Forever in the Light
The homestead woke slowly, as if Naboo itself preferred to ease into morning rather than arrive all at once. Aiden Porte had been awake well before any of that, moving through the training yard while the air was still cool enough to sting his lungs.
His lightsaber remained unlit in his hand at first, a familiar weight, a promise rather than a threat. He began with footwork, patient and repetitive, the unglamorous discipline that made the rest possible. Forward. Pivot. Retreat. Again. He listened to the soft scrape of earth under his soles and the distant call of birds across the lake, letting those sounds become the metronome.
When he finally thumbed the activator, the blade hissed to life with a clean, bright snap, and the training space sharpened around it. Aiden moved through forms that his body remembered even when his mind wandered, the arcs precise, the transitions smooth. He practiced until sweat gathered at his hairline and ran down the line of his jaw, until his arms burned and his breathing deepened, until the hours stopped feeling like hours and became a single continuous thread of motion.
He added everything else, because he always did. Strength drills. Balance work along the low wall bordering the garden beds. Controlled bursts of speed, then forced stillness, because mastery was not only how quickly he could strike, but how completely he could stop. He practiced deflections against a remote, then shut the remote off and repeated the same movements against empty air, because the point was never the device. The point was the choice.
In the quiet spaces between sets, the Force moved like water through stone, present whether he reached for it or not. Some days it felt like reassurance. Today it felt like a steady pressure behind his ribs, less comfort than reminder. Lira had been gone for a few days already, safe on Ukatis with Tylo and Mera, and Aiden told himself he had no reason to keep counting those days like they were something he might lose.
Yet he found himself doing it anyway.
By late morning, the heat had risen enough to soften the edges of the breeze. Aiden deactivated the saber and stood in the center of the yard with his eyes closed, letting the last of the tremor drain out of his muscles. He centered his breathing, counted it down, and did not move until he could feel the difference between exhaustion and agitation. When he was certain the training would not follow him like a shadow, he headed inside.
The shower was quick, more ritual than indulgence, rinsing away sweat and the lingering metallic taste of focus. He changed into clean clothes that felt almost strange after the weight of his training gear, and for a moment he caught his reflection and looked at himself the way other people might. The lines of strain were there, faint at the corners of his eyes, the set of his mouth too practiced at calm. He looked like a man who could be trusted.
He hoped that was still true.
Alina was supposed to be by around lunchtime. The homestead settled into a midday hush, workers and droids moved amongst the homestead, the garden outside holding its breath beneath the sun. Aiden chose the bench tucked beneath the shade of flowering vines, the one that faced the water and the path leading up from the main approach. It was a place meant for peace, meant for conversation that did not need walls.
He sat down and rested his forearms on his thighs, hands loose, posture open. Waiting was not foreign to him. He had waited outside infirmaries, outside council chambers, outside doors that never opened again. This was different, he told himself.
Even so, as minutes passed, he kept glancing toward the curve of the path, feeling for the faintest shift in the air that would announce her presence before his eyes could. Lira was not here to fill the silence with questions and laughter. The gardens, usually softened by her voice, felt larger without it, every birdcall and ripple of water suddenly noticeable.
Alina and Aiden had much to talk about, and he could already feel the weight of it lining up in his thoughts, patient as stones at the bottom of a river. He let his gaze drift over the garden beds, the bright petals, the careful order of Naboo's cultivated beauty, and he steadied himself for whatever would arrive with her footsteps.
He waited on the bench in the gardens, alone but not unguarded, listening to the world and to the space in himself that had been. When Alina finally came, he intended to meet her as he always tried to meet the people he cared for.
