Lorn Reingard sat on the edge of his bed like gravity had suddenly remembered it owed him interest. His hands trembled, blood still caked beneath the nails. Not his, mostly. He hadn't even changed yet.
The Naboo night outside his quarters was quiet, mockingly so. The soft coo of a bird in the distance. Somewhere, someone laughed. Blissfully unaware that he had just dismantled a Krull fortress with nothing but a lightsaber and an identity crisis.
His heart still pounded.
Not from the fight.
Not even from the bloodbath he left at Nightglass Temple.
But from her.
From Isla.
He hadn't meant to go back. Truly. He'd told himself that Mirater was dead. Ghosted, buried in his memory alongside Soloman, his friends, his childhood, his youth, and everything that didn't come with a kill order.
But then the dream came. Isla's voice breaking through like a scream in a temple. No riddles. No gentle nudge. Just raw fear.
"I need you. Please wake up."
He hadn't packed. Hadn't told the Council. He'd simply moved. The Force dragged him by the gut, and for once, he didn't fight it. His body remembered Mirater like a scar - how to survive it, how to kill in it.
It was a blur. All of it.
Cutting through guards like they were brush in the jungle.
The halls of Nightglass drenched in fire and shadow.
Virginia's scent in the air.
Her absence louder than the alarms.
But it was her room that broke him.
Tucked in the quiet, untouched like a wound that wouldn't close.
The journals had been stacked neatly. A strange form of confession. Or maybe punishment.
He'd opened one out of spite. And read the truth like a dagger in the chest.
" ...I should have told you then... Isla is yours."
It didn't even feel real at first. He read it twice. Then again. Then sat down on her bed and forgot how to breathe.
A thousand memories clicked into place all at once. Her eyes. The way she tilted her head when she asked hard questions. The sarcasm disguised as wisdom. The raw way she reached for him in every dream like he was the only star in a dead sky.
His daughter.
His.
He hadn't said a word the entire trip back to Naboo. Isla didn't either. She stared out the viewport, arms folded, like a soldier being extracted from a war she wasn't allowed to finish.
He'd dropped her at the Shirayan Sanctuary like a smuggler offloading forbidden cargo. Signed some scrolls. Muttered something about "evaluation" and "temporary placement." No one questioned him. His face must've been enough.
And now he was here.
In his quarters.
In the quiet.
Where all the noise started again.
He scrubbed his hands over his face, trying to breathe through the pounding. This wasn't how Jedi were supposed to feel. He wasn't supposed to ache.
He should feel relief. Isla was safe. The temple was burning. Mission accomplished.
But all he could feel was the echo of the words in Virginia's handwriting.
She's yours.
His.
A girl he let fight alone. A child whispering warnings across the galaxy because he was too busy running from the past to look.
She had saved him once. And now, all this time later, she had to ask him to save her back.
And he had almost been too late.
A tear slid down his cheek before he could stop it.
Lorn Reingard, the ghost of Mirater, the warrior of Naboo, the Shirayan Vanguard, the man who killed his own Master-
crying in the dark like a boy who just found out the world doesn't stop breaking.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees, head bowed low, and whispered the truth out loud for no one but the walls to hear:
"…I'm her father."
He didn't know what to do with that.
Didn't know how to be it.
Didn't know if he deserved to.
But the girl was here now.
And she needed him.
Not a soldier.
Not a Jedi.
Not a ghost.
Him.
So he sat there in the silence, grief settling beside him like an old friend, and made a quiet vow to the darkness.
No more running.
No more sleepwalking through duty and denial.
He was going to learn how to be her father.
Even if it killed him.
And Shiraya help the next thing that tried to take her away.
