Private Being Boring

[Iandre Athlea]

The young woman was searching for answers. Her unresolved questions had led her to wander and land on random planets sometimes. Today was one of those days. Another nameless location among a few she had visited. The name wasn't as important as her need. She needed answers, and at the moment, she was looking for them in the wrong direction.

Staring into an empty glass that sat on the counter of the cantina, her head was clear. It wasn't the drink that clouded her mind but her life. Iandre was a momentary lost soul, in a time that wasn't her own. She had come to accept this months ago, but once in a while, it reared its head, and she wasn't who she had come to be.

A former Jedi Padawan who was on a different path. A new life was in front of her, and she had run. Not out of fear, though, the woman didn't have much of that. The unknown drove her to that choice, and once it became clear, she would return to that new life and take complete control of her destiny. Yet today, she was doubting.

With a gentle motion of her hand, she pointed at her glass and asked for a refill.

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

The first thing Dareth noticed was the quiet.

Not the kind that begged for words the kind that hummed. That held the weight of a hundred unsaid things, tangled between breath and silence. The woman at the bar didn’t move when he entered. She didn’t have to. The kind of ache she carried you could feel it from across the room.

He didn’t say his name. Didn’t introduce himself.

He just stood there for a moment, long enough to listen to the space around her. To the echo of something familiar not a presence in the Force, but a scar through it. She wasn’t broken. But she had once been torn. And that kind of wound leaves a signature.

He knew the feeling.

Dareth Solryn had walked both edges of the Force. Not as a master of either side but as someone who refused to be claimed by them. His double-bladed lightsaber, now resting at his back beneath his travel-worn robes, had been drawn in peace as often as in anger.

Sometimes, both in the same breath.

He took the seat beside her like someone who had done this before. Not out of habit but recognition.

"We don’t always run because we’re lost," he said, quietly.
"Sometimes we run because standing still makes us forget who we are."

She didn’t answer.
He didn’t expect her to.

Some people just needed the silence to shift around them enough to breathe again.

And if nothing else, he could be that silence.

 

[Iandre Athlea]

There had been a time in her life not too long ago when she had been close to breaking. A friend had helped her through that time. Actually, more than one, but Zinayn stood out as the shining example she would have thought of. Laphisto was the other person who helped her through that turbulent time in her life. She was nowhere near that anymore, but at the moment, she was closer to being lost than at any other in recent times.

People came and went from the quiet cantina. So when Dareth sat down next to her, Iandre didn't take notice of him until he spoke. Her new drink hadn't arrived yet, and she looked up from the counter in front of her. Turning her head, her calm grey eyes focused on him for a second. Returning her gaze forward, she was silent for several moments as she considered his words.

"And what if we are still trying to figure out who we are?"

A new glass was set in front of her, and she picked it up to take a sip and set it down when she was done.

"Who says, I'm running, stranger?"

Keeping her voice as neutral as her eyes were calm, she asked out of curiosity, and wanted to know what this man picked up from her aura. Or whatever he was reading from her.

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

She didn’t turn sharply. No flinch, no recoil. Just a measured glance and a question that didn’t sting but settled in the air between them like a drifting leaf.

Her words were calm. Her presence? Centered but not anchored.

That was what he felt. Not darkness. Not fear.
But motion without a destination. As if something within her had uncoiled, but not yet chosen a direction.

He didn’t answer right away.

His fingers grazed the rim of his cup without lifting it. Eyes forward, his voice came quiet, like a thought spoken out loud.

“If you’re not running… why ask whether you are?”

There was no weight in it. No accusation. Only the gentle echo of her own voice, turned slightly back toward her.

He didn’t meet her gaze this time. He didn’t need to.
Something about her didn’t demand confrontation only recognition.

“I once thought I had my identity all carved out. The saber. The robes. The cause.
Then the war ended… and I had no war left in me.”

He paused, not for effect, but memory. A ghost behind the eyes that no longer haunted only lingered.

“I lost who I was. And in the silence that followed, I started hearing the part of me that wasn’t built by duty.”

The Force shifted faintly like a slow breath through stone. A quiet hum that neither searched nor pushed. Just… resonated.

She wouldn’t feel intrusion. Only presence.

“Maybe we’re not meant to know exactly who we are.
Maybe the becoming is the truth.”

He didn’t smile.

But he stayed.

Because sometimes, not turning away was the loudest answer you could offer.

 

[Iandre Athlea]

"Perhaps I am searching? You are the one who asked if I am running."

While her words weren't a question, the intention was. Looking at his hip, she hadn't noticed his weapon...if he even had it on him. In her lifetime, Force users were a rare breed. Now they seemed to be more common than people who couldn't use it. That probably wasn't true, but it felt that way to Iandre.

The conversation was quiet between the two of them. Loud enough that only they could hear, and she wondered if it was even needed. As he touched her with the Force, she did not rebuff the advances. It felt like a warm blanket covering her. His words suggested he might have once been in a situation like hers.

A man who had been at the height of success and then had been taken from him. Tilting her glass slightly as she listened to him, she raised it to her mouth for a drink. His pause said more than his words, and he had her attention.

"So you know exactly how it feels, how I am feeling. A soul lost to the turns of the galaxy, and wondering where it should land. Who are you, stranger?"

Hesitating to say friend, she hoped she could call him that sometime.

"My name is Iandre Athle, and I was a Jedi Padawan. Now I am more than that, but I don't know what that is. I'm not running but searching. Maybe I will never know exactly who I am, but I want to be closer to that answer than I am now."

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

She had given him a name and a truth.

Not all at once, not with drama, but with the kind of weight that only comes from someone tired of carrying silence.

He didn't look at her when she spoke. He didn't need to.

Sometimes the Force whispered louder when you listened with stillness.

"I'm Dareth. Just Dareth, for now."

He let the name rest between them, like something placed gently on a table.

"Once, I was many things. A disciple. A weapon. A symbol for something I didn't fully believe in. I wore names like armor, but none of them ever truly fit."

A pause. Thoughtful, not heavy.

"Then I broke. Not all at once. But enough. And in that breaking, I stopped pretending I was whole."

His voice remained quiet, but the edge of it was real. Not pain not anymore. Just memory worn smooth by time.

"Maybe that's why I recognized you. Not because of the Force… but because I've been the question you're asking."

He finally looked at her. Not hard. Just… present.

"I don't know what you'll become, Iandre. But if you're more than what they trained you to be you're already on the right path."

A small motion two fingers tapping the rim of his cup.

"And if you ever need someone to walk beside you not to lead, not to follow just to be there…"

A half-smile.

"Well. You know where to find me."

 

[Iandre Athlea]

"Well, Dareth, you are much like my current master. A man who was many things but is just himself now."

Laphisto was also her friend and a person she could see as a father. He also led the Lilaste Order, but Dareth didn't need to know that right away. It probably wouldn't mean anything to him anyway.

Listening silently, even through his pauses, his gaze, and his final statement. Licking her lips before taking a sip of her drink, she allowed the silence to remain for those few moments.

"I was near broken before, and friends helped me through that time. Pieced me back together. Then I fell in love. And that's a longer story."

She was quite happy with her relationship, but it was one of the reasons for her need to wander. The former Jedi came from the distant past when relationships were forbidden. Part of her still felt that way, and it was a piece she needed to shed.

"What kind of answers can you provide for an out-of-time woman who is feeling a bit lost?"

A part of her past was revealed, and it would be up to him to probe further.

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

She called him similar not in power, not in path, but in presence.

And maybe that was enough.

He didn’t react to the mention of her master. Names had meaning, but stories held truth, and he wasn’t here to collect either unless they were given freely.

Instead, he listened. Not just to her words, but the weight beneath them. The subtle strength in her survival. The way her voice didn’t crack when speaking of being broken.

“Love,” he repeated softly, not as a question, not as judgment. Just… the word, acknowledged."

There was something timeless about the way she said it. Like a note carried across years she wasn’t meant to remember.

His gaze stayed forward. His hand remained still.

“I don’t carry answers, Iandre.”

“But I do carry questions that never quite leave me.”

A breath.

“Like what does it mean to heal when the parts that broke aren’t yours anymore?”

“Or how do you love again without trying to save someone the way you once couldn’t?”

He finally looked at her, not to seek but to offer.

“We don’t get to choose the time we’re born into. Or the laws that shaped the ones who came before us.”

“But we do get to decide if we’ll keep living under them.”

He paused, then added soft, but unshaken:

“You’re not out of time, Iandre. You’re just ahead of your own.”

 

[Iandre Athlea]

"You also seek answers? And those I don't have for you either, Dareth. I wasn't born during this time, but before the Clone Wars. My time passed when Order 66 happened, and the first Galactic Empire was created. When the Jedi of old were nearly wiped away. We became as much of a myth as the Sith were in my days."

His questions weren't hers to answer, but she could try to help him find them. Then he said she wasn't out of time and ahead of her own. It confused her in her already almost lost state. She wasn't broken anymore, and the jigsaw puzzle that was her mental state had reformed and found a new focus.

This man was just another catalyst in her searching journey. One that had travelled over 900 years and brought her to the now.

"I never knew love before I came to this time. It was forbidden to me, and I still love that man. My time away from him hasn't been long, and I will return to him. Right now, I need to think and figure out where he and I are headed together. Have you loved, Dareth? It sounds like you have, but you no longer have it. What happened?"

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

He didn’t speak right away.
Just the silence again, slow and low like old stone shifting under starlight.
Then finally, his voice quiet, but clear:

“I did. Once.”

A breath. A pause long enough to feel the memory arrive.

“And it made me believe I was more than I was.”

He turned the rim of his cup between his fingers, not drinking.

“But love built on broken ground doesn’t last. We tried to fix each other with pieces of ourselves we didn’t understand. That kind of love… it burns fast. And deep. But it doesn’t survive the wind.”

His gaze stayed forward. His presence calm.

“Now, I don’t chase love. I honor what it taught me. And I know better than to drag someone into my storm again.”

A pause followed. Not heavy. Just… quiet enough for something else to breathe.

Then, softer:

“But maybe… not every love has to end in loss.”
“Maybe yours won’t.”
“And maybe just maybe mine hasn’t either.”

Iandre Athlea

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Her question might have opened old wounds she didn't know about. She should have taken care of his feelings and not pushed a tender spot. He did eventually answer her. It seemed like he had those scars deep and buried, and with her asking, they were opened, and maybe they could reform into something that wasn't painful.

Lifting her glass to drink, she listened to what he said and wore a small smile.

"I'd like to think I had some wonderful advice from my master and friend about building a strong relationship. Time will tell, Dareth."

Throwing back the last of her drink, she set it down but waved off more. For now, she was fine. Iandre felt their conversation shouldn't be muddied by her having too much to drink.

"What is your storm? There might be some thunder to your lightning out there. The Force brought me here for a reason, and it brought us together, too. Why do you think that happened?"

A water was set next to the top of her hand, and she thanked the bartender for it. It was just something small, but it helped her feel a bit more grounded than she had been a minute ago.

"When I had no hope, I didn't give up on life. Don't you give up on love either, Dareth. I think you'll find it and it's going to come out of a cloudless sky and bowl you over with surprising ease."

Where that had come from, Iandre didn't know, but she spoke with a confidence that shouldn't have been present.

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

He didn’t laugh.
But the ghost of a smile touched the corners of his mouth not joy, but understanding.

“Thunder doesn’t always mean a storm,” he said quietly.
“Sometimes it’s just the sky remembering how to speak.”

His voice had softened not distant, but peeled back. Like something in him had stopped bracing.

“You ask what my storm is,” he echoed, not as a question, but as if retracing her thread.

“Once, it was duty. Then it was loss. Then... the silence after. But lately?”

He paused not to dramatize, but because some memories ask to be handled with care.

“Lately, I think the storm might be over. And I just haven’t stepped outside yet.”

Iandre Athlea

 

[Iandre Athlea]

"You're right, thunder doesn't always mean a storm. It could just as easily be a starship passing over the head of a child, and they think it's thunder. It isn't true, but they don't know that. To them, the sky is speaking.

"Duty and loss, I understand all too well, Dareth."

The former Jedi had grown up knowing duty, and near the end of her time with them, she had come to understand loss. It wasn't something she liked remembering, but their conversation dredged up her memories. Rubbing at her chin, she was silent with him. Giving thought to what she remembered, she looked at him when he spoke again.

"I can help you step outside if you want. I left my storm behind, but sense there are more brewing. I don't know if they are going to hit us or not. However, I will be prepared for it."

Dareth Solryn