Private Candleflames in the Dark

[William Thule]

Did they give me a room?

William smiled softly. Gently.

"Andromeda..." he began, his eyes searching hers. "I do not think I do understand."

He looked around the room. Spacious compared to the cabin on his ship. Small compared to the rooms of the manor. "This is just where you keep your things. You would sleep in the master bedroom."

His smile slipped slowly away, replaced by the intensity in his dark gaze.

"With me."

A slight furrow creased his brow.

"There would need to be precautions. We do not know how the Order here would react, or any of the staff for that matter. It is not something we should... advertise. Not until we know what I should do about the barony here."

A muscle in his jaw ticced. This would be so different from their time aboard his ship, where there had been no one else to judge them. No one to tell them they were wrong.

"Assuming you want to sneak around like this is some torrid affair."

An out. If she wished it.

He swallowed, because it was after all some kind of torrid affair.

Andromeda Demir

 

[Andromeda Demir]

​

Andromeda felt her stomach do that stupid, thrilling, extraordinary swooping thing it did in response to quite ordinary sentences spoken by William Thule. To hear him state plainly what he wanted and expected -- while she dithered and fretted about wanting too much, asking too much, taking up too much space -- gave her a few moments of that exhilarating, bulletproof feeling she associated with him. It warmed her from within, an internal furnace at the core of her being that now glowed. Her face went pink.

"Yes," Andromeda said simply.

Because on that instant, it was simple. She wanted him, and was comforted to know that it was what he wanted too.

The rest of it washed over her like a bracing wave. Torrid little affair. There was a playfulness -- something almost thrilling -- behind the words but something harder too. "I don't love the idea of being some kind of... dirty little secret," she mused. "I'm sure you understand that for me it's not just -- " Her voice broke off abruptly and she looked down, suddenly feeling foolish, like a child. She pressed on: "But I'd be mortified for people to think of me as some kind of kept woman. So I think, until you know what to make of this inheritance business, not to mention the Order and all the rest, it makes sense to be... cautious."

She let the word settle between them.

The Order was another thing. They hadn't formally joined and it wasn't clear what the expectations would be for them. If they forbad this kind of entanglement, was it simply a matter of not joining? She studied William for a few moments, her dark eyes searching. He had been a Jedi longer than she; his identity as a member of a Jedi Order might have intense value to him. Was it fair to expect him to do something about her if the order forbade it? Andromeda tried to shut the door on it. There was no sense in catastrophizing about something uncertain of they could do nothing about it.

"I know enough about this world of yours to know that I don't know nearly enough," Andromeda murmured, settling in closer to allow a patina of intimacy to grow on her words. "It seems to be a place waiting for people to make fools of themselves because they don't know the system, or they allow themselves to want above their station or hope for more than they should." Finally she turned her face up to him, her eyes lingered on his collar, then his mouth, before cautiously meeting his eyes. When she spoke again her voice was quiet and studiously light

"You won't let me make a fool of myself, will you?"

William Thule
​

 

[William Thule]

Willam cupped her chin with his hand, keeping her head tilted as he stared down into the depths of her eyes. So full of trepidation that she might not belong on this world, or in this room, or with him.

Frightened of making herself a fool.

"Never."

His voice was firm and clipped by his Core accent.

He would not let her become consumed or used by the bog maze of whatever politics took place upon this world, though if they realized what she was to him then whoever opposed House Thule would seek to use her with honeyed words hiding poison. William kept his eyes locked with hers. His thumb brushed along the line of her jaw.

"We should never be afraid to hope, Andromeda," the barest hint of a smile touched at the corner of his mouth, "Hope is why we live."

Hope and her presence kept him alive after the fall of the Alliance. Without her, where would he be now?

Lost.

Andromeda Demir

 

[Andromeda Demir]

​

The little something in Andromeda's chest swelled at his words, and despite the new environment, the new world, the new paradigms they would be facing, she felt something in her unclench, the little spark of joy and hope she had been nurturing for longer than she wanted to admit kindling a little more. She followed the momentum of his tipping her chin up and strained up, onto her toes, and pressed a fleeting kiss to his lips before retreating back to firm ground, or as firm as the lush carpets of Thule Manor would allow.

"You ought to have been a poet," she murmured fondly before she released him.

She was glad he was not a poet. She somehow doubted he would carry the same mystique that he had as a Jedi Master.

She half-turned from him, glancing back to her little knapsack, so tidy on its luggage rack. It tried to speak to her about impermanence and unbelonging. Andromeda ignored it. "Is there something you need from me?" she asked. "Something I can do to help you make sense of what this place is like? You know, I think there's a town or something, over there?" Andy beckoned him toward the window and she planted a knee on the window seat and leaned closer to the window. It was still foggy, or misty, out there, but she definitely could see some structures out there.

"I could go and -- I don't know. Ask around. What conditions are like on the ground here?" She turned back to him, settling onto the window seat properly now, leaning back a little so she could see him properly. "I don't know if that would help -- having some foreigner poking her nose into things -- but I'm open to suggestions. Or is this more of a 'wait and see' situation?"

William Thule
​