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haledamage · 4 months

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Past, Present, Future

I was planning to write something a little more seasonally-appropriate, but stumbled across a WIP that my brain decided to latch onto instead. So, uh… Happy Life Day?

@queen-scribbles gave me this prompt in a conversation we had well over a year ago, and I’ve finally finished it 😅 the specific request was something along the lines of “LET THEM SMOOCH ALREADY DAMMIT” for Qora/Arcann, and the prompts were:

“don’t leave, illusion, too loud, or harsh whisper”

I’m not sure where exactly this fits on the timeline, but definitely later on in-game. probably post-Echoes of Vengeance, but I… haven’t actually finished that questline yet, so there should be little to no spoilers 😆 ~2.5k words, trigger warning for abuse/violence against children, because this is Qora and Arcann we’re talking about

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“Again.”

The overseer’s stern voice echoed through the chamber, seeming to come from everywhere at once.

The training room was dark beyond the platform Qora stood in the center of, giving her the illusion that she was alone. But she wasn’t. She knew she had an audience, but who they were or how many, she had no idea. The whole Academy could’ve been watching, and she wouldn’t know the difference.

The sweet-metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the air, along with the acrid odor of sweat and the ever-present ozone tang of lightning.

There was blood in her mouth, too. Her lip was bleeding sluggishly, split by a lucky blow… five fights ago? Six? She’d lost count.

Four acolytes stepped out of the shadows to join her on the platform. They were all older than her - most of the other acolytes were - and they were all armed.

Qora tightened the grip on her own practice blades, the handles digging into her palms. Her combat stance was steady, even if the rest of her didn’t feel it.

“Begin.”

The first acolyte lunged too quickly, too eager for the kill, and didn’t have the safety of numbers to protect him. One hard strike to the jaw, and he was on the floor before the others had even started moving.

The second and third were smart enough to attack together, both rushing her in tandem. Their swords were a blur of motion, almost too fast to follow, but she managed to keep them at bay. When the larger of the two raised his blade for what was meant to be an incapacitating blow, Qora reached out with the Force and dragged the smaller one between them. The blow took her opponent out instead. After that, the other one was dispatched easily.

The fourth snuck up behind her as soon as Two and Three were down. The pommel of his sword slammed into the back of her skull.

Her vision went white. She lashed out on instinct, swinging her blade in the direction the blow had come from.

She heard her opponent hit the mat, and followed right after him.

It was over almost as soon as it began.

“Again.”

The overseer’s voice sounded farther away, hard to hear over her own too loud heartbeat. Static hissed at the edges of Qora’s vision, and her eyes refused to focus. She could feel her consciousness slipping, and clung to it with everything she had.

“Again.”

The repeated order was a threat. A concussion would be the least of her worries if she didn’t stand up soon, but her legs refused to obey her orders.

A hand appeared in what remained of her field of vision, and Qora snapped her head up. Forcing herself to focus past the pain, she followed the arm up to… a boy.

A boy she knew--though she wasn’t sure how she knew him.

He looked to be around twelve or thirteen, the same age as her, with the same buzzed hair that she and all the other younger acolytes had, and gentle, pale blue eyes. The fine white robes he wore were much different than the grays and blacks the rest of them had, and contrasted so sharply against their dark surroundings that he almost seemed to glow.

“On your feet, Qora,” he said in a soft, raspy voice, his words firm but not demanding. “The next wave won’t wait for you to recover.”

“They never do,” she replied dryly. Her own voice sounded unfamiliar to her ears, a Corellian drawl instead of the crisp edges of Dromund Kaas. Like someone had filed all the corners off of her accent. She hadn't sounded like that in a long time.

She shook off the thought and took the offered hand, letting him help her to her feet. He didn’t flinch away from the cold metal of her prosthetic, or from the way she stumbled as her bruised and battered limbs protested the change in position. He just held on and let her take her time steadying herself.

He only let her go once he was sure she could stand on her own. “Are you alright?”

Part of her wanted to laugh at the question, no matter how sincere it was, but she bit it back. Instead, she said, “You shouldn’t have come here, Arcann. It’s not--not safe to be around me. Especially not here.”

“Just try and stop me.” Despite her warning and his challenge in response, Arcann carefully cupped the back of her head. The pain eased immediately in a warm yellow glow and a muted hum of the Force. “Unless you’d rather face them on your own?”

“I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“...No.” Qora felt guilty as soon as the word was out. It was stupid and selfish and Arcann was going to get hurt because of her, but it was too late to take it back. “Please don’t leave me here alone.”

“Never.” His hand slid from the back of her head along her jaw, until his thumb brushed her bottom lip. Another whisper of Force healing, and there was no evidence of the split lip besides the blood in her mouth. “There is nowhere I would rather be than by your side.”

There was a sound of boots scuffing against stone as someone else approached, and Qora and Arcann turned in tandem, shifting until they stood back to back. Blindly, she reached back and pressed one of her swords into his hand.

He squeezed her hand before taking the offered weapon. “You know this is a dream, right?” he murmured, as six new acolytes stepped into the light with them.

“Yes.” She knew it the same way she knew Arcann’s name, knew the difference in her own accent. “Doesn’t make it less real.”

Further conversation was halted as the overseer’s voice snapped “Begin,” and the acolytes closed in.

Qora and Arcann moved as one, staying back to back in the center of the platform. When one of their assailants rushed toward Arcann’s left, Qora spun to intercept, knowing his vision was limited on that side--or would be, someday, in a future far from this place--and caught the oncoming vibrosword with her own before it could make contact. She took that one down with a sharp elbow strike to the jaw.

A second acolyte took advantage of her momentary distraction and threw their sword, sending it in a Force-aimed arc toward her now-unguarded side.

Arcann snatched it out of the air without even looking, still holding back another two opponents with his other hand. He presented Qora the hilt with a small, playful flourish. “Your weapon, my lord.”

She laughed, exultant and a touch manic, as she swept the sword out in front of her, sending another opponent scrambling backwards to avoid it. It was the first time the Academy walls had ever heard her laughter, even in dreams.

The remaining assailants didn’t stand a chance. They were on the floor before they had time to react.

“How many more are there?” Arcann asked, when they were alone again. He hadn’t even broken a sweat yet, that first round barely enough to make him breathe faster.

“However many it takes.”

“Again,” the overseer called out, but neither of them heeded the implied threat this time. Qora was no longer afraid, now that Arcann was by her side.

“Takes for what?”

“For me to learn my lesson.” She stepped away from him toward the edge of the platform. From there, she could just barely see past the heavy darkness to the dozens of faceless, nameless acolytes that still waited for their turn. Far more of them than there’d ever been while she was a student (a prisoner, a gladiator, a slave) at the Academy.

She felt when Arcann stepped up beside her, though his footsteps made no sound. “Is this training, or a punishment?”

She laughed again, empty, humorless, bitter. “You’d be surprised how often the two coincide.”

“No. I would not.” The anger in his voice was a distant thing, an echo of past rage rather than something fresh. His hand gently covered hers, easing the white-knuckled grip she still had on the vibroblade. “This isn’t your life anymore, Qora. You don’t have to keep fighting.”

The sword fell from her hand, and she reached out to cling to him instead. “This is who I am. What I was made for.”

“Not anymore.” He tugged on her hand, coaxing her to turn around. When she did, his other hand settled over her cheek, the warmth of his touch comforting in the chill of the training arena. “It’s time to wake up.”

Qora awoke with a gasp to find herself in the familiar confines of her quarters on Odessen. The blankets were hopelessly tangled around her legs. The cluttered shelves and tables nearest the bed were in disarray from the Force reacting to her emotions, some of their contents spilling onto the floor.

Arcann’s arm tightened around her waist, and just his presence was enough to clear her mind and slow the panicked flurry of her heart. Without a word, she rolled over and pressed her face into his shoulder.

His hand traveled up and down the length of her spine, gentle and soothing but firm enough to anchor her. With every caress, the Academy fell farther away.

Eventually, she felt calm enough to pull back, if only just far enough to see his face. The look she found there was patient and understanding, embers of anger shining in his eyes but very clearly not directed at her.

“Sometimes it feels like no matter how far I travel, part of me will always be twelve years old, alone in that pit,” she confessed quietly. Arcann’s anger flared a little brighter, but he didn’t interrupt. “It was supposed to break me. So they could reforge me into something more useful. I guess in some ways, it did.”

She certainly didn’t bear any resemblance to the child she’d been before the Sith took her, that little girl who crawled through Corellian junkyards for scraps she could turn into art. Sweet little Qora, who could fix anything you brought her, be it a speeder or a teddy bear or a broken arm. She liked to think that girl might have become a healer, if she’d been able to join the Jedi like she was meant to.

Qora let her hands wander, fingertips tracing the lines of scars on Arcann’s shoulder and chest, following the edge of where warm skin and firm muscle gave way to the cool metal of his cybernetics.

“This happened on Korriban, too, didn’t it? Not long before we met.” It wasn’t really a question, and she didn’t really expect an answer, but she got one anyway.

“Yes.” He caught her hand and stopped its further exploration, pressing it flat over his heart. “And they paid dearly for it. My brother and I made sure of that.”

“Good. I hope you burned it all down,” she said in a harsh whisper. She hoped Arcann and Thexan had reduced the entire planet to ash, every tomb, every temple, every overseer, every blasted k’lor’slug crushed under the might of the Eternal Empire. “Not even the memory of that place deserves to be left standing.”

Rage burned so hot in her chest that it hurt to breathe, and she shook with the effort to push it down. Tears blurred her vision and stung the corners of her eyes, but Qora refused to let them fall. She wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of her tears, even when they weren’t here to see it.

Arcann didn't reply, but instead rolled them over so that she was on her back, his body caging her in and pressing her down into the mattress. It grounded her, forcing her out of the past and back into her own body, driving away all thoughts of Korriban and the Academy and the shadows of the training room.

He kissed her then, slow and deep, demanding her attention to be on him and him alone. That was a command she was more than happy to follow. The fire in her chest receded, replaced by a much more pleasant warmth that built and spread through her under his skillful guidance, and the tremor in her hands abated when she cupped his face between them.

It was only when the mood started to shift from comfort to desire, kisses turning heated and hands starting to roam, that Arcann broke away. He was breathing harder just from kissing her than he had been at any point in the nightmare they’d just escaped.

“They will never touch you again. I swear it,” he vowed, deep voice solemn and utterly sincere.

“I believe you.” She exhaled a long breath, releasing the last lingering tension with it, and drew him back down enough for their foreheads to touch. “Thank you, Arcann. I needed to hear that.”

No matter what the Sith Council thought, or the machinations of whoever they’d decided to blindly follow this week, she was beyond their reach now. She had no doubt that if they tried to subjugate her again, they would learn their lesson the hard way. And Arcann would be among the first in line to teach it to them.

She was grateful that he was so willing to remind her of that, when she needed it.

Qora let out another sigh and slid her hands up to the back of his neck, playing idly with the hair at his nape. It was only barely long enough to run her fingers through, but she adored it. Both for what it represented for Arcann’s healing and growth and because it was just… pretty. His hair was silky soft to the touch, and the warm caramel color made his eyes appear an even brighter blue. It warmed her heart every time she looked at him, to see this visible proof of how far they’d come.

They should probably talk about what had just happened, she knew that, but she wasn’t in any hurry to broach the subject and reopen those wounds for the second time in one night. It’s not like this was their first time sharing dreams, anyway, even if none of the others had been quite so… authentic. Dwelling on it wouldn’t solve anything.

“Do you want to go back to sleep?” There wouldn’t be any more rest for her tonight, but that didn’t mean Arcann had to suffer on her account. “There are still a few hours until--”

“No.” How he could put so much intention into a single syllable, she’d never know, but when combined with the heated look he gave her, it was enough to make her shiver.

“Oh?” she said in feigned innocence, even as she lightly scraped her nails against his scalp. It earned her a low rumble that she felt more than heard, something between a warning growl and a contented purr. “Did you have something else in mind?”

His smile was soft, and so was the kiss that followed it; neither did anything to dim the desire burning in his eyes.

“The past will always haunt us, in one form or another.” He took one of her hands in his and slowly led it down from his neck and over his shoulder, his chest, his ribs, lingering on a scar there.

It was one Qora knew very well. And she should--after all, she’d put it there herself. During their last fight, when she’d “defeated” him. She brushed her thumb over the thin, raised line; such a small souvenir from something that had been so important.

Arcann only let her linger for a few seconds before moving on, guiding her deliberately lower. His lips grazed her cheek before finding firmer purchase on the sensitive spot under her ear. “There is no need for us to give it more power than it already has. I would rather… appreciate what’s right in front of me.”

“By all means. Appreciate away.” Her breath hitched when he kissed the hollow of her throat, ruining any attempt at keeping her tone light and teasing. She gave it up as a lost cause, and surrendered completely to him, and to whatever came next.

#swtor #arcann #qora/arcann #qora rhiannon #rhi writes #everyone reading these tags go thank cait for giving me these prompts #even though she did so in *checks notes* march 2022 and it took me this long to finish it #long-haired!arcann lives rent free in my mind after seeing art of it once so now I’m inflicting that on everyone else #(his hair isn’t long YET here but it will be eventually :3 maybe when he returns during old wounds I like that)#there may be a version of this that uh. doesn’t end there 😳 maybe I'll post that separately but this had already wandered off-plot enough #there's also half-finished variations with other memories. qora's and arcann's. but some of those are MUCH more painful #I guess that's what sequels are for :3 #(yes *technically* qora rejoined the empire during jedi under siege but she doesn't consider it actually returning to the sith #since she was a double-agent and all)#okay that's enough tag essays if you're still reading I love you and happy life day <3

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haledamage · 2 years

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For What It’s Worth

it’s finally finished! coming in at just over 16k words 😅 I may split this up into chapters when I eventually put it on AO3, but for tumblr you get the whole big wall of words

Qora/Arcann (pre-ship but with a heavy dose of romantic tension), mostly Arcann’s POV. An exploration of Force Bonds and dreams and how thin the line can be between enemies and friends. Spoilers for... Arcann. pretty much his whole character arc through KOTFE and KOTET

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"Prince Arcann. The prisoners are awake."

He waits with poorly concealed impatience while the cell is unlocked, and steps inside as quickly as possible so it can be rearmed behind him. He's spent the last few hours assuaging his curiosity about these would-be invaders, and he’s eager to see for himself if these Sith live up to their reputations.

The first cell contains one mentioned only by the title Empire’s Wrath, a swordsman without equal and an invincible juggernaut of rage and violence. A dangerous enemy to have… but potentially a valuable ally. Only time will tell which one she’ll be.

The only other person in the cell is a woman, sitting on the edge of one of the cell’s narrow beds, clearly disoriented and barely even conscious, her bound hands clenched into fists in front of her.

Compared to all the rumors surrounding her, the reality is a little disappointing. She's almost unassuming, with a disheveled mess of short auburn hair and a round, heavily-freckled face, the right half of which is covered in what appear to be burn scars. If she's noticed his arrival, she doesn't acknowledge it.

Time to change that. “You’ve awakened. I trust you can walk.”

She jumps to her feet as soon as he speaks, going from dazed to on guard quickly enough to make him reassess her again. He knows without a doubt that if her hands weren't shackled, she'd have drawn a weapon.

Her eyes are the color of storm clouds and full of the promise of thunder, but her richly accented voice is surprisingly polite. “Where are we? What is this place?”

“My flagship. You’ve arrived at the heart of our empire.” There wasn’t the slightest hint of recognition from her, not about him or about his father’s empire. Intriguing, but ultimately irrelevant. “Come along.”

She follows without a fight, or even a pointed word.

They meet the other prisoner in the hall, a man called Darth Marr who’s allegedly the current leader of the Sith, or the closest thing they have to one. He's more what Arcann had expected from a Sith, a wall of spiked armor and simmering rage standing head and shoulders over even the tallest knights.

The two of them have a quick, wordless conversation consisting entirely of pointed looks and calculating silence. He tenses, preparing to fight if they choose to attempt escape, but they seem to be in no hurry to leave. In fact, they both look perfectly content to stay where they are. Relatively speaking, anyway; Marr likely hasn't been content a day in his life.

The longer they stay compliant, the less comfortable he gets.

Arcann can feel the Wrath continuing to study him as they walk down the hall. She’s the exact same height as he is, down to the last millimeter - a fact which makes him angry, for reasons he can’t quite place - and watches him without pretense or attempt at subtlety, raking her gaze over him. There’s no way to tell if it’s out of appreciation, curiosity, or wariness, her expression betraying nothing, but it feels distinctly like she’s looking through him, rather than at him, seeing straight to his core. Unnerving, but he can’t decide if he dislikes it or not.

“I don’t believe I caught your name,” she says suddenly.

It’s been a long time since he’s had to introduce himself to anyone. They truly don’t know who he is? “I am Arcann, Prince of the Eternal Empire of Zakuul.” He stands taller, though somehow still not any taller than her.

“Arcann.” She repeats his name slowly, as if testing the feel of it in her mouth. There’s a flash of something in those stormcloud eyes, and he has the sneaking suspicion that she’s teasing him, though not maliciously. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, your highness. You can call me Qora.” That’s it. No titles, no family name, just Qora. “I’d curtsey, but it seems I’m a little tied up at the moment.”

“Qora.” The other one finally speaks, saying her name like a warning. Or an accusation.

The corner of her lips quirk up in the beginning of a smile. There’s something dangerous in that smile, and something inviting. “As you say, my lord.” Though she speaks to Marr, her eyes never leave Arcann.

They continue to attempt conversation as they walk down the halls toward Father’s throne room. The Wrath - Qora - seems almost amused by the whole affair, though Arcann is sure it’s an affectation and not genuine. Marr speaks only in thinly veiled threats and unconcealed malice. Arcann ends up somewhere in between.

That changes as soon as they enter the throne room. Marr’s subtle, simmering anger flares like a bonfire, his chains likely the only thing keeping him from leaping across the room to try to strangle Valkorion with his bare hands, and every hint of humor drops away from Qora, leaving her cold and terrifyingly still.

There’s a sense of recognition from them both that they hadn’t had for Zakuul. Their frustration is familiar too; Father has been busy neglecting and disappointing more than just his own kin, it seems.

It takes very little effort for Valkorion to incite Marr to violence, giving the man just enough rope to hang himself. His death is quick and unceremonious.

Through it all, Qora remains silent. He might almost think she’s bored, apparently unmoved and unbothered by the death of her master. A closer look says otherwise.

Her anger is a subtle thing. Not the wrath her title implies, not like the raging cyclone that had been Darth Marr, whose hatred was so strong it was almost a physical barrier--and, like any wall, broke when met with a more powerful force. Hers is like the scent of smoke on the breeze. The kind that warns that you’re already too late to put out the fire.

Her face is blank except for the thunder in her eyes, but Arcann can feel the change in the wind, and he exults in it. Now he just needs to wait for the right moment.

To his surprise, Father offers her a place in their Empire. He talks to her the same way he talks to his children, a combination of condescension and feigned benevolence. Is he trying to replace Thexan already? Or is she to take Arcann’s place, or Vaylin’s? Does he need to defend his own place in their family against this Outlander?

It turns out his fears are unfounded. She spits the offer back in his face in a voice full of ice and lightning. “I have served you long enough. You don’t deserve me.”

Arcann tries not to enjoy Father’s failure too much.

Qora holds his gaze, defiant and unafraid as he moves toward her, ostensibly to follow Valkorion’s orders to kill her. “Arcann. Untie me.” Her voice is almost gentle, a request instead of an order. “I will not die on my knees.”

She doesn’t flinch when he grabs her bound wrists and drags her close enough to speak quietly, but she does when he presses a lightsaber into her hand. If she activates it now, she would kill them both; it’s a risk he’s willing to take. “This is your chance. Don’t waste it.”

There’s something fragile in her expression for the barest second as her bonds fall away - fear? gratitude? - before the storm her eyes have promised finally arrives. He can almost hear it, a subaudible pop like a pressure change in his skull as something snaps into place between them. It hits him in the chest, her thoughts and emotions washing over him like sheets of rain, too fast to understand.

He tries unsuccessfully to block it out and instead uses the confusion and frustration it brings to fuel his rage, throwing himself into battle against his father. All he can do is hope Qora takes the opening he gives her.

She does.

The world snaps back into pure, silent clarity as Father falls dead to the ground.

Except not entirely dead. That would be too easy. Arcann can sense his presence clinging to Qora like a poison creeping through her veins as she collapses too, barely clinging to consciousness. He knows immediately that it’s not something he can save her from, not yet; all he can do is slow it down.

He almost regrets what he has to do. She would have made a powerful ally, but it’s not a risk he can take.

Even after she’s frozen, her carbonite prison locked away in his vault, he still feels the echo of thunder in his head.

That night, Arcann dreams of two little girls on a planet he’s never been to. One with pale green skin and turquoise eyes and twin tails where a human would have hair. The other with a curtain of auburn hair, a round freckled face, and eyes the color of storm clouds. They squeal with laughter as they run hand-in-hand down a dingy city street, tall skyscrapers watching over them on either side.

It isn't an isolated incident. He doesn't dream of her every night, but it happens too often to simply be coincidence. Sometimes he dreams of what must be memories. Of the green girl on the dingy planet. Of a similar girl, older, blue-skinned. Of a dimly lit starship filled with broken people. Of a dark building on a red desert planet, the memory of which tastes like blood and lightning. Of a gray city under constantly stormy skies.

In one, Qora kneels on a cushion in front of a woman with brown hair who speaks in a quiet, gentle voice. Slowly, a pebble from the mat between them floats into the air. Someone knocks on the door, and both women jump. The pebble explodes into dust.

In another, a teenage girl stands in a cavernous room. She has a round freckled face and a shaved head and wears a plain gray tunic. Two faceless figures stand behind her with bamboo poles. She doesn't flinch or cry out when they hit her, over and over again. Her eyes are full of thunder, and he feels as if she’s staring right at him.

He can’t meet Vaylin’s eyes for days after that one. It may not be his memory, but it still hits far too close to home.

Sometimes, he dreams of a landscape of broken rock and empty, unmoving skies. He hears his father’s voice, condescending and scheming as ever. He hears Qora’s voice, too, cold and hateful in a way it had never been when talking to Arcann.

(Qora doesn’t sleep while in stasis, but she does dream. Of two young boys with blue eyes and shaved heads, one in black and one in white. Standing back to back in a fighting pit against waves of warriors in golden helmets. Staying up past curfew, whispering furtively to each other before collapsing into fits of giggles. Building lightsabers, their identical brows furrowed with concentration. Tending to each other's wounds in silence, the black-robed boy sad while the white-robed one is angry. Running through a swamp, a younger girl with blonde hair trailing along behind them. A woman singing them to sleep, her face in shadow but her voice full of comfort and love.)

And then one night, after four months of disjointed memories, it's different. Arcann opens his eyes to his quarters, the same as it ever is, but he knows, somehow, that it's a dream. And he also knows, before he looks up to confirm it, that he isn’t alone.

Qora wanders curiously through the room, a dark spot of color like an ink stain against the stark white and polished tempersteel. She wears the same black and blue armor she’d had when they first met, her ponytail only slightly neater than it had been then.

“Not what I expected,” she says eventually, running a gloved hand over the back of the sofa. “Aren’t you Emperor now? You should at least be able to afford a plant or something. A little color never hurt anyone.”

Arcann does the most sensible thing he can at the moment. He attacks her.

She meets his lightsaber with her own, its color a softer yellow than his as she stops his charge cold. The shockwave that flares when their blades meet makes the lights flicker.

“So dramatic. Is this just how you greet people on Zakuul?” She looks neither intimidated or impressed. In fact, she once again just looks amused, even as she slides backwards a few centimeters when he presses his saber forward in an attempt to overpower her. The yellow light reflects in her eyes like a flash of lightning. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Our Empires do have a common ancestor, after all.”

“Why are you here?” he growls through clenched teeth.

“Me? This is my dream, why are you here?” He can feel the truth in her words, the genuine surprise and confusion.

They come to the same conclusion at the same time. Without a word, they both deactivated their lightsabers.

Qora turns her back on him immediately, returning to her exploration of his room. The temptation to attack her again, to make her regret her casual disrespect, is nearly overwhelming for a moment. He clenches his cybernetic hand into a fist until the joints whine; the pain helps ground him, pushes his rage back before it can blind him.

Until she picks up Thexan’s lightsaber from the table, holding it with unexpected delicacy as she studies it with a discerning eye.

He snatches it out of her hands. “Don’t touch that.”

“What does it matter? None of this is real!” She pokes him in the chest to emphasize her point, and he slaps her hand away reflexively. Both of those feel real enough. “We may be sharing this space, whatever it is, but it’s still just a dream. Your brother’s lightsaber will be right where you left it when you wake up.”

Arcann freezes as cold dread and fresh pain wash over him. “How do you know about my brother?” There’s a threat in his voice that even she can’t ignore.

She shrugs, as if she can’t feel how much hinges on how well she answers that question. “I saw him in a dream. A regular dream, not like… this. It wasn’t hard to figure out who he is, as alike as you look.” Arcann has to resist the urge to touch his mask. Not so alike anymore. “Where is he?”

“He died,” he says dully. He doesn’t elaborate.

Strangely, he feels better when her sorrow washes over him, like warm rain that chases away the cold. She moves like she intends to touch him, to offer comfort, but pulls back before she makes contact. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry. Truly.”

It’s not worth much, but it helps.

They don’t say anything else the rest of the night, content to ignore and be ignored. When he wakes up in the morning, Thexan’s lightsaber is in the same place it always is. A scent lingers in the air near it like the promise of a coming storm.

(Qora wakes - as much as she ever wakes - to a barren landscape and the sneering face of the last person in the galaxy she wants to see. Her conscious hours are a worse nightmare than anything her subconscious can foist on her, Valkorion searching for any weakness he can exploit, trying to turn her into a puppet or a tool. But she’s spent enough of her life as a weapon, allowing the unworthy to wield her as they see fit, and she will not do so again.)

(Quietly, she longs for the next meeting with Arcann. His hatred and rage are at least honest, his intentions straightforward, and that’s more than she can say for his father.)

Arcann does his best to put the shared dream out of his mind and continue his work solidifying his power base as Emperor. His nights are still plagued by her memories, pictures and emotions that he has no context for, but the Outlander herself doesn’t make another appearance. A fact which he is both disappointed by and grateful for.

Until she does, nearly three months later.

“Get out,” he snarls.

“Hello to you too,” she replies dryly. Like last time, Qora immediately makes herself at home, flopping down to sit on the edge of his bed, only to grimace when it’s too firm for her tastes. “No wonder you’re so angry all the time. Even your bed has it out for you.”

He glares down at her, putting every ounce of loathing he can muster into it, using the height difference provided by her new seated position to loom over her. “Why are you here?” He’s as tired of asking that question as he is of all the unsatisfactory answers to it.

She stares back up at him, one eyebrow lifted, somehow both sardonic and indifferent. “Just lucky, I guess.”

Arcann growls and stalks away, trying to put some space between them. As if that will really help. Wherever he goes, he can feel her there, like a rope pulled taut between them; it’s present even when he’s awake, though the feeling is stronger in this strange dream purgatory.

“I like how you think I’m doing this on purpose,” she calls after him, not letting him escape that easily.

He glances over his shoulder, turning only his good side to her. “Aren’t you?”

“How could I? I’m barely even conscious.” Qora takes off one of her gloves and runs her now-bare hand over his bedspread; she looks as unimpressed by it as she is by the rest of his room. “I’ve seen enough Force meddling to know what it looks like.”

“Then this is my father’s doing.” It doesn’t seem like his style, binding people together instead of pushing them apart, but what else could it be? Force Bonds require a connection, and they’re practically strangers.

“I don’t think he knows about it. Or at least, he can’t touch it.” That provides him with some semblance of relief, though it does also confirm his biggest fear. Valkorion’s spirit latched onto her when he died. At least it seems like she isn’t his puppet - not yet. He does wish he hadn’t had to imprison her, but he knows if he let her out it would just accelerate Father’s plans. He has no other choice. “He’s been trying to find any flaw he can use against me ever since I went into stasis. If he bound us together in order to manipulate us, he’d already be trying to press that advantage.”

She makes a good point. He hates it, but that doesn’t make it less true.

“Face it, Arcann. We’re stuck with each other.” Qora lays back on the bed, closing her eyes and stretching out like a loth-cat, completely unconcerned with the idea that she’s leaving herself vulnerable to attack. “Unless you plan to kill me, you may as well get used to having me here.”

It’s a tempting thought. Very tempting. A trip to the vault and one well-placed thrust of a lightsaber is all it would take to sleep uninterrupted again. He considers it as he paces back across the room to his bed.

She looks up at him when he approaches, half-lidded stormcloud eyes issuing him a silent challenge as she lays relaxed and content across his bed. He can’t tell if she’s teasing him or testing him, but he doesn’t really care either way. The thought of killing her is gone as fast as it formed.

He doesn’t do a very good job of stifling a resigned sigh as he sits down next to her. As soon as he joins her, Qora’s eyes drift closed again, correctly assuming her continued survival for at least one more night.

“You aren't afraid of me.” Arcann doesn’t know why he’s surprised by that, but he is. Even though - as Qora has pointed out - nothing that happens in their shared dream actually matters outside of it, the fact that she still speaks so casually to him is astonishing. Like she’s an old friend visiting for tea and not the ghost of a woman he currently has imprisoned. Even more surprising, he doesn’t find her attitude entirely unwelcome.

“Should I be?” She drags herself upright, meeting him on even ground once more. There’s a seriousness on her face that makes her look older--or strips away the illusion of youth. “Since I was twelve, my life has been a constant parade of men like you threatening to kill, torture, or maim me if I speak out of turn. I've built up an immunity.”

“There are no men like me,” he snaps.

She laughs, sharp but not cruel. “If I had a credit for every time I've heard that, I could retire somewhere tropical.” She nudges his shoulder with her own, a hint of a smile tilting one corner of her lips. He can feel an answering smile form on his own face and is grateful for the mask to hide it. “I have to give credit where it’s due. You’re the first who could ever follow through on his threats. I can respect that. Despite the circumstances.”

“What happened to the others?” he asks like he doesn’t already know.

“They’re dead.” She sounds indifferent to it, but he can feel her frustration and regret. A killer who hates killing. Interesting. “Don’t look so surprised. Like attracts like. I was never given another choice, same as you.”

When Arcann wakes in the morning, his room feels entirely too empty, his bed too hard and too cold. It’s weeks before he can shake the feeling that something’s missing, but all it serves to do is fuel his rage.

(Qora loses track of time. Her world narrows down to Valkorion’s monologues and Arcann’s stark, impersonal quarters and a constant procession of disjointed memories and vague, unsettling nightmares. As the carbonite poisoning sets in, it gets harder to maintain something resembling consciousness, and she sometimes spends days in their shared dreamspace, knowing the passage of time only by Arcann’s appearances and disappearances.)

It happens again six weeks later. Then again two weeks after that. And again, after two months. Sometimes she’ll show up every night when he sleeps, sometimes he won’t see her for months. There doesn’t seem to be any pattern to it, except that it. Keeps. Happening.

Some nights they fight, standing toe to toe and nose to nose spitting vitriol and venom at each other. They learn quickly enough that they can’t actually harm each other in this in-between space, but once or twice it still goes far enough that they draw weapons. Other nights they ignore each other, sitting in silence - occasionally stilted, occasionally cold, occasionally almost comfortable - until they wake.

Mostly, they talk. About things that are happening while she sleeps, or about their pasts, tiptoeing around painful or overly personal subjects like they’re armed mines, never pushing for sensitive information or providing too much of their own. It’s not quite friendly banter, but also not antagonistic bickering. It’s like a dance, if your biggest competition is also your dance partner.

Arcann would die before admitting, even to himself, that he looks forward to those nights, but Qora becomes a bright spot in an increasingly dark galaxy. She is brutally honest with him without ever being cruel about it, and she is neither condescending nor deferential. She isn’t afraid of him, and has no interest in being feared.

His enemies hide around every corner, seeking his downfall, but this one, at least, is worthy of his time.

“What do you look like under the mask?” Qora asks out of the blue one day, two and a half years after she entered stasis. She’s draped across a chair, legs over one armrest and her head on the other; one thing Arcann has learned about her in these clandestine meetings is that she’s incapable of sitting normally. She leans or sprawls or basks like a loth-cat in a sunbeam, but rarely does she just sit.

She’s not wearing her armor this time, dressed in clothing as casual as her demeanor. He isn’t entirely sure how she exerts so much control over this dream space. It isn’t like she’s changing clothes in the real world, he thinks with dark amusement.

“You know what I look like,” he evades the question automatically. She’s mentioned Thexan a few times since that first night, dream-memories of their conquests of the so-called Core Worlds, so she’s clearly seen his face.

As always, she pushes past his attempt to deflect. She rolls to her feet in a single, graceful motion, approaching him with a complete lack of caution or doubt. “That was before. What about now?”

He looks away, leaving only the bare half of his face turned to her, watching her out of his periphery as she comes to a stop in front of him, much closer than he expected. “You don’t want to know.”

“Sure I do.” She reaches for him slowly, giving him time to withdraw; for some reason he can’t fathom, he doesn’t. Her hand comes to rest on his mask, gently but firmly dragging his eyes back to hers. He can almost imagine he feels that touch on his skin.

There’s a resonant hum of metal on metal as her fingers travel across it. He hadn’t realized until that moment that she isn’t wearing a glove on her right hand, that in fact it’s cybernetic up to the elbow. It’s tempting to ask about it, but he knows if he does that she’ll respond in kind.

Qora’s eyes follow the path of her fingers as if she can see through the metal to the man underneath. “I’ve seen scars, Arcann. I have my share of them too. You can’t scare me away that easily.”

“Why do you care?” The question is sharp, suspicious, but he still makes no move to stop her. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, his body no longer listening to his commands.

“Because I’m curious about you.” Her fingertips trail over the tempersteel covering his lips, the caress most likely accidental but it’s enough to steal the air from his lungs as surely as if she’d struck him. “And if nothing we do here matters, I figure I have nothing to lose. It’s not like you can freeze me a second time for being too forward.”

To his surprise, he finds himself chuckling at that. “If you’re trying to charm me into releasing you from carbonite, it’s not going to work.”

Her smile is as dangerous as it is inviting, as seductive as a knife in the dark. “We’ll see.”

In year four, a persistent headache sets in, sourceless but growing slowly over time. Arcann has no idea what’s causing it except that he’s sure Qora’s involved somehow. He takes it out on would-be seditionists and malcontents.

(Qora never mentions the carbonite poisoning to him. Arcann barely even talks to her anymore, their conversations more and more one-sided as time passes. He’s becoming more distrustful and paranoid every day, and she knows that even on the off chance that he believes her, he won’t do anything about it. What could he do about it anyway, except free her from her prison? An unlikely kindness, one she doesn’t know if she’d offer either if their roles were reversed. So she suffers in silence, and unbeknownst to her, so does he.)

And then suddenly, one day, everything changes.

“You. Escaped.” Arcann doesn’t turn to look at her, doesn’t need to in order to know she’s there and knows if he does he’ll lash out. Doing so is futile in this space, but it might make him feel like he has some modicum of control again.

"I did. With help." Predictably, she doesn't say who it was from. "I also stopped your sister from destroying half of Zakuul. You’re welcome."

He twists around to face her then, against his better judgement. Glaring out the window just doesn't give him the same satisfaction.

Qora looks… healthy. He didn't realize how pale and drawn she'd become until he sees her now, the color and roundness returned to her face, thunder and humor flashing in her eyes. He has the feeling this is related to his headache, which had cleared abruptly and completely right around the time someone snuck into his vault and stole his Outlander right out from under him.

There's no doubt in his mind that all he's done is traded one migraine for another. “Where are you?”

“I have no idea.” She shrugs, leaning casually against the wall like this is the same as any other night. “Even if I did, you know I wouldn’t tell you. Come on, Arcann, give me some credit.”

He stalks over to her, stopping close enough to trap her against the wall, pinning her in place without touching her. “Where are you?” It takes a lot of effort not to yell the question, and he doesn’t entirely succeed.

“I’m right here.” The angrier he gets, the wider and sharper she smiles. She invades what remains of his personal space, nearly pressing herself against him; she manages to make it feel like a threat. “I imagine we’ll be seeing each other again in person very soon. When we do, I hope you remember,” with their equal heights, it’s easy for her to lean close to his unmasked side and whisper venomously into his ear, “you chose this. Not me. I’d have preferred us on the same side. But you wanted an enemy, and you’ll have one.”

She disappears before he can get a word in. He roars his frustration to the empty space, slamming his fist into the wall where she’d just been, hard enough to dent the metal. He wakes up with bruised knuckles.

It doesn't take much to figure out where she is, even if she does slip out of his grasp the first time he catches her. He expects her to show up in his dreams that night to gloat, but she’s disappointingly absent.

It only takes a little more to find out who got her there. Another Outlander, a defector… and Mother.

Of course Senya is involved.

Those two would be powerful together, if they don’t kill each other first. Vaylin isn’t worried, is even excited about it, but Arcann knows Qora better than she does. She wears her heart on her sleeve, using her emotions as a weapon as much as her lightsabers. If Senya can temper that, calm the raging storm and give it direction and purpose - like she did for her children once, before she abandoned them - then they’ll be unstoppable.

Better to remove them from the board before they have the chance.

(“Where did you hear that song?” Senya asks abruptly, one day in Asylum.)

(Qora hadn’t even realized she’s humming loud enough to be heard. “I think I heard it in a dream,” she replies carefully. She doesn’t elaborate. She can’t, not without admitting a lot of things she’s not ready to. How do you say “I learned it from you, through Arcann” without sounding mad?)

(Looking back, Senya will recognize that as the moment she decided to trust the Alliance, hearing an Outlander singing a Zakuulan lullaby.)

As Qora had predicted, it’s only a matter of time before they see each other again. It seems she’s better at seeing the future than the Scions claim to be. Claimed to be.

Arcann relishes the shock on her face, the opportunity to turn the tables and be the one to catch her off guard for a change. And her fury; he’s never had the full force of that storm turned on him before, and it’s thrilling.

She refuses to surrender. Of course she does. He’d have been disappointed if she’d given in so easily. They know each other better than that by now. He’s almost enjoying himself, the tension and electricity in the air between them, the potential.

Until Valkorion has to ruin everything.

It is shamefully easy for his father to incite him to violence. Just as it's always been. Qora, and all of Asylum, pays the price for his weakness.

He isn’t surprised to find her in his dreams that night.

“You’re not dead.” Arcann knows he’d have felt it if she’d died, just as he can feel the lingering pain in her abdomen as clearly as if it were his own. Not dead, but badly hurt. He’ll do better next time.

“Are you sure?” She moves stiffly even here, as if her body doesn’t want to listen to her command to walk, but it’s not enough to stop her from circling him like a prowling wolf. He notices with a rush of smug satisfaction that she stays just outside of arms reach. Cautious, if still not afraid. “Perhaps I’m a ghost. Perhaps I’m haunting you.”

As if she could possibly haunt him more than she already does. “Is Father here too?”

“Stars, I hope not. I’m so tired of his blasted voice. His constant comments and attempts at making demands of me.” She stops her circling and stands in front of him instead, not bothering to stifle a wince as she crosses her arms over her chest. “As if I’d listen to anything he has to say.”

“Does he control you?” It comes out both harsher and more pleading than he intends, but Arcann has to know, and outside of this room he can’t trust a word she says. “Can he?”

“No. If he could, I imagine our fight would have gone very differently.” She opens one hand to rest on her abdomen, otherwise keeping her arms crossed. “I should have a lovely new scar, if it doesn’t kill me. Remind me to show it to you, next time.”

He just growls, his rage glowing too hot in his chest to let words through.

Qora takes a slow step forward. Then another, when he doesn’t back away. He catches her by the wrist as she reaches for him, squeezing until the metal creaks in his grip. He knows it hurts her, he can feel the echo of her pain, but she doesn’t flinch or pull away. She simply reaches up with her other hand, and this time instead of metal on metal, her warm, calloused palm finds his bare skin. Her fingers leave a trail of sparks across his cheek.

Her thumb brushes over the line of his cheekbone in the gentlest caress. It’s almost enough to cool his anger so he can breathe around it again--until she opens her mouth. “Maybe it’s not me he’s trying to manipulate. Maybe I’m just the conduit.”

With a roar, he spins her and slams her against the wall, holding both her wrists down by her sides. She gasps in pain at the impact, but otherwise makes no move to stop him or try to escape his grip. “He is not manipulating me.”

“Yes, obviously. Cooler heads have clearly prevailed,” she deadpans, and she has the audacity to roll her eyes at him. She isn’t scared in the slightest. He almost killed her today and she still doesn’t fear him. “Arcann, take your mask off.”

“Why,” he manages to grind out through gritted teeth.

“Because I’m tired of talking to it,” she says frankly. “I want to talk to you.”

For some reason Arcann can’t understand, he complies. He releases one of her wrists so he can reach up and unlatch the mask, dropping it to the floor with a clatter. It’s the first time he’s allowed anyone - other than Thexan - to see the mess that remains of the left side of his face. He watches her for the slightest twitch of disgust or pity, but she’s frustratingly difficult to read.

She stares at him for so long that it begins to make him self-conscious, which in turn starts to make him angry. His scars aren’t so much worse than hers, what room does she have to judge him for them? Why insist on seeing them if her only response is silence?

He almost jumps when she touches his face. Metal fingers warm quickly against his skin as they trail over the ridges of scar tissue from his temple down to his jaw, her touch so light he can barely feel it.

When she finally speaks, she doesn’t say what he wants to hear or what he dreads. “You’re so young.” Her voice breaks on the last word. There’s a sorrow in it so deep he can’t see the bottom. “I guess I thought you’d be older, but you must be the same age as me. This whole galaxy is built on the backs of child soldiers.”

They aren’t children anymore. They had never been children, even when they were young; childhood isn’t a luxury given to people like them. “I do not want your pity, Qora.” He wants his words to be barbed, but it comes out as a quiet plea.

She flattens her hand against his cheek. It takes everything he has to keep from leaning into it, especially when she shifts closer, close enough that he can feel her breath on his newly exposed skin. “Is that what you feel from me? Pity?”

He doesn’t. What he feels is the hint of smoke on the breeze, that too-late warning of disaster. She’s furious, almost shaking with the strength of it. But Arcann knows he’s not the target of that anger. Not this time. It’s Valkorion that’s the focus of her fury.

The thought of his father shatters the moment and brings reality crashing down around him. For just a second, he’d allowed himself to forget who he is, who this woman, this Outlander, with her tender touch and sharp smile and subtle creeping rage, truly is. He had almost let himself believe that this might be real.

But nothing in this room is real. None of it matters. How many times had Qora told him that?

He pushes her away viciously, stalking across the room. As an afterthought, he calls his mask to him and snaps it back into place. When he looks over his shoulder at her, the black metal is all she can see. “Get out.”

Her hand still hovers in the air where he had just been. The pain he feels through their bond now has nothing to do with a stab wound. “Arcann--”

“GET OUT!” He spins around, lightsaber active, but she’s already gone.

And she doesn’t come back.

(Qora asks Dr. Oggurobb for medication to keep her from dreaming. She tells him it’s to keep her wound from reopening due to nightmares. He can tell she’s lying, but it’s not hard to send him off on a scientific tangent that has him forgetting his suspicions.)

(She throws herself into her work during the day, building a base and a rebellion. Every night when she goes to bed, a small part of her hopes she’ll open her eyes to stark white walls, but the pills do their job and when she sleeps she doesn’t go anywhere anymore.)

Weeks pass.

Then months.

Arcann starts to dread the nights where he opens his eyes to the uncaring silence of his bedroom. He hates it, and hates her for leaving him as much as he hates himself for driving her away. He lashes out at the room, breaking everything that has the misfortune of being in his path, reducing furniture to ashes and slag. It reforms the next night, pristine and cold once more so he can do it all over again.

It’s not enough, so he starts to take it out on the waking world as well.

He still hears tales of her exploits. She doesn’t avoid him when she’s awake like she does when she sleeps. In fact, she seems to do the opposite, taunting him into chasing her. He’s happy to oblige.

There's a terrorist attack in the city right under his nose that has Qora’s name written all over it. Massive infrastructure damage, no civilian casualties. Predictable. For days, the Alliance and its Commander are the only thing anyone talks about. There’s a rise in defections, in people suddenly going missing only for someone of their description to be found among the insurrectionists.

The Alliance is spotted again in the Endless Swamp, harboring these deserters. Of course they are. She clearly has a weak spot for lost causes, to champion so many of them. He doesn’t know if he admires her or pities her for it.

And then, with no warning, she’s gone.

Their bond snaps like a frayed rope, so suddenly it sends him reeling. He’s distantly grateful he’s alone when it happens, because the force of it makes his knees buckle and his vision swim. It’s everything he can do to keep from collapsing, and it’s a struggle to slow his breathing enough to keep from passing out. The whole galaxy fades into silence and all he can hear is the blood rushing in his ears.

It reminds him of when Thexan died. It feels like part of himself has been ripped away. Emptiness where his soul had been only moments before.

Was this her doing? Was being tethered to him so terrible that she sought a way to sever it? Was he so broken that he’d reached the limit of even her boundless persistence?

Grief is too small of a word for what he feels.

(When Qora awakes in the wilds of Odessen, she knows something’s wrong. Valkorion has done something to her, but she’s too disoriented to figure out what’s missing. It’s not until she’s back at base that she realizes her bond to Arcann is gone.)

(Panic hits her like a lightsaber to the chest, squeezing her lungs until she can’t breathe and tears spring in her eyes, dragging her to her knees in the middle of the war room. She tells the others it’s a side effect of what she endured--technically not a lie.)

(When she gets back to her room, she throws out all her sleep meds, praying to the Force and the Zakuulan gods alike that she dreams that night. She doesn’t. Not that night, or the next, or the next.)

For the first time in six years, his dreams and thoughts are entirely his own, and he hates it.

Arcann struggles to care about any of his Empire’s petty struggles, even when they affect him personally. The Alliance steals his entire treasury right out from under him, and he can still barely muster the energy to be enraged about it. Luckily, Vaylin has enough fury for both of them. But then, she always has.

The emptiness persists for weeks. Endless, desolate weeks.

Until one night, without warning, he opens his eyes to someplace new. The ceiling above him is rough-hewn gray stone, the lighting as warm and mellow as sunlight.

“Arcann.”

The familiar sound of her voice has his eyes falling back closed as the fist clenched around his heart eases for the first time in months and he can finally breathe again. He takes a second to pull himself back together before looking her way.

Qora looks different. He can’t quite tell what’s changed, but something has. She’s… brighter, more present, more real than she was before. Or maybe she just doesn’t look so out of place in this cluttered cave as she does in the white austerity of his quarters.

“You’re here.” She takes two steps toward him, then stops, hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. He can see the way they shake even from across the room. “Why are you here?”

"Just lucky, I guess." He takes an absurd amount of pleasure in throwing her words back at her, though there's no humor in his voice. It's difficult to maintain even a semblance of calm. "Did you think you could get rid of me that easily?"

"You thought I wanted--?" She cuts herself off with a frustrated curse. She turns like she wants to pace, only to swing back around to glower at him, anger trailing behind her like smoke. “Of course you did. Of course you jumped to the worst blasted conclusion.”

“What other conclusion could I have come to?” He stalks toward her and she meets him halfway. “Force bonds don’t break of their own volition.”

“That doesn’t mean I did it!” she snarls, and leans so close that her nose brushes his mask. “Regardless of what you think of me, I never wanted you gone!”

He refuses to back away, glaring hatefully from millimeters away. “Then what caused it?”

“Guess.” He knows the answer by the thunder in her eyes and lets the storm feed his rage.

“Father.”

She closes her eyes, huffs a resigned sigh, and takes a small step back, breaking their standoff. “He got tired of being told no, so he attacked me. A warning, I think.” There's a flash of something like worry from her before it’s absorbed back into the roiling storm. “It did something to my connection to the Force. And my connection to you.”

There's more that she isn't saying, but he can feel that she’s telling the truth. “So it wasn't your doing?” He hates the hint of hope in his words.

“No.”

“And before that?”

“You told me to leave.” Qora lifts her hand to touch him, but never makes contact, the not-quite-there caress trailing across his skin like a ghost. “Isn't that what you wanted?”

“I…” Arcann doesn’t know what he wants anymore. He wants to go back to a simpler time, where his brother is alive and his sister is happy and his mother is home. He wants to wipe his father’s literal and figurative ghost from the galaxy until no one even remembers his name. He wants to leave this whole galaxy behind and start over, go somewhere no one’s ever heard of him. He wants this war to be over; he doesn’t even care who wins it anymore.

He wants Qora to touch him like she did before. He wants to know what would have happened that night if he hadn’t run away.

As soon as that thought sparks in his mind, he steps away from her, snuffing it out before it has a chance to ignite. He can’t meet her eyes anymore, and so he turns to the room around them, finally giving it a once over. “Where are we?”

“My bedroom.” He can feel her watching him as he explores, but she doesn’t stop him.

If he were to imagine a space that was the exact opposite of his own quarters, it would look very much like this. They’re underground, if the rough stone walls and lack of windows are any indication. The furniture is clearly chosen for comfort rather than style, a mismatched array of jewel tones and dark leatheris, and every available surface is covered in clutter--keepsakes and disassembled weapon components and used paintbrushes and Scyva only knows what else.

"So this is the Alliance base." He runs his hand over her bedspread; it’s a deep, rich blue and so soft he thinks it might melt under his fingers. "Not quite what I was expecting. Aren't you Sith supposed to sleep on the backs of slaves?"

“Using people for a mattress has got to be the only way to make a bed less comfortable than yours,” she teases, her laughter taking the edge off her sarcasm.

He doesn’t let himself laugh along. Instead, he approaches the large console in the center of the room. When he touches the controls, the image of a planet appears on the holo. A planet he doesn’t know.

That’s as far as he gets before Qora slides into the space between him and the computer, turning the holo off with a swipe of her hand. “Ah-ah-ah. That would be cheating.” She doesn’t look offended; instead, he might think she’s impressed. “Clever. Devious, but clever.”

“I’ll learn where you are sooner or later. You cannot hide from me forever.” Despite the threat in his words, his voice is gentler than he’s heard it in years.

It’s been almost as long since she smiled at him like this, sharp-edged and inviting. Arcann finds himself unable to look away from it. “I’m not hiding. I’m right here.”

“This isn’t real.” Is he reminding her, or himself?

“It’s real enough.” She finally touches him, her fingers skimming the edge of his mask. Searching for the clasp to remove it.

He catches her by the wrist. “Don’t.”

She doesn’t fight him, doesn’t pull her arm from his grasp, but her smile fades like it had never been there. Grief shines in her eyes like distant thunder and the promise of rain as she whispers, “I wish we didn’t have to be enemies. I wish you would let me save you.”

“I do not need saving,” he snaps in reply. It sounds like a lie even to his ears.

She breaks his hold on her wrist only to grab his face, cradling it between both hands. “This doesn’t have to end in violence,” she insists. “You can be so much more than this. We both can. Destroying each other will only prove Valkorion right.”

He closes his eyes, against both the cold spike of hatred at his father’s name and the warmth of hope her touch ignites. “As long as he’s in your head, I can never trust you.”

“I know.” She leans forward and presses a soft, lingering kiss to his mask, only the thin layer of metal separating her lips from his. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

He wakes with a gasp back in his own room, with the distinct feeling that she had just said goodbye.

(Qora wakes in her own quarters and immediately heads to the training room. She can feel Arcann in her head again, and with him the sound of a ticking chrono. They’re out of time. She’s lost. Even in victory, there won’t be any winning anymore.)

(She steels herself against the pain, forging it into a shield, and dismantles dummies and training droids by the dozens in the hopes that it’ll stop hurting to imagine him in their place. It never works.)

(She knows when he arrives at Odessen even before the alarms go off.)

Arcann knows, if he wanted to, that he could use their bond to find where the Alliance is hidden. For some reason, he can’t bring himself to do it. Just thinking about it feels like betrayal. Can you betray an enemy?

It turns out, it doesn’t matter. Someone else betrays her instead. A droid with a sinister voice and vaguely familiar face.

Odessen. Looking at it from orbit, he feels a strange sense of familiarity. Vague memories from dreams surface, of eerie wilderness, of a busy room full of consoles, of the warm drone of conversation in a dim cantina. Soft blue blankets and rough stone walls.

He’s tempted to go down there to see it for himself, but he holds back. Let her come to him. He’ll have plenty of time to explore at his leisure once this is over. Once Odessen is his.

He follows her progress through his ship with an eagerness that feels like dread until finally she appears before him, in person for the first time in more than half a year. He’s glad she came alone. No matter how this ends, it’s better if they don’t have an audience.

Qora stands poised and confident at the bottom of the stairs, face lit by the soft yellow glow of her lightsabers as she watches him approach. Her eyes are full of thunder, but there’s no smoke in her aura, no anger, just the bitter tang of regret.

“This isn’t about you.” He wishes he could make her see that, but they’ve lost their chance. If they ever truly had one. “It never has been. But I will do whatever it takes to destroy my father.”

“So will I,” she snaps back, starting to circle him slowly like a wolf. This time, he makes sure to keep her in his line of sight. “It didn’t have to be like this, Arcann. We could have worked together. We could have been partners.”

“It’s too late for that.” A part of him had genuinely hoped it could be otherwise, but what he wants has never mattered. Especially not to Valkorion. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

Her eyes finally flash with anger at having her own words thrown back at her, and she lunges at him.

And, for the first time, overpowers him.

Part of him knows he’s beaten from the first moment their blades meet. She’s strong enough now to make even Valkorion, even Vaylin, second-guess themselves, and shines so bright in the Force that it burns to look straight at her. She shatters him without breaking a sweat.

And then, as the ship starts to fall apart around them, she stops. And offers him a hand.

“Arcann, we have to go!” She reaches for him, but he backs away with a sharp shake of his head. “If you stay here, you will die! Come with me!”

He never gets to answer. The last thing he hears is her anguished voice calling his name.

(“Arcann’s finished,” Qora says over the comm, and it’s not entirely a lie.)

(She can still feel him at the other end of their bond, alive if only just, but she knows deep down that he won’t cause them problems anymore. She had thrown him a rope to pull him to safety, and he’d used it to hang himself instead. The solution isn't to throw him another rope, no matter how badly she wants to. Walking away feels like breaking her own heart.)

(Letting Senya escape is the easiest decision she’s ever made.)

When he opens his eyes to the cluttered cave that is Qora’s bedroom, Arcann can’t tell at first if it’s real. But he isn’t in chains, and he hurts too much to be dead, so it must be another dream.

He doesn’t know how much time has passed since the battle above Odessen. He isn’t aware of much outside this room except for the pain coursing through his body, an aching void in his chest that used to be full of rage, and the distant sound of his mother singing.

He turns his head enough to see the broken metal and frayed wires that are all that remain of his left arm. He doesn’t have the energy to muster any anger or grief about its destruction. Or his own.

“Arcann.” A wave of relief washes over him as Qora speaks, and he doesn’t know which of them it belongs to.

He doesn’t bother trying to turn and look at her. “Outlander.”

He can feel the short, sharp stab of hurt that causes. He’s never called her that here. Too impersonal for this secret place. He almost apologizes for it.

“Where are you?”

“I don’t know.” He closes his eyes. It takes too much effort to keep them open. “Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

“Blast it all, Arcann, why won’t you ever let me help you?” He feels her kneel in front of the chair he’s sitting in, the only warning he gets before she grabs his face between both hands. There’s a tension in her arms that says she wants to shake him until he sees reason, but she holds herself back. “Tell Senya to bring you to Odessen. No harm will come to you or her, I swear it. I can feel your suffering, how much you’re hurting. Let me help you. Please.”

There’s a desperation in her voice that he’s never heard before, and that’s what finally drags his eyes open again.

There are tears at the corners of her eyes. Even if he couldn’t feel her sincerity, the way she looks at him would have told him the truth as clear as day. She’s terrified--not of him, but for him. She’s worried about him. After everything he’s done to her, she’s still trying to save him from himself.

“Qora.” He brings his hand up to her face, but hesitates before touching her. There was a time when he thinks such a gesture might have been welcome, but he doubts it is anymore. He’s too late. Too broken to be mended.

She pushes past his uncertainty and leans her cheek into his palm, covering his hand with her own to press it closer. “Senya says she can feel the good in you, and so can I! I’ve seen it. You are stronger than your father ever was. You can overcome the darkness he infected you with. Let me help you fight it!”

He doesn’t reply. He simply closes his eyes again and lets his head fall down onto her shoulder. There is no hesitation before her strong arms wrap around him.

She holds him through the night. Neither of them have anything else to say.

(Qora wakes up with tear tracks down her cheeks and a new resolve crystalizing in her chest. She and Arcann were forged on the same anvil, both of them weapons shaped by the same twisted master, and she knows with absolute certainty that he isn’t going to come to Odessen while he’s broken. If she were in his shoes, she wouldn’t either. He has to rebuild himself on his own or he’ll never believe it’s real.)

(But his eyes had been blue last night, not gold, and that gives her hope. She holds onto that hope as tightly as she can, and gets back to work. Her job is far from done.)

Arcann doesn’t ask Senya to take him to Odessen. He can’t. He doesn’t regain consciousness enough to ask anything of anyone.

He recognizes his own mental sluggishness enough to know his mother’s keeping him drugged while his body heals, and he doesn’t blame her for it. Even he doesn’t know what he’d do if he was conscious, if pain and disorientation would make him lash out at those trying to help him. It definitely would have before.

Time passes strangely in dreams. He has no idea how long he sits in that chair, unable to muster the desire to move. Long enough that the pain starts to fade as his wounds heal. Whatever medicine Senya is pumping him full of keeps him from ever waking up enough to find his way back to more traditional dreams, and it leadens his thoughts so much that even if he wanted to move, he couldn’t.

But the drugs aren’t entirely to blame for the numbness that seeps into him. He feels hollow. Empty. He worries at first that it must be his connection to Qora again, but every time he reaches for her he feels her reach back.

Was rage and hatred all he was, then? Is there really so little left of him when you take those away, just the empty shell of a broken man?

That thought is what finally clears his mind. It sounds too much like the condescending voice of his father. Too much of his life has been spent proving himself to Valkorion, or trying to prove him wrong. He refuses to let him have any power here. Father’s ghost may still be lingering, but it’s time for Arcann to stop letting himself be haunted by him.

With effort, he manages to lift his arm enough to rip off his mask, throwing it in a corner to be lost among the rest of the room’s clutter.

Beautiful silence. Arcann is finally, blissfully, alone in his own mind. Mostly alone, at least, but Qora’s presence doesn’t feel like an intrusion; at some point along the line, it became a comfort.

From somewhere outside this space, in the waking world, he can hear Senya singing, her voice sad and soothing in equal measure, and even though she sounds far away he can recognize the song. She used to sing it to him and Thexan after especially rough days, when Father had pushed them too far in training or had punished them for any of a myriad offenses and small rebellions. A warmth blooms within the hollow in his chest at the sound. For all his flaws and mistakes, for all the years now that they’ve been apart, there is no doubt that his mother loves him.

But that warmth keeps growing. It gets hotter and brighter until it starts to feel like it’s burning him alive, until it won’t even let him catch his breath enough to scream. He tries to stand, to escape, but his legs give out.

He catches himself on the edge of an unfamiliar bed, in a place he’s never been, surrounded by chaos. In the real world.

There’s too much happening to make sense of any of it. Senya is on the floor next to him, unconscious or dead. Strangers surround him, reaching for him, too close and all speaking at once. The ground beneath him shakes like the world is ending. Unfamiliar voices and the crack of breaking stone and the whine of blaster fire and hum of lightsabers overlap until none of it sounds like anything anymore.

Arcann does the only thing he can. He runs. His only thought is finding somewhere quiet and safe enough that he can figure out what’s happening and what to do next.

He pushes away anyone that gets too close or pays him too much attention, commando or knight or soldier makes no difference to him. He has no idea where he’s going, relying on instinct and providence to guide him through the collapsing building until he stumbles upon a familiar shuttle.

“Arcann!” He’s not surprised to hear Qora’s voice. If anything, he’s surprised it took her so long to catch up.

Her companions - the Sith and the spy, he never learned their names - stay far enough back to give him the illusion of security, but she approaches him like she always does, as if this was just another dream. She stops at the edge of the shuttle, and holds her hand out to him.

“Don’t go,” she pleads, making no effort to quiet her voice so it won’t carry to her friends. From the way she looks at him, stormcloud eyes shining with unshed tears, he doubts she even remembers they’re there. “Senya’s still alive. But she’s going to need your help.”

He sags under the weight of his relief. He had feared the worst - something Qora likely knows - and in his panic and confusion, he hadn’t thought to check otherwise. The knowledge makes his head feel a little clearer, his thoughts a little less jumbled.

She waits for him to gather himself before she speaks again. “I need your help, Arcann. Come with me.”

He can’t deny that the offer is tempting. Maybe there’s still time to undo some of the damage he’s done. Maybe he isn’t entirely lost, not if people like her, people like his mother, still believe in him.

He takes a step forward and reaches for her still-offered hand.

There’s a flash of movement behind her. Father’s cold eyes and condescending smile peer at him over Qora’s shoulder.

“No.” Arcann backs away from her, retreating further into the shuttle. “You are not alone.”

He feels like splintered glass, on the verge of shattering completely at the slightest wrong touch. He knows Valkorion will take advantage of the situation if he lets him, pull him apart and put him back together in a way that suits his sadistic plans. He can’t let that happen. Not ever again. And if he goes with her, that’s exactly what would occur.

He tries to tell her that with a look. If she knows him at all, if she’s learned anything in the nights they’ve spent together, she has to understand.

She nods and takes a wordless step back, her hand finally dropping back to her side. Letting him go.

He can feel her eyes still on him until his shuttle hits hyperspace.

(Qora realizes too late that this is the first time anyone has ever actually seen her interact with Arcann, and she knows by the curious glances her companions send her way that she’s given away too much. She finally tells Theron and Lana about her Force bond with Arcann, and about the dreams. They’re both disappointed that she kept it secret - Theron loudly so, Lana quietly - but they accept it readily enough.)

(“Do you truly think he can change?” Lana asks as they stand in the doorway of the infirmary watching doctors and droids swarm around Senya like locusts.)

(“He already has. It’s up to him what he does with it.” Qora thinks of the glimpse she saw of the man underneath the mask, fragile but nowhere near as broken as he seems to think he is. “Prep a room for him. Just in case.”)

Arcann doesn’t dream anymore, after Voss. Not his own dreams or Qora’s. He doesn’t know if it’s the lingering imprint of the Mystics or his mother that blocks them out.

He tries not to dwell on it. Qora is still there at the other end of their bond, distant but present. It’s enough.

He travels for a while, adrift and alone. It’s the first time in his life he’s ever been truly free to make his own choices, and freedom leaves him indecisive. He has no idea what he’s supposed to do - what he wants to do - and even if he did, he has no clue where to begin. He lets the Force guide him and sets a heading at random.

He ends up on Tython. There, he finds the ruins of what was once a Jedi temple, before the Sith destroyed it and he and Thexan drove off those that remained. There’s still beauty in the ruins, and a sense of peace steeped into the very stone from the generations that trained within its walls.

Arcann spends days there, wandering the broken, empty halls and sleeping in what had once been a dormitory, letting the serenity and wisdom of a thousand Jedi seep into his bones. The heat kindled in his chest by the Voss healing ritual settles into something manageable, a fire to ward off the cold and dark rather than to burn and destroy.

Next he goes to Nar Shaddaa. A person can find anything there for the right price, and he is a good enough fighter and asks few enough questions to build a reputation for himself. First with the gangs, who treat him as just another expendable mercenary to throw at their problems. Then with the refugees, who come to him for protection instead of destruction, who share what little they have with him in exchange for security.

He hides his face and lives under his brother’s name, but no one there ultimately cares who he used to be. All that matters is what he does now. It lets him distance himself from his father’s Empire, from the war, from Zakuul.

Distance gives him clarity. He can see how much he’d been blinded by his obsession with Valkorion, and how much it had colored every interaction he’d ever had with Qora, his ghost standing over them like an unwanted chaperone. He knows so little about her beyond her unwilling link with Father and a few disjointed memories, people and places with no names attached, just feelings. He resolves to change that, if he gets the chance to see her again. When he sees her again.

Clarity gives him purpose. He asks the refugees about the Alliance, wanting to understand them from an outside point of view. He learns how the rest of the galaxy sees them. One person calls them traitors who abandoned their people when they needed them most; the next says they’re the only true patriots left. They are heroes and troublemakers in equal parts.

He learns the names of those besides the Commander and his mother. Theron and Lana, Qora’s right and left hand. Koth, the Gravestone’s pilot, who had once come from Zakuul. Jorgan, Kaliyo, Torian, a Devaronian with a dozen different names. Vette, who he recognizes from Qora’s memories.

One of the refugees has some knowledge of cybernetics, and is willing to help him for a price he’s able to pay. He melts down his mask, and uses it to forge a new arm.

Then he returns to Voss. Three Mystics and a company of commandos meet him at the spaceport. He isn’t any more surprised to see them than they are to see him.

He helps them rebuild. The damage Vaylin did is… extensive, but not insurmountable. An extra pair of strong hands is welcome, and the work is back-breaking but not complicated. It feels good to work with his hands again instead of sitting on a throne sending others in his stead.

He’s there for two weeks, building homes and clearing rubble and learning rudimentary Force healing from one of the more progressive healers, when his old life catches up with him again. A cadre of knights and soldiers, what must be close to fifty of them, arrive on Voss one day looking for him. Arcann readies himself for a fight, but one of them - the Captain, he assumes - steps forward and kneels. The rest follow suit.

The Captain - who introduces herself as Vane and doesn't specify if that's a first or last name - tells him a story so ludicrous it has to be true. Just after he arrived on Voss, Vaylin and most of her fleet disappeared without warning. What's more, so did the Gravestone and the entirety of Alliance Command. There’s been no word from any of them since.

On reflex, he reaches out to Qora through their bond, and she immediately reaches back. Wherever she is, she’s confused, exhausted, and angry, but alive. A series of vague impressions of where she is come to him, images of an unfamiliar and hostile city, the headache-inducing whine of fluorescent lights, endless waves of droids falling under the yellow blades of her lightsabers. He tries to return the favor, knowing that she’ll recognize where he is but won’t come after him unless he asks her to. Perhaps it will give her some peace of mind.

He’s distracted enough that he almost misses Vane’s next words. “We’re here to help you take back the Eternal Throne.”

(Qora is attempting to rest between waves of Iokath purifier drones when Arcann reaches out to her, and she jumps to her feet on instinct, as if she expects to see him walk through the door. He does love a dramatic entrance, after all. She withdraws from the room to find a secluded corner to make sense of what she’s seeing.)

(Lana, predictably, follows. “Is it Arcann?” At Qora’s nod, she adds, deadpan, “I don’t suppose he mentioned where to find him? Perhaps provided a few hyperspace coordinates?”)

(“No,” she lies. Instead of the sterile industrial scent of Iokath, she smells incense and autumn leaves. She feels the burn of muscles unused to manual labor, the peace that comes with dreamless, uninterrupted sleep, tastes the ozone tang of the Force and the sour berries that the Voss are fond of. If she closes her eyes, she can almost see the gold and amber trees. “I don’t think it works that way.”)

“I have no interest in retaking the throne,” Arcann tells Vane and her knights in no uncertain terms. “I don’t want it.”

It's apparently not the answer any of them are expecting.

“Try the Alliance if you want a change in leadership,” he adds sharply, turning away so he doesn’t have to face their shock and disappointment. “I only want to be left alone.”

“The Alliance is lost without their Commander.” He doesn’t know who speaks, except it isn’t the Captain.

“You would be fools to underestimate them. Don’t make the same mistake I did.”

He can still feel them watching him, so he reluctantly turns back, studying them as they study him. A few remove their helmets--not out of deference, but to stare him down, the defiant glares of his people seeking to change his mind. His thoughts turn to his mother, who probably trained most of these people herself, who gave everything to save him. What would she think, if she learned he was using his second chance to run away?

“If you seek to depose my sister, I will help you.” His voice is much steadier and more sure than he is. “But I have no intention of taking her place.”

He puts them to work. Until Vaylin returns from wherever she’s gone, any plans they make are purely hypothetical anyway, and there’s no use standing around waiting for her to reappear. Fifty seasoned knights are enough to make short work of rebuilding bridges and repaving roads.

Vane tells him about what he missed while traveling. About the Alliance’s unexpected treaty with the Sith Empire, about Vaylin’s continued descent into madness. Some of the knights come to him with stories of why they chose to leave Zakuul’s service, and what the final straw in his family’s depravity was for each of them. Two of them admit they left while under his rule; he thanks them for having the strength to do what he couldn’t.

It’s another week before word comes that Vaylin has returned, acting as if nothing had happened. Her fleet is decimated, and rumors fly about old gods and older machines on a forgotten planet, but she crushes all stray hearsay with extreme prejudice.

The Alliance leadership is back as well, seemingly none the worse for wear. A fair share of rumors make their way from Odessen too, but Arcann doesn’t trust any of them to be true; he knows they have a team of misinformation agents - or one extremely dedicated one.

Arcann and his knights - he has no idea when he started thinking of them as his - continue their work rebuilding. In many ways, it feels like he’s rebuilding himself along with Voss-Ka. Every day, he feels stronger, his mind clearer, his spirit more at peace. By the end of the month, he barely recognizes himself compared to the man he’d been even a year ago. He knows this reprieve is temporary, that he’ll have to leave this sanctuary and face the things he’s done, but he’s finally starting to believe that’s something he can really do.

The opportunity comes in an anonymous message, as an invitation to a party and the words “Save us a dance.”

“So is this a trap from Vaylin?” Vane asks when he shows her the message. “Or a peace offering from the Alliance?”

“Vaylin doesn’t have an ounce of subtlety in her body,” Aidric responds dryly. He’s one of the younger knights here, and is either Vane’s protege or her son. Neither of them have ever made it clear which. “She would have signed her name.”

“So would… the Alliance Commander.” Arcann catches himself before calling her by name, if only just. “If she wanted to arrange a meeting, she would approach me directly. This isn’t her style.” His gut tells him it’s from one of Qora’s closest companions, though he couldn’t guess which one; Lana and Theron both seem like the type to meddle.

Neutral ground and a common goal are enough to build a truce off of. It’s too good of an opportunity to pass up, and whoever sent it likely knows that.

“I’ll prep the shuttles,” Vane says as she comes to the same conclusion. “We should be ready to head out at first light tomorrow.”

It’s difficult to resist the urge to pace as his shuttle travels through hyperspace, full of restless energy with no outlet for it. He’s unsure what he’s most nervous about, the inevitable showdown with Vaylin, the equally inevitable reunion with Qora, or simply returning to Zakuul. All of them have the potential to go well; all of them have the potential to end in disaster.

Perhaps predictably, they all somehow end up doing both.

(Qora regrets not considering the possibility of Arcann crashing the party. It’s obvious, once she takes time to think about it. She’s never known him to do things by halves, and she shouldn’t have expected his self-imposed exile would change that. It puts her off-balance, distracts her as she fights her way through the beast pits and halls.)

(She’s preoccupied enough that she almost walks right into an ambush. A Knight-Captain’s shield blocking her way is what saves her. “We’ve cleared you a path, Commander,” says the Captain, gesturing to a side hall also guarded by knights. More of them move to engage the Horizon Guard that she’d almost stumbled into. “Arcann will need your help.”)

(“Thank you.” Qora has no idea what else to say.)

(“We didn’t do it for you.” The Knight-Captain pushes her towards the exit. “Go.” She doesn’t need to be told twice.)

Arcann has always known that his sister is stronger than him - his father had never hesitated to remind him that he was the weakest of his siblings - but he had managed until now to avoid fighting her directly. The only thing that keeps him on his feet is the fact that he’s a better swordsman; Vaylin relies too heavily on her power in the Force, and never learned how to defend herself properly. He exploits every opening he can just to keep himself from being overwhelmed.

It’s like trying to swordfight a hurricane.

Qora’s interruption probably saves his life, but it also allows Vaylin to escape. An even trade-off, all things considered.

She jogs to a stop next to him, swearing colorfully as she watches his sister flee, but shakes off her frustration quickly enough. Then she turns to him with a sharp grin and a gleam in her storm colored eyes. “Hello, Arcann. Nice weather we’re having.”

“Commander. It’s good to see you.” He tries to keep some measure of formality with Theron standing nearby watching them, but the words slip out before he can stop them. He has to look away from her in order to focus on the matter at hand. “Why are you here?”

“Just lucky, I guess,” she says dryly, then gestures in the vague direction Vaylin flew off in. “Same reason you are, though perhaps with a little less theatricality. I’m fairly certain your mother taught you how to walk through doors like everyone else.” She points now at the broken windows he and his knights entered through. “Is this some form of rebellion?”

“I suppose so. Like your inability to sit in chairs.” He pauses long enough to soak in the sound of her laughter before asking the one question he most needs answered. “How is she?”

“Still healing. We’re keeping her as comfortable as she can be.” Qora immediately falls serious, which tells him well enough how bad it is. “I can take you to her.”

He nods. “I’d like that.”

“Do we really want to ally with a former tyrant?” Something in Theron’s voice tells Arcann this isn’t the first time he’s brought up the point. He appreciates his forthrightness and vocal distrust as much as he appreciates the Commander’s patience and Senya’s willingness to forgive him.

In a move so subtle Arcann doubts it’s intentional, Qora steps forward to put herself between him and Theron. As if she intends to protect him from her friend. He’s grateful she can’t see his face and the complete slack-jawed look of awe he knows he must be giving her. “Theron--”

He holds his hands up to stop whatever she’s about to say. Definitely a familiar conversation. “I’m just saying, he hasn’t exactly proven himself.”

The Horizon Guard are kind enough to give him the opportunity to do so.

Fighting beside Qora is something of a revelation. He would never accuse her of holding back in their fights, but it’s clear from the way she carves her way through the guards that, even at his worst, she had never fought him with the intention to kill. Theron is equally as efficient, his aim precise and deadly. The two of them are obviously used to working side by side, but Arcann finds it easy to fall into rhythm with them. Vaylin’s guards never stood a chance.

Father attempts to interfere, as he always does, but Arcann’s time away has given him perspective. For the first time in his life, he feels strong enough to not only defy Valkorion, but to deny him outright. He ignores the old ghost’s attempts to threaten and manipulate him, and sends him away unsatisfied.

Pledging himself to the Alliance in front of the entire galaxy and outrunning his sister’s wrath are easy in comparison. And this time, when Qora reaches out a hand to help him up into the shuttle, he takes it. Her responding smile is as bright and quick as lightning.

She bangs her fist twice on the shuttle door to coax it into closing. “Lana, take us home.”

Home.

Why does that one word make him more anxious than an entire palace full of enemies?

He takes a moment to send Vane coordinates and confirm his knights made it safely out of the palace’s destruction, then finds himself an empty chair to collapse into as fatigue sets in. Qora, predictably, sits next to him, perching on the edge of a stack of crates.

“How was Voss?” Her voice is low enough that it won’t carry over the hum of the engines, and he feels an echo of his earlier awe as it hits him that she really did keep his location secret from her friends.

“Recovering,” he says, after giving this new realization time to settle in. “It’ll be years before they have everything rebuilt, but I’m confident that they will heal from this.”

“Good.” She scrubs her hands over her face and through her hair, loosening her already messy ponytail. Her breath escapes her in a long, weary sigh. “Been a while since we’ve had some good news.”

He knows the feeling. “How was Iokath?”

“Awful,” she says dryly, but he can see the spark of humor in her eyes. “If Hell is a planet, I imagine it looks very much the same.”

“I’ll be sure to reschedule my vacation plans,” he replies in the same tone. It gets the desired result, her laughter filling the ship’s cramped hold.

The shuttle drops unceremoniously out of hyperspace. Outside the front window, Odessen looms. He tries not to think about the last time he saw it like this, the man he was then, what his intentions had been.

Arcann climbs out of his seat. There’s not enough room to pace, but getting up and moving helps alleviate some of his sudden restlessness.

When he turns around, Qora stands in his path. “Nervous?”

He lets momentum carry him forward to close the distance between them, moving close enough that they can pretend their conversation is private. “Am I that obvious?”

“Maybe a little” Her smile is every bit as dangerous as ever, but with none of the sharp edges. She lifts a hand, and he thinks at first that she’s going to touch his face like she has before, but it settles onto his shoulder instead. “I won’t lie to you and tell you it’ll be easy. Nothing worth doing ever is. But for what it’s worth, I believe in you.”

It’s worth everything. Before he can tell her so, their shuttle has landed. She gives his shoulder a comforting squeeze, then drops down into the hangar, leaving him to steel himself before facing the Alliance.

(Qora goes back to her room while Lana escorts Arcann to see Senya, going through the motions of cleaning herself up before meeting everyone for debriefings. Between falling into the beast pits and the firefight in the kitchen, she doesn’t want to think about what all she might be covered with.)

(But not thinking about that makes her thoughts turn back to him instead. A few months apart has made her forget how to act around him, and she doesn’t know where the line is between what’s allowed in dreams and what’s okay in the real world. They have time to figure that out, she supposes. Once they’re done with the next crisis, and the one after that. It’ll be good to have something to look forward to.)

Arcann follows Lana through the hallways of the Alliance base, keeping easily in step with her sedate pace. The halls all look very much the same, rough stone tunnels with cool white running lights, but he tries to make note of enough landmarks to not get hopelessly lost on his own.

She doesn’t make any attempt at conversation. Her silence isn’t hostile - at least, he can’t sense any rage or malice from her, she’s as calm and dark as a still pond - but she clearly has no intention of making things easy on him either.

“I get the feeling you want to threaten me, Ms. Beniko.” No use dancing around the subject.

“I could, if you’d like. But no.” She has a unique way of speaking, somehow both sarcastic and matter-of-fact. Kind and cold at the same time. “I simply wished to speak to you for a moment away from the Commander. It’s… difficult to get much of a read on either of you when you’re together. Likely a side effect of your bond, though not one I’ve ever seen before.”

“She told you about it.” He isn’t surprised, but he does find himself a little disappointed; he liked the idea that it was something only the two of them shared. But then, it must be hard to keep a secret when living in such close quarters with so many people.

“She did. After Voss.” Her pause is clearly intentional, giving him plenty of time for it to sink in just how long Qora actually had kept their bond to herself. “The two of you were much too familiar to simply be enemies.”

“We’ve never simply been enemies,” he admits quietly. Surely that must be obvious by now. “If it had been up to her, we never would have been enemies at all. I let my hatred of my father blind me to everything else.” He clenches his cybernetic hand into a fist and takes a deep breath, trying not to let his anger overwhelm him. He’s made too much progress to let Valkorion ruin it.

“I knew him under a different name, but trust me when I say you aren’t alone in that.” There’s something dark in her voice, colder than mere hatred. She doesn’t elaborate, and she doesn’t have to. At that moment, they understand each other perfectly.

When silence falls between them again, Arcann doesn’t mind it as much. A few minutes pass before either of them say anything else.

Lana comes to a sudden stop and turns to him, watching him with unreadable golden eyes. “Qora has a lot of faith in you. That isn’t something to take lightly. I hope it isn’t misplaced.”

“So do I.”

“I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.” She smiles then, and the vaguely intimidating chill around her dissipates like morning fog. “This is your room.” She points at the door they’re standing next to, then another two doors down. “Senya’s is right over there. And the Commander’s is just down the hall.” He adds the doors she indicated to his mental map, hoping it’s not too obvious how out of his depth he feels. “Take your time. Meet us in the war room when you’re ready.”

“I will. Thank you.” He tries to fit every ounce of gratitude he can into his words. There’s no way to know just how much he owes Lana, but it’s a lot.

She bows, the gesture surprising in its formality, and then she’s gone.

No one seems to know what his role in the Alliance should be, most likely because no one except Senya and Qora had even considered him ever having a role in the Alliance. So Arcann just tries to make himself as useful as possible. He gets his knights settled in - Vane and Major Jorgan get along like a house on fire, and Aidric is immediately adopted by half a dozen Mandalorians - and then throws himself into any work he can find.

He learns quickly to avoid the Gravestone and its crew, especially its pilot. Koth holds an understandable grudge against him, and he has no desire to force him to forgive or forget or pretend to tolerate him, so he just gives him space.

Sana-Rae and her enclave of Force-sensitives are more welcoming. She gifts him with a ceramic teapot before she even introduces herself, as a thank you for his efforts helping her people rebuild. He doesn’t hesitate to accept her offer to teach him traditional Voss tea brewing, as well as to continue his training as a healer. When he isn’t with his mother or the command council, he spends as much time in the Force Enclave as he can.

Senya still doesn’t awaken. Her body has healed and she’s well cared for, but something keeps her unconscious. Doctor Oggurobb admits, in a loquacious and meandering way, that he’d hoped Arcann’s arrival would change her condition in some way, but things are never that simple. He promises to keep trying, and is constantly in and out of the room trying new ways to wake her. Arcann spends as much time with her as he can, talking to her about what he’s done since she healed him on Voss and the daily goings on of the Alliance, and picks up the old, nearly-forgotten practice of armor crafting as a way to keep his hands busy while he sits by her bedside.

Qora, Theron, and Lana can almost always be found together, during work hours and off duty - though none of them seem to really know how to be off duty, at least one of them with a datapad in hand at all times, even in the cantina. They unconsciously make a space for him, subtly rearranging themselves so that in a matter of days he no longer feels like an outsider among them. His input is requested and respected at council meetings, an empty seat saved for him at dinner, he’s looped into their inside jokes and the many euphemisms they use to talk about sensitive or confidential subjects in public.

He sees Qora every day, either in meetings or when she comes to check on Senya, but it’s almost impossible to get her alone, and when he does, she never gets to linger for long. Arcann doesn't get the sense that she's avoiding him - she's always clearly pleased to see him - but if this is an attempt to give him space or time to adjust, he wishes she would stop and return to her familiar casual irreverence.

He makes it almost a week and a half before he gives in to the desire to seek her out, and knocks on her door just after sunset.

“Arcann.” It would be easy to get addicted to the way she lights up when she opens the door, less like a flash of lightning and more like the sun coming out after a storm. “What brings you here?”

“Good evening, Commander.”

Qora steps aside so he can come in, closing the door behind him. “You don't have to call me that, you know. You never had an issue using my name before.”

“I know. Doing so feels… different now.” It’s an understatement, but it’s the best he can do in the circumstances.

“Because we're awake? Or because we're allies?” Something about the way she says allies makes it sound like it could mean a thousand different things.

“A little of both,” he admits. So many things were easier when he didn’t care what she thought about him. “There's a lot I'm still adjusting to. And a lot I need to relearn.”

“I understand.” She moves like she intends to reach out, but pulls her hand back before touching him. He tries to hide his disappointment as he watches her retreat. “Take as much time as you need. And let me know if I can help in any way.”

“Thank you.” Unsure what else to say, he turns away from her to the rest of the room.

He can feel her watching him as he explores, but she doesn’t stop him.

There’s still a pile of weapon components on the table, and closer inspection reveals that they’re blaster parts, not lightsaber pieces. They don’t look like they belong to Theron, so they must be Vette’s--she spends as much time in this room as she does in her own. Likewise, half the chairs in the room have jackets or sweaters or pieces or armor draped over them, and only one belongs to Qora, as far as he can tell. A cup of rinsed out and drying paint brushes leads him to a small easel tucked into a corner.

“This painting…” The image on the canvas is incomplete, and it’s familiar in the opposite way the rest of the room is. While everything else is the real version of things he remembers from dreams, this is something he knows all too well.

“The view from your quarters,” Qora says, appearing at his side. “Or the dream version of it, anyway. It’s not quite finished.”

“It’s beautiful.” Even unfinished, he recognizes it easily, the silver and white spires of his home. It’s not a view he ever expected to see again, even like this.

“I thought it would make a better housewarming gift than a horribly uncomfortable mattress.”

That startles a laugh from Arcann. She hates that blasted mattress more than she had ever hated him. He turns his back on the painting to face its artist instead. “You get used to it after a while. Still, I don't think I'll miss it.”

“Lana got you something a little better than that, I hope.” It makes sense that Lana is in charge of logistics, but he’s surprised Qora hadn’t inspected the room herself before it went to him. Curiosity must be eating her alive.

“You're welcome to come see for yourself sometime.” The words are out before he can stop them, his tone something on the verge of playful.

“I might just do that.” Her stormcloud eyes glitter with something he can’t place, and the Force is frustratingly unwilling to enlighten him. “Would it be strange to say I missed you?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t recall being especially enjoyable company, but her confession makes it easier to admit, “I missed you too. My sleep has been entirely too uninterrupted since Voss.”

“Well, good news. I get to bother you when you're awake instead.” Her smile is a knife in the dark, and he feels himself answer in kind.

“I look forward to it, Commander.”

“Qora,” she corrects.

“As you wish.” There’s a beep from her console and he takes a reluctant step backward. When had he moved so close to her? “I’m interrupting your work.”

“No, you aren’t. Don’t go.” She grabs his hand as if to stop him from leaving. Her grip is loose enough that he can pull away if he wants, but otherwise she doesn’t seem to be in any hurry to release him. “Just let me answer that real quick. Then I can make us some tea and we can… talk, like old times.” They’re about as far away from ‘like old times’ as possible, he thinks wryly, though he doesn’t say it aloud. Judging by the way she rolls her eyes, he doesn’t have to. “You know what I mean.”

“I do.” He intends to say more, but the console beeps again insistently. “Do what you need to. I can wait.”

The chair he sits in isn’t quite as comfortable as he remembers it, and there’s a hint of perfume in the air that was never here in dreams, something warm and sweet like vanilla that mixes with the earthiness of the steeping tea. It’s just different enough to drive the point home: he is here. And so is she.

Somehow, after all these years, this is real.

Arcann stays there for hours, reclining as best he can with a cup of tea while Qora drapes herself across the arm of the sofa. Conversation flows easier than it ever has before. They don’t talk about their pasts, either the one they share or who they were before that, but instead speak of the present and, cautiously, of the future.

When he finally returns to his room, he dreams for the first time in months.

#rhi writes #qora rhiannon #qora/arcann #they ended up sort of the middle ground between perc'ahlia and zutara which I find a very interesting place to be narratively speaking #it was important to me that he fixes himself instead of senya and qora being responsible for fixing him #but it was also important that qora kept reaching out to him because she wishes someone had done the same for her #I am very proud of this whole thing 💖#also final word count is 16161 which is very satisfying #(if I divide it up into chapters it'll be either 15 or 29 depending on what I do with the qora pov bits #but that's a lot of small chapters for tumblr so this format works better here)

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