Private Black Mire

[Lorn Reingard]

Tags: Bastila Sal-Soren​

The swamp closed around them. Vines hung low over black water, insects droned in a steady, needling chorus, and every step sank with a sound that promised rot beneath. Lorn moved through it without complaint, though his boots were soaked through and his robes clung heavy with damp. He hated Naboo's lowlands. Nothing here ever dried. The mountains made sense to him. Cold, clean air. Stone you could trust.

Ahead, the Gungan guide slipped between pools with practiced ease. He carried a long spear and walked with quiet confidence, shoulders rolling as he pushed aside reeds. Bastila followed a half step behind Lorn, her hood down despite the insects. Her jaw was set, eyes fixed forward, emotions burning hot and close in the Force. She had been like this since the temple. Too sharp. Too contained. Something was wrong.

The Gungans had come to the temple speaking of a thing in the swamp. A tear. A doorway. They called it supernatural, their wide eyes bright with fear and reverence. The Council had listened, exchanged looks, and sent Lorn. Sword of Shiraya, first to test the water. Make sure it was safe before the educated ones trekked out here.

Fine. Lorn had survived worse assignments.

He stepped over a half submerged root and felt the ground shift. His hand brushed his lightsaber, a familiar weight at his hip. The Force lay uneasy here, tangled and thick, like fog that refused to lift.

"Bastila," he said, keeping his voice low. "You've been quiet. What's on your mind?"

 

[Bastila Sal-Soren]

Bastila slowed, letting a curtain of hanging vines brush her shoulder as she stepped through. The water sucked at her boots with a wet, patient sound. She didn’t hurry to answer.
“This place doesn’t like rushing,” she said finally, voice low, almost folded into the drone of insects. “You push and it feels like it pulls back harder.”

A ripple passed through the Force around her; it didn’t come from the swamp, but from obviously her. It was restless almost like it was coiled in her subconscious.

“I feel the same pressure everywhere lately.” A half glance to the black water at her feet. “Brandyn rocking up missing half his face. The Senate seemingly making moves around the Queen and Interim Chancellor. Even this Outbound Flight that feels ....” She nudged aside a reed with the edge of her hand, as she paused carefully to choose her words. “Everyone’s wading forward like they know the ground will hold. And now there is this, when even the Gungans are starting to feel it shouldn't we worry?”

Her jaw set, trying to hide that for just a moment she had almost let it all go. She adjusted her pace to match Lorn’s and the Gungan guide’s again.

“My training says to let the current take me.” A soft, humorless breath. “But I also need to keep watching the water for where it thins. For where it might give way. To protect everyone else.”

A long vine creaked as the Gungan passed beneath it. Bastila ducked after, slower, thoughtful.

“I just don’t trust stillness,” she murmured. “Not when it feels like this.”

OUTFIT: XoXo | TAG: Lorn Reingard EQUIPMENT:

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[Lorn Reingard]

Tags: Bastila Sal-Soren​

"You're carrying too much," he said at last. His voice stayed even, but irritation edged it. Not at her. At the weight she was shouldering like it was hers alone. "You're trying to read the entire river instead of the next step."

A branch caught at his sleeve. He swore under his breath and tore free, water splashing up his shin. He hated how this place dragged at him, how it made patience harder to hold. The mountains would have been quiet by now. Honest.

He glanced at her, really looked. "You're watching for collapse everywhere. Brandyn. The Senate. This mission flight. Now this swamp." He shook his head once. "Tell me where this started. Not the events. The feeling."

The Gungan paused ahead, scanning the waterline. Lorn lifted a hand to signal a brief halt, then turned fully toward Bastila. The Force here pressed thick and sour, but her presence cut through it like heat through fog.

"You say stillness scares you," he said. "Why." Not an accusation. A question that demanded an answer.

He resumed walking before she could retreat into silence, forcing her to match him. "We train to feel undercurrents, yes. But we also train to trust the ground until it gives us a reason not to." His jaw tightened. "Right now, you're acting like the collapse is inevitable. Like the only choice is to brace for it."

Another step sank deeper than the last. Lorn yanked his foot free, annoyance flashing hot. "I live with that instinct," he admitted. "It keeps you alive. It also makes you see threats where there are only shadows."

He breathed out, slower this time, steadying himself. "So I need to know what you're not saying. What changed at the temple. What you felt and decided to lock away."

His gaze softened, though his posture stayed firm. "I didn't bring you out here to toughen you up. I brought you because walking makes the truth harder to avoid."

The water ahead rippled faintly, light bending where it should not. Lorn turned back toward the path, one hand resting near his saber.

"Talk to me," he said.

 

[Bastila Sal-Soren]

Bastila huffed a quiet breath that might have been a laugh if she had snuck more warmth into it. She picked her way around a slick of algae, boots sinking with an ungraceful sound.
“If the river’s about to swallow us,” she murmured, “I’d rather be irritatingly prepared than serenely surprised.”

A vine brushed her cheek. She pushed it aside with two fingers, grimacing.

“You do know what the Temple says about me?” she went on, tone dry. “That I’m ‘attentive.’ Which is Master-speak for she’s incapable of switching off.” A brief sideways glance at Lorn. “They do say it kindly. As if that helps.”

She stepped where the ground looked solid and immediately sank deeper than expected. The swamp made a wet, offended noise.

“There,” she said flatly. “Perfect example. Looks stable. Isn’t.”

She freed her foot and kept moving, a little faster now, irritation sharpening her edge.

“It didn’t just start, it sort of crept in. I had a…” She paused, was she ready to talk about it, to someone other than her brother that was. “An argument with someone and it all sort of escalated from there.”

She gave a soft sigh, maybe it wasn’t from the fight with Dominic, maybe it was before that? The Iron Joust? The ball?

“I keep being told to trust that things will right themselves. Brandyn says it. The Council says it. It’s the type of thing Senators say right before they do something reckless and call it vision.” Her mouth twitched. “If vision involves marching into a bog with clean boots, I’m not impressed.”

The Force around her stirred, restless but threaded with wry self-awareness.

“I don’t enjoy assuming collapse is inevitable,” she added. “It’s exhausting. And unpopular.” Again a squelch sounded as she took another step, “But every time I try to relax, something sinks.”

“At the Temple, I’d sense things before they had names. Tension. Fractures. People deciding things they pretended were inevitable instead of chosen.” She gave a sigh that ended with a slap as she hit a rather large insect of some kind that had moved to her face. “I’d speak up, get told I was perceptive, then get told to be patient.”

She made sure her tone stayed light.

“So I learned. I learned that if I waited for proof, it was already too late.” She tested another step. This one held. “If I spoke softly, it sounded like doubt. If I spoke firmly, it sounded like fear.”

She glanced at the water ahead, where light bent oddly, then back to Lorn.

“So yes,” she said softly, humor thinning but not gone. “Stillness scares me. Because the last few times I stood still, the ground proved me wrong.”

She adjusted her pace to his again, shoulders loosening just a fraction.

“And for the record,” she added, almost under her breath, “I don’t mind walking, but this isn’t walking. This is practically swimming.”

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