Private Kintsugi

[Corazona von Ascania]

The angle of the setting sun threw a single bar of golden light over ancient stone tiles.

Memories of Thyferra resurfaced in hazy snippets. The feeling of being hollowed-out as the Force vanished continued to stay with Cora. Now, she felt hollow for a different reason.

How much fighting had she done - Woostri, Coruscant, Arkania, and so many more - with very little to show for it? Sure, her true use seemed to come in the footnotes with the organization of refugee camps and the hours upon hours spent triaging civilians and combatants alike, tallying the cost of war in grim arithmetic.

There was pride in that sort of work. It was necessary. It wasn't as lofty as a battlefield victory, but Cora wasn't chasing notoriety or glory or even acknowledgement.

She only wanted to prevent tragedy before it could happen.

Maybe she had, in some small way that she would never notice because how could you measure a tragedy that didn't happen? This flavor of thought kept her awake at night. The High Republic staggered. Her family was a mess.

Luciana smiled wide enough for her mother to see the two tiny, white teeth that had recently erupted from her gums. Makko held their now-standing daughter in place as Cora held her hands out. Her voice was soft, sweet, coaxing.

The hollow void had filled in an instant, overflowing with sunlight the moment she'd returned home. The Republic had taken a nasty blow, but it still stood strong. Her family might've been complicated, but every breath she now took was for Makko and her daughter.

Luciana took a wobbling step. One tiny foot padded atop the bar of warm sunlight. She paused, hesitating at the strength in her own little legs before she looked up at her smiling mother.

A second step sent her shakily over the stone tile, where she collapsed into Cora's waiting arms.

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

Makko kept his hands at Luciana’s sides until the last possible moment. His fingers spread against the warm little back that had spent months pressed to his chest at three in the morning.

She was heavier than she had been. The two new teeth made her grin look faintly wicked. He was certain she found ti funny to make them nervous by wobbling on her little legs.

He let her go when Cora’s hands opened. The first step was bold. The second was less a step than a falling negotiation with gravity. Makko stayed crouched behind her anyway, ready and absurdly proud as she tipped forward into Cora’s arms.

Something in his chest loosened. There has been a persistent knot since Thyferra, since the bond had torn open with Cora’s panic and a hospital’s harsh light while he stood in a poisoned basement on another world.

Cora still carried the war in the set of her shoulders. He knew that look. He had worn it himself.

"There she is," he said. He reached out and brushed a dark curl from Luciana’s brow, then let his hand rest on Cora’s knee.

"You think I'd be the playful dad doing stunts that make you gasp, but I'm always following her around in fear as she falls over and laughs at me."

Makko shuffled back again and held up his hands.

"Again," he murmured to their daughter, already smiling. "Go on. Show your mum what you can do."

"Bab!" Lucy declared. He was fairly certain she understood what he wanted, but instead she started playing with her mother's hair.

Corazona von Ascania

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

​

"Look at you!"

Cora cooed, unable to keep an achingly wide grin from splitting her face.

She'd been perilously close to bleeding out, aboard a freighter of bacta, no less - water, water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink. Makko, too, had to contend with the danger of noxious gassed and undead techno-horrors.

Lucy was blessedly ignorant of what her parents suffered. Her little fingers pinched a lock of blonde hair, sliding it back and forth before twirling it experimentally around her longest digit. To a child, every moment was the most important moment.

"Go see dada," she murmured, pointing towards Makko, only a few small toddler-steps away. Guilt kept her from pushing any harder than a gentle suggestion, and so she lowered her lips to kiss Luciana on the forehead, letting the babe play in blonde strands for a few moments longer.

Did she know how many times she'd almost lost one, or both of her parents? Cora had contemplated this as nauseum as she lay awake first in a hospital bed, then in her own, wracked with guilt.

Lips still pressed to Lucy's forehead, her eyes flicked up to Makko with a startling sharpness. They couldn't keep doing this.

Much of that hard look faded a moment later when the enchantment of the golden curtain fell away, and Lucy, guided by her mother's steady hands, turned about in a flurry of tiny steps.

"Go on now," Cora encouraged, planting another kiss at the nape of her neck. "You can do it."

She watched, hands extended, as Lucy toddled into her father's arms. Shaky, but fearless as ever.

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

MAKKO

Corazona von Ascania

Makko caught Luciana as she came, both hands ready the instant her balance wavered. She hit his chest, a warm, wriggling weight. He gathered her in and pressed a kiss to the dark crown of her head. He didn't have long hair at the moment so she grabbed at the front of his tunic.

"You came to dada," Makko said.

"Bah!" she went.

"Dad?" he asked hopefully.

"Bah," she confirmed.

"One day," Makko mused.

He looked up. He had seen the look on Cora's face. He knew what sat behind it. They could not keep doing this. He held their daughter a little closer and met Cora’s eyes over the small shoulder between them.

"I know," he said. No argument.

He shifted Luciana against his hip so she could see her mother again, one palm spread across her back as she kicked and crowed at the triumph of crossing the tiles.

He reached for Cora with his free hand, fingers finding hers, grounding the three of them in the same square of evening light.

“We can talk after she goes to bed,” he said.