In the planet of dangerous myths, shocking fables and unspoken legends, there is also beauty in this world. Dispersed around the untamed planet are flaws; cracks formed through thousands of years. Water rushing and destroying cliffs, racing and scooping away the soil beneath your feet and digging crevices untouched by all but a handful of explorers from ages long past. Isolated at the southern tip of Ilum, this particular ravine close to the planet’s core darkens deeper down until the bottom remains a mystery. The benefit of this is that no-one heads directly down instead using technology to bore a tunnel from the nearby glacier. Uncharted and unexplored, this region is a place of nightmares for those who venture to its depths. The half-eaten carcasses of the explorers who met an untimely end litter the ravine’s descent, remaining as a warning to those who might venture too far. Whether these men and women fell to their deaths, or were murdered remains a question in the long-lost histories of the ravine.

In front of you is the base floor of the ravine. Opening only at random times because of the glacier sheet, you used the bore tunnel to find your way here. This level is pitch black and a headlamp was given before you left for the planet. The sides of the ravine stretch vertically, as if they scrape the whistling and snowy clouds above. On each side of the walls, various ports and alcoves distinguish in the light. Some are known to be rivers of purified water, and you can tell this by the icicles forming on the lip of the tunnel. Others were temporary shelter for climbers. But with some luck, you may find the permafrost chamber tucked into its haunted depths. A vast room of permafrost crystals rarely found, and thought only to be on Hoth.

Glinting like candlelight against the unforgiving darkness of the deep and untrodden cave, multi-coloured clusters of lightsaber crystals reflect the light into the deepest crevices from the surface. Untouched for a millennia, the value in this chamber once sparked an entire battle between the Old Republic and the Empire. Be warned - caution must be exercised, or you might find yourself joining those who came before.

“What do you mean she’s gone?”

“The Shadow Lady has taken a temporary leave of absence. I am happy to answer any inquiries you may have, and ca-”

Braecen frowned and raised his datapad up in front of his chest before tapping a finger on the glass panel. “I have two policy revisions, three promotions, and a new proposal I needed her to have signed off on,” he paused as he checked an imaginary wrist chrono, “oh, yesterday.”

“I will have a look and get back to you shortly, Kaeth,” Arcia replied. She hid her displeasure at the Quaestor’s tone by tightly clipping each of her words.

“I have important things to do with my time, Cortel,” the Elder intoned coldly. He exhaled slowly before smoothing out his robes. Fatigue showed through his now expelled anger. “When will she be returning, then?”

Cortel’s face remained firm. The now acting Consul of Clan Arcona turned to look out the viewport of her office aboard the Eye of the Abyss II.

Good question, she mused.

-=x=-

“Mayday, mayday,” a small voice sang to no one but the hallowed, towering walls of the Crystal Caves on Ilum. The air was frigid and brisk, but blissfully shielded from the icy winds of the planet’s perpetual blizzards. Still, the slender woman--a Miraluka with sun warmed copper skin--hugged a faux-fur cloak tightly around her lithe body. She suppressed a shiver. Beneath the grey cloak, she had forgone her typical attire in favor of a simple black cloth outfit that covered her from neck to toe.

The woman sat with her knees tucked to her chest underneath one of the many winding ramps that led skyward. While she had no eyes to cry with, her entire being was racked with sorrow. Long, lovely hair was strewn about in complete disarray, veiling her face like a curtain. Beneath it, her nose had reddened from rubbing at it. The Miraluka wiped it again with the back of her sleeve as she sniffled but continued her song.

“This ship is slowly sinking. They think I'm crazy but they don't know the feeling.They're all around me....circling like vultures.” Her somber voice carried softly through the empty caverns. “They wanna break me and wash away my colors...”

The last of her words echoed off the walls until they were nothing but faint and distant whispers. The Seer had come to the caves hoping to find answers. The crystals that formed the caves held importance to the Jedi Order of old, so she had hoped to find something--anything--that could give her a clue as to why Ashla and Bogan had chose to do this to her.

It was said that in times past, death was not necessarily the final destination. It was said that all would become one with the Living Force after they passed on. She knew that the stories were probably legends. The odds were long, but she had hoped beyond hope that there was still a chance that he was not truly gone.

The stoic response from the cave held no answers, though, and offered no reprieve. Which was perfectly fine and fitting for the downward spiral of the Seer's mind as she desperately struggled to find a light in the darkness that had become her world. The silence was all that she had, really, but it was hers and hers alone.

Which explained why, even in her current state, that Atyiru Caesura Entar could sense his presence through the Force the moment he entered the cave. It had not been who she was looking for, but she expected it nonetheless. Even if the man had been trying to conceal his entrance she would have known.

Of course it was him. Who else could force her to stop running and face the truth. What could be more painful than facing the truth, and him?

Marick Arconae shook his shoulders to get rid of the collection of snow that had built up on the wool cloak that he wore over his long jacket. His boots were covered in powder that fell away as he idly stomped his feet into the hardened ground underfoot. He pulled back the hood and cowl to reveal the face of a man she knew more by feeling rather than sight.

The silence shattered as his footfalls reverberated through the cavern. Atyiru forced herself to rise to her feet, leaving her own cloak in a puddle around her boots. She exhaled slowly and turned to face the Arconae.

“Atyiru,” his lilted voice carried easily through the caverns and set her emotions stumbling over one another.

“Marick,” she replied softly, her voice barely reaching him.

While she could not see him, Atyiru knew that Marick’s attention was fully on her. Of course, the Shadicar had already committed the details of the caverns to memory upon entering. Now, though, he was focused on her, so she swallowed and tried to think of something else she could say.

“Your hair,” Marick said simply as he slowly started to walk towards her. His smooth strides easily closed the distance between them before he came to a stop a few steps away.

Atyiru froze in place like a startled animal, muscles tensing. She nearly flinched when he took the final step towards her, but relaxed slightly when he gently touched her frizzled, wavy hair. She fought back a flush as his fingers attempted to bundle the mess of locks into two parts. He placed one bundle over her right shoulder and the second over her left. While not proper braids, it was still an improvement from her hairs previous state of anarchy.

“There,” he nodded, taking a half step back to examine his work.

Atyiru ran her hands idly along each of bundle of hair, realizing that they were now symmetrically framing her face. Symmetry, she thought. A flurry of words caught in her throat, but she had nothing to say. Finally she mustered the remainder of her courage.

“He’s...he’s really gone,” she whispered as her lip began to quiver.

“I know,” the Hapan replied calmly, gripping her shoulder and squeezing it in what he hoped would be a comforting manner. While the former Shadow Lord had spent the majority of his adult life leading and commanding everyone around him, he had never been good at this sort of intimacy with the few friends he retained. So when Atyiru buried her face into the crook of his neck and began to silently shake, the calloused walls guarding Marick’s emotions came crashing down like a crested wave. He held her close and opened himself to her as best he could. It probably was not much, but he hoped it would do something--anything--to help.

“He’s gone. My Papa,” she choked. “We just saw him. He looked so happy and was smiling and laughing. Like the sun and moon combined. I-I don’t understand when or how he...” She fought with everything she had to not break down fully in his arms, but clutched his chest tightly by the vest he wore under his coat and cloak.

“I know,” Marick repeated softly as he ran his hand up and down her shoulder. “When he told me about his condition, I said that we would get him whatever he needed. I rerouted supplies and had prepared a ship to leave the morning after the holiday party. He said there was no danger to his health, so I didn’t think there was any rush to...”

Atyiru heard him continue to speak but was only half listening as she simply took solace in him being there. They were alone together, something both of them were rarely afforded.

As the moment ticked past, a sleeping part of her mind stirred and played back his words for comfort. Instead of relaxing, however, she went rigid. The Seer pulled her head away from his shoulder to stare at the Adept blankly through her ebony blindfold.

“What did you say?” she asked carefully, her voice suddenly flat and cold.

“I said that he told me--” Marick started to repeat himself before pausing mid-sentence. He froze in place as his mind caught up with the weight of his words.

“You. You knew. You knew he was dying, and...you didn’t tell me?” she asked, her voice cracking as it attempted to both scream and whisper at the same time. She shoved him backwards a few steps with surprising force, gritting her teeth as a welter of emotions swelled like a swirling storming inside her.

“Atyiru. I-” Marick tried to explain.

“--How...how could you...?” Her fists balled at her sides as she bit down on her molars. “How dare you?” she growled, anger rushing to the surface as her control faltered.

Before Marick could offer a response, the Shadow Lady’s fingertips crackled and sparked. The Seer funneled all of her conflicted emotions into the slipstreams of the Force and hurled it at the Adept in the form of violent tendrils of violet-white light.

A mixture of Marick’s instincts and reflexes took control as he hopped backward and threw out both hands in front of him to catch the incoming attack. Concentrating, the Combat Master’s eyes focused intently on the lightning as he siphoned it into his open palms, absorbing the energy with his own control of the Force before dissolving it back into the ether.

While no follow up strike came, the Hapan could sense the Miraluka’s turmoil radiating through the Force. She simply stood, unmoving.

They were only standing a few strides apart, but Marick had never felt so distant from her. He might as well have been on the other side of a vast ocean. He tried to reach out towards her through the Force, but had his efforts batted aside by the empaths unstable but resilient willpower.

“Atyiru--”

“--No. No more talking, Marick,” Atyiru replied tightly. “No more lies, no more words. Or was this supposed to be another one of your tests? To see how much I could take before I snapped?” she accentuated the last word by thumbing her lightsaber blade to life.

Marick lowered a hand to his belt where one of his twin sabers rested, but made no attempt to draw it. His eyes shifted from Atyiru’s saber to her face, taking in the details of her posture and stance. While the Miraluka looked like a space viper coiled and poised to strike, Marick’s posture remained as nonthreatening as possible. And while his face was calm as the windless chill, his stomach churned at the thought of having somehow pushed one of the few people he cared about in the Galaxy to her breaking point. It was one of the few things he had never wanted or intended to happen.

Yet what other choice did he have when words failed him?

Snow fell like ash.

She looked without eyes, truly looked, at the rubble of their sins and the ash that rained down around them. She looked at the broken pieces, the broken people. She looked and saw, and she wondered how to pick them all up this time.

Like she always did.

A year now, she had sat upon a throne of shadow serpents and listened to the sibilant song of their whispers in her ear. She had gazed upon her kingdom as only someone blind as she could, with eyes unclouded by hate. She had condemned men at a word and redeemed hundreds at the flick of a finger.

So much, in a year. So much. A thousand-throated voices, clamoring always in her skull, under her skin. Enemies in every shadow, allies twisted up in the light until they too looked like monsters. A mad king and his mad council and the flames they rained down on them all, like the stars falling from the sky once and for all, the heavens weeping too long at last and laying down to die. Tides of dark and light alike at her fingertips, all around her, in the walls and in the air, and she, left to fend them back and protect them all the same. She gave them all she had and still they needed more — and so she gave further still, because she loved them.

Ashla and Bogan, how much she loved them.

Worthless, isn’t it?

Ashes. Just ashes.

A year now. She’d helped win a war and taken the throne. She’d led her people. She’d forged alliances like never before. She’d brought forward new souls and new hands to raise up the Shadows they all loved. She’d watched swathes die at the hands of zealotry and risked it all to save a few in vain. And oh, she’d loved. Loved and lost but loved so strongly. She’d gained a family.

She’d missed the chance to see her father one last time.

She’d missed the chance to see her father stand up and wrap her in his arms one last time.

She’d missed the chance to have him share a wedding festival dance, to hold a grandchild, to know his daughter had come home safe and proud. She’d missed—

But there was always tomorrow, wasn’t there? Tomorrow, when the Battleteams, the Houses, the Magistrates, the Arconae, the Brotherhood, the Clan didn’t need something. Tomorrow, when you could be bothered to call, to write, to visit. Tomorrow, when you could just go on home on a day of leave—

She’d missed it.

What words were there for that?

“All because of you,” Atyiru spat, the accusation flung like venom, like hot, hissing coals. It fell in the small space between them, heavier than even the weight of silence, heavy like the stones they carried for mantels and the pieces of everything between them breaking into bits — an artillery shell plummeting to the earth, heavy only as a feather when it hit the dirt. “IT’S ALL BECAUSE OF YOU!”

Her shout birthed motion. She uncoiled and lunged like a riptide, her seraphic saber ripping through the glacier under her feet and trailing screaming steam. Marick moved as water in a brook, flowing aside of her enraged strike and leaving the snow undisturbed in his wake. The Miraluka snarled and lashed out again, and again, the normally pristine arcs of her blade wild and wide.

The Adept kept one hand on his belt and drifted away from each slash with quick, short exhales, his thundering heartbeat revealing an upset his steady breath and steadier feet would not. He retreated, and she followed, weapon singing of storm and fire. They danced across the crystal-dappled ice in a pantomime, a dance only in the sense that a mauling could be considered an embrace, a beating a caress.

The Hapan took two Force-enhanced steps backward from a scintillating cut aimed to take his head, throwing himself into the air with a breath of the Force. He pinwheeled, landing gracefully a few paces away from his Consul and rising back into an open, if readied, posture. Atiyru spat at him.

“You are a coward and a fool, Marick Arconae,” she hissed. “A boy arrogant and twisted enough to dare delude himself into the grandeur of gods — everything you’ve ever put us through, the Clan, me, always claiming it was to make us ready or strong, claiming we only learned through pain and focus. Bah!” Her lightsaber bisected the air before her, as if to bisect him down his middle. “You know nothing and assume too much, and you have done nothing but wreak havoc with that impudence! We are not pawns! We are not games! You might have sat the throne but you have never had any right to play with our lives! To play with mine! To play with my father’s life!”

“Atyiru, I—” he began, voice lilting, before trailing off. There were no words to speak, and they both knew it. She wanted none. She did not want him to talk — she wanted to rip the the lungs right out of his chest.

Rip them out like he’d ripped her apart.

Her hair swirled around her like a storm of furious wings as she spun and struck out again, chunks of it meeting her saber for a smoldering death. The Combat Master dodged back again, once, twice, twirling away from her even as she circled after him. Their steps were phantoms. Phantoms of years of battles, of exercises, of rooftops and clearings in a glade, of shared blood, hope, trust, pain, and wisdom.

Phantoms. Phantom footfalls falling in snow like so much ash.

Contorting smoothly, the Shadow ducked the Seer's blade as she moved in close. So close that their chests brushed, a facsimile of their quietest moments together. Her off-hand brushed the fabric of his vest. Her saber hummed behind his ear, overextended. He could have touched her cheek if he but lifted his hand.

Between one heartbeat and the next, the emerald-bladed, serpent-curved dagger that had been on his belt stabbed into the meat of his left thigh, the Miraluka’s bloodied fingers closed around its hilt.

Marick had been stabbed countless times over the course of his life. This one hurt more than the others. The volley of violently barbed words he had been deflecting seemed to coalesce and regroup into the physical manifestation that was his own Emerald Dagger.

Words faded as the initial shock of the action itself passed. A familiar flash of pain flickered across the Hapan’s vision, causing him to wince and sink forward. His hand grabbed a hold of the Miraluka’s shoulder as his eyes moved from her face down to where her off-hand had landed. Slender fingers curled tightly around the hilt of his Emerald Dagger--the same dagger he had earned for his efforts as Shadow Lord.

Fitting, Marick thought as he willed the Force to numb the nerve endings around the wound. His eyes returned to her blindfold as he looked through it and tried to connect with her. Their noses were almost touching and he could feel her breath warmly mixing with his own against the chill of the cave. They were alone together, as was so rarely the case. So close yet so far.

Where usually he found solace, the Hapan was met with nothing but cold, icy rejection. Tight lips folded back into a sneer as the Seer shoved the Adept backwards.

Marick staggered away, yanking the knife free with a sharp grunt. He could feel warmth leaking down his thigh and tried to will the punctured wound closed. The blade had cleverly avoided the femur, tearing neatly into the thick knot of muscle just behind his kneecap. Judging by the angle and the slow trickle of blood she had purposely missed the artery a few inches higher on the Hapan’s thigh. Even in the height of her fury, Atyiru was a surgeon to her core.

While one half of his mind analyzed the wound, the other pointed out something more worrying. Toadshroom and moonseed. Watered down with bitterbark sapp, the Shadicar identified the components of the poison he had mixed himself and applied to the blade. It was a minor hallucinogenic that he had only hoped to use in an emergency to “sedate” Atyiru with an unfamiliar toxin.

His vision distorted as the room began to spin. He blinked his eyes rapidly and focused on his breathing, steeling his mind by lowering himself deeper into Deadheart. Emotion fell to the wayside, leaving him mostly clear headed despite the creeping sense of vertigo.

“How does it feel, Marick? A taste of your own medicine,” Atyiru spat as her form became fuzzy and split into two full bodied images.

The Combat Master’s body instinctively started to work against the effects of the poison that was slowly making it’s way through his bloodstream. He knew he should run. Melt into the shadows. Hide until he recovered. But he had done enough running. It was time to face this.

Not that he had any other choice.

Both blurred images of the Shadow Lady lunged at Marick in a Force-fueled leap. The Adept called one of his shoto lightsabers to his hand and ignited the blade just in time to parry. Pale blue light sparked and crackled, cueing Marick’s attention to the real Atyiru’s lightsaber. Using point-of-contact as a point-of-focus, the Combat Master slid backwards with a slight limp, his shoulders swerving and his torso twisting to compensate for the lessened mobility in his legs.

Atyiru’s emotions were flaring hotly like flames in a hearth. Each attack was wild and aggressive but with the poise of a dancer. Marick had spent years honing those movements with her, so there was a familiar pattern to them. Even though he was trudging head first into the chaos of her flourishes, the Adept felt his lightsaber moving on it’s own accord to match hers. This allowed him to channel the Force inward, wincing as he felt the puncture in his knee close. Dried blood cracked as his muscles flexed as sinew knitted back together. He would not have his peak mobility, but it was enough to keep pace with the Shadow Lady’s attacks without concern of losing too much blood.

---

With every strike that the Hapan batted aside, she could sense his limp begin to fade.

I should have hit the artery, a darker part of Atyiru’s mind hissed.

Ducking under a high cut that could have taken his head from his shoulders, Marick pushed off his back leg and lurched forward. His shoto lightsaber licked out in front of him, once and then again. Both diagonal slashes were quick and precise, each aimed for one of her shoulders and with the intent to sever. Atyiru’s lightsaber bounced from left to right, batting the blows away from her body with textbook technique.

She had a flurry of words, but nothing to say. Instead they burned in her throat like hot embers, a silent scream that radiated through the living Force surrounding them. Fluorescent light flickered from clashing lightsabers, shadows dancing along the smooth crystalline walls that encircled their tiny battlefield. The Entar met each of the Arconae’s strikes with a heavy heart that seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper into despair.

Marick shifted his saber to his right hand. The molded grip was just at home in one hand as the other. She knew that much from their time spent training and fighting together. With the Force lending her muscles heightened alacrity, Atyiru continued to meet each strike with the same grace, working her blade in tight circles as the Combat Master tested her defenses from sporadic angles.

Always in motion, Marick strafed right and then reversed his momentum, lunging low and raking his saber across the Seer’s ankles. Atyiru hopped backwards over the strike, misplacing her back foot as she landed. She stumbled forward awkwardly as her heel caught on a patch of ice. With a cry of raw anguish, Marick lunged forward and swung his saber in a cross-cut poised for the Miraluka’s midsection.

While she could not see the look on the Hapan’s face, she nonetheless met his eyes through her blindfold. In that moment, in that fleeting, fragile second, the Miraluka understood it all.

Marick had given her everything. Atyiru was all that he had left. She was the reason he awoke everyday and pushed forward. He had been the only one to come seek her out in her solitude--the only one who dared brave the arctic winds--all while carrying the weight of the guilt of knowing. Yes, he had known. He always seemed to know things. But he had meant well. He always did. She was so used to him always knowing exactly what to do that it was completely foreign to her that, for once, he was just as clueless as everyone else.

This was not a test or trial. This was seven words that the former Shadow Lord had been bold enough to say, and three words that he had always been afraid to even whisper.

And in return, Atyiru had ripped him apart, had hurt him in the worst possible manner. That selfish, angry girl had funneled all of her pent up hatred and anguish and hurled it unceremoniously at him. She did not deserve him. She deserved this.

The cyan blade hissed as it bisected the empty air in front of her. Marick pulled back on his swing at the last possible moment and retreated a few careful steps.

Ragged breaths layered into the eerie silence of the caverns. The Miraluka recovered her footing, setting her feet and extending her lightsaber in front of her body as a ward between them. As her chest rose and sank, the Seer could feel the cool air licking away at the perspiration under her bangs and the sides of her face. Her features scrunched in confusion as her mind raced. She should be dead.

Why?

Marick stood a few paces away, still as stone. While she could not see the subtle lines of his face, she could sense his look of doubt and withered weariness that had crossed it. It was so alien and wrong for him that Atyiru felt her rage begin to wane. She had not seen him that way since...

Kira? a small voice in the back of her head whispered a reminder. She remembered the way he had felt through the Force when he held his dying Cythraul’s head in his arms. She remembered the sound of his silent sobs as how his stoic mask shattered like glass.

Why, though? she asked herself again. Her mind raced as it examined the facts.

Shadicar didn’t have targets. They had ‘kills’.

Marick never missed his marks.

A shoto lightsaber had a shorter reach than a standard saber, but Marick had always been quick enough to make up for it. That was exactly why he preferred the shorter blade.

Marick had no issues attacking her other limbs in the heat of their exchange, without hesitation. So why would he stop himself from slashing at her stomach--

Realization crashed over Atyiru like a wave, drenching the flames of her temper like an overhead trough. Her hand moved unconsciously to her abdomen as she remembered lying awake in bed beside Marick, talking endlessly into the night. She remembered how he always listened, never pushed, and always seemed to understand what she was going through.

She remembered hushed whispers and distant promises of a future. Together. With him. A family?

She glanced down at her hand, and then lifted her chin slowly to meet Marick’s eyes through her blindfold. While she could not see his features, she knew exactly where his eyes were focused, and what had stayed the Shadicar’s blade.

Oh.

In the space between breaths, they stilled.

Her hand on her stomach. His blood on her fingers. Her feet in the snow. His words in her ears. Not then, but before. Long before. Three years ago. A lifetime ago.

That rooftop, on a planet whose name she could no longer recall, lost in a litany of so many others and so much war. A temple or some similar structure had laid in the distance. Dark and Light energies clashed around it as titans, electrifying nerves and stealing air from lungs. But there, on the plateaued top of some building, it had just been them, a first lesson, a first dance, a first failing and a beginning alike.

“'If you are not willing to fight and to kill, then you will die. You will be useless to your comrades. Everything they invested in you will be for nothing. Stop trying to hit me and hit me!'” he'd shouted at her, in the way only he could, without any actual shouting. It wasn't the volume of his voice that conveyed it, or even the force of his tone. It wasn't the way his syllables curled with more of a lilt as he ripped his words out of his very chest, desperately clawing out pieces of himself, if only those around him would listen. No, it wasn't that, but something else entire. If you listened, like she did, you could just tell he was shouting, because Marick did not shout. Marick tore himself open and raised his blade one more time, took one more step, gave one more glance. He could whisper and still his every muscle would convey those screams.

Oh, she'd snapped back at him, of course, and she was certainly one to shout when it was called for. She'd been offended and desperate, desperate as much for him to understand as to reject the price he so completely believed had to be paid. Kill to live, live to serve. She'd said something — no, you're wrong, open your eyes, you have them, something — but her words were like a broken echo in her mind, indistinct, muddled. Like another life, because back then was another life.

Choice was a funny thing.

Another life.

But they weren’t on that rooftop anymore. They were here, the snow still falling like ash to her. Like ash. It was death, wasn't it? The ruins, the remains, the emptiness left behind—no. She was so many things, a Consul, a healer, a sister, but she was also a farmer, as her father had been and her grandfather before that, and they knew better. Fire destroyed. It could raze fields and homes in hours, turn a man's prospects and future to dust. It was a bane...but it was also a boon. That was what they had to learn, just as they learned of the Force — nothing ever truly died. Ash was not death or ruin, but something new all its own, containing in it the memory of life. Used rightly, it was fertilizer and repellant all in one. Any farmer worth his grain knew that. Death? No. Ash could make the flowers grow.

One I chose.

Life came from death and death from life. There was no value in the end, the destination, not when there weren't any ends to speak of. The treasure was the journey. In continuing on, in making decisions, good and ill, in mistakes, sorrows and triumphs. And for one choice, there was always another road untaken. That was what choosing meant.

She’d missed those things with her father, but she had chosen to.

Marick, Atyiru nearly whispered, but couldn't form the word. All because of you, she'd screamed at him, like it was all his fault.

All because of him, she had had a chance. The chance to hope. To fight. To live. From that very first time on that rooftop, the moment he had cried out without shouting a word, he'd shown her. She had the chance to give their Clan a chance in turn, to show it the same — hope, courage, love. All the things the universe and the Gods had given her, she could share.

Marick Arconae had shown her what it was to give everything one soul and body had, and from that moment on her life had irrevocably realigned like the stars in the sky. She and he, they could never be what they had once been again. They were one in the same. They would give everything and give again, themselves, beyond all else — their lives, their love, even their families.

Her father.

All because of him, she'd made a choice. They would live so that others could live first. None of it could or would ever come before they were done carrying that mantle.

And yet...

"Oh," the Miraluka said at last, a perfect little summary of the riptide revelation crashing through her skull and washing over her bones. Their sabers still hummed in the air. The wind gave a distant roar outside, and the caverns of crystal whispered and moaned with its war song. Her burnt hair stank. The coppery tang of her Hapan's blood tickled her nose with a cut-glass, cool-headed urgency, demanding calm attention. She tasted metal and sickness on her tongue, the flavor of real rage, and realized she was shaking, half from cold, half from all the strings that held her coming near undone. There was the cave, the chill, and the chasm between them, full of pain, want, love, hate, regret, and hope more fragile than the first tentative, tremulous blossoms on a spring sapling's branch.

There was—

A chance.

They had a chance.

That was what they fought for — that was what they stopped for. To pause, in the middle of the tumult, both that of their dance and that of the macrocosm it represented. Amongst the darkness and fire and pain, amongst the loyalties of iron, of shadow, and of self.

Amongst it all, they had found in each other something so utterly precious, the heavens themselves surely laid down their spears and wept. Potential. Promises unspoken, barely breathed. Dreams where once there had been nothing but one foot in front of the other, another day, another battle lost and won under the weight of an imaginary crown. They had each other. In all else, in this moment, they had each other.

But what if they could have more? What if...what if they made a home for themselves, when they were done protecting the one they championed here? What if they wed? Kept more cythraul, spoke of...of children? What if, one day, just maybe…?

Her father would never meet his grandchild. But his memory just might yet get to know it. To be there, in the curl of its tiny hand around its father's finger. In the shape of its babbling laugh, in the softness of its cries. In the scrunch of its button nose, like its mother's, like his before her.

They had a chance.

Atyiru wrenched herself forward, lunging for the Assassin, saber poised high. He reacted like quicksilver, even injured, body recoiling while his arm twisted with mournful finality, leaping to intercept her strike.

Her lightsaber left her fingers. Marick's eyes flew wide. The plasma of his still-moving blade burned towards her exposed torso. In the same heartbeat that he completed the strike, the Adept’s weapon deactivated into nothingness, the hilt scraping over her collarbones. Her body crashed into his, her feet leaving the ground. One of his arms coiled around her, the other trapped between them. His wounded leg buckled. They tipped backward—

They'd both known it'd happen eventually.

—and came crashing down together.

---

His back became a cacophony of various pains and distinct discomfort. In some spots, the flurries provided the barest cushioning; in others, small rocks or crystals hidden by the white powder jutted purposefully into his yielding flesh. His cloak and layers of clothing seemed to provide no protection which, in his field experience, was just how the world cared to work.

The initial impact knocked the air from his chest and set his skull throbbing, but the Force quickly smothered the ache. The cold gnawed ravenously at the skin of his neck and the now-exposed junction between his boots and pantleg at his ankle, and Atyiru slumped heavy atop him. The places where they touched that their winter gear did not cover — frosted fingertips, her frigid nose against his throat, the peak of her tapered ear under his chin — burned, arctic and scorching at once.

The Miraluka twsted in his half-hold, arms snaking out to wrap around him at awkward angles. She pressed closer, pressing them closer into the earth. Her hammering heartbeat drummed in his ears along with his own. Marick opened his mouth, then closed it.

The soothing, familiar sensation of the Seer’s healing radiated along his nerves, slow and warming, like sunlight. He felt what effects of the poison that still lingered despite his resistance disperse, felt the bruises on his shoulders assuage and the torn sinew deep in his leg knit whole and true.

The Hapan was, quite suddenly then, utterly exhausted, tired even deeper than his marrow. He freed his hand from beneath her body and rested it atop the slope of her head, threading fingers into her frost-speckled hair. She made a small sound, almost a sigh, perhaps a sob, and said nothing else. In darkness now without their sabers, swathed only in crystalline candlelight, he closed his eyes.

A mental whisper, the glimmering flutter of a white feather in the sky, floated close and kissed the still lake surface of his consciousness, casting ripples. He exhaled through his nose and carefully opened up to her presence, feeling her step delicately into his mind, as if entering an inverted world, familiar but unsure. And in that silence, they met, and said ten thousand things that no words could convey, flickers of images, feelings, half-formed thoughts.

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think— I couldn’t help, couldn’t fix it, and I’m sorry. I—

It’s not your fault. It’s not. Stop. I’m sorry I said it was, I am so, so sorry. It’s not. He...you...there was nothing you could do but you tried and it wasn’t your fault—

I kept you away, with this. I pushed because I saw, I knew what you would be to Arcona. I—

No. Yes. Never. It’s...it’s not your fault that I chose what I did. That was my choice. This was our choice. Ours and ours alone. Father...it’s my fault—

It’s not. Death is a fact. Whatever you think you could have done, that remains. He…There is no fault here—

I feel like there is—

I know—

I can’t—

I know—

I...I...Marick, I—

She shook hard in his grasp, and suddenly the words were pouring out aloud, tumbling, breaking, crashing. “H-he said, he said I climbed b-before I walked. Just right out of my rocker, clinging to the table’s edge. He was across the room and he saw me, dangling there, p-pulling myself up by the edge, climbing on up. Wibble wobble, always faster than I needed to. Adventurous, he said. I was standing there holding onto the table and I pushed too far away from the rocker and I fell but he, he ran and dove and caught me in those big hands of his. He always had big hands, calloused. He’d hold mine when we walked back from the fields. Everyday. For years—”

Her voice cracked, and he spoke for her. “You can say it. It...is okay if you do.”

“I’m never going to see him again,” she choked out, then began to sob in earnest, her whole frame wracked with hiccuping, whining cries.

He shifted them and squeezed her as tightly as his drained limbs could, murmuring exactly as she’d once done for him, “It will be okay. I’m here. You’re safe.” She clutched at him, desperate and weak at once. And then, because it seemed the right thing to say, the man added, “I’ll remember him too.”

Atyiru keened something unintelligible, but with their minds touching, Marick knew. It danced between them, unspoken but sworn: Thank you, I’m sorry, I’m here, we’re here, we’ll live, we can’t now but we can, it will be okay one day.

Laying there, in their own too tired fashion, with limp muscles and stone-laden bones, they clung to their chance, to one another.

Clung as tightly as they could.