Private Life As We Know It

[Kyra Perl]

6 Months Later
Thirdas Heavenshield

An excited trill hit her stomach as she looked at the clock. 6:08. He was late, but she knew-- she had seen it in her dreams. He was almost here.


Her boots hit the metal planks of her ship in lithe strides. It was a no where planet in the middle of the outer rim, but it had a receiving station and it had pizza. The coordinates she sent him would prove true. She darted past bodies and ducked under a luggage crate carried between two. She may have forsaken training rooms, but she had never stopped moving and using her body. She found the strength made her feel good. Capable. Strong.

She careened into his frame, the small woman hitting like a rock as she wrapped her arms around his broad chest.

"Jawline," she breathed, squeezing tighter. The connection they had forged those years they spent tending to her wayward sister was unmistakable. She had regrets for how she handled her return, but she saw now there had been no way around that painful year. Sometimes destruction is the only way to grow.

She had learned that at her first destination, when helping a small tribe redirect a forest fire around their village. She was devastated to see how much of the land had been turned black by the flames, but they were happy? They told her the heat and the ashes would give life to new seeds, buried unseen in the soot. At first she thought they were crazy, but when she left, the first green sprouts had emerged from the carnage.

She thought of those green sprouts at this moment, when she realized with abrupt clarity that she was happy, truly happy, to see him.

She pulled back and grinned, looking a little abashed for it.

"I thought you got lost or somethin'," she lied.

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

​

Kyra's sudden appearance and subsequent hug was enough to make him drop his bag to the floor, chuckling as she pounced him. He was still feeling a bit sore from Sev Tok, but he would weather it for her sake. Wouldn't be the first time.

What was a first time was her genuine joy at seeing him. The poor girl hadn't been the same in the aftermath of their rescue of Nida in Sith space.

"Pinky," he exclaimed while wrapping his arms around her lithe form a bit tighter than he'd intended, as if afraid she would go away again.

"I always seem to find you, systir minn," he beamed a smile down at her, metal hand on her shoulder as they parted from their embrace.

"You look well." Anything was an improvement compared to their last meeting six months ago.

Picking his bag back up and tossing it over his shoulder, he scanned his surroundings briefly.

"One would think you would've had enough of living on starships after what we went through," he half-jested. There was still the concern whether Kyra would ever return home, or remain secluded from everyone and everything she knew. A self-imposed exile, if you will. He respected her privacy too much to flat-out ask, however.

Kyra Perl ​

 

[Kyra Perl]

"Yeah, well. I've gotten better at flying," she chirped, ignoring the twinge of concern she felt in his chest. Every day her empathy grew a little stronger and a little more refined. She was beginning to appreciate her decision not to cut her own connection to the force. It was an influence Ryv would never know he had on her, but that pill he had caught her with had been the last one she had considered taking.

Turning oneself force dead was no small decision. Life might have been easier without the emotions of others battering against her, but she was beginning to appreciate what it meant to have the choice.

She didn't always have to let it control her.

She let out a heavy breath and took Thirdas's bag of his shoulders, happy to carry it the last of the way. ...Even if it was half her weight, geezum!

"Did you bring them?" Wookie cookies, affectionately known as Wooookies. Glimpses of home out here were few and rare between. It made her wonder how Yula could stand to live so long out here.

"I got pizza waiting. No promises the cheese doesn't taste like rubber, it was the best I could find." She paused at her ship's hatch, letting them in.

"Actually, it was the only I could find. Hope I didn't make you come too far out. I prepared your old room for you. Changed the sheets, tho.... they were gross." She let his bag clunk onto the couch, the familiar living area ripe with the smell of fabricated sauce and cheese.

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

Thirdas felt content to just stand and watch Kyra eagerly haul off with his bag, recognising that same happy-go-lucky innocence that once annoyed the hell out of him. Now? Witnessing that same bounce in her step and listening to her yap on about trivial things brought nothing but a big smile on his face. After all she'd gone through, she deserved to act her age again.

"I'm sure the pizza's fine," he allayed her fears, following her aboard the Sting Ray. Their home away from home.

It was the company that mattered.

"Heyheyhey," he stopped her before she could blather on about something else.

"When baby sis calls, big brother will answer. Everytime. Alright? Simple as that." There was genuine care in the look he gave her.

A small meow caught his attention, and bouncing up to him from across the room was a familiar feline.

"Poppy!"

Thirdas knelt down just as the cat reached him, purring happily as it received long-overdue pets.

"Aw, I've missed you too, sweetie. I see you've looked after mommy like I told you."

Plucking the feline off the floor to rest upon his arm nuzzled against his chest, with his free hand he unzipped the bag on the couch and reached inside to pull out a pack of so-called Wooookies, as requested.

"Ta-da!"

Kyra Perl ​

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra grinned and snatched up the bag.

"I knew you were good for something," she teased, tossing herself cross-legged on the sofa. Some additions had been made on the ship to make it more livable. An actual couch, for one, replaced the once clinical insides of the sitting room. Coren had once designed this to be a transport ship to get Kyra where she needed to be, but now that that destination had been turned into one large question mark...

She even had an old school pin-ball machine bolted to the floor.

She forwent the pizza and tore into the woookie bag with her teeth.

"You like it in here? Dad made some adjustments. He's also growing me back a new arm. Like. Flesh. So I can finally be rid of this cursed thing," she prattled, flexing the aforementioned cybernetic. Its origins were never a pretty thing to remember, for her or her family. Some might say she had finally been able to make the best of a bad situration, but there was a sense of relief to be found by putting her body back the way it should be.

Even if it was creepy witch doctor stuff.

She blurted the reveal and moved right on, anxious to have it out of the way and off her mind.

"I got you half cheese n half anchovy. I thought it might taste like home. Your home, with the fishers and stuff." She poked open the box, a half eaten cookie in hand as she tilted her head at what was inside.

"At least, I think it's anchovy. How do you say anchovy in squib..."

Thirdas Heavenshield

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

"Yeah, I do. Looks more homely and less... blood and tears," he remarked, still seeing the hardship the two had shared written on the walls.

As Kyra then threw herself on the couch with her bag of cookies, Thirdas assumed position atop the other end, sitting on the armrest. Watching her rip into the bag with her teeth should have elicited a snide comment about her being childish, but given that it was Kyra he knew better than most just how much she'd grown in such a short span of time. She deserved to be allowed to act her age again.

Rambling on as she was want to do, she next spoke of the process of regrowing her arm in order to rid herself of her cybernetic prosthesis. His inital reaction was stunned silence tinged with a bit of disappointment. Their shared experience of having had to replace a limb or two had been a point of common identity when little else bonded them together. He looked down at his own metal arm, into the palm of his hand. Within the span of a few seconds the thought of asking whether the same could be done for him came and went.

He'd had the implants longer than her. Nida Perl had done so much to help him adjust to them. Their being part of him no longer meant he was broken.

And so his initial disappointment turned into a genuine smile, for he was glad she was given this opportunity to return to form. "It never suited you anyway," he teased. "I'm happy for you."

"Anchovy and cheese is fine," he spoke on the subject of pizza, chuckling to himself that she would go to such lengths of reminding him of home. A subject he knew to be dear to her as well, given all that's been going on.

He didn't have the heart to tell her he wasn't the biggest of fan of fish. Growing up constantly surrounded by the stuff kind of makes you want to try new things.

"Kyra," he made the attempt to take control of the conversation for the first time since coming aboard.

"There's something important I wanted to tell you. Something I hoped to get your opinion on, before we get too settled."

He'd come to respect her too much not to seek her approval.

Kyra Perl ​

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra made pointed effort to not acknowledge the disappointment. She had seen it a mile away. She never got how he could be so ok with being broken. She had been so upset over it she had fallen into a depressive spiral. She just couldn't be like him. She just couldn't make it a positive thing. It was another notch on the belt of reasons she had stepped down.

Yanno maybe she just wasn't cut out for stuff. She was trying to accept that.

She swallowed hard, the rest of the cookie passing like sand down her throat. His excitement for her earned a tight, distant smile, some of her momentum lost.

"Well that doesn't sound serious," she joked weakly, her finger meticulously rolling up the bag.

"Is everyone ok? Mom? ....Dad?" Stupid sister 1 and 2.

Thirdas Heavenshield

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

"What? No, no, everyone's fine," he was quick to allay her fears. Not that he made it a habit to keep in touch with the Perl family save for Nida, but as far as he knew the others were fine.

"No, it's not about that. I just thought you should know, before you learn it from someone else..."

Okay, here goes.

"C'mon, scoot over."

Sliding off the armrest to sit beside her on the couch, there was some awkward fidgeting of his fingers as he tried to find the right words to start off with.

"You were right about me, you know. I am an idiot, and a fool. I thought that, after we got Nida back from the Sith, everything go somehow go back to how things used to be. She and I would move back in together like nothing ever happened, and we'd just resume our lives from where we left off. Didn't quite turn out that way."

He leaned back and reached into his pocket, grasping the square object.

"Anyway. You probably know she'll be out in another month. And when she's out, I'm not gonna let one moment we have together go to waste."

Thirdas pulled the small container out of his pocket and set it down on the coffee table. Black, covered in velvet.

"I'm gonna ask her to marry me, Kyra. I know it's a sensitive topic for you, which is why I'm... I am asking for your blessing."

Only now, after having uttered the words, did he dare turn to look at her.

Kyra Perl ​

 

[Kyra Perl]

"So anyway, your pizza's getting cold," she uttered, her voice quick and tight as she opened up the box and grabbed herself a smelly slice.

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

Slowly he leaned forward, trying to put himself within her peripheral as the couch creaked with every inch of movement.

That's it?










"Oh no," came a deadpan statement. "Not teh pizza."

 

[Kyra Perl]

The silence stretched in, his stare like led as she tried... to ignore... but not even plastic pizza could distract from the unspoken hanging in the air.

She squirmed, swallowing back the mouthful. "I mean don't know what you want me to say," she finally grumbled, wiping at her mouth. The tension seem to build, thick enough for even an oaf like him to feel.

"She's just so not worth you!" She exploded, the tension shattering. "She stabbed you, and -- she's been in jail! The Grandmaster's son-- a solider, marrying a ex-con? You can do better. No. Bad idea. You don't even know her. You don't even know what she's capable of anymore. You can't marry that. I don't approve," she snuffed, erratic as her thoughts came out of her in jumbled bits.

Here he was asking her permission to marry her sister, but he found himself in a very peculiar twist.

It wasn't Nida she was defending. It was him.

She shoved the whole slice in her mouth to end it then and there. Cause he wasn't getting what he sought from her!

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

He was at a loss for words.

Nida had been her everything. The person she cared about the most, who she tried to protect against all. Even her annoying boyfriend. And now here she was, calling her sister all sorts of things that honestly felt uncalled for.

Thirdas reached over and slammed the lid of the pizza box closed.

"I can't believe you. How can you talk about her like that?"

He sat up straight and turned his body facing her, then lifted up his shirt to expose his abdomen where the knife had pierced him.

"I know what she did, and more importantly, she knows what she did. That's why she insisted on the whole trial, and that's why she's in prison right now. She literally gave up her freedom when she could so easily have just cut and run from the Order. That tells me more than anything, regardless of how painful our separation has been, that she's still the Nida I know. She's the bravest person I know."

With his foot pressed to the edge of the table he gave it a push so that he had room to get up and take a couple steps away from her.

"You're right about one thing, though. I am a soldier. I might get killed during my next deployment for all I know. Is it really so hard for you to understand that I need to take what little happiness I can before my luck decides to run out? The chance of me and Nida growing old together becomes slimmer with each passing day, with each passing war and with every new enemy popping up."

He reached out, summoning the small velvet-clad box into the palm of his hand, studying it for a moment.

"And if I do not seize this moment and marry the woman I love, I may as well be dead already..."

Kyra Perl ​

 

[Kyra Perl]

She regretted that bite instantly.

She had so much to say, she choked.

Out came the crust and questionable topping, dusty and greasy all at once. She needed a drink, but she didn't care in that moment. She held her half chewed mess in her hands and she snapped at him right back!

"You don't know her. You don't. None of us do. None of us understand what the hell goes on inside her head-- you think some time in jail has changed that? She's a sleeper agent, Thirdas. She's a traitor, whether she likes it or not all she has to do is-"

She gestured to her head, shoving her mess onto the table. Popsicles jumped forward, eager for the smell.

"And she snaps. Again. She shouldn't even be let out. And you-- you shouldn't even be going near her. Have you even done your mental exercises? How do you know that your feelings from her isn't just another trap? Huh?" She challenged, jamming at his shoulder to make him look away from that stupid

cursed

box.

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

His gaze lifted from the box in his hand to meet that of Kyra's, staring her down with a grim look on his face.

"Yes. I have."

The words were not spoken aloud, but would rather be projected inside her mind. For someone so untrained in the ways of the Force, intruding upon another person's mind was a taxing and he could only muster a few words at a time. His features softened as he exited her mind shortly after.

"I've followed your instructions to the letter, Kyra. Exactly like you told me."

His hand came up to caress her pinkish cheek.

"I know you only want the best for me, systir minn. But she deserves a second chance, and I'm going to give it to her. You should too. The world is bleak enough without us turning away our own family. I would not want to live in such a world; would you?"

His hand on her cheek came around to gently grab the back of her neck, pulling her in for a hug.

"I love you, Kyra. You're my sister, and my dearest friend. And Nida, she'll always be your sister, no matter what you think or say. I know that when the time comes, she will want to see you. And I think you need to see her too, to put your fears to rest. Believe in her, as I believe in you."

Kyra Perl ​

 

[Kyra Perl]

"Second chance and marriage are very different things," Kyra grumbled into his shoulder, her cheek pressed there.

She hated how it made her muscles go all jelly. His hug. There were very few things in this galaxy that actually felt safe , but somehow this doofus with glass for jawbones made the tightness in her chest release just a little bit.

Her eyes flashed, memories of her screams, metal floors, and the mental anguish that had been Myrkr came flooding back.

Kyra jerked out of his arms.

"It's not so simple, doof face ," she grumbled, straightening herself out. "It's not Nida that I'm worried about. I know Nida. What we don't know is what's inside of her. Yeah, sure, I found the answers, but we never got solutions." She fussed with the table, picking up Popsicles and shoving her spat food into a napkin to be messily tied up.

"Jail time doesn't erase what they hatched inside of her. And cute little mind tricks won't protect you." She rubbed her hands on her pants, her expression growing serious and creased as she looked up at him.

"I get you love her. I love her too. But love doesn't make things go back to normal, and you can't make it that way by putting that ring on her finger." Her lips grew taunt, lines of concern growing deeper.

She dived into him then, searching his feelings... his intentions... whispers of the future caught with them.


Her shoulders collapsed in a sudden rush, a sense of tired defeat taking over her. "But that's not going to stop you." It wasn't a question. She keeled over, elbows in her knees as her hands rubbed at her face.

Turns out running doesn't solve all problems, and here was a big one.

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

At first sign Kyra wanted out, Thirdas released her from his embrace. He watched as she tidied up around the table, realising just how much her behaviour was owed to her being worried about him. She was worried about him. The guy who had made it his duty to keep the youngest Perl safe throughout the pursuit of her sister and his lover. The veteran of a dozen hard-fought battles. She was worried about him.

As Kyra collapsed back into the couch, Thirdas' own shoulders slumped and he sat down next to her, mimicking her look of defeat.

He'd expected emotions to run high at the prospect of him marrying her sister, but not out of concern for his well-being. It was such a stunning revelation that she would feel this strongly about his personal safety, that he could not help get misty-eyed.

"Damn, kid... When did you go and become so very responsible?"

Thirdas reached over to put his arm around her shoulders, squeezing her softly.

"I'm sorry. I've ruined our night, haven't I? Guess I am a just big doofus."

Only now did he reopen the pizza box to sample a slice for himself.

"...It ain't that bad."

Kyra Perl ​

 

[Kyra Perl]

"You are," she asserted, flopping back with him.

That stupid box sat at the table, staring them both down.

"...It ain't that bad."

She laughed, some of the tension leaving her chest as she looked over to him. "I don't think that's fish." And she wasn't gonna cast any guesses to figure out otherwise! It was all kinda comical, she guessed.

She shrugged at his apology. It was gonna come up eventually. She knew he was just excited. She could feel it. She couldn't fault him for that. HIs decrease in energy stung, the room starting to feel a little more stale. She wondered if maybe she had been ... too harsh.

She wrapped her arms around herself, her voice growing a little tighter as she looked away.

"You know I want you to be part of the family. Why do you think you're here and not Yula." She rolled her eyes at the thought of her older sister, their love always a mixed bag.

"I just think, if you're gonna marry a sith sleeper agent ... you should be prepared. Have you thought about... more training...? Yanno, to protect you both ."

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

"Nope," he confirmed. "That is decidedly not fish." Still chewed it all down nonetheless. A good soldier knows not to waste perfectly edible food. That being said, he wasn't too keen on trying another slice.

Then came the admission that Kyra really did think of him as family, in her own unceremonious way, taking a stab at her eldest sister while she was at it. Like she tried to be as abrasive a person as... zeltronly possible? He knew to see through such behaviours by now, having weathered the worst of it himself in the early days of their knowing of one another.

Thirdas took her by the hand and held it fondly.

"Very well, Kyra. You win. Instruct me what I must do, if it will ease your mind. But it must be you, I won't go study under some crusty old Jedi Master. They cannot earn my respect as you have."

Sitting back to put up his feet, he made sure to stuff the small box back into his pocket so it wouldn't stare her in the face. Doubt she'd wanna see the ring anyway.

"I'm proud of you, kid."

Kyra Perl ​

 

[Kyra Perl]

Kyra snorted. "Yeah they are pretty crusty, huh?"

Her chest uncoiled as the box left her sight. A little voice inside her head told her she had been cruel , but it didn't matter. Some people just needed to be told off to smarten up and not be stabbed by a sith sleeper agent they married while they prepared dinner.

Or so she told herself.

Crushed feelings were better than dead friends.

She shot him a look, then swallowed and forced a smile.

"You know I'm not a jedi anymore right?" She squeezed his hand regardless and scanned the room. You didn't need a saber and philosophy training to deal with the force. You didn't even need to learn how to fight. The force was just as much about preserving as it was killing. Kyra might have her problems with the latter, but that didn't mean she couldn't teach him how to protect himself.

Yanno. As much as a drop out was able.

"Alright, well first off... Think fast." The balled up napkin yanked towards him, flying fast enough that only a warning from the force would be able to save him from the gooey mess inside.

 

[Thirdas Heavenshield]

"Doesn't make you any less of who you are," he replied regarding her no longer counting herself among the Jedi.

Suddenly there came a napkin flying containing her pizza leftovers. Not something you'd wanna get hit in the face with.

Thirdas had always had unnaturally quick reflexes, even as a boy. He'd always figured it was a trait passed down from his mother, as she far exceeded his father in that regard. Lately however, as his own ability in the Force was no longer dormant, he could not deny the possibility of it having a hand in his cheating of death so many times.

In the blink of an eye the look on his face changed from easy-going to focused, staring down the flying napkin as if time stood still. He could not have anticipated that it would take flight, so there was no attempt made to steer it off-course with his own mind. Rather, as it sailed towards he shifted his body to the side, allowing it to brush past his metallic shoulder.

As time caught up with him, the napkin splashed against the wall, sticking to it thanks to the gooey mess it contained. Thirdas turned back to Kyra with an innocent look on his face.

"I ain't cleaning that up."

Kyra Perl ​