Private No Place Like You

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: D'Qar

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

The training remote snapped sideways just as Ace's blade came around. A red bolt cracked through the clearing and his lightsaber intercepted it. Ace barely reset before another bolt came from his left. He pivoted, both hands tightening around his lightsaber as the blade swept across his body.

Sweat ran from his temple, his black vest already clinging to his back. He'd abandoned the upper layers of his robes some time ago, leaving his prosthetic exposed as its mechanisms shifted beneath the armored plating.

"Again."

The remote obeyed and three bolts came his way this time. Ace moved automatically, catching one high, redirecting another, and stepping through the third.

Training made sense. Every attack had an answer. Every bolt needed an angle. Problems became movement. Movement became reaction. Reaction became--

Fatine's fingers slipped lazily between his locs. Ace mistimed the next deflection and the bolt passed close enough that he felt its heat. He bit the inside of his cheek.

"Again."

Another volley. He'd been doing this too long. He knew that. But whenever he stopped, his thoughts inevitably found their way back to her. Lying half across Fatine, head against her while she complained that he was crushing her, but she hadn't actually wanted him to move. Her fingers had continued combing through his hair while she rambled about something that happened at the theater.

Ace couldn't even remember what she'd been talking about. He remembered everything else... her voice, her breathing, the occasional tug against his locs, and how completely safe he'd felt. Nobody needed anything from him. Now it felt like everybody did.

The Covenant hadn't disappeared because he'd left it. The Blackwall still hung over everything. The Vanguard was supposed to be an answer, yet lately even that felt more complicated.Then there was Shiraya's Sanctuary.

Ala.

Her.

Lorn.

And through all of it, one thought kept returning.

I want Fatine.

Not because she could fix any of this. Ace didn't want advice, he just wanted to lay his head against her again. Feel her fingers moving through his hair while she talked about something completely irrelevant. Close his eyes without wondering what would happen if he stopped paying attention.

The remote fired, but Ace didn't move and the bolt passed harmlessly beside him.

"Shit."

His lightsaber collapsed into its hilt. Missing Fatine wasn't new, but admitting how badly he missed her was. Because that inevitably brought him back to the part he couldn't escape.

He'd left.

Whatever reasons he'd had, Ace had made that decision for both of them. What right did he have to want her now?

The remote chirped.

"No." Ace clipped the lightsaber to his waist. "I'm done."

He crossed toward the edge of the clearing and dropped onto a weathered supply crate, reaching for his canteen. His breathing eventually settled, but his thoughts didn't. Ace stared across the clearing, absently turning the canteen between his hands.

He'd gotten pretty good at carrying things alone.

It didn't make them any lighter.

Corazona von Ascania​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora descended, prim and measured, onto the supply crate beside Ace. She didn't offer him a kind word or a smile, but a ration bar.

"I ate quite a few of these when I was pregnant," she said. "I had a taste for them. Instant noodles, too."

It was a particular sort of admission from a woman who'd prioritized the development of sustainable farming at the Ukatis enclave. Aligned with the Vanguard, she'd brought a similar concept to their garrison on D'qar; fresh supplies would be a sticking point given their division from the Order proper.

She'd been watching Ace from afar, paying more attention to the precision of his blade than the patch of dirt she'd been working. Soon they would have hardy root plants that kept well and could be cooked a thousand different ways.

Whether or not Ace took the ration bar, Cora would open one of her own and let her eyes fall over the training grounds. D'qar, with its thickly forested terrain. was the antithesis of Coruscant. It still reminded her of the temple that had once been.

"You seemed a little distracted," she offered, far from an admonishment.

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: D'Qar

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

Ace accepted the ration bar without complaint, his prosthetic giving a quiet mechanical whir as his fingers worked at the wrapper.

A short laugh escaped through his nose. "Nothing nutritional then."

Not that he had any room to talk. Since he could remember, Ace's diet had often consisted of ration bars, instant noodles, and whatever other garbage happened to be quick and available. Then again, he'd never been pregnant.

"How is Lucy, anyway?"

He took a bite before reaching for the small towel he'd left nearby, tossing it over his shoulders and using one end to wipe the sweat from his brow. Ace couldn't imagine how difficult this arrangement must have been for Cora. She had a family waiting for her, a child who couldn't exactly understand why her mother kept disappearing off to some hidden base in the middle of nowhere. However necessary the Vanguard's work might be, he was certain necessity didn't make being away from her any easier.

His gaze wandered toward the patch of dirt Cora had been working on. He'd noticed the effort she'd been putting into getting something sustainable growing on D'Qar. Probably a better long term solution than living off the very ration bar currently occupying his hand.

Then she mentioned his distraction and Ace's dark eyes shifted back toward hers.

"Do I?"

The dodge was obvious enough that he didn't bother trying to make it convincing. He looked away again, taking another bite while he considered how much he actually wanted to say. There were plenty of things occupying his thoughts lately. The Covenant. The Vanguard. Shiraya's Sanctuary. Everything he'd seen through Calyx.

Fatine... especially Fatine.

Except telling Cora that he missed her little sister felt... wrong somehow. He'd been the one who'd broken Fatine's heart and made that decision for both of them, disappearing from her life because he'd convinced himself it was the right thing to do. Now he was supposed to sit beside her older sister and complain about how badly he wanted her back?

He didn't think he'd earned that.

"Got a lot on my mind, I guess." Ace shrugged faintly, attention dropping to the ration bar in his hand.

But when didn't he?

Corazona von Ascania​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

“She is well,” Cora said. “Beginning to crawl.”

She waited until Ace took a bite of his own ration bar before lifting hers to her lips. They chewed quietly, Cora subtly watched where Ace’s eyes landed next. In the dirt.

“You do,” she said simply once his attention drifted back to her.

Cora had thought for a long while on how to broach the subject. It made Fatine angry, made her shut down. One sibling had already drifted away, and she didn’t want to push another out.

Acier Moonbound was different, in that way. The ice to Fatine’s fire. He was calm, collected, and just as bullheaded - but he faced things as they were. At least, he had by turning himself in to the Republic. That said a lot about his character, even if he’d deny it.

“You miss her,” she said. It wasn’t an accusation, or even a guess.

Cora sighed, wistful. “And I miss who she was when she was with you.”

Acier Moonbound

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: D'Qar

Equipment:
Vanguard Robes | Lightsaber | Shoto | Cybernetic Arm | Tic

Lucy was crawling now? Ace couldn't help the small smile that tugged at the corner of his mouth. Time really was moving, wasn't it?

He could still remember meeting Cora for the first time, heavily pregnant and celebrating Life Day. That had been around the time he'd first infiltrated the Covenant, back when he'd genuinely believed there'd be some clean ending on the other side of it all.

Now Lucy was crawling. It was strange how much had changed since then. Stranger still that the passage of time could be measured so plainly through a child who hadn't even been born when all of this started.

Ace took another bite of the ration bar. Then stopped halfway through chewing, eyes shifting toward Cora. She'd found his number without much difficulty. Ace didn't answer and simply resumed chewing, gaze dropping somewhere ahead of him. The silence probably answered for him anyway.

There wasn't much point denying it. Of course he missed Fatine. His emotional impression in the Force had probably given it away to every single person on D'Qar.

When Cora continued, she finally made Ace look at her.

His brow furrowed. "What?"

Who she was when she was with him...?

Fatine had seemed... different when she'd snuck into his cell. Angrier, certainly, but that wasn't surprising. She'd slapped him across the face within the first few minutes. Beyond that, though... something about her had felt off. Ace had noticed it at the time, but he'd chalked it up to... actually, he didn't know what he'd chalked it up to.

The breakup? Him being an idiot? Everything she'd learned about what he'd done? There hadn't exactly been a shortage of reasons for Fatine to seem different around him.

His expression tightened slightly as he studied Cora.

"What do you mean, who she was?"

Corazona von Ascania ​