Private Fragments in the Currents

[Dareth Solryn]

Morning settled quietly over Commenor.
No storm, no rain only mist that clung to the tall facades and blurred the city's edges. Even here, at the heart of trade, the park felt like an oasis where the rush of the world reached only as a muted echo. Fountains murmured, as if trying to drown out the voices of distant markets.


He sat on a stone bench near a fountain. Above him rose the statue of a long-forgotten diplomat, weathered by wind yet still standing as a symbol of old strength. Footsteps rang across paved paths, figures passed by merchants, officials, children on their way to the academy. Everything seemed slowed, as if the mist itself had chosen to hold back time.


Hours earlier, he had seen someone.
Someone from a time long sealed away. A glance, no more than a breath and yet heavier than many battles.
What did it mean when the past refused to rest, finding its way back into the present?
Was it memory … or a test?


The Force was not loud here. No urging, no call. Only a current like water seeping through the city's veins. He let it flow through him. No grasp. No resistance. Just breathing.


And in that silence, the questions returned those that had never truly left him:


"Can one ever truly begin anew or do we only carry other names for the same scars?"
"Is peace a distant refuge … or a seed one must plant into the soil oneself?"
"And if others are searching as he does could they together be more than fragments?"


The Exiles were part of these thoughts.
Not an Order. Not a doctrine. Just voices that had found each other, knowing the fractures within and yet believing that from those cracks, light could still emerge.

He knew that hope could not live in silence alone.
If the Exiles were to be more than scattered shadows, they had to weave themselves into the currents of a galaxy trembling between order and collapse.
Not as rulers. Not as saviors.
Perhaps only as a reminder that even fractured voices could carry a new song.

 

[Zesiro]

The Imperials had taken over Commenor, and it was changing. There had been a time in her life when Zesiro would have been happy being part of them. She had been a part of an old Empire. One that had been dead and in the dust for at least the last ten years. So she had moved on with her life and taken on a new role as head of security for the Commenor president. What had happened to him with the Empire here now was unknown to the blond. Unfortunately, she didn't want to stick around to find out. She had failed in her job and just needed to get away, run away from her problems once again.

As she walked through the park not far from the former palace she'd worked at, she stopped. A shadow in the trees and on the path, she bowed and kept her gaze low as the dignitary strutted past. She had no reason to remain on Commenor and continued walking after the stranger moved beyond her. With her back to him, she could now focus on what was in front of her.

A statue with a fountain and another stranger sitting on a bench. It wasn't uncommon, but in these stressful days, she noticed it happened far less often. Additional movement caught her eye, and she felt she was being followed. As a former employee of the government, this empire had overthrown, there was a chance she would be hunted. That was probably not something she wanted to happen.

Trying to think on the run, she approached the man sitting at the fountain. Her blue eyes held a hint of concern and probably more fear than she would have liked.

"Pretend you know me, sir. We need to leave."

To keep the act going, she greeted him as if they had known one another for years and tried to hug him. Motioning with her head in the direction to walk, she hoped he would take the hint and go with her plan.

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

The fountain’s stillness had been his only company.
Until the footsteps came hurried, uneven, carrying a weight no mist could soften.

And then she was there. Suddenly.
A woman whose eyes told more than her words. Fear. Flight. Loss. Yet it was not only her gaze he saw.
The Force carried it to him shards of memory like cold fragments piercing through her. Wounds she hid, resonating in him as distant echoes.

“Pretend you know me, sir. We need to leave.”

He did not pull away.
He let the Force speak through her, and it revealed not only fear, but the courage to keep moving despite it.
“You seek refuge in a stranger…” His voice was quiet, barely more than breath. “Perhaps you are less alone than you believe.”

Slowly he rose, no haste in the motion. He turned toward the path she had pointed, as if her way had now also become his.

From beneath his cloak, the familiar hilt rested in his hand, and then both blades of his lightsaber came alive. The twin glow cut through the mist not as a threat, but as a silent promise. That the shadows chasing her would now find him as well.

He lingered at her side, close enough for her to hear the low hum.
“If they seek you, they now find me too,” he murmured, eyes fixed on the haze. “And perhaps that is what they should truly fear.”

Zesiro

 

[Zesiro]

Making a motion for him to put his weapons away, she likely failed. As they stopped walking, she turned to have her back to him. Taking her own golden-hued lightsaber out, she ignited it as her shades came out of the bushes around them.

"This is not a wise decision. Walk forward and I'm right behind you."

It was clearly a good thing she had approached this stranger. He carried lightsabers, which indicated he could use the Force. At least, that's what Zesiro thought.

Hearing what he said made her wonder just what he could do. She might be able to scrap a bit and use the Force a little, but she wasn't strong. Her path hadn't given her much training in that direction, and with these things after her, she regretted that.

"Call me Zesiro. Get moving, and hopefully they'll get the hint to leave us alone."

The other side of this coin might be them getting caught by the Empire.

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

He felt it before her blade came alive.
The Force carried her truth to him the fear she masked, the courage that still drove her forward. Her golden lightsaber cut through the mist, but it was the weight upon her spirit he sensed more clearly.

“Call me Zesiro. Get moving.”

Dareth rose, the twin blades of his own lightsaber humming softly at his side. No hesitation, no defiance. Only the quiet certainty that she would not take the next step alone.

“Then call me Dareth Solryn,” he said softly. “Founder and First Star Lord of the Luminara Exiles.”
For a breath his eyes lingered on her, steady and calm.
“But today, I am not Star Lord. Today, I am only a man who walks beside you.”

He turned forward, the blades casting muted light into the fog as he began to move.
“Come. We walk. And let them find us but not as prey.”

Zesiro

 

[Zesiro]

"This world is now under the control of the newest Galactic Empire."

Zesiro could have been an ally, but her life was different, and she needed to get off of Commenor. From what she could tell, this man would be the one to help her with that. The two of them could get rid of her shadows, the assassins that followed her. The ones that had revealed themselves to her and now to him. They would be watching, and maybe this was what they wanted. To eliminate the last remaining person from the old government.

"I was head of security for the president of Commenor. I have no idea what happened to him in all of this chaos. The Empire just swept in, and I'm running. I'm pleased to meet you, Dareth Solryn."

Speaking only loud enough for him to hear, her eyes scanned the fog and watched for the shadows to coalesce and become solid forms. Now she wasn't alone; it seemed like they were backing off, watching, and waiting. Around another corner of the path, they would be waiting for the two of them.

Four Imperial agents blocked their path, and one stepped forward to question them.

"Without the use of violent measures, you need to be taken into custody."

Even though he spoke about not using violence, it was clear they were looking for a reason to do precisely that.

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

The mist swallowed their words, but the Force made the truth plain: they wanted the excuse.

Dareth did not answer. He breathed.
A single step forward calm, deliberate and his twin blades ignited, spilling muted light into the fog.

The first rushed in, strike clumsy with haste. Dareth shifted aside, the staff of his saber twisting the man fell with a cry, weapon flung from his hand, balance shattered.

The second followed. A wrist caught, a foot planted. The humming blade stopped a hair from his chest before Dareth drove him back and struck his shoulder, sending him to the ground.

The last two moved together. For a heartbeat they hesitated then the fog broke with motion. Dareth slipped between them, no rage, no haste. The hilt struck one across the jaw, the staff turned, sweeping the legs from the other. Bones cracked, air left their lungs, and both collapsed into the mist. Not dead. Simply broken, unable to rise.

Silence returned.
Four bodies lay in the haze, no longer a threat.

Dareth extinguished his blades. His breath steady, as though he had not fought, but only parted the mist. He stood beside Zesiro, eyes fixed on the path ahead.

"We walk."

Zesiro

 

[Zesiro]

Before Zesiro could even raise her lightsaber to assist in the confrontation, he was already on the move. The first was clumsy, and even she would have been able to take him out of the equation. As her companion breathed, another fell but wasn't dead. She could tell he could have turned this as lethal as the Imperials had wanted to. Yet he restrained himself. Why?

As the weapon went flying, she reached out her hand and pulled it to her. Placing it in a holster at her side, she had missed carrying a blaster since the Empire had invaded. By the time she'd done that, the last two were moaning on the ground.

"I would not have thought of that. They wanted us dead, but you didn't, or you would have. Why did you spare them? They're going to recover and go collect another person like me. Just to turn them into their government."

These men should have been better trained.

"I wonder if there will be more waiting."

As they resumed the walk, she knew they would be clear of the park soon.

"We may have trouble getting off the planet. Do you have a ship? All of the ones that belonged to my government have been grounded."

Glancing behind them, his calm aura pulled her back into the halo that was the stranger.

"Thank you. Once I figure out how, I'll repay you for this protection."

Dareth Solryn

 

[Dareth Solryn]

The mist lay heavy over the fallen men. Their groans faded as Zesiro walked beside him. She had asked questions, demanded answers but he needed no long speeches. Only the truth that rested within him.

“I know the darkness,” he said softly, his gaze drifting over the motionless forms. “I owe it no more lives.”

His pace remained steady, neither hurried nor hesitant. “Whether they learn or not,” he continued, “is not in my hands.”

Between the trees the fog shifted, as though it concealed something more. Dareth drew a quiet breath, the Force guiding him to what lingered. “Patience is their weapon but patience can break.”

They had nearly left the park when he spoke again, eyes still forward. “Yes. I have a ship the Stellarion, waiting in orbit. We can take my shuttle.”

Zesiro thanked him, but he only gave the faintest shake of his head. “Thanks is a word,” he murmured. “More important is that you keep moving.”

Zesiro