Private Influence That Runs Deep

[Efret Farr]

"Much has changed," Efret commented to Casimir as they wondered through a neighborhood of wooden houses and storefronts. Visually, the Near-Surface Quarter of Deep Well appeared the exact same as Efret remembered it. She and Cora had explored very little of it on foot, but they had seen much of its expanse from above when they had entered the main cavern, rappelling down one of the ventilation wells.

Efret's features contorted in confusion rather than sorrow, a subtle distinction but one almost certainly not lost on the Echani. Due to both of the Sith's backgrounds in different and similar kinds of kinetic communication, they were beginning to understand one another on a subverbal level. Consequently, he didn't have to speak much to communicate with her. She did, however, still have to rely on her vocoder to relay her more complex thoughts auditorily.

"These people used to be friendly."

Though her visit here with Cora had been years ago, when Fondor had been tucked away safely in the cloud of Galactic Alliance territory and Efret had likewise been insulated by the waning Light, she still remembered the Luddite woman who had invited them into her house after they had happened to land in her garden. The quaint kitchen, the bread soup, the gaggle of children who may or may not have all been birthed by her.

But no children ran laughing and playing in the streets now. No adult passerby or shopkeeper tending a stall smiled, neither at each other nor the overworlders. The latter had once been welcomed by this culture of underground dwellers, even revered. Efret had read about the custom before experiencing it. Anyone brave enough to enter Deep Well from the surface was a a reminder of their estranged sun god Osdes-Zalir just as the daylight that was brought from the surface down into this cavern and the one below by a system of mirrors. To reject such reminders was not only disrespectful, it was deadly.

"Now they're terrified."

She could feel it. She could see it.

". . .I fear a groundquake is coming, one that will not move the earth but will move its people."

The words of the sufi that she and Cora had met that day came back to her as she and Cas walked on. At the time, she had thought the metaphorical groundquake to be the GA's mounting hostile policies against non-Sith Dark siders. Though the Deep Wellers themselves hadn't embodied any Dark side values or had any Dark side traditions, the history of their city was rooted in fear—a Dark side emotion, most Jedi would agree. And there was of course the optics of a civilization quite literally hiding from the light. Over the course of Fondor's pre-GA history, many of the ecumenopolitans had fought to protect the desert above Deep Well from development. In time, both the desert and the city had been designated heritage sites.

Efret had been concerned as a Jedi that that could have changed as quickly as overnight if the GA gave into its own fear of cultures they didn't understand—especially the ones begotten of the Dark, or so associated.

But now? The Master Sufi's concerns might have been much further-reaching than Efret or Cora could have predicted. He might have been speaking of an aboveground power transition, from GA to Sith Covenant control.

And though the former had respected the traditional autonomy of Deep Well's Satrap Dyad, Efret had a hard time believing that every Sith in the Covenant would be so respectful. Some well might, while others would likely leave the city alone simply out of not seeing any value here, but certainly at least one knight or lord—or even a particularly ambitious acolyte—would have been drawn to these caverns. The pacifist Deep Wellers likely wouldn't have put up much or any resistance, making their city an easy target for a Sith claiming space on the Covenant's patchwork of internal power.

"Go in peace. Try not to come back, but do if you must."

When Nazar the sufi had told her that on the Jedi's departure from his home, she hadn't paid much mind to the last part of his statement. In fact, his ward had held, even did still, and in such she hadn't had reason to return to Deep Well before now. A general sense of malaise in the Force had instead pulled her back. Efret was still as much a bleeding heart a Sith as she was when a Jedi, though the reasons she bleed had changed like the ambience around her. The abbreviated personal history she had with this place drove her to care now, rather than her sense of shared sentience with Deep Well's citizenry.

Selfish, not selfless anymore.

She tugged the hood of her dark robes further over her head, but not such to obscure her face from Casimir.

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr​

Efret.

Casimir had rolled the name across his tongue more times than he cared to admit since she first gave it to him. Their reunion had been nearly as chaotic as their initial meeting upon the mountain, though this time neither had chosen to walk away afterward. Somewhere between the Nethergate, the demon, and the grief they had exposed to one another, a line had been crossed whether either of them intended it no longer mattered.

The realization that he needed her had been repeated often enough that it no longer felt foreign. Efret possessed knowledge and experience beyond anyone he had encountered regarding the Netherworld. She understood pathways, portals, and connections that remained mysteries to him. If Kaelis existed somewhere beyond the veil separating life from death, then Efret represented the best chance he had of finding her.

That was the explanation he continued to give himself, and the lie became easier to believe each time he repeated it.

The Deep Well stretched around them in impossible directions. Ancient pathways and structures carved into the stone disappeared into depths that seemed to have no end. Pale lights flickered from distant settlements far below while bridges and walkways connected portions of the cavern in ways that challenged perspective. Entire communities existed beneath them, built within a place so old that it felt detached from the rest of the galaxy. The scale of it was difficult to comprehend. Looking too long into the depths almost created the illusion that one was staring into a night sky rather than the interior of a world.

The Deep Well had its own aroma. Damp stone, distant water, cooking fires, and the lingering scent of countless lives woven together over generations drifted through the cavern.

None of it mattered.

Saffron and Clove.

It had become impossible to ignore. The scent overpowered everything else the Well offered no matter how ancient, strange, or overwhelming the environment around them became. It lingered in memory long after it should have faded and followed him into moments where she was nowhere nearby. Casimir suspected that if he ever lost her, he would spend years catching traces of it in crowded streets and distant worlds only to discover she was not there. The thought disturbed him because it revealed how deeply the raven haired woman had embedded herself into his life.

The Echani understood obsession. His entire life had become an exercise in pursuing something lost. He knew what it meant to devote himself completely to a single purpose. What unsettled him was the ease with which concern for Efret had rooted itself beside the search for Kaelis. The mountain had already proven what he was willing to do to preserve her.

Even now, as she explained the changes she sensed throughout the Well, Casimir found himself watching her more closely than the environment around them. He watched the way her head tilted slightly while listening to things he could not hear. There were subtle shifts in expression that crossed her face when she sensed something through the Force, and the confidence she carried despite the limitations imposed by her blindness.

“Hmmm.”

He knew Efret could not hear the grunt, but she would be able to read it well enough. They were learning to communicate. Her heritage gave her an advantage, as did his. She still used her device to translate what Casimir could not read yet, but despite this, they were developing their own language.

Casimir had spent his entire life reading people through movement. Every muscle carried meaning. Every action revealed intention. Most individuals spent their lives speaking without ever realizing how much they communicated before words entered the equation, and there was no reason to hide any of it from her now.

The people inhabiting the Deep Well unsettled him for reasons he struggled to articulate. Fear lingered beneath everything. He could feel it in the Force whenever they passed through settlements or crossed paths with wandering groups. Their fear differed from his own, but it remained tangible enough to taste.

Fear made sense to him in a way many other emotions did not. It could be studied, fed upon, and transformed into strength.

There were moments when Casimir experienced something that others might mistake for happiness. Walking beside Efret through the strange beauty of the Well created one of those moments, though it did not last long. The sensation faded when he looked toward the inhabitants of this place and saw the concern reflected in her expression. She cared about them, and that remained difficult for him to understand.

Efret had explained their culture more than once.

Pacifists.

The concept felt alien to him. An Echani learned combat before they learned philosophy. Conflict was language. Battle was communication stripped down to its most honest form. The idea of abandoning violence entirely made as much sense to him as abandoning speech.

“I still do not understand.”

The words were unnecessary because his hands moved and his posture shifted enough to make the confusion obvious.

“They make sound and speak, but they do not say much.”

The observation lingered between them as they continued walking.

She was here for reasons that mattered deeply to her. Casimir understood that much. Whatever answers she sought within the Deep Well carried emotional weight he had not yet fully uncovered. His reasons remained far simpler. Efret was here, and for Casimir that was enough.

The fear surrounding the Well would strengthen him if he chose to draw upon it, yet the people themselves lingered in his thoughts for reasons unrelated to power. They haunted him because Efret cared whether they suffered, which forced him to pay attention whether he wanted to or not.

A gust of damp air rolled through the cavern as Efret pulled her hood over her head. The shadows concealed most of her features, though not entirely. Casimir found himself unexpectedly grateful for that because he could still see enough. The slightest lift of her brow or faint tightening around her eyes often told him more than sign language ever could, and if she needed him, sensed danger, or wanted him to follow, all she had to do was look.

 

[Efret Farr]

"Most verbal languages aren't as efficient as kinetic ones," Efret explained. The irony of them relying on her vocoder for about half of their communication was not lost on her. It was a necessity for now, but hopefully would not always be. "Words can only be voiced in one direction. Words can be signed in many directions at once. A web can transmit more information than a single linear string."

She didn't sign for the time that it took them to pass a block of wooden and stone houses.

"There was an olive grove I visited with a Jedi friend." She paused, intaking damp air through her nostrils which rose her shoulders. "A long time ago.

"A sufi lived there," she continued. In her repeated explanations of the Luddites' culture, that word had come up many a time: spiritual healers Force sensitive in some ways not strong enough to be trained at Jedi or Sith. "His name is Nazar. I want to ask him what happened here."

Efret put a hand on Cas' forearm before stopping, encouraging him to as well. She closed her eyes, a movement that was not physically necessary but helped her to focus anyway. Her Force Sight flickered away, leaving her able to feel out for a specific pattern of life signatures: trees gathered together in spaced out rows. When she found it, she opened her eyes, switched back to Force Sight, and let go of Casimir, just to loop her arm through his and begin leading him towards what she had felt.

Soon enough, they were on the outskirts of a grove, but the trees here weren't planted in the ground. Instead, each olive tree grew out of large clay pots of soil placed on the levelled stone ground. Most were seven or so meters tall, their canopies overlapping to cast most of the path in shadow, though not darkness. The green of their fine, lance-like leaves were so sage as to give the impression at a distance of silver while the green of the plump olives scattered among them was so warm that they appeared golden.

What she had once seen as a beautiful interplay of color was nothing but ominous now.

Efret knocked on the door when they finally came to a small house.

A dark-skinned man in light-colored robes draped with beads opened the door. "It is you," was the first thing he said, much more an observation than a greeting. Surprise was not overt on his face, though it was clear for both of the Sith to see.

His gaze swept vertically over her quickly, then to Casimir's face. His own betrayed confusion, and the same fear they had seen held in every body they had passed by since rappelling into Deep Well. "Is this—?"

"No." Efret imagined he was about to ask if Casimir was Malva'ikh, known to her as Angry-braid. Their pale skin and white hair were the extent of the the likeness between them. Still, those had been the Dark Side Elite's two most striking visual features. He was someone Efret had yet to tell Cas about. Even now on the Dark side, she didn't want to dwell on the Evereni's memory. All she allowed herself to think about him was to hope that he was dead, a feeling that had been locked away from her when she was still served the Light.

"But you are Jedi no longer." It was a statement, but also a guess.

"Correct."

Another. "Nor are they anymore on the surface."

"Not for a couple of years," Efret answered.

"Why are you here?" The sufi's brow knit as he finally asked a proper question.

She couldn't help but answer with two of her own, though the first was somewhat rhetorical. "You don't know?" The first and last time she had visited him, his gifts in premonition had been clear to her. Was the future obscured to him now? "What's happened here?"

Suddenly, Nazar turned away from them and retreated into his house, a nonverbal signal that they should follow. Looking quickly to Casimir and relaxing her facial muscles to communicate her trust of the sufi, Efret followed behind. She stepped both into the single-room cottage and into the past at once. Nothing here had changed, not physically, not energetically. Though the city outside swirled with uncertainty, dread, and the threat of violence, Nazar's abode was somehow a respite from that reality. It wasn't Light, nor did it impart false hope, but it was quiet.

Nazar turned back to them. Shaking his head, he insisted, "Answer me first. Why are you here?"

Efret glanced over her shoulder to ensure that Casimir had closed the door. If he hadn't, she did with a Force Push. "Loyalty, I suppose," she returned as she looked back at the sufi. In truth, the answer was budding territorialism; Efret realized that but didn't name it with her handshapes. Nazar might not accept her help if he suspected that her motives were not exactly as pure as they would have once been. Still, the Covenant's internal power struggle was far from her mind for now. She was simply listening to a protective instinct.

Perhaps to help a place that had played both a small and large part in her journey, even though she only knew a handful of its people and even though her journey ended up leading her to the Dark instead of back to the Light.

Perhaps to have it just to be able to say that she possessed something that had once showed her kindness and its own kind of love, because she had lost too many people who she had cared for.

Nazar nodded, seemingly accepting of that answer. Tension melted out of all of his muscles at once. "A knight of the overworld Covenant came here some months ago. We welcomed him with open arms, accepting him for as long as he wished to stay. He has only once left, and his excursion was brief. He deposed our satraps and now rules from their palace."

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr​

Her explanation was not needed, but it was something Casimir did not disagree with. Efret stated the one thing he had known since childhood. Words were too flat. They failed to carry intention, emotion, and meaning with the same precision as movement. Too many verbal creatures hid their motives behind carefully chosen language. That was why Casimir trusted what he saw far more than what he heard. There was no hiding from someone willing to pay attention.

Silence suited him during the introduction. The reunion Efret was having seemed important, and Casimir could only imagine how he would react if someone interrupted a similar moment with Kaelis. This place mattered to her. Nazar mattered to her. That alone was enough reason to give the exchange the space it deserved.

The small cottage felt strangely detached from the tension hanging over the rest of the Deep Well. Warm light spilled from simple lanterns positioned throughout the room. Shelves lined the stone walls, crowded with clay jars, bundles of drying herbs, and objects whose purpose Casimir could not immediately identify. The scent of olive wood and incense lingered beneath the smell of old stone while distant sounds from the settlement beyond the door seemed muted, as though the dwelling existed slightly apart from the world outside.

Attention remained fixed on the older man as the conversation unfolded. Nazar studied Efret with the familiarity of someone comparing memory against reality. Whatever conclusion he reached appeared to unsettle him, and that immediately drew Casimir's interest.

Then came the question.

No.

The answer arrived quickly, but it revealed enough.

Corrupted eyes shifted toward Efret. Whatever name Nazar nearly spoke carried history she had never shared. A slight tightening around her eyes appeared and vanished almost immediately. Most people would have missed it.

Casimir did not.

Interest settled quietly into his thoughts. Efret remained a mystery in many ways. Her abilities were familiar. Her grief was familiar. The determination driving her forward was familiar. Yet entire portions of her life remained hidden behind half-spoken names and reactions she could not completely conceal.

Part of him wanted to know why.

The realization was uncomfortable.

When Nazar identified her as something other than Jedi, attention drifted back toward the exchange. There was no denial and no attempt to argue. The observation was accepted and left behind as though it required no defense.

Loss changed people.

That much Casimir understood.

The conversation turned toward loyalty, and the word lingered in his thoughts longer than expected. Nazar appeared satisfied with the answer. Casimir was not entirely convinced. Loyalty might have brought her here. Duty was another possibility. Responsibility fit just as well. Whatever reason sat at the center of it all, there was likely something deeper beneath the surface.

The possibility felt familiar.

For weeks Casimir had convinced himself that practical necessity explained everything. Efret knew more about the Netherworld than anyone else he had encountered, and she represented the best chance of finding Kaelis. Her knowledge mattered. Her experience mattered. Every time the justification surfaced, it became easier to accept because it was not entirely false.

The problem was that it was no longer the whole truth.

The Deep Well had not drawn him into its depths. Its people had not captured his interest, nor had the mysteries hidden beneath the world. Those were simply the circumstances surrounding the decision. The reason itself had been walking beside him for days.

Efret.

The realization lingered in the back of his mind while Nazar continued speaking. Mention of a Covenant Knight, the removal of the Satraps, and the seizure of power gradually pulled his attention back toward the conversation. As the old man spoke, pieces that had felt disconnected since their arrival slowly settled into place. The fear woven through the Deep Well was no longer some vague unease hanging over the settlements and pathways. It had a source.

Casimir's gaze drifted briefly toward the shuttered window beside the door. Beyond it, the Deep Well continued downward into impossible depths. Entire communities lived beneath the shadow Nazar described, and every fearful glance, every cautious conversation, and every anxious presence sensed since their arrival suddenly carried context.

The Echani turned his attention back to the older man.

"You call him a Knight."

The observation was calm, though curiosity threaded through it.

"So what is he?"

Nazar had described a conqueror. Someone powerful enough to depose rulers and bend an entire region to his will. Yet he had not called the man Sith. He had not called him Jedi. The distinction interested Casimir far more than the politics.

Pale eyes settled on the sufi.

"If he is responsible for what has happened here, and if he is the source of the fear infecting this place, then tell me plainly."

His gaze flickered briefly toward Efret before returning to Nazar.

"Do you want him removed?"

 

[Efret Farr]

"His name is Jafan Sio," Nazar replied. "He looks like us. Beyond that, I do not know who he is." Casimir's second question caused the sufi to nod. "Yes. Removal would be quite a relief."

"What exactly is happening here?" Efret asked. "To you, I mean. The last time I was here, you seemed to have the gift of premonition, but we surprised you today."

Nazar's mouth formed into a protruding pout. "I did. I still feel it..." He rose his hand, shaking a finger at the side of his head. "...it inside, but it is always just out of reach." Then he pointed to the ceiling with the same finger. "Like the sun for all of us down here."

The Luddites, like many cultures, didn't conceptualize the Force in the same way the Jedi or other Light siders did, let alone call it by the same name: either that or Ashla. Instead, they gave it another name, or many different ones, or even none at all. Deep Well's traditional spirituality fell into the latter camp. The few gods they did have were personifications of natural objects—such as the sun—not the esoteric aspect of the Force that could be molded to the will of an individual being. But a river still raged without a name. The waters channeled into the sufi regardless.

Or had. It seemed like something had impeded Nazar's awareness since this Jafan Sio seized control.

Dampen Force came to mind. Pressing her lips together pensively, Efret nodded. "The palace is in the lower cavern, correct?" she asked, though she was fairly sure she remembered the answer.

It was. Once they were set on their way, the two Sith took back to the streets.

Though the underground city was remarkably well-lit by its mirror system during the day, illumination throughout the cavern was uneven and imperfect. Sconces and oil lamps stood in locations that reflected daylight neglected partly or entirely. So, it might have just been how a flame was catching across her irises when she looked over at him, but her hazel eyes seemed to hold just a hint more of yellow that they hadn't just a few moments before. Threads of golds had always been woven into her eyes, subtle but present color radiating out from her pupils across a green backdrop. But now they seemed to be slowly spreading like a hungry mold over a fruit's rind, and also dulling in their brilliance. If grief lived in her eyes, it lived there.

And it had invited vengeance inside.

"This place is important to me," she mused as they passed by a shuddered bakery stall. "That man is important to me." She pointed behind them in the direction they came at nothing but the spatial concept of Nazar.

"They remind me of who I was," she continued. "They remind me of who Elias was."

Returning here had been like descending back into time. As she traced the temporal transitions not through the exposed layers of limestone as they let themselves down through a ventilation shaft, but through the folds of her memory, she felt she was recalling a whole geologic era rather than a few years. Even as a Jedi, the Darkness Malva'ikh had introduced to her had begun to warp her loss when it was nothing but raw reaction, then denial, then anticipation, and finally certainty. It patently stretched the void Elias left in her heart until it had consumed her in all of her inflections: who she had been, who she was, who she could be.

Down here, she could pretend she heard with her heart the laughter they had shared on Jakku and Bogano echoing through the cavernous corridors—that she caught glimpses in empty spaces of longing looks they exchanged nearly each time they were in the same room from Coruscant to Naboo. She could imagine that the man Elias was before he had stepped into the Netherworld still wondered as freely as he once had.

She could fool herself that she was still the woman she was before stepping foot on Jedha even as violent intention took root in her chest.

Her lips curled with disgust. Such would be palpable to nearly anyone not versed in the finer points of body language. But to him, who was, her expression was to emotion as over-seasoning was to food: unnecessary bordering on unpleasant. "I refuse to let another Sith have Deep Well, or Nazar."

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr​

Casimir listened as Efret spoke while the streets of Deep Well carried them onward.

The city seemed different now that Nazar had given shape to the fear hanging over it. What had once felt like an unease drifting through the Force revealed itself in a hundred small details. Merchants glanced toward intersections before speaking. Conversations died when strangers passed nearby. Even the movement of the crowds felt measured, as though an invisible weight rested across the shoulders of everyone living beneath the cavern's mirrored sunlight.

The city gradually faded into the background as Casimir's attention settled on Efret. The change in her expression was obvious, but it was the grief beneath it and the mention of Elias that held his attention. The name lingered in his thoughts while they continued through the streets of Deep Well.
He had never met the man. Never heard his voice. Never witnessed whatever life the two of them had shared before loss hollowed it out. None of that mattered. The longer Efret spoke, the more familiar the shape of it became. Every memory she described seemed to orbit the same absence.

For nearly twenty years every path had led back to Kaelis. Every lead. Every rumor. Every world. The galaxy continued moving forward while part of him remained trapped in the moment she disappeared. Time had never lessened the wound. It had merely taught him how to carry it. Listening to Efret felt like staring into a reflection distorted by different circumstances.

A low hum rumbled in his chest.

"Hmmm."

The sound carried no judgment. It carried understanding.

When she spoke of Deep Well and Nazar, Casimir did not hear politics. He heard the same refusal that had driven him across half the galaxy. Too much had already been taken. Whatever remained would not be surrendered willingly.

The thought settled heavily in his chest as they continued through the city. Lanterns burned beneath archways carved into ancient stone. Reflected sunlight spilled from the mirror network above and painted portions of the streets in warm gold while others remained trapped beneath shadow.

Life continued around them despite the fear woven through the settlement. Merchants still opened their stalls. Citizens still crossed the bridges spanning the cavern. Children still found places to play. The city endured in the same way every place endured after loss, because the living always moved forward regardless of who had been left behind.

His gaze drifted briefly toward Efret.

"I understand."

Whether she understood exactly what he meant mattered less than the fact he meant it.
Silence settled comfortably between them as they walked.

Nazar's explanation lingered in the back of his mind. The old man could still feel his gift but could no longer reach it. That detail bothered Casimir more than he cared to admit. Powerful Force users did not simply appear from nowhere. They left marks on the worlds they touched. Followers. Enemies. Graves. Histories.

Jafan Sio had left enough of an impression to place an entire city beneath fear, and that alone made him worth finding. A sound escaped him once more before pale eyes lifted toward the lower reaches of the city.

"Let's find him."

 

[Efret Farr]

A wordless nod was her only response. Only with him does she feel so comfortable not speaking; only with him did the galaxy which normally expects her to by using small a piece of technology to be her voice feel distant and powerless—not just for her but for them both.

Though Efret walked at his side, she led him through the neighborhood's torch-lit streets and dark alleyways. They eventually came to a canal and continue to follow it northwest.

A few minutes on, her vocoder broke the silence as she signed:

"I appreciate your help. Not just here. On the campus. On the mountain."

An amorphous emotion both warm and cold gripped her chest.

"Thank you."

She recognized it, though the feeling itself is twisted somewhat from the form it last visited her in. Its longing and love—or, more accurately limerence and transference this time around, but the general effect it commands over her is the same.

She didn't tell Elias; she felt she couldn't of faults of her own until each and every opportunity to do so had passed her by.

Her history, her personal failure, wouldn't repeat with Casimir. Even if he felt differently, she would tell him. She didn't know how she would react should the draw not be mutual, but he'd know her heart either way by the end of the day.

Not here, though, along the made-made bank of an underground river. Somewhere dramatic and fantastical. The halls of the dyad's palace would do very well, if they were half as grand as she imagined them to be.

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr​

The silence between them never felt empty.

Casimir had long ago learned that words often concealed more than they revealed. People lied with them. They softened truths, hid intentions, and built walls behind carefully chosen phrases. Movement rarely afforded the same luxury. A glance held too long, the rhythm of someone's breathing, or the simple decision to walk beside another carried an honesty speech rarely possessed.

Walking beside Efret required none of it.

She guided him through the neighborhood's torch-lit streets without hesitation, leading him through narrow alleys where warm light spilled across ancient stone before disappearing into shadow once more. Eventually the streets opened beside an underground canal whose dark waters drifted quietly beneath weathered bridges. Casimir followed without question. Whether he knew where they were going had ceased to matter. She had chosen the path, and he found he trusted her enough not to ask where it ended.

When her vocoder finally broke the silence, Casimir listened.

The mountain.

The campus.

Here.

She had gathered those moments together in a way he never had.

His eyes drifted toward the water as each memory returned. Standing between her and the devil atop the mountain had never felt like a decision. Crossing Humbarine after feeling her pain through the bond had not been one either. Reinforcing the barrier above the university while the heavens threatened to collapse had simply become the only acceptable outcome.

Then she thanked him.

The words lingered between them longer than the silence ever had.

Casimir slowed slightly before reaching for the hand nearest him. His fingers closed gently around hers as he turned her palm upward. Rather than spell out a reply, his thumb rested against the center of her hand, tracing a slow circle before folding her fingers closed beneath his own and giving them a gentle squeeze.

They had begun speaking this way somewhere along the journey. There had never been a conversation about it, no conscious agreement, only quiet moments where touch had begun replacing words until the gestures themselves carried meaning. He hoped she understood this one.

“I would do it again.”

He believed it without hesitation.

That certainty should have been easy to explain.

Efret knew more about the Netherworld than anyone he had encountered. She represented the best chance he had of finding Kaelis, and protecting her protected that chance. The reasoning was practical. Sensible. It had served him well since the day they met.

Yet it no longer answered every question.

No practical calculation had compelled him to take her pain onto himself. No strategy had driven him across Humbarine the instant the bond carried her suffering to him. No search for Kaelis required matching pendants or quiet walks where silence itself had become something he looked forward to.

Even now, if the mountain stood before him again, if another devil emerged from the gate, or if another barrier threatened to break beneath her hands, he already knew what he would choose.

The realization settled heavily beneath his ribs.

Casimir refused to follow it any further.

Some thoughts were better left unfinished.

His hand remained loosely wrapped around hers as they continued beside the canal. Torchlight shimmered across the slow-moving water, scattering broken reflections against the cavern walls while the city carried on somewhere beyond the quiet.

A familiar hum escaped him.

"Hmmm."

It was neither agreement nor dismissal. It was simply enough.

For once, words were unnecessary.

 

[Efret Farr]

At this point in galactic history, it was rare for any celestial body hosting sentient life to not also have been touched by complex language, be it verbal or kinetic or olfactory or exclusively written, uniquely developed or brough by way of colonization.

Thus, the conception of a language rather than the natural evolution of its grammar and vocabulary was a very rare event for an anthropologist to observe.

But to actively participate in the creation of a form of communication that allowed two people to express themselves in new ways aligned to their needs and preferences? It was the most deeply intimate thing she had ever done, and that someone had done for her.

"I would do it again."

She understood his gesture perfectly, it's meaning tingling through her as a general feeling as he squeezed his fingers over hers curled against her palm.

If she didn't love him now, she would never feel that for anyone in the galaxy.

As they walked on, she unfurled her fingers until she could wrap them around the side of his hand, holding it back gently.

Eventually, they drew towards the end of the canal, and the entire road, where the ground of the cave yawed into a sudden drop-off. The channelized water flowed on, cascading down towards the large main cavern of the city below. Other rivers joined it on its half-kilometer-long fall, spilling out of canals terminating at other points along the gaping, semi-circular opening in the Near-surface Quarter, which separated the west section from the east.

Each waterfall deposited into a moat around a large structure made of white marble and brass before flowing off into radial canals, bound for neighborhoods and stone-age industrial districts that are hidden away under a deep cavern ceiling. The palace is a glorious house, traditionally for the two satraps, their harems, and their uncontested power over Deep Well. But now? Efret wondered if they had been made to vacate the premises.

"There," she said, pointing down at the palace as if it wasn't their obvious destination. "Come."

She led them to the other side of the canal over another small bridge and to a spiral staircase carved into a column of stone. Without another word, she ducked in, her hand reluctantly sliding from his to start the long journey further into Fondor's depths.

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr​

The pressure of her fingers against his remained long after the gesture itself had ended.

She had understood without hesitation or confusion, requiring no explanation because a single motion of his hand had carried the meaning as clearly as spoken words ever could. When she answered by tightening her own fingers around his, Casimir found himself watching their joined hands for a moment longer than he intended.

They had never spoken about this change between them, yet somewhere between the mountain, Humbarine, and Deep Well they had begun leaving words behind. A squeeze had become reassurance, a traced circle across her palm had become resolve, and silence no longer demanded to be filled because they understood one another well enough that it rarely needed to be.

He could not remember when it had begun.

Only that it had.

The realization settled quietly in his thoughts as he watched their hands move together with an ease that no longer felt unfamiliar.

It was a bond.

Not the kind forged through ritual or blood, nor one imposed by the Force itself, but something quieter that had formed the way rivers carved stone. Neither of them had noticed it while it was happening, yet one day the landscape had simply become different.

Casimir had only ever known that kind of understanding with Kaelis.

For years every private corner of his life had belonged to the memory of his sister. The silences, the unspoken understanding, and the certainty that another person could know what he meant before he ever spoke had become sacred things after she vanished. He had guarded them with almost religious devotion because allowing someone else into those spaces had felt uncomfortably close to replacing her, something he refused to do.

Yet Efret had never tried to take Kaelis' place.

She had simply found one beside it.

The distinction mattered more than Casimir cared to admit.

His gaze lifted as the canal emptied over the edge of the cavern, where countless waterfalls plunged into the immense city below. White marble and polished brass rose from the center of the basin as the palace caught the warm glow of lanterns reflected across the water. Radial canals carried the rivers away through districts hidden beneath the vast ceiling of stone, creating a city unlike any he had ever seen.

"There."

His eyes followed the direction of her hand before returning to her.

"Come."

She crossed the bridge first, leading him toward the spiral staircase carved into the supporting column. Casimir followed without question because trusting her had become so natural that he scarcely recognized it as trust anymore.

Only when her hand slipped from his did he realize how accustomed he had become to its presence.

The warmth disappeared gradually as her fingers slid free, leaving his own hand half open before it slowly closed into a loose fist. Months earlier he would not have noticed the absence, yet now it lingered in his awareness with a persistence he found difficult to explain. It was not pain, nor even disappointment. Rather, it felt as though something expected had quietly gone missing, leaving behind an absence that had no business existing after so brief a touch.

His eyes settled on his empty hand for only a moment before they returned to Efret as she descended the staircase ahead of him.

The realization followed almost immediately.

Whatever had formed between them had survived the mountain, endured Humbarine, and remained long after the danger had passed. It revealed itself as naturally during quiet walks as it had in battle, refusing to disappear once the immediate need for it had ended, that was not circumstance.

And it was not anchored in convenience.

It had become something enduring, something that no longer depended upon Kaelis, the Netherworld, or even the dangers that first brought them together.

Casimir had not yet found a name for it beyond the one that felt safest.

Bound.

For now, that was enough.

Without another word, he followed Efret deeper into the heart of Deep Well.