This would be a gamble, especially with her attention span so limited by her former Master's linked pain, but she would have to manage. She couldn't deny feeling a spike of anxiety curl in her stomach when the Captain asked about Haldir, but... she would have to try her plan.
It had to work...
She allowed Haldir to move the boy into the ship, maintaining her focus to keep him still. However, the wide, unblinking eyes unsettled, and when Haldir mentioned others approaching, she had an idea in mind. She took the blaster away carefully; it took some considerable effort to prise it free...
She hissed in pain as the blaster bolt that hit Haldir also felt like it burned into her own shoulder, and she staggered. Though she was able to come to grips with what happened sooner than the rest, her only regret was that she wasn't fast enough to protect both the little girl and Haldir...
She barely managed to avoid rolling her eyes at his smartass comment, but didn't bother hiding the slight grin that touched her lips instead. Still, she would let Haldir do the talking at first, merely allowing her Sight to expand. She swept her gaze over the horizon, slowing her breathing...
Their roles had been reversed, it seemed.
With her long absence from the Jedi Order finally coming to a close, she had broken ties with her past, having finally fully embraced the Light. And with it, came a difference in her appearance. Hair tightly braided and coiled atop her head, she wore...
He looked so adorable, so lovable in that moment when he turned away, she couldn't help the slight smirk that tugged at her lips. She had the impish impulse to kiss him then, but... it was still too soon, and it would be taken the wrong way. Was there a wrong way, really? a quiet voice murmured...
Dimly, she was aware of someone's heart thundering. Was it hers, or his? Did it matter?
The wait was agonizing. To watch his expressions flicker over his face in rapid succession; was he aware that, without his mask, his features were so vulnerable? Her heart ached at his expression of...
At his halfhearted joke about not passing out, she chuckled again, and gripped his hand, allowing him to pull her up back to her feet. Wincing at the pins and needles that prickled her legs in protest of the sudden movement, she paused long enough to breathe out the lingering feeling, stretching...
Once upon a time, even the thought of holding his hand would have sent her heart racing, but now... it was a welcome warmth. Feeling his fingers tentatively lace with hers, she gave his hand a light squeeze of affirmation, listening to his words, wincing at his mention of music. True, the...
By the time he had awakened, she hadn't moved. His caf had been tidied up, but hers still sat at her elbow, now stone cold. Shoulders relaxed, eyes closed, her mind drifted in a formless direction. Occasionally, Crix's face would swim up to the surface. Haldir's face, grief and hurt twisting his...
Of all the reactions she had anticipated, this was not one of them.
She had knelt, fully expecting... something. Acceptance, questioning. But at the clanging of the cup and the shattering of ice, she flinched, and though she wanted to look up, she didn't. She wouldn't. She knew how she felt...
She didn't need their Bond to see how Haldir was anxious. Truthfully, she expected to feel a strong sense of anxiety as well. She expected to feel a myriad of things, but the moment he was stood before her, only one emotion broke through the wall she had put up between them.
Relief.
Relief...
Deep in meditation, she was drifting through the darkness of thought.
However, she could feel the moment Haldir landed on the Moon. With Mantis's eyes, she would study him, in the way he walked silently. Through the Skreev's eyes, in snatches of glimpses, she could see him going in her...
-Theme-
She wanted to run away. And for months, she had done just that. Let Haldir work with Elidan, and though she had taken responsibility for her own actions, she still walked away, letting her fate hang in the balance. She wanted to hunt down the ones that had taken away a person she...
She had left the Order, and had hoped to outrun them with her own ambition and grief. It wasn't the Jedi way, but a the time, it was the only way she could think of to avenge her best friend, but it had gone horribly wrong. She had tried to avoid her former Master, but he pursued her anyways...
The ridiculousness of it all made her want to laugh and cry. It made her want to rip off her mask, to show that she was already slipping. That she was already gripping onto a crumbling ledge that yawned into an abyss? And yet, they had the audacity to... no, the nerve to lecture her on loss. Who...
Being held by Haldir should have felt like home, but it wasn't.
It was bittersweet, that the thing she thought would be something to bring her comfort instead felt like a cage. Still, hearing Hera's words did not bring comfort, but...
Neither did Haldir's.
Finding her feet beneath her...
Two of them.
Two of them followed her here. She gritted her jaw, and felt her fists ball hard, hard enough for it to hurt. She had been trying her damnest to outrun them, to finally be free, and he called the goddamned cavalry. Haldir would feel the hurt, compounded by frustration, and a...
She should have known better.
She should have just let her double run the night, and found a quiet place to settle. But almost before her feet touched ground, she knew she was being followed. Sith, other Jedi, it didn't matter. All that mattered was she had to vanish again. She wanted space...
She was lost to the music.
Like a nimbus, a nebula floating alone in the starry depths of space, she floated alone on the catwalks poised above the crowd, gold silk rippling around her legs as she began to shift her hips, arms flung up to the air. The music changed, and burnt umber eyes...