Private Built to Break

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora's eyes flared wide, her expression teetering between surprise and dismay. The Jedi often faced as much criticism as they did praise, but this was…new.

"Sad? Tragic? You pity them?" She repeated his words with disbelief, letting them linger in the air as the pair descended down the gently winding slope. Never had someone told her they'd pitied the Jedi.

Her foot caught on a rocky outcrop, causing the young noblewoman to let out an unrefined squeak as she stumbled. Pale cheeks flaring, she managed to right herself and send Wake a preemptive glare at the same time.

"Corazona von Ascania." She corrected with a haughty air. Although she normally went by the shortened version of her given name, Cora felt compelled to grasp for any shred of dignity that remained. Never mind the fact that her married name was von Cholmendely. Corazona von Cholmendely was simply too long. "You aim to save me from myself? Tell me, Wake; what exactly is it that I am doing that I need to be saved from?"

Arms tucked defensively against her torso, the Princess scoffed. Still, she did tilt her attention towards the blooms when he mentioned them. He was right. They were pretty. Undisturbed and serene and wild all at the same time. She was almost surprised that he could appreciate them.

What surprised her even more was the lingering joy she felt drift into the space around her as she followed. It was genuine. Cora couldn't help but slowly inhale the feeling, as if she were trying to suffuse it into her mind. Then Ukatis spoke, and she listened.

He seems…honest? That, or he's particularly good at subterfuge. As much as I've dealt with that type of thing at court, I'm in no state to detect such things as they exist in the Force.

As much as Cora disliked the notion of probing someone's mind, she stretched out her limited senses towards Wake. It wouldn't exactly be a clumsy attempt, but it would be obvious to the Sith that she was trying to get a more intimate read on him.

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake stood in front of the flowers and turned to look back at her after her little trip up. The surprise in her aura was palpable. He watched the expression on her face even as he maintained that unflappable smile of his own. His eyes glittering with a mixture of mirth and something else. He tilted his head as she questioned him, demanding to know what his aims were with dragging her out like this. She knew he was Sith, yet she followed out of curiosity. She could have been killed out here, by him, weaponless. Yet he'd given her a weapon without a moment of hesitation. His lips curled a little more as he felt her concentration fall upon him. A probing within the force.

He hid nothing.

His aura was not the chilling cold of the dark side one was most familiar with. Instead, his presence was like a black bonfire. Pure. Unrelenting. Ferocious and ferverous. There was belief there, spawned of positive emotions. The joy, excitement, exhuberance, wonder, and delight that he felt towards the world were like fuel for his fire. Zeal. He seemed to love everything he looked at. He felt so deeply and so strongly that it was like an ocean made of fire. A comforting and fearful heat. One that you dare not embrace, but standing next to- it eased the burdens of the world. An aura of comfort. Wake's lip twitched and he tilted his head to look her in the eyes as Darth Utakis spoke.

Such... emotion. So much feeling. How? How has he accomplished this? I must know! If I had this strength-

"Like what you see?" Wake teased, grinning at her intense expression. He turned away with a bit of a comical sashay and made his way down the path a bit further, gesturing at the various plants and animals, showering them with appreciation. Nature was king out here, they simply were existing within its boundaries. "Yeah, I pity the Jedi, Corazona," Wake said as he practically danced down another length of steps, humming to himself. "And I want to save you from that pity, I felt it when I saw you. Your emotions, diluted, weakened," He said with a breath, moving a bit more quickly, "And then when you feel them, its like you are drowning, choking, there's such an enormous tightness there that you just want to... die."

"It's like your heart is clogged, isn't it?" Wake asked as he finally stopped, they were at the bottom of the ravine. The waters she had intended to throw herself into seemed a lot more shallow now that they were closer. He turned and looked at her, "Do you really want to know why I pity the Jedi? Then keep following me," He said and kept walking, following the path alongside the narrow stream that had cut through the earth.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

There were no barriers for Cora to surpass. No defenses to probe, no cracks in his psyche to exploit. Everything he felt was laid bare and open.

She was struck by how unabashed his feelings were, how he flitted from one emotion to the next with all the unrestrained fervor his freedom allowed. Cora was standing on the shore of a boundless sea of passion and glee, the waves softly lapping at her feet. She shuddered. Wake had no need of decorum to hide himself behind, and Cora was at once jealous and mystified.

The strangest thing of all was how sincerely he felt. It was almost tantalizing.

"Wh-what?" She sputtered when he teased her, face heating out of embarrassment. He continued down the path, but Cora remained rooted where she was for a few moments longer, watching him prance among the flora.

"And then when you feel them, its like you are drowning, choking, there's such an enormous tightness there that you just want to... die."

"It's like your heart is clogged, isn't it?"

Cora cast her gaze to the side of the trail, off into the verdant forest. She traced the curve of a leaf with her eyes, following each vein and crease along its surface, down to the stem.

"That is one way to put it, yes." She relented quietly.

"It wasn't the Jedi who taught me this. Keeping oneself in check is the expectation for a noblewoman of Ukatis."

Cora paced forward, tilting her attention to the water. They closer they got, the lighter it became. Peering further, she was almost able to make out the shape of the rocky shore beneath the gentle waves. A surge of fearful shame course through her at the fate she'd teased.

"How do you find this…unbridled joy in everything you look at? Doesn't it overwhelm you?"

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

The voice of the ancient sith fell silent as they stood there on the banks of the water. Wake brushed himself off a little, giving her a sidelong look as she tried to explain herself. He shrugged at her and smirked, making it clear he didn't believe her in the least but wasn't about to argue the point. Self restraint was one thing but what was wrong with her was a bit more fundamental. He started to walk again, humming to himself as a cavern in the side of the ravine came into view.

He glanced back at her, "I faced them," He said simply, "My emotions, my past, my feelings, all of it. I know what I feel, and I accept it. I have a healthy relationship with my emotions rather than my peers. If I want to feel my rage, I feel it, if I want to feel sorrow, I feel it. I don't hide from it, I don't run from it, I accept myself and all that comes with it," He let out a breath and stopped in front of an opening just big enough to let them pass inside, moss hung over it in a way that made it impossible to see from above. The force was strong here.

"I've turned the process into a ritual, and I've treated many people with it," Wake said, his voice maintaining the weight of his words, sincerity, belief, seriousness, "The Ritual of Reflection. It is not for the faint of heart, but it may help you," He shook his head, "But you aren't ready for it just yet, you need to understand what you're getting yourself into."

He smirked and strode into the cavern, "To answer your question though, yes, it is overwhelming, but that's life. So I face that too," He said easily and vanished into the darkness. He didn't wait for her to follow him, he simply began to walk the winding tunnel that lead deep beneath the ground, the sense of the force growing stronger and stronger until he came to a stop inside an enormous, dark room. He turned to see if she'd followed and then reached for a jutting outcropping on the wall.

He touched it, and let the force flow through him.

Light and color and the multicolored glow of life and feeling erupted into the room. The walls were clustered with force crystals jutting out this way and that. The brilliant glow, purples, blues, greens, reds, oranges, a rainbow of light that sparkled and danced on the small pond that filled the center of the room up to ankle height. The faint sound of trickling from a waterfall on the north side of the room lead to the outlet from which the pond formed, somewhere beneath it drained away slowly, maintaining the shallow height. The sea of colors brightened, sparkles and particles rising in the air as plantlife began to glow.

Wake didn't say anything for a moment before looking back at it, "A Jedi would articulate that this is beautiful, but wouldn't feel it. Wouldn't experience it. Not the way a normal person would. No, they wouldn't experience what 'breathtaking' really means. They wouldn't feel a tear come to their eye at the awe of how incredible the force and nature are. They would just smile, appreciate it, and move on." Wake turned to look at her, a single tear in his eye, "That's why I pity the Jedi."

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

To his smirk, Cora frowned. She teased the idea of probing Wake about his unsaid reaction, but ultimately decided to let it rest. Darth Ukatis may have been quiet, but she recalled his earlier words.

Do not anger him.

As if lead by a string, Cora followed along. She had some difficulty focusing on his explanation as the harsh daylight was swallowed by the darkness of the cave, their new surroundings putting her even more on edge. Hesitance crept into her footsteps, especially as Wake spoke of a ritual. The Ritual of Reflection. It sounded…sinister.

"No." She agreed, though perhaps not for the same reason. "I do not think that I am ready for that."

Before she could say anything further, Wake brushed a hand against a nodular stone, feeding esoteric energy into the sediment. Light exploded around them all at once, a prismatic symphony that illuminated the cavern and reflected off of the shallow waters of the pond. Even their surroundings took on an almost ethereal glow, swelling with the tides of the Force.

Cora had never seen anything like it. Her connection to the Force was the strongest it had been in nearly a year, and yet she felt as if the breath had been knocked from her lungs.

As if she were hypnotized, Cora reached out and ran a delicate finger along the edge of a luminous pale blue crystal. She shuddered in awe.

"I've never seen anything like this, not on Ilum, not…I didn't know that a place like this could be found…here."

She turned to Wake, surprised by the tear in his eye as she was by his words, and by how the lusterous crystals cast his irritatingly attractive face in a charming light. Cora blushed and looked away quickly, finding an easy fascination with the gem-studded walls.

"You pity them because they cannot feel the world around them as you do."

The young noblewoman chose her words carefully. After everything that Horace had done to her, she felt utterly disconnected from the Jedi. It was a title she did not deserve.

Cora could feel something creeping up on her. An emotional surge, the heavy presence of the Force—it was overwhelming, so raw and visceral and it demanded to be felt. Her breathing paced quicker and her chest tightened. One hand curled into the fabric of her shirt, directly over her breastbone.

"It is not a pleasant feeling…to be pitied."

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake watched her with a gentle look on his face and then regarded the colors around him. They didn't give him a sense of peace, rather, they filled him with even greater emotions. He felt sorrow for the people who couldn't appreciate this wonder of nature. He felt rage for those who would destroy it. He felt hate for those who would take his ability to experience it away from him. He felt love for nature and all its brutal, bloody, vicious magesty. Nature created this.

He smiled at her when she referred to 'them'. She was already separating herself from the Jedi. He wasn't interested in converting her to his side, only that he freed another person from the horrible corruption that the Jedi left on people. The loss of feeling.

He looked up at the brightest crystal in the room, dead center in the ceiling. He then glanced her way as he felt the emotions roiling inside of her. It was growing stronger, the repression bending and ebbing beneath it all. She wanted to let it all out, he could tell, or at least her subconscious did. He turned and strode towards her, reaching out to cup her chin in his hand.

"No it isn't," He said softly, "Not all feelings are, but they're real, Cora. They're natural. They're right. Your right, you have a right to feel."

He looked her in the eyes, she'd likely seen the eyes of a sith before. Murderous red and yellow. His emerald green eyes had turned a brilliant gold, as if the bloodlust from hatred was gone. "I can help you let it out. Do you want to feel freely again?" He asked, starting to pull his hand away.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora flinched when Wake cupped her chin. She was unused to a gentle hand, and was perhaps expecting his touch to harshen.

But it didn't.

He lifted her gaze to his own, seaglass blue meeting vibrant gold, and asked if she wanted to truly feel what she'd suppressed for so long.

This Sith was an odd man, and frustratingly magnetic. He was unlike any of the darksiders she'd encountered so far; kind and amiable instead of psychotic or murderous. The broken Princess was slowly becoming convinced of his good intentions, but she wasn't sure if they were applicable to her.

"I…" Cora's voice cracked, her throat suddenly parched and tight. "I'm afraid that if I feel them too closely, I won't be able to fulfil my duty here."

As his hand drew away, Cora reached to suddenly grasp his wrist, firm but not hard. She hadn't looked away from his hypnotic gaze, and her lips moved slowly as she spoke.

"What made you want to help the Jedi feel things like you do? How do you know what a Jedi does—or does not—feel?"

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

He watched the thoughts swirling behind her eyes, the longing in the sound of her voice. That little crack. The tightness in her tone. His lips thinned into an easy smile and he tilted his head to the right, watching her carefully. He didn't respond to her words, her concerns, not right away. Instead he allowed her to grab his wrist. His hand didn't budge now, instead he brushed a lock of her hair with his thumb and took her chin back in his hand. He stepped forward and tilted his head, getting closer.

"Is that your duty? Or a duty someone else has thrust upon you?" He whispered, "What does the voice of the long dead Utakis have to say about it?"

With the glow around them, the vibrancy of the force, the living force in all of its violent splendor, the undead being could barely manage a whisper. It's voice reaching out to Cora. It sounded angry. It demanded to know what Wake thought was more important than a duty to one's homeland. For a brief moment, the angry spirit sounded, perhaps, like someone else in her life. Even if it was just a faint whisper. A memory. A fragment.

"How can you dare to call yourself a caretaker of a people, when you can't even take care of yourself?" Wake said gently, "How is that fair to you?"

Then she asked her question and his hand tensed a little, he didn't squeeze, but the reaction was there. His smile faded as he stared her in the eyes. "I was once a Jedi, I experienced love, I shared those feelings with the Jedi I cared for," Wake said, "When I looked into her eyes, I realized that even if she wanted to, she couldn't feel a thing for me. She didn't hate me but neither did she see me as anything more than an extension of her role as a Jedi, a part of the order," Wake said, grief building up in his chest.

"I did something terrible that day, my emotions burst forth without control, she died," Wake nodded and released her chin, "I realized that day that what the Jedi did to their pupils, what they expected of their masters, it was unnatural. Wrong. Pitiful. So wretched and sad."

He looked up at the glowing crystals around them, "I would have liked to have shown her this, and let her see it the way I do."

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Beneath his fingers, Wake would feel the heat that colored her pale cheeks. Her face flamed a little brighter the closer her became, and Cora swallowed thickly.

She didn't see a difference between her chosen duty and one that had been forced on her by her family - such a difference did not exist on Ukatis or in her heart. Tentative lips parted to whisper:

"Th…they are one and the…same."

Cora sounded less firm in her beliefs this time, confused and frustrated and pained and fascinated. The voice of Darth Ukatis was a small, briefly discordant note in the symphony around them, but one she knew well. One that inspired the shame that twisted deeply in her gut.

A single blink sent a tear softly dribbling over the bruised flesh of her cheek. It stung faintly, but Cora said nothing more for now, entranced by the genuine nature of Wake's reaction.

First somber curiosity, then sympathy, then horror, and finally a hesitant tenderness. All flashed across her face as Wake recounted a painfully defining part of his life to her. Cora uncurled her grip from his wrist and followed his gaze to the luminous crystals above.

That hadn't been her experience among the Jedi, and perhaps there were variances among the numerous sects and enclaves, but telling him that wouldn't have been helpful.

"That is…awful." She said softly, simple and sincere. "I am sorry for what you've suffered."

Her gaze stretched from the ceiling down to the shallow pool below. For a few moments, the girl simply watched the waters as they glittered with suffused multicolored lights.

"My husband is a very violent man." She admitted. "Our marriage was arraigned. Suffering him, providing him with heirs to extend the strength of our family, is how I can best care for my people."

The Jedi has been upset after learning the details of her engagement, and she'd been touched by their concern. They thought it was barbaric, unjust and cruel. But they did not understand. Very few outside of Ukatis did.

"To call it unfair…is a thought that has never entered my mind."

Cora couldn’t question the ancient wheel that had been turning for thousands of years.

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Nwul stood in the center of the room for a few moments, watching the lights float around them, sensing the resonance in the force as the glow continued to self-perpetuate. His arms crossed behind his back as his eyes remained fixed for a moment. He listened to her silently as she spoke revealing the terms of her situation. A violent husband in an arranged marriage, he turned his head towards her, "You didn't ask for this life, you just played with the hand you were dealt, nothing more," He let out a sigh, "You even went as far as to look for more cards to play with, not realizing that the jedi took more cards than they gave."

He let the metaphor hang in the air between them before he approached her, he drew in closer and placed a hand on the wall behind her, he broke into a smile, "Cora. How long has it been since you've felt this?" He asked and reached up to touch her cheek. Mind trick was a technique used to press a complete thought into a person's mind. It did not work on those with strong minds or those incapable of thought such as animals. Project emotion was a technique he had developed after seeing the limitations of mind trick. Minds were far more sensitive to pure emotions. Through experimentation he'd learned that they were even weaker to positive emotions which few built up resistances to.

He placed his fingers on her cheek and allowed love to flow into her.

"A taste of what you could feel again, with my help," He whispered, "A sample."

If he had his way, he'd encourage her to kill her husband and- he paused, surprise welling up a little. Why was he so fixated on her? Odd. He worked his way through the emotion in the instant he blessed her with a sample of undiluted love. Affection. Curiosity. Something about her was attractive and he'd become cognizant of it, he felt affection for her, while he couldn't explain why, he felt it. He faced the emotion and acknowledged it, he would act on it if he desired to, but he wouldn't let it distract him now.

Such was the clarity of a Sith who faced his emotions.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

As Wake spoke, Cora allowed her gaze to unfocus. Many-hued lights blurred softly around them, shifting faintly with the ebbs and flows of the Force. She felt as if they would swallow her whole and infuse their luster into her.

Suddenly, he was close. So close that she could practically feel the smile that curled the edges of his lips. Surprise flared her eyes wide, and she stilled, rigidly so, when his fingers brushed her cheek and imparted a surge of pure emotion that went straight to her heart.

It was a warmth she hadn't felt since she'd laid in the arms of her first and only love. A warmth so foreign to Ukatis itself. It was affection and passion and tenderness, wrapping around her and shielding Cora from the ills of the galaxy. It overpowered the shame, the guilt, the hurt that had plagued her day by day since she'd been inducted into the royal family in the most brutal of ways.

Intoxicating. It was like a drug. She could draw it into her skin if she could. After a few delirious moments, she found a thread of focus and fixed her cloudy gaze on the unpredictable Sith who lingered only a few scant inches away. Her eyes dropped to his lips for a moment, then darted away shyly. She liked to think that it was the glow of a pink crystal that caused her face to flush with color.

"What…is this?" She murmured breathily. "You can't…this isn't real…"

It certainly felt real, and that startled Cora as much as the thrill of being loved and being able to love in turn. They barely knew each other – how could he feel this way? How could she? Was he manipulating her feelings, or imparting some of his own? Was he drawing out a part of her she'd buried away after losing Makko, or was this entirely artificial?

A hand curled into the collar of her shirt as if the gesture could stabilize her mind. It didn't. Cora couldn't decide if she wanted this to stop or if she wanted to feel this way forever.

"Why...?"

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Nwul stood over her, his hand on his cheek, he didn't need to search her emotions to know what she was feeling. It wasn't just his love that he showed her. He confronted her with the purest form of love, gentle, kind, and without requirement. He let the unrepentant feeling flow through her, passing the pure emotion from the great spectrum on to her as easily as it was breathing.

He watched her eyes lose focus, only to regain it moments later, his smile relaxing. Good. She had herself still. He watched how her eyes moved and he smirked, looking her back in the eyes before darting down to her lips for a moment with his gaze. He felt the warmth wash over her, shyness, embarassment, those were emotions that she probably hadn't felt in a long time.

Her voice came out in a heady breath and he nodded, "It is pure emotion, I feel it every day," He whispered, "I have mastered my emotions in a way that a Jedi never could," He smiled, "It's overwhelming because of how closed off to your feelings you have become. This is what you've lost, this is what was taken from you," He urged her, almost pleaded to her.

"But I can't give this to you, if you aren't capable of feeling it. It's buried there, somewhere," He whispered, he reached up and took the other side of her face with his hand before gently leaning in and offering her a kiss.

"...because you deserve it," he breathed against her lips, "Revel in the spectrum with me, Cora,"

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Rationality had been forced into the back of Cora's mind, and it cried out that this stranger was manipulating her. Using her desperate hunger for love and affection to an end that was not yet clear.

If those thoughts could reach her, they melted away with the gentle, hot breaths that drifted over her lips.

In that moment, Cora took what she needed. Her lips closed the hair's width gap between Wake's own, pressing gently at first, then more insistently as her need grew. Unraveling in the moment, she allowed herself to feed the indulgence of what she'd been missing in her loveless, toxic marriage.

As her eyes fell closed, the fingers that had clutched at the collar of her tunic uncurled themselves from the fabric. They skated almost tenderly along the side of his face, ghosting upwards to brush a dark tuft of hair from where it rested against his brow.

When the kiss broke, Cora's lidded gaze hazily refocused on Wake, heedless of the fact that her cheeks were scandalously rosy and her chest heaved gently.

He was physically attractive, undoubtedly. The way he treated her was a rarity on Ukatis- a gentle touch of the empathy and affection she'd craved for so long. It had not been lost on her that he could've had a a darker agenda - but in this moment, she didn't care.

Trapped between Wake and the wall, Cora could only stare. Awareness started to return to her in lazy waves, threatening pulling the girl from her rosy reprieve.

“I…”

She could only gasp softly, unable to find the words or even the thoughts she wanted to voice.

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

What she'd perhaps never understand, or perhaps she would one day, was that the situation was far simpler than she could have ever imagined. Yes, in many ways, he was manipulating her, but his end goal was simple. He deeply believed that the dark side, the full spectrum of emotions he embraced, was the freest way to live ones life, the right way, it was all he wanted for others. For her.

Rationality had no place here.

He took her lips and felt her mind meld with his for the briefest moments. The sensation shocked him but he kept his composure. For so long he had tasted the memories of others through his consumptions, reviewing them as his own memories later, but only after destroying their minds. Yet here, in this moment, he felt it all without a mote of harm done to her. Every. Single. Agonizing. Moment. Every second of that loveless, toxic marriage.

Rage boiled beneath his skin, he acknowledged it and turned it into strength, he turned that emotion into something he could use in the moment. He turned the burning blaze into passion. He flavored it with acceptance. He understood. Better than any other. He could see it clearly, how she suffered.

He felt the fingers across his face as he wrapped his free hand around her waist, pulling her closer to him. His eyes fell shut as he slid deeper and deeper into the moment. Savoring it, pinning the memory forever, filling it with every ounce of focus he could. His fingers traveled from her waist up to her back, then to her hair, that he stroked with a gentle touch.

They broke apart for a heartbeat, his own breaths coming warmly to him. His chest blazing, his heart pounding, he set memories of a lost love aside forever and embraced his emotions. Her lips parted, she tried to speak, but he cut her off with a smile.

"Right now, with me, you have the freedom to choose..." He whispered. Brushing a lock of hair out of her face.

His body was already pressed against her, he could have taken her right then and there, the emotions burning between them already hitting a conflaguration. But her misery came from the theft of choice, the loss of agency. He could have pushed the love in her to turn her fanatical in this raw state she was in. He could have done so many things, but he knew what she really needed. A choice. They could stop, right then and there, or he could show her just how deep a sith's passions go.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

The freedom to choose.

A simple freedom she'd been denied for so long. From before her wedding night, even. A freedom denied by the sharp sting of her father's palm against her face, by his cane that cam down upon her back, by her husband's violent, controlling mannerisms and threats toward her family.

She told herself that she didn't need her freedom, that she was content to serve her family and her people in this way. It was an honor. After all, nobles were never truly free - it was their divine right to rule over their people and suffer for them in turn.

Cora had tried desperately to make peace with the fact that she would have to live the rest of her life in a guided cage.

The moment their lips made contact, she gasped quietly against his mouth. Unknowingly, he'd been fed each night she'd spent on her back, grimacing at the ceiling, each open palm that struck her face like the crack of a whip, every bitter word, the searing pain of the flesh at her hip where Horace had pressed a hot iron to remove a mark he found displeasing.

Every demure bow of her head, every wave of shame as she yielded to her husband, every moment that she tried to grasp for a greater sense of purpose. He'd feel the high from her first love, and the moment that came crashing down when she made the difficult decision to turn away from Makko, from the Order.

In turn, she felt the trickles of anger as they folded over on one another, coalescing into something powerful, a passion that sunk into the marrow of his bones. Threads of his own past, snippets of the unyielding love he'd held for his Jedi Master, his heartbreak, the embrace of the dark and acceptance of his feelings as they are, filtered to her over the course of a heartbeat. Startling as it was, she drank it all in.

She could imagine his touch skating against the skin her bare form, his lips pressed hotly to her neck, the friction of them writhing desperately against one another. Those sensations were just a moment, only a whisper away.

Steadying herself, Cora rested a hand against Wake's chest, directly over his heart. She felt the flutter of his pulse, the thundering of his heart that sang with her own. It fascinated her. Wake had seemed almost otherworldly to, but he was still flesh and blood. He was warm. He was human.

"We cannot." She whispered on a breath, though she made no immediate move to untangle herself from his arms. "I cannot."

Unlike Wake, Cora could not forget her lost love. A wound still fresh, a loss she grieved for internally.

Fear trickled in slowly. Horace had no way of knowing what she'd done, but her fear of him was absolute. It dominated her daily life, and now it cut through the amorous haze, igniting a spark of distress in her eyes.

Yet strangely, above all, she felt shame. It hung over her like the blade of a guillotine, poised to separate her soul from her body. The shame of indulging in the forbidden, the shame of breaking the sanctity of her marriage, the shame baring her scarred body to another man.

No matter what happened in this cave, she would still have to go home to Horace.

Cora swallowed thickly and glanced away, watching the uncertainty in her eyes reflect back to her in the soft glow of a blue crystal. If she didn't look directly at Wake, Cora imagined that she could fight off the weight of her desire before it could crush her.

"He'll kill me."

Darth Nwul

 

[Darth Nwul]

Wake felt her hand against his chest and knew what was coming next. He saw the look in her eyes, felt the shame, felt the agony in her chest, the pressure that compounded upon her. His eyes relaxed a little, it was a terrible emotion to feel, but it was an emotion nevertheless. She was feeling far more strongly than before, without her even knowing it, he'd opened her back up to her feelings. It was a good start.

She refused him with a whisper, though she did not move to get away. He reached up and touched her cheek, "I understand," He said softly, and he did, the shame, the fear, even if it was irrational, it was still crippling. Emotions had terrible power. He'd wielded emotion as a weapon before, made a man kill himself, he knew how immutable ones feelings could be. He did not judge her for it. She was a long way from mastering them. He faced his disappointment, though, the desire for her was intense. He accepted his disappointment and set it aside, focusing on the moment.

"He'll kill me."

He let out a breath and closed his eyes, letting the force suffuse him. He let his head roll back as he called to the dark side, asking for truth. Images passed through his mind, of the future, of moments, glimpses, he did not look for anything in particular only to see her face. His eyes opened and he smiled, "No he won't," He said knowingly. He kept the thought to himself that he would burn Utakis to the ground if Horace dared hurt her again. She didn't need to know his rage. Not the extent of it anyway.

He pulled her into a platonic embrace, stroking her head, "It's okay to feel shame, to be scared, to be angry. It's okay, you can let it out for now if it helps..."

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"No he won't."

Blue eyes stared back up at Wake, watching the way his head shifted back with hazy curiosity. Cora could feel the subtle shifts of the Force around them, but again, the voidstone ring stymied her esoteric senses to a frustrating degree.

His embrace, though – she felt that. She felt his arms wrap around her, the gentle hand stroking her hair, the genuine acceptance for every ugly emotion that lived within her. One moment she was holding her breath, blinking back tears. The next, she'd buried her face against his chest and sobbed for all she had suffered, and all she had yet to. An emotional dam had broken, flooding Cora with a torrent of feelings she'd suppressed to survive in the vicious courts of Ukatis.

She'd been taught that there was a very narrow range of emotion that was acceptable for a noblewoman to present. Physical attributes were more important – be demure, yielding, mannerly, and elegant, but also enduring and quietly resilient. There was a twisted sort of honor in suffering. A Princess lived under even tighter scrutiny.

Clinging to Wake, she felt as if her tears would never cease.

Darth Nwul