Private Driftwood

[Trextan Voidstalker]

Choli Vyn

"Wow"

There were no words that could capture the spectacle so Trextan didn't try to draw any together.

They had token off from Wo'theth, but had been forced to turn into the direction the leviathans were moving through. Chloe was gently nudging the controls as one of the creatures passed above them.

From the cockpit they were afforded a remarkable view. They were not even particularly close, the LIDAR measuring three hundred metres distance from the underbelly of the leviathan.

Trextan glanced over his shoulder at Choli.

"I suppose I should be more worried about the Galaxy breaking."

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x

Choli didn't answer right away.

She stood just behind Chloe's seat, one hand braced on the backrest, the other resting lightly on the lip of the co-pilot's console. Her breath caught as the leviathan passed overhead, its silhouette casting an impossible shadow across the cockpit, blotting out stars that had always been there.

The creature moved like a thought, slow, soundless, immense, its translucent hide refracting light into colors Choli didn't even have names for.

Three hundred meters wasn't close, not by spaceflight standards. But it felt close. It felt like standing under a thunderhead that knew you by name.

When Trextan exhaled a soft 'wow', for once, Choli didn't tease him for stating the obvious.

Her voice was quiet when it finally came, but firm, steady like the hum of a hyperdrive in alignment.

"You should be," she said, eyes still locked on the drifting leviathan.

"We're flying through a part of the galaxy that wasn't there last week. The stars are different. Space is… changed. And we're just passengers along for the ride."

She tilted her head, watching as the creature banked gently, its massive fins rippling through an open vacuum like it was swimming through an unseen current.

"But," she added, glancing at him over her shoulder with a wry grin, "you also should have been more worried the first time you let me pilot that skiff at Polis Massa."

She looked back out the viewport, smile fading as awe crept back in.

"The galaxy has always been broken, Trextan. Just has a new face now." She leaned forward slightly, her voice softening.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

Space is changed, he thought as he watched the leviathan bank. That, just as a phrase, should have concerned him even more. Perhaps it was simply the scale of the problem was difficult for him to let sink in.

Trextan grinned back at her at the mention of Polis Massa. He remembered their rush to escape the medical ward. Looking back, he supposed that suffering the trauma of losing his whole arm had driven him to escape quickly.

He remembered her crude humour too. He had come to find out it was something of a shield, given he had been the first to...

Trextan turned his attention from drifting between memories to the leviathan as it cleared their path.

"Has it always been broken?" he wondered out loud in response. "People managed to live their lives when when the hyperlanes are closed. Seems kinda lonely, but so many people just live on one planet anyway."

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x

Trextan's question drifted in the quiet between sensor chirps and engine hum. Has it always been broken?

She didn't answer right away. The stars out there had never looked so unfamiliar, and yet… she couldn't say they looked wrong.

"Alright, well, you got the watch then?" Chloe's voice piped in, breaking the subtle tension, the Corellian Warden standing up to hand over the piloting reigns to Choli.

"Gonna check on Ren and chat with the other Captains. Let me know if anything comes up." she told him, deciding it was best to get out from under them.

Choli nodded, "Yes, of course," replying quietly, before settling down in the pilot's seat as Chloe passed by Trextan, who she then gave a squeeze of his shoulder before she left.

After a second, once they were alone and Choli had checked on all the systems, the pilot spoke.

"Yeah," she said eventually, voice low, almost like she was talking more to herself than to him. "It's always been broken. Just hides it better most days."

"The trick is figuring out how to live in the cracks without falling through them." her voice added a bit of wryness to it.

She glanced sidelong at him, catching the half-nostalgic look in his eyes. Polis Massa. The med ward. The escape. How she had zero awareness at her lack of personal space.

She hadn't apologized for it then. Still wouldn't now.

Choli turned back to the viewport, voice softer now.

"People always think life's supposed to happen on the big stage -- wars, crises, great convergences. But most folks? They live it in warehouses. On moisture farms. At market stalls. One planet at a time, yeah… but not because they are small. But because it is theirs."

A beat passed as the leviathan vanished into the deep. She reached up and flicked a switch, dimming the lights around the viewport to let the stars glow just a little brighter.

"Still," she added, with that stony-faced faced almost overly reasonable expression she wore like armor, "Reckon even Wardens have their own methods of trying to carve out a corner of the galaxy so it wouldn't be so lonely."

And in that moment, she didn't just mean other people.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

His breathing slowed as the lights dimmed. All he had was the stars revealed by the departing leviathan and Choli's voice.

"When Chloe wants to know if something comes up, I wonder what is actually an escalation now?" he wondered out loud.

Trextan took a breath. He was saying some words just to fill the space. He slowly turned his chair towards Choli.

He didn't know if he was reading into her comments or not, but it seemed a good reason to broach the subject.

"You know I missed the time when we were travelling together," he said. He decided to stick quite simply to the point.

It was, in a way, the calmest time in his life. He'd felt a strong connection and had stopped feeling like he was trying to fit himself into someone else's life. It had also been one of the most exciting times in his life. Everything had been exciting and new.

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x

Choli swallowed hard.

That kind of sentence, that kind, had no business being said so plainly.

Just there, in the open, in the dark hum of a ship half drifting through stars and memory.

Her lips pressed into a faint line, not tight but uncertain, like they couldn't quite decide if they wanted to smile or say something sharp. Her weight shifted again, not because she needed to move, but because standing still suddenly felt too vulnerable.

Her eyes though, those betrayed her. The shimmer of color that shifted across her irises and deeper into the sclera, soft and hazy in the dim light, flickered through a current of emotions: gold like warmth, then cool grey like hesitation, a flash of teal like something remembered too fondly, then back again.

Three years was a long time. Long enough for the ache to dull. Not long enough to forget the shape of his voice when it was just the two of them.

She let out a hot breath, barely a sound, and finally looked back at him.

Really looked.

"Yeah," she murmured, voice quiet and a little rough at the edges. "Me too."

That was all she said.

But her fingers curled around the armrest, and she didn't look away.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

Trextan looked back at Choli. He didn't feel like he was being studied, but she saw him. He met her gaze, watching the shifting colours in her eyes. They moved too quickly for him to see any one emotion. He knew that she was feeling a lot, and that on its own was telling.

He should have taken a little longer to build up to such an admission. She was supposed to be the blunt one. Looking at one another didn't feel uncomfortable, but he started to question himself right before she spoke.

His tongue passed across his lips. His mouth felt dry. She had spoken of trying to live in the broken galaxy. Of living a life without being lonely. Trextan didn't even realise how deliberate Chloe's exit had been.

"I think there's probably a lot I could say about what I should or shouldn't have done a few years ago. I think we probably both know that."

"But I regret that I didn't reach out. I need to say that. At some point it felt like trying to get in touch would have felt like... Too little and too late."

He gave a small shrug. He had never been good at expressing himself. Even when he tried it sounded wrong to his own ears. They were just words and yet it felt like a fight just to speak.

"Sounds a crap excuse out loud. I'm trying to say I miss those times. Can't turn the clock back. I'd like to spend time with you again. Doesn't matter how and in what way."

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x

Choli had never been good at lying. Not even a little.

She'd grown up in a place where there was no sense or need for deception. To lie. It was one of the things that made it hard for her to really interact with others; what had made her awkard. More so with the crude banter Rogue Squadron and Wraith went through. And when she took leadership in Rogue as the Lieutenant Commander, what she said was typically simple, to the point, and cut through the chit because there was no time to waste.

In her experience, lives depended on it.

That's how she'd always been. It was why, when she met Trextan, she did exactly that, told him exactly what she thought. Told him when she was confused. When he was being brave. Told him when he was being a kriffing idiot.

And so after it got serious...when they shared a makeshift bunk on the floor of their tiny galley and traveled together, and then when her training pulled her to places he couldn't follow along the Kathol Outback, when the uncertainty of how long and how far began to stretch between them, well, she'd told him that, too.

She'd ended things because she thought it was right. Because dragging him along when neither of them had footing didn't seem fair. Not when he was still trying to find his place and had harbored resentment to the Sith and the Jedi, even his father, on where he ended up being. Not when she couldn't promise when that training would end and how long she'd be away for it.

She stared at him, no hesitation, the way she always had. Her eyes didn't flicker away, even as their hues shifted bronze at first, then gold at the edges, and something deeper beneath that looked suspiciously like hope.

"You're not wrong," she said, voice even, maybe a touch too loud for the silence around them. "We both should have done better. Could have."

She exhaled sharply, almost a laugh. Almost.

One olive hand came up to comb through the loose strands of dark black hair, pushing them away from her almond shaped eyes as she mused on it all. To be honest, what he said hadn't been any different than what she'd been thinking about herself.

But how to go about it? While time may have made her easier to understand situations and discuss them, she still wasn't what one would call normal.

Okay. What can be done. What can be handled from here on out.

"Well we have this convoy to chart out whatever new shift is out here." She began slowly, plainly. Honestly.

"How long that will take... who knows." another kernel of truth.

Her lips pursed and she took a breath through her nose.

"We can see and take that time to test the lanes. See where things land."

She didn't want to end up assuming much. Or more aptly, putting her hopes on something. In many ways they both changed and perhaps stayed the same during those three years.

And to be honest, she did miss Trextan.

"So yeah. I missed you too."

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

He couldn't help the small smile that formed at her last few words. He looked down at the floor. For that moment, he looked more like the floppy haired youth she had first met.

"Yeah, I missed you. Not just those times," he said, deciding to try and be as open and up front as she was.

He didn't know how they would work this out. The first time around it had taken alcohol or stress or accidental proximity to prompt them to take their relationship from phases of abbashed admission through to deep intimacy.

Perhaps the answer was just like this. To sit and talk and be open about where they felt they were.

"See where things land, I like that," he said. "And I will try to just be honest about what I feel and we can take things as they go."

Trextan worried too much about what was appropriate next. He pushed through.

Watching Choli carefully, he reached out and placed his hand on top of hers and gave a gentle squeeze. He gave a small nod, as if affirming their new understanding.

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x

Was it weird that being honest still felt awkward sometimes? Probably. Choli had spent her whole life calling things like she saw them, but moments like this, with Trextan, peeled something open that didn't always patch up clean.

Still, hearing him say he'd try to be honest going forward? That caught her attention.

He had been the broody type. Always holding things too tight inside like they'd explode if he let go too fast. She'd spent more than one late shift beside him in silence, throwing blunt questions like hydrospanners until he finally cracked enough to mutter something half useful.

Maybe the time apart had sanded down some of his edges. Or maybe it had just made him more willing to show them.

And then his hand was on hers.

Just a squeeze that was barely more than contact. But her spine went a little too straight like a coil tugged taut and the hues in her eyes churned.

Kriffing nerves. Ridiculous, really, considering everything they'd been through. Still, her heartbeat thudded in a way she couldn't ignore, betraying her calm.

She cursed herself inwardly at how she reacted.

"Okay," she said finally, clearing her throat, her voice scratchy in the recycled air. She forced herself to exhale, to roll her shoulders a little looser. If this was going to be the new them, she'd better start acting like it.

A beat passed. Then, she decided to make a joke. Well, her version of a joke. Which came out more like a bone-dry humor regarding their situation of being literally lost in hyperspace, so they had little choice but to live together for a time anyway.

"Well, guess since we are stuck in a cosmic convergence whirlwind in space without a nav fix, we are shipmates then." Her smirk was crooked, her tone flat in that mechanic humor way that sounded like sarcasm but was actually her trying to lighten the weight in her chest.

A pause. Then, with a glance sideways at him, "So… how's the Verree holding up?"

After all, if there was any place that held more of Choli in every bolt, bulkhead, and jiry rigged patch, it was that Squib ship they had salvaged and patchworked built to be a home.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

Choli Vyn

He thought he had made a mistake by reaching out. He realised that instead it was just that tension snapping. She was nervous. Choli could be so confident that he still forgot that she wasn't always calm and in control behind the swirling colours of her eyes.

He didn't jump when she did; that would have been embarrassing. He slowly drew his hand back.

"I guess it just took the galaxy falling apart for us to be shipmates again," he replied. Trextan smiled once at her before glancing down. That had been difficult. It would have been very easy to simply remain silent, but everything would have gone unsaid again. Like a weight that slowly grew ever heavier.

"You know the Verree is surprising everyone - including me sometimes - in still going. And yeah, you still don't want to be there when I try and land a ship. Rented a pilot droid. Better for, er, my spine."

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x

Choli cursed at herself for how she reacted, realizing it was rather silly of her. She was an adult now. Passed her rites. Lived and worked on her own and made a living this way. She was glad that he didn't react like she did... or seemingly took it as offense.

Talk normal things.

Well that was the intent until she added with a sigh, running her hand through her hair again. This time, her expression centered itself; the hues in her eyes softened into a bronze with a streak of gold, the only clue that she was willing herself to center.

"Sorry. Guess you still have some affect on me and I am working my way through it." she finally admitted. "Seeing you at the Ren ship and then here after what happened in that interrogation room messed with my mind. I was not sure what was real and what was not."

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

He tried not to stare into her eyes too much. He wanted to see which colours swirled there, but it was either going to come across as trying too hard to read her or as him trying to push things too quickly.

"Affect you? Is that like in a good way or in bad way?" he stammered.

Did she mean that she has missed physical contact with him or did she mean that it upset her after the interrogation?

"Oh, er, you don't need to answer that," he added quickly. He looked slightly embarrassed at himself.

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x

Choli blinked, then felt the sudden heat crawl up her neck and into her cheeks, a sharp contrast to her usual olive skin tone.

Even as he had told her he would try to be more direct, she hadn't expected him to be that forthright in asking directly. Not after years of him skirting the edges of things, letting emotion simmer instead of speak. So the warden tried to play it off with a quick shrug, eyes flicking away like she was checking a flickering status light behind him.

"Guess I am not used to you skipping the whole broody dance first," she muttered, her tone dry but not biting with the attempt to have just enough humor to keep it light and soften the awkward, even as the flush refused to fade. Her gaze returned to him, a little steadier this time.

"But yeah," she said plainly. "It affected me. So… both, I guess."

She let the quiet settle for a second before continuing, glancing down at her hands like she could solder words together if she held them right.

"I was trying to block it all out...what happened down there...by shifting my mind someplace familiar. Not exactly the type of memories someone may latch onto but the caverns on that mining world were at the time… vivid. Something to hold onto. That's why, when you projected in like that, like you used to -- " her voice dropped slightly, " -- it threw me. I thought I was still hallucinating. Didn't think it was real at first."

Another pause. Just a breath, really.

"But," she added, voice softer now, "it was not a bad thing. Seeing you again. I am glad you're okay. And yeah… it is good to see you."

Her lips twitched like she wanted to smirk at herself but didn't have the fuel.

"Not to mention I have been trying to work through that blackout period from the past -- after Munstafar. Set a hatchet to it so it does not keep jumping out of nowhere." She rolled a shoulder, casual but with weight behind it.

"Still a work in progress. But I am trying to not let it own me."

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

"While broody dance..." he echoed back, trying to match a lighter tone. He hadn't meant to just blurt out the question.

He leaned forwards just a little when she told him that it was both. A part of him had hoped that it was just a touch of surprise, but it was clearly more than that.

Trextan nodded slowly. She had clung to some vivid memories. He had revisited those caverns quite a few times. They had been a shield for her. He had seen the state of her fingers. No matter how brave anyone tried to be, pain was impossible to ignore.

"I don't think you'll ever let that own you."

Trextan paused for a moment, before deciding to continue. He had avoided important conversations too often. Just because he had blurted out a question, it didn't mean he should shy away from this.

"Chloe is always here to help and I'm here now," he said. "After getting captured again I guess you can't help but think about it."

Trextan settled back in his seat and looked out to the stars. He sighed quietly.

"There anything I can do to help?" he asked. Even if that meant nothing more than a warning before touching her again.

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x


Choli let the silence stretch just a little before answering, her eyes following the stars outside the viewport. The hum of the ship filled the space between them, steady and familiar.

She rubbed her thumb over the side of her palm, a small habit she hadn't shaken since Rogue days like wiping off grease that wasn't there.

Trextan knew how much having that month long black fog had affected her -- perhaps, how it affected her still.

Choli bit her lower lip and took a breath, her hand coming up once more to thread through the dark locks of her hair and push them away from her olive face. It was more of a tick really, a nervous gesture, than anything else. A key note that yes, it still affected her.

"I know... " she replied quietly, before taking another deep breath and letting it out in a slow hiss.

"Umm.... honestly not sure.... " she admitted, before returning her attention back at him.

"Not the best at knowing what to do with one's head when it comes to these matters." she admitted, allowing the bridge for him to pitch in if he knew of anything that could help.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

T R E X T A N​

"Well I can't get into your head and the sith couldn't," Trextan reasoned.

It felt good to have a challenge in front of him. There was a problem and it would have a solution. They could work on this and then he might stop thinking about how it felt to run his own fingers through that thick hair.

Trextan was better suited to problems that could be overcome with force. If they solved this problem it was only the start.

Those memories might have been unlocked for a reason. They could have been so traumatising she put them away herself. Trextan didn't think that would be like Choli. It could have been that they used chemicals to drug her so badly that the memories hadn't been laid down.

"You could get into mine, maybe," he reasoned. "And show me, maybe we could go through a meditation and try and find them."

Trexgan grimaced, it was clearly a long shot.

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x

Choli gave a slight cant of her head, her brow creasing just enough to show she wasn't sure if she'd misheard him.

Her boots planted firmly against the deck as she leaned back against the chair. The idea wasn't bad, exactly. Just… unexpected.

"You want me to get into your head?" she asked, the words slow and deliberate, as if saying them out loud would help make sense of them.

"And do what exactly?"

Her eyes narrowed slightly in perplexed focus, kinda like a mechanic staring at a schematic that didn't quite line up. Force meditation wasn't her go to fix. She was used to handson problems. Jammed motivators, faulty compressors, busted nav systems, the things she could fix with a hydrospanner.

Still… she didn't shut the idea down. She just wasn't sure how it would work. Or if it would make a difference.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

"Hmm."

Trextan clearly didn't have an immediate answer. He had thought about this before, but he had never quite worked the problem through to some real solutions.

"I was thinking that maybe you showed me your memories. Instead of me trying to dive in and see them. We could walk through a meditation and try to push into the dark spots."

He met get gaze and offered a little shrug.

"I was never very good at meditation. My dad wasn't either, until a Jedi Master helped him."

Trextan was reminded that for all his strength, there were Masters who had studied for decades. There was also the fact that they had just managed to make a small admission to one another. They were possibly not ready for trying this without skill and opening up to one another a little too much.

"We could try a different holocron?"

 

[Choli Vyn]

Interacting with: Trextan Voidstalker
Armor- x x x x x | Gear x x x x x x x | Weapons x x x x x

Show him her memories?

Choli blinked at Trextan, the slash of her brows furrowing over her colorshifing eyes.

That was the problem, wasn't it? She didn't remember. Not the parts that mattered, not the stretch of time when she'd been a prisoner of war under the First Order. Just static and gaps where pain and fear should've lived.

Or maybe he meant the Knights of Ren? That whole blur of confusion and darkness still felt like trying to grab smoke with her bare hands.

Either way, the look she gave him made it clear she wasn't following. One that only deepened only to shake her head softly as she unexpectedly let out a soft, low laugh that echoed gently within the cockpit.

"Blast, Trex," she said, still half-smiling. "You really haven't had much training in meditation or mental aspects since we last trained together?"

There wasn't any sting in her voice. If anything, there was something almost fond in it. She was amused, if not quietly touched by the effort he was making.

She shifted in her seat, gaze steady now.

"Alright," she said, a little more grounded. "How about you walk me through what you know, and we'll take it from there?"

Because if nothing else, she could still meet him halfway. Even if her past refused to.