Private Children of Csilla

[Shade]

Shade had known Zinayn was on Bastion before she ever saw him.

Not through official channels, not through schedules or briefings. It was subtler than that. A shift in the rhythm of familiar spaces, the quiet sense that a presence she once knew had folded itself back into the same city. Bastion had a way of doing that to Chiss. It gathered them whether they intended it to or not.

She chose a place away from formal halls and operational floors, a terrace overlooking one of Bastion's inner promenades where the noise never quite reached urgency. Polished stone, low seating, muted light reflected off dark metal and glass. A space meant for pause rather than posture.

Shade arrived first, as she usually did, and waited without fidgeting or pacing. Her hands rested loosely at her sides, posture composed but unguarded in a way she rarely allowed herself in public. This was not a meeting arranged for advantage. It was not reconnaissance. It was personal, and she treated it with the same respect she gave anything that mattered.

When Zinayn appeared, she recognized him instantly.

Not because he looked the same. He did not. Time, training, and experience had done what they always did. But there were things that did not change so easily. The way he held himself when he entered a space. The angle of his attention. The quiet confidence that did not need to announce itself.

For a moment, she simply watched him approach, something unfamiliar loosening in her chest.

Then she stepped forward.

"You left before the ice storms stopped frightening you," Shade said calmly, her voice even, but carrying warmth she did not bother to hide. "I remember thinking that meant you were brave."

The corner of her mouth lifted, faint but unmistakable.

"It is… good to see you again, Zinayn," she added, using his name the way she had when they were younger, before titles and distance and the long years between had complicated things. "Iridonia did not leave us much room to speak as friends."

She gestured lightly toward the seating nearby, an invitation rather than a direction.

"Bastion feels more appropriate," Shade said. "Neutral ground. Familiar ground."

Her gaze met his steadily, open and unguarded, as if it belonged to a shared history rather than the present moment.

"I am glad you stayed long enough for this," she said quietly. "We have both changed. But not enough that I would mistake you."

And for once, Shade did not calculate what came next. She simply waited for her old friend to speak.

Zinayn

 

[Zinayn]

Zinayn didn't often stroll around Bastion to simply take in the capital city. He was busy training, or teaching, or getting supplies. He never noticed the way the sun lit up the walls of the promenades or the pleasant aromas in the air. Today wasn't an aimless stroll though; Chiss always had a purpose in what they did. He hadn't given much time to this particular purpose, but once he saw Shade on Iridonia, he felt a pull to her that he needed to sate. He hadn't seen his childhood friend in decades. Since before his homeworld fell and the Chiss were scattered like paper to the wind.

He slowed before a tall building overlooking gently sloping green hills, a dim glow emanating from the room at the top. She was there. Zinayn smoothed down the front of his ash gray robes before climbing the stairs to the top. The stairs and railing were elaborately carved marble, screaming of a place he could never afford to be in his younger days. At the top of the stairs was an open room, the source of the muted light he'd seen from below. Though the room looked open, it was not empty. He could feel her presence already, her confidence, which gave the air a certain weight.

Shade stood on the terrace. Her appearance was familiar, although not immediately recognizable. She had grown and matured since the last time he'd seen her, shaped by challenges and obstacles in her path. He couldn't begin to imagine how much different Shade might be from what she was in their childhood; though Zinayn knew he'd changed as well.

An invisible weight was lifted from his shoulders the moment she spoke. Her voice was different in tone than it was when they were midagers, but he could have easily recognized her speech even without seeing her. When she said his name, years of their time spent together on Csilla came rushing back to the front of his mind and confirmed that the woman before him truly was who he thought. For a moment, the clinical efficiency of the Chiss was secondary, the fighting and politics was secondary. He felt free for the first time in a long time.

Zinayn took the seat offered, leaning forward and resting his elbows on the table between them. "You're glad I stayed? I wouldn't have missed this for anything," he said, nearly in awe. "I never thought I'd see you again after I left."

He let the truth settle in the air for a moment before continuing, "It was difficult to leave my home. To leave you. When I heard of Csilla's destruction in the war, I was uncertain as to your survival. To see you again is...refreshing," he admitted softly.

"Have you been doing well?" he asked, unable to come up with a better question in the moment. Two decades had passed without seeing her. Their world was gone. Funny, then, that it felt as if she had brought home here to Bastion.

Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade did not rise when he approached, but when he spoke her name, something in her posture shifted all the same. Not a guard lowering, not quite, but a quiet easing that came from recognition rather than caution. She turned fully toward him then, crimson eyes settling on Zinayn with an expression that was unmistakably his to recognize.

For a long moment, she simply looked at him.

Time had changed him, as it had changed her, but the core remained. The way he carried himself. The cadence of his voice. The intent beneath it. It stirred memories she rarely allowed herself to touch, and yet they surfaced easily now, unbidden.

When he spoke of Csilla, her gaze held steady, though the glow of her eyes dimmed just slightly as she drew a measured breath.

"My family did not survive," Shade said quietly. There was no sharpness to it, no dramatics, only truth, delivered with the restraint she had learned the hard way. "Some were lost when Csilla fell. Others were executed afterward, when loyalty became something that could be measured, tested, and punished."

She let the silence sit between them, respectful and unhurried.

"I was recruited not long after," she continued. "By the Veiled Sight. They offered structure when there was nothing else. Purpose, when grief made everything shapeless." Her expression tightened for only a moment before smoothing again. "I left them years ago. That choice still follows me."

Her attention returned to him fully, present and intentional.

"Now I work for the High Republic," Shade said. "Openly. Deliberately. It is not an easy path, but it is an honest one."

Something warmer surfaced then, subtle but real.

"Seeing you again," she admitted, "reminds me that some things endured, even when everything else broke."

She inclined her head slightly, the gesture inviting without ceremony.

"Tell me about you, Zinayn," Shade said. "How have you been, truly?"

For the first time since he arrived, her focus rested fully on him, not on memory or loss, but on the simple fact that he was here now.

Zinayn

 

[Zinayn]

The conversation moved naturally between the two friends, and despite the decades spent away from each other, it felt like they'd been together the whole time. Zinayn shifted slightly in the seat as the topic became his own wellbeing. "Things have been going well. I find purpose in my life with the Diarchy. Its goals are largely aligned with mine. And I feel as if we get closer to our goals every day. The battles I go to fight actually mean something, which I appreciate."

His crimson gaze drifted out the window, watching the breeze stir the grasses gently. "I credit my success here to not only myself, but a friend, Laphisto, as well. He took me in to the Lilaste Order and gave me a home when I could go nowhere else," he said, a tone of respect in his voice. He returned his eyes to Shade's and continued, "Before him I took bounty contracts for profit, if it could be called that. It was just enough to stay alive with the essentials. I quickly realized I wasn't getting anywhere. I hadn't made the most of my potential in the Force at the time, and as such I limited myself to small bounties.

"I gave up the bounty hunting life and lived off-grid in the Kashyyyk forest for a few years. I learned to live off of the land. And with all that extra free time I had, I trained. Pushed myself to my limits. And past them," he recounted, eyes narrowing as he relived the hours of grueling work he put himself through in an attempt to bring out his full strength, both physically and through the Force. "Without that work, I wouldn't be where I am today. I thank the titanic fauna I did battle with for giving it their all in their attempts to eliminate me," he said with a note of sincerity. He smiled slightly. "They were exceptionally skilled at motivating me to do my best."

Zinayn allowed a moment of silence in the room before finishing, "I had many hardships and battles, both as a member of the Lilaste Order and as a wanderer. And I'm sure you have your own engaging experiences. I suspect if books were written for each one, this place would not be large enough to hold them all."

Shade's momentary discomfort when mentioning the Veiled Sight had not gone unnoticed, and Zinayn said, "Tell me about this 'Veiled Sight' you mention. I regret that I am not familiar with them."

Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade listened as Zinayn spoke, really listened, the way she rarely allowed herself to anymore. There was an ease in his recounting that told her he had made peace with his path, even with the hardship that had shaped it. When he spoke of purpose, of choosing where his strength was spent, she understood it instinctively. It mirrored something in her own life more closely than she might have expected.

At the mention of the Veiled Sight, however, there was a subtle shift. Not discomfort so much as weight. She did not look away, but her posture stilled, as if she were deciding how much truth to set down between them.

"The Veiled Sight was never meant to be known," Shade said quietly at last. "Even among the Ascendancy, it existed more as a contingency than an institution."

She folded her hands loosely in front of her, gaze drifting briefly toward the city beyond the window before returning to him.

"It was a clandestine order, operating in the margins of Chiss space long before Csilla fell," she continued. "Its purpose was narrow and precise: to deal with Force-related threats without drawing attention to them. No spectacle. No ideology. Just removal, suppression, erasure." A pause. "Where Jedi reveal themselves and Sith dominate, the Veiled Sight believed the safest outcome was absence."

Her voice remained even, but there was no mistaking that this was lived knowledge.

"We were trained to suppress our presence in the Force to near nothing," Shade said. "Displays of power were considered failures of discipline. Silence was valued over victory, control over emotion, survival through concealment."

She glanced at him then, measuring.

"Most of us operated in isolation, in cells that never knew the full shape of the organization," she continued. "There was no central temple, no recorded hierarchy. Leadership was deliberately obscured so it could not be cleanly dismantled."

She exhaled softly.

"I was recruited at sixteen, after Csilla was destroyed," Shade said. "Orphans and survivors made up most of the candidates. People whose abilities had already made them liabilities."

Her expression tightened just slightly.

"Training was harsh, but precise," she went on. "Attachment was discouraged, not through cruelty, but through detachment. Bonds were permitted only if they served a purpose."

Her gaze steadied on him again.

"The order began to fracture during the Ascendancy Purges," Shade said quietly. "Paranoia turned inward. Secrecy became suspicion. Some defected. Some betrayed others to survive. By the time I left, it was already dying."

A quieter note entered her voice.

"By the time I executed my former partner," she added, "it was functionally dead."

She let the silence breathe before continuing.

"Officially, the Veiled Sight no longer exists," Shade said. "Republic Intelligence considers it obsolete and dangerous in equal measure. Whatever remains of it survives only through individuals like me, trained before its collapse."

She inclined her head slightly.

"For me, it isn't legend or myth," she finished. "Just a closed chapter."

Then, gently, she shifted the weight of the conversation back toward him.

"I understand what you said about purpose," Shade added. "About choosing where your strength is spent. It sounds like you found something that gave meaning to what you endured."

A faint, sincere softness touched her expression.

"I'm glad you did, Zinayn."

She met his eyes fully.

"And I'm glad you found your way here," Shade said quietly. "Truly."

Zinayn

 

[Zinayn]

Most of the time that Zinayn talked, he was either teaching or judging friend from foe. This was something different. Where he could talk about what he wanted to, and listen to a response because he wanted to, and not out of necessity. He was actually interested in this conversation, not for someone else's sake, but for his own. He realized that he liked talking like this, and made a mental note to try and do it more.

As Shade spoke about the Veiled Sight, the light seemed to dim even further, and although she spoke quietly Zinayn couldn't mistake the weight behind her words. Lurking in the shadows and assassinating Force-related threats sounded a lot like the Commandos of the Lilaste Order. A chill entered the air as he wondered just how many people might be training right now to kill him or the Diarchs and slip away unseen.

"Well then I am glad that you left and found a new home in the Republic," he said. "It seems that we've both ended up with new homes after the Ascendancy. But often I wonder about the thousands of others that fled the Chaos and ended up without a place, alone."

He took a breath before continuing with renewed determination, "I seek to create a home for them. To be a beacon in the darkness of the galaxy for the countless Chiss scattered across the stars. To reform the Ascendancy."

The idea seemed absurd, even to Zinayn every time he said it, but everyone who heard him say it knew he meant it. Silence settled in the room after his declaration. He exhaled softly. "I suppose it seems like an unobtainable goal, but Laphisto supports me, and if I get the Diarchs in on this...we'll have a real chance."

Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade did not interrupt him as he spoke.

She watched the way his posture shifted when he talked about purpose, the way belief settled into him not as bravado but as resolve. Zinayn had always been earnest, even as a youth, but this was different. This was a belief shaped by loss, sharpened by time. She let him finish, let the silence afterward breathe, because it deserved to.

When she finally moved, it was unhurried.

Her hand slipped into the inner pocket of her coat and closed around something familiar. She drew it out and placed it gently on the table between them, the metal making a soft, almost apologetic sound as it came to rest. The family token was worn smooth by years of handling, its edges softened by time rather than neglect.

She looked at it for a moment before speaking.

"Thy'ran Tal'voss," she said quietly. "Ily'se Tal'voss." Her voice did not falter, but it did slow. "Rhen'os Tal'voss," she continued, then after a breath, "Vael'ira Tal'voss."

She lifted her eyes back to Zinayn, something open and unguarded in her expression.

"That was my family," Shade said. "My house. My home. My parents died when Csilla fell. My brother survived only long enough to be executed as an example. My sister endured both the destruction and the purges…and still died in custody years later."

There was grief there, but it was not raw. It had been carried for too long to be fragile.

"I am the last of House Tal'voss," she said gently. "Not because I abandoned it, but because there was nothing left to return to."

She rested her fingers lightly beside the token.

"So when you speak about rebuilding the Ascendancy," Shade went on, her tone careful but sincere, "I understand the need behind it. I understand the longing for structure, for belonging, for a place where our people are not scattered and afraid."

She met his gaze steadily.

"But the Ascendancy we knew is gone," she said. "Not displaced. Not waiting to be reclaimed. It was destroyed by its own fear, its own secrecy, its inability to trust what it did not control."

Her voice softened, not dismissive, but honest.

"That does not mean your dream is foolish," Shade continued. "It means it cannot be built the same way and survive."

She gestured faintly toward the window, the wider galaxy beyond it.

"If something rises again," she said, "it will have to be chosen freely. It will have to offer shelter without erasure, unity without silence. It will have to allow people to be seen."

A quiet pause.

"I was not seen," she admitted. "Not for a long time."

She drew in a measured breath.

"The Veiled Sight found me when I was sixteen," Shade said. "They gave me purpose when I had none, and they taught me how to disappear when survival demanded it."

Her eyes did not harden when she spoke of it, but they did sharpen.

"They believed the Force was most dangerous when noticed," she continued. "So they trained us to erase problems quietly. No spectacle. No names. No echoes."

Her fingers curled once, then relaxed.

"They are gone now," she said. "Broken by the same fractures that destroyed everything else. What remains of them is scattered, compromised, and dangerous."

She glanced down at the token again, then back to him.

"I no longer use the name you knew me as," Shade said softly. "I am called Shade now. Not because I hide, but because I remember what living in shadows costs."

Her gaze held his, steady and sincere.

"What you are trying to do matters," she said. "And it will be difficult. And it will demand that you confront the mistakes of the past without trying to sanitize them."

A faint, honest curve touched her mouth.

"But if you are willing to build something new instead of resurrecting something broken," Shade finished, "then you may succeed where the Ascendancy could not."

She left the token on the table between them, not as a relic, but as context.

"And if you do," she added quietly, "you will not be doing it alone."

Zinayn

 

[Zinayn]

Zinayn's breath caught slightly as his friend placed her family token on the table. She recited their names, and he could remember each one, even their faces. He let his gaze rest on the token, knowing how it represented the old Ascendancy. Its strengths and its flaws; its ups and downs. There was gravity in the room, brought in by Shade's words.

"You are correct," he responded at last, voice steady. "The Ascendancy we both knew is in the past. The way it ruled—power, control, secrecy—made its foundations crack and its pillars falter. The enemy in the war was only a wind that knocked down a weakened structure built on sand.

He raised a finger as if to feel the metal of the token, but stopped short. "I do not seek to restore what we once had. Rather, to correct the Ruling Families' mistakes. To provide a home for our people that finds strength in loyalty and unity that is not mere compliance induced by fear and secrecy. A structure that understands why it fell and will not repeat the same error."

Zinayn met her gaze steadily, honestly. Shade. He smiled slightly. "That is a...fitting name. And it would mean a lot if you supported this endeavor of mine. You remember the cost of extreme secrecy; you have lived it. And you help to remind me that such secrecy should not be mistaken again for great strength, as it was before."

Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade listened without interrupting.

She remained still as Zinayn spoke, her hands folded loosely in front of her, eyes steady on his face, attentive in the way she always had been since they were children. She did not rush to respond, allowing his words to settle, weighing them the way she weighed every promise and every vision that asked to be believed.

When she finally spoke, her tone was calm, familiar, and quietly sincere.

"You are not wrong about why it fell," Shade said evenly. "We were taught that secrecy was strength. That silence was stability. In practice, it only made everything brittle."

Her gaze flicked briefly to the token, then back to him.

"Loyalty that exists only because people are afraid to lose protection is not loyalty," she continued. "It is dependency."

There was no accusation in it. Just experience.

A faint, restrained smile touched her mouth then, something rare and genuine.

"And yes," Shade added quietly. "I would help an old friend."

The words were simple, but the weight behind them was not.

She shifted slightly in her chair, relaxing a fraction, the tension in her shoulders easing just enough to show that this was not a negotiation to her. It was personal.

"You were there before any of this," she said. "Before factions, before titles, before we learned how to measure trust."

Then, gently, she introduced the reality neither of them could ignore.

"But I am part of the High Republic now," Shade continued, her voice steady and transparent. "My work, my obligations, and my visibility are tied to it."

She held his gaze, honest and open.

"Is that going to be a problem for what you are trying to build," she asked calmly, "or can this movement exist without asking people to sever everything else they are?"

There was no challenge in the question. Only care.

"Because if your goal is a home built on understanding and unity," Shade finished quietly, "then it cannot begin by demanding isolation."

She leaned back slightly, still watching him with the same quiet loyalty she had always shown him. An old friend. Waiting for an honest answer.

Zinayn