Private Balance in Small Things

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora leaned into Makko. She breathed in deep - a sudden, long inhale as she let herself feel the comfort and familiarity around her. What she'd left, temporarily trading this for cold durasteel and blood.

For the longest time, she simply stood, enveloped in the warmth of her family. Lucy's little fingers curled into the collar of her shirt.

Guilt was an ever-present facet of her life, but now it washed over her anew. Harder and stronger, dragging her into depths that weren't quite dark. Not as long as Makko was here. Not as long as Lucy was here.

Cora's hand rubbed along her daughter's back to a slow rhythm.

"How was she?" came her raw whisper.

Makko Vyres

 

[Daxin Veyr]

.

 

[Makko Vyres]

Corazona von Ascania

Makko didn’t answer right away. His hand remained steady at her back, thumb brushing slow, grounding circles against the fabric of her shirt. He could feel the tension in her, like patt of her was still standing somewhere else, somewhere colder.

"She was…" he exhaled softly, searching for the right word. "Herself."

A faint, tired smile touched his mouth.

"Sometimes curious and sometimes very very grumpy."

Makko let silence fall for a little while. He couldn't hold it against Cora wanting this moment with Luciana.

"Do you want to tell me what happened tomorrow?" It was a small offer of respite from whatever was eating at her feelings.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora awoke the next morning in her own bed. Not in a bunk or on a cot. Not aboard some shuddering transport. In her own bed, soft and stable, with her husband beside her and their daughter wedged between them.

Those few days had felt like weeks. She’d never been separated from Luciana for more than a day.

Now, she couldn’t help the way her stomach seemed to be sinking perpetually. She had abandoned her daughter, albeit to the comfort of her own home and within her father’s arms. But a child should be with their mother, and a mother should be with her child. Everything about leaving had felt wrong, but being chased from the core had made her feel unsafe.

With the back of her knuckles, Cora stroked along the curve of one tiny, chubby cheek.

“I wanted to protect her,” she murmured. “The Sith are active again. They’re getting too close. I had to do s…”

Cora trailed as Lucy’s sprawled arms stretched. The babe settled, and Cora leaned to place a kiss at the side of her head.

“I don’t know how Valery did it,” she confessed in a whisper. “Leaving her children to fight. I feel so guilty.”

Makko Vyres

 

[Kadann]

.

 

[Makko Vyres]

MAKKO

Luciana didn't wake and start screaming. Makko took the win. He looked across their daughter and Cora and let himself slowly wake.

"I don't know either," Makko said softly. "I don't think there is an answer."

He glanced down, a swirl of emotions passed across his features. It was early and he felt everything.

"I was upset, I was angry and I was everything in between," he admitted.

"But then, what future does she have if the Galaxy falls to the Sith? She's force sensitive. They'll use that."

"I felt angry because why couldn't the Galaxy be a Galaxy where we can just live in peace together."

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora inhaled sharply. She bit down a sudden swell of emotion before it could rise in her throat and bleed through her eyes.

Her fingers stilled where they stroked Lucy's little cheek.

"I'm angry too," she whispered. "If you were to be mad at me," Cora slowly lifted her tired gaze to Makko's own. "I could understand that."

Her eyes dropped back down to Luciana, who squirmed in her sleep. "I don't want to be apart from her, and I don't want her to grow up without me - without us - in her life. But if the galaxy falls to the Sith…"

It had seemed like an impossibility when the Alliance had stood. After Exegol, the battles had been few and far in between. The Sith had seemed content to stay behind their Blackwall until the imperials exposed the Alliance for the paper nexu it had become.

Cora fell silent, watching her baby as she slept. She listened to those little breaths, found comfort in the rhythmic rise and fall of her little chest.

"Did she…do you think that she might've missed me?" she croaked.

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

"Did she…do you think that she might've missed me?" she croaked.

Makko let out a slow, shaky breath.

"She was fine, but a little less settled. Of course she misses you," Makko said.

There was no lie that would make things better. If he told her that her absence hadn't affected their daughter that might bring a modicum of comfort, but then she would worry about their connection.

Am I angry at her? He asked himself.

He looked at Cora and sighed.

"I'm not mad at you. I'm feeling a lot of things and I haven't had enough sleep."

"What happened then?" he asked.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

A decade or so ago, they would've snapped at each other. They'd been teenagers then, wrestling with their own anger and respective places in the galaxy.

As adults, Makko and Cora had learned to communicate better. Not just for themselves, but for the sake of the little family they'd begun building.

Cora drew in a slow breath. "We damaged the fueling station above Tython and managed to make off with some of the holocrons," she explained. "I don't know how much of a dent that will put in their war effort, if anything."

Her fingers withdrew from Lucy, clasping together at her chest. Cora rolled onto her back, squinting as she counted grains of plaster on the ceiling.

"It was a big gamble, and it might not have paid off. But no one else is challenging them. It felt like we did something, instead of waiting for them to burn their way to us."

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

MAKKO

Makko met her gaze and took a moment to construct his next words carefully.

"You planned that. You knew it was a gamble. So what changed? The way I saw you with Lucy last night, why didn't that come to you before you left?

"Did you get hurt?"

It was as close to criticising her directly as he had come since his heart had almost broken to see her weeping with Luciana.

"Was there a moment when you thought you wouldn't get out?"

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

“I wasn’t hurt terribly, no.” Cora shifted against the mattress, brow tensed faintly. She recalled the corridor, hazy with steam, and the way that her back struck the wall of pipes.

“Just some bruised ribs. It wasn’t so harrowing, but any battle can turn on a dime.”

Cora had experienced total defeat and near death, much of which Makko had tended to the aftermath. She imagined that picking her body from the wintry slopes of an Arkanian mountainside would stay with him forever.

“I tried to push it down,” she admitted, sheepish, after a held pause. “The worry that I wouldn’t come back. I told myself that I would, for her sake. And when I did come back, it hit me how lucky I was.”

Cora let out a low, shuddering exhale.

“And that next time, I might not be.”

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

Makko let than sink in slowly. Time had taught them both patience. They had each made hasty decisions in the past that had not served them well.

He took a breath and glanced down. His mind had also gone to the mountain slopes of Arkania.

"I don't... I don't know how I'd deal with losing you."

Hiys breath came short and sharp.

"I just imagined coming to identify your body and then coming home alone to look after..."

Makko couldn't even finish the sentence. His eyes widened, tears glistening in the corners as he looked to her.

He grasped Cora's hand and held it a little too firmly.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Shame pressed against her, urging Cora to cast her focus elsewhere. Her gaze remained on Makko, breath hitching when his own did, eyes watering as he gave voice to the worries that kept him sleepless.

How could she put Makko through that?

Cora swallowed thickly, her throat suddenly too small, too dry. She squeezed Makko's hand back.

"I won't…I don't think I can do something like this again," she rasped. "Not for a while. It's too…"

Risky? Dangerous? Stupid?

Cora blew out a brusque breath. "It's not fair to you. Or her."

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

MAKKO

"I'm trying to force a snap decision," Makko replied.

Watching her work through her thoughts brought a certain kind of clarity. She wasn't enitely closed off. His was still an exceptionally powerful empath and could feel her working through the swirling storm.

"Just talk to me," Makko said.

"We are... Not just here for her. We're here for each other."

They had been through the worst of everything together. They had grown together and he was determined that they were stronger together.

"I know we won't go forever without having to fight again but..."

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora exhaled sharply again, this time through her nose. They were together, alone, and she felt a little more comfortable sharing her unpleasant thoughts.

“I feel like…once the Alliance fell, the galaxy is suddenly okay with the Sith. Even the Republic seems strangely tolerant of them, and I can’t figure out if it’s self-preservation or genuine ambivalence.”

Cora frowned, rolling her eyes towards the hairline cracks on the ceiling. The Republic was beset on multiple fronts by the Sith; those behind the Blackwall, and in the core. It was a precarious position to be in, and she couldn’t fault their caution, but allowing known Sith to openly attend galas and drink tea at festivals?

“The conclave didn’t leave me particularly confident in the Order’s unity. I see in them the same mistakes the New Jedi made - the former left these massive shoes behind, and it’s like the later is too afraid to fill it.”

Cora was hesitant to throw her lot completely in with this particular Jedi Order. She’d given nearly all of herself to the NJO, only for its leadership to scatter after their defeat at Coruscant, leaving a handful of knights and masters to try and pick up the pieces.

What if that happened again?

Cora turned her focus back towards Makko. “Do you think I’m being too harsh?” she asked softly.

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

MAKKO

Makko didn’t answer straight away. It took a moment to switch his mental context from the very personal discussion to the big wide galaxy.

"No," he said at last, voice quiet but certain. "I think you’re seeing it clearly."

He turned his head toward her, expression thoughtful rather than dismissive.

"The galaxy is tired," he went on. "Alliance falls, Coruscant burns… people stop looking at what's happening to their neighbour."

His gaze softened slightly as it lingered on her.

"And the Order…" he paused, choosing his words more carefully.

"They’re trying to be... I don't know. Maybe the Alliance Jedi thought they could fix everything?"

Makko shifted onto his side then, propping himself up just enough to face her more fully.

"You’re not harsh," he said. "You just remember what it can cost."

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora glanced toward Makko, watching the way he shifted. The sheets rustled softly and Luciana whined in her sleep.

Both parents went still. The fussing died down, and Cora released a slow breath. Makko never spoke just to fill space.

"It felt like the Alliance was the Jedi," she murmured. They had their flaws - every group did - but they'd contributed to the success of countless peacekeeping missions both within and beyond Alliance space. Their mistakes didn't erase all the good they'd done.

Maybe she needed to re-examine her own view of what it meant to be a Jedi in the modern galaxy.

"What do you think happens now?"

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

MAKKO

"I don't know," Makko replied.

"I want to say hey the Galaxy owes us our time. But that would change who we are."

Makko hadn't gone without thinking about it. It was simply easy to remain focussed on their family right now. Their daughter left him little free time to think about the Order's problems.

He glanced at Luciana who seems calm and fast asleep again. The slight grumble would turn into a scrunched up face, followed by crying and flailing arms.

"There are so many people in the Core. But... There are so many people everywhere else."

"I don't know about you but I'm not stepping up to lead the charge, but I don't know who is?"