Private A Beautiful Place to Break

[Iandre Athlea]

The transport touched down with a softness that felt entirely undeserved.

Naboo greeted her as it always had: with gentle skies and a warm, golden light that didn't ask anything of those standing beneath it. It was a world built for healing, for remembering the rhythm of peace. But as Iandre Athlea remained in her seat long after the other passengers had disembarked, the beauty outside felt like a mask.

Her hands rested in her lap, fingers interlaced, a posture of stillness, but not of ease. Years of discipline had taught her to sit with a heavy weight without letting the seams show, but this burden defied her training.

"You can walk onto a battlefield without hesitation," she murmured, her voice barely a ghost of a thought. "And yet, this..."

She looked down, the corners of her eyes tightening.

"...this gives you pause."

Aiden.

The name pulled at a memory she hadn't allowed herself to revisit in a lifetime. Their last parting hadn't been defined by anger, but by a distance that felt unfinished, words left suspended in the air, a bond that had simply drifted rather than breaking. She didn't know how he would receive her now. She didn't even know if she had the right to ask for his time.

By the time she finally rose, the landing ramp had long since cleared.

Her boots met the ground of Naboo with quiet certainty, though each step felt heavier than the last. The air was rich with the scent of water and blooming life, a cruel contrast to the staggering emptiness that had followed her across the stars.

Widow. The word was a jagged thing, refusing to sit right in her mind. It wasn't just the loss of the man; it was the loss of the echo. Rellik's presence hadn't just faded; it was gone. In the Force, where there had once been a steady, resonant hum, there was now only a flat, cold silence. The thread hadn't just snapped; it had vanished, leaving her reaching into a void that offered no answer.

She drew in a slow, grounding breath, centering herself against the hollowness.

"You did not come here to stand still," she told herself, her voice firmer now. "You came because you needed more than the silence."

She wasn't looking for answers or the hollow promise of closure. She just needed someone who remembered who she was before the galaxy had become so loud, and before her world had gone so quiet.

Her path through the streets of Naboo was unhurried, yet she never wavered. She knew exactly where she was going; the decision had been made the moment she stepped onto the transport. Still, when she finally stood before his door, the momentum failed her.

She stopped. For the first time, uncertainty slipped past her mental guards.

Her hand hovered inches from the wood, fingers frozen. The simple act of knocking felt more consequential than any command she had ever given, any strike she had ever parried.

What if he turned her away? What if the man who lived behind this door no longer wanted to be friends with the woman standing in front of it?

Her jaw set, not in defiance, but in the quiet, grim resolve of a survivor.

"You have faced worse than this."

A breath. Then another.

Her hand moved that final, impossible inch. She knocked, softly, but with an intent that vibrated through the silent air.

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Aiden had long gotten used to the silence, so when the sounds of laughter, and joy began to fill the void left. He wasn't going to lie it was strange at first, foreign. Then it became part of his daily life altogether. He would hear the sounds of laughter coming from the barracks that held Shiraya's hope. Even then he had a sense of purpose and belonging. And now, it wasn't just that laughter. But it was his own, the laughter of his daughter, Lira. Someone who had come to him unexpectedly, something he never thought possible. And here she was, picking flowers from gardens near the training circle. Asking for a bedtime story. Constantly asking for hugs. Bringing sweet and innocent laughter into his life. He found himself smiling so much it almost seemed criminal.

Aiden's brow furrowed as he glanced up briefly from datapad that he was looking over, the familiar presence of Iandre Athlea could be felt approaching.

He hadn't seen her since her and Rellik's wedding, he was happy to attend, but he watched from a distance. Their last meeting didn't end on the greatest of terms, yet he still showed out of respect for them both. He wasn't sure what brought her back here. But he wasn't going to turn her away.

He heard the knock as he moved towards the door, he opened it and greeted Iandre with the smallest of smiles.

"Iandre" He said easily enough. "Is everything alright?" Aiden could sense the disturbance and the troubles bubbling at the surface. "You want to come in?"

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre stood exactly where she had been when the door first groaned open, her feet anchored to the stone as though crossing the threshold required a fundamental decision she was not yet entirely certain she was prepared to make. For a long, suspended heartbeat, she simply looked at him, searching for the man she remembered beneath the layers of time that had settled between them.

Aiden was unchanged in the ways that mattered, yet there was a new, lived-in warmth to his presence. Something that was softer and more grounded that caught her off guard, causing the edges of her carefully maintained Jedi composure to fray and waver. When he spoke, she didn't answer immediately; instead, her gaze dropped a fraction as she searched for words that felt heavy and elusive, buried somewhere just out of her reach.

"No," she said softly, the single syllable lingering in the humid Naboo air, honest and entirely unguarded. Her eyes lifted back to his, and in that moment, the fracture she had been desperately holding together since she fled the cold spires of Bastion finally began to show. "Everything is most certainly not alright."

She drew in a slow, jagged breath, not to center herself for a battlefield, but to survive the far more agonizing task of speaking the truth aloud.

"Rellik is gone," she continued, her voice devoid of dramatic collapse but saturated with a quiet, hollow certainty that made the words feel like lead. "Not in the way we were trained to understand the transition of life into the Force, where a flickering light simply joins a greater sun. I cannot feel him, Aiden. Not in the currents, not in the echoes…not anywhere."

Her hand shifted instinctively at her side, her fingers curling into a phantom grasp as if trying to catch a thread that had been cleanly severed at the root.

"It is as though the bond was not just broken, but entirely removed from the tapestry of existence, leaving a silence so absolute it feels like a physical weight."

The silence that followed wasn't empty; it was bloated with everything she was struggling to voice. The suffocating grief of a widow, the disorientation of a Force-sensitive who had lost her north star, and the simple, terrifying reality of being alone. She exhaled, the rigid tension finally draining from her shoulders as she looked at him with a vulnerability she hadn't permitted herself in years.

"I found myself drifting across the stars because I truly did not know where else to go," she admitted, the confession as simple as it was devastating. "And in the darkness of that journey…I remembered you."

Her gaze held his then, stripped of the titles of Jedi, soldier, or envoy, leaving only a woman standing on a threshold in the twilight.

"If the offer still stands," she whispered, her voice finally faltering as the reality of the sanctuary he offered settled over her, "I think I would very much like to come in."

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

He stood there and listened, to her words, and the truth that lay beneath them. She spoke of Rellik, his dissapearance...a tragedy. Aiden wasn't going to lie when he didn't sense the dissolution of the Diarchy, their end. Aiden in truth wasn't sure how he felt about it, there were few that he knew, and even less that he trusted. He never trusted the Diarchy, no part of it at all. He could say he knew something like this was coming, but that would just be ignorance. And that wasn't him, no. He was never that person, he was so much more than that.

"Come on in, have a seat." Aiden said as he ushered her in, he pointed to a chair at the table where she could sit if she wanted. Aiden closed the door behind her, taking a look at her before moving towards the kitchen. He would get some fresh tea brewed, something to help with things.

"I'm sorry Iandre. I'm sorry that has happened to you." Aiden knew so much, the cost of life, family, love and the pain that it brought. He had lost so much in his life, so damn much. But what he found was so much more and worth all that pain that he would go through it again if necessary. As long as it led him to the same path, to Lira, and Alina Grayson

"Rellik was a good person, from what I knew of him." Aiden spoke honestly and truthfully. "There were many things about the Diarchy that I disagreed with, didn't trust, and still dont. But I know he was a good person."

Aiden turned around and leaned back against the counter, arms crossed. He didn't say much else, he would just let her speak, let her get off her chest what she needed to.

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre stepped inside as he offered, her movements quiet and almost automatic, as if she were operating on a fading reserve of muscle memory. The soft click of the door closing behind her carried a sense of finality that resonated deeper than the sound itself, echoing in the hollow space where her composure had been. For a long moment, she remained standing, her gaze drifting through the room and taking in small, inconsequential details without truly seeing them. It was as if she were trying to anchor herself to something tangible before the sheer weight of the world finally caught up to her. When she eventually lowered herself into the chair, the motion was controlled and practiced, a deliberate performance of stability.

Her hands settled in her lap, becoming still. Too still.

Aiden's words reached her, and for a moment, she simply held them there, turning them over with the fragile care one might give to glass that was already beginning to spiderweb under pressure.

"He was," she agreed softly, the words coming far too easily. Her fingers tightened faintly against one another, the only outward sign of the storm beneath the surface. "He was a better man than most ever gave him credit for."

There was no defensiveness in her tone, no lingering spark to argue the politics of the Diarchy or the righteousness of their respective causes. In the face of this particular silence, those battles felt like distant, meaningless echoes. Her gaze dropped to a point just beyond the table, her voice falling to a whisper that felt heavier than a shout.

"I cannot feel him, Aiden. Not in the Force. Not anywhere."

The admission landed between them with a sickening density. She took a shallow, hitching breath, her composure tightening around the edges as she physically fought to hold the pieces of herself together.

"It is not like the loss I have come to understand," she continued, her brow furrowing in a mix of quiet distress and a deepening, soul-deep confusion. "When someone dies, there is usually a transition, a presence that fades like an echo, but does not vanish all at once. There is a trail. A memory in the current."

Her hand shifted almost unconsciously, her fingers reaching into the empty air as if grasping for a thread that had been cleanly severed.

"But this...this is just absence."

The word caught in her throat, forcing her to stop. For a heartbeat, the silence stretched between them, thin, fragile, and dangerously close to snapping. She set her jaw, visibly pushing the fracture back beneath the surface where she felt it belonged.

"I have faced loss before; war teaches you that much whether you are a willing student or not," she said, a faint, humorless breath escaping her. "But this feels like I am reaching into a void for something that no longer exists, and I truly do not know how to let go of a thing I cannot even find."

Her fingers curled tightly into her palm, her eyes lifting to his with a raw, unmistakable fragility that bypassed all her usual defenses. She drew in another breath, slower this time, trying to reclaim some small measure of the Jedi she was supposed to be.

"I am not here for answers," she added, her voice softening even as the strain vibrated beneath it. "I know that is a burden you cannot carry for me. I just..."

She faltered, the words nearly failing her entirely.

"...I just did not want to be alone with it."

It was the closest she had ever come to breaking, an admission of a vulnerability that went far deeper than grief.

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

Aiden listened, he knew this pain....all too well. He first loss, then he lossed her again. Then his family was next, and now he was the last one. So this pain she was feeling wasn't foreign to him, it was almost welcomed. Like an old friend, for the longest time when he lost Esme, he was angry, content to sit in his grief. And he was at his lowest point when darkness and despair almost overtook him.

He knew he couldn't just let that happen to Iandre. The loss, and pain of that loss was where this started. That's where the first step down to darkness and despair led.

"I understand more than you know, Iandre. And you are correct, I cannot bear this burden for you." Aiden waited a few moments as the tea was ready and he poured her a cup. "Sugar, if you need it." Aiden placed the cup of tea on the table next to her, and the small container of sugar.

"You aren't going to be alone in this. I will be here for you, as much as I can afford."

Aiden took a deep breath as he took a seat opposite of her. Pouring some sugar into his tea, giving the cup a small stir with a spoon before setting it to the side. He raised the cup and took a small sip.

"Solitude isn't the answer, you belong around friends. Don't let the pain of that loss dictate where you should be. Because no matter what, it always tells you being alone is the best course."

Aiden leaned forward slightly.

"And that is wrong."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not reach for the tea immediately, her hands remaining motionless as if any sudden movement might shatter the fragile architecture of her composure. Her gaze remained lowered, fixed somewhere between the shifting grain of the table and the hollow space just beyond it, anchoring herself to the physical world while the rest of her felt adrift in a current she could no longer map. Aiden's words settled over her with the slow, numbing weight of falling snow; she did not resist them, yet they felt muffled, as if grief had wrapped her in a vast distance that even the clearest truths could not quite penetrate.

Still, she listened, because she had spent a lifetime learning how to find the frequency of a soul beneath the noise of a war.

Her fingers moved at last, not toward the cup but toward each other, folding together in her lap with a quiet, practiced habit of control, a soldier's discipline that she clung to even as the woman beneath the robes felt herself beginning to fray. When she finally spoke, her voice was worn thin at the edges, carrying the rasp of someone who had spent too long in the company of ghosts, yet it remained steady enough to bridge the silence between them.

"I know what you are saying, Aiden, and I can feel the truth of it," she said, the words falling quietly into the space between them, heavy with a significance that transcended the simple room. "There is a part of me that craves that silence, a part that thinks it feels like relief at first, as if by stepping into that emptiness fully, I might finally find the place where the hurting stops."

Her throat tightened, a physical manifestation of the grief she usually kept sheathed like a blade, and she paused to draw in a slow, jagged breath that did little to ease the constriction in her chest.

"But I have seen where that particular path leads, and I know that the silence which promises rest is often just a doorway to a place where we lose the very parts of ourselves worth saving."

A faint, weary shift followed as she reached for the cup at last, her movements careful and deliberate, as if she were handling something far more volatile than porcelain. The warmth of the tea seeped into her palms, providing a grounding heat that offered a momentary tether to the present, though its comfort failed to reach the cold, stagnant center of her heart. She did not drink; she simply held the warmth, letting it remind her that she was still made of flesh and bone.

"The Force teaches us the necessity of letting go, and I have recited those lessons until they were etched into my very soul," she continued, her brow furrowing as she wrestled with the contradiction of her own training. "But it offers no guidance on how to release a spirit that feels as though it were violently taken from the world, rather than peacefully given back to the current."

Her gaze lifted then, meeting his with a startling clarity that held no deflection, no lingering attempt to hide the jagged fractures beneath her surface. It was the gaze of a friend who no longer had the energy for masks, offering him an honesty that was raw, unguarded, and deeply rooted in the years of shared understanding that defined them.

For a long moment, she allowed the silence to exist without trying to fill it, letting the weight of her presence speak for her. Then, her voice dropped even lower, becoming something fragile and profoundly simple:

"That is the simplest truth of why I came here today, seeking you out across the distance."

Her fingers tightened around the cup until her knuckles were ghost-white, the smallest tremor in her hands betraying just how close she stood to the precipice of losing that hard-won control.

"I came because I realized I could not face this darkness alone, and I needed to know that there was still a heart in this galaxy that beat with the same rhythm as mine."

The admission lingered in the air, an immovable testament to a friendship that had survived the death of an era. She lowered her gaze again, not out of a desire to retreat, but because the effort of holding herself together required every ounce of her focus.

"I find myself at a loss, truly not knowing what to do with the weight of this absence," she added after a moment, her voice barely a whisper that seemed to blend into the shadows of the room. "I have faced the end of things before; I have buried brothers-in-arms, watched friends vanish into the Force, and seen entire worlds reduced to ash, and through all of it, I always found the strength to keep walking."

Her grip shifted, her thumbs tracing the rim of the cup as she searched for the right words to describe the void.

"But this feels fundamentally different from the losses we endured in the past."

She took another breath, one that trembled with the weight of her exhaustion.

"There is no path forward from here, no lingering sense in the Force of where he has gone, or if his spirit remains anywhere at all to be found."

The words faltered, catching painfully in her throat before she forced them through the barrier of her own sorrow, her eyes shining with an unshed moisture that she refused to let fall.

"And I am trying, with every bit of the discipline I have left, to remain the woman I am supposed to be, even in the echoing absence of that answer."

Her eyes lifted once more, searching his not for a miracle or a tactical solution, but for the steady, enduring comfort of a kindred spirit.

"I just needed to be somewhere where the silence would not close in and swallow me whole."

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"It's different because you loved him." Aiden said simply, because that was the only truth there. You could try to explain it and wrap it up with several ways, but it just came down to the simple fact.

She loved him, that's why this hurt her so much. Trying to find reasons and thoughts to justify the loss....

"There's no other way to swing Iandre. I've dealt with this loss before, I'm telling you the truth, because I've been there."

Aiden's hand closed around the cup as he raised it to his lips taking a small sip.

"It's going to take time."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not answer him right away.

The words settled into her like something heavy and immovable, too simple to argue with and too true to escape. For a long, agonizing moment, she only sat there. Her knuckles were white, her hands wrapped around the cup with a white-knuckled intensity, as though the ceramic were the only anchor keeping her from drifting out into the cold, pressurized void she felt expanding in her chest.

Her breath caught. A sharp, jagged hitch that she couldn't smooth over.

"I know," she whispered. It wasn't an agreement; it was the sound of a flag being lowered. A surrender to a truth she had spent every waking second trying to outrun.

Her gaze dropped, and the fragile, crystalline composure she had spent decades perfecting began to fracture. It wasn't a clean break; it was a slow, agonizing splintering. She tried to draw in a breath, the deep, centering breath of a Jedi, but it faltered halfway, catching against the suffocating tightness in her throat.

"I have told others the same thing," she continued, her voice thinning until it was barely a thread, vibrating with a raw, uneven frequency. "I have stood over the wounded and the grieving and told them that time would carry them. That the Force would provide... that the pain would eventually settle like silt to the bottom of a lake."

A faint, hollow sound escaped her, a ghost of a laugh that lacked any warmth, sounding more like bone snapping on ice.

"I believed it when I said it, Aiden. I truly did."

Her fingers tightened until the heat of the tea began to bite painfully into her palms, a physical sting she welcomed because it was the only thing that felt real.

"But this…"

The word died in her throat. Her control slipped another fraction, her lip trembling before she bit down on it. She turned her face away, staring into the shadows of the room as if they could hide the way her eyes were beginning to overflow. It didn't help. The tremor in her voice was a landslide she could no longer stop.

"This feels like I have been hollowed out. Like someone reached inside and tore the heart out of my chest, and yet the galaxy expects me to keep breathing. To keep walking. To act as if I am still whole."

The admission was a jagged thing, bleeding and honest. She looked at Aiden then, and for a second, the "Jedi" and the "Soldier" were gone. There was only the girl who had survived the war, looking at the only person left who truly understood its cost.

Her next breath was a visible shudder that shook her entire frame.

"I can endure pain," she said, the words coming out as a desperate reflex, a plea to her own disappearing strength. "I have bled. I have watched worlds burn. I have endured things that would break a thousand lesser souls."

She stopped. Her chin dipped, her forehead almost touching the rim of the cup. The breaking point wasn't coming; it was here.

"But I do not know how to endure this absence. It isn't a wound, Aiden. Wounds heal. This is... an emptying."

Her grip faltered. The cup rattled against the saucer, a frantic, rhythmic ticking that echoed the instability of her heart. She forced her hands to stay still, but she couldn't force her soul to do the same.

"He is just…gone."

The way she said his name, or rather, avoided it, was a testament to the agony.

"He isn't fading into the light. He isn't becoming one with the Force in a way that I can feel or follow. He didn't leave a trail. There is just..."

She choked on the silence. A single, hot tear finally escaped, tracing a path through the dust of her composure.

"Nothing. Only the echo of where he used to be."

The word hung there, cold and final. Her shoulders drew in, her posture finally beginning to collapse under a weight that no Jedi training could compensate for. She looked small. Fragile.

"I don't know how time is supposed to fix a hole that has no shape. How do you heal something that isn't there anymore?"

Her eyes lifted to his, glassy and swimming with a grief so profound it seemed to darken the gold of her iris. She was searching his face with a terrifying intensity, looking for a miracle, or perhaps just permission to finally fall apart.

"I am trying, Aiden," she whispered, her voice finally breaking, the sound of a heart officially splintering in two. "I am trying so hard to be what the Order needs. What the Force needs. But I don't know if trying is enough anymore. I think I'm losing, Aiden. I think I'm just...falling."

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"You stand up, and you keep moving forward. You look to those that can help you through. But even then that's not enough. I can only offer you words, but its you that will need to push through the pain and despair. Look the horizon and you will see the light."

He knew how hard this was. Gods....he knew. Hearing what she was describing what bringing flashes of all sadness, and so much pain he had carried around for the longest of times.

"Time fixes it, and so many other things as well. It's not just time, its everything. I can't put to words how I made it through, but if you truly want to."

Aiden took a deep breath.

"If you truly want to, you will find a way through this."

She had to want to get out of this, she had to want to fight through it. Aiden knew more than anything after those first few weeks. He didn't want to fight, he just wanted to die.

"You aren't going to fall, I won't let you. But you have to have the strength to fight it, Iandre."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not move at first.

Aiden's words reached her, but they felt distant, as echoes carried across water she could no longer see the bottom of. She held onto them anyway because that was what she had always done. She took what was given, measured it, and tried to make it fit into something she could use to keep moving.

But this did not fit.

Her fingers tightened around the cup again, though there was no steadiness in it now. There was only tension, a desperate need for something to hold onto, so she did not come apart entirely.

"I am trying," she whispered, the words fraying as they left her. "I am trying to stand. To move forward. To do what I have always done."

Her breath caught again, sharper this time, and she bowed her head slightly as if the weight of the air had finally become too much to carry upright.

"But you speak of strength as though it is something I still possess."

A small, broken sound followed. It was not quite a laugh, nor was it quite anything at all.

"He was my strength, Aiden."

There was no hesitation in the statement and no attempt to soften the truth. Her voice dropped further, growing quieter yet heavier with every syllable.

"Not the Force. Not the Order. Not the war."

Her grip faltered, and the cup shifted slightly in her hands before she caught it again. Her composure was slipping further despite herself, leaving her raw in the quiet of the room.

"Him."

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"You can't just rely on that, that's what I found out. You can't love someone and call them your strength too. Because what's going to happen everytime you love someone and you lose them. It will break you utterly. You need to find the strength within yourself, something to ground you, something that will make you unbreakable."

Aiden took a deep breath before continuing.

"It's not going to make you a machine, but its going to make you stronger. That way love doesn't become a crutch, its something that helps you grow."

The Jedi knight took a small sip of his tea again. "You will find it in time, just like I did. Only if you want it to. If not, then continue to wallow in this state, darkness will consume you."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not answer him right away, allowing his words to settle into her slowly until each one found its place regardless of whether she truly welcomed the weight they carried. She did not flinch from the reality of his statement because there was too much truth within it to ignore, even if the realization cut deeper than any of the technical or philosophical arguments he had presented to her before.

Her gaze remained lowered and fixed on the faint, ghostly ripples of steam rising from the untouched tea in her hands, which acted as a singular point of focus while she struggled to remain upright. For a long and heavy moment, she simply concentrated on the rhythm of her own breathing as she tried to steady herself against the quiet, persistent storm that was still moving through the center of her chest.

When she finally chose to speak, her voice was significantly softer than it had been at the start of their conversation, carrying a quality that was not quite broken but undeniably changed by the pressure of the moment. Something fundamental within her tone had shifted as if a new and difficult decision had begun to take final shape beneath the layers of her grief and exhaustion.

"I was raised within the strict confines of the Code long before the start of the war and before the galaxy became everything that it is today," she said quietly, her voice barely rising above the low hum of the room.

Her fingers adjusted slightly around the ceramic surface of the cup, not tightening with the tension of a moment ago but instead settling into a more deliberate and haunting stillness.

"I was taught that there is no emotion because there is only peace, and that there is no passion because there is only the pursuit of serenity."

The words came to her not as a simple recitation of scripture but as a deeply embedded memory, worn smooth by the passage of many years she had long since left behind in favor of a different life.

"I always understood the logical reasons why that structure existed and why the concept of personal attachment was so heavily discouraged by the Masters," she admitted, her voice thinning just slightly as she forced herself to continue through a faint pause. "I simply chose to believe that I was strong enough to carry the weight of those feelings differently and that I could hold onto something precious without it eventually becoming this hollow ache."

Her gaze lifted then to meet his directly, revealing that there was no lingering anger or resistance left in her expression, but only a quiet and dawning resolve that had been shaped by the absolute finality of her loss.

"It is entirely possible that I was wrong to think I could outrun the consequences of my own heart," she said, and while the admission did not come to her easily, she offered it up without any further hesitation or excuse.

"If the love I felt has truly become a point of failure in my discipline, then it is a luxury that I simply cannot afford to indulge in any longer."

Her shoulders straightened just slightly in a motion that suggested acceptance rather than defiance, reflecting the kind of internal shift that came at a cost she was already beginning to fully understand and account for.

"I will find a way to endure this burden, and I will search for the necessary strength within myself even if it requires me to return to the very first lessons I was taught at the beginning of my journey," she continued, her voice gaining a steady and crystalline quality with every word she spoke.

A faint breath left her lungs and vanished into the air, sounding much quieter and more controlled than the ragged exhales she had been leaning on earlier in the evening.

"I am prepared to do whatever is necessary to find my balance again, even if it means that I must walk the remainder of that difficult path entirely alone."

She did not speak the words with any trace of lingering bitterness, but rather with a quiet and terrifying sense of certainty that left no room for further argument or doubt.

"I have learned what happens when the foundation gives way, and I have made the decision that I will not allow myself to break in that manner ever again."

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"You sound just like I did, when I lost her." Aiden let out a small sigh. Shaking his head, almost like seeing an old friend that he despised. It wasn't Iandre, it was that feeling. That feeling of helplessness and fear that almost destroyed him.

"You have to be careful, Iandre. You are walking a fine line right now. I can't make your decisions for you, I can just provide advice. Just be careful."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre had been perfectly still up until that point, remaining neither rigid nor closed but simply held together by a fraying sense of duty. His words did not strike her like a physical blow, but they settled into her with a quiet and heavy finality that slipped past her careful structure and found the fractures she had refused to acknowledge. For a fleeting moment, it looked as though she would do what she always did by absorbing the impact and steadying herself to respond with something measured, yet when she tried to inhale, the effort failed her completely.

The breath faltered halfway through her chest and caught in a way that shattered the rhythm she had been relying on to survive. Her shoulders shifted slightly as she tried to force herself back into a state of control, but the struggle only made the next breath feel even more strained.

"I am being careful," she tried to say, though the words were significantly thinner and quieter than they had been only moments before.

It was not a convincing performance for either of them. Her gaze dropped away and failed to return as her hand lifted absently to press against her sternum as if she could physically steady the unraveling sensation inside her.

"I have been so careful," she repeated even softer than before, but the silence stretched a second too long until the control she was white-knuckling finally slipped.

Her next inhale hitched sharply and brought with it the first unwanted tear that she was entirely powerless to stop. She turned her head slightly to hide the motion, but it only served to make the collapse of her composure more obvious.

"I do not know what else I am supposed to do," she admitted as her voice wavered and began to pull apart. "I was not there when it happened, and now I have to live with the fact that I did not feel it and I did not know."

Her fingers curled against her chest as she grounded herself and failed all at once, her words trailing off under the weight of a reality she could not change. More tears followed in a silent and steady stream while she struggled to find her voice again.

"Everyone tells me to trust that the Force will make it clear, but there is no trace to follow and no sense of what he became," she whispered as her spirit nearly unraveled. "It is just gone, and I do not know how I am meant to accept that absence when I was not even there to understand it."

She did not look at him again, not because she was trying to hide, but because she could no longer manage the strength required to meet his eyes.

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"There's no going back Iandre, if you keep telling yourself that he's just gone and that you weren't there. That's all there will ever be. You have to believe, in yourself and in hope. It's not just a silly ideal, not some false thing meant to bravado you into something. It's truth, its belief, and its so much bigger than that. You have to see it, not for me, or him but for yourself."

Aiden spoke easily, but truthfully, he wasn't going to sugaroat this for her. Simply because, nobody did for him. He was there, he faced it, endured it, destroyed it and then rose again from the ashes of where he was meant to be buried.

"I can't give you answers, you have to find them for yourself. Just like I did, but you are not alone." Aiden sighed lightly, and shook his head. "Now if you continue to think you are alone, and choose to walk this path on your own, that is of your own making. But don't let this pain pull you from the truth, and that is you are not alone."

"Believe it....or don't. That is up to you entirely. There's nothing else I can tell you."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not answer him immediately.

His words did not merely wash over her. They settled with a heavy, undeniable weight. They pressed into the hollow spaces her grief had been occupying, forcing her to sit with the reality of his presence rather than pushing past it in her hurry to reach a ghost.

Her breathing remained uneven, the remnants of her composure catching in her throat as she tried to find her center. She stopped trying to hide the tears. They slipped quietly down her cheeks, slower now, no longer shattering her into pieces, but no longer being denied either.

For a long moment, she simply let the silence exist between them.

Finally, her hand lifted, brushing beneath her eyes in a small, weary motion before she let out a soft, unsteady breath.

"You are right," she said, her voice barely a whisper but carrying a newfound clarity.

It was neither a defensive admission nor a reluctant one. It was just the honest truth of a friend finally hearing what they needed to hear.

Her gaze shifted, not away from him in shame, but directly back to him. She really looked at Aiden this time, acknowledging the man who had been standing in the trenches of her sorrow with her, even when she had tried to pull the curtains shut.

"I keep insisting that I am alone," she murmured, a faint, almost disbelieving note of self-reflection in her voice. "And yet, here I am…sitting in your home, across from a friend who refuses to let me drown."

A small, shaky breath escaped her. It wasn't quite a laugh, but it carried the warmth of one, cutting through the remnants of her tears like a stray beam of light.

"That feeling of isolation…it isn't the truth. It is just how the pain feels."

She sniffled quietly, brushing her cheek once more as another tear slipped free, but her voice stayed grounded. It was no longer fracturing under the pressure.

"I have been treating that shadow as if it were the only thing that existed. I see now that it is not."

She let that realization settle, allowing it to provide a sturdier floor beneath her feet. When she looked back up, the grief was still there. It was too fresh to vanish. But it was no longer the only person in the room.

"Thank you, Aiden," she said softly, her gratitude carrying a depth that simple words couldn't quite reach. "Thank you for having the strength to knock some sense into me when I couldn't find it myself."

She took a much steadier breath, her shoulders losing that rigid, defensive set.

"I do not know what I am going to find out there," she admitted, "or if I will even understand the answers when they come."

Her eyes still shone with the lingering salt of her tears, but her gaze was certain.

"But I will stop pretending that I have to face the dark on my own. To do that would be a lie to both of us."
Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"It's no trouble at all, I'm just explaining to you, what wasn't explained to me during my loss. I had to learn the hard way. For some that is good, and for others it might not be the best thing. We all handle grief differently."

Aiden took another sip, the final as he finished what was left.

"Truth is, none of us know what we are going to find. I don't have the gift of foresight like my father. But I just prepare myself for anything as best as I can."

Aiden shrugged his shoulders. "Preparation, caution, vigiliance can go a long way."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre listened as he spoke, her gaze steady at first, following the shape of his words and the quiet, weathered acceptance behind them. Preparation, caution, and vigilance were concepts she understood intimately; they were the steel pillars she had built her life upon. Yet, as she looked at him, she realized that while those pillars could support a temple, they could not mend a heart that had been hollowed out.

Her composure held for a few moments longer, just long enough to let him finish his thought and just long enough to maintain the pretense that she could stand in that same stoic steadiness. Then, the mask did not just slip. It began to dissolve.

"What feels like another lifetime ago, I lost my Jedi Master, and in the chaos of that time, I was never permitted to truly grieve her," she started, her voice growing quieter and thinner at the edges as the weight of the past pressed in. "There was simply no time and no space for such things, so her memory was set aside, contained in a box I never allowed myself to open."

Her fingers curled faintly against her palm, searching for the grounding strength she usually found in her discipline, but the motion was hollow and lacked its usual conviction.

"And now, just as quickly and just as cruelly, the love of my life has been taken from me before I even learned how to properly hold onto him," she whispered, her voice finally fracturing as the steadiness she had been fighting to maintain gave way to a raw, aching vulnerability. She drew in a shallow, trembling breath that refused to settle in her chest. "How did you find the strength to do it, Aiden? How did you manage to carry on when the world felt like it had stopped turning?"

The question wasn't a request for a strategy or a lecture on Jedi philosophy; it came from a place far more fragile and human than that. Her eyes shone as tears finally escaped her efforts to contain them, tracing slow paths down her cheeks, and her shoulders dipped under the sheer magnitude of the sorrow she had been carrying alone.

"You have been the greatest friend I could have ever asked for, Aiden Porte, and you have stood by me when I was at my most difficult," she said, her words soft and entirely unguarded. She paused, her breath catching as she struggled to find the courage to ask for the one thing her training had always taught her to do without.

"May I ask one more favor of you, something that goes far beyond the hospitality and the safety you have already provided me?" Her voice trembled, the last of her rigid discipline finally collapsing into a simple, desperate need for human connection. "I find that I can no longer carry this by myself...I need a shoulder to cry on and the simple, honest warmth of a hug, if only to remind me that I am still here."

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"How did you find the strength to do it, Aiden? How did you manage to carry on when the world felt like it had stopped turning?"

Aiden smirked and shook his head. "I didn't at first, it was hard, it was trying. When Esme was brought back to life, by way of dark magic by my enemies. She asked me join her, take her hand and follow her into darkness. And to my shame, there was a moment when I almost did."

Aiden let out a small sigh. "I forced my own hand, I had to destroy her to set her free. It was at great cost."

Aiden leaned forward a bit, looking at Iandre. "It takes time, patience and staying the course."

"You have been the greatest friend I could have ever asked for, Aiden Porte, and you have stood by me when I was at my most difficult,"

"May I ask one more favor of you, something that goes far beyond the hospitality and the safety you have already provided me?" Her voice trembled, the last of her rigid discipline finally collapsing into a simple, desperate need for human connection. "I find that I can no longer carry this by myself...I need a shoulder to cry on and the simple, honest warmth of a hug, if only to remind me that I am still here."

That broke Aiden, not in a bad way. It brought a small smile to his face, and even a small chuckle. "Thank you Iandre." Aiden stood up as he beckoned her towards him. "Of course, come here." He pulled her in to a strong and warm hug. "This feeling will pass, I will help you fight through it, but only if you choose to keep fighting."