Private Cantina Crossroads

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't smile. She didn't gasp. She didn't offer praise, reassurance, or anything else that might collapse the fragile balance of the moment.

She simply nodded.

A slow, deliberate dip of her chin — slight enough to be gentle, steady enough to be unmistakably genuine. It wasn't approval. It wasn't an expectation. It was acknowledgment, the kind that said I heard you, and I believe you meant it, and that's enough.

She didn't shift closer or reach for him. She kept the space exactly as he had chosen it, letting him stay in control of how near or far he wanted to be. Her hand remained where it was on the bench between them — not asking for contact, not retreating from the quiet gravity drawing the two of them into the same orbit.

There was no fear in her stillness, no tension, no hesitation. Only acceptance, the calm kind that didn't demand trust but offered it without fanfare. She kept her gaze on the neon-lit skyline for a moment longer, giving him the room to breathe after such a raw admission. Then — and only then — she turned her head just enough to look at him.

"Alright," she said quietly, her voice low and even. "Then stay."

She didn't add anything else. No conditions, no warnings, no predictions of where staying might lead. Just the simple truth of her presence — grounded, steady, and willing to share the space he had chosen, nothing more and nothing less.

And in that quiet nod, in that unhurried acceptance, she offered him something far rarer than comfort:

The chance to exist without having to justify it.

Just to be here.
With her.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars did not respond immediately.
Not out of defiance.
Not out of fear.
But because something inside him had just shifted off its usual axis—and he needed to understand the change before letting it exist.

The word stay still vibrated in the air, light but solid, and he felt his body react before his mind could even grasp how or why. His shoulders, usually so tense they seemed forged from metal, slackened by a fraction of a millimeter. Just a breath. Just a detail. But for a man like him, it was almost a confession.

He knew she had seen it.
And yet, he did not stiffen.

His gaze lingered on the horizon for a moment, on the shifting reflections of neon in the distant windows. A neutral ground, a place where he could let his thoughts linger without risk of being cut. And yet, despite this apparent visual escape, something inside him gravitated ever closer to her.

Not his body—not intentionally, at least.
But his attention, yes.
His breath too, aligning almost unconsciously with hers.

He felt an echo in his chest, faint but insistent, like a memory of something he had not been allowed to feel since childhood. Not hope. Not yet. But a quiet curiosity, a new permission to not always be on guard.

His fingers, resting on his knees, closed slightly. Not on a weapon, not on a threat—but on themselves, as if to contain an invisible tremor. Yet he did not tremble. It was not fear. It was… something else. A strange, almost unreadable sensation.

He turned his head slowly toward her.

Not fully.
Just enough to see her in the corner of his vision.
Just enough to prove to himself that he could.

He noted that she did not fix him with insistence. She was not watching him. She was not trying to decipher what he did not yet know how to name. She was simply there, as she had said. And for the first time in a long time, the silence around him did not feel like a trap.

He inhaled.
Long.
Almost cautiously.

Then he allowed himself a tiny gesture—but a deliberate, intentional one.
He shifted just slightly toward her, just enough to show that he had heard, that he understood, and that he accepted what she was offering.

He did not speak.
He did not need words.

His movement said it all:

I stay.
I allow you this moment.
And I allow myself the right to exist here, with you.

For the first time in years, perhaps ever, he permitted himself to be a man who did not flee. A presence, not a shadow. An existence, not a weapon.

A deeper breath than the others escaped his lips.

And in that breath, there was the beginning of something.
Fragile, almost imperceptible.
But real.

Skars stayed.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't look at him right away.
She let the moment settle—let the shift in him take its shape without crowding it, without examining it too closely. She understood people like him, people who lived in the spaces between breaths, between choices, between the instinct to run and the need to belong. She knew what it meant when a man didn't leave.

So she stayed still.

Her profile remained angled toward the city lights, her posture calm, grounded, balanced in that rare quiet that wasn't forced by circumstance or danger. If anything, his subtle shift closer steadied her breathing, made it more deliberate—an unconscious answer to the silent choice he'd made.

Then, slowly, she turned her head.

Not abruptly. Not in a way that startled or demanded. Just a soft rotation, a glance over her shoulder that carried no expectation, no weight—only acknowledgment. Her eyes tracked the distance he had closed, the nearly imperceptible movement that meant everything for someone like him.

And she nodded again, once, low and steady.

Not a reward.
Not reassurance.
Just acceptance.

"You did," she murmured, voice quiet but warm. "You stayed."

There was no triumph in her tone. No victory to claim. Just the simple truth stated aloud, because she knew that for someone built of scars and survival reflexes, the truth sometimes needed to be witnessed to be real.

She shifted too—barely—closing a sliver of space between them, matching his gesture with one of equal gentleness. Not touching, not pressing, just settling beside him in a way that made it clear his presence wasn't a burden or an intrusion.

Her gaze returned to the skyline.

"Then we sit," she said softly. "Just that. Nothing more required."

The words were simple, but they carried something deeper—an unspoken promise that she wouldn't ask him to jump ahead, to heal, to believe. He didn't have to fight. He didn't have to explain. He didn't have to reveal anything else unless he chose to.

He had chosen to stay.

For now, that was enough.
For her—and for him.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars remained still, his gaze fixed somewhere in the trembling lights in the distance.
He hadn't planned to stay.
Hadn't planned to speak.
Even less to find himself sitting there, with someone who wasn't trying to save him or break him.

A breath slipped out of him, almost silent.
Not a laugh, not a weary sigh—something between the two, as if he were trying to understand what had just shifted inside him without quite managing to grasp it.

"…It's been a while," he murmured, barely audible.

He didn't specify what.
Aren didn't need him to.

A while since he'd felt safe enough to stay.
A while since he had chosen someone over the nearest exit.
A while since he had let his muscles loosen without thinking about the next blow to block.

He lowered his eyes slightly, as if surprised by his own words, as though he hadn't expected them to escape his lips.

Then he added, even softer:

"…that this doesn't scare me."

Not her.
The act of being here.


Just that.
And for him—it was immense.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't move for a heartbeat. She didn't rush in with comfort, didn't mirror his vulnerability back at him too quickly, didn't try to fill the cracks in his words with explanations he didn't ask for. Instead, she let those quiet sentences settle between them — It's been a while… this doesn't scare me.

Coming from him, it was enormous. From anyone like him, it was a confession.

Her eyes softened, the barest shift of expression, but her posture stayed exactly as calm and steady as before. She didn't turn toward him sharply or react with surprise — she simply let her presence answer what he had said.

After a long, gentle moment, she tipped her head just slightly in his direction.

"Good," she said quietly. Not triumphant. Not emotional. Just warm. "It shouldn't."

The calm in her tone wasn't indifference — it was intentional, the kind of warmth that didn't press but steadied. A quiet reassurance that he wasn't wrong for feeling what he felt, that he wasn't fragile for stating it, that he wasn't exposed for admitting something real.

Her hands stayed in her lap, resting loosely, giving him space without giving him distance. The neon light outside the window cast faint color across her features, and she let out a slow breath of her own, letting the silence stretch just enough to show she wasn't afraid of it.

Then, her voice dipped even softer, shaped like truth rather than comfort:

"You don't have to be afraid here."

She didn't make it a promise. Didn't dress it up. She stated it the way she said everything meaningful: plainly, without expectation, without pressure.

"And if you ever are," she added, eyes returning to the skyline, "you don't have to pretend you're not."

It wasn't an invitation to bleed out his heart.
It wasn't a demand for more.
It was simply the next step after staying.

A quiet acknowledgment that fear — if it ever returned — wouldn't make her pull away.

Beside him, she sat with the same steady presence she'd offered from the start. No closer than before, no farther. Just… there.

And in the silence that followed, her stillness carried a truth she didn't need to say aloud:

You're safe enough to sit. Safe enough.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars remained still for a moment, his breath still slightly short, his gaze fixed on the neon glow trembling on the window. He had agreed to stay. He had taken that small step, one that had seemed impossible just seconds ago. And yet… a new tension suddenly twisted through his chest, sharp and brutal, like an unexpected jolt.

Not fear, not exactly. More like a piercing awareness: the void between his ordinary life, the routines he had mastered for so long, and what this moment—so simple, so calm—was offering him. The desire to remain, intertwined with the instinct to flee, tore at his veins, pushing his natural rigidity to its limit.

His hands clenched slightly on his knees, not on his blade, not on a tool of defense, but on himself, as if to hold back what he didn’t yet know how to name. Every muscle in his body seemed to listen to a contradictory signal: stay or disappear, closeness or solitude, trust or defense.

He turned his head, almost without moving the rest of his body, and met Aren’s eyes. What had started as a reprieve, a fragile moment of peace, transformed into a silent question: could he truly belong to this moment? And if accepting this space, this permission, opened something he wasn’t ready to face?

Yet despite the sudden surge of tension, he did not rise. He inhaled deeply, letting his breath tremble just enough to show that he existed here, without betraying the fear that had just surfaced. His eyes did not leave hers, and in this tense silence, he let slip what no words could express:

I want to stay… but something inside me is still screaming.

The tug-of-war was there, tangible, a reminder that every step toward the other, even a tiny one, carried risk. But it was precisely that risk, that tension, that made him feel he was not entirely alone. That he didn’t have to be only Skars the assassin, but Skars the man, in all that vulnerability and aliveness entailed.

And he stayed.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't recoil from the tension that threaded through him — she recognized it instantly. It wasn't the kind that warned of violence or danger. It was the kind that hits a person right after they choose something brave… and their mind, still built from old habits, panics at the size of the step they've taken.

She didn't lean in.
She didn't lean away.

She shifted her body ever so slightly — enough to face him without closing the distance, enough that her posture answered his wordless confession with quiet stability instead of pressure.

Her hand remained in her lap, visible, steady, grounded.

A single, slow breath left her.

And then she gave him something subtle, something careful, something meant not to overwhelm but to meet him exactly where he hovered on that razor-thin line between staying and bolting.

"Skars," she said softly — not pulling, not holding, just naming the moment the way one names a truth.

Her eyes were warm, steady, not demanding.

"You don't have to push further than this. Not tonight."

No disappointment.
No expectations.
Just permission.

She let the silence breathe again, then added, in a tone gentler than her usual reserve:

"It's normal to feel two things at once. Wanting to stay… and wanting to run."
Her gaze didn't waver.
"And you're not wrong for feeling either."

She waited a heartbeat, letting the truth settle before giving him the one reassurance that could thread through that internal storm without breaking him:

"You don't have to choose right now."

Her voice softened even more, almost a murmur:

"Just breathe. That's enough."

The words weren't meant to soothe him like a child — they were words one fighter offered to another, an understanding between two people who knew what it meant for the mind to resist peace even when the heart reached for it.

Slowly, deliberately, she looked down at his hands — tightly gripping his knees — then back to his face.

"You're doing fine," she said, quiet but certain.

Not strong.
Not brave.
Not better.

Just fine.

A truth he could hold without feeling exposed.

She shifted her gaze back to the window, not abandoning him — simply giving him space to uncoil without being watched.

Her presence didn't fade.
She wasn't withdrawing.

She was showing him how to stay without drowning.

Because she understood something he didn't yet:

Sometimes the first step toward a future…
is simply surviving the urge to run.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars didn’t move right away.
Aren’s words — simple, direct, without pressure — had just stirred something inside him he hadn’t expected. A shift, abrupt and deep, almost painful.

Not because she was wrong.
But because she’d hit precisely where it mattered.

Inside.

He felt his breath catch for a moment, one heartbeat too long, as if his body wasn’t sure which instinct to obey: snap shut… or stay open, even just a fraction more.
That hesitation sent a muted tension through him, almost animal in its rawness.

He could have tensed up.
He could have stood.
He could have shut it all down.
A lifetime had trained him to do exactly that.

But he stayed.

His gaze dropped to his hands, still tight with the effort of not gripping onto fear itself. His fingers curled slightly — not around a weapon, not in preparation for violence, but on themselves, as if trying to contain something threatening to spill over.
He inhaled — a rougher breath, less controlled, as though it had been pulled from him rather than chosen.

Then, slowly, he lifted his eyes toward her.

She wasn’t staring to dissect him.
She wasn’t watching him like someone evaluating whether he would break or explode.

She… waited.
Simply.
Without judgment.

And that — exactly that — hit him hardest.

A sharp tug cut through his chest, a mix of recognition and panic, relief and fear.
The idea that he didn’t have to choose, didn’t have to justify himself, didn’t have to hide what he felt… that idea burned in his throat more fiercely than any threat.

Words rose in him despite everything, too heavy to remain unspoken.
When his voice finally escaped, it was low, almost rough, as though he hadn’t used it in hours:

“…it’s complicated.”

A statement.
Plain.
Half-breathed.

But it was the truth — the only one he could give without retreating, without shattering the balance between them. And in those two words, everything could be heard: the enormous effort it took just to sit there, the internal war, the old fear he was trying to tame, and the beginning — faint but real — of a trust forming despite himself.

After speaking, he looked away slightly, as if admitting that much shook him more than he liked.
But he didn’t leave.

He didn’t even shift back.

His breathing, rough at first, slowly found a steadier rhythm — uneven, but present.
A silent answer to what she had told him: Just breathe.

And he did.
For her.
For himself.

To stay.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't react at first, not in a way that shifted the air or altered the moment. She remained there beside him, her posture unchanged, her breathing steady. She didn't lean in, didn't withdraw, didn't lace words over his vulnerabilities in an attempt to soothe them. Instead, she let his "It's complicated" hang there — unchallenged, unpicked apart — like a fragile truth she understood instinctively not to touch too hard.

Her eyes stayed on him long enough to make sure he hadn't mistaken her silence for discomfort or judgment. Then, slowly, she drew in a quiet breath and exhaled through her nose, letting the air move steadily between them like a calm, grounding tide.

"Most things worth understanding are," she said softly.

She didn't push further.
Didn't ask him to explain.
Didn't pry open the layers he wasn't ready to unfold.

Instead, she shifted — just slightly — the way one might adjust a chair to be more comfortable, but her movement was deliberate enough to signal something deeper. She angled herself so she wasn't looking through him or at him, but with him — as though they were both facing the same difficult horizon rather than each other.

Her hands remained resting on her lap at first, steady, unintrusive. But after a few breaths — measured, patient, allowing him space to feel his own — she lifted one hand and placed it on the seat between them. Not touching him, not asking him to take it. Just an open presence. A quiet promise of stability within reach if he wanted it.

"Complicated doesn't scare me," she murmured, tone even, unforced. "You don't have to simplify yourself for my sake."

She let a few heartbeats pass before continuing — the kind of pause that showed she'd learned how to give someone space without abandoning them.

"You're sitting here. You're breathing. You're trying."
Her gaze softened slightly, but not in pity — only in recognition.
"That's enough. More than enough."

Her voice stayed grounded, warm in a way that didn't overwhelm, the way a steady hand rests on a table during a storm rather than reaching suddenly into the wind.

"I'm not asking you to untangle it today," she added gently. "Or tomorrow. Or at all, unless you want to." Her eyes met his briefly, not demanding anything, not pulling anything from him — simply offering understanding. "You're allowed to take your time."

Another breath, soft as a promise.

"And if 'complicated' is where you are…"
Her fingers shifted just a little closer — not touching, but undeniably inviting.
"…I can sit with you there."

She didn't say more.
Didn't need to.

Her presence did the rest.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

At first, Skars didn’t move.
Not a millimeter.
The silence stretched between them like a cord ready to snap — not because of her, but because of everything he had forbidden himself for far too long.

The look Aren had given him — calm, steady, asking nothing — cracked something in what he thought was an unbreakable wall.
And that crack… terrified him as much as it pulled him in.

A breath escaped him, barely audible, like a weight shifting somewhere deep in his chest.

His mind drifted, briefly, to another time — a memory so faint he might have sworn it was a dream.
A rough voice, that of his old brother-in-arms, his oldest companion before everything had blown apart.
That man, that ghost, had once placed a hand on his shoulder on a night when Skars hesitated between stepping forward or running away.

“Trust isn’t something you give.
It’s something you try.
And if you miss, you try again.
Because no one makes it through life alone, Skars — not even the ones who think it’s easier that way.”

Back then, he hadn’t replied.
He had fled the conversation like one flees a fire.
But the words… stayed.
Hidden.
Buried.
And now… Aren had brought them back without meaning to.

She, sitting there, a few inches away, simply present.

She expected nothing.
Demanded nothing.
She just gave him a space where breathing no longer felt like a battle.

And that was exactly what tipped him over the edge.

Skars lowered his chin slightly, as if anchoring himself in his own decision.
His throat tightened.
His fingers, clenched on his knees, trembled just a little — almost imperceptible, but Aren would have sensed it even without looking.

Then, slowly, as if each movement crossed an invisible border, he released his grip on his knees.

His hand — broad, calloused, marked by years spent wielding weapons, surviving, striking before being struck — unfolded.
A hand that had never learned how to ask for anything gently.

He set it first on the seat between them.
A breath.
A hesitation.
One last pull — sharp, almost painful — cutting across his chest like a blow he hadn’t braced for.

But this time… he didn’t retreat.

He slid his hand forward, slow, measured, humble.
Not with the confident trust of a soldier.
With the quiet fragility of a man who chooses to try rather than to run.

His fingers brushed against Aren’s.
He didn’t close them.
He waited.
As though leaving the door open — for her, for himself.

And when he felt that she didn’t pull away — that she simply offered her presence, without holding, without guiding — only then did he close his fingers around hers.

His grip wasn’t firm.
Not this time.
It was sure.
Deliberate.
A confession contained in the tension, the warmth of his palm, the way his breath hitched and then steadied.

A confession that said without a sound:

If you’ll let me…
I’ll follow you.
I trust you.

He didn’t lift his eyes right away.
He stayed there, anchored to her hand like a lifeline.
A threshold crossed.
A gesture tiny to the world — but for him… a silent oath.

And without him needing to say a word, Aren would
understand:
this gesture was the highest form of courage he could offer tonight.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't startle when his fingers brushed hers. She didn't tense, didn't freeze, didn't meet the moment with a sharp inhale or a shift in posture that might make him second-guess everything he had just fought himself to do.
Instead, she remained exactly as she had been — the same calm presence he had been leaning toward without realizing it, the same quiet anchor in the storm he thought he had to face alone.

She let the contact settle like a promise.

Only then did she turn her hand, slow and unhurried, giving him enough time to pull away if the instinct struck him. When he didn't — when he held on — she let her fingers curl naturally around his, neither gripping nor claiming, just meeting him where he was, matching the gentleness he'd chosen with her own.

Her thumb brushed lightly, a single pass across the back of his knuckles — not reassurance, not pity, just acknowledgment. A wordless I'm here that didn't ask anything of him in return.

She didn't speak right away.
Didn't want to crowd the moment with unnecessary noise.

When she finally did, her voice was low, steady, warm enough to soften the tension that still clung to his shoulders.

"…That's all it ever has to be."

She didn't immediately lift her eyes to his. Instead, she looked at their joined hands — not in wonder, not in surprise, but with quiet acceptance, as if this were simply the shape the moment was meant to take.

Then she leaned back against the booth, their hands still linked between them, her posture relaxed in a way that signaled nothing was expected of him — not words, not clarity, not a decision beyond the one he'd already made.

"No rush," she murmured, tone soft but sure. "No next step, you have to figure out. Just this. Just staying. That's enough."

Finally, she turned her head toward him, meeting his gaze with the same calm certainty she'd held since the start — only now, softness edged it, a faint warmth that wasn't intrusive, just… human. Honest.

Her fingers shifted slightly against his, a subtle squeeze, small but deliberate.

"And when you're ready for more — whatever 'more' ends up meaning for you — I'll be right here."

She didn't pull him forward.
Didn't push him further.
She only met him where he was, steady and unmoving.

A place to breathe.
A place to rest.
A place he could try — or retreat — or return to again and again without fear of the door closing.

A place where, for the first time in a very long time, his hand was held without expectation… only welcome.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars didn't respond.
Not out of discomfort.
Not out of hesitation.
But because he suddenly found himself caught inside a place within him he had never learned to cross with anyone else beside him.
The weight of his hand in Aren's wasn't heavy or unfamiliar — just real. Too real.
He felt his heartbeat syncing with a silence he didn't recognize:
a silence that didn't judge, didn't push, didn't try to read him.
A silence that simply existed… with him.
And for someone like him, that was as unsettling as it was grounding.
His thoughts drifted, collided, spun in circles like shadows, like memories stored in the wrong places.
Gestures from before.
Broken promises.
Hands he had once pushed away — or hands ripped from him far too quickly.
And among all that, there was this presence unlike any he had known.
Aren.
She didn't move.
She waited for him, without expecting anything from him.
That tiny nuance — invisible to most, was immense for Skars.
He felt it before he understood it: the silent loyalty of someone who asks nothing but stays.
It washed against something hard in him, something he had never acknowledged until now.
After long seconds, maybe minutes, he finally lifted his eyes toward her.
His gaze locked onto hers, not like a man searching for refuge, but like a warrior recognizing another warrior.
There was no fragility in the way he looked at her.
No pleading.
No expectation.
Only a simple, raw, unmistakable truth:

He respected her.

As an equal.
Without deflection.
Without burden.
As a sister-in-arms, a steady presence, someone who had slipped past his defenses without force or manipulation — just by staying.
He drew in a soft breath.
Not to speak — he had nothing to say that wouldn't diminish the moment.
But to acknowledge, inwardly, what she had come to mean.
And in that anchored, calm, clear gaze, he offered her a recognition he hadn't given anyone in a very long time.
A recognition that said:

I see you.
I respect you.
And I trust you.

Not forever.
Not blindly.
But now. Here.
Enough to share this silence without armor.
Aren didn't need words.
With Skars, a look like this was worth more than any promise he could ever make.


Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't break the silence. She didn't try to fill the air with words he wasn't ready for, didn't shift her posture to draw more from him than he had already offered. She held her place beside him, hands still, breathing steady, letting her presence speak in ways language never could. She had seen men like him — carved by violence, sharpened by solitude, taught again and again that silence meant danger and closeness meant loss. But Skars wasn't like the others. He did not retreat. He did not shut down. He didn't bury himself in that cold armor he wore so well. He stayed. And for Aren, that said more than anything he could have spoken aloud.

When he finally lifted his eyes, she felt the shift before she fully saw it — a subtle grounding, a deliberate stillness, the look a warrior gives another when they recognize something rare: not weakness, but equality. His gaze didn't waver. Didn't avoid. It met hers with a clarity that ran deeper than the vulnerability of earlier, deeper even than trust. Respect. Honest, deliberate, unforced respect. It settled between them like a line drawn in the sand, but not a wall — a mark of acknowledgment. A declaration offered without fanfare, without theatrics, but carrying the weight of something earned rather than given.

Aren's breath eased, her chest rising with a quiet, almost invisible relief. She didn't smile — not fully — but the corners of her eyes softened, that subtle shift only someone paying close attention would notice. She dipped her head once, slow and steady, a gesture as deliberate as his gaze, answering him without a single word. Her hand didn't tighten around his, but it didn't pull away either. Instead, her thumb moved just slightly, brushing the side of his knuckle — a slight, grounding touch, the kind she rarely offered and never by accident.

In that moment, she didn't think of saving him or changing him or leading him anywhere he wasn't ready to go. She matched him — the respect he offered, the trust he risked, the silence he held. Standing in it with him, unafraid. Whatever storm lived inside him… she didn't reach to calm it. She just stood where the lightning struck and remained.

Her voice, when it finally came, was low, warm, and steady — a tone she only used when someone had earned it.

"Good," she murmured, dipping her head just slightly. "That's enough."

Not more than enough.
Not you're doing great.
Just that.

A soldier's acknowledgment.
A warrior's answer.
A friend's truth.

Enough for now.
Enough for this moment.
Enough for both of them.

And she stayed beside him, letting him have the silence without losing herself in it — allowing the respect they shared to settle like armor they both could finally put down.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars didn't answer right away. The silence stretched, heavy but not closed, as if every thought inside him had to cross a battlefield before taking shape. His gaze stayed fixed somewhere between their joined hands and the floor, held back by old reflexes he hadn't yet learned to disarm.

Then, slowly, he lifted his head.

His eyes met Aren's, and something settled there — solid, clear, stripped of anything unnecessary. No hesitation. No fear. Just that silent recognition a warrior only offers to someone they truly respect.

He drew a breath, as if finally deciding to step out of his own quiet.

"Y'know…" His voice was low, a bit rough, like it rarely was. "I spent a long time fighting with the idea that I had to carry everything alone. That it was… simpler. Safer."

A faint exhale followed, almost a laugh without a smile.

"When you think about it, it's stupid. You just end up tearing yourself apart from the inside."

His fingers tightened gently around hers — not seeking support, but grounding his words, making them real.

"With you…" He paused, searching for the line he didn't want to cross. "It's different. You don't take anything. You don't demand anything. And that… that matters. More than I expected."

He looked away briefly, then back at her — more sure, more direct.

"So listen. I can't promise I'll always be simple. Or clear. Or… steady. But I can promise this: I'll be honest. With you."

A slower breath followed, like a weight slipping just slightly off his shoulders.

"And if you're the one walking ahead… I'll follow. Not because I need someone to guide me. But because I respect you enough to choose to."

He lowered his chin just a touch — a subtle, soldier's acknowledgment, fraternal and precise.

"Is that alright with you?"

Not a plea.
Not a request.
An opening.

His.

Measured, controlled, offered without disguise.


And he stayed there, present, waiting for her answer — not with tension, but with the quiet trust Aren had begun to build without even realizing it.
Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren listened without interrupting, letting every word settle the way she always did — not rushing him, not pushing for more, not offering the kind of softness that tries to fix things. Just stillness. Just space. Just the steadiness she knew he would recognize for what it was. When he looked at her, she didn't flinch from the weight of it; she held it, anchored it, gave it somewhere to land. His grip tightening around hers wasn't lost on her — she felt the intention behind it, the deliberate choice in it — and she didn't pull away or shift. Her fingers stayed where they were, steady, warm, answering his without needing to match pressure with pressure. It was enough.

She breathed once, slow and even, and in that breath there was neither surprise nor alarm — only understanding. She had never asked him to be simple. She had never expected clarity where life had carved him into edges and contradictions. He didn't scare her. His truths didn't burden her. His honesty didn't intimidate her. She took it all in quietly, weighing it the way a soldier weighs the battlefield before stepping forward: instinctively, fully, with no wasted movement.

Her thumb moved once across the back of his hand — a single, unhurried motion, deliberate as a promise — before she finally lifted her gaze to meet his fully. There was no softness in it, not the tender kind; Aren's warmth lived in steadiness, not sentiment. What she offered him was something rarer: certainty.

"That's more than alright," she said quietly. Her voice wasn't hushed, but calm in a way that carried its own kind of strength. "I don't need simple. I don't need steady. I don't even need easy."

She tilted her head slightly, not breaking eye contact, her expression open but grounded.

"What you just gave me? Choosing honesty. Choosing to stay. Choosing to follow because you want to, not because you have to…" She let that hang, not dramatic, just true. "That's worth more than anything else."

Her hand tightened around his — gentle, brief, precise — before easing again, letting the contact settle into something natural, something chosen by both of them.

"You walk with me," she said, not as a correction, but as a truth. "Not behind. Not ahead. With."

Then she let the silence fall again, but it wasn't empty this time — it was something shared, steady and warm, a silence that existed because neither of them needed to fill it with anything else.

A faint nod — quiet, deliberate — sealed her answer.

"If that's what you're offering," she murmured, "I accept it."

No flourish.
No dramatics.
Just Aren — grounded, sure, present — giving him exactly what he'd earned.

And she didn't let go of his hand.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars didn't move for a long moment. Not frozen — just… suspended. As if something in him was still trying to understand the weight of what she had just given him. Yet his fingers didn't shift; they stayed wrapped around hers, steady, as if his body knew better than his mind what it needed to hold onto.
His gaze dropped briefly to their joined hands.
A quiet check, almost disbelieving — making sure it wasn't a mirage, not some imagined gesture born from one of those rare, unauthorized longings for peace he never let himself feel. The warmth of her palm, the steadiness of her hold — all of it was real. And for him, that carried the weight of a vow.
He swallowed, slow, almost hesitant.
When he lifted his eyes back to her, it wasn't with the tension of a man ready to bolt, nor the confusion of someone trying to guess what was expected of him. No. What he placed in that look was simpler… and deeper.
Silent gratitude.
Budding trust — fragile, but real.
A rare sense of equality — the first he had offered anyone in a very long time.

"You…"
He stopped, the word unfinished — as if searching for language felt like navigating a minefield.
He tried again, quieter:

"You had no reason to say that. No reason… to accept me like this."

There was no accusation in his tone, no bitterness. Just plain truth — and a trace of astonished honesty.
His thumb relaxed slightly against her hand, a tiny movement, but full of an awkward, sincere gratitude.

"And yet… you did."

This time he didn't look away. In fact, his gaze anchored itself to hers with a calm, almost solemn intensity.

"So…"

He drew a long breath, the kind that cost him something, the kind that felt like an admission all by itself.

"… I walk with you. Not out of debt. Not out of need."

His fingers tightened around hers — gently, briefly — sealing the words in silence.

"But because I respect you. Because you see me… and you don't look away."

A shadow of a smile — not truly a smile, more like the ghost of one — touched his normally hard expression, as if something in him finally allowed a small measure of softness through.

"And that…"

His voice dropped, rough at the edges, almost a murmur.

"… that's rare. Too rare for me to let it slip away."

He stayed there, still, holding her gaze without hiding what he had just offered — a simple truth, bare and quietly precious.
And his hand remained in hers.
Willing.
Steady.
Present.
Just like he was.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren did not react immediately—not with words, not even with a shift of posture. She held his gaze the way she had held his hand: without demand, without pressure, without flinching from the truth he had just placed so openly between them.

Her fingers tightened around his just slightly. Not enough to overwhelm, not enough to command. Just enough to let him feel it — her presence, her steadiness, a small, deliberate proof that she wasn't going anywhere.

She drew in a soft breath, and when she finally spoke, her voice was low, a quiet contrast to the storm he had just navigated inside himself. "You don't owe me a reason." She didn't break eye contact. Didn't soften her expression into pity, didn't sharpen it with sympathy he didn't want. She was… there. Clear. Steady. Present.

"You're alive. You're not cruel. You think before you harm. And you carry more weight than most people could survive." Her thumb brushed once against the side of his hand — a small, anchoring gesture. "You respect me. You listen. You don't take from me. That's enough."

She didn't say you deserve kindness — she knew he wasn't ready to hear it. She didn't tell him he was "good" because that wasn't the correct language for him. Instead, she spoke in the practical, measured honesty she knew he trusted.

"And if I choose to accept you," she added quietly, "it's because I see what others don't bother to look for." Her voice dipped, almost imperceptibly gentler. "And because you stayed."

She let that sit for a breath — not to trap him in gratitude, but to give weight to the fact that his choice mattered.

Then her expression softened by half a degree. Not a smile — Aren didn't smile easily — but a subtle easing around her eyes, the kind she only showed when she trusted someone enough not to hide.

"You walking beside me…" A slight pause "…that's not nothing." She shifted her hand just enough to lace her fingers more securely with his. "And if the only reason you're here is that you respect me—and because you're choosing this moment—then that's more than most people ever offer."

No poetry. No romanticism. Just steady truth, spoken in the quiet, grounded way that always cut through his walls better than anything else.

Finally, she dipped her chin once in the slightest, calmest nod — an affirmation offered with the same precision as a warrior accepting another warrior's vow.

"It is enough. You're enough. Right here."

She didn't say more. She didn't need to. Her presence, her hand steady in his, and that quiet nod carried everything that mattered.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars didn't answer right away. For a moment, it looked as though Arena's words were moving through him slowly, finding their way past walls he hadn't meant to lower. Then he let out a breath — not quite a laugh, but something loosening, cracking under the weight of her honesty.

"You make this… too easy, Arena."

He looked away for a second, his hand still in hers, as if pulling back even an inch might give away how much that small connection steadied him. His free hand rose to the back of his neck in an awkward, self-conscious gesture.

"I'm not… good at this. Any of it."

His shoulders lifted a fraction — not defensive, just honest.

"The words. The… implications. Whatever all of this is supposed to mean."

When his gaze found hers again, he didn't look away this time. There was something clearer there, something stripped down, without defense or pretense.

"But what you're saying… what you're doing right now…"

He drew in a slow breath, choosing his words like he was stepping through a minefield.

"It matters. More than you think."

His fingers tightened around hers, a small, deliberate gesture — not dramatic, but real.

"So… yeah. If you want me to stay, I'll stay. If you want me to walk with you… I will. Not because I've figured everything out. Not because I know how to do this."

A brief pause — not hesitation, but truth.

"But because I trust you. More than I should, probably. More than I trust anyone."

He dipped his head slightly — not a vow, not a grand declaration, but something steady and unmistakably sincere.

"That's all I can give you right now. But it's real."

And though he didn't say it aloud, he didn't pull his hand away.
Not even a little.

Aren D'Shade

 

[Aren D'Shade]

Aren didn't look away from him. She didn't fidget, didn't blush, didn't shy from the weight of what he had just given her. Instead, she held his gaze with that same steady, grounded calm she'd carried from the very beginning — the kind that wasn't loud or dramatic, but solid in a way that could anchor someone who had never known a place to stand.

Her thumb brushed lightly across the back of his hand. Not to reassure him, not to claim anything from him, but to say she'd heard every word and understood exactly how much they cost him to speak. Her breath eased out slowly, but there was nothing tense in it — no hesitation, no fear, just a quiet acceptance that wrapped itself around them like a softer kind of gravity.

"Skars," she said, her voice low but sure, "I'm not asking you to be good at anything. Not this, not talking, not… figuring out whatever it is we're building here." She tilted her head just slightly, watching him with the kind of attention that didn't pry but illuminated. "I'm not going to force you into anything you're not ready for. That's not how I work."

She let her fingers curl a little more securely around his, her touch warm, careful, deliberate. "You say you trust me more than you should," she went on quietly. "But you're wrong about that. Trust doesn't work by rules or quotas. It shows up where it wants to. And you offering it—raw and honest like that—isn't something I take lightly."

Her expression softened, just a breath, the kind of softness she rarely showed anyone. "You give what you can," she said. "And what you're giving is real. That's all I expect. That's all I want."

Aren leaned back slightly, not pulling away, but giving him enough space to breathe without breaking the connection between their hands. Her voice dropped a little lower, warm and calm in the dim light. "I'm not going to look away from you. Not from what you've shown me tonight. Not from who you are."

She squeezed his hand once — quiet, firm, and steady.
"And yeah," she murmured, meeting his eyes fully, "it's more than alright with me."

A silence followed, comfortable now, waiting to settle around them like a place they could both stay in. And Aren didn't move to break it — she sat there at his side, her presence a simple truth:

She wasn't going anywhere.

Akyla Rein (Skars)

 

[Akyla Rein (Skars)]

Skars stayed silent, but his mind was not. An unusual weight had settled over him—not heavy, not painful, just… strange. He could feel his own walls trembling, gently, where they had held firm for so long. How had she done it? Was it really her who had pushed him to speak, to let out those words he had locked away so deep? Or… was it him, who had simply decided not to hide anymore, just for a moment, just because he could finally do it without fearing the fall?


He remembered the gesture of her hand, the calm in her gaze, the way she hadn't demanded anything, hadn't pushed. No pressure. No judgment. Nothing but… that solid presence, that steadiness. And yet, he had spoken. He had offered. He had followed something—but what? Was it the trust he gave her? Or the recognition he saw in her, that strength he had always respected, that had made him lower his guard?


And another thought struck him, almost too simple to be true: maybe it wasn't her or him at all. Maybe it was just this moment, fragile and rare, that had allowed something deeper than the fear of stepping out. Something that didn't want to run.

He inhaled, long, feeling each breath like a small anchor. When he lifted his eyes to hers, it wasn't just a glance. It was a statement: she was there. She had asked for nothing. And yet, he had chosen. He had chosen to stay.

"I… I don't know how it happened," he murmured, almost to himself at first, then to her. "Maybe it's not you who… opened me. Maybe it's me. Maybe I just wanted… not to hide, not this time."

He let his fingers press slightly against hers, firm, certain—a simple gesture, but heavy with meaning.

"And… I'm staying. Not because I have to. Not just because I respect you. But because… I want to."


His eyes stayed locked on hers, clear, steady, honest. There was no pride, no weakness, just the truth of a man finally recognizing that he could be seen—and that he could choose to exist fully, beside someone he truly values.

Aren D'Shade