What Was and What Will Be
Despite his reaction to being put on the spot on that day, months ago, Vizion still hadn’t made good on his intentions. Despite making it known he had a ring, he had it for an undefined length of time, and in earshot of her, no less. It wasn’t reluctance, or any other kind of hesitation. Jedi duty being what it was for him, his time could get scarce, and he simply hadn’t found a good opportunity or way to do it that Briana Sal-Soren wouldn’t see coming.
But today he had plans. Plans that had nothing to do with it at first, had everything to do with her, and were discussed months ago, when she didn’t feel ready to face her parents where they were interred. Now he’d gotten her to agree to the visit, and suggested she think of what to say. Dinner, later. Wherever the day took them in-between.
There had to be a moment, somewhere in there, that felt right.
The morning of, he stopped in the middle of his usual run to do something important and beneath her notice. First, he left a voice message with his brother Dominic Praxon, who was far from Naboo, and whose status was unknown:
He exited the call, hesitantly tapping ‘end’ on his comm. The fate of much of their family had been unknowable for months, and there was no way he’d been able to contact them long before now. Now this. This wasn’t at all how he thought it would go, in years past. None of this was. Not the year, the season, or even the planet. Much of the situation wasn’t ideal or didn’t live up to his early… let’s call them idyllic fantasies.
At this point, he wasn’t going to wait forever for the stars to align.
Next was a text to the only other Sal-Soren he ever called friend — her brother, who was similarly absent, but the reasons were known. He almost didn’t want to distract Brandyn Sal-Soren from his current reality, and felt badly for him with the situation he was in, but he deserved to know:
And he almost left it at that. Almost. But nerves compelled him to say more:
If everyone was here. But he wasn’t. They weren't. There was one more thing, off-topic:
Then he darkened the screen of his comm, pocketed it, and resumed his run, keen to clear his thoughts for what was to come.
Heading to the Graves
Later that morning, the two of them left for the Ee'everwest mausoleum together, where generations of her family found their eternal rest.
Despite its association, it looked little like the graves found elsewhere in the galaxy. There were no shadowed halls, nor any cold, dank crypts. The structure sat beneath the open sky instead, atop a gentle rise overlooking the surrounding countryside. White columns framed the walkways in an orderly fashion along the entrance, draped with dramatic blooming vines, while carved memorial alcoves lined the terraces beyond. Here, the dead were continuously surrounded by living things. Blind eyes staring out at the carefully tended beds of lilies, roses, and native Naboo flowers, whose color spilled across the grounds and filled the wind with the scent of blossoms and fresh earth.
They passed by several tombs, whose likeness was carved into the stone covering their resting place, with the oldest among them having crumbled away the features, their faces forgotten by the endless march of time. But towards the end, many of the spaces were open, empty and unsealed, waiting for their dead. Waiting for the rest of the Sal-Soren brood to join them. The thought was not a pleasant one for her, he could imagine. For him and his… he refused to put too much consideration into the unknown.
"Over here," Briana then said, pulling Vizion by the hand and down the adjacent pathway. They ended up in front of seven tombs, side by side: her grandparents, Lady Sarnae and Lord Jaggen, and beside them, three of their six children. Further along lay their fifth daughter, Teyla, and beside her, Baros.
Her parents. He hadn't been there that day, and he used to regret that, but what could he have done, truly? The grip Vizion's beloved had on his hand tightened, seemingly in response to that meandering thought, at least from his perspective… but he knew better.
Briana had explained that there'd been debate over whether or not Baros would be permitted a place here for all his crimes, or if his remains would be sent back to Corellia like some kind of macabre care package for his parents. To everyone's surprise, and the siblings' relief, it'd been her aunt Alora, a dear friend of Vizion's own mother, who'd advocated for keeping her parents together.
Even in death, her parents had been found in each other's embrace, unable to let go of one another. Whatever disagreements existed among the living no longer mattered beside that simple fact. So they'd been laid to rest, forever side by side in the afterlife. At the time, learning of it, Vizion had reserved the thoughts that imagery inspired. For all he'd known and come to know of her parents, that one thing stuck with him, most of all.
Briana's gaze lingered on the carved faces of her parents, hardly wavering; he was keen to the knot of what she must be feeling in those moments, attuned to her as he'd become, and a thumb traced back and forth over a tight knuckle of her grip. He put her up to this, and he wasn't going anywhere.
"This is the first time that I've ever seen their statues," she confessed, drawing his gaze to her when she finally spoke. She dabbed at the corners of her eyes as she kept going. "I commissioned the artisans, the sculptors… but never actually made it here to see their work."
That was a hesitance only complicated loss could provoke, healing delayed by others being dismissive or ignorant of her pain, but she was here now. The when hardly mattered. The death grip on his hand released as she walked over, resting the bouquet of flowers they'd brought with them at the foot of each tomb. Wordlessly, he flexed his hand, while his eyes followed her and remained there.
She needed to do this, needed to get this out, and sit with her feelings.
Briana Speaks to Her Parents
Vizion clasped hand over wrist in front of himself, feeling the disjointedness in this place where the beautiful day and sadness were intersecting as he stood watch over her. For a long while, Briana said nothing, while birds chittered, another layer on the din underwriting the silence, the low noise of life coming from the city. Until she finally spoke, and her words rose above that silence.
"I wasn't sure what I would want to say when I finally came here, and I was so... angry with you. Both of you. Over all of the things you did, the people you hurt, and for us who were left behind to clean it all up. As a kid, you dream up this image of who your parents are supposed to be, only to find out that they were both just... people. Flawed, stubborn people. And when I found that out, I hated you for it, because every answer I found in trying to understand you, just made it all that much more complicated."
A slow breath left her as she tried to clear her throat, though when she spoke again her voice remained rough around the edges, and it put an ache in him.
"But, I understand now that you were trying. Even though you got it wrong, even though it did the opposite of what you were trying to achieve. I know that both of you believed you were doing your best for us, and that's something I can finally make peace with now."
Or it reawoke the ache — today was but one stop in a long process of healing that could hardly be detangled from what he felt for her, itself a near-constant. He thought he did, once, thought he knew her, thought he knew what he wanted, but that was an illusion over the reality of the woman before him and what was in his heart now. Wasn't even close. Not by a longshot.
After another long stretch of silent sniffling and eye dabbing, she added, "I miss you both, and I wish I'd said that when everyone was watching." She'd needed to keep up the facade when the holofilms were rolling through every second of her mourning, he knew, scrutinizing every action or inaction she took, knowing that whatever she did could blow back negatively on her siblings, on her family name.
Even then, standing over the bodies of her parents, the galaxy had demanded something from her. He felt the galaxy asked too much of her, that it would whittle her away until nothing remained and he couldn't bear to let that happen.
She touched the stone hand of her father, as gently as if she were touching living flesh. "I love you, and I want you to know that I'm doing my best to take care of them in your place." A touch he knew so well, now.
Vizion unfolded his hands and went to Briana, placing a hand upon her back as his eyes landed on the stone effigies of people he was convinced might have tried to keep him away from her, because of what he long was, what he still was: a Jedi.
He didn't hate them.
"She's not doing it alone," he said softly, his brow creasing faintly as he continued, his head turning, his gaze drifting to her, "not anymore," he gave Briana the smallest of smiles, a thing that couldn't be helped as he pulled her close with an honest whisper, "I won't allow it." Not since she let him be near, and he wasn't going to stop. He pressed his lips to her hair, breathing in the scent. "I love you. I'm proud of you."
He could feel her softening with his words, as she settled into the security his arms provided, her fingers curling into his shirt. "I wouldn't be here without you," she whispered, as if the dead around them might hear. "I think I would have kept finding reasons to put this off, or would have kept convincing myself of why I wasn't ready." She tipped her head back enough to look at him, her long hair cascading over his arms like buttery waves. Most of the tears had dried up by now, but traces of their presence lingered in the flush across her cheeks. "Thank you for not letting me talk myself out of coming here."
Her hand rose to cup his cheek, her thumb grazing gently along the stubble as a gentle smile pulled at her lips. "I couldn't have imagined doing this alone," she said, while he turned his head towards the touch, "I hate to imagine you alone," he returned, an utterance, while reining in the reflex that the year past had put into him, after a moment, turning his gaze back to hers.
The Proposal
A compulsion followed it, looking at those eyes, the number of times he'd done so being something he could hardly count. Blue as the waters of the Lake Country, or the perennially clear skies of this world. If such a thing were possible.
"I don't know what the future holds. It's been…" the uncertainty could be harrowing, the year since he'd heard anything from his father, mother, older brother.... the loss of contact under Sith opression; he sighed softly, looking down at her, "...I don't know how I'd manage without you." It felt, some days, like she was all he had. "You're my certainty, Briana. As if my soul itself is in alignment when I'm with you." A faint smile lifted the corners of his lips, as he brushed curled fingers, leaving them to rest under her chin, "Nothing's ever been so clear to me as you."
That was true for him for longer than she knew. "Fool as I am, I'd be more of one to let go of that, let go of you," he'd never wanted to, but life and the Force tended to have other ideas, "so, I… hope you'll do me the honour of becoming my wife." She was it for him, might be she always had been. "Marry me, Briana Sal-Soren," a faint breath of a laugh came out of him, "or so help me I may combust!"
Where else could he put all that love?
Briana, usually so calm and collected, could not hide her shock at that moment, not that she could hide much of anything from him if she tried — she, his fondest and most endless read, a book he couldn't put down. Her eyes widened, her pale pink lips parted ever so slightly, and the rest of her body had gone still with surprise.
For a woman who always seemed to have a quick retort up her sleeve, she was curiously silent as he watched, captivated, patient yet anticipating, while a cascade of emotions flickered across her features in rapid succession, each one chased by the next before finally settling into pure, undiluted affection. The corners of her mouth threatened to curve upward, while the shine gathered in her eyes once again.
"Yes," she finally said.
That one single word bubbling out of her with a smile that broadened into something brighter than any he'd ever seen, something that could light up the entire galaxy.
"Of course it's a yes!"
It lit him up, at least. He had hardly any doubt that she would give him the answer he sought, but then… well, he had her answer. Vizion tipped his forehead against hers, relieved, breathing out the low laugh that came over him.
"I have something for you," he said after a moment, as he fished a small, soft pouch from a trouser pocket, and stood up in full, releasing her, "had it resized last year."
That gave some vague indication of just how long he'd been thinking about this, but in reality the mere possibility entered his mind quite early. He opened the little pouch and pulled out a white-gold ring that had a lot of history, and an intricate design set with a champagne diamond and smaller diamonds along the band. It was one of several rings from his family's annals, and this one in particular predated the Gulag Plague by a considerable margin.
"It wasn't purchased from a case, but commissioned by one of my ancestors for his beloved." A fact that could say a few things. Vizion gestured to her, his face writ with the same affection that she wore in hers. "I chose it for its meaning." He gave a warm smile, "May I have your hand?"
Briana held out her left hand, more than willingly, still so infused with the aura of these moments. She would remember him mentioning this ring months ago, but what he'd said back then hadn't gone any further than the fact that he had it, and it'd been somewhere safe, not on his person. It was a beautiful ring, and though she would have to give it great care, it was still more practical than many contemporary options.
Vizion took Briana's hand, "You should wear it on a chain when necessary." Jedi considerations. Then he gently slipped the ring into place, where it belonged. Belonged to her, like he did. Like she did, to him. A thing foretold, come to pass.
"There," came the quiet declaration as he ran a thumb gently over the ring, holding her hand, "right where it's meant to be." He gave a firm smile, his eyes returning to her face, "Now lets get out of here."
They had the rest of this warm, sunny day to themselves.
