Trust

[Tydeus of Tion]

Korr frowned as he emerged from the vessel, eyes flashing across the deserted refueling station. Sterile lights shone on cold slabs of permacrete beneath their feet. Shadows lingered in the corners. A song played through the stereo system, eerily cheery.

"If you like pina coladas​

and getting caught in the rain​

if you're not into yoga​

if you have half a brain​

if you like making love at midnight​

in the dunes of the cape."​

​

The straight-laced Jedi blinked.

"Uhm."

He looked at Quinn and shrugged.

Just beside the X-wing was the fuel pump, a plain rectangle. A short distance away was a simple building constructed like a box. Whoever had built this place hadn't had originality in mind. Korr strode toward it.

The door chimed as it opened. Inside were vending machines, a refresher and a counter top. No one stood behind the counter.

The annoyingly happy song continued to play on.

"Huh. Looks like no one's home."

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

Quinn's bare feet padded in the store silently behind Korr. She made quick use of the refresher, though she still preferred to use leaves. Exiting back to the store, she realized it smelled like a sterile clinic with some sort of manufactured cheese aroma. Quinn's nose crinkled. Her finger poked a bag of Cheryl's Cheesey Puffs uncertainly.

Frown on mocha lips deepened at Korr's words.

"Does that mean we are stranded here?"

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

"No,"

Korr stared at the crinkling bag of cheesy puffs.

"It just means we're alone."

Some call gray eyes wise, but nobody would refer to the ardent eyes that swung toward Quinn as anything short of foolhardy, with a hint of audaciousness.

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

Fiery-gaze stared back, caught in the intensity of his gray orbs like building thunderclouds. Was it longing? Heart quickened like her footsteps on a sunlit path in spring.

She looked at him over the shelf of assorted, processed snacks. "Ryan," voice caught in the back of her throat. A stubborn clench pulled at the huntress' jaw that perhaps hid the flash of longing in her own eyes. She felt the ache in her chest, fingers rose and spread absently across her heart.

She was beyond torn. She had fallen over the edge. Had she dragged Korr with her or was he the one who beckoned her to leap in the first place?

He said he wasn't there to protect her. But maybe she could protect him. Picking up a bag of the Cheesy Puffs, she threw it at his head. "Fight me hand-to-hand Ryan. Your technique needs work before we see Isolda."

All smoke and mirrors to break the intensity of his gaze, that same gaze she would run towards, like leaping off a cliff.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

One hand snatched the bag out of the air. Cheese puffs crunched beneath calloused fingers.

"Really?"

Ryan strode toward her, stopping well within her reach. He cast the bag aside. Their locked gazes didn't break. He could feel her in the Force, dithering over the edge, a different sort than the abyss from before. It almost felt like she wanted someone to push her.

"I seem to remember you pinned beneath me last time we fought."

The slyness in his voice did not befit a Jedi. He knew and didn't care.

"You're welcome to try again."

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

"It's because I hesitated when I recognized you." Each word left her lips like freshly-ground salt. The tension in the space between them felt like building static in the air.

She had a sleeve of Jar Jar's Powdered doughnuts behind her back. This time, she didn't hesitate. Arm lashed forward as she went to slap it across his face as she stepped forward with a sweeping low kick to the outside of his knees.

Obviously property damage didn't bother her very much.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Shining knights were always felled by low blows, or in this case, a box of doughnuts. Powdered sugar exploded as the sleeve smashed into Ryan's face. The Jedi reeled backward, right into the leg sweep. It turned out that the cold slab of permacrete that the refueling station excused as a floor was just as hard as it looked.

Smack.

Ryan grunted in surprise from his new position on the floor, but muscle memory kicked in. He lashed out with his feet in a scissoring motion, aiming to knock her off her feet.

Sith always fought dirty. So did girls.

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

Her face remained impassive as he hit the floor, though the ache inside her chest increased. Sometimes the most brilliant move involved doing something simple. As Ryan lashed his legs out, she jumped over the reach of his shoes. Landing light on her feet, she lunged to her side and took a two-handed grip on one of the shelves of snacks.

With a grunt, she knocked it over sending a waterfall of more packaged Jar Jar doughnuts, Naboo cream puffs, and Dax's gummy-chews toward the fallen Jedi.

There were also Chocochews.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

The kick met thin air. His heart raced, knowing the counterstroke was coming. Ryan transitioned his momentum, rolling backward over his shoulder, movements accelerated by the Force. The backward somersault carried him away from the sudden avalanche of poor health choices. The shelf landed with a crash.

Korr came to his feet swiftly, brows drawn close at the destruction of property. She was making a mess.

He stood his ground, waiting for the nimble woman to make her approach. Patience, he told himself. His breath came quick and his heart rang with the twin hammers of her presence and the thrill of combat. The thought of injuring her with a punch or kick stung. Grappling, though, that was a different story.

Hooking a bag of chewies with his boot, he kicked it at her face.

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

As the shelf hit empty floor, she pushed off the permacrete and sprinted toward Ryan. The chewies split open on contact with her face, chocolates spattering against her shoulders. It didn't slow her forward momentum. Nimble-digits shot forward as she went to capture Ryan's left arm with intentions of twisting it behind his back. The heel of her closest foot to Korr shot forward toward the weak point on the back of his left knee.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

The Force hummed through him and he saw every detail; every wrinkle of her rough, tanned fingers as they stretched out for his wrist; the subtle twist of her hips as they rotated for a kick; the way she sucked in breath before the strike. Ryan saw and Ryan acted.

He pivoted, stretching his left hand out to meet her grasping fingers. He swiveled his wrist as her fingers brushed against it, breaking contact so that his own calloused hand could wrap around her slender forearm. Those questing fingers of hers might still find purchase on his wrist, but he had her now. The Jedi continued the pivot and swung her arm with him, pushing out with his right hand to shove at her left shoulder.

The anatomy of her heel strike was wrong. The blow barked against the front of his shin and he gritted his teeth against the uncomfortable contact.

Determined to beat her but not to harm her, Ryan used his strength to overcome her swiftness and with the grip on her wrist, the pivot, and the shove, attempted to send her flying past him and into the shelf behind.

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

She made eye contact with him and held it for a moment as he swung her around. His grizzled-face was close. For a second, as close as they were in the shared cockpit. Blood pulsed through her veins beneath the fingers around her arm. Her heart quickened. Odium's blood poisoning sizzled.

A mixture of the light and darkside tingled through her senses in the force.

As he spun her, she reached up with her untangled arm and went to grip the fabric of his robe on top of his shoulder. With a final push off the floor, she brought her legs up mid-spin and kicked at the shelf, hopefully using Ryan's shoulder as leverage she was now perpendicular to him - head-level and in the air. Torquing at the waist, she kicked off the shelf to roll herself through the air and if her grip was on Ryan's shoulder, she had the potential to twist him off his feet and on the ground with her. Or, at the least, she would break free from his grasp.

The shelf rocked back and created a domino effect, sending a spray of varying treats everywhere as three more shelves knocked back and slammed into the station's floor.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

A sharp tug on his shoulder was all the warning Ryan got. It wasn't enough.

Acrobatic agility trumped pure force as she flipped over him, bags of treats spraying everywhere, and bore him to the ground. The impact was just as cold and unforgiving as it had been mere moments before. Feeling the beginnings of bruises on his back, Ryan grunted, hand still in possession of her wrist, and attempted to somersault backward and on top of her.

The grip on her wrist would prevent her from getting up too quickly. If she tried he could just jerk her arm and pull her back down. That and her positioning - now directly behind him and probably laying on her back - meant he would probably end up straddling her waist, pinning her to the ground with one hand.

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

She would've found herself in a very similar position to that in the tunnels on the beach - if it wasn't for her wrist rotating in his iron-like grasp and yanking outward between the natural space of his thumb and fingers. Once freed, she performed her own somersault across the snack littered floor as Ryan landed in a crouch moments where she was before. If she moved fast enough, she was now facing his back.

Toned-mocha arms went to wrap around his neck and head while her legs moved to cross around his sides, just above his hips. If successful, her grip would be tight enough to bring him down but not to harm him...although it wouldn't be comfortable. Hot breath would puff against his ear.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Korr's somersault ended in a pile of fruit snacks and hard permacrete. He grit his teeth, trying to turn around. Too slow. A lithe arm wrapped around his throat and applied pressure. Toned thighs squeezed around his hips, ankles hooking together and pulling him down. Warmth seeped through the fabric of his rough robes as she pressed against him.

The Jedi struggled for a moment, hands coming up to try and push off that mocha arm that barred desperate lungs from drawing breath, but she was stronger than one might think. Not the unyielding iron of Ryan's scarred musculature, but a more supple strength, like the tautness of a drawn bow. Slowly, Ryan relaxed, feeling her chest rise and fall against him, her sultry breath on his ear, and her arms and legs trembling as they strained to hold him, to beat him.

At last he raised a hand and tapped against her arm. Twice.

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]


The tap of his fingers on her arm sent shivers down her spine. She quickly released her hold from around his neck and untangled her legs and herself from his body. The sudden lack of heat from his back made the toned-skin on her midriff prickle is goosebumps. Her back pressed into the treat and debris layered floor of the seemingly abandoned station as she lay next to him.

She tilted her head to look at the side of his face, her own chest rising and falling in steadying breaths from their tussle.

"Ryan. Promise you won't die for me when we face Isolda."

The use of his first name in such a serious and gentle manner was rare for the huntress, like finding a cache of sweet honey in the woods.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Air rushed back into his lungs, sweet and refreshing. He sat up and stared straight ahead, gray eyes fixed on something intangible.

"I can't make you that promise."

A certain hardness came into those eyes. There was something inexplicable drawing him toward the Dark Side Prophetess. Not Quinn. Not even his duty to protect the Jedi Order. Something else pulled him. Something deeper than duty.

"But you're not the reason I'm going to kill Isolda. She's killed or turned more Jedi than I can count. Her and the Zambrano King. Both of them need to die."

[member="Quinn Vos"]

 

[Quinn Vos]

[member="Ryan Korr"]

She sat up slowly, the tone in Ryan's voice catching her off guard. Suddenly, she wanted to shake him, pull him free from whatever road he was looking down. Instead, a calloused palm reached forward and rest on his shoulder. She squeezed his muscles as if she could pull his tension out. She frowned, hearing Zambrano.

"Good intentions pave the road to the darkside, Ryan. I do not know Zambrano personally but I've heard whispers of his deeds among my own. He is not honorable. He targets the weak. He hides behind his servants."

Her hand lingered on his shoulder before she stood. Lithe-frame hovered over him. "We should go."

It was easy to get lost with Ryan, lose the sense of her mission, lose a sense of time, and lose a sense of how dangerous of a position they were both in. If someone from One Sith saw her talking so easily with a jedi, she would be executed on the spot. Most likely tortured first.

 

[Tydeus of Tion]

Nature had balance. In the wild, honey came with bees. Bees stung. Sometimes in ones and twos, annoyingly... and sometimes, sometimes they swarmed, a buzzing horde of toxin-imbibed, razored needles. Death by a thousand, thousand pricks. Quinn's cache of honey was not without its price. And her words pricked like the sting of a bee.

He stood too, levity fading. How could she lecture him on the Dark Side? What possible-

A soft beep came from a pocket. Ryan frowned and withdrew the com link.

"Knight Korr?"

"This is he."

"This is Knight Ky, Manaan is under attack by the Sith. Reports say the Grandmaster has been captured by Darth Vornskr. What's your sit rep?"

If an unexpected punch had struck Ryan in the gut, the effects would have been no different. A whoosh of air left his lungs and his stomach clenched until it hurt. He couldn't swallow. He couldn't breathe.

"Knight Korr?"

"Still here," Ryan rasped, "I'm on the way back from my mission to Fresia. I-"

Gray eyes found [member="Quinn Vos"]. "I'm on my way."

"Hurry, there's little time. I fear we'll be too late."

The com link clicked off. Ryan put it back in his pocket, then fished out a roll of credits. He put a hundred on the countertop for the damage caused by his and Quinn's scuffle. A wave of his hand re-erected the fallen shelves. Hollow inside, he stumbled out the door and toward the Stealth X.

 

[Quinn Vos]

She jogged lightly next to Ryan, silently mulling over the news. She had her own shock to deal with. She knew Odium wasn't there or involved or she would've known.

Her heart tugged when she saw the pain flicker across Ryan's face. She knew the more time she spent with him would only increase the ache in her chest. She could fight wars. She could die an honorable death in the battle field. But this was something far scarier. It took a different kind of courage.

It took an even different kind to put others first.

Looking around the dull space station that had about as much warmth as Hoth on a summer day, she stopped at the base of his star fighter. "Go Korr. We part ways here. It will be too dangerous to drop me off and take time you do not have."

And suddenly, it was harder to breath knowing she wouldn't feel his warm embrace for a long time, like the departing of summer.

[member="Ryan Korr"]