Private Measured Violence

[Shade]

The first light of morning cut through the high windows, burning gold across the training mats and catching on steel. Shade's movements flowed through the quiet, deliberate, measured, each stretch of muscle drawn tight and released with controlled precision, like everything she did. Sweat shimmered along her skin like molten glass beneath the growing heat, her breath the only rhythm in the stillness.

Her knives rested in a perfect line beside the mat. Untouched, but never far. The hiss of the door broke the silence. She didn't turn.


"Didn't think your kind got this far without help," a voice called. Young. Arrogant. The kind that mistook volume for strength.


Shade stilled mid-motion. Her tone, when it came, was low, even. "You should walk away, Cadet."


But Cadet Merin didn't. His boots scuffed across the floor, steps heavy with something that wasn't confidence but wanted to be.


"You think you belong here? In our ranks?"

She turned, slow and unhurried. Her eyes level. "Last warning."


He moved before she finished. The first punch came wild — she caught it, redirected, a simple motion that used his momentum against him. The second blow came sharper; she ducked, pivoted, and drove her palm into his ribs. Air left him in a strangled sound, but the fury didn't.

He went for her knives. Fool mistake. His hand closed around one, and when he spun, it wasn't clumsy anymore — fear and pride lent him aim. The blade caught her side. Across the scar Cassian had given her. The pain bloomed white-hot, sharp enough to sting her breath, but it didn't slow her. Shade twisted into the movement, using it. Her elbow slammed into his jaw; the knife slipped. In the same motion, she swept his leg, sent him sprawling, and followed him down — knee to chest, forearm to throat, knife reclaimed and hovering just under his chin.


Blood slicked her fingers, warm against the chill of the blade.


Merin thrashed once, but she pressed harder, not enough to break, just enough to remind him who still held the edge. "You done?" she asked quietly.


His answer came in ragged gasps, eyes wide, defiance bleeding into fear.

The door opened again. Steady footsteps crossed the threshold and stopped. Shade didn't look back. Her focus stayed on the cadet beneath her, every muscle coiled and calm, the knife still poised in her grasp.


"Discipline," she murmured, voice like steel cooling. "That's what keeps you alive."


The light caught the blood on her side again — crimson against gold — as she tightened her grip and waited to see if the cadet, or the presence behind her, would move first.

Cassian Abrantes

Control is not the absence of violence — it's knowing exactly when to stop.

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian had been passing by the training hall on his way to the tactical wing when the sound faint at first, a sharp impact followed by the scuff of boots pulled him from his thoughts. It wasn't the sound itself that made him stop, but the rhythm of it. Too deliberate to be a spar. Too quiet to be a drill.

When the door hissed open, the sight that met him froze the space between heartbeats.

Shade.

Kneeling astride a cadet, Merin, if he recalled correctly, the blade poised just beneath the boy's chin. Her expression was carved from stillness, the kind that spoke of control sharpened by the edge of violence. Blood gleamed along her side, bright as lacquer against pale skin, and for an instant, Cassian thought of the scar he'd left her years ago—the same line now split open again.

He didn't move to intervene. Not yet. He'd seen enough fights to know when to let silence do the talking.

"Discipline." she said, voice quiet enough to command the whole room. "That's what keeps you alive."

The cadet's chest rose and fell like a trapped animal's. Cassian's jaw tightened, not in disapproval, but something closer to recognition. There was a lesson here. Brutal, but clear. And if he stepped in too soon, it would be wasted.

"Cadet Merin." he said finally, his tone even, calm as a blade sliding from a sheath. "You're dismissed. Go to the med bay, now." Cassian looked at the rest of them. "Leave us." He turned until one of the superintendents that had walked, advising him to go get a med kit and return quickly.

The boy hesitated, eyes darting between them until the weight of Cassian's voice left no room for defiance. When Shade eased back, it was with the same precision she fought with measured, exact, as if every motion had been rehearsed long before it ever became instinct. The cadet stumbled out, clutching his bruised jaw, the echo of his retreat the only sound left in the hall.

Cassian waited until the door sealed before stepping closer. His gaze moved to her wound. "You're bleeding, have a seat." Cassian advised, not as a command, but as her friend and teammate. He moved to grab two of the nearest chair as he placed one for her and the other for him, It wasn't much longer at all until the Superintendent came back.

"Clear everyone out of the hall, the shows over."

"Yes sir."

Cassian unpacked the med kit as he reached for the soft cloth to press towards the blood. Cassian had medical experience from the field, it was necessary for all the combat he had been in. He was no, surgeon, but it was enough to get the wound clean and stitch it up.

"Are you okay? What happened?"

 

[Shade]

Shade settled into the chair, the edge of the wound pressing faintly against the fabric of her tunic, a sharp reminder of the blade that had found her before she could regain complete control. She let Cassian work with careful, practiced stillness, her body taut but measured, the kind of control honed from years of anticipating conflict and managing risk.

Her gaze flicked toward the doorway as Merin disappeared down the hall, noting the cadet's retreat without a trace of anger — only a clinical assessment. Predictable. Impulsive. Dangerous only until checked. She stored the observation alongside countless others she carried in silence.

"He attacked," she said, low and deliberate, steady enough to mask the tension coiling beneath her ribs. "Xenophobic. Tried to provoke me. He grabbed one of my knives and managed to slice me before I could regain control. I retrieved the blade immediately and held him until he left."

Her eyes returned to Cassian as he cleaned the wound, noting the deliberate calm in his hands and the efficiency of his movements. Each careful touch traced the line of pain along her side, grounding her with the warmth that had nothing to do with the injury itself. Discipline kept her still, but awareness lingered at the edges. The faint brush of his fingers, the steadiness in his touch, the quiet certainty of his presence.

"That's the entire account," she continued, clipped and precise. "No embellishments. No unnecessary drama."

Beneath the words ran a subtle current of satisfaction: control had been maintained despite the unpredictability, the threat had been managed, the unexpected strike endured. Pain was a detail, not a failure. Every movement, every breath, remained deliberate, measured, precise.

This is the rhythm of it. Fight, recover, and note every variable. Adjust. Continue. She reminded herself quietly, not aloud, not to Cassian, but in the space between observation and action where she always resided. And as he did his work, a fragment of relief brushed across her awareness — that the fight had ended, control had been regained, and she was still very much present, unbowed.

And beneath all of that, a subtle warmth lingered, not from the wound itself but from his hands, from the presence she had always noted but never named aloud. She didn't acknowledge it — not with words, not with motion — but she allowed the thought to exist: that it was Cassian tending her, and that was more than enough.

For the briefest fraction of a second, her shoulders eased just a touch, an almost imperceptible lean toward him, as if the steady warmth beneath her skin had been the final stitch to calm more than the wound alone.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian worked in silence for a time, the quiet between them filled only by the muted hum of the med-instrument as it sealed the shallow edge of the cut. His movements were as precise as hers—economical, restrained, guided by instinct born of repetition and necessity. He'd patched a hundred wounds in the field, his own and others', but something about the stillness of this one demanded care beyond habit.

Shade didn't flinch once. Of course she didn't.

He straightened, setting the medkit aside, and for a moment, the room felt smaller—quieter than it should have been. The morning light still cut through the high windows, the wound was clean and he began to stitch the area.

"You kept your restraint." Cassian said at last, tone low but threaded with something that wasn't quite praise, something quieter, heavier. "You could've gutted him. You didn't."

"I never told you how I cam to be in the Intelligence Agency did I?" Cassian inquired with a small look towards her. It was something he never really mentioned to anyone, truthfully. The only people who know where his family, and the Director of Intelligence.

"Do you want to hear it?"

 

[Shade]

Shade's eyes met his as he worked, steady, even, noting the deliberate care in every motion. She let the quiet settle between them, allowing herself a moment to feel the faint warmth of his hands against her skin, without letting it break her control.

"I kept my head," she said, voice low, precise. "He could have escalated further. I could have…ended it. But I didn't. Contained him, ensured he left. That was enough."

A slight, almost imperceptible nod accompanied her words. Discipline, restraint, control — she carried it as naturally as breath. And yet, beneath that practiced exterior, she allowed a fraction of acknowledgment: the quiet steadiness in Cassian's presence, the way his hands moved with precision over her wound.

"And yes," she continued after a measured pause, her tone unchanged, clipped but curious, "I want to hear how you came to the Intelligence Agency. I didn't think I'd be granted that much insight into you."

Her gaze lingered for a moment, noting the faint lines of concentration on his face, the quiet focus that mirrored her own discipline. She said nothing of the slight, unspoken satisfaction that he was the one tending her, that his touch carried a weight she didn't have to calculate.

"I'll listen," she added, the faintest hint of patience threading her words.

Even as she spoke, she allowed the smallest shift in her posture — not a lean toward him, not a break in her control — just enough to signal presence and attention, and perhaps, the quiet acknowledgment that the moment, and the man tending her, mattered more than she let on.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian paused mid-motion, the faint hum of the sterilizer soft between them. Her words landed quietly but with the same precision as her strikes clean, deliberate, with nothing wasted. He looked up from the medkit, the edges of his expression gentling almost imperceptibly. He finished the last of the stitching. His index finger ran along the cut briefly, more gentle than anything as if looking past the wound and to their initial engagement. He wiped the site with another cleaning wipe before he closed up the medkit and set it to the side.

"You did more than keep your head." he said after a moment. "You measured your response. That's rarer than people think. Especially when someone draws first blood."

He leaned back slightly, crossing his arms, gaze distant as if tracing a memory through smoke. "It wasn't voluntary. My father was the one who brought it to Director Rennar's attention. There was a leak deep, precise, deliberate. Every attempt to root it out failed. They needed someone the traitors would never suspect. Someone… who looked compromised."

His eyes flicked to Shade's, steady. "That's where I came in."

"I was still a general then. Trusted. Public. So the plan was simple destroy that trust. They would demote me to private. Quietly. No court martial, no trial. Just… a fall. They spread rumors, things meant to stain the name, things that cut deeper than I thought possible. Made it look like I'd taken bribes, like I'd sold out my command for favors. The idea was that if people believed the honorable Cassian Abrantes had fallen far enough to be bought, whoever was behind the leak would see an opportunity."


He paused, his jaw tightening slightly. "And they did. They reached out. Slowly, carefully. It worked."

He looked down at his hands, flexing them once as if remembering the weight of that time. "But the cost… was heavier than I expected. Every room I walked into went quiet. Every man and woman I'd work with turned their back. The looks, the whispers I had to live with them, keep my head down, let them think I'd become everything they despised."

The faintest hint of something cracked through the composure then a shadow behind the calm. "I did what was asked. I found the leak. I stopped it. But it wasn't easy. I ended up being promoted here within the agency and I was given my rank back within the Army. Yet, it still was not without its scars. I discovered whom I could really count on, who my true allies were."

He exhaled, slow, deliberate, as though grounding himself in the moment again. "That's how I ended up here. In Intelligence. Not by ambition, not by choice but because someone needed to play the villain long enough to catch a worse one."


His gaze met hers once more, steady and unflinching. "And that's why I understand restraint, Shade. Because once you lose it once you let go of who you are to serve the cause it takes a long time to find your way back."

"I tell you this because I trust you, and I don't want to lose you. Do you understand?"

 

[Shade]

Shade listened in silence.

The words, the weight behind them, hung in the still air like dust in sunlight — slow, suspended, deliberate. She didn't interrupt, didn't move, didn't let the quiet dissolve. There was no judgment in her expression, only a faint, shadowed stillness that spoke of understanding. What he described — the isolation, the ruin of reputation, the way loyalty could turn to suspicion in a single breath — she knew it too well. Different circumstances. Same ache.

Her gaze lingered on him when he finished, not sharp, not assessing — simply present.

"Who are your true allies now?" she asked quietly. "When the dust settles. When there's no mission to anchor you. Who stays?"

It wasn't an accusation. More a truth wrapped in question — soft, even, but carrying its own kind of weight.

Her tone stayed level, but there was something quieter beneath it. Not pity. Not comfort. Understanding — the kind forged in fire and consequence.

"You asked if I understand." Her eyes lowered briefly, tracing the faint line of the medseal along her side before meeting his again. "I do. I didn't always have control. Not the kind you see now. Once, I let anger make choices for me. I let pain speak when I should've been silent. It cost me."

A pause. Her breath was steady.

"But I learned. I learned how to make the noise work for me. How to turn it into something clean and usable. That's what control is. Not suppression. Adaptation."

The light caught faintly in her eyes. The faint glint of acknowledgment — a subtle spark of recognition and understanding, muted yet unmistakable. It wasn't warmth, not quite, but the light caught the depth of her focus and the weight of what she had absorbed, the quiet clarity of someone who had survived and learned.

"I became someone the people I serve can trust," she continued, voice low, deliberate. "Someone you can trust."

She didn't smile — that wasn't her way — but there was a subtle easing in her posture, a quiet concession in the air between them.

"So yes," she said finally. "I understand. More than you think."

Her gaze lingered a fraction too long before she turned away — not to retreat, but to steady herself. Whatever else could be said between them, it didn't need to be this morning.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian didn't answer at first. The question. Who stays? Landed like a quiet blow. The kind that didn't hurt all at once, but echoed deeper the longer it sat.

His gaze turned toward the high windows where the light had thinned into pale ribbons. Outside, the city stirred muted voices, the distant hum of traffic but in the room, there was only her voice, her stillness, and the faint thrum of thought he didn't try to hide.

"When the dust settles." he said slowly, "The room gets quiet. Quieter than anyone tells you it will."

His tone wasn't bleak just factual, worn smooth by time. "People come and go with the mission. They salute, they nod, they call you 'sir,' but it's the silence afterward that tells you who's real. For me…" He paused, searching the space between words. "There's a few that stay. Fewer still understand what the quiet costs."

He let his gaze drift to her again, studying the sharpness of her features softened by morning light. "You've learned the same lesson." he said quietly. "How to make the noise work for you. How to carry what you can't discard."

Her words lingered — someone you can trust — and he felt their weight more keenly than he expected. Trust wasn't something he gave easily, not anymore. It wasn't sentiment; it was calculus. Yet the way she said it made it sound like both.

"Thank you.... Nys'rei. Truly I mean it."

For a moment, he held her gaze, the quiet acknowledgment passing between them like current through wire unspoken but alive, humming with the sharp clarity of mutual recognition.

Then he straightened, his tone softening but steady. "Are you truly okay?"

 

[Shade]

Shade's gaze held his — steady, unflinching — as if weighing the honesty beneath his words. The faint glimmer of morning light caught in her eyes, softening the gray just enough to betray the thought she didn't voice. She nodded once. Quiet cost. He wasn't wrong. It always did.

For a moment, she said nothing, not out of hesitation, but because words felt unnecessary in the space between them. Then, quietly, she answered, her tone even but low enough that it belonged only to this room, only to him.


"I'm fine," she said. The truth, mostly. "The cut will heal. It's just another reminder that control has limits."

Her gaze flicked to the side, following the slow, practiced motion of his hands as he cleaned the last trace of blood from her skin. They were steady and deliberate, but warmer than she expected. It wasn't a distraction, exactly, but she felt the weight of that warmth linger a moment longer than it should have.

"I didn't always have it — the restraint you see now," she continued, tone measured, keeping her voice from breaking its rhythm. "I learned it the hard way. Anger used to do the deciding for me. It was efficient...until it wasn't." A breath, faintly sharp. "So I turned it into a process. Something I could master. That's what kept me alive long enough to sit here."

She hesitated — just a fraction — as she looked at him again. "You asked if I understand. I do. You can't always choose what breaks you, but you can choose what you build from what's left."

The air between them felt different now — quieter, but weighted with awareness.

"As for trust," she added, gaze unwavering, "you've earned mine. And I don't give that lightly, Cassian."

Her tone didn't change, but something in the way she said his name made it sound almost softer — not deliberate, not an invitation, just...recognition. The kind of warmth she'd never name out loud, but didn't quite want to ignore either.

Her gaze stayed on him a heartbeat longer than habit allowed. It wasn't sentiment, not even curiosity — just an awareness that she didn't mind his presence, or the quiet that came with it.

When he looked up, she turned her eyes back to the light, voice even again. "For the record," she murmured, "I'm glad it was you doing the stitching."

The words came out flat, professional — but something in the cadence wasn't.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

It wasn't the first time someone had thanked him in that tone professional, even, yet carrying something deeper beneath its surface but it was the first time in a long while it meant something.

"You're not wrong." he said, voice low, a trace roughened by something older than fatigue. "Control has limits. It's knowing when to bend before you break that keeps you alive."

He leaned back slightly, studying her with that deliberate stillness of his the sort that saw everything and gave nothing away too soon. There was a flicker of something in his gaze that wasn't command or curiosity, but understanding recognition of the same discipline, the same scars, mirrored in different shapes.

"I've seen officers fall apart trying to keep their walls up." he said after a pause. "You don't. You redirect. You turn it into precision. That's… rarer than courage." His tone didn't flatter, it observed, the way he might note a pattern in intelligence or the angle of a soldier's stance before a strike.

When she said his name — Cassian — it caught him off guard more than he'd admit. Not because of what it meant, but because of how simply she said it. No title. No distance. Just his name, quiet, even, and real.

He answered her look with one of his own, steady but edged with warmth. "Good." he said softly. "Then we're even."

A faint, dry hint of humor touched his mouth gone almost as soon as it appeared. "I'd rather you not let anyone else test your self-control for a while."

He stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder, not to steady her, but as if to mark the space that existed between duty and something far less defined.

When he spoke again, it was quieter, but his tone carried weight. "You did the right thing, Shade. Don't lose sleep over the rest."

He turned toward the door, then hesitated just long enough to let the silence between them breathe once more. "And for the record." he said. "I'm glad it was me too. I wouldn't want it any other way."

 

[Shade]

Shade's eyes tracked him as he spoke, measured and steady, taking in each word with the same precision she applied to every threat, every variable. The weight of his gaze mirrored her own discipline, yet there was a subtle warmth in it she hadn't expected, something that made the tension in her shoulders ease imperceptibly.

"I… understand," she said finally, voice low, deliberate. "Control has limits. You bend before you break. I've learned that too, the hard way. And restraint…It's worth more than most realize."

She didn't flinch as his hand rested on her shoulder, the contact brief but anchored, marking the boundary between duty and something quieter. She didn't place her hand on top, didn't shy from it — but she felt the subtle shift it brought, the faint echo of warmth against her skin, the rare awareness that she noticed, and didn't analyze away.

"I trust few," she murmured, letting the words settle into the quiet between them. The last person she had truly trusted was dead by her hand. A betrayer, and she never forgot that."You've earned mine, Cassian. That isn't given lightly…or often."

When he finally drew back, the absence of contact left a subtle echo — a sense she didn't acknowledge aloud, but would remember. Her eyes followed him as he turned for the door, watching the measured pace, the controlled departure, and, for a fleeting moment, she allowed herself to notice that she had missed the weight of him against her, the quiet insistence of his presence, and the rare clarity it left behind.

Cassian Abrantes