Private A Beautiful Place to Break

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not hesitate when he opened his arms.

For so long, every instinct she had been trained to rely on had commanded her to remain composed, to endure, and to carry the weight of the galaxy without letting the strain be seen. Even as her world collapsed, she had held the pieces together through sheer discipline, forcing each breath into something rhythmic and controlled, a pilot's focus applied to a widow's heart.

But the moment he pulled her in, that structural integrity finally failed.

The control did not break violently; it simply dissolved, leaving her hollow and reaching. Her hands came up instinctively, clutching at the fabric of his clothing as if anchoring herself to something solid that would not vanish the moment she let go. Her forehead pressed against him, her shoulders beginning to tremble as the first real sob escaped her, a sound that had been decades in the making.

"I..." she started, but the word fractured before it could form.

The grief she had been compartmentalizing surged forward, no longer contained by Jedi training, military expectation, or the heavy mantle of the Diarne. It came in uneven, staggered breaths and quiet, broken sounds. As her composure unraveled, the memory of her first Master, lost a lifetime ago in the smoke of the Temple, bled into the fresh, agonizing void where Rellik had been. Back then, there had been no time to mourn, no arms to hold her, only the cold necessity of survival. Now, the two losses merged into one overwhelming tide of absence.

"He's gone…" she whispered, the words barely held together. "They're both gone."

Her grip tightened, not out of a desperate attempt to stay standing, but out of a simple, human need not to fall apart in the dark. The silence of the Force where their presences should have been was a deafening roar she could no longer ignore.

"And you had to face that too…" she managed, her voice breaking further as the thought forced its way through her grief. "You didn't just lose her…you had to let her go yourself…"

The weight of that realization settled heavily, not pulling her away from her own pain, but deepening her understanding of his.

"I don't know if I could have done that," she admitted, the words fragile and unguarded.

Her breath hitched again as she leaned into his warmth, finally letting the tears fall without restraint.

"I can't find the way," she tried again, her voice catching. "I've spent my life following the path they laid out for me, and now there is just…nothing. I don't know how to find the next step. I don't know how to navigate the now."

The rest dissolved into quiet, racking sobs as her body finally gave in to the weight she had carried for far too long. There was no restraint left, no attempt to soften the edges of her pain. It was raw, immediate, and unavoidable. Clinging to him, she let go of the pretense of the soldier and the sovereign, her voice breaking as she confessed the truth she had been terrified to face alone.

"I need help," she breathed, the admission almost lost against him. "Aiden…I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to find a way forward through this much shadow."

For the first time since the ritual had claimed him, and for the first time since the fires had claimed her Master, she simply let herself feel the full, crushing extent of the dark.

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"It wasn't easy, this sort of battle is fought plenty of times across our lives. Everyone has their own personal battle to fight. And majority of the time, we don't win those. Not alone anyway...."

Aiden smiled softly as he squeezed her once again. His hands at her back, rubbing it softly, as if he was trying to bring some life and hope into her once more. He pulled away and his hands lingered on her shoulders. "It's going to take time,like I said. That isn't a lie. It's going to take hard work, that isn't a lie either. This entire thing is a process. If you try to think about the end result, you will fail before you ever begin."

The Jedi Knight gave her shoulders a gentle squeeze. "Take things day by day, and you will have us with you every step of the way."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre didn't pull away immediately when Aiden loosened his hold, remaining close enough for a moment to feel his steadiness until her uneven breathing finally began to level out. When she did step back, her movements were slow and carried a quiet, unspoken reluctance. Her eyes were still wet, and her composure wasn't fully reclaimed, but she made no real attempt to hide her vulnerability now, offering only a soft sniffle as she tried to steady herself.

"I will try," she said, her voice still unsteady but no longer collapsing under its own weight. "Day by day… I can do that." Her hands lingered for a second near her shoulders, where his had just been, grounding herself in the echo of that reassurance before letting them fall back to her sides.

"I have spent so long thinking in terms of duty and what must be done next," she admitted quietly, "that perhaps I simply need to learn how to exist within the moment again. You make it sound… possible."

Another breath followed, steadier this time, and her gaze lifted to meet his fully. Her eyes were still red at the edges, but her vision was clearer as she spoke. "Thank you, Aiden. Not just for this, but for staying and for not letting me face this alone, even when I tried to. I don't know how I would have managed without you."

She brushed lightly at her cheek, and while she sniffled again, there was a new steadiness beneath the gesture that hadn't been there before. "I will keep fighting," she added, her voice lowering but gaining a new sense of resolve. "Not because I am ready, but because I am not alone."

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"It is possible, you can do it. It's not just you. It's everything, your heart, hope, spirit and everything in between. You are strong Iandre, and I'm not saying this just to make you feel better. But you have to believe that light is on the horizon, you have to believe that things will get better. No matter what, no matter what happens, or whatever dark forces are against you."

Aiden pulled her in for another hug, just for reasurrances. "I'll be there for you, as often as I can be."

"You don't know how happy it makes me to hear you say that, now I just need you to follow through. Hope isn't a fools gamble, it is the strongest of things. I know, its what has kept me going." He laughed as he gave her a big hug.

"What's next for you?"

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre accepted the embrace again, though this time she did not collapse into it. She held onto him with a quiet, grounding strength, leaning into the warmth of a friendship that had become her only anchor in a world that had drifted off its axis.

The grief was still there, heavy and unrelenting, but it no longer tore through her in the same violent waves. It lingered instead, woven into each breath and each heartbeat, something she carried rather than something that consumed her outright. It was no longer a storm; it was the climate she lived in now.

When he pulled back, she did not immediately answer. The sudden absence of physical contact left her feeling momentarily exposed, and she wrapped her arms around herself, her thoughts turning inward as she tried to find something steady amid everything that had been stripped away.

"I…don't know," she admitted quietly. The words came without resistance, honest, unguarded, and stripped of her usual poise.

"The Diarchy is gone. The world we built, the future we were supposed to see… it has all simply vanished." A small pause followed, her voice tightening with a sharp, crystalline pain despite her effort to keep it even. "My husband is dead. And with him, the woman I was becoming seems to have died, too." She exhaled softly, her gaze shifting away for just a second toward the horizon, as if looking for a ghost that wasn't there, before returning her eyes to his.

"Yes…I know it sounds like I am dwelling on that," she added, a faint, weary note threading through her voice. "I know the galaxy moves on. But the silence he left behind is so loud, Aiden. It is still…very real. Every time I reach out through the Force and find only cold air, it happens all over again."

Her hand moved lightly at her side, her fingers catching on the fabric of her sleeve, grounding herself in the present before she forced herself to look at the practicalities of a life she hadn't asked for.

"Maybe I return to the Lilaste Order," she said after a long moment. "I could go back to the barracks, to the missions, to the life I knew before I ever knew him. There is a comfort in the structure. There is a safety in being told where to stand and when to strike. I could keep moving forward, the only way I have ever truly understood how, as a soldier."

It wasn't conviction. It was a plea for a map, a hope that if she followed a familiar path, she might eventually find herself again.

Her gaze lifted fully to his then, her eyes clear and brimming with a raw, honest sorrow. She wasn't looking for him to fix her life or to offer empty platitudes; she was looking for the perspective of the man who had seen her at her best and was now holding her at her worst.

"But I am tired of just surviving, and I fear that if I go back now, I will never be anything else. What would you suggest, Aiden?"

There was no defensiveness in the question, no walls left to guard.

"You have found your way through the dark before. Tell me…where does someone like me go when the only home they had is gone?"

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"I know." Aiden said with a solemn nod. "It isn't going to leave you tomorrow, or the next day. Time and patience, as repetivie as that sounds. That is what it is going to take." Aiden moved to take a seat back in his chair before he poured himself another cup of tea, and he did the same for her if she desire more.

"You don't have to go back, I don't think that would be the best outcome. I know the light is in you. You could stay here, on Naboo. The Jedi Order is young in its time, but it is capable, and needs good people to help fight for it. You could be one of those. I can help you, I'll stand with you."

Aiden said with a small smile. She didn't have to say yes right now, but the choice was their for her to take. While Aiden had officially resigned from the Jedi Order, he was still jedi and served the High Republic. His meeting with Ala Quin as he informed her of his troubles, it brought good spirits to his heart and mind.

"You don't have to do this alone, Iandre."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not answer him immediately.

Instead, she moved with quiet deliberation, accepting the offered cup with a small, grateful inclination of her head before reclaiming her seat. The warmth of the tea seeped into her palms, providing a grounding sensation that required no conscious effort to maintain. For a long moment, she simply watched the steam rise from the surface. She reached for the sugar and stirred it in slow, measured circles; the rhythmic, soft clink of the spoon against the ceramic was the only sound she offered while his words settled into the quiet corners of the room.

She listened. She truly listened, letting his perspective pull at the edges of her own isolation.

When she finally spoke, her voice was calm, though it remained touched by the immense weight she had been carrying since her world fractured.

"When I first woke up in this time," she began quietly, her gaze remaining fixed on the tea rather than on him, "I decided that I did not want to return to the Republic or the Jedi."

The admission came without hesitation, honest and entirely unguarded.

"That was before I truly understood the reality of our situation," she continued, lifting her eyes slightly, though she did not quite meet his gaze yet. "It was before I learned that the Republic I remembered was already a ghost and that my Order had died along with it."

Her fingers tightened subtly around the cup. It was not enough to cause a tremble, but it was enough to betray the crushing weight of that realization.

"Now," she paused, searching for the shape of the thought rather than forcing it into a shape that didn't fit, "I am not entirely sure I have the right to call myself a Jedi at all."

Her gaze lifted then, meeting his with a piercing, quiet honesty.

"I do not know if that is a mantle one can simply pick up again," she said softly. "Not after everything in the galaxy has changed so violently. Not after everything I have had to become just to survive the interim."

There was no rejection in her tone, only the vast uncertainty of a woman who had outlived her own history. She exhaled slowly, the breath steady but heavy with the fatigue of the soul.

"I do not possess your certainty, Aiden," she admitted, allowing the vulnerability of the statement to hang between them. "And I do not have the gift of foresight to tell me where that path leads or if I am even meant to walk it."

Her thumb brushed lightly along the edge of the cup in a small, grounding motion that seemed to anchor her to the present moment.

"But I hear you."

The words were quiet, but they carried the ring of truth.

"And I will not dismiss what you are offering me. I will give myself the grace to consider that perhaps the path isn't gone, even if the maps I once followed have all burned."

Aiden Porte

 

[Aiden Porte]

Iandre Athlea​

"But I hear you."

"I'm glad you do, that's all I want. For you to see, truly see with your own eyes." Aiden smiled, nodding his head. "This isn't something that's going to go away. It will always be there for support no matter what. We don't, I don't just toss away things because they are in trouble."

Aiden took a sip of his tea.

"I do what I can, to bear the burder of others, to do it without breaking. Bearing their pain and frustration. I can help see them through. I can't save everyone. But I will do what I must."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre listened without interruption, her gaze steady on him as his words settled into something deeper than simple reassurance. There was no resistance this time, no quiet pushback or need to question what he was offering. Instead, something in her expression shifted, subtle but unmistakable, as she allowed it to take hold.

She gave a small, deliberate nod.

Not agreement born of obligation, but acceptance.

Her hands adjusted slightly around the cup before she lifted it, taking a measured sip of her tea. The warmth lingered as she lowered it again, her shoulders easing just enough to suggest the weight she carried had, if only for a moment, found somewhere to rest.

"Thank you, Aiden," she said softly.

There was no embellishment to it, no attempt to dress the words into something larger than they were. The sincerity in them was enough.

A faint pause followed as she studied him, something thoughtful flickering behind her eyes.

"You sound like Obi-Wan," she added quietly, the slightest trace of warmth touching her voice. "He carried himself in much the same way…always willing to shoulder more than was ever asked of him."

Her gaze held his for a moment longer before she let out a slow, steady breath.

"I think that is a good thing."

Aiden Porte