Location: A Frontier Planet
The colony was still raw around the edges. Scarred buildings patched with prefab panels, supply crates stacked beneath half-rebuilt roofs, dust kicked into the air with every passing repulsor-lift. The people moved with purpose but not peace.
Near the center of the settlement, under the shade of a collapsed transport wing turned into an improvised awning, Vinorl Kastan sat with a small circle of colonists. He wasn't teaching Jedi doctrine. He was just… being present. A quiet light in the darkness.
Vinorl had just finished mediating some petty dispute between the locals. It wasn't long before he felt Acier's presence. Vinorl turned toward the supply lane just as he approached.
Ace moved with a different energy than before. He was no longer rigid. Fractured. He was steadier now. There was still a wornness to him, that would linger forever Vinorl thought. But it didn't drag him down. Tic padded behind him, head swiveling between the crates and the scattered settlers.
Vinorl watched Ace close the distance, hands folded behind his back, posture neutral. Ace stopped a few steps in front of him and Vinorl offered a faint nod. He noticed the prosthetic first, but didn't say anything out of respect.
Ace cast a quick glance at the colonists filtering through the settlement. "Looks like you're keeping things together."
"No one keeps anything together alone." Vinorl replied. "But I do what I can."
Ace's jaw twitched, something unspoken moving behind his eyes. "Can we talk?"
Vinorl gestured toward the ridge path that overlooked the settlement. "Walk with me, Vayun."
They moved away from the bustle, past supply shelters and makeshift water towers. The ground sloped upward, the dust giving way to rough stone. When they reached the ridge, Ace stopped at the ledge. Vinorl joined him without pressing for words. Tic hopped onto a crate beside Ace, his photoreceptor glowing dimly as it scanned the sprawling settlement.
Ace spoke first, his tone clear. "I'm… better."
Vinorl turned his head just slightly. "So it seems."
"My mother… I can think about her without feeling like I'll fall apart."
Vinorl's eyes softened, though his expression stayed composed. "You have walked far since we last stood on Dathomir."
Ace nodded once, the gesture small but certain. After leaving Roon, Ace drifted from world to world, letting the galaxy breathe around him while he rebuilt himself piece by piece. He forged a new lightsaber, found his way back into the current of the Force, and met people who quietly shifted his edges. The ache Sibylla Abrantes left behind had settled into a healed scar now, a memory of something that once mattered deeply.
He still didn't know exactly where his path led, but he was closer to it than he had ever been when he first stepped away from the fight.
But when the topic shifted, his voice lowered.
"Clan Vethrisa." Ace said. "Vethrisa. What happened. What I did... That still haunts me."
Vinorl didn't turn away. The wind moved lightly between them and a child's laughter echoed faintly from the colony below. Then Vinorl spoke gently, but without hesitation.
"Orryn would have been proud of you."
Ace didn't flinch. His stillness was the only response, but it was enough to show the words had landed.
Vinorl kept his gaze on the horizon. "Not proud because you endured tragedy. Proud because you chose to keep walking afterward."
Ace exhaled slowly. "I don't know what to do about Dathomir."
Vinorl folded his hands behind his back again. "Then return."
Ace's brows pulled together. Not in refusal, but in understanding.
Vinorl continued. "You survived what happened there. But you have not stood on that ground as the person you've become. Healing is not always distance. Sometimes it is return."
Tic chirped, the sound soft but firm, almost agreeing. Ace looked out across the settlement again, the wind nudging the loose strands of his locs back from his face.
"…I think you're right." He said quietly.
A distant generator hummed to life down in the colony. Workers shouted instructions. Life moved on. On the ridge, the decision settled between them with a steady finality; two silhouettes looking toward the horizon, aware that the next step wasn't an escape. It was a return.
