Private Cantina Crossroads

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't answer immediately.
She rarely did when the question actually meant something.

Her fingers wrapped around her new drink — sweet, cold, comfortably numbing — and she stared into the glass for a moment before lifting her eyes to him.

"A place to breathe," she echoed softly. "That's… something I understand."

She sat back, posture relaxing in that subtle way that meant she was letting herself be honest.

"I did have a place once," she said. "On Denon. It wasn't fancy, but it was mine. A whole floor of a tower, half workshop, half living space. No neighbors close enough to complain about the noise." A faint smile tugged at her lips. "And there was a lot of noise."

The smile faded just a little.

"But Denon isn't safe. Not anymore. Life has a way of kicking things loose when you finally get comfortable."
Her eyes dropped to her glass. "I had to go. Had to disappear."

She lifted her chin toward the window — the city lights of Empress Teta glittering steady and sharp across the dark.

"So now I'm here. And I don't know if this planet is home, but…" she shrugged slightly, "…it's a place where I'm not being hunted or tracked. A place I can take jobs without watching every shadow. A place where people treat me like I belong, or at least like I'm worth the space I take up."

Her brown eyes met his again — steady, not pitying, just real.

"How did I know it was the right moment?"
She exhaled softly.

"…I didn't."

Her voice dropped lower, more sincere.

"I just ran until I stopped running."

A beat passed, then another.

"And when I got here… I wasn't afraid to breathe."

One corner of her mouth twitched — not quite a smile, but close.

"That's it. That's all it was. No certainty. No big revelation. Just… air."

She looked at him more carefully then, as though fitting puzzle pieces together.

"You don't have to know what settling down looks like yet. You don't even have to decide today."
Her tone gentled.

"But if you ever find a place where you can breathe — even for a little while — that's where you start."

She took a small sip of her drink, then added quietly, with a hint of curiosity:

"If you had to choose right now… what would that place look like?"

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

He lowered his head, thinking.
Different pieces of his life swirled before his eyes, and finally one fragment, then another, settled into place in his mind.
When he had the faint outline of the place he might want, he finally lifted his head again and spoke, his voice perplexed, hovering on the edge of indecision — the kind born from facing something utterly unfamiliar to him:


"Maybe… somewhere quieter. On a calmer planet.
Maybe Belsavis… or another world like that."

Thoughtful, he hesitated, then opened up:
"I think that as long as I'm part of society, my ability to kill will always catch up with me, no matter where I go. Maybe some kind of exile is the best I can hope for."

His voice grew surprisingly calm, as if the idea of disappearing from the galaxy's view didn't trouble him at all:
"My friend always told me that sometimes, life has crossroads. They can be encounters, actions… or even conversations. Who knows — maybe this one is one of them."
He shrugged, lifted his glass, examined its contents, then took a long swallow.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren listened in stillness, her glass held loosely between her fingers as she watched him piece his thoughts together. There was something vulnerable in the way he spoke — not fragile, but raw, like someone unaccustomed to imagining a life that wasn't shaped by violence. When he said Belsavis, her brow lifted slightly. A frozen world. A prison world. A place people went to disappear, willingly or not. The choice told her more than he probably realized.

"Quiet is one thing," she murmured, shifting slightly in her seat, "but exile…?" Her head tilted. "That's not peace. That's punishment you haven't earned."

She took a slow sip of her drink, letting the sweetness settle her thoughts.

"You talk like your existence is nothing more than a weapon waiting to go off," she said softly. "But that's not true. A weapon doesn't sit in a cantina wondering if it deserves a second chance."

Her gaze flicked toward him — assessing, but not hard.

"And disappearing won't undo anything you've done. It won't stop the galaxy from being cruel. It won't soften the things you've lived through." She set her glass down gently. "But it will stop you from ever building anything new."

A beat passed.
Then another.

"You want quiet. You want air. You want somewhere no one's trying to use you." A faint, almost-smile touched her lips. "You can find that without vanishing into an ice world."

She leaned back, letting her shoulders relax into the cushions again.

"And your friend was right," she added, tone thoughtful now, reflective. "Life does have crossroads. Conversations that matter. Moments that change something." Her gaze lingered on his, steady, sure. "Maybe this is one. Maybe it isn't. But the fact that you're even thinking about what you want… that's already change."

Her voice remained calm, but there was warmth beneath it — quiet encouragement instead of pity.

"You don't need exile," she said gently. "You need somewhere to breathe that isn't shaped by fear. Exile is running from the galaxy. Finding a home is choosing where you stand in it."

Her fingers traced the rim of her glass once more before she added, with quiet curiosity:

"If it wasn't exile… if you weren't afraid of dragging danger behind you… Where would you go then?"

She left the question hanging — not to trap him, but to open a door he'd never let himself consider before.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Silently, he glanced at his saber out of the corner of his eye, then at the hilt of the lightsaber hanging at his belt, as if trying to determine whether that unsettling assumption could be true. He spoke again in a glacial voice, consumed by the weight of too much experience:

"I think exile is a good solution, because at least it doesn't endanger whatever I touch. I'm like winter, coming to wither the flowers in the fields. Everything around me is ephemeral, one way or another, and yet…"

That last word was surprising, spoken in a completely different tone — one of half-dreaming wonder:

"If it were possible to get a new life somewhere? I think I'd try my luck with two things. First, a new profession. Learning a new field, I don't know… something like…"

His voice grew hesitant, searching for something he could truly love:

"Maybe designing technological tools — adapted to different species, to compensate for their natural limitations."

The assassin's ideal surfaced — a world without judgment, whether robotic or organic. A world where everyone could live without trying to enslave someone else to benefit from them.

"The other option: a home. Somewhere far away, in a rural place. A simple life, far from the intrigues of doubt and fear."

Again, that last word was striking, revealing the apprehension that gnawed at the young man each time he was forced to kill, every time he set out on a mission. His shoulders no longer betrayed despair — only a quiet resolve, as if the future would arrive soon enough, in its own time.


Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren listened in silence, letting his words settle between them rather than rushing to fill the quiet. Something in the way he spoke — the way he compared himself to winter, the way he feared harming anything he came close to — stirred a faint ache of recognition in her chest. She understood that instinct too well: to withdraw so nothing fragile ever risked breaking beneath your touch.

Only when he finished did she draw in a slow breath and speak, her voice soft but even, steady enough to ground both of them.

"Exile might stop you from hurting anyone," she said, "but it doesn't give you anything to live for. And you… You keep talking like you're poison. Like, the only thing you can offer the galaxy is damage."

Her head tilted slightly, studying him with a quiet sincerity that didn't demand anything from him.

"But you just described two futures that aren't about killing at all."

She lifted her glass and took a thoughtful sip before continuing.

"You want to build things. Help people. Create tools that actually make lives easier. That's not something a monster dreams about."
Her tone wasn't sharp, just the simple truth laid plainly on the table.

"And a rural life?" A faint, wry smile touched her lips. "Maker knows the galaxy needs more quiet places. More people who want to breathe instead of run."

Her gaze drifted toward the window, taking in the glow of Empress Teta's skyline. "I used to think I'd never stop running either. Then everything I built on Denon was torn out from under me, and I ended up here. Starting over wasn't a choice — it was all that was left."

She turned back to him, meeting his eyes again, her expression calm but open.

"But here's the truth of it: you don't need a perfect plan to start fresh. You need room to step into something different."

A small silence followed, warm rather than heavy.

Then Aren asked, softly but with pointed curiosity:

"Tell me, Skars… do you fear anything at all? Anything besides hurting people?"

Her expression held a gentle challenge — not a test, but an invitation.
Because she had learned, following the Maker, that fear shapes people far more honestly than hope ever does.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

He fixed his gaze on the city's neon lights, letting himself get lost in the pulse of urban life. As always, he absorbed her words in silence first, letting them settle before answering.
When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, touched by a strange serenity, like returning to familiar ground he had walked through in his mind countless times.


"I think… I'm not afraid of anything else, really. Not of death, at least. Maybe that makes me someone abnormal, an anomaly."


The remark was phrased like a guess, but the almost-hidden certainty in his tone made it clear he believed it.
After a brief, ironic laugh, little more than a breath, he continued in that same even voice:


"I don't know when I stopped being afraid. Maybe with the Mandalorians, who tried to force me to overcome fear for the sake of something greater. Or maybe with the Others…"


With that nickname, Aren could understand he meant the Force-users who had trained him.


"They told me death was just a stage. The passage from a physical form to something immaterial. I think I tried to believe them. Maybe out of cowardice, again. But I think that's how I want to live. In my eyes… people who fear death have never truly known how to live."


Skars finished with a neutral tone, though a trace of sadness slipped through, a brief flicker of pity, like watching a child cling to a naïve belief.
Once again, his eyes drifted to his Beskar saber.
He had no idea whether the blade had already taken innocent lives.
He prayed it hadn't, but he held no illusions, the underworld didn't target only criminals or law enforcers.

"Once again, who am I to judge this galaxy? If this is truly how it works… then maybe I am an anomaly on its scale."


His tone carried, once more, something that was both a statement and a supposition — as if he were declaring a truth he still wasn't entirely certain he believed.


Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't interrupt him. She let him speak, let him parse out whatever knot of philosophy and resignation he'd been carrying for years. But when he finished, she took a small, slow breath — the kind she used when she needed her next words to land cleanly.

"You're not an anomaly," she said quietly. "You're someone who's had to survive too much, too young. That shapes a person. Doesn't make them wrong."

Her gaze drifted toward the window, the neon lights reflecting across her eyes like faint constellations. "And I don't think people who fear death are weak," she added. "I think it's natural. It means they care about something they can lose. A person. A home. A life they built piece by piece."

She shrugged lightly, not dismissive — simply honest. "I was never afraid of dying, either. Not until recently. I think it's because, for the first time, I have something I'd lose. Someone I'd lose."

Her fingers drummed softly against her glass — slow, thoughtful. "Fear isn't always a flaw. Sometimes it's proof that there's something worth protecting."

Her tone softened, though her expression remained calm and controlled. "You're not empty, Skars. If you were, you wouldn't be wrestling with any of this. An empty person doesn't question the weight of their hands or the lives they've taken."

She rested her forearm lightly on the table, leaning forward just enough to look him steadily in the eyes. "You live because you choose to, even if you don't know the reason yet. And you'll keep choosing it, one day after another. That's not being an anomaly — that's being human."

A pause, gentle but certain.

"And as for judging the galaxy?" A faint, wry smile touched her lips. "You've seen it up close. You've earned the right to call out its flaws. Doesn't mean they condemn you."

She tilted her head slightly, considering him with quiet curiosity. "Maybe you don't fear death. Fine. But I don't think you fear living, either. That's… rarer. And a lot braver."

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars remained silent for a long moment, but it wasn't the same silence as before. This one felt sharper, harsher — like an old wound Aren's words had brushed too close to.

Eventually, he let out a brief breath, almost a laugh, but without the faintest trace of joy.

"Courage…" he repeated, his voice rough with skepticism. "You're giving me virtues I never asked for."

He took a long sip, as if the alcohol had a better chance of offering answers than any philosophy ever could. His gaze stayed fixed on the bottom of the glass, like a man staring into a familiar abyss.

"Not fearing death isn't a victory, Aren. Maybe it's just that I never really had anything to lose. Or worse — it's simply the result of a job done a little too well. The kind of job that files everything down, even the instinct to survive. Eventually, you stop seeing the difference between falling off a cliff and walking through a door."

He shook his head, the corner of his mouth lifting in a bitter, almost weary smile.

"And 'having something to lose'? Trust me, that's never brought me any luck. Every time I thought I had a hold on something… it slipped right through my fingers. Or someone tore it away."

His eyes lifted to her again, but there was no vulnerability left in them — only a cold, almost acidic clarity, the kind that comes from someone very sure of what he is.

"You say survival might have meaning. I tried believing that once or twice. It didn't change a damn thing. Meaning is for people who have the luxury of searching for it."

His fingers tapped lightly against the hilt of his saber — an involuntary gesture, like a reflex carved into bone.

"An future…" He let out a brief smile, devoid of any warmth. "Mine was written a long time ago, and it's not a story that ends well. Maybe not a story that ends at all."

He exhaled, not in exhaustion — but in lucidity.

"So tell me, Aren… why do you keep talking to me like you think I'm anything more than a bad equation? Like I could still cheat the fate I signed up for myself?"

The question wasn't a plea for help.
It was a statement, tinged with a single hesitation — a man standing at the edge of a precipice, unsure whether he wants to climb back up… or jump.

His final words frayed a little, less certain than the rest. A shadow of truth slipping past what he'd intended to reveal. He forced himself to look away from her, as if protecting himself from his own honesty.

When he finally raised his eyes back to hers, there was no resigned coldness, no cautious distance — only an honest, almost painful vulnerability.

"You talk to me like I still have a future. Like I could come back from what I've become. Why do you still believe that about me?"


His gaze locked onto hers, without hostility, but with the steady exhaustion of someone convinced that nothing good has ever been meant for him — because some people are born for misfortune, and he has never known anything else.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't recoil from the bleakness in his voice, or the razor-edge of his words. She didn't try to soften it or convince him out of it. She listened — the way she always did — her expression steady, eyes warm but clear. When he finally finished, when the question hung between them like a cracked piece of glass, she took one slow breath and met his gaze without wavering.

"Because everybody has a future," she said quietly. "Even the ones who don't believe they deserve one."

She didn't rush. She let the words settle.

"You talk about fate like it's a sentence carved into your skin," she went on, her voice soft but sure. "But fate isn't something that decides who you are. It's just the sum of the choices you've made until now. And that means it can change. Maybe not easily. Maybe not quickly. But it can."

Her fingers tapped lightly against her glass — not nervously, but thoughtfully — before she continued, her tone warming.

"And you're wrong about something else, too. Having nothing to lose doesn't make you fearless. It makes you numb."
A small pause.
"That's not the same thing."

She angled her head slightly, studying him in a way that wasn't intrusive — but perceptive, almost disarmingly so.

"And for someone who says he has nothing to lose, you think a lot about what's been taken from you. The people you lost. The things you almost had. That doesn't sound numb to me. That sounds like someone who still feels the weight of it."

A quiet exhale left her — not pity, but a kind of gentle recognition.

"You say your future was written a long time ago. I don't buy that." Her voice softened further, warm yet steady. "I've met people whose lives were a tragedy from start to finish. They didn't get to choose their endings. But you're not someone who's being dragged by fate. You're someone still deciding whether he wants to keep walking."

She leaned forward slightly, her eyes holding his without judgment, only sincerity.

"I talk to you like you have a future because… You do," she said. "You're sitting here, asking questions you've never asked out loud. Wondering about things you've never let yourself imagine. That's what people do when they've already started changing — even if they haven't realized it yet."

Her voice lowered, warm and unguarded.

"And maybe you don't believe in a future for yourself. That's fine. You don't have to yet. But I can believe it for you."

She let that truth rest between them — calm, gentle, and unwavering.

"Everyone has a path out," she finished quietly. "Even people who started in the dark. Even people who think they're beyond saving. And yes…" her gaze softened, almost a small smile, "even you."

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars turned his gaze away slightly, as if meeting Aren's eyes suddenly felt too heavy to bear.
The silence that followed wasn't tense — it was… fragile. Like a thin membrane that could tear if either of them breathed too hard.

"You… really believe all that?" he murmured, his voice lower than before. "Not as some abstract idea. As if… it were real. As if it were meant for me."

His jaw tightened for a brief second — the subtle sign of someone weighing each word, afraid of letting them come out too honest.

"I don't know what to do with that."

He let out a short, shaky breath — one he tried, and failed, to hide by straightening a little in his seat.

"I understand what you're saying. I understand that… maybe… some lives can change. That stories aren't set in stone. But understanding something never meant I could believe in it."


His fingers brushed along the rim of his glass, nervous, weak, the reflex of someone who's learned to survive by fidgeting rather than feeling.

"Every time I believed, Aren… I ended up falling from higher up. And that… that hurts more than anything else. You don't recover from that kind of fall."


He finally lifted his eyes toward her not to challenge her, but like someone who suddenly stood without armor and was painfully aware of it.

"You say you can believe for both of us. That you can carry that weight. But believing… means reaching out a hand. And I…"


He shook his head, the smallest movement, not directed at her, but at what she implied without saying it.

"I don't know. I don't know how to do that anymore. And I'm not sure I want to try again. Not if it means crashing the moment I start to… hope."

A silence.
Then, softer:

"I hear you. I understand you. But I can't believe what you see in me. Not yet. Not… now."

His eyes dropped again, his voice fraying into a rough whisper:


"Because if you're wrong about me… it would break me more surely than anything I've survived."

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't recoil from his vulnerability, didn't flinch from the rawness in his voice. She let him speak until the words ran out, until the weight of them settled into the air between them. Only then did she answer — quietly, without force, without expectation.

"I don't speak anything except the truth as I see it," she said, her tone soft but steady, "and I don't offer it to make you believe something you aren't ready for."

She let that sit for a moment, her gaze calm, grounded, unwavering in its gentleness.

"You don't have to believe me," she continued. "Not tonight. Not ever, if that's how it ends up. Belief isn't something you owe me, or something you can force yourself to feel."

Her fingers brushed once along the edge of her glass, a subtle echo of his own fidgeting — not mirroring him, but acknowledging the fragility of the moment.

"And I'm not asking you to hope," she added softly. "Hope is heavy. It asks a lot. If you don't want to carry it right now, then don't. You've survived too much to pretend you can leap straight into trusting the future again."

Aren's voice lowered, warm and direct.

"All I'm doing is telling you what I see — not who you're supposed to be. Not who you 'should' become. Just who you already are beneath all the scars you think define you."

She leaned back slightly, giving him space even as her words stayed close.

"You're not a bad equation. You're not winter-killing whatever you touch. You're someone who's still here—still thinking. Still questioning. Still… wanting something more, even if you don't have the name for it yet."

A breath. Quiet. Honest.

"And if you're not ready to reach out a hand?"
Her shoulders lifted in a slight, gentle shrug.
"Then don't. I'm not going anywhere because you're uncertain."

Her eyes softened just a touch — not pity, not sympathy, but understanding.

"Belief takes time. Healing takes longer. You don't owe anyone a timeline — not even yourself."

Then she finished, voice warm, open, unafraid:

"I'll believe what I see in you until the day you're ready to decide for yourself whether I was right… or wrong. Not because you asked me to. But because it's the truth as I see it."

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars remained silent for a moment—far too long for it to be insignificant. It wasn’t a hostile silence, but one that echoed like an empty room, where each of Aren’s words struck the walls only to come back and shatter against him.

When he finally spoke, his voice had lost all sharpness. It had the texture of a whisper that had waited years to slip free.

— You say I don’t need to believe…

His fingers slid slowly along the rim of his glass. The gesture could have seemed nervous, but there was something else in it: the restraint of a child who never dared to touch anything that might break.

— And maybe that’s why I’m still here. Listening to you. Trying.

His eyes drifted for a moment toward the city lights, as if through the window he was seeing a scene from another time. It looked as though he was watching a memory, a fragment too old to be clear.

— What you see in me… I wish I could say it’s impossible. That you’re wrong, that you’re dreaming of a man who doesn’t exist. I wish I could build a wall between what you say… and what I feel when I hear you.

He inhaled, a slow and barely controlled breath.

— But I can’t. Not honestly.

He lowered his head briefly, and in that movement there was, fleetingly, something else: a nearly childlike fragility, the kind a kid develops when he’s taught far too early to hide every misplaced emotion.

— I can’t follow you to where your words want to lead me. Not now. Not with… what it would demand of me. Believing, Aren… means reaching out a hand. And the last time I made that gesture…

His fingers tightened for a second, trembling just slightly, as if the memory of that broken hand was overlaying reality.

— … it was torn away from me before I even had time to understand why.

He smiled—a faint, almost invisible smile, so fragile it could disappear at the slightest breath. Not a façade smile: a sad, awkward smile, exactly the kind a child would have the day he realizes the world is harsher than promised.

— So I remain cautious. I hold back my steps. I keep my distance. Not from you… but from what believing you might mean.

He finally raised his eyes to her. There was no longer anything shielding that gaze—no cynicism, no coldness, no armor built patiently over the years. Only raw sincerity, almost painful, almost too real.

— But I ask you one thing.

He swallowed, with difficulty, as if simply forming the request might break it.

— Keep talking the way you do. Not to save me. Not to shape me. And above all… not to give me a future I can’t manage to see.

A breath, lower still.

— Do it simply to… remind me that the galaxy isn’t yet dark enough to swallow me whole.

And in his final words, something cracked—an infinitesimal shard of the little Skars, the one who had never been allowed to grow, never allowed to learn gentleness, never allowed to believe one could speak to an adult without fearing violence in return.

— The rest… I’ll do it when I can.
Or if I can.

He slowly looked away, as though facing even one more emotion might make him fall apart. He tried to hide again, one more time. This one time too many. Aren’s words had shattered the last place he thought he’d managed to kill. That Skars thought he’d killed. Akyla’s Sanctuary. The one he had sworn never to seek again, like a Pandora’s box.

For several minutes, he relived a scene internally… a memory. A man in his fifties speaking to a child. He told him, while staring at the stars, that the galaxy was vast, and that everyone was free to carve their own path—if they had the courage.

The child had nodded back then, struck by the depth of the words without understanding them.
Skars understood them, though.

The fingers of his right hand moved unconsciously toward the scar over his right eye. The memory faded little by little. The young man turned his head away, to hide the tear that had appeared on his face and slid down his cheek—a single trace of a being still present, one he thought buried, but who had resurfaced.

Akyla was not dead…

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't look away when the tear slid down his cheek. She didn't let her expression shift into pity, or surprise, or discomfort. She saw him — the way she always saw broken machinery, not as failure, but as proof that it had survived long enough to be repaired.

She set her glass aside without a sound and leaned forward, elbows on her knees, hands loosely clasped. Not reaching for him, not crowding him. Just closing the space in a way that told him she hadn't flinched back from what he'd shown her.

"Skars," she said softly, and it wasn't a reprimand or an appeal. It was a grounding thread, her voice steady but warm. "I don't talk like this because I expect something from you. I don't do it because I think you owe me belief, or because I want you to change for my sake."

She let that sink in for a moment, her gaze steady, unwavering, but not intense enough to corner him — only enough to tell him she wasn't going anywhere.

"I talk like this," she continued, "because what I see in you is real. Because you haven't lied to me tonight — not once. You've done the opposite. You've handed me pieces of yourself most people would guard with teeth and claws. And I'm not going to pretend that's nothing."

Her fingers traced the edge of the table, slow and calm, like she was aligning circuitry inside her own thoughts.

"You say reaching out hurts. I believe that. I know what it's like to trust the wrong person, or to hold onto something fragile just long enough to watch it break in your hands. I know what it's like to think you've finally found solid ground only to fall harder than before."

A faint breath escaped her, not quite a sigh — more like the release of a weight she didn't feel she needed to hide.

"But here's the thing you're not seeing."
Her voice warmed, the slightest, gentlest hint of a smile pulling at the corner of her mouth.
"I'm not asking you to reach anywhere. Not for me. Not for a future version of you. Not for some story with a hopeful ending."

She tilted her head just a little, a hint of soft humor threading through her next words:

"I'm just talking to you now as you are. Not as who you were, and not as who you might be someday."

Her expression softened further, her eyes taking on a depth she rarely allowed outside moments like this.

"You asked why I talk to you like you still have a future," she said slowly. "The answer is simple because everyone does — whether they see it or not. And because you're not as lost as you think. You listened. You questioned. You cared enough to argue with me about your place in the galaxy."

She let the faintest warmth touch her tone, a quiet, steady thing.

"That's what someone with a future sounds like."

A beat.
Then, one last truth, spoken gently but without hesitation:

"So if all you want from me right now is a reminder that the galaxy isn't dark enough to swallow you — fine. I can do that. Happily."
Her eyebrows lifted slightly, the barest tease, softened by sincerity.
"And when you're ready to take even half of one step beyond that? Whenever that day is — tomorrow or ten years from now — I'll still be here."

Aren didn't reach for his hand.
She didn't wipe the tear.
She didn't try to soothe him with a touch he wasn't ready for.

Instead, she offered him something far rarer:
A presence that asked nothing of him, yet refused to disappear.

"You don't have to believe me now," she said quietly. "You just have to stay here long enough to see that I meant every word."

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

The silence fell between them again, heavy, but this time it wasn’t a silence of defense or withdrawal. It was a silence of digestion, as if every word Aren had spoken needed to sink into his veins before it could exist outwardly. His eyes drifted from the table, to the empty glass, to the neon light reflecting on the walls. Each reflection seemed like a fragment of his life — fragments he had never learned to piece together.

He drew a slow breath, one he didn’t quite control. His long, slender fingers traced the rim of the glass as if caressing something fragile, almost automatically. He didn’t lift his eyes. He didn’t yet know if he could.

A dry, brief, joyless laugh escaped his throat. He didn’t seem to be mocking, not really. It was just… a noise to fill the void between his thoughts. As if he were testing the world before stepping back into it.

He rose, slowly, without a sound, his steps barely echoing on the floor. His shoulders, still tense, bore the shadow of too many missions, too many faces he had taken down or lost. He circled the table, but did not come closer. He measured the distance, not out of defiance, but caution: learning to stay near someone without fleeing was an art he had never practiced.

His chest rose with a long, almost painful breath. He let his eyes glide over her at last, but not with his usual certainty or coldness. No. Just with fragile caution. As if, behind that cynical armor, a child still waited to be shown that the world could be something other than pain and betrayal.

He brought his hand to his scar, almost instinctively, the fragile gesture of a child trying to protect what remained of himself, who had never been allowed to feel safe. Then, slowly, a second tear, one he had thought dried up, slid down his cheek. He did not wipe it away. He made no move to defend himself… not this time. And it was… enough.

He remained there, upright but vulnerable, a child and an adult merged in perfect hesitation, and in this silence that demanded nothing from him, he finally found proof that trust could be a breath. And the simple fact that he could stand still and be accepted was enough to open a tiny fissure in the armor he had worn for years.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren did not move at first.

Not out of hesitation — but because she knew instinctively that if she rushed toward him now, if she reached out a hand or crossed the remaining distance too quickly, he would retreat into the same darkness he'd just let her glimpse. So she breathed once, slow and steady, anchoring herself before she anchored him.

Then, gently — almost imperceptibly — she shifted to the side, creating space beside her on the booth's cushioned bench. Not empty space. Invited space. A place that belonged to him if he wanted it.

She didn't try to touch him.
She didn't try to pull him closer.

Instead, she rested one hand on the edge of the table, palm turned lightly toward him — a gesture that wasn't a reach, but an opening—a warm line drawn between them, waiting to be crossed only if he chose.

When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. Unforced. Warm without pressure.

"Skars… sit with me."

No command.
No pity.
No expectation.

Just a steady, offered truth.

Her eyes stayed on him — not searching him, not dissecting him, but simply seeing him. The man behind the Mandalorian training, behind the underworld scars, behind every moment where belief had been torn out of his hands before he could even hold it.

"You don't have to stand alone right now," she added, quieter still. "Not unless you want to."

She didn't promise safety.
She didn't promise a future he couldn't see yet.

All she offered was this moment — a place to sit, a place to breathe, a place where nothing was asked of him except presence.

And sometimes, for someone who has lived their whole life bracing for impact,
That was the closest thing to a sanctuary.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars hesitated. Or perhaps it was Akyla, deep inside him, who wanted to believe that this invitation — this outstretched hand waiting only to be taken — could offer him far more than he thought he was seeking. His hands rested on the table, leaning on it as if to steady himself before crossing a boundary he had never dared to cross. His eyes slid over the Beskar saber placed near his seat, heavy with meaning, blood, and choices that had shaped him. What would he be capable of if he chose a different path, one that would lead him away from everything he knew, from everything he had become?

The conflict was written across his features, every micro-expression betraying the inner war. In his mind, three facets of himself faced each other like three incompatible mirrors. On one side, Skars, the assassin, the man who refuses to let go, who believes in nothing, for whom emotions are plagues to be eradicated. Opposite him, the child, vulnerable and sincere, who wanted to believe Aren because her words rang true. That child, perhaps, only wanted to sit in this “sanctuary,” this quiet and safe place, a luxury he had never known.

And finally, a third facet, emerging for the first time this evening, distinct from the other two yet connected to them: Akyla of the potential future. The one who understands that taking a risk can be justified. The one who can choose to trust, to reach out, to allow himself to exist in a way other than mere survival. The three of them regarded each other in silence, unable to decide on their own.

Then, after a long, controlled breath, the assassin — though that title was now fragile, wavering — took a step toward trust. Slowly, with the caution of a feline, he sat down. His gaze fell on his blade, not as a tool of threat, but as the silent witness to this unprecedented choice. He had taken a step toward the other, toward the moment, toward something that had never existed in his life before. He had chosen to stay. He had chosen to believe, if only for a moment. He had chosen to trust, to depend on someone else, if only for an instant.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't smile. Not right away. Not when the moment was this delicate, balanced on a breath, as if any sudden movement or expression might cause him to retreat behind the armor he had worn for so long. Instead, she exhaled slowly through her nose, a careful breath that didn't push, didn't pull — existed between them, steady and open. As Skars lowered himself onto the seat beside her, she shifted slightly, the subtle angle of her body turning toward him just enough to acknowledge the choice he had made. Not to crowd him. Not to diminish the space he needed. But to shape a quiet boundary around them, a place that wasn't quite a sanctuary and yet held the shape of one. In that minor adjustment, without a word, she offered something neither of them had named: You are allowed to be here. You are allowed to sit without fear.

For a moment, she didn't speak. She let the atmosphere settle around them, gentle and unforced, giving him time to steady himself after the emotional storm he'd barely let surface. Her hand remained placed loosely on the bench between them — not reaching for him, not demanding anything of him, but there, present, a possibility rather than an expectation. The kind of gesture someone makes when they know how easily a wounded animal might bolt if the wrong shadow falls across its path. When she did speak, her voice had softened in a way that wasn't pity and wasn't condescension; it was simply warm, shaped by truths she wasn't afraid to say.

"Good," she murmured, letting the word breathe into the air between them. It wasn't praise and it wasn't comfort — it was just real, steady, a quiet acknowledgment of the courage it had taken for him to sit. After another small beat, she added, her tone even quieter, "You don't have to decide anything tonight." She let that thought linger, watching the way his gaze flickered toward the Beskar saber resting on the table. He didn't touch it. But she could feel the gravity of it — the weight of past choices, the shape of who he believed he had become. She didn't reach for the weapon, didn't even tilt toward it. She looked at it the way one might look at a scar on a stranger's hand: not judging, just seeing it for what it was.

Her voice dropped even softer, warm but grounded. "You don't owe that blade," she said, and the truth in it was solid and straightforward. "Not tonight." She didn't tell him to put it aside, didn't tell him it didn't matter, didn't tell him to abandon anything. She just permitted him — the kind he had never received — to exist beside it rather than inside it.

Then she turned her gaze back to him, her expression calm and without fear, without expectation, without pressure. Just presence. Just truth. "You're not alone, Skars." The words weren't grand. They weren't meant to be. They weren't a promise of a future or a demand for trust. They were a statement of the moment — of this moment — one he had chosen by sitting down beside her, by staying, by letting himself breathe in the fragile quiet between them.

She let the silence return then, not as a void but as something shared — a silence with weight but without burden, a silence that didn't ask him to fill it or run from it. For the first time since he'd sat down, the quiet didn't feel like a threat. It felt like an invitation. A place he could rest. A place where nothing in him had to be hidden. A place where the world paused long enough for him to remember that he was still here.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars didn’t answer.
Not with words, at least. His tongue felt useless, as if speaking would be too sharp, too abrupt for a moment balanced so delicately on the edge of a breath.

He stayed still at first, his shoulders lifting only slightly with a breath he was trying—and failing—to steady. Sitting there, so close to Aren, he felt the faint warmth radiating from her, a warmth that didn’t invade, didn’t insist—just existed. His body didn’t know what to do with that. His fingers, tense against the edge of the seat, loosened just a little, as though releasing an invisible thread he had been pulling taut for far too long.

His gaze didn’t know where to land. It drifted from Aren, to her hand resting between them like a quiet invitation, then to his Beskar blade on the table. Not with the hard instinct of earlier. Not with that automatic loyalty to a weapon over himself.
No. This time, it was different: he looked at it the way one looks at a memory that no longer fits the shape of who they are becoming.

The leather of his belt creaked softly as he breathed in. A tiny sound, but in this closeness, it seemed almost loud. He brushed a hand over his face—not to hide anything, but as if, for the first time, he was trying to feel where he actually stood, checking whether he could exist in a life where he wasn’t constantly running.

His fingers slid over the scar on his cheek, but the gesture stopped sooner than usual. As if touching that mark was no longer a reflex of defense… but the recognition of a story he might not have to carry the same way.

He dipped his head slightly, just enough for the neon light to catch in his eyes. It wasn’t agreement. It wasn’t gratitude. It was something more discreet: the involuntary sign of someone who accepts—truly—to be seen.

Then, without thinking, without even noticing, his knee brushed the edge of the seat touching Aren’s. The contact was so small it could have been accidental. But he didn’t move away. He let it stay. And that tiny point of warmth became, for him, a silent anchor.

His breathing eased, gradually, almost reluctantly, as though his body understood before his mind that nothing here was going to strike him.

And only then did his gaze lift to her—for a heartbeat. Not long. Not intensely.
Just long enough to show what he couldn’t shape into words:

I’m here.
I’m staying.
I’m not running.

A promise so fragile it could crumble under a single word…
but a promise nonetheless.

For the first time since he had sat down, Skars didn’t look ready to stand.
Or to leave.
Or to hide.

Just to be here.
With her.
In a silence that no longer felt l
ike a threat—but like a place to rest.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't rush to fill the silence. She knew better than that — some moments weren't meant to be interrupted, only shared. So she stayed exactly where she was, breathing in a slow, measured rhythm that didn't press on him, didn't demand anything of him—just existed alongside him.

When his knee brushed hers, she felt the shift — not the contact itself, but the choice behind it. A man like Skars didn't allow closeness by accident. He allowed it because something inside him had stopped bracing for the blow.

She didn't pull away. She didn't stiffen. She let the point of contact remain, steady and quiet, like a small signal sent back in a language he didn't yet know he could speak.

"Alright," she murmured, barely above a breath, her tone warm and even. "Then stay."

She didn't say it's okay — he wouldn't believe that yet. She didn't tell him you're safe — he wouldn't trust those words coming from anyone. What she offered instead was something simpler, something he could actually accept: permission without pressure.

Her hand shifted fractionally on the cushion between them, not reaching for his, not demanding a response, just moving closer — close enough that if he ever wanted to close the gap, he wouldn't have to cross a distance, only a hesitation.

"You don't owe me anything," she added, voice softer now, toned like something she rarely let anyone hear. "Not belief, not trust, not answers. Just… be here. As long as you want to be."

Her gaze stayed on the skyline for a moment — giving him space, giving him air — before she finally looked back at him. Not piercing, not analyzing, just seeing him.

"You don't have to run in this moment," she said gently. "And you don't have to decide anything beyond it."

A small breath escaped her, steady and calm.

"Just… sit. If this is where you want to be right now, then sit."

She didn't smile — not really — but there was a softness in her eyes, a warmth that made up for it.

Not a promise of a future.
Not a demand for one.

Just presence.
Shared and simple.

A place to rest.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars didn’t move for a long moment, as if he weighed every heartbeat before allowing it to continue. The cantina unraveled around them — sounds, lights, smells — but all of it felt distant, background noise of a life he could let exist without drowning in it. His thoughts, though, spiraled slowly, circling back again and again to the same images: the blade, the belt, the faces he’d watched fade, and then a hand offered with nothing asked in return.

He spoke almost to himself, a low murmur, as if testing whether the words might burn on the way out: What would it really cost me, just to sit here?
The child inside him frowned — instinctive, old as abandonment — and instantly the man he could become, the quiet and curious one, whispered back: What if it costs nothing? What if this is a place where you can breathe without bracing for impact?

These two voices didn’t speak the same language. One counted losses, measured risks in spilled blood and betrayed loyalties. The other measured in moments — small, stolen, but possible. Skars observed that internal duel the way one studies an old wound: without illusion, but with a tired kind of attention that, despite everything, still dared to hope for healing.

He thought of orders, contracts, the cold methodical discipline that had kept him alive. He also thought of what had made him human — not victories, not earnings, but silhouettes, names, sunrises stolen between missions.
Maybe life isn’t a string of battles to win, he told himself, but a series of small pauses where you decide to stay.

His fingers brushed the hilt of his saber. The gesture was old, polished by years of reflex. But this time he didn’t grip it.
He let it go the way someone releases a weight carried too long. It wasn’t abandonment — it was chosen distance. He looked at the blade like one looks at a tool, not at something that defines them.
I’m not only this, he realized, the truth coming to him with quiet, late-born clarity.

A memory drifted through his mind: a man, the stars, a voice saying you could build your own path if you had the courage. The memory wasn’t naive anymore; it was sharp, nearly bitter. But it wasn’t useless. It offered him an option, not an illusion: courage guaranteed nothing, but it opened the possibility of choosing.

He inhaled slowly, and that breath loosened a piece of his armor.
His hand left the blade and came to rest on the bench, close to Aren’s without seeking hers. The small proximity — nearly insignificant — burned with a new kind of heat. Not the fire of duty, but the warmth of an anchor point.
There was fear in it, yes. But also something like curiosity.

His thoughts cleared.
The escape routes, the exile, the wandering — none of them vanished, but they lost their urgency. He caught himself imagining not a road paved with excuses, but choices laid out, deliberate.
A workshop. Tools. Hands that build instead of destroy.
The idea wasn’t heroic. It had the simple, cruel virtue of being possible.

Then, without any grand gesture, he turned his head toward her.
He wasn’t a man of long declarations. His voice, when it came, was low, rough, but steady:

“I’m staying.”

Three syllables — a tiny promise, yet heavier than many oaths spoken elsewhere.

Then he leaned back slightly, as if testing what his body could still hold — staying, breathing, not running.
He didn’t announce a future.
He didn’t offer belief.
He didn’t question his past.

He simply set, for the first time in a long time, the intention to take things one day at a time.

Inside him, the three facets didn’t merge into perfect harmony. They acknowledged each other instead — understood each other better — and made space to coexist.
The assassin didn’t vanish; the child didn’t become naive; the future Akyla didn’t make immediate plans. But something fragile and real did happen: he accepted, for this one moment, to be more than a blade.

And that, for him, was a beginning.

Aren D'Shade