understand them. When planetary bodies align, energy can be conducted through them like a conduit. You and Anakin Skywalker were born under parallel alignments. He is the dark; you are the light. When your bloodlines converge, the vergence will be complete and balance will come to the galaxy.”

“How on earth could our bloodlines converge? Are we related to each other?”

She smiled gently. “No, my dear. Both you and Skywalker will produce offspring. When your children meet, they will form an unbreakable union…”

“Our children? That is impossible.”

“You say the word ‘impossible’ a lot, Obi-Wan. The Jedi Code has taught you to limit what you will believe in; it has limited your mind in ways you do not yet understand. You must learn to see that anything is possible.”

“But Satine, she’s already dead.”

“Satine Kryze will not bear the child of which I speak. You already have a son born by the Duchess of Mandalore, Obi-Wan. He is a miraculous, kind, strong young man, but you must never know him. Even if you come face to face with him, you will recognize him instantly, but you must not acknowledge him. If the Sith knew you had a son he would be in great danger.”

He was completely flabbergasted but before he could speak she powered on.

“The woman who will bear your child is not yet known to you. She will find you in an unexpected place and time, many years from now, a time when you are most in need. She will bear you a daughter and that daughter will bring balance to the galaxy with Skywalker’s son.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes were wide, his mind reeling. He could not speak for many minutes. Finally he asked, “Why would the Force choose me?”

“Because what you see in yourself as imperfections, the Force sees as desirable. You show deep feeling and fierce loyalty, but your stubborn, fanatical attachment to the Jedi must be broken. You are compassionate, empathetic, strong, and just. I know this leaves your heart open to pain, but through these traits you selflessly serve others. You do not lie, you do not solicit praise, nor are you self-aggrandizing. The Force does not seek perfection, it seeks good intention, and you have that in excess.”

“How can any of what you say still be true, especially if there is something dark growing in me, something I might not be able contain?”

“You will become a Sith, Obi-Wan. It is inevitable”

Hearing it said so blatantly shocked him. “I will fall?”

“Your power is coveted by the Dark Lord. You must turn before he takes you for his own against your will.”

“Then how in heaven can I possibly still be considered a vergence of light?”

She rolled her eyes, annoyed. “Have you heard nothing of what I said? You must understand darkness in order to truly be in the light. Being good does not mean being naïve. It means you have seen the darkest possibilities, the most shocking horrors, unfathomable corruption, yet still choose kindness, dignity, and justice. You are the only Jedi strong enough to endure both light and dark. When you are finished, you will be neither Jedi nor Sith. You will be something altogether brighter."

The idea was frightening and thrilling.

“The greatest lessons are the most painful. You will come away a changed man.”

“I’m already a changed man.” A thought suddenly occurred to him. “But what about Anakin? He’s not a dark vergence. He’s a good person.”

“To live in the dark is a simply task; one need only be impatient, bitter, and selfish. Skywalker is naturally all these things. Being your Padawan is the only force that kept his temper in check. Your burden is far heavier. To truly be a bearer of light, one must fully experience the darkness, pity it, and then forgive it. Those that carry love in a dark world truly know pain. Anakin will fall, and when he does it will be spectacular.”

Obi-Wan opened his mouth to speak but he was stopped short by a knock on his front door. Fear was plain on his face as he looked between the floating apparition and his entryway. Who on earth would come to his quarters at this hour? And if they saw the holocron he would be in considerable trouble. He quickly stepped toward the lavender lady. “Please,” he spoke quickly. “Can you hide?”

She looked bothered by the request. “You want me to go back into my cage?”

He looked at her apologetically. He hated asking her to imprison herself but he could not risk her being seen.

“Very well,” she muttered before instantly disappearing back into the holocron.

There was another knock on the door, this time more urgent. Obi-Wan reached out with the Force and quickly closed the holocron, then he scooped it up and brought it into his sleeping quarters where he hid it under his bed. He closed the bedroom door before hurrying to answer the knock that had escalated into constant pounding.

--------------------

NEXT CHAPTER: Obi-Wan and Anakin realize they share some of the same doubts.

--------------------

READ IT ON AO3 - Kudos and Comments Welcome :-)

READ CHAPTER 1: Disturbance

READ CHAPTER 2: Waking

READ CHAPTER 3: The Voice

READ CHAPTER 4: The Council’s Lackey

CHAPTER 5: Demons

CHAPTER 6: The Downward Spiral

CHAPTER 7: The Change

CHAPTER 8: Forbidden

CHAPTER 9: The Prophetess

CHAPTER 10: Doubt

CHAPTER 11: The Push

CHAPTER 12: The Fall

CHAPTER 13: The Horrible Truth

CHAPTER 14: The Only Way

CHAPTER 15: Asunder

CHAPTER 16: Master

[hopetwin]

five times kissed (I SAW MY NAME AND IM HERE)

send me five times kissed for a drabble about five times our muses kissed || @humcne

Accepting for Shipping Partners Only

It’s long so it’s under a read more

1.    Jedi Temple || Young Teens

     They were training, sabers clashing as each spun around the other. Jaina was getting cocky and becoming more and more aggressive in her attempts to get Luconis to drop his saber. There was a soft cough from the side where she knew her uncle was watching them, a slight warning for her to calm down before she got out of hand and someone got hurt. Jaina slowed her assault, deciding to rather try and trip up Luconis. 

    She didn’t exactly know what it was about Luocnis that made her want to beat him any time that they were paired up ( which oddly seemed to be very often ). But she did. It didn’t matter what kind of sparring the two were up to, she wanted nothing more than to beat him. ( and hope to rid herself of the pesky feelings that seemed to pop up whenever they were in a room together. ) A foot went out to knock him off balance, however in doing so, she lost her balance. 

   There was a curse from Luconis as he fell forward, that was quickly followed by one from Jaina as she fell back. She could have sworn she heard a chuckle from her uncle from the corner. There was a noise of protest has she hit the ground, and just a second later, Luconis had landed on top of her. ( some plan this was ). 

     Jaina’s cheeks darkened when she realized that his lips were pressed against hers, and in a split moment the two were scrambling away from each other. She threw a heated glare at him, almost daring him to ever mention this again. Jaina was quick to grab her saber, which had been tossed away when she’d fallen and stalked out of the room. 

2.   Jedi Temple || Young Adults

    She’d told him right away once her uncle had asked her to go on the mission. Jaina hadn’t wanted Luconis to worry if he’d possibly heard it from someone else and it was an excuse for the two to get to spend a bit of time together before she had to leave. The two were currently out by the ship that her mother had provided her to use after Luke had spoken to Leia, an X-Wing and one of Jaina’s favorites. 

    They had sat in silence for a little while, Jaina leaning up against him. There was an uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach, but she did her best to ignore it, thinking it was just nerves about going off on her own. If she could have, she would have taken Luconis with her. But her uncle had assured her that he needed Luconis for something and that it wasn’t possible for him to go with her. She snuggled in close, smiling at the feeling of his fingers playing with her hair gently. 

    “You better be in one piece when I get back.” It was a joke, but a thinly veiled warning that if something were to happen to him while she was gone, there’d be hell to pay. “Don’t want to have to kick your ass.” 

    He laughed, shoulders shaking gently, “I will keep that in mind, do me a favor and make sure to come back in one piece. And try not to fight everyone that you come across,”

    For a moment she pretended to be offended, pushing against him gently, “That’s so rude.” The banter back and forth would have continued had Cappie not rolled up, beeping out the reminder that Jaina needed to leave. There was a sigh from both the male and female, and Jaina stood, giving Luconis a small smile.  “I’ll see you around, Luc.” 

    She turned, ready to get in her ship and go when he caught her arm and pulled her back for a moment. His lips pressed against hers in a swift and gentle kiss, earning a smile from Jaina, who happily returned it. “Just come home safe.” He muttered, his forehead coming to touch hers. 

     “You got it.” 

3.   Resistance Base: D’Qar || Young Adults

    The moment she’d laid eyes on him through the crowd of those working, Jaina felt her heart pounding in her chest. She’d thought she’d lost him when she’d returned to the temple and found the carnage that her brother had left behind, even if she’d never found his body. Jaina had hoped that he was alive, but given what had happened, it was hard to believe. But there he was, standing just yards from her. 

    She took off running, ignoring the normal action of going to speak with her mother first, just the thought of throwing her arms around him in her mind. She’d called out his name as she ran, her heart pounding in her chest. Her smile only grew at the look on his face when he’d turned to see it was her that had called out to him, that crooked smile was her favorite thing in the universe. 

      His arms were open for her, and Jaina practically threw herself into them, her own arms going around him tightly. The tense feeling in her shoulders melted away as he pulled her into him, arms closing around her in a tight hug. She could feel him tucking her head under his chin, a slight shake in his form as he held her. “I missed you.” His words were quiet, almost as if he were afraid to speak them. 

    Jaina did feel scared, deep down, that if she spoke he would suddenly be gone. This all a dream like the many she’d head since the destruction of the Jedi Order. Dark eyes looked up at him, her own cocky grin coming to her lips in the attempt to assure him that she was there, that this was real. ( and convince herself ). Her hands went to his head for a moment, pulling him gently down to her level where she could press her lips against his. 

      “I missed you too.” 

4.  Ahch-To || Young Adults

       “Pinned ya.” 

       Luconis made a slightly annoyed noise and fixed her with what Jaina would have classified as a pout. “You gonna let me up?”

       “Maybe.” There was a bit of a grin on her features before she stood, hand going out to help him up. Luconis took her hand, pulling her down and then rolling over to pin her himself, a smirk coming to is features 

     “Gotcha” 

      Dark brows perked, and Jaina moved one leg to throw him off balance before rolling out from under him. After he lost his balance and fell, Jaina sat back on him, grinning at him. “Pinned ya again.” Luconis let out a laugh, this time grabbing her arms and pulling her to where she was more laying on him than sitting, but made no move to flip them over. Jaina chuckled at the fact the sparing match had now just ended with the two having their arms around each other. Which had happened plenty since they’d been reunited on D’Qar. 

        Jaina wiggled a little, putting her arms on either side of Luconis and holding herself up for a moment, before leaning close enough to to kiss him. He returned the kiss and neither broke the kiss until a small electric shock ran through them. At first confusion passed over Jaina’s features until she spotted her uncle standing not far away, looking as if he was trying not to laugh. 

5.   Solo - Dalmore Residence || Adults 

        It was early, light filtered through the transparisteel and the blinds that covered it gently, throwing the softest light into the room. The two of them were cuddled up, only just barely starting to wake up. Once they did it would be time for the two to get ready, and so for the time being each just sleepily snuggled into the other, enjoying the warmth and comfort that the other’s form brought to them. 

       Time ticked by, Jaina stirring just a bit sooner than what Luconis would, normally the first to raise, even when she didn’t want to be. Dark eyes opened and she found herself gazing at Luconis with a gentle smile on her features before she snuggled into his chest. She felt him move his arm around her slowly, drawing her closer. 

     There was a sigh from the male, sleepy and soft, before he whispered out the words “I love you,”

      She snuggled, nudging him a bit with her head, before moving up and placing a gentle kiss on his lips. “I love you.”

[cora-vizsla]

Hypnotic (Taking Over Me) - Chapter 1

Pairing: Eventual Jedi!OC x Sith!Obi Wan

Word Count: 3.3K

Story Rating: E (18+)

Chapter Rating: T

Warning: Swearing. Threats of violence. Calm kidnapping.

A/N: Here is the first chapter! I have a decent amount of this story written due to the fact I wasn’t sure if Sith!Obi Wan was something that would fully call to me. But here we are!

“You can’t be serious.”

“I can’t believe you’re doubting me.”

“It’s a cliff.”

“Yes.”

“You want to jump off a cliff.”

“I’ll use the force.”

“I know we have different Master’s but mine never told me we could fly. I’ll have to ask him about that.”

“I never said I would fly Zara. I said I would catch myself.”

“No, Anakin, you said you would use the force. You never once said how you would use the force.”

“I can’t believe we’ve known each other this long and you think I would do something without having a plan.”

Zara crossed her arms across her chest and looked at Anakin. She peeked down at the space her friend was adamant about jumping into and huffed out a laugh.

“It is because I know you that I believe you would do something without having a plan.”

Anakin smiled fully at her and laughed. She rolled her eyes but returned the smile. As much as he annoyed the hell out of her sometimes, he was the closest friend she had. She looked around and smiled at Cody and the small group of troopers she had brought with her. It had been a fruitless mission, but it was almost refreshing to just enjoy the landscape for a while, even if Anakin wanted to jump to his death.

“Are you ready, General?”

“Yes, Commander, round the troops up. Time to head back.”

Cody started commanding the rest of the troops to enter the ship parked close to where they had been standing. Anakin was still looking down the cliff but before Zara could tell him to take a few steps back she felt a strange energy behind her. Absentmindedly she put her hand on her saber and looked over her shoulder. It was like someone was staring at her the way there was an electric jolt down her spine.

“Anakin, do you feel that?”

He turned to look at her and frowned immediately at how concerned she looked. He barked for the troopers to hurry up and load up.

“Generals, what about you?”

“Stay close, Cody. Whatever this is, you won’t be able to help.”

He hesitated but listened. In the end, he would always listen to his General even if he didn’t agree with the order. Zara turned fully and felt Anakin move so he was next to her. They could joke with each other all day, but in the end, they worked together flawlessly. One of the perks of basically growing up together.

“I’ve never felt something so dark.”

“Me either, Zar. Guess the intel wasn’t wrong.”

“The intel said droids, not this.”

The presence came closer until they finally saw someone walking towards them. The mystery person was wearing all black robes but didn’t move like the shadow his robes could make them be. No, this person was practically strutting. When they got close enough, they stopped and pulled their hood down with black gloved hands.

“Sith.”

Zara and Anakin grabbed their sabers and ignited them. The man in front of them had burning amber eyes and a feral smile.

“Ready to fight already? I haven’t even introduced myself yet.”

“Nothing to introduce. You’re a Sith. End of story.”

Zara gripped her saber tighter, studying the man. Anakin was always ready to fight no matter the situation, not that this situation didn’t call for it. Zara was just more likely to study and evaluate all the aspects that Anakin’s temper caused him to miss.

He was sure of himself. His energy was dangerously dark, but there was almost an air of sarcasm around him. It made all her senses sit on edge, but it wasn’t in the typical way. Normally she would have started an attack. The man was strange and strange meant she could learn something.

She snapped out of her thoughts when Anakin raised his saber. The man laughed and finally pulled his own saber, igniting it to show the deadly blade was a deep red. It didn’t surprise her, but the way it reflected off his eyes did.

“So, the boy is a guardian and the girl a consular. Interesting.”

“What do you know of the Jedi?”

Zara finally spoke and the man’s attention immediately snapped to her. He let his eyes rake down her once before smirking.

“Was wondering if you were mute, darling.”

Anakin let out a snarl at the cute name, but it only brought the Sith more enjoyment.

“Oh dear, did I strike a nerve? I didn’t realize they changed the rules when it comes to attachments.”

Zara furrowed her brows and looked over at Anakin. He was absolutely feral looking. Before she could say much to him, the comm link in her ear started going off. She pressed her finger to it and instantly heard the worry in Cody’s voice.

“General, were down the cliff. A quick jump would get you to us.”

“You have got to be kidding me.”

“It was the only way to get to you. Sorry, General.”

“It’s okay, Commander. You did good. See you soon.”

The man was staring directly at her and it unnerved her. She felt like he was looking through her. She nodded towards the cliff while looking at Anakin and he laughed, putting his saber away on his waist.

“Well, Sith, it’s been fun. Time to go.”

Zara and Anakin both stepped backwards until they were directly at the edge. The Sith put his saber back on his own waist and crossed his arms. Anakin jumped and the look of shock on the man’s face made Zara chuckle.

“Are you going to jump too, darling?”

“What other choice do I have?”

She had meant it as a rhetorical question, but her foot slipped slightly when the man responded in earnest.

“You could come with me.”

“Now, why would I ever go with a Sith?”

“Darth Veth. It would be awfully rude for you to go without giving me your name since I so kindly gave you mine.”

“A Sith looking for civility from a Jedi? How odd.”

He flashed her a grin. She had no idea why she answered him but when she spoke her full name, Darth Veth nodded as if he was greeting her. It was as if he were meeting a new friend, not an enemy on the battlefield. It unnerved her even more than his staring, but she wouldn’t let him see that.

“Well, as fun as this has been. It’s time for me to go.”

She jumped and flipped forward, landing on her feet but down in a crouching position. Anakin held his hand out for her, and she took it with a smile. The ship started raising up and they both saw the Sith shaking his head with a devious smile. Once Zara and Anakin slipped back into the ship, she looked back once and saw him putting his hood up not even attempting to chase them.

“What a strange man.”

“Don’t try to make sense of the Sith, Zar. It will just give you a headache.”

---

“Thank you for meeting with me, Master.”

“Of course, Zara. Although you aren’t my padawan anymore I am always here for guidance.”

Zara beamed up at him as they walked out into the garden. It had always been a favorite place for her, and Mace couldn’t count how many times he had found her there reading as a child.

“I know we gave our official report to the council, but I just feel so strange about the whole situation.”

“What is bothering you?”

She stopped and crossed her arms, mimicking her former Master. They faced each other and she shift her weight to one side.

“Darth Veth. Do we know anything about him?”

“Nothing official. Why?”

“He knew about our sabers. He knew that Anakin is a guardian and that I’m a consular. That isn’t exactly general knowledge to the masses.”

“No, it isn’t. What else did he say?”

“He brought up connections and attachments within the Jedi code. He kept.. calling me darling and it pissed Anakin off.”

“Getting under your skin isn’t exactly strange for a Sith.”

“Asking for my name is though. Even once he found out it was more like he was trying to just make conversation. Once Anakin was out of the equation he was almost.. friendly.”

“That is strange. You didn’t feel comfortable telling the counsel this?”

“Oh, that doesn’t bother me. Anakin just never lets me get a word in.”

Mace laughed at her comment and nodded, finally letting himself relax a little.

“Did he give you the impression that he was following you?”

“Not really. He seemed more interesting in talking to me. Anakin he just looked at like he wanted to fight him.”

“Can’t say I’m surprised by that.”

Zara smiled at him and nodded.

“I need to speak to the rest of the counsel, but I think it may be wise to send you out on your own without Anakin. If the Sith shows up, then we know there may be an issue. If not, we will just keep an eye out for him.”

“You’ll be giving Commander Cody less of a headache, that’s for sure.”

Mace chuckled and nodded.

“Go prepare for a mission. I’ll be getting back to you shortly.”

She bowed forward slightly, and Mace returned the gesture. He wasn’t always the friendliest Jedi there was but with Zara he was always willing to give advice and a smile. He watched her go with just a touch of worry. He really hoped that there wasn’t a Sith with his eyes set on her.

---

Zara stepped off the ship and looked at the landscape. Another humid planet with a lot of vegetation. Cody stepped next to her and pulled his helmet off, a smile on his face.

“Don’t look too thrilled that General Skywalker isn’t here.”

He chuckled and scratched at his head.

“Sorry, General. Just nice to have a smaller mission where there won’t be many shenanigans.”

“Are you saying I’m incapable of being a pain in your ass?”

Cody smiled again and shook his head quickly.

“No, General. Would never dream of saying that.”

Zara smiled and nodded towards the set of buildings they were tasked with searching.

“The intel says that most of the buildings have been empty for years. We don’t expect to find much.”

“Can I ask why we’re here then?”

Zara hesitated. Testing to see if the Sith would show wasn’t an official part of the mission. Using a Jedi Knight for bait wasn’t exactly something the council wanted everyone to know. She had no qualms with it but understood why it needed to be kept quiet.

“Just needed to make sure nothing is going on. We can also see what kind of capabilities the area has so if we do see droids here, we will know why.”

“Understood.”

“There is a smaller temple to the east. I plan on checking that out for any artifacts that may be there. Keep in contact with me. If there are any problems retreat back here immediately. We don’t have the numbers to get into a huge firefight.”

“Yes, General.”

Cody barked out his order to his men and they all left. If the Sith knew that she was a consular then he would expect her to be looking for things to learn. No one had been surprised when she ended up with a green saber. She loved losing herself in the forms and movement with her saber, but it was rare to find her without a book in her hands.

The walk to the temple wasn’t a hard one, but she hated how much she was sweating already. Life on Alderaan with a wealthy family hadn’t forced her to deal with the heat often. She tried not to complain but she preferred the cold if she was being honest.

Once she reached the temple she walked in, focusing on the artwork inscribed into the walls. She traced her fingers across the etching and smile at how intricate it was. Her footsteps echoed through the halls until she came to a room that had the walls covered in texts. She smiled at them and easily found herself lost in them.

Looking back, she could have kicked herself for not being observant. Part of the mission was to be bait yet she was so focused on the texts that she didn’t hear the footsteps coming down the hallway. She didn’t focus in on the feeling of darkness coming up behind her and she absolutely didn’t plan on jumping when her name was called.

“Startled, darling?”

She pushed the book now sitting on the floor to the side with her foot and ghosted her hand over her saber. Darth Veth was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

“No need for sabers, dear. If I had wanted to harm you it would have been very easy with how distracted you were.”

“And why didn’t you?”

“Would you have attacked someone from behind?”

She sighed and relaxed a fraction.

“I suppose not. I’m also not a Sith though.”

He chuckled and pushed off the wall, moving to the books. He picked one up and started carding through the thick pages. Zara crossed her arms and watched him with confusion.

“It would have been a crime to hurt someone looking so innocently enthralled with knowledge around her.”

“I.. enjoy books.”

“I could see that.”

He shut the book with a snap and gently placed it back where it came from. He dusted his hands off and faced her fully.

“Why are you here, Lord Veth?”

“Falling for your trap, of course.”

“Trap?”

“Oh, darling. Do you find me dull? I knew the moment I saw you that the council would use you as bait. They surely wouldn’t send the hot head that was with you.”

“And how do you know I’m not a hot head?”

He chuckled and took a few steps forward. She wanted to back up but if she did it would put her in a rather dangerous situation. She may not have had the advantage, but she wasn’t going to let him box her into a corner.

“You’re far too smart to swing without assessing every possibility of your actions. If you weren’t you would have attacked when there were two of you.”

“You weren’t posing a threat at the time.”

He hummed as he stopped, directly in front of her. She looked up slightly, due to the height difference, and finally saw the different depths of amber his eyes were.

“And what about now? Am I posing a threat now?”

“Your saber isn’t drawn. Your hands are clasped behind your back. Though I couldn’t guess your next move, you are trying to seem as non-threatening as possible. My Master would have told me to be skeptical of you; never trust a move you make.”

“Ah, Master Windu. He is absolutely one not to trust really anyone. You didn’t fully answer me though. Do youthink I am a threat right now?”

She took a breath and felt out into the force. She could feel his darkness, but it wasn’t aimed at her. She could tell he would be fast, probably faster than her, but his muscles weren’t poised to strike. When she squared her shoulders Veth raised his eyebrows slightly.

“No. At least not beyond the fact that you are a Sith standing in front of me in a dimly lit room with only one doorway that you are currently blocking me from using.”

“Master Windu has trained you well. You’re levelheaded. How did you become so attached to the Skywalker boy when he is so volatile?”

“How do you know anything about Anakin?”

He chuckled and reached out to touch Zara’s long hair. She flinched but made no move to pull away.

“I know very much about Ani. It’s you, Zara Fross that I know very little about.”

“Pity we don’t have more time, Veth. I must be going.”

She walked by him, surprised that he made no move to stop her. When she reached the door, he cleared his throat making her turn to look at him.

“Ah, Zara, silly me. I forgot to tell you that there is a reason that I am here.”

“Oh? What reason would that be.”

“You see, it is true that I know very little about you. However, I do not plan on that being the case for very long. My ship is close, and you will be going with me.”

Zara laughed incredulously and crossed her arms.

“Don’t mistake my civility with you with us being friends, Sith.”

“I don’t. You may be the gentlest Jedi I have met thus far, but I figured that you wouldn’t come with me. The fact of the matter is, I need you to. I’m not normally the kind of man to galivant around the galaxy and kidnap young women but in this case, it is my mission.”

“Then we will fight. I’m not going with you.”

“Ah, also expected that response. I’ll make it easy for you both emotionally and physically. I anticipated you sending your men to the buildings. I have them set to detonate if you don’t go with me willingly. I’ve observed you for quite some time and I know how fond of your clones you are. It pains you deeply when you lose a life under your command and you will lose all of them if you reject my hospitality.”

Zara took a step back and glanced down at the comms connected to her wrist.

“I wouldn’t try to warn them. They’ll be dead before the message gets to them.”

“How do I know you’re telling the truth? This was a trap set for you.”

“One that I anticipated. Though I will be fair and show you this.”

He held up a device that was clearly made to detonate explosives. Zara ran her hand over her face and sighed.

“Alright, fine. I have a stipulation though.”

“Oh, do tell.”

“Let me leave a message for my men that they can give to the council. Since I have no idea where you’re taking me, I couldn’t give them a single clue. They already know you exist, and it will stop Anakin from doing something extremely reckless.”

“Very well. Let’s go.”

He walked past her, and she sighed. The trap that had been laid was not going to according to plan at all.

---

Once a message was left, Zara followed her sort of captor to his ship. It wasn’t anything fancy and it wasn’t meant for long trips. When they reached their destination, the man held his hand out to her expectantly. She looked down at his hand then back at his face.

“Saber. Can’t exactly let you keep a weapon that you’re trained to kill with on your persons.”

“I’m not giving you my saber.”

“Then I kill your men. I thought we went over this?”

“Maker. Fine.”

She ripped it off her side and slammed it into his hand, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Ah, there is that Skywalker influence.”

“I’ll have you know I was just as capable of sarcasm and being snarky before I met Anakin.”

He laughed and motioned for her to climb in. She shot him a glare before climbing in, plopping down into the copilot seat. Once he was situated, he started the ship up and began the trip to wherever he was taking her. She huffed out a sigh and looked out at the lights streaking by.

“Don’t look so glum, darling. Think of this as an extended vacation for you.”

Zara chuckled darkly and muttered just loud enough for the Sith to hear her.

“A Sith and a Jedi climb into a ship..”

He laughed fully and clapped his hands together once.

“Oh, this is going to be so much fun.”

“If this is fun, I’d hate to see what your definition of torture is.”

[monkeyandelf]

New Post has been published on Buzz News from Monkey & Elf |

New Post has been published on https://www.monkeyandelf.com/7-minor-arguments-that-led-to-laughably-ridiculous-crimes/

7 Minor Arguments That Led To Laughably Ridiculous Crimes

What’s that saying about making a mountain out of a molehill? The cliche is important to keep in mind when someone does something that gets your blood boiling, so if you’re the type of person who vows revenge when your waiter accidentally puts ice in your drink after you asked for no ice, then may we recommend you take it down a notch or two thousand.

During the course of any given day, you’re bound to have any number of minor disagreements, so it’s vital to keep your cool, no matter how idiotic you think the other person is because there are plenty of yokels who go off the deep end for the pettiest of reasons.

Check out some of them below and while you do, we’re going to figure out just what the heck a molehill actually is.

“But, Mom, I Don’t Want To Go!”

Kids fighting with their parents is older than time itself, but at some point the child needs to control his or her emotions. Like, say, when the kid is a full-blown adult.

A 39-year-old woman in Indianapolis attacked her mother with a cheeseburger after the mom told her she could no longer stay with her. Because unless they’re named George Costanza, no 39-year-old should be shacking be up with mom or dad.

After the mom broke the news to her daughter, the two got into a fight at a McDonald’s drive-thru and then got their order. And then police can fill you in on what went down:

“While her daughter was seated in the front passenger seat she took a bite out of her cheeseburger,” an official said. “The victim stated her daughter yelled ‘B—h I outta kill you’ and hit her in the left side of her face with her hand and the cheeseburger.”

The daughter then fled the scene. Hopefully, whomever took her in knows they run the risk of getting pummeled by greasy cuisine when they ask her to leave.

Kirk Is a Jerk

These two knuckleheads almost put the “die” in “Jedi.” A man in Oklahoma City was arrested for roughing up another fella after they got into an argument over whether “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” is better.

Twenty-three-year-old Jerome Whyte got into it with the unidentified victim in an apartment when the dispute erupted. Hard to believe they weren’t in their parents’ basement. We’re just as surprised as you are.

The two exchanged some insults before things turned physical — shoving and choking, to be precise. In fact, Whyte choked the vicim so much he nearly passed out and he cut himself when he tried to grab a knife the victim had grabbed to defend himself. Police later beamed up Whyte (that’s Trekkie lingo for “arrested”) to the station on charges of assault and battery, possession of marijuana and other warrants.

A Killer Story

Breaking news: people still read the newspaper. A 51-year-old man in Germany wound up dead after he got into a fight with his 42-year-old newspaper delivery man. Yeah, you read that right.

The two had repeatedly gotten into tiffs before because the customer was annoyed the paper didn’t show up on his doorstep when he wanted it to be there. Things reached a fever pitch and the delivery man stabbed the customer with a knife. A relative of the victim saw the whole incident and called police, who arrested the delivery man. The customer went to the hospital where he was pronounced dead.

All of which begs the question: can you imagine how upset the ones of other people in town who still get the paper delivered must’ve been when they woke up the next day to find nothing waiting for them on their driveway? Here’s a hot tip for them: get the Internet and read the news online like everyone else.

RELATED: 10 Shocking Butt Crimes

Hotter Under the Collar Than the Food on the Plate

Some people just can’t take criticism. Jodi Ecklund, of Merrimack, H.H., got into a standoff with police after she metaphorically lost her raviolis when her boyfriend said the spaghetti she cooked for him was just “okay.”

After he used that fateful word, Ecklund punched Jason Martin in the face, arm and hand. Martin skedaddled out of the apartment while Ecklund, who had two guns, barricaded herself inside while cops rushed to the scene.

Give Ecklund credit because if the cops are going to come to your door, you might as well go full-blown loony tunes. She threatened to kill officers if they entered the home and threw some of her boyfriend’s stuff out of the window. She’s a swipe right on Tinder if ever there was one.

Eventually, officers weaseled their way into the house and arrested Ecklund after a few hours. Our guess? She gave up because she was hungry.

There She Is, Miss Demeanor

Assault is this beauty pageant hopeful’s talent. Police in Stuart, Fla. arrested a 24-year-old contestant in the most definitely prestigious Miss Sailfish Regatta Bikini Contest for bopping a rival in the show with a high heel shoe.

Miss Congeniality, indeed.

Erica Miza claims the 23-year-old victim had engaged in some real trash talk by saying she was going to whoop her butt. After the pageant ended (we don’t know who won), the two continued jawing at each other before they indulged in every man’s fantasy and got physical — come on, you know you’re picturing two bikini-clad babes coming to blows in some sort of soft porn Cinemax after dark flick come to life. Miza shoved the woman and then swung her shoes, which hit the victim.

As if that’s not juicy enough, the victim claims Mize told her “you should go to the gyno because you’re in for a rude awakening.” That, ladies and gentlemen, is a serious diss that the judges should’ve taken into account when giving their scores.

Pretty Sure the Birthday Wish Did Not Come True

Well, this crime certainly takes the cake. Police in New Britain, Conn. arrested Carlos Gonzalez-Oliver after he killed a man during an argument over birthday cake. Not too many crimes can hold a (birthday) candle to this one.

Gonzalez-Oliver, 41, was returning to his boarding house with a birthday cake for a resident when another tenant, who would be the one to die, started harassing him.

“The victim banged on his door with an ax, destroyed the birthday cake and threw some of it at the door,” reports the Hartford Courant.

Gonzalez-Oliver, who has racked up a whopping 20 criminal convictions over the last 21 years, says he stabbed the man after the victim tried to go at him with the ax. He fled the scene before cops tracked him down.

It’s like they say: it’s not a birthday party until someone starts swinging an ax? Oh, wait, they don’t say that? Well, they will now.

Dog Poop and Bullets

Being neighborly has gone to the dogs. A Tampa, Fla. man shot his neighbor after the neighbor’s dog pooped on his lawn.

Joshame Sewell, 20, became so incensed that Donte Roberson’s pooch went number two in his yard that he grabbed a rifle and opened fire on Roberson, hitting him in the leg and hand.

Sewell remained on the run for a few days before police captured him.

Aside from being too loud, letting Fido do his business on someone else’s property is probably the worst thing a neighbor can do, so we can understand why the guy was ticked off. And while you’ve got to have some level of sympathy for Sewell, you can’t side with him here.

Picking up the poop with a shovel and flinging it back onto the neighbor’s property? Yes. But reacting like some hothead in a Quentin Tarantino movie? No. You’ve got to draw the line (of fire) somewhere.

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[3piox]

kotor character meme

based on this post :3 this got long as hell but it’s very self indulgent and mostly just for myself but i wanted to post it. under cut!

REVAN

NAME: vivza sanstar (i wanted to be EXTREMELY star wars-y. it’s no yolo ziff but i’m still pretty happy)

GENDER: f 

APPEARANCE: this one! i basically cast gong li. a la darth maul, much shorter than you might expect but threatening enough to make up for it (5′5″ but no napoleon complex, she’s VERY confident)

FAVORITE HOBBY: swoop racing. lol. or riling people up. she’s very into arcania, specifically into the force equivalent of universal string theory and quantum mechanics. she like, wrote papers on this stuff and everything. her ‘chill mode’ is banging ladies and building, like, rube goldberg machines. but she doesn’t really have a chill mode so.

BIRTH PLANET: tatooine. jk. a lush planet! some part of revan still loves the sense of rain through warm tropical canopies. her parents were normal people, maybe one mildly force sensitive. they were proud to send her to the jedi as a baby, but never recognized her in the famous war hero -- revan named herself that, and her birth name is lost to the sands of time. revan doesn’t spare them much thought.

PERSONALITY: scorpio/sagittarius cusp. lol. inventive, clever, outspoken, always ‘on’ in a way, but also laidback, the spirit of a wanderer, sees no limits. do or do not, there is no try? yeah, she always does. cocky, naturally. brutally analytical -- she can compartmentalize like nobody’s business, one of the things that made the mindwipe easier to take. totally utilitarian, but grows more empathy after the mindwipe. a strange, compelling gal with a frat boy’s sense of humour.

KREIA: “fine, master.” see above, about compartmentalizing? she can do this with relationships too. she loved kreia as any student loves their teacher, but once she felt kreia had nothing else to teach her, she was on to the next. kreia did not take well to this. when revan came back like nothing had changed, kreia was hard pressed to put her bitterness behind her, and revan saw it as criticism which her ego could not take, so their reunion didn’t last long. once again, revan took what she needed, and left. 

kreia still loves her, and she had dreams where they both got their redemption and stood shoulder by shoulder again, but -- she was too much of a realist to ever dwell on that. revan obvsly loves hilarious slammin’ frankness (see HK) and i believe kreia taught her that and it’s something she really admires about her. “speak your mind, padawan”

MALAK: best of bros. malak was a shy kid, very quiet, reserved, and like so many others was drawn to the sun of revan’s personality. she took him under her wing (figuratively, as he’s always been MUCH BIGGER than her) and she’s been treating him like a little brother/padawan since they were knee high. she loves telling people what to do, and malak was appropriately obedient while also having some fire to him. war forged them into closeness again after they drifted apart in their knighthoods, and malak followed her into hell with a grim smile. i think the turning point in their relationship wasn’t malak’s bitterness about being relegated to apprentice, but because revan -- who, while blunt to the point of rudeness at times, was ultimately very fair-minded and protective -- turned from teasing figure to a bully. malak felt emasculated and, well, one thing led to another. after realizing who she was, revan felt compelled to try and redeem malak, to prove that she wasn’t some fluke, and she mourns him still. 

EXILE: in my fantasies? they FUCKED. 

but seriously. i think there’s something to be said about revan sending the exile to die and thus probably not liking her very much, but for my revan and exile, it’s more a matter of revan’s utilitarian brutality overcoming any feelings she had. the exile was a threat because of her own sway, charm, and growing reluctance with the war -- the exile was talking about going home after malachor, and revan couldn’t have that. she was already thinking about the future, about parting ways with the jedi order and what she needed for that, which included jedi loyal to her and her alone.

before the war: while they were a few years apart in age (exile older) they were very similar, being charming prodigies and all, and i think the council was afraid of them meeting. their paths rarely intersected until knighthood, where they were goaded into a spar that still lives in legend in the halls of the dantooine temple. after that they had a friendly rivalry, but their personalities clashed enough that real socialization wasn’t a hobby of theirs. the exile did get along more with malak (they were both quiet types) so that was another connection they had.

after malachor v, the exile obviously survived, and she came to revan to tell her that she was returning. (she felt it was the courteous thing to do.) revan was angered, but she knew she couldn’t control the exile, so she let her go. they didn’t meet again until wild space and the exile rescuing her. the fact that they didn’t have a deep connection only increases revan’s shock at the exile doing this for her.

“I didn’t think you liked me very much,” she jokes.

“I don’t,” the Exile says. “But I do my duty. Come along.”

after that, they start to develop a real relationship, because pretty much no one else in the galaxy knows what they’ve been through

HERO OR TYRANT: revan told herself she was doing it for the good of the galaxy, but the truth is, she fell before she even really recognized this other threat. she had an ego (practically a god complex) and it drove her to do what had never been done before to prove her greatness -- she didn’t go to war to save people, she went to war because she knew she could stop the mandalorians. and they had to be stopped! so it was easy to justify. 

she ISN’T the type to destroy the galaxy -- she’s fascinated by it’s variations and complexities, and it’s her playground, so she did want to keep it safe. she would have done anything to save it, and to her, anyone who would argue with her methods just wasn’t #deep or #woke enough to see that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one. she was probably the kind of kid who pulled legs off bugs, not a sociopath but the pursuit of knowledge, of truth, overwhelms everything.

MEMORIES: she was a spice smuggler and arms dealer, lol. i like to think the council picked that shady background because they wanted to cover up for what THEY saw as an unavoidable moral bankruptcy of character.

her birth planet was kept the same; they used a single mother and an absent dad in place of her single, female master, but also had her mother die young -- ‘vivza’ had to make her own way in the world. a han solo heart of gold type. the whole backstory was #fake but the council knew all the best lies are truths (from a certain point of view ...) so they kept her personality as intact as they could, maintained her most influential memories thru a different lens -- her relationship with her mom mirrors her one with kreia, some of the people she saved stayed the same even if her method was different, she still likes geek shit, etc.

i think there wasn’t really a whole real person’s worth of memories in there -- that would have been absurd to craft -- i think they just impressed the basic bio facts into her, empathized some stuff, then let the force and her own mind fill in the rest. and waking up on the spire, how would she know this wasn’t natural, the gaps of her memory and the like? she’s practically a newborn in some ways -- she doesn’t know that’s not what minds are supposed to be like, and so much of ‘original revan’ is there that she doesn’t feel broken. she kind of thinks she has amnesia for a while? but also doesn’t feel amnesiac. it’s a weird sensation, needless to say.

finding out these memories were fake was really, really hard for her. not so much because she’s attached to them -- since stuff like her mom and her smuggling days weren’t real it’s almost like they’re a dream to her. but the violation of it -- that really disturbed her. her identity was something she was used to trading on, as revan as as vivza the smuggling queen of the outer rim, and she felt like nothing after finding out. she desperately tried to claim again and again that she was vivza but with each moment after the reveal the name becomes more and more like a stranger to her. 

she doesn’t get her memories back in some huge flood, but she gets lots of visions of the past and the force/her mind subtly corrects and aligns some of the fake memories even more into a shape she once knew and she does start remembering things naturally over the years. a lot comes back when she’s alone in wild space. she comes to accept that she’s revan, but she’s scared of the idea of being her old mind -- she doesn’t like the person she was as a sith. she misses the ignorance of being vivza. vivza is, to her, both a punishment and a forgiveness, an old home she can’t return to, and something she could never have but wished to keep. 

vivza hated the sith. revan knows the sith can be redeemed. knows why you would become a sith. this dissonance is the one thing she really keeps from her days as vivza.

ROMANCE: bastila, duh. you give me that forbidden jedi romance with a prissy british beauty who has a deep connection with ur character, and i’m gonna smash that. she’s definitely revan’s type too. she likes someone she can rile up lol. the #reveal was a cold shower. again, massive violation, and a big gulf between them because in her mind bastila was this perfect jedi who had already ended their relationship for that reason, and now -- there was no way for them to reconcile. 

after everything, bastila was scarred by her own fall and her complicity in revan’s mindwipe/use as a tool. revan and her danced around each other for months after the war, both obstinately focused on rebuilding the republic/the order, but they still had their bond and revan knew bastila was deeply conflicted just as bastila knew that revan was reconciling more and more with her old self. one night revan comes to comfort bastila after a dream, and they talked all night and all day until the night again. after that, they tentatively rebuilt their relationship. and revan totally knocked her up w the ~magic of the force~ right before she had to go. 

sadly, they didn’t have much time together before revan went jetting off. bastila misses her like she misses a limb; she’s in a haze as the galaxy falls apart around her. revan does better b/c she’s still little miss compartmentalization but when she dreams at night, alone in empty space, it’s bastila she dreams about. a very deep, mutual love and respect between them.

FAVE CREWMEMBER: canderous was a HOOT -- after the reveal, revan was like “godDAMN, is the reason i love listening to canderous’s awful war stories because i was THERE?” -- they’d spend hours in the back, drinkin’ brewskies and making non-PC jokes LOL. also, jolee. she loves his views on the code -- it doesn’t matter if she’s vivza or revan, she appreciates a man who knows you can love without letting it rule you. his repeated insistence that she was some kind of dark thing really stuck under her skin; when he finally gave her his whole-hearted approval it really meant something. she never got that from kreia or any other master; some part of her responds to hearing it from him. also, they both like messing with people. all their conversations were just her acting the grumpy padawan and him the snarky master LOL.

after she learns who she was she daydreams that if jolee had actually been her master, she wouldn’t have fallen.

ENDING: the LS ending i’m a sappy good guy. bastila lives!

POST GAME: in short: revan and her pals try and restore the republic and the order and she patches things up with bastila, but soon is compelled to rush off to try and deal with this problem all on her own. it’s a redemption of sorts but also -- well, remember how i said her ego compelled her to dominate the galaxy? well, her ego also says that saving the galaxy isn’t ‘enough’ to prove herself -- she has to keep doing more, more, more. this restlessness will never fade. 

she goes thru hell out there in unknown space, captivity, torture, the insanity of loneliness, all that fun stuff. the exile rescues her and it takes months to come back home. she’s been gone for like, so many years. she’s back just in time to talk to canderous about not starting another war, but she’s also tired as fuck. mostly she just wants to sleep. 

bastila hovers but says nothing. it drives her up the wall. they have a big, big fight, and it looks like they’ll NEVER TALK AGAIN OH NO when bastila gets over her pride and takes her to see their kid -- still not force sensitive, but being raised in the order. “I see the heights he will rise to,” Bastila says. “Don’t you? Don’t you see everything we’ve built? Our legacy?” and revan knows she never wants to leave this woman’s side again. the only time she feels her soul settle is when she’s lost in bastila. 

they have an extremely delayed honeymoon period and actually get married and all that fun stuff. probably stuff happens but w/e i just want to maintain that they’re HAPPY but also kind of codependent and leave the galaxy to sort itself out for the most part -- they build up the jedi to staggering new heights in part just to keep another wall between themselves and the rest of the galaxy that has done nothing but stress them out for all their lives. retired lesbian’s, y’all.

jolee ends up in hiding and helping escaped jedi during kotor 2. he probably dies but i refuse to think about this. so in MY version he eventually turns up, grumpy and probably missing some body parts, insisting he DOESN’T want to have anything to do with anyone, but ends up a member of the high council anyways. the exile helps a lot, actually; she’s the sort of steady mind and “ok listen buddy i actually got KICKED OUT of the order so like, let’s talk.” please imagine him living like a long ass time and yelling at initiates to get off his metaphorical lawn and yet being super popular with them. mission and zaalbar travel a bunch and this leads to the whole business venture. i like to think they spent some time on kashyyyk where she became an honorary wookie and has a wookie name and everything ..... just like my headcanon for han solo lol. 

canderous rebuilds the mandalorians (more on that below.) carth is ofc an admiral and he really looks out for bastila when everything goes to shit. he totally gives revan a piece of his mind for leaving bastila and all of them when revan comes back, but as ever with carth, he goes from nuclear to chill in about .5 seconds and then they’re bros again. when vaner (who might have a diff name in mine because that one is LOL) becomes supreme chancellor carth is like, head of his security. he’s totally uncle carth even if bastila and revan aren’t traditional parents lmao. i didn’t save carth’s son (bc i didn’t realize i could ....) so carth definitely puts his parenting urges in there. i like to think he ends up adopting some war orphans down the line, idk.

RANDOM STUFF: she’s not an amazing fighter lol. or tech savvy or any of that. she main strengths are her mad charisma and her out of the box clever thinking. and a very crude application of the force ie i just spammed force wave through most enemy fields lol. before her mind wipe she was a really good brawler? like, she’d be from the anakin & luke skywalker school of “angry overhead chops at everything” lightsaber combat but her real love was just fucking throwing down. she was good at it too. i think the council sort of undid a lot of her fighting skills but they couldn’t erase her body memory so she has a very confused reaction between brain and body that makes her clumsy in fights. it gets better with training but she never totally shakes that particular lobotomy to her talents that the council did to hamper her ‘just in case.’

EXILE

NAME: bree rahanna

GENDER: f

APPEARANCE: this one! like her. tall af -- a bit over 6′. swole. powerhouse. she wields a double-bladed lightsaber and when she’s bearing down on you on the battlefield, you run. ear piercings, beaded hair (always trying new hairstyles), loves accessorizing. looks great in green. very beautiful, but she doesn’t think much of it. very jedi-like ‘my body is just a vessel’ attitude.

FAVOURITE HOBBY: definitely not swoop racing. she likes computer stuff -- the sort of impersonal element. even droids are a bit too much like people for her tastes at times. she’s an introvert, basically, she’d rather just write code and repair ships and such. she used to love to meditate before her exile -- after, without the force, it was just depressing. replaced it with music -- singing by herself, listening to others, she’s basically always humming. she likes how it fills up empty spaces. a bit of a hoarder -- in another life, she’s the kind of person who likes antiquing, and as is, she just collects various bits and bobs that catch her eye.

FROM? GOING?: i like to think she came more from the mid-rim. maybe like (na)jheda. was a little older when she was brought to the temple, maybe 4 or 5? it gave her a bit of a healthier concept of family/relationships. child of a single father who felt that he couldn’t provide for his daughter the way the jedi could. bree thinks of him, but also thinks it would be awkward to ever visit, since the jedi are her family now. she’s always wanted to go where she feels wanted and needed -- her greatest fear is stagnation.

PERSONALITY: capricorn. ambitious, practical, patient, fond of plans and figuring things out -- but she doesn’t like when things don’t fit her worldview and can get very #negative. she’s actually very charming -- her steady way of speaking, dry sense of humour, and habit of looking at whoever is talking like they’re the only person in the galaxy make her very popular, and she’s got a leader’s heart through and through. 

but she doesn’t consider herself charming because she’s not like, say, super gregarious cult leader revan type charming. she wants to be her best, and she has a deep sense of faith and loyalty -- she accepted her banishment from the order, would later accept their attempt to cut her off from the force again, and decided to return to the order once she felt worthy of it, not the other way around. 

BETWEEN THE WAR AND PERAGUS: she’s on the very edges of known space, not paying much attention to anything -- there are rumours of a war out there, but it’s not immediate to her. working as a repair person, she drifts in and out of various systems, relieved that nobody out there seems to know what a jedi is, that the faces are so different from everything she’s known. she’s a bit of an oddity wherever she goes, so she takes to hiding herself under masks and cloaks and the such, and thinks of revan whenever she does. wonders how revan’s identity maybe got lost when she first put on that mask. wonders if she lost herself. 

she’s very, very lonely -- she craves the stability of real relationships, a real routine and a home, but she feels like she shouldn’t, she can’t, out here. people are still drawn to her, but she turns them all away. her exile was just as much self-imposed as anything else.

REVAN: well, all of the above in revan’s section. from her side of things: she sometimes envied revan. most knights did; revan was the shining golden child of the order, and plenty were compared to her and found wanting. bree was one such; she never received the same kind of praise revan did. her ability to draw people to her made the council suspicious of her and she found herself under much scrutiny, and she rebelled by becoming a surer leader, gathering friends to protect her from the disregard of the council. revan, on the other hand, seemed beloved by all, with very little trouble.

these feelings, combined with the general clash of their personalities, means that bree always felt wrong-footed around revan. maybe this is what saved her; revan’s regard would make any person feel empowered, but bree’s reluctance to see them as friends meant that she didn’t get hooked on the idea of power. as is, it marks the differences between them; revan only creates the illusion of empowering others while keeping all control/power for herself, but bree genuinely does this, genuinely boosts people up. she’ll never know that revan was jealous herself of bree’s real connections; revan could feel lonely at times.

bree didn’t think revan would fall; like obi-wan about anakin, it was kind of a, “i trust my shady pal to reject the dark side.” she didn’t even realize that revan had fallen after malachor; she just thought revan couldn’t face what they’d done yet. it was a bit of a shock for her to come back to known space and learn that revan had gone FULL SITH and then gotten redeemed and saved the galaxy while she was away. it makes her realize she doesn’t know revan at all. this unexpectedly saddens her; her own time away from the order has allowed her to become more wholly critical of them, and she thinks that revan and her always had more in common than she’d care to admit.

it’s this, and knowing that revan is needed, and everything revan represents about herself and the war -- this is why she goes after revan in wild space, and this is part of her healing process. both of theirs, really, as they discover on the long trip back home.

ATRIS: bree doesn’t really ‘get’ her effect on others, so she has a hard time reading their feelings. it’s the flipside to the deep pull/ability to form bonds that she has: she brings people in, but she has no idea what to do with them when they’re there. atris is an example of this. she and atris were contemporaries and very good friends, but when atris came to realize the depth of feeling she had for bree, it scared her. she retreated into her histories and watched bree from afar, and bree was like, “um ... i think my friend doesn’t like me now??? ouch okay ... i will releasemy angst about this into the force and move on” and atris was like “oh i see how it is she’s forgotten about me, friend to all is friend to none!”

this righteousness (and sense of betrayal) continued when bree followed revan into war, but as the archivist recording the war and seeing its atrocities she found herself feeling guilty -- not just for doing nothing, but also for allowing bree to go off alone. she feels that bree, like so many others, has fallen for revan’s charms and it sparks envy in her. if only she had the nerve to do what revan and bree did, if only she were bolder, like this matched pair of sun and moon that revan and bree are -- an undeniable, natural force. she knows these feelings aren’t jedi-like and tries to smother them under anger at their treachery, but she continues to nurse this jealousy and it fuels her later actions.

she didn’t feel as triumphant about exiling bree as she thought she would, though. 

bree was hurt by atris’s negative feelings for her, and when it came to their final battle, all she wanted was a reason why. atris’s explanation of her feelings was not at all what she was expecting, but it was a relief to know it wasn’t just b/c atris saw some horrible thing in her. she didn’t want to kill atris -- in atris’s own fall, she saw what could have happened to her if her own jealousy of revan had become dark. she thinks of her and atris as two sides of the same coin in a way, and atris would be humbled to learn that bree sees them that way, since she felt unimportant to bree for so long.

KREIA: bree LOVED kreia because i loved kreia. her relationship with kreia was alike to her one with revan -- she felt kreia walked on a knife’s edge but figured it wasn’t a risk because she knew her. their bond was the deepest one she’s ever felt, since she never had a proper master. in many ways bree was starved for some teacherly affection lol so she clung to kreia. she didn’t agree with kreia’s utilitarian/nihilistic views (she’s more a ‘sacrifice herself first and foremost’ type) but she respected kreia’s wisdom. she flourished under kreia’s teachings, and her greatest hope was that she could teach kreia some things in turns -- they say a proper master/padawan relationship goes both ways. 

kreia was also someone who seemed to really understand what she’d been through -- bao-dur was also in the war, for example, but he didn’t have to make decisions the way bree had to. kreia knows what it is to make hard choices, and bree respects that. basically, kreia made her feel less alone. she would have done anything to redeem kreia in the end -- she came to terms with the fact that she didn’t fall (as she long suspected, since she was exiled) but the line between a jedi and a fallen jedi is a very thin one indeed. she realized she does believe in redemption, truly madly deeply, and if kreia had surrendered she would have welcomed kreia back with open arms. 

kreia loved and respected her too, and to me her death was akin to malak’s -- changing after so many years as a sith would have been the hardest thing they could have ever done, but revan and bree would have stood by them. like revan, bree mourns kreia’s passing. she likes to think that sometimes, she can still feel kreia, hear her as a whisper in the back of her head giving her advice, but that’s just a fancy.

MICAL OR BRIANNA: both! #MODS

REGRET: yes, definitely. her guilt about the war and malachor is strange -- because she cut herself off from the force to avoid the pain of it her brain sort of refuses to touch on it too closely, glosses over the details of what she’s done. it’s a quiet, pervasive sort of inner melancholia. yet she also stands by the fact that she did what she did to help the galaxy and she would do it all over again if need be -- she doesn’t believe in excuses, it’s more like, she’s very practical about the WHY of her doing it and accepting and seeking punishment for her culpability after the fact. she never wants to go to war again, that’s for sure -- but i think she can never regret the war to the point of never having wanted to do it in the first place because the idea of the war being pointless would shatter her.

TRAUMATIZED BY VISIONS: i think she was never the type to have much of the ‘unified force’ visions type, so the vividness of the experience was very weird for her. but she’s a good egg, so it worked out -- she rejected malak’s offer, she helped the republic soldiers (which made her realize that while she WOULD do it all over again, she would try and do it better, which is maybe a fallacy but she can be stubborn when she digs her heels in about something.) she defended kreia against her companions -- because from her POV, her companions were baselessly attacking kreia purely for being a sith when kreia hadn’t done anything yet and could be brought back. (she tried to just knock them out, but ofc kreia killed them all. she vows that if, in reality, kreia were to ever hurt her other friends she would do something about it. she won’t have their blood on her hands again.) some of this was seeing malak reminded her of revan ... and of course, revan is the final vision. 

the sight of herself as a darksider at revan’s side was the most unsettling part of the experience, actually. it was the moment she realized just how important she could have been to revan. revan was also the only one she couldn’t tell herself was a vision even though intellectually she knew it to be -- this was no thought exercise, no abstract vision from the force. this felt so real it was like she had actually fallen for a second. if she hadn’t been able to fight/slay revan, she would have been more fucked up, but still -- she’s a jedi and i think like? she ultimately treated the experience like the knighthood trials she’d had to do -- it’s not pretty to face the dark corners of your mind, but you must.

ROMANCE: lesbian triad with brianna and visas, natch!

LS/DS: lightsided all the way, baby

THE ORDER: now THERE’S a kettle of fish. otoh, the jedi are her family, her calling, her meaning. she’s a believer, and she accepts her punishments and that she could have had more faith in the council. otoh, being exiled from the order was a punch to the gut -- she’d have preferred execution, tbh. she was relieved to learn they hadn’t cut her off from the force but it stung that they had let her go on for all those years without the force, believing it a punishment, like they were piggybacking on her self-inflicted suffering to teach her a lesson. she sees their failings. she felt betrayed.

but she is a very level-headed person, and she’s not a blind follower. she has always been the type to question her masters. she thinks there are valid reasons to leave the order. she doesn’t by-the-book the code, more doing what the force tells her is right (no wonder she was so lost those years of travel! she had no guidance of any kind; she didn’t know how to be a person, it was a lesson she needed to learn.) 

ultimately, she is a jedi. for the first chunk of the journey she tried to hide from it, didn’t use the force, didn’t dress in the robes, didn’t identify as one and was defensive if someone called her a jedi. but coming to dantooine changed something in her -- she felt it would be callow to enter the temple dressed like some merc with a blaster. so she gave in to her lightsaber and her robes and entered as a jedi. the most important part was meeting the lost padawan thief -- in the girl’s childlike inability to survive/over-reliance on her master she saw what she wasn’t. she was a grown woman, a general, a knight, a master, someone who had survived a decade with no force, someone who had never needed a master to hold her hand. she knew right then that she would always be a jedi, and that there was more to being a jedi than simply calling yourself one. 

so she started to heal in her relationship with the order going forward. she started to talk more openly of jedi practises to her companions, and started to train them. she didn’t want the jedi order to die. she knew it was so much more than any one person, or even a temple of people -- it’s something necessary, and sacred.

POST-GAME: yes, fully reconnected with the force. and yes, as mentioned above, she finds revan. it’s a thrilling journey. bastila didn’t want her to go -- “the order needs you” “i’m a jedi, not a bureaucrat” “you are more than that. you are a light, a leader, a guiding star. i cannot --” “and yet, you will.” her friends wanted her to leave even less, but they understood it was something she needed to do, and were touched by the trust she placed in them. brianna totally tried to sneak into the cargo hold of her ship. visas joined her. bree had to practically carry them both out, lol. 

when she comes back with revan she’s surprised to find people still want her to lead, not revan. revan is all “omg sis please .... half of them are worried i’ll go sith again the other half don’t even know who i am ..... you’re the one who rebuilt the order” and yeah bree for grandmaster i don’t make the rules that’s just how it is. more jedi come out of the woodwork as things settle down and the order starts to flourish again and bree HATES having to deal with political types and all that but she does it because well. she gotta. 

her life is pretty quiet lol i actually think if any drama happens it’ll fall more on revan’s head than hers but if revan gets into trouble bree is there in a heartbeat. they’re bonded now (not force-wise, spiritually) and have become like sisters. bree probably outlives revan and it hurts.

POST-GAME FOR COMPANIONS: mira, mical, brianna and visas all become jedi. (mira and brianna after the game’s timeline because i could NOT with them for some reason lol ...) my atton died </3 and bree mourns him in quiet moments where she plays pazaak in her head against his ghost. visas turns out to be surprisingly good with younglings -- it’s been so long since she’s seen young lives brimming with the force, and it reminds her of home. and the kids LOVE her -- everyone wants visas as a master. there have been fistfights over this. (it took her a long time to accept being called master, side note.)

brianna is NOT good with kids and is like “i shall focus on improving security ...” but she totally creates a brand new form that really integrates hand-to-hand with lightsaber combat. it’s very popular. brianna also tries to go home but the sisters never do forgive her. (it’s hard for her loved ones to watch; she always needs to be told she has a new family.) canderous re-establishes mandalore and starts getting some ideas in his head about a new conquest to build up pride again but that’s when revan comes back and is like “no, bad boy, down, sit” and like, no mandalorian legend will EVER admit that the Savior of the Mandalorian Peoples Canderous Mandalore was totally whipped by a jedi. instead they focus on infrastructure! politics! social securities! other exciting things!

mira becomes something of an errant knight -- she’s not really into the trappings of the order at all, but she calls herself a jedi in honour of bree and the training she got. she likes to travel around and just help out where she can. she’s still very good at finding people; bounty proceeds mostly go to families of the victims of whomever she catches and other times it’s just like, finding a lost little girl. she loves it, and it’s a hell of a lot easier with the force. i also bet she leaves a trail of broken hearts all over the galaxy lol. 

mical works in the archives and bree likes to be like “hey you worked for the republic go talk to their representatives for me” and he only lets her get away with this 1/2 the time. the other 1/2 he’s like “you must forgive me i have holobooks to sort ....” and then disappears for like, a week, into the stacks. bree always has to send someone in there to find him and then inevitably they’ll learn he actually dipped out to go track down a rare copy of something or another on a planet a trillion miles away and he’ll be back in a month with super rare items and a mild “oh sorry you were looking for me?” it drives her up the wall.

t3 and hk go with her when she retrieves revan and stick close to the both of them for the rest of their lives, natch.

RANDOM STUFF: unlike revan, VERY good at fighting and tech stuff and all that. she’s mad talented. she has a lot of random skills that she happens to be AMAZING at, like, baking and droid design and fake crying and poetry writing and all this stuff. everyone’s used to saying “well, bree probably knows how...” 

the punchline is that she SUCKS at flying and the idea of swoop racing makes her want to vomit. revan loves that there’s this one thing she’s VASTLY better at and will challenge bree to flying/driving/swooping related challenges that she knows bree can’t help but accept even though she HATES it. it’s a running joke in the order that their famous, powerful grandmaster can’t even use a speeder without something going horribly wrong.

the running theme of all of these is I HAVE SUFFERED ENOUGH I DESERVE A SOFT EPILOGUE. also, as with luke in canon, and revan in swtor ‘canon’, i think there’s this ‘need’ you see in various fictions where a great hero cannot live a normal life in the ‘after’ -- they must either die, or disappear. it’s like we can’t accept the idea that they could be ‘ordinary’ and ‘brought down.’ that it’s a disservice to their story in some way. but one of my favourite fantasy authors is tamora pierce and i always loved that her heroes get to live, get to marry and settle down and appear in future stories centered on new heroes. i love the idea of a living legend who just wants to be a person like anyone else. i’m not opposed to further drama in their lives, keeps it spicy, but yeah -- i want revan and the exile to be around, to have to deal with the ins and outs of daily life, to do the hard work of rebuilding the order, the republic. i want them to be tangible beings. so. that’s my take on it.