Private Always The Reason

[Loske Treicolt]

WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE
THE RENEGADE | MIDDLE OF EVERYWHERE AND NOWHERE
WHETHER YOU LOVE WHAT YOU LOVE
OR LIVE IN DIVIDED CEASELESS REVOLT AGAINST IT
WHAT YOU LOVE IS YOUR FATE
HAVEN’T I GIVEN ENOUGH?

​

Condensation was starting to collect from the refresher that had been running for a timeless amount behind her. That was one of the things about time, it was a construct that varied from one planet to the next. Some civilizations measured themselves by summers, some by annual rotations that spanned beyond the typical hundreds of days, others by decades, some not at all. Shursia hadn’t ever considered time; they’d only considered growth and power. The distance between conception to decimation was immeasurable to her.

Time: The healer and the killer.

Frank hadn’t said anything about time. Despite numbers being the foundation of his communication. For a few scared moments, she hadn’t even remembered the droid. She’d lashed out, snapping the injections away and recoiling from touch. She’d been alarmed by the astromech's nearness, scanning and drawing blood - robotically sharing readouts with another unit. She’d faded in and out of consciousness, but tensed anytime they were near until they were more conversational, and the sounds of their voices together -- although binary -- illuminated the previously darkened memories.

In a ghostly state, she’d moved somehow from there to here. Her existence almost trance-like and disassociated.

The blonde reached out, poking her finger against the surface and started where her shoulder might have been, tracing where she thought the curves of her biceps, bosom, obliques, hips should be and tried to match the outline on the other side. When she was done, it looked grossly disproportionate. Inhuman. Too much like the shape darkness had taken inside her mind. Frenzied by the connection, she smeared through the tracing. Underneath the streak, her foggy reflection emerged.

For the most part, she looked the same. A bit paler, the darkness under her eyes deeper, skinnier, and her sternum ached. Actually ached, and she mindlessly pressed against the spot Maynard Treicolt bore the weaponized Ashla into. The mark was fleeting, impermanent. Unlike her eyes. The blue he knew so well had been bleached, leaving opalescent rings around her pupils instead of azure. Still not looking away from the reflection. It was dumbfounding to see herself untouched by blackness and she doubted the reality she saw. If this was true or not. The inability to reconcile everything that was still at war was enough to keep her seething.

But the anger in Loske’s gut was shifting, unsteady as a scab on an infected wound. The rage started to feel less authentic. Turning into something that was worse. She gripped her hands into fists so tight they ached, but she lost her hold. Shaking. The anger slid to the side and an oceanic sense of guilt rose up in her like a flood. It was too big, too pure, too painful to even have a single event to focus it. There were too many. Flashes of memories she wanted to bury beneath the tide; but afraid that if she hid all she was ashamed of, she’d bury herself too. And be lost again.

Guilt was bigger than all the suns, moons and stars and all the galaxies between each one. Whatever it was, all of it, was her fault and her failure. It was more than she’d done something bad. She’d been bad. She’d been evil, and nasty. She’d hurt the people she loved and loved her. Like the fossil of an ancient animal was flesh and had been replaced by stone, whoever Loske had been once kept her shape but had been replaced by a raw and rising sense of loss.

Sinking against the juncture of wall and floor within the refresher, she wrapped herself up to emulate the fossilized stone she felt like. Arms over her knees, her head resting in between, and let the cold fall of rain from above wash her grief down the drain. All those sins coalescing and circling around the drain. The fabric of her clothing clung to her akin to the blackened sinews she’d lived with for too long, and she rolled her hands over the rises of the fabric as if scrubbing the wrinkles away would release the torment. As if it were so easy.

​

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

OATH​

His eyes fluttered open to the sound of the door hissing open behind him, he twisted his neck to peer past the back of the pilot’s seat to view the source of the interruption. Being as the quick glance revealed no silhouette he was able to determine immediately it was one of the astromechs and thus he shifted forward again, crossing his arms over his chest as buried himself against the seat.

The toll of what it took to get her back, reassemble some semblance of normalcy which was dashed against the jagged edges of Shursia, the parasite. It was a price heavier than any trial that enveloped him to this point.

He didn’t want to think or talk about any of it again. Wanted her back, as they were before. That clearly, was a delusional aim. Even after Shursia’s fate was sealed, there was no ignoring the

::Scans come back the same as before, she's totally clean. :: Buddy communicated to Maynard in a series of binary beeps to which he replied with a nod, peering back forward to the psychedelic fixation of hyperspace.

"Thanks, Buddy." Maynard acknowledged.

:: Another thing...you might wanna check on her, if you have the time. :: The droid spoke up again, trying to delicately make the suggestion without sounding any alarm to him.

"Wh- is she alright?" Maynard asked, the suggestion brought him to a full state of conscious awareness as he sat up fully in the seat, turning it to face the droid who rocked back and forth in affirmation.

:: Yes, yes. Apologies, she's...physically in no danger at all just...I think she'd be better if you were with her. :: A contrast to the impression he'd gotten when he first was able to bring her aboard. There was no consoling the damage embedded into her consciousness, not now. She needed time to adjust, to get used to her very own flesh and bone again. Maynard was accommodating as he could be to this point. Every signal she gave in body language showed that...she needed time alone and wasn't fully comfortable with him again, yet. And in spite of the less than spacious arrangement that came with The Renegade, he gave her the space she needed, relegating himself to the cockpit, cargo bay, whatever it was where she would feel comfortable. After all, the freighter was in constant need for maintenance, upgrades, there was always something to do to keep his hands occupied as she rehabilitated.

"Where is she?" He asked outright, standing up to his feet as he began to make his way from the cockpit, stepping past the droid.

:: Lavatory...has been for a little bit now, I'll keep watch of the sticks for you. :: Buddy offered, having long adjusted to Maynard's vernacular, the Jedi simply offered a nod in the droid's direction.

With metallic footfalls he approached the last known location of Loske, the door slid open and immediately the sound of trickling water gave way past the idle smokiness of the room that came with the warm waters of the refresher in use. Through the foggy glass screen he could view her silhouette. Low, huddled against the wall.

He lifted the thumb over the control panel of the door into the refresher proper. He relented a moment, certain in giving her the peace of mind that came with a safe solitude, time might heal over the wounds, smooth over the scars.

But he needed her as much as he hoped she needed him. Needed her whole, herself again. Reclaimed from this horrid yet vindicated solemn.

The door hissed open and he stepped forward into the path way of the trickling rain of water. Impartial to the clothes steadily soaking through from the exposure. He sat himself next to her and nestled himself closely, wrapping his right arm around hers, the metallic digits of his exposed cybernetic hand clutching her closely to him as the other arm came to embrace her just the same. He sat with her, in silence. He wasn't sure if he'd take to him but at least, so long as they've been one with the other, those moments of great isolation and pain, they were the first life line they'd grasp in one another.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Despite the steady rainfall, the rhythm did nothing to soothe her soul. Ryv, Elpsis, Aaran, Djorn, Maynard, the crew of Profundity — they all flashed in front of her. Their pained screams were eternal in her mind, reverberating in the walls of her psyche. She tightened in on herself, folding in and constricting her silhouette to something more solid. Immovable from the rotting pain that gnawed at her existence.

In all those times, Loske might not have been in control of her actions, but she’d been present. A watchwoman. Trapped in a prison of her own body and mind, helpless and numb to act, watching everything take place. All the hurt, all the damage. It was only through some level of control she’d managed to not outright kill them but..it hadn’t been enough. She hadn’t been enough.

She’d been through this before, on Borosk, when Allyson and Ryv had shared their moments of torment with her. But she hadn’t been responsible. This time though, she was. Every injury had been by her...claw. Some semblance of self had damaged those she loved most.

Sometimes memories were like stars, brilliant and guiding. Others were like stains.

In the abandoned corridors of her heart, she could hear his footsteps approaching. Not physically, but through their bond. His existence encroached on hers. But in the corporeal realm, she was so withdrawn into herself, contracting in her thoughts, that she didn’t react to Maynard until he was with her. Touching her. Wrapping her up in concern and care. For a moment, she clung to him –– So that something human might exist in the chaos. Shuddering through her breaths.

Steam rolled in wisps around them as if they were suspended in the clouds of the heavens. At first, it was fine. Nice, even. A touch that brought forth the resurgence of memories time and time again and she felt herself involuntarily both accepting and nestling against him too; her eyes still tightly shut so every ounce of sorrow and salt would be squeezed from her eyelids.

Never before had she wanted to say so much, but say so little; Felt so much but stayed so silent. She wanted to explain, but her soul was tied up in knots.

But then, just as she was starting to sink into comfort and silent kindness, that hold felt too much like the warm wrap of the symbiote, and she gasped, repelling herself in a jolt to freedom. Loske wrenched, and trembled, putting space between them in the slippery confines of the shower. It wasn't far enough to completely evade his grip, she remained at the tenuous end of his metallic touch. Assessing it. Looking to trust it, re-affirm that it was true and not the hostile rapture she'd known. Her expression was contorted, pained at the memories his touch brought –– shared between the wonderful and monstrous.

Wide-eyed, her opalescent gaze flashed with terror and everything about her melted into grief. His expression was almost matched in dismay. Where her lines were hardened with self-hatred, he returned something softer –– more pleading. It was like a knife to her heart. Or claws to her eyes, or..or...all the horrible things she’d done.

For all the evil she’d committed, the greatest atrocity would be to let it define her. To continue to be that thing. She wanted to wallow –– she had to. She had to come to terms with it. But it had already been obvious she wasn’t capable of beating it by herself, and the man closest to her, drenched and soaked through in the shared rain, was responsible for pulling her from the clutches, the deepest mire. She owed him enough to let him in at least.

At first, she opened her mouth to speak. Nothing but a breath was heard. Drowned out by the rainfall.

“I––” Then again, an exhale pushed out by fear so profound it felt like calm. She wilted. That physical rigidity she’d thrown up in retaliation to the mental attack melted, washed away, and adjusted back to her original space. A little looser. “It’s all their blood on my hands. It’s not coming off.”

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

He should’ve been wiser in that moment, to piece together the parallels that his instinctive embrace wrought down upon her. Welcoming arms in place of the dark, sinewy embrace. His face was drawn in solemn confusion for a moment before it seemed to settle to indifference. This path would be a hard one to walk, he’d known that. He couldn’t exist in any shred of delusion that because the worse had passed, it could all be normal and whole again. Perhaps time would heal these wounds. But it was time neither of them could spare in the aimless strife.

When she spoke again, his heart dropped at the dreadful sentiment matched with the cherished sound of her voice, playing to his ears like an orchestra out of tune. When she spoke of her bloodied hands, Maynard reached out with both of his, one flesh and bone, the other mechanical. She’d yet to be able to tell her how or why that wound came to be, that time would come. It’s all healed over, save for the biting, red markings mirroring those very sinewy talons that dug into his neck, similar in kind to the marks he’d departed Muunilinst with.

“Give me your hands.” It was all but a command, if only mouthed in a voice of veiled frigidity over a tone of compassion for her. Regardless, it spelled patience. Patience he might not be able to spare for any other.

He took her hands into his, the nervous reluctance evident in her movements. He offered a smooth caress of his thumbs along the back of her hands as his gaze shifted to silver eyes.

“I don’t see blood...but I know what you mean. Because of what that thing did...you feel that guilt, as if it was all your doing.” Maynard says, peering down to her hands again.

“But you don’t have her hands. She can’t hurt anyone anymore.” Maynard says, moving to take ahold of her wrist between his own cybernetic digits with a faint grip, his gaze appraising hers for approval before he’d splay her own fingers, setting her hand along the side of his own throat, impressing her open hand within the marking left from Shursia’s attempt on his life. But those sinewy talons did not match the silhouette of Loske’s own grip.

“You aren’t her...you didn’t do any of what she did...you fought her every step of the way. You called out to me....I could feel you every step of the way. Your intent...your feelings. You didn’t hurt anyone, Loske.” Maynard said, offering his best attempt to offer her a reassuring smile, even as the warm water rained down over both of them, he seemed impartial to the circumstances.

“Those people she hurt...you’d never do that...those were people you care about and your hands heal those people.” He could recall a few times. Muunilinst, Borosk, Bastion. Her touch had pulled him, herself in tandem or Ryv from the sacred silence.

“There’s no blood on your hands...” Maynard iterate/ again.

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Refusing him wasn’t an option, she’d just done it and immediately regret it –– when he asked for her hands, she obliged slowly, apprehensively. The dips and grooves of his hands meeting hers were half familiar, half frightening. How many times had those fingers woven with one another, flesh binding flesh in gentleness? And then the one was new, cold, manufactured. Her back tightened with anxiety and the possibility of how that had happened –– and all answers pointed to her in this self-reflective, guilty state. Whatever it was, had happened in that timelessness of her being away from him.

She forced herself to pull out of that internal vortex. The same one she’d been swirling in since kicking Frank in the face to get away from him since she’d regained consciousness. Maynard was trying, really trying and she owed him her ears. She owed him everything, truth be told. His vision of her was the reason she was able to self-reflect at all, and not continue to be a prisoner in a husk of horror.

Warm amber met cold white, and she forced herself not to look away. Only blinking to redirect the downpour from above.

His movements told a story, asking her permission to continue the narrative and she nodded meekly, letting him marionette her as he willed. Her palm pressed lightly against his exposed neck, the water between separating so warmth could exchange from her to the scar.

Solemnity pulled at her expression, staring at the mismatch of outlines, back to his face. He never faltered in truth; this was not a joke. This was not cruelty. This was not manipulation in its most damnable form, it was only the cusp of a negotiation. She blinked once-twice, remaining silent in her observation as if considering the truth of his words.

Water ran in rivulets from her fingertips, over her knuckles, over the back of her hand and dripping from her wrist or elbow. It remained crystal clear the whole time, never bleeding into scarlet.

She bit her lip, breathing suddenly became hard. She could do it if she wanted. Read his skin like a storybook of that horrible memory, be forced to re-live it and continue to damn herself. Beat herself down again and again until those memories became a reality, and she imprisoned herself with guilt as the eternal warden and responsibility and atonement as her guards.

Water dripped from her eyelashes and nose as she trembled, feeling like a coffin of emotion. He said she stopped it, but it hadn’t been enough. They were still worse off for seeing her, for trying to save her. She’d taken and taken and taken and all those who’d contested her had done was try to give –– give her a second chance.

Like now.

Would she admonish him too, for giving her a second chance? Prolong the pattern of mistakes until she had nothing left to prove?

Those fingertips in his metal cage vibrated, considering the delicateness of his touch and how quickly she might be able to snap here. Hurt him. Continue on that tirade. Her eyes squeezed shut and she looked down at the small pool of uncontaminated water gathered between them. Shaking and quivering in her consideration, but she never moved her hand. Her battle had once been between herself and that symbiote - and when she’d lost, she’d (they’d) become Shursia. Now she had a battle just with herself. And if she lost..she’d become..nothing. Nothing at all. And Maynard was trying to equip her with the right shield to deflect those internal woes. She had to take up her own sword.

“I’m so sorry.” Was all she could manage and poured herself against him. Her hand slipped to grip at his arm, wedging herself into that hold once again. The wet fabric of their clothing sticking together as she pressed tighter against him, letting her tears fall uninhibited in an indiscriminate mingling with the gentle showerfall.

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

Even as she struggled to regain her footing, to slip into that same old form again, he watched her with that same adoration he always held for her and none other. The pain was as visible as any, in spite of the lack of any blood, any physical wounds on her mortal form. Her apology was a desperate cling as her body came to embrace his. Those three worn words were as common as the far more enchanting counterpart between them. Just as often as they sought to uplift and strengthen the other, so too were they mortal in the extent of their capabilities, the clarity of their intent.

"It's alright. I know." He offered as she came into his embrace again. He went to run his cybernetic hand through her drenched blonde locks only to relent, realizing the alien touch of metal might reel back the feeling of comfort and familiarity he sought to offer her in these vulnerable moments.

“There’s nothing you have to apologize for. You can make right on what she did later...but for now...just focus on you. You don’t realize how grateful I am that you’re alright, that we’re here together.” Maynard admitted, leaning back from her for a moment if only to take her eyes, her face into view again. As his left arm ran down to smooth along her back his metallic hand rose to lightly caress her cheek, fixating on her gaze, the intent in those eyes, the fear...the pain.

“I’ll be with you every step.” He reaffirmed once more, as if he’d ever shown anything otherwise was even a comprehensible idea to him. He flashed a faint smile, as if the weight of the awkwardness of the circumstances they were in with the here and now finally set in, within a running refresher, fully clothed. He hoped she might share that faint laugh, as briefly as it existed before he spoke up again, a hand reaching to tug on one of the drenched sleeves she wore.

“Should probably...get out of these. Would that be ok?” He asked, it certainly wasn’t ever before but to the woman just now getting comfortable in her own skin again, baring all to her husband might not have been so trivial as it had been before.

Regardless, Maynard began the process on himself, each exposed inch of flesh ceding a glimpse of the price he paid to reclaim her from Shursia. The lacerations of blades and shrapnel bit into the skin. Burns much of the same. Ziost and the Alliance’s return, the moment at which their strained tether snapped and broke. Separated one from the other in the in the perilous expanse.

He was careful in each of his movements, eyes wary of her expression, still struggling within himself to welcome that altered, silver gaze in place of the deep azure. But it was Loske. He'd find a way.

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Did he know? Did he know everything she’d done? Everything she’d seen a version of herself do? Did he know all of that and was still so willing and quick to forgive?

Did it matter?

Apparently not to him. To all those it might matter to, Ryv, Aaran, Djorn –– The Alliance –– he was right; that would come later. She’d have to answer to her crimes eventually, as the honourable thing to do. But there were layers to forgiveness, and she had to start with them first. Forgive herself as he seemed so ready to do on her behalf. There would be consequences for her actions, but not here. Not from him. Maynard seemed to refuse condemnation. That was the wonder of him –– through the realization of being a clone created for war, to a symbiotic weapon, he always managed to humanize her. Relegate all those denials and fears to nothing but inconsequential buzzes that flickered in and out of her mind from time to time.

Wanting to say something back, she took in another breath that was laced with rainwater. She didn’t cough. He reassured her so fervently, and so she searched through the words that spiralled and spun in her head. A tangled mess with everything else that was going on up there. Memories that were and weren’t. In her own tumult, she hadn’t taken the time to appreciate his voice, unadulterated by shared ears. By ears that took what he was saying and turning it into the opposite, making him a demon. Everything he was saying, she had the chance to respond to as herself. No internal struggle for dominance over communication.

You don’t realize how grateful I am that you’re alright, that we’re here together.”

Instead of forcing words out, she let herself be content in his tenderness and feel the warmth he was offering in his support and she nodded against the hand that cupped her cheek, a weak smile pushed through to the surface.

Together. That was the promise every time, wasn’t it? That was the fight.

He was doing everything to prevent an irredeemable schism between them. To stop her from being unforgivably isolated. She might have wanted to push him away, but her needs triumphed her wants. And she needed nothing more than him, that much had been proven.

He had to know that. She had to tell him.

“Only because of you, I––” she exhaled out her disbelief. Forcing herself to continue despite her own voice sounding foreign with so many syllables. She hadn’t spoken out loud with so much emotion behind her words in...forever. Even the explanation of the blood on her hands had felt like she was still in a trance. One he shattered. “I can’t believe I didn’t lose you. Even when I lost myself.”

Feeling a golden glow glitter through their bond, and she realized he was finding something funny. Even in its brevity, and she looked down to consume the joke. It was too far-gone from her to laugh, but she realized his closeness and reassurance was what was more successful in washing the proverbial blood from her hands, less so the manufactured droplets of the shower. Silly, how was she supposed to have washed clean and step out anew with a layer between? He moved to reinforce his coming suggestion with touch, gently acknowledging the slick article that clung to her skin.

Her acceptance was gentle and silent, not retreating. Not moving away. Like the first time he’d kissed her, his permission was given by her not acting in contrast. This time, it was a little slower; unsure of the boundaries of her comfort. Maynard Treicolt respected them, undefined and fluctuating as they were. She was numbed by concern, regarding the marks on his skin. All they meant, and all he’d been through.

Many of them matched the marring on his neck, and she felt a spike of culpability again. Any other time she would have gasped and stepped in, kissing and tracing the wounds. Usually, she’d be there when they were fresh. But as he undressed, she realized the pitiful reality that all this had happened while she’d been someone else. And she couldn’t put a timeline to what was new and what was old. Even naked, violence clothed him. He could tell her the stories of the scars or let her read them through touch but she shirked at that idea. The concept of being in someone else’s head again was… scary.

Especially since she was wary even to conjure stories from the surface of their shared home; apprehensive that it might trigger something unseen again and activate another hellscape for her to live in. She felt fragile and complicated, but he touched her with regard that insisted she would not break. He kept his eyes on her with an unhurried sort of focus that made her involuntarily feel goosebumps.

With her layers shed, she took a moment to run her hands over her thighs, hips, arms, stomach. Small burns and indents from plasma fire and flames –– from her contest with Elpsis above Ziost –– had left marks. The grossest was perhaps the gnarled stitching from Djorn’s blaster on Generis, a shot that had temporarily suspended her in death before she’d surrendered entirely to the creature in order to survive. Then, of course, the burn over her heart. It was surprisingly less wretched than the piercing she’d acquired on Muunilist once upon a time. All stories. All scars.

“You were my last line of defence,” Loske said suddenly, idly reaching to trace the exposed wiring of his cybernetic. As long as she could see the trajectory of her touch, relative to him, she felt in control. Like herself. Not coated in inky unknown. She followed the robotic lines to where they connected again with human flesh and furrowed her brow into a thoughtful expression.

“On Ziost, I thought I hid you so she couldn’t find you. Afterward, there was –– I don’t know what it was, some dark ritual and vision… and she pulled every fear out of me. I tried to remember what you said, about the power of being here and now, and she took that, mutated it and used it to connect every remembered moment of contention we might have had just mutated into the worst case. I..” she covered her face again for a moment, forcing herself to talk through this with him. Her palms dragged back down, finding their way back to him. Again, conscious of the free-moving ability she had. The choice to interact without maliciousness or a foreign coating.

“That became reality. And I don’t know how long I was in there, but you ––” she gestured. “I don’t know where to begin. With me, with you, with us.”

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

There wasn’t any divergent timeline or line of thinking where he didn’t treat her as he did. Stripping away the imposed obligation that came with her born programming or anything else, none of it mattered in his eyes. That boundless care and compassion she’d shown woven with the imperfect nature of it all made her as ‘human’ as any other and he’d refuse treatment otherwise.

In spite of the intimacy the refresher offered, he allowed her the room to peel the drenched layers from herself. However, just as she looked over him in just concern, shedding fresh wounds scarred over her unhealed by her touch and care so too did he carry a similar eye of sorrow as she bared herself to him. He stepped closer again, similarly as her hand reached to idly fumble through the exposed and insulated segment of nervous network running through his cybernetic, he offered the faintest touch, rolling the back of his fingers along the jagged and gruesome stitching that came from the blaster bolt digging into her flesh.

It wasn’t fair, to him. For her to continue carrying the burdens of what the parasite did. While Maynard was clearly scathed in his own personal crusade of her reclamation, he’d pay that price each time it was set before him if it meant they’d both be standing here and now again.

Far away from anyone or anything else, within the safety and caring touch only the other could offer. Which made the mental recovery of that gruesome sight smooth over just as quickly. He’d smoothed over equally gruesome wounds marring her perfect form, he could move through this all the same, a reminder in her of the cost it took to get her back. He could see in the growing confidence of her minute movements that she was affirmed again that Shursia was no more.

“I remember Ziost, yeah. There wasn’t anything you could’ve done, Loske. It- it messed with everyone like that. I certainly felt it...the lies. I thought you’d...done something horrible to me, I felt betrayed. But- it doesn’t matter now.” He remarks, attempting to seal the forgiveness for the fabricated crime he reaffirmed that physical comfort with her again in a way in which he didn’t wish to intrude on her, slowly running his hands to lay on her hips, settling his fingers into the soft skin with a lax embrace of the flesh, his gaze continually set unto her silver eyes as she spoke again.

“We don’t... have to begin anywhere except where we left off. There’s nothing you have to apologize for, certainly not to me. Though- I know things aren’t that simple. To just...leave it all behind, whatever you need to say...or do to push you past what they did to you...we’ll do together.” Maynard offered, his organic hand reaching up to gently grasp her cheek again. He wasn’t delusional to think his presence or voice alone could right the wrongs or seal the wounds itself. This path, to recover and forsake the tortured past would be a complex, winding one. One he’d not leave her side on. Anything for her was worthwhile and he’d proven that scores over by now, even if most battles went unseen.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

“Betrayed?” She parroted, glancing down quickly at his touch on her hips. Initially, she tensed. Now that she was completely exposed, she had a better line sight for if those black streaks emerged from her skin again. After a few seconds, nothing happened. No stir of her stomach, no quiver through her pores. She relaxed and leaned in.

For what he admitted to feeling, his gaze never hardened. It remained soft and open, inviting her to the safety of the conversation.

“The lies? Plural?” Loske tried to retrace back to the origin, and what had relaxed became tight again, trepid to traipse back in time unequipped. There was still so much she didn’t understand.

“What else did I –– from me?” Her face folded into a frown, darkening at the admission of hurt and confusion he’d felt from her. Because of her. Because she’d said yes to The Alliance, because –– no. No, that was an insidious way to think. That’s how The Lady of Secrets had initially sunk her talons in.

Her eyes clouded for a moment, becoming distant again. Busying herself with the menial task of familiarizing herself with...herself. Running her fingers through her hair, encouraging the collected ash to run from the blonde and the grime collected on her shoulders and curves to slip off in the water. The gentle pitter-patter of rainfall she’d grown accustomed to now, letting in course down her, washing them both of what they wanted to leave behind. But he was right, it wasn’t that simple. And as much as there was to mentally wrestle, there were physical steps she could take in righting all the wrongs. Or at least shifting her mindset with different locations and activities. She gave a brief touch to his hair, affectionately running her fingers through the damp chestnut and appraising him still. Overwhelmed with the stirrings of gratitude within. She’d put him through the wringer, it seemed, and he still chose to trust her. To save her.

“Feth. You deserve.. so much more Maynard. More safety. My mind has always been a mess. Fake memories, lame defences, it’s easy to get into. You’re not safe in it. And she exposed it and I.. betray you. Anything I thought I could do just..” her voice became smaller, gradually. “Wasn’t enough.”

“We don’t... have to begin anywhere except where we left off.

“That seems so long ago,” she mumbled forlornly with a sigh. Just as she’d been responsible for getting them into the confined space, she took the initiative to get them out. Tenderly reaching for his cybernetic, she initiated a backward step –– intent on bringing him with her. Every step of the way.

Where they left off..she wasn't ready for that. There were so many unknowns between then and now and falling back to that place felt irresponsible. She had things to answer to, things she'd done to him that she had to understand.

“Before..” she brushed his metal hand again, crinkling in confusion and weaving her fingers within the carved-out spaces and leading him from the refresher, pressing the button to stop the stream of water on her way out. “This.”

A horrible consideration crossed her mind, and she built up a deep enough breath to release it shakily. She tried to keep herself busy with movements, a towel she used to pat at the exposed silver.

“Was this because of me? I..I can remember a lot but this I –– I can’t see. ” It was woefully inconclusive. Again. A pattern of existence she should have been used to by now.

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

When he’d only unveiled a sliver of the wrongs done unto him at Ziost, only to inflict her with a beguiling, hurtful bout of confusion, he immediately felt the compulsionto retract any of the statement at all. The last he wanted to do was to dig her deeper into that pit. Guilt, sorrow, whatever swelled in the underlying darkness, he wanted to keep her out and away from that.

“It was- something Raaf or...the Sith did. You never said anything yourself. You never lied to me.” He felt the need to reiterate in simple terms. He would never want to place her in a position where she’d felt she hurt him, certainly not now.

Those closing moments together beneath the warm and soothing rainfall, he could see more of her returning again. More of that vibrant, loving woman that’d left their chamber prior to the first battle of Ziost, only to be incapacitated and hidden away by Shursia. That moment where she’s smoothed her hand through his hair, treading the same gesture she’d done countless times over only to look to him with new shades of gratitude and longing. He couldn’t help the smile that followed, only to be snapped back into place by her words.

“I deserve more? Loske...you’re so much more than I’ve ever had, than I ever could deserve. These...these are all things that we go through and we’re better from it. It was times like that which drew us together to begin with. All why I love you. Whatever it costs...I don’t care. I just need you, whatever it takes to keep you here, by my side...I’ll pay that price every time.” Maynard admitted, following her step from the refresher as she began to appraise the cybernetic. The feeling of the metallic grip and digits was foreign all the same to him. But he’d adjusted, adapted to it as he had anything else, all the other violent, altering circumstances that enveloped him.

“No- Ziost, about the time...she took control of you. But I wasn’t anywhere near. You were in orbit and I was planetside, New Adasta. Got shelled by...I couldn’t tell you what. All I remember is I didn’t skip a beat, kept going till we reached the city center...flamers, overrun and last I remember from that was getting exfil’d by gunship. It was a shitty day, to say the least. One you’d be better off...not seeing for yourself.” Maynard admitted, able to recall the mental strain her sighting his dogged exploits on Muunilinst did unto her psyche. Ziost would all more than likely be much, much worse . His voice dipped into shades of solemn with those final words. The Wolfpack put to the slaughter once more, under his command.

“I think it’ll be a bit before I- before I go back out there, to war.” Maynard admitted. After all he’d stared death in the face some four times over successively, aimlessly clawing to get her back as he marched through the meat grinder. Now she was here, safe, with him and he’d truthfully had far more blood on his hands as a result of this crusade than she ever did. That guilt, he couldn’t separate from schismatic memories. It was all by his will, his hand. He laid the stones to her with broken souls and ashen corpses. But the last he’d ever care to do was expand on that toll to her, to deepen that guilt. He’d contain those sins to himself.

“That is- if you’d be alright with us...making up for missed time. Until you fully feel yourself again, I don’t wanna leave you for anything else.” Maynard offered.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

I NEED YOU SO MUCH CLOSER
​

While he spoke, reciting his vows with such earnestness she almost shattered, he just..touched her. Kept her in one piece and felt the bones under the shape of her skin as if he was comforted just by physically knowing she was right beneath his fingertips. Closer than they’d been in a timeline, and closer than when he had been shelled from above. The words he said took seconds to connect in her mind, racing through her memory palace to associate things as known and understood. The mention of flamers drew two initial reactions; the first was shared with Shursia and more vivid from recency, the second was a long-ago conflict shared with Maynard and Wolfpack. Perhaps one of the only crusades they’d personally elected to join that aligned closest to their vista.

Closing her eyes tight, Loske drew in a sharp breath through her teeth. She hated this. She hated that there was latency between his explanation and her comprehension, diluted by the debris of the parasite that had leached her mindscape. While her skin was liberated from the oppressive onyx suit, there still felt like scum lingering in her psyche.

She was barely afforded the chance to flash a small, knowing smile when he admitted to not missing a beat. That affectionate sentiment of you never do resurfaced from the murky depths of her mind.

And yet, through it all, something in her chest slipped a little tighter and the clenched line of her eyelids quivered. When she opened her eyes, they snapped up from the mechanical nerves of his forearm to his gaze when he mentioned not seeing it for herself. And for a horrible instant, her memory failed again, realizing she missed out on a reference she should have understood. A heartbeat later, it flashed within grasp.

The hypersensitivity of their bond revealed a fluctuation of the delivery, and his own emotions cooled her potentially aggravated response. There was a heavy responsibility to his words, laden with gratitude and regret. A bittersweet combination that made her uncomfortable, but drew another reflection from her memory bank. It allowed her to connect and realize that her journey through hell hadn’t been entirely alone; he’d trudged through fires in parallel.

Her gut was tight. Anger warmed her throat and shoved her jaw forward like a tumour at the base of her jaw. The target of her anger was wide and vague, but it was deep and powerful. Angry at herself, angry at Raaf, angry at The Alliance, angry at The Galaxy and all it’s injustices that let this man give and give and give and give and give while only giving him what...her? In return? And that was enough? She wasn’t enough. The scales were unfairly weighted and it wasn’t justice that was blind, it was him. Hand after hand was dealt unfairly, but he kept playing.

And here Maynard Treicolt was trying to make it better for her. All for her. This pattern wasn’t helping either of them. If she wanted to make improvements; she’d have to pull herself out of self-hate. Refocus her energy on trying to match him in giving and love.

"Missed time." She repeated again, her voice small. She didn't touch on going back. Not yet. Nor her recovery. "I don't..I don't want to miss any more time with you. I can't. I just...can't."

He wanted them to go back to where they left off –– above Ziost; in Trust and Love. On Serenno; in Trust and Love. Where they left off — in a kiss of death, accepting whichever consequence their fate beckoned. They didn't need to know what happened in between for either of those but..she felt so incomplete. It was almost too much to reconcile knowing that once more, for experimental purposes, her memories weren't as fortified as they should have been. And someone else had infected them. On the brink of tears again, she swallowed the swell in her throat.

"I need you too." She forced herself to move through the hesitation, through whatever physical apprehensions she had and focus on that necessity for trust, and ran her hands up his chest slowly, tracing and thumbing the imperfections with her mouth curved in a thoughtful line. The bumps, the bruises, the burns, everything she'd originally just seen she felt all of it with her own fingers in languid consideration. He was pleading with her to go slow, encouraging her to take the time she needed to recover. The time they both needed.

But all that pain in his voice...

“You..” The question left unasked. What did you do? She bit her lip, acutely aware of the pricking sensation. Loske wasn’t ready to ask because she wasn’t ready for the answer. She was barely managing to keep her head above water with her own broken memories.

...But she did anyway.

“When are you going to tell me what happened to you?”

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

If only his view of her aligned with how she viewed herself. He understood the desperation of these moments, these compulsive need to sequester herself into the darkest recesses of her thoughts. He'd been victim to much of the same many times before. It bewildered him how the circumstances could be in reverse of what was. Remembering that time of solemn in exfiltration from Brentaal IV, the Chaso Gate event when he first looked into her eyes, a man who felt wounded and alone and saw someone he loved, cherished more than anything else. Someone he desperately needed in his life, not to directly dictate how to better himself, but to act as the catalyst of meaning and poignance to each action. Someone worthy of sacrifice, to imagine a future with, to manifest purpose.

In that, he realized there would be moments when he'd have to take the lead on behalf of the both of them, be the pillar she could lean on in these moments of need, when his presence and reassurance would've kept her from drifting toward the brink leading to an even deeper chasm of the darkness.

Even as he took this mantle and responsibility in earnest, the sorrow she felt reflected onto him, even if dampened by his compulsive need to uplift her.

"Missed time."
"I don't..I don't want to miss any more time with you. I can't. I just...can't."

"Then you won't..." Maynard remarked, almost interrupting her distressed sentiment. In time, her hands rose up to run along his chest, raising one of his own to lightly grasp one of her wrists, resting the palm against the back of her hand as it rested against his flesh. His gaze matched hers with a degree of roaming admiration he'd not been able to look at her with since Life Day, Coruscant. When they'd last committed to that vaunted 'dream' between them. Then, as there was now, whatever weight of obligation or tortured, burning memory faded to nothingness, only Loske was worthy of any level of attention or care.

And she sought to dredge those burning memories from the depths he buried them into. Instead of seeking to make the climb, the ascension, she wanted to rip open his own wounds and bleed with him. Ever the tragic romantics they always seemed to be.

He sighed deeply, an errant rattle to the action to expose a deeper apprehension, reluctance. She wasn't ready to absorb that information.

"If that's really what you want...- just promise me, from then forward...we're focused on healing you." Maynard states in all but command, anticipating her acceptance to the terms, he grasped ahold of her wrist again, clutching ahold of that hand he rested it against his own cheek before his grip smoothed down to grasp ahold of the side of her neck, pressing his temple to hers, he shut his eyes and let her absorb the memory in all its candid foreboding.

T H E _ W O L F
THE GALACTIC ALLIANCE
104th MARINE BATTALION 'WOLFPACK'
ZIOST | NEW ADASTA
Armor [ 104th Skin ] | Concord Brawn | Lightsaber

SAND​

The memories projected back in a frantic pace. She erupted into viewing through his eyes the memory she requested overtly, the cold grey ash, the rush of movement and roar of repulsors. By then she could piece together this was the onset of the assault, the first siege of New Adasta. The very moments before Loske all but faded away in favor of Shursia. Command chatter and orders being relayed all played back in a vague haze of voices before suddenly a flash and there was nothing.

When the vision returned, Maynard was a nigh broken man, blood and gore evident in the white and wolf grey armor that clung to his form, his right arm, aligning with what she knew now, a charred and gorey void in its place, a useless nub. He seemed almost alarmingly indifferent to the event, taking up his blade and sparking the familiar cobalt alight again. Moments later, Krau Rook was at his side and he was once more into the fray. In those moments, it was then the pain of The Lie shot through his understanding of reality and the world went dark.

While Maynard was typically the aggressive and powerful fighter in his approach to combat, the darkness made his advantage that much more brutal, sludgy in its movements. He cut Sith Troopers, Graug in horrific means, ordered them burnt away in flame. The machinations of a truly cruel man, a betrayed man.

The Wolves gathered in the city square as the Graug Hordes washed over them in sentient waves. In spite of the wounds, the lifeblood trickling from his tortured body, Maynard continued to press onward, each swipe of the blade drawing more and more from his withering pool of energy...will to continue. Eventually...it faded to black the sounds of saws and surgical instruments welcomed the next vision as the cybernetic she was running her fingers through moments before was melded to flesh.

The entropic descent continued further.

Ziost again, familiar black skies, cities bathed in ash. A battle as any other, the scars and wounds barely callaced when he led the wolves into the fray again.

Then the hellfire rained down over them. He mustered every fiber of his being, his will to save what he could but the horrific fury skewered his capabilities in the force. The wolves were left to bleed on New Adasta again. But he pressed onward, that cobalt blade relentless in each swipe and surge of the blade.

He reawakened in Stranglehold, the violent rip of Raaf's flagship from the beyond. The memories seemed to work in an ascending pace now, he didn't care to show the gruesome detail to her. She didn't need that, not now. Failure, again. More of his own dead at his command, more blood on his hands. As much as he swore to carry this burden alone, he irresponsibly exposed her to it. He had the delusion that...if she sought to reopen the wounds, it be better left to when they were still well and fresh in both of them. Perhaps, a neccessary step to move past them, to look within themselves, realize where their faults lied and press onward as he always seemed to. As they always seemed to.

He all but violently pulled her from this trance, not daring to risk unveiling the final bout that it took to free her. Not daring to expose Shursia to her.

He opened his eyes, shifting his gaze to hers once more before he pulled her into a close embrace, wrapping both arms around her as he leaned his head over her shoulder, clasping her blonde locks in his cybernetic grip. He needed his own moment of healing and in spite of the faulty foundations she offered in her own grieving, it was mutual dependency.

"Now we can move on...together." He reassured, offering an idle caress of his hand through her golden locks.

 

[Loske Treicolt]

G H O S T​

"Then you won't..."

She believed him.

His eyes reinforced the promise his mouth made and she felt her fingertips drag against the surface of his skin as though she were pulling that commitment closer to her, clothe herself in it. Vitriol waned, replaced with an enamoured crinkle of a broken smile. Her relief for his sanctuary was wordless, but the purity of joy brightening her expression spoke loud enough.

"If that's really what you want...- just promise me, from then forward...we're focused on healing you."

Was that what she wanted? She could hear the reluctance at the edges of his gradual acceptance, and she couldn’t place the rueful source. Was he hesitant because reliving it would hurt him? Or her? Or both?

Despite his concern, he moved with gentle purpose; his intentions clear. Her mouth went dry as trepidation ballooned at the back of her throat. Loske wanted to know, but she didn’t want to see — not yet. She wasn’t ready. She wanted to be told. To nod along at the understandable parts, gasp at the parts that were horrible, hold him at the parts that were unutterable. But this –– this was..scary. Fear gripped her chest and tightened, forcing her air out so she was breathless to protest.

Panic rose from her belly to her throat to her mouth and died there before she could say wait — no — I’m not ready.

Her heart thrummed with the words she should have said, should have warned, should have protested, the lingering taste of molten disappointment on her tongue.

Her fear was only mitigated by her empathy; understanding that talking about it wasn’t something he felt he could do. Like he wouldn’t be able to get through the words so she could understand and get the answers she sought. Speaking about his experience was beyond ability.

That meant it was almost too consuming to bear, and she felt responsibility reshape her wanting for the sake of filling in her own mental gaps, to protect and prevent him from his loneliness with the grief. She wanted to understand what he was going through.

So she kept her denial silent and fortified herself to accept whatever it was he had to offer. She’d deal with it. And if she couldn’t.. he was right here. Promising to help, to make it better. She couldn’t keep pushing him away; she wasn’t strong enough to keep that pattern up.

When he placed his tender touch on her neck, resting his head against hers, Loske inhaled sharply and closed her eyes, letting the same breath out slowly. Her eyes moved between his, trying to capture the green-hazel fire in their depths but only managing a brief, bright flash before he closed them and she mirrored the motion.

He was going to open his mind to her and she was going to establish a bridge, walk across it, and dive into the sea of his memories. Whether she liked it or not. The undertow of their tragedy was too strong to deny, and she was a corpse swept away.

“Uuhn..” Loske moaned, feeling her knees buckle as the connection was made between his history and their present. Maynard’s welcoming mind like a brilliant glow at the end of a tunnel that her curiosity followed without question. And she was dragged along behind it, powerless to control her own reactions.

Everything folded into a blur. Rising steam hardened and evolved into falling ash, and warm air that hung loosely around her shoulders cooled and hardened. The lingering water that hadn’t dripped from her body turned into salty beads of sweat, and her - his - eyes flashed around. Her vision was darker, obstructed by the protective dimming of the visor The white noise of the ship’s ducts escalated to loud communication, commands that were too jumbled to untangle and understand before a shockwave of everything collided against him. Pain snapped against the back of his neck, back, shoulders, everything was completely overwhelmed and all bearings were lost.​

​

For a long, stretching, painful moment, there was nothing but blackness, shattered only with a desperate heave and gasp for air. Anger and betrayal seeped into his - her - their chest like a parasite; thick and hard to breathe. Pain stretched through his - her - their right arm and clawed at their shoulder. It felt as though he was operating with a spike in his throat, daggers in the place of vertebrae. Blood and viscera spilling to the shattered stone beneath him, striking the grey earth red. Crimson blurred into grey and cobalt, movement, violence, barbarity, fury. Heaps and mounds of fallen wolves, crushed beneath metal and stone, were as far as he could see. Soft, broken shapes and outlines of the pack. The parasite in their chest formed a harpoon of hate, that dug into every fibre and manifested in unthinkable brutality.​

​

Gunmetal skies jittered, ash thickening and turning into rolling clouds and shadows. Brilliance filled the skies, piercing through the smokey clouds in superheated destructure. There was blood everywhere, and he was lost in it. Breathing blood instead of air. Soldiers, packmates, men, brothers, incinerated instantly from the hellfire deluge. Those that survived erupted alongside him, their shouts and jeers and will to survive burning pride into the well of guilt and self-loathing that filled the waters of his soul. In the recesses of his mindscape, a forceful beckon to retreat faded and pushed out of audible recognition. Loske could only feel the shift in his gut, the resolution to disobey and see things through. Not give up. Never give up.​

​

Skies tightened and hardened to metal archways, cast in shadows. Monstrous silhouettes slashed and gnashed against more brethren, and she watched more armour clatter to the ground. As if he could only stand there, feeling the thin vibrations of the ship rattling up through the soles of her feet, up her aching spine, to the crown of her head. Their screams endlessly reverberating through the corridors of his mind. The echoes of their bodies being torn apart somehow loud the ship’s proverbial silence. The most distant sounds drowned out the heavy breathing in his ears and she pushed himself –– herself away. Ripping the connection apart an instant before ….!​

​

The world of his mind faded and receded, closing his spectral fist over his memories and keeping them safe in his hand. Away from her. Another hand reached out to wrap her up and draw her out.​

Hush settled: stinging and wounded.

Loske was quiet for a long time, a sense of mourning blooming in her chest. Thick and aching. This was a lot. This meant a lot. He’d felt so much, faced so much, and it all cost so much. So much death. So much hate. So much hurt. There was no serenity there, for however long he’d been apart. Nothing he shared that seemed peaceful.

In his embrace, she was quivering, her legs still weak, her head swimming as if fading in and out of consciousness. It wasn’t a gasp that drew her back to lucidity, but rather rhythmic inhale-exhale-patterns she didn’t realize she’d adopted from him through the vision and carrying into their present.

Her eyes remained closed, lulled into the back of her head. Nausea threatened. Tears soaked her eyelashes and cheeks. Her heart thrummed, lightning behind her breastbone. A hard pitch in her stomach. Overstimulated. Her brain was in overdrive, blood trickled from her nose. It was a miracle she hadn’t collapsed. She clung to him to keep upright, as much as it was to provide and seek comfort. His weight pressed into her like a shadow: ethereal but far too light for the weight he shared in promise and pain and the spark he lit within her. Her hands moved to brace the back of his head and neck.

It was a miracle she could be here, out of the hellscape she’d lived as a demon in, and surrounded by the comforting arms, the warmth, the tangible presence of the man she loved. She felt safe for the first time in a long time, felt hope in a dark present. She was desperate for the peace his arms promised, for the confidence that his chest against hers inspired.

All the enveloping sensations he’d shared with her faded to tertiary awareness, and reality focused on the warmth of his skin against her. Not the cold embrace of a metal ship, nor the natural vibrations of the thrusters keeping them in hyperspace. Instead, the softly shaking thumps of his heart against her collarbone. The ridges of his body, the softness of his skin, the pressure of his need in the nook of her shoulder. She could feel her scalp tingle at the gentle, affectionate strokes within her tresses, pulling and releasing, pulling and releasing in rhythmic yearning.

"Now we can move on...together."

“We—-“ she started and didn’t finish. Again, breathless at the weight of it all.

Nausea poked at her cheeks, scratching to see if it would take. If her stomach would clench and heave all the bile and upset out, but she staved it off by keeping her eyes closed and concentrating on the feeling of him and everything he poured out.

No wonder he didn’t want to go back. Loske realized that going back would reap serious consequences on both of them. The blood on their hands...Maynard hadn’t blamed her for the stains she saw on her skin, claiming she had an excuse: It hadn’t been her; it had been Shursia. But for him, all the blood on his hands, that was because of him. And he did this because of her. It ended up being one in the same, honey and wildfire were both the colour gold.

“You..all that pain..You were going to bury that forever, willingly forget..is that how you move on? Is that what we do?" What did she say? Admonish him for being so mono-focused and emotionally charged? How far he’d gone for her? Apologize for everything he’d seen? He’d done? He’d felt? How alone he’d been through all that?

But that had been his vow, the vow they’d given to one another. He just lived it, every ounce of it, so entirely. And she was insurmountably grateful for all he was. Everything.

She wanted to kiss him. Every cell in her body wanted it, drawn like matter into a black hole, like gravity. The pull was titanic, nearly irresistible. She’d been in his head, been there as him as he felt so sad, so defeated, and she wanted more than anything to make his eyes light up, to feel him smile against her lips.

Even if it terrified her.

They had both spent a timeline feeling bad. He wanted her to feel good, she wanted him to feel good; they might have been the only ones able to deliver to one another. She didn’t realize she’d done it until she was looking into his eyes, but both her hands were on either side of his cheeks, fixing his focus on her.

Hesitant and languid, lips hovering inches from each other before just barely brushing against his. Testing if this was safe for him. It was soft at first, gentle, trepid with a touch like music ––or language –– that expressed anything. Now it was rage and sorrow and need.

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

Without You

He'd hoped that glimpse into his memories would've vindicated the price that he paid to ensure her return to the sense of self. He fought to the brink several times over and that desperation snapped back and lashed out at her through the reverberations of the memory, wounds not yet healed by time. It was then that the cost of the gesture fully set in, to see her face the consequences in physical manifest with a heavier pace of breathing, swimming, heaving for a life she no longer had to fight for. Not like he had to, fight for the sense of self of both of them.

But now, she couldn't be in better hands, at last, no other hands would care for her more, nurture her healing, her growth. The two of them was his sole focus at the end of it. That coveted dream still lived in a dim spark, in his heart. He hoped...he knew one day they'd see it through. But firstly, she needed to heal, before anything else.

“You..all that pain..You were going to bury that forever, willingly forget..is that how you move on? Is that what we do?"

"I don't know...I don't have the answers but- all I know is...its the past, I came out the other end, alive...I can't right any of the wrongs, I can't go back and save anyone that I couldn't then. But...getting you back, I don't care what it cost, it was worth it. Just have to do the best we can, together." Maynard replied, his organic, familiar touch running along the side of her neck before caressing her cheek in his soft embrace.

Her lips lingered just inches from his. He could see in those pale, crystalline eyes her intent. She wanted all of the same he did of her. To feel good, comfortable with one another and as she slowly, reluctantly brought her lips toward him, Maynard delved to seal the intent of the gesture, closing his eyes and pulling her into a hungry, needy kiss, his hand along her cheek running back to grasp her blonde locks between his fingers, cherishing that touch of intimacy and comfort once more. He lets it carry on a moment longer...and another...another before he eventually lets their intimate embrace of lips drift apart as he looks into her silver eyes. Still, ever the foreign sight, it made the gestured offered but a split moment before seem 'off', given the new, different presence of her gaze which began striking before settling into the comfort he was used to.

"Been waiting a long time to do that...I've missed you, I hope of all that you saw...you understood that." Maynard says, offering a forlorn smile to try and snuff away those searing memories. Futile or not.

"Your eyes are...different, you know...not blue like they used to be...should probably get you a new nickname, huh? Blue won't work as well." He remarks, ever trying to spin tragedy into something a bit more light hearted. To him, it would be that cruel and beautiful reminder of what it cost to get her back. Wasn't a bad thing, if anything, it made him grateful. He shifted in his hold of her, turning her to face the mirror, to look at herself again and reaffirm that she was Loske again as he held her in his arms from behind.

"Doesn't bother me...nothing could, now." He said, looking into her eyes in the shared reflection of both of them, drifting his lips to kiss along the side of her neck before locking eyes with her reflection.

"It's just you, me, The Renegade...I'm content to tell the Alliance to f*ck off for a bit, for you. There any place in particular you wanna go? Somewhere you can get comfortable, refamiliarize with yourself?" He inquired.

"Unless that's just here, that works for me too." Maynard offered, his arms loosely wrapped around her abdomen.

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

LOVE CHAINED

Maynard’s focus was what made him an incredible asset to The Alliance’s forces. Through sheer determination and unshakeable fervency, his will be done. But that meant uncalculated risks and his focus became everyone’s focus –– all those men’s lives, the wolfpack she’d hunted with once upon a time, were no longer because of her. Because of the Sith’s corruption on her that had made being their ally impossible. But all that horribleness, that reality, abated when he returned her vying kiss. It was easy to get lost in him, lost in this connection between them. The world—the universe—ceased to exist.

"Been waiting a long time to do that...I've missed you, I hope of all that you saw...you understood that."

Happy in the afterglow of his passion, Loske closed her eyes and kept snuggled close. A small smile curved along her buzzing lips and she blew a breath out with a slow nod, making a wistful noise at the roof of her mouth. She understood that. She felt the weight of his love, the desperation of his desire. And she could understand it now, as if she could taste the sound of his voice, the sincerity, through his skin. All the veneration and hop he saved just for her.

Knitting her brows together in the disbelief that still plagued her that this conversation was possible, her sentence was as hurried as it was heavy, like water pouring from a broken pipe. It gushed and shook in a hushed undertone: “I missed you so much. What you really are. What we are.”

She dropped her hands from curling against his cheeks to rest around his neck, linking at the nape and looking up at the sincerity he looked down at her with. There was no anger in those eyes, just a calm sort of heroic grief.

Again, she found herself with a swell at the base of her throat –– those gentle hazels had somehow been a look of hatred; so wretched in her psyche that he’d become something so opposite to the truth and it was a lie that had driven a part of her insane. Even if the woman inside had piercingly, endlessly thought about him, their love. A love that wasn’t soft; but had teeth that left wounds that never closed.

"Your eyes are...different, you know...not blue like they used to be...should probably get you a new nickname, huh? Blue won't work as well."
"Doesn't bother me...nothing could, now."

Getting over the trepidation that came with touch, Loske let herself be swallowed and maneuvered by his arms. It wasn’t harsh, it wasn’t cruel, it wasn’t going to hurt anyone she loved. He wasn’t going to morph and produce talons and keep her trapped –– he was here to reinforce. To support and help and love. Even as she involuntarily tensed at the adjustment, he moved through it, body language commanding let me.

“Ah,” She sounded like she understood, but peering back at the reflection was still an unnerving revelation. When she moved, it moved, when it reached up to touch around the edge of her eyes, she was doing the same thing. But it still felt unattached.

He was trying, she could feel the nervousness and the want humming along their intangible bond. She had to try back. She couldn’t continue to wallow; their kiss was evidential enough of that. There was progress to be made, she could do it and he’d be right there alongside her. Every step of the way.

“Maybe from The Blade of Ruusan. It burned...everything..”

Intensifying the pressure of her touch, she pulled her eyelid up just a smidge; as if the blue were trapped just behind her eyelashes and would shake out and slip back over the white. It didn’t. They remained pearlescent.

“Does this mean Poncho’s getting a second chance?” She offered, making an attempt to be as lighthearted as he was trying to be. It sort of helped; as if just smiling helped conquer the misery that clung to her.

"You never told me how you became Outrider. I always just..assumed. And The Wolf is straightforward." She grinned a bit wider, tilting her head in the direction of his and where he kissed her. They were gentle and slow, what they needed, and gave her the time to recognize the warmth of where he began against her. He felt patient, a physical truth to his way of waiting until she finished what she was saying, all the time, no matter how lengthy, before he spoke. The way his smile moved so slowly across his face that it reminded her of the moonrise, and how clearly he missed her, and how happy he was to have her back.

“The only name I’ve ever chosen for myself was yours.” She considered out loud, opening her eyes and matching his gaze in the reflection. Memories that belonged to her pushed through the mire of her mind, offering themselves up for the taking and she sorted through them as she slipped her arms over his.

“Loske Matson was an anagram at best, Friendly Blue a nickname from my squadron, Shursia..” she bit her lip, stopping herself and leaned back against him while still considering the reflection of themselves. They fit well together. There was no room for that creature here.

It sort of helped to say it out loud. Giving those selves names, dealing with them that way. It was somewhat of a meaningless exercise, given they were all her, but in reality, they were all no longer part of her. Shed. She was something new now, a little darker, a little angrier.

“That’s the first time I’ve said that name.” She admitted, feeling no pride nor fear nor..anything really, about the revelation. It was just..something she’d been. She rarely said her own name either.

"It's just you, me, The Renegade...I'm content to tell the Alliance to f*ck off for a bit, for you. There any place in particular you wanna go? Somewhere you can get comfortable, refamiliarize with yourself?"
"Unless that's just here, that works for me too."

He offered the galaxy to her, and all she could fixate on was the magnetism of responsibility. He’d already sacrificed unmentionable –– for her.

"for you."

Emotion crashed against her again, its oceanic undertow pulling at her and she exhaled an unsteady breath, tightening her grip on his forearms that were beneath her crossed arms. The ocean had no sway over her rock.

Of course he’d sacrifice for her. Of course she’d sacrifice for him. They’d hurt each other accidentally with all that authority, but that was the very condition of their perilous existence. To be present in all they’d left behind, accept the risk of absence and bask in the glory of the now.

“There’s nowhere.” She admitted flatly, dropping her gaze to the basin beneath the mirror. Her gaze traced its curves to the drain before she turned around to face him. “Just you. You’re my home, you’re everywhere and the only place I want to be. That I can be, where I can be comfortable in my own skin before I feel..anything else on it. Like sunlight, cool breezes, we'll get there but I..just want us now.”

Her voice was almost shaking again, and she made her mouth into something smaller and more thoughtful.

“I think..you might have already said that to The Alliance –– for me –– from what I saw.” That thoughtful expression turned into something that tried to be friendly. “And you were alone against..it. Them. Shursia.” The second time she’d said that name out loud.

"I don’t want to go back. Not right now, not until I..not until I come to terms with everything that I..” she stopped herself from saying I did –– he’d already preached to her that it was not her fault. “That happened. I still don’t understand it all, and I’m sure I’d have to testify, or get interrogated and more poking and prodding and experiments and..” her words tripped over one another in her throat; the foreseeable welcome wagon was anxiety-inducing and she pressed her face against his chest, wrapping her arms around his torso to stop herself from continuing the damning sentence. "I can't yet."

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

He watched as she meticulously went through the motions of viewing her own reflection, getting comfortable with that same but 'different' gaze in her eyes, taking into the view the full realization that she was Loske again, nothing was going to hurt her. Not here, not under his watch. As much as it was paining to see her struggle with acceptance at all, it was reassuring seeing the strides being made before him in these short moments, all but minutes ago being a frightened woman, cold, isolated, alone. He wasn't sure how much of a part he could play in healing her. He was certainly bent on trying and it seemed to be reciprocated in results.

When she remarked of the blade, he felt solemn for a moment, knowing it was the blow at his hands that struck that wound, a wound that'd remain with a cold permanance in each waking moment. But all in all, it was easily vindicated and justified.

"Poncho is cute but erm- always time to find a different one.” As much as the moniker was ever endearing, relaying solely back to a very poignant and sacred moment in time between them. All just before they made clear to one another how deep the need of eachother ran. It felt like days ago as much as it was several years now. In the same instant they were still in the dusty hangars of peace, Maynard making his first impression with a rather flamboyant display of one of his passions with an opinion irreverent to what anyone thought of him to now when he’d also felt like she was now a permanent fixture of his being, there was little if anything to be done in sowing a schism from her.

“Outrider? You really wanna know?” Maynard offered her a smile, amused in the reflection before them.

“Literally- I was asked what my callsign was, one of my first goes smuggling contraband and it was the first...cool word that came to mind. Came from a holobook I had as a kid, all about some of the more famous starships. Millennium Falcon, Moldy Crow...and of course, the Outrider.” Maynard explains.

“Got my own with The Renegade which- name just as easy to explain.” Maynard suggests, slowly turning her in his embrace to face him once more, running a smooth caress through her blonde locks again as he admired those pale silvers again.

“I do what I want and I get what I want.” He remarked with a crack of a grin before his lips delved against hers once more, briefly.

“Loske Treicolt is the only name you’ll ever need again. That name alone...it belongs to us, nobody else. Nobody else anymore, at least.” He was the last of his blood, an odd and clearly derelict realization to make, it only served for that dream between them he kept buried to bloom again in his subconsciousness.

“Nowhere works for me.” He remarks in agreement, brow furrowing to her next concerns. The Alliance. Consequences.

“Whoever tries to put their hands on you...I’m killing them. This isn’t any point of negotiation. No one is doing any experiments, interrogation unless they have a f*cking death wish.” He remarks, cruelty staining his inflection, none of it implied for her.

“But no- we don’t have to go back for a while. The Jedi- they already saw fit to...’exile’ me, send me on Barash...I didn’t care then, with you gone...and I still don’t, now. In that vein, not sure the Alliance will want much to do with me either.” He remarks, an innate bitterness seeped in the words as he spoke.

“This might be the time we just...me and you...get out of all that and just- do right by ourselves and no one else.” He suggests.

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

YOU MAKE ME FEEL LIKE I AM WHOLE AGAIN​

Loske bit down on her bottom lip, barely able to contain the smile that curled and spread across her face as he regaled the origin of his moniker. She loved this side of him. Loved it. The aspirational and candid observer, the kid whose only goal in life was to live up to a name; Whatever that name might be. This time it was Outrider, born from heroes and tall tales. It was a part of him he held close to the vest. Boyish glee, unmanly excitement like a true north only he saw in his internal compass.

He punctuated his story with a one-liner and a kiss that ate up her massive grin, and she didn’t flinch this time; only felt a familiar heat flicker to life in her chest that grew as he continued to reinforce her identity and its relativity to him.

“Whoever tries to put their hands on you...I’m killing them. This isn’t any point of negotiation. No one is doing any experiments, interrogation unless they have a f*cking death wish.”

Again, she believed him. Believed that promise –– and where before she might have denied it, pleaded with him to be reasonable, she only held on tighter to him and mouthed the word good.

She’d made the mistake of trying to cool his intent to protect and kill, and it had never done any good. And that little bubble of darkness that lined her psyche like scum on her lungs, encouraged the need to preserve that which they deemed worthy, and destroy all threats.

Never again would he peer at her with that distorted bout of confusion, pulling out of the moment and seeing why she deny him the right to slaughter for the purpose of preservation. Never again would they repeat that memory on Felucia.

He couldn’t speak to her, only peer to his love in what she could only assume was a gesture that demanded reasoning, explanation.​

​

Her explanation was hurried and panicked while she clambered over the fallen creature, pressing to get nearer the two hostels. The demanding outburst turned into something more like a plead, reminiscent of the apprehension born after Muunilinst. She just couldn’t tell in the heat of the moment if she was keeping her promise to not get in his way, or if she was in time to stop him from getting there. “Not like this, not..” She sucked in a breath, flashing a look at the pale-skinned Sith who’d seemed to take delight in manipulating them thus far. Something about this situation felt too gratifying for the acolyte. Riling him up to this point –– slaying her now wouldn’t be on Maynard’s terms. It was set up to be on hers. If they wanted control over the situation, it wasn’t like this. Further justifications tangled themselves up in her mind, encouraging the motivation to diffuse the situation.​

​

“Not like what?” He spoke, bitterness inlaid in his voice. Were it anyone else, Eldaah’s head would’ve trembled to the floor beneath. To her, she offered his quarter, his respite and the cobalt blade disappeared into the metallic hilt. He paced off. There were more Sith to kill, more of his men still bound in chains within this horrid place.​

“But no- we don’t have to go back for a while. The Jedi- they already saw fit to...’exile’ me, send me on Barash...I didn’t care then, with you gone...and I still don’t, now. In that vein, not sure the Alliance will want much to do with me either.”

There was so much she wanted to say.

Barash was a word that struck a chord of memories, most of them closely knit to abandonment and betrayal; a thread that seemed consistent with his inflection of it applying to him. Loske only managed a confused look soundlessly weighing the implications of exile. The Jedi –– they –– who were they? Wasn’t Ryv in charge of the Jedi? Did Ryv do this? Glimpses and outlines and distant memories of their brother flashed in her mindscape and she grimaced, unsure of whether or not he was alive, and if..it was..if she’d ––– She didn’t have long to travel down that path, instead, Maynard sought to vindicate her sole desire since Muunilist.

“This might be the time we just...me and you...get out of all that and just- do right by ourselves and no one else.”

It was all about timing, and how they fit into the galactically wicked Chronos. It hadn’t been appropriate before now; he’d staked too much of his reputation and self-worth on the necessity to heed the call and now he was being told not to listen to it— or it was playing out of tune. And all he had was her, and she greedily sought to gobble up the scraps of his aimlessness and wanting.

Everything he unloaded had incredible weight on their future and in her exhaustion, it all felt like floating fragments on a rushing current. She couldn’t keep track of all the moving pieces and she felt tired, happy, gloried, loved, small, guilty, poisoned, absent, present –– all at once. The only constant was his tenacity to reinforce her through it all, to love her like a tireless verb, like constant evolution; a growing thing that continued to invent and reinvent meaning and purpose.

More than anything she wanted reconnection, reaffirmation. He was giving it to her in spades, and she shook off all the thoughts that poisoned her happiness and focused on him thwarting every fear and ounce of anger Raaf had used against her about him; focused only on him giving them the opportunity to finally step away from their life of routine and servitude. To rescue them and give them a chance for united happiness before they became atoms amongst the stars. Every bridge he’d burned to get them back in each other’s arms only served to stoke the flame of devotion within her.

The cosmos existed for just this one reason, this culmination of hard histories and shared losses because here, right now, was this with him. How could anything else ever mean more than this moment? The edges of this moment felt transformative. Healing. Comforting. And if there was one thing her relationship with Maynard had taught her, it was that physical intimacy could be restorative even as it burned trepidation and tension into ash.

“I love you.” Loske burst, overwhelmed with covetousness for his promises kept and offered. Smouldering need motivated her like a slow-burning fire turned wild and she unfolded from the safety of his arms and reached up to pull him into her, tender but insistent. She daren’t let go until they faded back into a dual inferno that consumed and consumed, fed by each other until nothing existed and all their shared world pulled and pulled inwards and finally expanded again in the mightiest relief.

---

Peaceful currents gnarled and twisted, malformed into hideous gasps and outbursts of agony; some more final than others. The movements felt repetitive, and the blood and horrifying hurt done to those she loved screamed out in streams.

Taeli's words,​

Ryv’s face,

Aaran’s pleas, ​

Djorn’s scream,

random strangers in Alliance uniforms, they became unattached wisps of shadows whirling and swirling around in a tornado of her mind.

Loske lurched out of her perceivably serene meditative state as if possessed. Her empty stomach of only IV-fed nutrients and water rose in her throat and to the side –– landing on the floor with an unimpressive splat. She hadn’t eaten for so long that it was mostly a pool of spit and bile, but it was enough to stir Frank who’d been contentedly offline in the corner of the secondary cargo hold.

A shard of ice coursed through her body, her skin rippling into shivers. She heaved and her back bowed in great shudders, breath caught in her throat. All of this before she even knew what was happening, where she was. She couldn't breathe, she couldn't think, she couldn't— She retched again. Her body seized in tight waves of fear and pain, her stomach now empty. Her brain felt too large for her skull. It came from every corner, every nerve ending, every myelin sheath and every axon. It was a barrage, an onslaught.

She felt a sick, consuming emptiness. Destruction. Death. Pain. Continuum flashes of crimson against her vision and she squeezed her eyes shut again, focusing on that wound on her chest and the residual light that still clung to the fresh layers of healed flesh and permeated outward, constantly battling the scummy cling of darkness within.

Planting her elbows on her knees, Loske braced her forehead with her hands and hunched into the weight of her head.

It’s going to take time to get back to whole. Frank observed, wheeling over and discretely going about tidying the small pool of upset.

“I know..” She murmured, her voice small. “My eyes are painfully open, I want to escape but..I can’t. I can’t start completely fresh again, there’s so much of yesterday still in me and..I don’t totally understand it still.”

He offered a breath refresher, and she straightened her spine to sit upright again in her meditative position before taking it. “I wish I could just..throw off the memories that poison my happiness but I think..there’s a sort of indulgence still there. The power was..a lot.” Loske explained to her astromech counterpart. She’d pillow talked through pieces of this with Maynard, but as much as he wanted to give and be there for her, he deserved a bit of a break.

You will. You keep doing this, keep facing it, and you will. Frank encouraged robotically, and the former Jedi nodded; still tired from the constant attempts to restabilize. The statistical likelihood of it is inarguable.

But maybe this is enough for now. You should eat.

Through all their dynamics, irritated back-and-forth-banter, Frank’s default programming was to fill the familial role Loske had been absent to at his conception in Kaili’s little cave on Borealis. Typically, it defacto’d to something akin to paternal. Like reminding her to have breakfast. Or lunch?

“Right.” She agreed and rose to stand. Now not immersed in the empyrean and self, she realized how cold it was in the little bay and gave way to a quick shiver before depressing the entryway and crossing into the corridors that lead to the galley. The walk was as familiar as it was fresh, a strange balance in memories and experiences that were all hers and all tangled up still. The progress was inarguable and surprisingly rapid, all things considered.

But some things, like fresh caf, took an extra few moments of appreciation as if she were experiencing it for the first time again.

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

He carried an intangible relief when she honored the silence of such a precious topic loom and then wither away. It was more complex than Maynard made it out to be, his exile. He knew that just as well. He was all but certain in her prodding inquisitively, why, how. But then all these questions relating to anything outside of their blissful isolation circled back to the same question.

Why did any of it matter? What business did anything removed from the two of them have in faltering this sacred peace. That relief smoothed in his subconscious when she pulled him toward her as she’d done so many times before.

“I know.” His characteristic response, the mirrored affection implied in words, solidified in action.

His hands touched her with that compulsive want- need in his intent as she welcomed him into her again in that sacred embrace, shattering that compiled desire and need from isolation in a willfully overwhelming bliss.

He awakened to a void in the space next to him, a forebodingly familiar feeling. Many other things became familiar that hadn’t before. Before Shursia. What usually set the tone of the day had been a slow and easy awakening, letting her subconscious embrace drift from his form as he sought not to wake her, brew a morning Caf and do a once over of the ship’s systems to be certain that it wouldn’t break down before setting ambitions any past that. It always seemed in the thick of it, The Renegade was ever reliable. It was when she was left to idle that things began to falter.

But since, the stimulant jolt to awaken him wasn’t the warm, easy brew of Caf. It was violence. The sound dampening walls might have served well enough to guard her meditation from Maynard’s own morning ritual. A nigh featureless silhouette of padded material, a practice dummy placed within the main cargo bay served to be the vessel of this harsh venting. The holographic projection sheen that displayed over the surface area of the dummy served in indicating the force of impact in each strike, a cool blue degrading into shades of violent red. With each explosive strike strung into combos and meticulous strings of brutality between his fists and legs, it rarely ever rippled anything dimmer than a deep crimson every time he struck the target.

He’d been able to kill for a long while, compelled by duty and intense bursts of emotion to accomplish the task to now. The desperate odyssey of reclamation he persevered to get her back chipped away at that reluctance and molded him from a man who could kill... to a killer.

This was his meditation, or at the very least another m and he practiced of it. Not with the purpose of severing soul and body to introspect but by the means of grounding himself in his mortal shell, his inseparable companion. To better temper his discipline and his ability in long drawn repetition. It kept him centered, centered from letting his mind drift into those dark crevices all of which dimmed into an inescapable vantablack when she was gone, a drowning whisper in the void.

Whenever she coughed up and wretched from the searing visions he was jolted from his own concentration, the fluid and measured motions snapping to an abrupt end as the pain and confusion surged to the forefront of his consciousness, reverberating through their intangible tether, resurgent and seemingly more potent than before, as if in its astral state one or the other, or both was clutching its counterpart tighter, out of fear of losing the other again.

It was as comfortable as it was vulnerable, as each pained and staggered step she took in recovery ripples through to his own mind. Each stride she’d begun to make, reassuring Loske of her control while painfully carving away at the remnants of darkness and pain Shursia left in its wake.

He screwed his eyes shut, feeling as she pushed through the pain, the fear. All was well, only a hiccup in the process and Maynard turned as he heard the slow roll of his own droid companion.

::We’ve been...drifting for a while, now.:: Buddy sounded out in rather indifferent binary.

“Gonna be for a little bit...” Maynard replied, reaching for a small towel to swipe the sweat of exertion from his brow.

::I figured as much, while we’re up to nothing, I’ll work at getting our signatures altered, so we can’t be tracked.:: Seemed the droid picked up that the two didn’t want to be bothered. That was perhaps Buddy’s most endearing trait, the ability to read the room.

“Much appreciated.” He replied, hearing the sounds and taking in the scents of freshly brewed Caf from the galley. It seemed Loske was finished with her ‘meditation’, though from his side of things it seemed far too turbulent to be considered as such. He appeared not moments later, his gaze admiring the view of her still presence, in the flesh, in a place of comfort before him. He paid forward his gratitude for that moment by smoothing his hands along her hips from behind, clutching her in a loose embrace as he did in the image of her reflection the night before, offering a brief kiss along her cheek to all but signal his greeting before going about filling his own cup with the easing stimulant.

“How’d you sleep?” He thought fit to ask, it was the first they’d shared a bed since she’d returned, otherwise relegated to her own space, to feel comfortable in her own skin before ever taking the delve into anything else, but she was progressing along far better than his most optimistic appraisal of her condition.

“I could feel it, whatever...agitated you, just now. You feeling alright?” He saw fit to ask, after all the sensation of chaos moments earlier didn’t mesh well with the image of ease before him, as comforting as it was.

Loske Treicolt

 

[Loske Treicolt]

Even with the conflict warring in her mind, he needn’t announce his presence. He rose above all that, all those dissension and uncertainties –– his ability to not just exist, but triumphed even when she’d been a prisoner to Shurisa’s darkest recesses. Now, shed of those constraints and shadows, he was brighter than ever.

As superfluous as it might have been, Maynard’s touch was one of the humanizing things in their relationship. A reserved intimacy that brought comfort and served to remind them they were more than two united souls tethered together in the boundless empyrean. More than ghosts moving in the endless night. They were human, and they could be happy.

She smiled, the motion triggered a pattern of familiarity and she was suddenly witness to a super hurried flash of randomized interactions within the space of the galley that mirrored moments like this. It set to move quickly enough for her muscle memory to reciprocate the affection on his jawline while he went about the motions of pouring, stirring, sipping. She buried her nose in her mug, feeling the steam against her skin. She tried to remember how he took his caf, and in searching for the memory, she realized she knew –– and it was still the same. Another pleasant constant.

“How’d you sleep?”

The response to that was small and complicated at the same time. She’d slept like a human ––not fitful. A loved human in a dreamless state encased in safety and adoration. By the time she’d finally fallen asleep, it was because she’d been exhausted in a natural, emotional and physical way. She hadn’t cried herself to sleep, hadn’t passed out from exhaustion, hadn’t been forced into it through medicinal influence –– it was entirely natural.

All because of him.

Somehow, he’d managed to make the effort of dismissing the worries of the night less herculean. For a dark timeline, Shursia had convinced her she just needed to be alone. Maynard defied that. He’d pressed kisses into her insecurities –- the darkness under her eyes, how happy he was to see her smile again, the marks on her chest, how grateful he was that she was alive and he could feel her heartbeat. His own seemed to pound louder with every sound he pulled from her. She was all his and she felt relief and felt wanted so much, in every way.

So she answered honestly: “Better than any sleep I’ve had in a long time.” The darkness under her eyes testified to how rare any sort of snooze was.

“No being sedated, no crying myself to sleep, no...pain–– it was dreamless and just..naturally tired. And relieved. And you..being with you made me feel safe.” She took a small sip, feeling an ounce of personality slip through the caf and into her bloodstream and her grin turned coy. “And feel good.”

It went without being said, but she said it anyway in a heavy, dreamy sigh, and set her mug down to cool a bit on the countertop beside her and she traced the rim with her finger absently. “I loved falling asleep against you waking up with you there."

Silver gaze met his calm hazels, moving the heels of her hands against the edge of the counter to brace her as she leaned forward to pursue his side of the interpretation: “How about you? I guess this is both new and..not new again at the same time for both of us.”

“I could feel it, whatever...agitated you, just now. You feeling alright?”

Loske’s face fell, and she looked down as if embarrassed. Of course he did.

“Oh.” Her hands crossed in front of her, and her open shoulders hunched in on themselves again as though she wanted to fold herself. She ran a hand over her mouth as if it would pull the words out and deliver them to him.

Another complicated response was in queue.

“Yeah, or..yes and no.” Lips drew in a thin line as she tried to think of a constructive way to explain her predicament. She didn’t fully understand it, which made sharing all the more troublesome. She’d told him the night before there was blood on her hands, but she didn’t say whos.

“I was trying to separate..compartmentalize.. the memories of mine and Shursia’s,” she began –– it helped to refer to the other part of her as a separate name. It made her feel an increment less responsible. “But they’re all so tightly bound together that it’s..hard. And it’s horrible. All I see is pain and desperation from people at my–– her hands.

I wish I could just forget. Work with some memory master or something to just...pluck those horrors out of my head.” Loske admitted, and sunk into the support of the countertop at the base of her spine. “But that doesn’t undo anything, like you said.

It doesn’t make it better for them, save them or ––” she exhaled heavily. “I think Shursia hurt Ryv, and I don’t know how badly. I don’t even know if he..” she sucked in her bottom lip, trapping it beneath her top row of teeth for a second to compose herself and not give way to a fit of shivering sobs “––I don’t know if he’s alive or not. If she kill––” her breath hitched again, and she folded her arms, shifting to another endless face and running her fingers through her hair, trying to keep her voice steady.

“Or Aaran, I just..I can see blood, hear his scream, and that..I don’t know how that ended either. If it ended, if he’s alive.

Or Djorn, or..or all the faces I don’t recognize but I can hear their screams and feel her power...”

She clenched and unclenched her fists, forcing her gaze to navigate from the empty space she’d zoned out on. “It was all with her bare hands.

And I don’t know how to manage these memories yet. It’s going to take time, but without knowing how it ends, or even if they survived, I don’t know how to trace back to the start.”

Again, she sighed and poked at the base of her mug. It shifted and the dark ripples inside sloshed gently against the containing walls. “You...I don’t know when your exile started, but do you know.. if they’re alive?”

Wincing, she pressed both hands to her mouth and shook her head. “I feel so inappropriate asking you that, I’m sorry you’re in this position.”

 

[Maynard Treicolt]

He couldn’t help but feel that jolt of vindicating confidence at her praise. That sentiment, from her all but ensured the extent and the pace at which he could truly bring her back into a sense of self, heal her among other things. To be able to give one to the other so easily and so early into her recovery and return was a nerve easing reassurance, one that’d certainly make this time in isolation from the woes of their previous obligation less tolerable and more...cherished.

“It was...difficult, before. Every time I’d try and shut it all off and rest...I couldn’t feel you next to me, your hands on me, arms around me. Just- your presence, anything. To have that back...and to make the most of it.” He said, all but in an attempt to see that redness flush her cheeks once more, doing all in his power to keep things light hearted between them. Even in the wake of his more concerned question which immediately followed.

Her answer was as complex as it was detached from his full understanding. He was all but incapable of the psychometry that she was lest she help him and thus, could not and would not delve into the shared memories of Shursia in fear of re-awakening trauma within her. His own felt different. After all, he was consciously aware of the actions he was taking them, he was whole. She was not Shursia.

“No- none of them are dead, matter of fact they all played a role in helping me get the jump on finding you...and killing Shursia. They’re all fine as far as I know.” He claimed in reassurances. The fact that she might’ve carried the lingering worries that she killed or seriously hurt some of their closest friends and still managed to be so at ease with Then would come the time of his own explanation. Exile.

“Because of- Dantooine, they wanted my memories of what happened there, I gave it over to Auteme and she asked if I still wanted to be a Jedi, and then Ryv told me...I should go on Barash but really, he was only concerned with me finding you and bringing you back.” Maynard said, speaking candidly.

“If Dantooine was the catalyst...you weren’t ever far from me there- so I don’t know if they’d want the same of you...all I know is- I hardly give a f*ck what they all think. I love Ryv, he’s my brother but...if they don’t want me, I won’t make it hard for ‘em.” The reasoning was still nebulous, even to him and seemed everything to do more with perception than reality. He nearly gave his life fighting the Bryn’adul and the Sith times over, if that wasn’t enough to keep him more tightly nestled in the Order, then nothing to his capabilities would be.

“I’d never fit in with the Jedi before...it’s just that now, I still have a real purpose, a real life to live ahead of me. With you. I won’t compromise what I feel is right, for them. I’ve done my part, we’ve done our part. We only ever agreed to stick around for them...but they don’t seem to want us around, not anymore. So I don’t see it worthwhile to stick it through.” Maynard outright admits.

"It's time to just do good by us, not anyone else."

Loske Treicolt