Never Hide Your Heart
Everything I'll ever love decayed over the years
Location: Canto Bright
Objective: Work Out Some Issues
Tags: -- Solo For Now --
The casino planet of Canto Bright shimmered like a jewel in the vast, black sea of space. Its orbiting city was a neon dreamscape—an electric constellation of pulsing lights, buzzing billboards, and holographic advertisements that bled into the night sky. Towering spires of chrome and glass stretched high above, their surfaces reflecting a thousand colors in a dizzying kaleidoscope. Beneath them, the streets thrummed with the hum of energy, the air thick with the scent of exotic perfumes and the low murmur of gamblers chasing fortune. From a distance, it looked like a star that had fallen to the ground, its light never dimming, always burning bright, always promising something more.
Katarine was sitting on the windowsill of her hotel room with the window open and a light breeze moving through her free hair. The Jedi Master had been staring at the lights so long her eyes were red and watery but she just couldn't seem to look away. In a way the pulsing lights and music below were almost meditation inducing as the young slender woman just sat there and soaked it all in. The green eyed woman was feeling oddly distant and felt a depression edging into her senses. Her life as an undercover agent was a lonely one and as she sat there she ruminated on the fact that she had very few real connections to this galaxy. She had precious few friends, even among her Jedi peers. In fact only really
Valery Noble
or
Connel Vanagor
really made the list. She knew other Jedi such as
Jonyna Si
or
Caltin Vanagor
or even
Kahlil Noble
but she wasn't really close enough to them to consider them friends. Kat was on the outside looking in to the Jedi Order and perhaps it was partially because of her age and the fact that centuries had past since her old life. Of course Valery was older than Kat was and the Jedi Grandmaster seemed to fit in just fine. Maybe it was the lack of a proper Jedi training that kept Katarine at arms length. After Order 66 the Order had been destroyed and the Jedi were scattered to fend for themselves. Katarine had checked the archives to read her file but there was precious little there. An account of the padwans she'd trained and a few notes about her past but most of it was blotted out to allow her the anonymity of undercover assignments. Sometimes it felt as if she wasn't supposed to exist anymore and the galaxy somehow knew that and was pushing her away from a true calling again.She sighed at that depressing thought and pushed her long brown and white hair out of her face, the first time she'd stirred in hours. Technically she was on an assignment but the trail had gone cold and leads were hard to come by. In the nighttime air her thoughts drifted towards the pilot
Zane Cameron
and she smirked, wondering what the flyboy was up to at this hour. There had been chemistry there between them but nothing ever came of it. That was partially Katarine's fault. The last time she'd tried to find love was one of her darkest moments. She had never quite recovered from it—the way he'd left without a word, just a cold silence where once there had been warmth. The ache had settled into her bones, a constant throb that never quite went away, no matter how many hours she buried herself in work or how many nights she drowned in drink. That night, though, it had been different. She'd slipped into the blur without hesitation, the darkside presence an old, familiar companion. Shots of whiskey and cheap tequila blurred the edges of her pain but the darkness did the heavy lifting, and for a few fleeting hours, she had almost convinced herself that nothing mattered—that she could burn it all away. Her head had spun, her heart had pounded, and the walls of the bar had felt like they were closing in as if the entire world was swirling down a drain. When the sun came up, she couldn't remember half the faces, only the lingering taste of regret and the sharp, hollow emptiness that had settled back into her chest. The days turned to months and years of this pain and she wasn't one to go chasing that experience again.Yet sitting here alone with the glowing streets reflected on her porcelean skin Katarine couldn't deny that she wanted to belong again. She fished her datapad out of her pocket and scrolled the handfull of numbres she knew, wondering if it was time to reach out to someone so she could hear a friendly voice. She'd been undercover for over six months now and hadn't so much as heard any news about the Jedi. The silence in her hotel room was suffocating, a weight she could feel pressing on her chest as she sat by the window, staring out at the bright, crowded streets. It had been centuries since she'd last seen her old friends, since laughter had filled the rooms, since the familiar warmth of their voices had brought the world into focus. Now, there was only the hum of city traffic and the occasional echo of her own footsteps, too loud in the hollow space. She missed the simple things: the way they'd argued over pizza toppings, the comfort of their company during quiet mornings, the feeling of belonging in a world that often felt too big. But it wasn't just their absence that stung. It was the ache of knowing they were out there, living in the Force without her, moving on while she remained suspended in time, caught between memories and the cold reality of a loneliness that no amount of music or distraction could fill.
Her deep green eyes traveled back to the datapad, wondering if she should make that call.
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