Private Imperfect Silence

[Shade]

Night came differently to Bastion.

The upper city glittered with disciplined order, crisp light flooding the spires and walkways. But the lower gardens—the older stone terraces tucked beneath the Academy's angular expansions—kept their shadows intact. The air was cool, faintly metallic, tinged with the distant hum of the planetary shield. It was a place where sound settled quickly, where movement mattered, where silence had weight.

Shade stood in the center of the courtyard, hands clasped loosely behind her back, posture a study in stillness. The moonlight caught only the faintest gleam along her braid, the silver thread woven through it like a line of cold fire. She had been here for several minutes already, listening, mapping the perimeter, letting Bastion's nocturnal rhythm fold around her.

Aknoby was late. Not truly late—he was still within the window she had allowed. But lateness was not measured by minutes or schedules. It was measured by how efficiently one used the darkness.

Tonight's purpose was simple. Refinement.

She had observed his ability during a prior mission: the raw instinct for disappearance, the innate desire to slip out of sight, a natural affinity for the unseen. But instinct was only the beginning. True vanishing required discipline, control, and the ability to choose when to be noticed and when to become nothing at all.

Shade shifted her weight a fraction, her eyes narrowing as she caught a tremor of movement in the garden beyond the archway. Not sound—movement. A subtle disturbance in the airflow. A footstep that tried to disappear into the stone. Better. Not perfect.

She did not turn toward him. Not yet. Instead, her voice cut through the quiet with the steady calm that defined her. "If I can already sense you, Aknoby… the enemy will too." Only then did she lift her gaze, crimson eyes glinting in the half-light. Not disapproval. Not mockery. Assessment.

She let a breath settle between them before continuing, tone low and precise. "You have the beginnings of a talent most assassins would kill to possess. But talent without discipline becomes a liability." Her head inclined slightly—an invitation and a challenge at once.

"Tonight, you will learn to disappear properly. Not by hiding. Not by hoping to be overlooked. But by deciding exactly when the world forgets you exist." Shade stepped back into the deeper shadow of the courtyard, her silhouette thinning, dissolving, becoming part of the stone as effortlessly as breath. Her voice followed, calm and razor-sharp. "Begin when ready."

Aknoby

 

[Aknoby]

He would be late, not because he had problems with having so many studies and training sessions, Laphisto, Zinayn, Rellik, they all supported him in studying and training more. The problem is that Laphisto and Rellik are a little possessive with the time they can take from someone, and that disrupted the schedule. Thankfully, Shade gave him extra time, knowing that he is in Bastion training with the Brotherhood.

And of course, that didn't help him to be quiet. The euphoria of not wanting to be late made him grit his teeth when his footsteps on the stones were louder than he wanted.

Hearing Shade calmed him down, but she, like everyone else, talks as if he has no discipline. It seems that enjoying what he learns is a lack of discipline, but isn't that a way to maintain interest? Shade was just stating facts, not judging him.

Seeing her disappear into the shadows until the red glow of Chiss's eyes disappeared, he smiled. He moved now without worrying about the time, slipping into the shadows. He was quieter, not completely silent, but he made less noise, his breathing more controlled. He could go unnoticed by most sentries and guards, and he also disappeared using the Force.

He walked carefully this time, not only so as not to be noticed, but also looking for Shade. She seemed like someone who, despite her serious expression, would enjoy catching the young man off guard.

Shade

 

[Shade]

Aknoby's footsteps carried through the courtyard long before his silhouette came into view, the subtle echo of hurried movement bouncing off the stone pillars of Bastion's training grounds. At first, his steps were too loud, too quick, driven by the breathless urgency of someone afraid of disappointing a teacher he respected. But as he crossed deeper into the courtyard, Shade heard the shift—his stride lengthened, his breathing evened, and the soft scrape of his boots against stone grew lighter, more intentional. The tension began to fall away from him like water, replaced by something steadier. Discipline layered slowly atop excitement.

Shade watched it all unfold without ever revealing herself.

She had not gone far when she vanished from sight. In truth, she rarely needed distance—just angle, darkness, and stillness. She remained pressed into the recess between two tall stone pillars, a narrow seam where lantern light failed to cling, and shadows thickened naturally. She stood there motionless, her presence pulled inward until even the air around her seemed to quiet itself. She observed him from that fold of darkness, measuring the refinement in his movements, the way he used the Force to soften his presence, the way he searched for her with more intent than panic.

Better. Not perfect. But better.

She let him move past her hiding place, watched the line of his focus pull forward, watched his shoulders lower into something approaching readiness rather than frantic determination. Only when he had fully committed his attention elsewhere—only when he truly believed she might be ahead of him rather than behind—did she move.

No whisper of fabric. No shift of breath. No stir of air.

One heartbeat, she was part of the shadow; the next, she stepped from it like a blade sliding cleanly from its sheath, appearing just behind his shoulder with silent, predatory ease.

"Improved."

The word left her calmly, close enough that her breath nearly brushed the back of his neck, yet steady and unhurried, as if she were noting the weather rather than assessing his technique. It was not praise, not coddling, simply an observation delivered with the precision she expected from him.

She circled him then—not aggressively, not theatrically, but with the controlled fluidity of someone who allowed the environment to shape her path. Her presence first moved as a shift in the air around him, a faint disturbance in his awareness, and then her form reappeared before him, slipping into view as seamlessly as she had left it.

"But improvement is not mastery."

Her crimson eyes lifted to meet his, steady and unblinking, carrying a clarity that made lesser students falter under its weight. She studied him in silence for a moment, noting the tension that still lingered in his jaw, the faint residual urgency in his stance, the traces of excitement that threatened the edges of his discipline.

"You rush. You announce yourself. Your control fractures the moment your emotions shift."

Shade stepped toward him with the quiet certainty of someone who had spent her entire life distilling chaos into stillness. She stopped close enough that he could sense the disciplined pull of her presence, the cold steadiness that defined her.

"That is why you were late."

There was no judgment in her tone—only fact, spoken with the same precision she applied to every blade she handled and every mission she accepted.

Her gaze softened only slightly, the faintest shift of attention tracing the minor improvements he had made, the intent beneath his steps, the earnestness in the way he searched for her now.

"And that is why you will learn."

She offered no further explanation. Shade took a slow step backward, letting the shadows swallow her frame one line at a time. First her hands, then the outline of her shoulders, then the faint glint of her braid. The last thing visible—two dim sparks of red, steady, unblinking—hovered for a breath longer before fading.

Aknoby

Just before she disappeared entirely, her voice drifted from the darkness again, low and steady, carrying the weight of a challenge and the promise of progress threaded together:

"Now—find me without rushing. Let the quiet guide you."

And then she was gone, leaving only silence and the subtle imprint of her presence for him to follow.

 

[Aknoby]

He silences his mind and body, using the Force to make himself harder to perceive and practically disappearing from the Force's perception. He walks slowly and deliberately, taking care not to be seen and not to see.

He stays in the garden but at the edges, sometimes entering the middle, not only maintaining silence but also trying to confuse Shade with his route while searching for her. At the same time, he also looks for any place she might be hiding, having become accustomed to snipers after the first war he participated in.

Shade

 

[Shade]

Shade did not move.

She did not need to.

From her position—elevated just enough to give her overlapping sightlines without exposing silhouette—she tracked him by absence rather than presence. The garden's rhythms told her everything his concealment could not fully erase: the minute hesitation before each step, the places where the Force grew thin instead of quiet, the subtle tension that lingered in the wake of a trained mind trying too hard not to be noticed.

He had done well. Better than most.

But disappearing was not the same as being unseen.

She watched him trace the perimeter first, careful, deliberate, denying himself the comfort of the apparent path. Then the shift—crossing the open space, doubling back, changing vectors with the intent of confusing an observer. Misdirection, not evasion. Thoughtful. Experienced.

Still predictable.

Not in pattern—but in priority.

Shade adjusted her weight silently, boots never scraping stone, never disturbing the shallow layer of debris she had already memorized. She did not follow him directly. She repositioned ahead of him, selecting a vantage he would eventually be forced to consider, whether consciously or not.

When she spoke, her voice came from his left—close enough to be unmistakable, far enough that reaction would betray more than stillness ever could.

"You are hiding from the Force."

A pause. Measured.

"Not from me."

She shifted just enough that he would sense movement without seeing it, letting the garden reclaim her outline almost immediately.

"Your silence is disciplined," she continued, tone even, uncritical. "Your route selection is intelligent. And your instinct to deny the pattern is correct."

Another pause—long enough to let the assessment settle.

"But you are still searching."

She moved again, not circling him, not flanking—reframing. The sound of her presence never announced itself; it simply existed somewhere else now.

"A sniper does not look for targets," she said quietly. "They decide where the target must eventually be."

From somewhere higher, somewhere wrong:

"You are treating the environment as terrain."
"I am treating it as a constraint."

Silence returned.

Not hers.

His.

She waited—still unseen, still unmoving—allowing him the space to adjust, to reconsider, to feel the difference between concealment and inevitability.

Only then did she add, softer, not unkind:

"Again."

Aknoby