Private Masters Of Our Own Fates

[Vizion Trozky]

EMERALD HEIGHTS
GALLO MOUNTAINS ☛ NABOO

He accepted the glass, gold-flecked eyes continuing to be fixed on her as he took a much longer draw of wine from the vessel than she had from hers. As much to soothe his suddenly parched insides, as it was to loosen up the feeling of tension building throughout.

"It means..." her voice trailed off, heart giving a steady thump. "...that I want to be with someone who reminds me what it feels like not to hurt."

[ Be with? ] He was pulled in two directions - mind in one, body in the other. A wandering thought he was only a little distracted from when she continued.

"It means..."

And when she became closer still and put her hand atop his. He lowered the glass, and slowly set it aside without a glance, trying to decipher her answers.

"...I trust you not to break me more, and that right now...that's all I need."

His whole being begged for an assumption he didn't want to make. Either one. The furled hand turned, slipping under her palm, thumb over her fingers... the other lifted, reaching and curled, brushing against her cheek. It had to be too soon for her, and if that was true? His hand came to rest in a soft grasp of her chin, lifting pressure given by his curled fingers to keep her head where he wanted it. He didn't want her evading him any further. He could think of no other way to go about this.

"I... need you," he swallowed - his tone was direct, despite speaking softly, "to be very clear about what you're asking of me, Briana."

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The tension radiating off of him was a near tangible thing—the careful stillness, the restraint coiled in every muscle like he was holding back a storm. Her body went stock still as his coarse fingers wrapped beneath her chin, feeling some of that tension transfer into her through the action, letting him tilt her head and force her sharp blue eyes to focus on him — pinned beneath that familiar, burning gaze that made everything around them fade into nothing more than white noise, the tone and delivery of his words coaxing her to confront the decision she was making.

With anyone else, Briana would have undoubtedly pulled away by now, would have found some clever way to deflect and reclaim the upper hand. She was good at that — had been for years.

Except with him, never with him. Viz had always been the one exception.

Her fingers curled against his palm, holding him in return as her throat worked, the sound of her own breathing and the veritable drum of her own heart, magnified in her ears.

All she had to do was be honest. Such a simple thing, really. So then, why did the truth feel like stepping off the edge of a cliff? Briana caught her lower lip between her teeth, the slight sting centering her, giving her something to focus on beyond the chaos of her scattered thoughts and the growing intensity of his presence.

"I want you," finally came her reply, the words low, soft, and breathy as they carried across what narrow space remained. "Just you..." she added, careful in the way she framed it, not wanting to give the illusion that she was offering more than what she was capable of. "...in this moment." Her lips parted as if to say more, but closed again. Fear crept through her veins—fear of how he'd look at her once he truly understood what she was asking. Would drawing this line be what forced him away? Gathering the dredges of her courage, Briana pulled a breath into her lungs and forced the rest of her words out. "Without promises, without commitments — only tonight."

Vizion Trozky​

 

[Vizion Trozky]

EMERALD HEIGHTS
GALLO MOUNTAINS ☛ NABOO

Watching Briana nip hard on her lower lip was a transfixion that gave Vizion more than she perhaps realised or even intended. He wasn’t sure if it was just a thing she did, or if it was also indicative.

His eyes went to hers as she started to speak. By the time she was done unfurling her response, however, he wasn’t certain he’d ever get to find out… too soon, all things considered, but he wasn’t going to forget it; with other realisations coming to the fore on the heels of her response, that fleeting curiosity was set aside.

There was so much else to learn, first. He could do this, but it wasn't anything he'd expected. Not in his foresight. Perhaps now he'd know better.

He loosened his grip on her chin, the pad of his thumb tracing along that same lip and his eyes drawn to it, while he started to mull over what he’d say, how many times he had imagined this, and how little remained of those idealisations, in the face of reality. How much he had wanted this, only to get in his own damn way.

“So that’s what you need,” he uttered absently, quietly, almost an accusation while the hand at her chin and his gaze went to one of her bare shoulders, “incredible. That’s--” and the remaining hand let go of hers and went to the opposite shoulder, with the same gentle hold, as his eyes found hers again, “--in hindsight? Very clear.”

It wasn't clever - no, it was bratty; nothing he could rightly do about that, here.

“The dress, your behaviour,” he shook his head slowly, mildly amused, as much as perturbed and keyed up, thumbs rubbing softly, “your parlour, Miss Spider, and I am the fly.”

If not for the years of separation, would it have been more obvious to him? There was no way to know for sure. There was still a question that needed to be asked.

“Stims?”

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The line he traced along her lip with the rough pad of his thumb sent a prickle of warmth radiating down her spine, his hands ultimately finding purchase against her bare shoulders. It was electric. But, it was his words and the way that he delivered them, that truly caught her off guard, made her brows pull quizzically together and caused her to pause.

He seemed strangely, pleased? If not amused? Like he'd finally found the lost pieces to a complex puzzle. Then the little reference. Miss Spider. Briana supposed he wasn't wrong, entirely. She'd orchestrated this...hadn't she? However unconsciously those thoughts had initially been, unable to pinpoint exactly where the idea even started — not that it mattered, really. It was there all the same. As undeniable as the thin black dress hugging her frame and the feel of Vizion's branding touch drawing faint circles over her heating skin.

“Stims?”

Of course he would think to ask.

"Yes," she answered, no hesitation or shame in the admission. It was the responsible decision, one she'd made a long while before anything with Aiden, having given it the same careful consideration that applied to anything that could potentially affect her future and goals. Though, taking them these past few weeks felt...different — the routine turning into a constant reminder of possibilities lost and that elusive 'future' she'd once coveted, stolen. "Force of habit."

Reaching up, Briana laid the hand that'd been in his, against his uninjured cheek, stroking her thumb over the stubble. "But, you're hardly trapped here, Viz." Not quite catching on to the meaning of whatever conclusion he'd drawn, her chin lifting with that familiar touch of pride, of challenge, of provocation, even as the action caused her heart to strangely tick up a few beats. "You can still walk away." Shiraya help her, she hoped he didn't.

Leaning in those last few inches, until their noses were nearly touching and her lips hovered just above his, made it easy for Briana to catch the whiff of wine lingering on his breath, mingled with the scent of something else that was so uniquely him that she could have recognized it blindfolded.

"Although...I hope you make the choice to stay." She added, waiting in that silent space for several beats until she saw what she believed to be an answer reflected back at her from deep within those predatory eyes, placing her hand at the back of his neck and letting her full lips slant over his in a feather-light kiss, free of the desperation and neediness from earlier — just a gentle question, waiting for confirmation.

Stay or go?

Stay.

Warmth cushioned Briana from all sides. Soft, buttery sunlight, filtering in through the floor-to-ceiling windows and prodding gently at her closed eyelids. She'd been burrowed into the warmth of Vizion's side after being spent, not a night terror in sight, for the first time in weeks. The spill of her dark hair, disheveled and wild, was splayed over her bare shoulders and pillow, her breathing holding the sound of long-lost contentment... until the sun finally won out, and her blue eyes fluttered open.

The dream ended in an instant and reality crashed in with merciless clarity.

Briana's fingers curled into the sheets she was still wrapped in, her breath catching as the bleariness of sleep fell away and her mind fully registered her surroundings: the solid warmth of Vizion's body still pressed against her side, his breathing deep and even as made evident by the gentle cadence of his chest as it rose and fell, the tangle of their clothes strewn about the room in this place and that.

Without the haze of lust to keep her in a pleasant stupor, guilt had arrived to take its place. But, it wasn't the sharp, stabbing pang of despair she'd anticipated. Instead, it settled as a light mist around the edges of her earlier contentment without ever fully obscuring it.

That, somehow, made it worse.

She should be drowning in guilt, shouldn't she? Flooded by remorse for finding comfort in another man's arms so soon after... after everything. What was so fundamentally broken in her that rather than feeling guilty for taking to bed another lover, she instead found a visceral sense of peace? That instead, her traitorous body felt rested... felt truly present in her own skin for the first time in months, felt that deep, hollow ache in her chest give way to something warm and alive and real.

Traitor.

Traitor.

Traitor.

The accusation echoed in her mind as she extracted herself from the tangle of the once freshly pressed linen sheets, desperate not to disturb Vizion, but more desperate to put distance between herself and the magnetic pull urging her to curl back against him and forget everything else. She didn't want to think about what that meant, didn't want to think about what she'd done, about whatever this feeling was.

The floor was cool beneath her bare feet, and Briana wasted no time to abscond from the situation, from that room, from him.

Vizion Trozky
​

 

[Vizion Trozky]

EMERALD HEIGHTS
GALLO MOUNTAINS ☛ NABOO

"Yes, force of habit."

“That makes two of us.”

A plain, straightforward utterance. The stim shot was a regular fact of his life, which he also had no problem admitting to; Vizion had always been a responsible individual, and it kept him out of the kinds of trouble that were easily avoidable, or preventable.

"But, you're hardly trapped here, Viz.”

But there wasn’t much that could keep him from finishing what she had started; his head turned toward the touch from Briana’s hand, lips grazing the base of her thumb, before just as soon turning back to find her face again, when she continued to speak of what Vizion had no intention of doing… unless she wanted him to.

“You can still walk away."

She leaned in, coming close enough that her face took on a blur, to his eyes. Her breath was on him, and her scent was more evident than it had been before…

"Although...I hope you make the choice to stay."

His choice hung in the air, unspoken but stated nonetheless: his steady gaze, the way his head angled to hers said everything. When she brushed her lips against his, he leaned into it, pressed into the kiss softly in reply.

He would stay.

​

Stay.

Vizion was still soundly asleep when Briana untangled herself and whisked away; he was none the wiser, a victim of the time difference between Jakku and Naboo, and had been kept up late into the night, lying awake after her, her sleeping form curled against him while he was mired in his thoughts.

When the sunlight finally roused him a good while after Briana’s departure, his physical, then metaphysical senses slowly and painfully made him aware of her absence not just from this bed, but from anywhere nearby before he even dared to open his eyes, but it was the whys, the what ifs, the growing pit in his stomach that made him turn on his side and groan long into his arms.

Morning clarity brought him all the implications, now that he was no longer subsumed under the thrall of lust. He had given in because the alternative - giving the impression that he was rejecting her again - was not an option after events earlier in the evening, and by the time she insisted he had a way out, he was committed to the act.

Shouldn’t he have given her what she wanted? Should he have walked away? Was it something he did? Or had he been used?

No matter what, It was what she wanted and she gave no indication that anything had changed throughout, but going over last night in his mind brought no relevant answers to those questions in his thoughts, and only an unhelpful rousing from his body. At that, Viz rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, attempting to think of anything else.

There was a lot to think about.

​

A while later, after dragging himself from the bed, gathering his clothes, and making himself as presentable as he could manage (removing the bacta bandage from his now-healed cheek, among other things), Vizion picked his way to the temple and to his temporary quarters - he'd be securing a place in the capital before long - drawing as little notice as possible along the way.

After a shower, a fresh set of clothes, and taking in some food, his very next order of business was one he didn't want to leave waiting any longer than could be helped:

Tracking down Briana and clearing the air.

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

Outfit: XoXo | Equipment: Lightsaber, Echo Stone | Tag: Vizion Trozky ​

Heat flushed Briana’s cheeks and crept down along her neck in a prickle of warmth entirely unrelated to the lightsaber practice she'd immersed herself in for the past while. The cool, familiar weight of her saber rested firmly in her palm as she guided the cerulean blade through the air in a graceful, precise arc—a seamless extension of her body and will—scoring a line across the battered droid’s chest plate and sending it skittering backward.

No, despite the sweat beading lightly along her forehead, the shift in atmosphere had only one source — Vizion.

It’d been a surprise to feel that old electrical current between them thrum again, having regained a pulse somewhere between the stolen breaths of last night and the pale dawn of that morning. The closer he drew, the stronger it became, until it brushed right up against her periphery.

Knowing he was there — quietly, patiently waiting, was distraction enough to momentarily break the fluid rhythm she'd maintained all morning, the droids pike sliping passed her relentless onslaught and catching her in the shoulder, sending her and the thoughts and emotions she'd sought to organize and tame —the explanation she knew she owed him — spiraling back, boots sliding across the polished floor of the terrace as she fought to maintain her balance, pride stinging sharper than the blow itself as she reoriented herself.

She'd known he would come looking for her, just as she knew the expression he wore without ever needing to look — the tension that wound along his strong jaw, the intensity of those gold-flecked eyes when he became possessed with the determination to pursue something...or someone. There was no escaping Vizion Trozky, not unless he chose to let you go. Even fleeing to the Outter Rim wouldn’t be far enough. But, despite having slipped away like a thief in the night from the bed they’d shared, Briana had counted on that fact, anticipated it.

In truth, evading him wasn't what she wanted at all — unlike times before, she’d allowed herself to be in a place so easily found, and in that, it was almost as much an invitation for him to come.

Needing to bring this session to an end, Briana deliberately shifted her weight and adjusted her grip before surging forward, launching herself skyward and over the droids head, body twisting midair at the last second and bringing down a decisive, killing blow. Sparks erupted as the blade found its target, leaving the training droid humming and sputtering before crumpling to the ground and going entirely still.

Landing with a graceful 'thud', Briana lowered her blade to her side and reluctantly extinguished it, leaving the only audible sounds in the room to be the remnants of the droid’s dying mechanics and Briana’s measured breathing as she gathered herself, letting her gaze linger on the ground for half a beat before turning to fully face Vizion.

Seeing him after the night before, felt different now. The memories were still fresh, vivid; every line, muscle, and sinew of his six-foot frame intimately known to her in a way it hadn't been, adding an additional layer of vulnerability that wasn't present before. Her throat tightened as those eyes caught hers, pinning her in place like a brendoki flutterby to cork. “I suppose we should talk.” She said quietly after having finally found her voice again, the words carrying a touch of regret behind them.

​

 

[Vizion Trozky]

SHIRAYA'S SANCTUARY
NABOO

He’d been eying the sparking droid, a fleeting thought of how many droids she went through occurring to him when she finally turned his way and spoke, the motion pulling his eyes to follow.

She supposed?

Vizion sighed out his nose. He didn’t know what he’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. It wasn’t her stealing away first thing in the morning… as if he had any right to expect anything. As if she hadn’t set a simple boundary. Last night was last night, as if it was so easily separated from their history. Even with the sound of regret in her voice, he wasn’t sure what that regret was for. His mouth opened, as if he’d had words on the tip of his tongue, but just as quickly shut, when he thought better of it.

“Here?”

One word that said much: Out here in the open? Was this something she wanted people knowing? So soon after...? Was she that brazen, now? Having intimate knowledge of her curves and lines didn’t lessen his consideration. It was a tough balance to strike, having the memories so present in his thoughts, layering the image of her over the clothed woman before him. It made him shut his eyes, and turn away by half; arms and hands unfurled and came to rest on his hips.

“Do you have an office?”

He hadn’t seen every part of the temple, but her position here, he could infer that much.

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

Outfit: XoXo | Equipment: Lightsaber, Echo Stone | Tag: Vizion Trozky
​

That Vizion didn't reply right away, but just looked at her, breathing slowly as though he were composing himself and bracing to ask that yet unspoken why, managed to twist itself between her ribs.

"Here? He's asked, "Do you have an office?"

Briana's full lips pursed into a line, cerulean gaze flicking away with a slight, barely-there tilt of her chin.

"I do," Came her murmured reply, her tone quiet and somewhat restrained. "It's just down the hall."

The walk to her office was mercifully short, but still long enough for half-formed reasonings to tumble around in her head, collide, shatter, and re-form into nothing that was particularly useful. Briana's brows pulled together, choosing instead to concentrate on counting the steps to her office, on the mundane surroundings as they walked: polished, wayland marble tiles … the faint scent of oil from the maintenance droids that'd come through earlier that morning … sunlight striping the corridor like caution tape.

The click of her boots came to a pause at the end of the corridor, the metal door hissing open for them.

Briana stepped inside first, but didn't bother for a chair, instead bracing herself against the edge of her mahogany desk, fingers curling around the cool edge, as though she needed its strength for support.

The urge to fill the air with some preemptive apology once the door whooshed shut, or anything else that might work to slice through the tension she'd helped build between them, sat at the tip of her tongue, ready to roll off at any moment. But instead, Briana nipped down on that urge. The truth was, she didn't know what she wanted to say — or for him to say, for that matter. Only that she needed him to be the one to say it first.

She'd already been the one to set the rule—just last night, only that night, and nothing more. Yet when she'd woken up, warm, safe, and well rested for the first time in weeks... she wasn't sure what she wanted anymore. Wasn't sure if she was allowed to want anything, especially so soon. Especially when she doubted there was much of herself to even offer.

So, rather than fill that silence, she let it hang heavy, and waited for him to go first. Maybe then, she'd know what to feel or what to say...maybe.

 

[Vizion Trozky]

SHIRAYA'S SANCTUARY
NABOO

All Vizion gave was a short nod in response, moving to let Briana pass, then followed her the short distance down the hall to her office. He made a point to focus on the back of her head, or the passage beyond her, or anywhere but the sway of her form, right in front of him, for all the good that would do right now.

Because when Vizion followed her into her office, the door wooshed shut, and there she was, sitting herself against the edge of her desk, fingers curling around that edge? His arms slowly crossed and his head turned aside, a hand obscuring his mouth as he reeled himself back to why he went to the bother of tracking her down so quickly, rather than letting it fester.

“I’m not,” the hand slid from his mouth, still perching on his chin until he turned back to her, “questioning last night,” he prefaced, tucking that hand back into the crook of his elbow, “I’m sure it’s not something I did.”

He leveled a pointed look at her. They were both there.

“I don’t know what I was expecting, you made it clear enough not to expect anything--” he swallowed, “--whatever it was, this morning wasn’t it.” He sighed lightly, “I don’t know what to expect from you, there,” and his eyebrows lifted, “didn’t know what I was walking into, last night.”

A faint, awkward laugh at himself, fleeting; his mouth returned to a line. He’d assumed everything with her ex-fiancé was too fresh for her to even consider what ended up happening, and was… mistaken? It was the first, and perhaps only time between them, and how she behaved with things like this was the first of many things he might not know about her.

That was backwards, in his mind.

“I'm... not a one night kind of guy.” That wasn't to say it'd never happened before, but it was far from normal for him. "Not used to waking up alone after."

So there it was.

"But I don't regret that it happened."

Did she?

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

Briana let the moment stretch between them, let his words hang in the silence when he was finished speaking. Not because she didn't have anything to say, but because for the first time since they'd known each other, Briana feared her own voice. The wrong words could drive him away, potentially for good.

Through the years, there was no question that the man had suffered through her scorn, her temper, her distance... more than anyone else who'd been on the receiving end of her less than desirable qualities. And yet, he continually chose to come back, chose her again, despite what was probably better judgment. Despite giving him every reason not to.

But surely, even Viz had his limits? If she doubled down on her stance from the night before, fortified those walls she'd become so good at erecting in a moment's notice — would he weather it...her? Again? Could she risk chancing it, after everything else she'd lost and suffered? But how did she articulate that tangle of grief, longing, and guilt, when she couldn't quite parse it, herself?

Her crystalline gaze panned away, then flickered back to take in Vizion's visage in full, the honesty and openness in his posture, the question that lingered behind what was said, what he wanted to ask, but stopped short. A deep breath was pulled into her lungs, head canting quietly as her shoulders slumped. "I... didn't leave because I regret what happened, Viz. Not at all." Her palms released from the desk behind her, folding around herself in a protective embrace. "I left because... that's what I had to do. I meant what I said last night. I'm not ready to figure this out right now." Her eyes softened, "Not when I still can't tell where the ground under my feet is. Not when I'm not even certain there's anything in me worth giving."

Vizion Trozky
​

 

[Vizion Trozky]

SHIRAYA'S SANCTUARY
NABOO

His arms unfolded in the silence, a movement slowed by indecision over whether to say more, against his better judgement. Harder still when she looked away, but her gaze flicked back to him and his arms dropped the rest of the way. Thumbs hooked into trouser pockets and fingers curled in a light grasp of the fabric.

Vizion breathed out, small relief sinking into him from her echoed lack of regret; it did enough to settle some of those unaired questions, but as she went on to speak her reasoning for leaving him there, hours earlier, it became harder to know what to say that wouldn’t give her a mind to flee.

That soft look bloomed guilt in him. This was the honesty he insisted on… but what did she mean by ‘this’? Right now? He couldn’t dig. No.

“That’s not--” his head turned, one hand slipping over his face, then away, rehooking into place when he returned to her, “--I’m not asking. Anything.” He was looking for footholds himself. “Of you.”

She'd unceremoniously yanked him off the path he’d been setting for himself. Coming to terms with. Accepting as reality. What did he want? What did he want? Did he want? He sighed softly out his nose.

“I’m here because I was asked to by a friend,” he looked squarely at her, “if that means…” he drifted, swallowed, chin dipping, eyes searching the empty air; his head lifted and his gaze settled on her again, “...punching the lust ticket, scratching an itch, whatever you wanna call it, once or twice,” he shrugged, “I’ll take it. Rather have her in my life than not.”

He could untangle the mental gymnastics later.

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

Her brows furrowed and watched, sharp eyes analyzing every movement and nuanced expression he made. Had she rushed to a premature conclusion? Was she really that foolish and so out of touch with him now, that she'd fully misunderstood what he'd meant? Or was this just his way of sparing her? Saying what he thought she needed to hear and easing the truth so she wouldn't have to bear the weight of it just yet?

There should have been a sense of relief in his answer, a feeling of lightness and release from being unchained from any sense of expectation or responsibility; from trying to be anything more than what she was in that moment. Instead, there was a slow, gnawing sense of disbelief and beneath that, something sharper.

Disappointment? Maybe. But over what, exactly? She'd set the boundary, one that he seemed to be more than willing to honor without much resistance. Maybe that was the problem? How easily he'd accepted it all. Then again, she doubted being able to endure anything more honest from him. She pursed her lips together in quiet contemplation, her arms slowly unfolding, pressing further. "So, this," one hand lifted, gesturing in the empty space between them, "what happened. That is something that would be enough for you? That is enough for you?" A pointedly asked question, with a note of what sounded vaguely like a challenge carrying in her voice, though it could have just as easily been fear. If he wasn't being truthful, it was better to know now, than risk everything crashing down worse, later.

Vizion Trozky

​

 

[Vizion Trozky]

SHIRAYA'S SANCTUARY
NABOO

He wasn’t expecting to be pressed, just like he wasn’t doing to her. His mouth set into a line, unenthused with the thought of unraveling the knot of incomplete thoughts and recalibrations, sparked by the previous night’s events and the sheer clarity of being with her… a thing he wasn’t sure what to do with. If anything. He was certain that would freak her out.

“That’s not an answer I have for you, Briana,” he pushed back, hands unhooking from his pockets, “so it’ll have to be enough. Hell,” he gestured into the space between them, same as her, “until yesterday, far as I knew, you were engaged.” The hand dropped. “It was enough for me that you were happy, for Force sakes.”

Happy without him, and it’d taken a long time to get there. But he got there.

“Well, fuck me, if I found out otherwise, and didn’t see an opportunity!” His hands went out to his sides in a shrug. “You were grieving. Didn’t expect to be deliberately. seduced. Last time,” Vizion gestured to her, palm out the ceiling, and pocketed the other one, “you ran away!”

The hand fell to his side, and his brow creased. Perturbed at being needled, but managing.

“You’ll have to forgive me," mildly exasperated words, "for not knowing what to think!”

Briana Sal-Soren​

 

[Briana Sal-Soren]

The tone of his voice and the rawness of his charge over her actions from the night before, as confusion and frustration simmered and consequently boiled over, created a concoction that made it impossible for Briana to not flinch. It was barely a blink and half a shudder, but her body went rigid, and her hands went up to try and diffuse the match she'd unwittingly lit.

"I-I'm not trying to make any of this harder," she began, feeling her heart jump into her throat as she tried to find the right words. "You've asked me to be honest and that's what I'm giving you. I —" she closed her mouth, letting her breathing steady. "I don't want to hurt you, but you're not the only one who doesn't know what to think!" Her hands fell, fists curling at her sides, shoulders trembling.

"I mean, what did you want me to say, I'm sorry? Thank you? That you made me feel like a person again, and I woke up and panicked because I didn't know what the hell to do with that?" Her mouth snapped shut after the words came pouring out of her, jaw clenching hard enough to hurt. She shook her head and pushed fully away from the desk now.

Brows pressed together. "Maybe..." she began, spine going straight, shoulders back, as if she'd begun to retreat back behind that steel wall within her mind, her heart. "For right now, we put a pin in... this. Clearly, both of us need some time... or at least, I know that I do."

Vizion Trozky

​

 

[Vizion Trozky]

SHIRAYA'S SANCTUARY
NABOO

She gave back what he dished out. In honesty. Vizion set his back against the door, hands over his face with a groan.

What drove him to come here to the temple this morning? For this? Whatever foolish imaginings used to be in place for him were long dead and gone. Only reality was before him now, and she wasn’t running, wasn’t bitterly out to hurt him, and it didn’t hurt the same. No, this was a different hurt, and not one he could bring himself to put into words.

But it was a measure of why he’d thought it best to give up. Yet here he was, teetering, no longer sure of going through with that commitment. After one night.

Just one night with her.

He didn’t know what to do with that, but bank on the window of ‘for right now’. Wherever that did, or didn’t go, it’d have to be enough, for the thing that thrummed in him and made the demand. That damnable prophecy that riled his skepticism. He nodded behind his hands after a moment or two, let them slip from his face, and stood away from the door. His hands curled, the line of his mouth firming up with his jaw and a nasal inward breath, and loosening with a sigh.

He looked at her with an inscrutable gaze, and no plan.

“No, you’re right,” he nudged the door controls without look or contact, “we both do.”

The door opened, he turned heel, and started walking, slipping his hands into his pockets along the way, knowing he had to get the heck out of this temple, and soon.

Briana Sal-Soren​