Private Notation From The Stars

[Arcturus Dinn]

Blood magic?​

​

Was that really something she wanted to learn? Admittedly, Arcturus was still fairly new to that aspect of the Force himself, and it was... overwhelming. But then Ishani spoke more on it, a desperation within her tone. Like she simply wanted to learn above all else. As though it didn't matter what the subject of those lessons would be.​

​

A slight frown formed over his expression. Was she not getting the lessons she required elsewhere? Was she really in need of someone to take charge of her training?​

​

"Alright, tell you what, once we're done with the sword we'll... Figure out something else. I'm not sure what, let me think on it, okay?" Not blood magic, he knew, not right now at least, not until he had a better grip on it for himself. But something. He could help her figure out something.​

​

After the whole Knighting fiasco, Arcturus stuck her with a strange expression.​

​

"You know, only royalty can Knight someone," he remarked, looking to it more in the fancy titles of nobility sense and not the Force user sense for obvious reasons, "Does that make you my Queen, and I your loyal Knight?"​

​

It was a silly thought, sillier perhaps than her act of Knighting him. But he'd said it all the same, as he led her from the Forge and turned off the power to the room. Where to now? "Do you want to maybe head outside, and get some fresh air?" he asked her, "I might know a nice spot..."​

​

Then it'd be shower time, food time, bed time, rinse and repeat ready for tomorrow.​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

She tried to disguise the rush of relief and gratitude she felt. He hadn’t yet begun to teach her, after all—he’d said he would consider it, try to figure something out. “Thank you,” she said. Then, in a last-minute gesture, she stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

Just in time for him to ask her if she was his queen. She shook her head. Now who was the romantic fool? But she delighted in it all the same. “You’ve probably got a better chance of being royal than me—you do have a noble face, you know.” Freckles and all. "I can certainly see you as a Knight."

Outside? Fresh air? She’d forgotten what it felt like. “Lead the way.”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

A kiss on the lips was all well and good, but the tender kisses which were placed upon cheek or forehead felt like something else all together. He savoured it, as fleeting as it was, and took her hand once they were ready to depart.​

​

Talks of royalty made humour rise within him.​

​

"Oh, yes, Arcturus Thesh, long lost Prince of some realm or another. I can see it now, the headlines... Missing Prince returns!" He paused, as they crossed the threshold into the quiet corridor beyond, and turned to peer down at her. "I'll be your loyal Knight, if you'll be my doting Queen," he reiterated, no question this time though just a pure statement of intent.​

​

He leaned down, placed his lips to her temple, and then just as quickly he was leading them back off through the hall, to an area she'd likely never seen fit to venture within. It was part of the Academy which had not yet been rebuilt, there were crumbling walls and desolate rooms. Quiet... Almost too quiet. He turned this way, down that corridor, and then paused before a door.​

​

It was evident from the way in which he led her that he'd been this way before. Opening the door, he revealed something of an oasis amidst the sands of Korriban, a green space which could not have formed of its own volition. Arcturus held the door, and waited for her to step out into it, plants wound their way up the cracked walls, a small pool of water trickled to one side, carefully recycled from its own stock by means of a fountain feature, and here and there lay various potted plants.​

​

A slight blush had overcome his cheeks. He'd only ever shown this place to one other before, Dral, and that was just because he was trying to hide the fact he was teaching a fellow student something. Dral hadn't wanted anyone else to know, after all, his pride too strong.​

​

He stepped out into it after a moment, the door closing behind them. Overhead the Korriban nightscape lingered, so many stars stretched on for eons.​

​

"This is, uh... This is where I come, when I can't sleep at night" he confessed, walking further into the courtyard and approaching one of the potted plants. Crouching down, he brushed his fingertips across its variegated leaves. Then, with a subtle gesture of his hand, he pulled forth just a little bit of water from the small pool and swirled it into the soil, rehydrating the flower. "I've found they do better if I water them at night, they're not fighting with the sun for the water that way."​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Ishani clung close to Arc, suddenly aware of a certain level of secrecy in their path. He was leading her somewhere out of the way, a part of the Academy she had never been to before. A ruinous, lonely part. But even she was unprepared for what lay on the other side of the door he so carefully opened.

“What is this place?” she asked, her voice a whisper so as not to disrupt the quiet. “I mean, what was it used for?” There were gardens in the Academy, mainly for aesthetic purposes, but this struck her as quite unusual. Unless… “Did you do all this yourself?”

Full of questions as she was, she caught the color rising to his cheeks. She thought she knew that look, and was about to rather bluntly ask if the door had a lock when he spoke. Her expression shifted, growing serious and almost sad for a moment, before she gave him a smile.

She watched him water the plants. He hadn’t been in here since they’d begun sharing a bed; she was certain of that. But these plants were growing quite healthily, and if it was due to his constant cultivation… oh, why did she have to see everything about him in a tragic light?

Every hidden chamber of his heart revealed to her had harbored something buried beneath its floorboards, a secret grief or trauma she was afraid to unearth. Even this oasis, beautiful as it was, had been his hideaway from insomnia, a sanctuary from a cruel universe. She was painfully reminded of what had happened last night, the image of him cowering in the corner burned into her brain. It almost made her furious—she was certainly frustrated that no one except Maliphant seemed to have ever truly cared for him. No one should have to live like that.

She kept her thoughts to herself. It wouldn’t do any good for him to hear her roar at ghosts of the past. "Do you sleep in here, or just… find refuge for a little while?" she asked, distracting herself with the flowers. Some of them were fragrant; she cupped a hand around one and bent to smell it.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

She asked a couple of questions, though frankly Arcturus wasn't entirely sure how to respond. What had it been, long ago, when the Academy was whole? "I don't know," he retorted, with something of an honest shrug, "When I stumbled upon it it was just as ruinous as it is now. But then... I saw this,"​

​

He shifted, turning toward a plant which lay not within a pot but within a crack in the ground. It was one of the ones which wound its way up the cracks in the walls.​

​

"It was fighting so hard to survive. It felt wrong not to give it a chance at life."​

​

His touch of its leaves was a little more tender, lighter, as though afraid he might break it. Despite that, it seemed the hardier of the lot, the one which was thriving the most. It was the first among them, perhaps that made sense of it.​

​

A change overcame her in the moments which followed, and Arcturus turned his head to look at her. His gaze was questioning, unseen permission for her to speak her mind traveling between them. Just a look... There was a ferocity in her gaze, and it made his heart skip a beat. Whatever was on her mind, it seemed serious, genuine. Too often he found himself bearing his heart, maybe it was time he gave her the floor for such too.​

​

What she said though was just another question. He smiled a small smile.​

​

"Sometimes I would, mostly though I'd just waste time here until the sun rose and the Academy was awake again. It was nice. Better than pacing the hallways or my suite."​

​

Nowadays he had projects he could tend to, too. But truthfully? Nowadays he had Ishani, who helped to stave off the terrors in the night. Since she'd joined him in bed he'd only visited this place in the dead of night once or twice, and only when she was so dead asleep that there was no way she'd be disturbed or notice he was missing. He'd always return before she awoke.​

​

"These days I sort of just sneak away to here whenever I have a free moment. It's not the same though, I think they can sense the difference. Still, it keeps them watered."​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Where?” she asked, still holding the flower. She didn’t see a cot or a blanket around, unless he’d slept on the floor.

She caught his questioning gaze as he cradled the first plant he’d watered, the one which she knew must have meant a great deal to him. A symbol of survival. “I just…” She sighed, and was surprised to find the pressure of tears building up behind her eyes. “I’m sure the plants are glad you found them, but I wish you’d never felt any need to hide…”

Her grasp on the flower slipped, the branch wavering upon being released. Some of the petals dropped to the floor, and Ishani realized something. “My mother used to grow these in her garden,” she said softly.

She missed her mother, especially when she felt alone. Which wasn’t so often anymore, caught up as she was in the whirlwind of new love and busy with training, but all it took was a small, unexpected reminder like this. Her mother didn’t know where she was, didn’t even know whether she was alive or dead. If Ishani went through with all this training and became a Sith, she’d likely never know what had become of her.

Chewing her lip, Ishani tried to control her breathing, fending off the growing urge to cry. “Do you remember your mother?” she asked, expecting the answer to be no. Maybe that was for the best in his case. She hated to think that this pain she felt now might be added to his woes.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

It was a simple enough question which fell from her lips.​

​

Where? Where had he slept, on those dark nights where everything felt hopeless. He followed her gaze as she tried to find evidence of a bed, or a cot, or even a sleeping bag, but there was nothing of the sort to be found.​

​

"Here," he said, with a gesture to the ground. "There," he added with another. Then he shrugged. "Wherever fatigue took me, I suppose." Oddly, his words did not seem to bother him. He seemed relatively indifferent to the prospect of sleeping on the cold hard ground, beneath the stars. But... He was used to that. He'd known that before coming to Maliphant. In many ways the ground was a comforting place for him. "I grew to love those stars," he added, peering up to the sky above. "I wish I knew the names for each of the constellations held within, but I don't. I'm not even sure anyone's really ever named them."​

​

Ishani's next words were filled with grief, and he stepped over to where she knelt beside a flower and gently cupped her cheeks. Set his gaze upon hers. "Ours was a symbiotic relationship, Ishani, mutual. They helped me as much as I helped them, there's nothing to be sad about. It's... Beautiful when you think about it, isn't it?"​

​

He turned his head, glancing over the paradise he'd formed of his own misery. ​

​

"Look at what those nights created."​

​

Her realization had him peering to the flowers in question, whose petals had gently fallen to the ground. Arcturus picked them up, each of them, and then handed them to the girl. "If they've a scent you like, I can grow you more. For your perfumes, I mean... A reminder of home."​

​

Was that fair of him to offer? Did she want a reminder of home?​

​

Her next question had him quiet. He rose up from where he'd been crouched, and approached a particularly bright flower. Arcturus did not answer her, not immediately, instead he reached down and plucked one of those flowers from where it lay upon the stem, among countless others, and then turned back to face her.​

​

"This flower only blooms once." he explained, holding it out in his palm, "It takes months to form, and then... One night it opens. And that's it. Tomorrow it'll be gone."​

​

Approaching the girl, he carefully set it within her hair. Cornflower blue lay bright against her blonde locks.​

​

"I don't remember my mother. I don't remember any of them." He paused, tipping up her chin so that she'd look at him. "Don't mourn that loss, love. You can't miss what you don't remember having."​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

“Arc, you’re going to kill your back sleeping on hard stone,” she said with a sniff.

At the mention of stars, she dipped her head back to look up. The motion was enough to send the tears pooling in her eyes over the edge. They fell from the outer corners, rather than down her cheeks.

She didn’t say anything for a while, no comments or jokes or crude remarks. She was still crying, still looking up at the stars, and she didn’t have any answers for him. Arcturus was, in fact, the name of a star—just not in their galaxy. As for the plants, yes, there was beauty in it. The kind of beauty that ached when you looked upon it, because the birth of it had been through pain. The best kind of beauty, in so many ways.

“I don’t think I want to be reminded of home.” Her eyes closed when he cupped her cheeks, the wetness of her tears clinging to his fingertips. “I ran away. My mother doesn’t know I’m here… she can’t know that I’m here… but not knowing is in some ways worse. Because I know she’ll hold out for me, always waiting to come home…”

She sucked in a trembling breath, feeling him tuck something into her hair. As he explained what it was, her fingers clung to the fabric of his shirt. Pity the one who doesn’t understand the symbolic world of the Chaldean; the lovers who gift night-blooming flowers, temporary and fleeting, tell them without words that they won’t be staying long.

His touch upon her chin at last made her open her eyes again. "I know, I know. But do you ever wish you did?" Was she just being contradictory, acknowledging one moment that it was best that he forget, then in the next wondering if that might not be the case? "Is it really better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all—or to forget that you were loved?"

She shouldn't be pushing him, she knew. Not unless she wanted him to break down again. Her fingers left his shirt to lay her palms over his. “She would’ve liked you.” Her mother, that is. “My father wouldn’t, though. Not that their approval matters anymore, but it used to matter to me a lot…”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

"It's not so bad, when you've done it for years," he retorted, though the Eternal's presence had not been on this world for years. The Eternal had not existed in this form for years. He could not have meant this floor. "Your body's more adaptive than we give it credit for."​

​

It didn't matter, of course, because that wasn't really what she'd meant by it. All the same he gave her the peace to observe the stars, and permitted her a moment of solitude to experience her grief. There was nothing worse than coming to the edge of such and being denied the cathartic relief that came with letting it all out.​

​

Then her answer came, and she rejected the notion of having a reminder of home. He took the petals from her hand then, allowed them to be scattered to the wind, and nodded his head though she could not see him. "Then I extend that invitation in totality. Tell me what you seek to harness, My Queen, and I'll see it grown here."​

​

He paused for a moment, following her gaze upward.​

​

"I could show you how... To care for them, I mean. That way you'll always be able to have precisely what you need, what you want."​

​

Was Arcturus hinting at a future absence? No. Not at all. Not intentionally at least, though perhaps with the addition of the flower Ishani might see it that way. Instead he wanted to instill something in her, something that was important to him. A lesson to pick up after the blade was finished... It seemed fitting, even if it wasn't inherently Sith.​

​

Did it have to be inherently Sith?​

​

Then came the more pressing questions, pertaining to the family he could not remember having. Arcturus wasn't sure if he wanted to answer her at all, wasn't sure why she was asking him to speak on it. "I'd rather have loved and lost every time, Ishani, but I don't get to choose that. It was chosen for me. I accepted that a long time ago, now. What good would it do for me to dredge up the past? What little I've witnessed from back then--" Had he ever told her of his journey up the Spire of Destiny? Oh well, now was as good a time as any, "There's no way they survived what happened when the Sith came to Ession. I don't want to remember their faces, only to imagine them dead and gone."​

​

No. He would not think on it. So he didn't.​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

My Queen. Good grief. Her heart felt too big for her chest. But his offer was tempting. “I’d like that. To learn how to grow my own…” It would certainly cut down on the costs when it came to making her perfumes.

The conversation inevitably returned to him, his lost memories. In some ways it felt pointless to argue—but some fool part of her did it anyway.

Maybe it was as simple as annoyance that he had never bothered to use the gift she’d made specifically for him. She pulled a little vial from her pocket, one of the samples she always carried on her person. “You still have a choice. I gave it to you the same day I gave you a birthday.”

As for the rest of his argument, she shook her head. “You’re afraid, Arc, but there’s no room for fear in love. You’re afraid of the hurt, of the feeling of loss, because that’s all you know right now. But what about what you could gain, by reclaiming what was taken from you? You know what happened to your mother, but what about who she was? What about the love she had for you? Forgetting her isn’t honoring her.”

There was the rub, then: while Arc might not understand it, might not want to remember what it was like, Ishani still loved her family, and saw this willing amnesia as a form of rejection. Even though she had cut her ties to her parents, even though she had rejected their religion and the culture it had spawned, she could not reject them. Could not forget her mother’s love, any more than she could shrug off the memories that came with the smell of her roses.

As she had spoken, Ishani’s voice had grown more fiery and impassioned with that love that she still carried. But now those emotions had cooled, and she wondered if he would be angry with her, or worse—if he would just ignore her. “I only wish that you would try,” she said softly, looking down at the petals on the ground.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Then it was decided, Arcturus would teach Ishani how to grow plants of her own.​

​

The smile which formed upon his lips at such a thought faltered with her next breath. She couldn't leave it alone, could she? Ishani would keep pushing and pressing even when he told her he was fine as he was. Arcturus knew she meant well, but at the same time he could not help but feel a rising frustration at her continued incessance.​

​

His gaze hardened as he met hers in the aftermath.​

​

Another bottle had been produced. He glanced down at it briefly, and then returned his eyes to hers. "You don't get to decide how I honour them," he stated first and foremost, with a heavy exhale through his nose. Part of him wanted to leave in that moment, to turn away and seek out some other refuge. There was nowhere else in the Academy which provided that, though, they were already in his refuge. He'd brought her into it, and she was making it a place of grief.​

​

He shook his head.​

​

"Do I even get to dictate what this shows me? Do I have any say over what it snatches up from my past, or is it subconscious? Will it do as it pleases? There are things I do not wish to dredge up, Ishani, things I have forgotten for a reason. Things which were ripped from my mind at the hands of some experimenter. Do you think this can bring back that which was removed?"​

​

Arcturus was shaking at this point. He took a step back from her, and settled his gaze to the stars above. They were, as always, of solace to him. A steady constant always lingering up above.​

​

"I am not you, Ishani. Please... Don't try and force this on me. One day perhaps I will find the strength to pursue this, but... Please. For now, let it be. I beg of you." As those final four words were uttered, Arcturus sank to his knees and bowed his head. It was a true request, a plea.​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

"You don't get to decide how I honour them."

She knew she had made a mistake, but she was already caught up in the heat of the moment, her emotions running high.

“I watched you fall apart last night just because I dared to bring up the fact that you were once a child, Arc,” she said. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, weakened and reedy so soon after crying, lower in pitch from frustration. “Did I make you remember some repressed trauma then? Or is it just fear of the unknown, something you can’t even recall?”

He had a point about the randomness of the perfume, the lack of control he would have. But this was no longer necessarily about Echo and his refusal to use it. She hated what she had seen last night. Hated it, and she never wanted to have to deal with it again or see him suffer that way. Nor did she want to have to walk on eggshells around him, afraid she might bring up something that would send him into a nearly catatonic state.

As they had grown closer, she had begun to take on his pain as her own. It was a subconscious thing, not really something she was aware of, but it was happening all the same. She learned that he had been hurt, and wanted to punish those responsible; she realized what he feared, and longed for him to overcome it; she learned of what had been done to him, and wanted to somehow undo it, or at the very least heal him. She’d had some success, letting him sleep better at night, and yet she wanted more.

She wanted him to be whole again… but she herself was no longer whole. Maybe that was why she wanted it so badly for him.

“Things that were ripped from your mind?” she exclaimed. It came out almost as a cry of pain or anguish; she clamped her hand over her mouth afterwards, fresh tears springing from her eyes. She had suspected she would eventually hear about something like this, but it was still horrifying to hear. “Someone took your memories away from you? As an experiment?”

Suddenly he was on his knees, pleading with her. She dropped the vial and thought she might’ve heard it break, but it hardly mattered. The perfume only worked on skin contact. “Please don’t…” She reached out as if to haul him to his feet, and wound up on her knees herself. “I’m sorry, I—” Breaking down, she let her head fall forward, face buried in his chest as she began to sob.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

She was fighting back, even now, vying for some semblance of control over his fractured past. He let her talk, let her throw her wild accusations around, and stood under the weight of each word she uttered. When had all of this become personal to her? When had she taken it on as her own responsibility to see these wrongs righted?​

​

He wasn't sure. All he knew was that things were far more complicated than he'd ever imagined. Was this what it was like, to entwine oneself with another? Arcturus did not know how that made him feel. Just sort of... Confusion.​

​

"I don't know what last night was," he stated bluntly, his voice having an edge to it despite the low volume at which the words were uttered, "You spoke about how small I was and I just... I don't know. Why does this matter so much? Why do you care, Ishani?"​

​

That question hung between them for a moment, while he did everything he could to avoid her gaze. This wasn't what he had wanted by bringing her here, he did not want another night where they went to bed puffy eyed from tears shed.​

​

It seemed as though it mattered little what he wanted though.​

​

The revelation of memories having been tampered with was apparently too much for her to bear. Her voice got a little squeaky, and he could tell that she was crying even without looking upon her. He wanted to ignore the questions, to forget he'd even said anything at all, and thankfully his sinking to his knees facilitated such for now. He doubted that would be the last he heard of it, though.​

​

Then she was with him, knelt in the sand. Her face rested against his chest, and grief washed over her; in turn it fell over him too. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, allowing her to cry. "It's okay," he whispered, lifting one hand to run through her hair. Somehow it was easier to console her than it was to face all of this for himself.​

​

What was he doing?​

​

How was he messing this up so drastically?​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

"Why does this matter so much? Why do you care, Ishani?"

“Because I love you!” she wailed. “I don’t want to see you in pain, or hurting. I can’t stand it. I want to do something about it!”

She was bawling. By starlight her face wasn’t fully visible, but she was a mess, her fingers digging into him as if she were trying to claw her way inside. Her asking him if he would like to marry her that morning felt like it had happened a thousand years ago.

“You’re all I have now. Everyone else is gone. Arc, I love you so…”

She let him see it. A glance was all she could manage, a brushing touch from her mind to his. A brief moment of understanding, at least, of what she actually meant when she said she loved him and wanted to help him. It wasn’t quite the perfect, beautiful thing she’d been led to believe love was, but it was hers.

It left her aching afterwards, like a raw wound. With her emotions wrung out, the physical exhaustion of her body became glaringly apparent. She sagged against him, her grip on his shirt slackening, and her ragged, sob-heavy breaths slowed.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Love. Was this what it was to love? Did the messiness of it all come as the packaged deal? This constant state of highs and lows they'd experienced as of late, a veritable rollercoaster of emotions that never seemed to end, nor know where it was headed.​

​

Arcturus did not respond. He didn't say a single word as she wailed and spoke her piece. Her tears tore at his heart, and her clawing felt all the more intense and necessary, as though she were hanging on for dear life. Maybe in that moment she was.​

​

When she slumped against him, and seemed to drift, whether asleep or not, he held her closer still. He hummed beneath his breath, trying to calm and console her. "I love you" he whispered every now and then. Her exhaustion was palpable, and he felt it within himself too. Part of him wanted nothing more than to lay down there as he had so many times before, to let sleep take him beneath the stars.​

​

Only the girl in his arms kept him from succumbing to such. She did not deserve so stiff a night's sleep.​

​

So he carefully lifted her up, supporting her body with both his arms, and made toward the door which would lead them back into the Academy itself. He cast a tired glance around the courtyard, before the door opened and he carried her back toward his room.​

​

"Hush now" he whispered as he did so, leaning down to lay a kiss atop her head, "It's okay, Ishani, everything's okay..."​

​

Was it? He didn't know how he felt. Didn't know at all. Numb, perhaps, a little hollow. In that moment though his focus was on her. So he made quick work of returning her to his suite. Their suite... It was theirs at this point, was it not?​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

She had a sense of deja vu when he scooped her up like she weighed nothing. “Why don’t I ever get to carry you?” she asked, her weepy voice not at all suited to a joke. At least her sense of humor was intact.

Shame didn’t start to creep in until they were almost at his room. She had a sudden urge to run and hide herself from him, afraid that she’d shown too much. Where would she go? Back to her old room?

Her ship. She wanted Vixen. But she also wanted Arcturus, and he’d never been aboard her, had he?

“Wait,” she said. “Put me down.”

Presumably, he would do as she asked. Once she was on her feet again, she grabbed his hand.

“Can we… go to my ship tonight?”

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

Not asleep then, if her silly question was anything to go by, just... subdued. "Because I would crush you, love," he reminded her; Arcturus admittedly did not weigh all that much, blame it on all the time his body had spent more or less deteriorating away in the wilds, but he was much taller than she. It would have been an amusing sight, no doubt. But not something he'd permit.​

​

"Besides, it feels right when you're in my arms."​

​

He didn't quite make it back to his room before she tried to wiggle free and asked to be set down. For a moment Arcturus almost didn't wish to comply. She was tired, she needed to rest, the last thing he wanted was for her to run away. She wasn't going to run away, right..?​

​

Still he knew he had to trust her, at the very least afford her autonomy over her own body, so he set her back upon her feet and braced for the worst.​

​

She didn't run though. Instead she simply made a quiet request.​

​

"Your ship?" he inquired. Had they ever been aboard her ship? Arcturus thought not. He wondered of course why she suddenly wanted to spend the night there, but who was he to argue with such? At least she wasn't trying to avoid him. "Uh.. Yeah, sure. Is there anything we need to bring over?"​

​

He didn't know why the idea of them spending time on her ship felt so strange to him. Why should it?​

​

Maybe because it would be new territory.​

​

Before she could lead the way, Arcturus reached out to tip up her chin and peered down at her. "Are you okay?" he asked, hoping she wouldn't try to lie her way into a response.​

​

Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

"Uh.. Yeah, sure. Is there anything we need to bring over?"

“I dunno.” She shrugged. “Whipped cream and condoms?” Another joke delivered in a tone like she was about to shrivel up and blow away. “I just want you. Bring whatever you want.”

He asked her if she was okay. “Not really. I’m tired and upset and frustrated and mad at myself, and I’m so embarrassed I want to curl up and die. I’m homesick, really bad, and my ship is the closest thing I have to home, so I’m going to sleep there tonight. Not leave Korriban. Unless you want to go somewhere.” She sniffed and wiped her nose on her sleeve, like a little kid. “I won’t make you go with me if you don’t want to…”

Like Arc’s insomnia, her bouts of homesickness had decreased once they became a couple. She’d stopped crying at night from missing home. Recognizing her mother’s flowers had started the ball rolling, and the emotional turmoil that followed—the vague sense she’d had back the oasis that Arc almost wanted to run away from her—had driven her over the edge.

Arcturus Dinn​

 

[Arcturus Dinn]

"I don't need anything" he assured her, already turning away from the direction of their suite. What could they possibly need that would not wait 'til morning? No, it was clear that this was something Ishani needed, now not in another thirty minutes, so he took her hand gently in his and gave it a squeeze. "Come on, why don't you introduce me to your ship?"​

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The revelation that she wasn't doing so well wasn't, well, much of a revelation at all. It was obviously writ across her expression, plain as day. She looked... broken. Had he caused that? Had his reluctance to even try shattered her? No she stated it was more than that. Homesickness, embarrassment. "You shouldn't be embarrassed, Ishani. I'm the one who's been acting the fool, love."​

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Before they could go anywhere, he pulled her in against his chest, and wrapped his arms around her once more, holding her firmly in place. As though hoping he could somehow steal away all that was bothering her, and harbour it within himself instead. Oh what he wouldn't give for such an ability. Alas, it was not so. No matter how much he willed it to be.​

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"I'm sorry, Ish. I want to be with you tonight, every night; I understand if you need some space, though." He didn't want her to have her space, didn't want to even remotely offer up the possibility of her spending the night alone, but sometimes that was what some people needed. It would be wrong of him to act like it wasn't a possibility.​

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Still it couldn't keep him from hoping she wanted him to come with.​

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Ishani Dinn ​

 

[Ishani Dinn]

Melting in his arms, she could feel wet spots on his shirt from her tears. Probably snot and spittle too. Ew. “I embarrass easily,” she murmured.

Inclining her head, she snorted a little. “Listen to us. ‘You don’t have to go if you don’t want to’, ‘if you want to be alone, I’ll give you some space’. If we keep this up here in the hallway, the Sith spies will hear us and start to talk. ‘They’re being selfless! Oh, how disgusting! This behavior cannot be allowed on Academy grounds!’”

Her eyes were full of adoration as she looked up at him. “Come on, then.” She took his hand and led him away.

The Vixen was sequestered away in a hangar. Shaped like a shooting star and made from a mysterious crystalline material, it looked as fragile as a Life Day ornament. When Ishani touched a certain part of its hull, the surface lit up, then streaked through with the reds, yellows, and violets of Chaldean marble before the ramp lowered. The ability to do that alone had been the main attraction for her.

Like Arc’s ship, she had more space inside her ship than she knew what to do with. There were plants growing on board, tended to by some invisible system she’d set up inside the walls, but mostly it was empty halls of stained glass.

Stopping in the main area of the vessel, she turned to Arc. Or in his direction, at least—she was staring at his throat rather than meeting his eyes. “If you’re hungry, there should be some food still in the kitchen. Help yourself to whatever you like here…” She bit her lip, smiling a little. “Probably should’ve at least brought some clothes. I may be able to fit into yours, but I don’t think you can fit into mine.”

Arcturus Dinn​