Private Quiet Hearts in Bright Places

[Lorn Reingard]

Blaire Sal-Soren

​

Lorn sat alone at a back table in Veeda's, the kind of bar that whispered old money and political discretion. Polished stone walls. Gold fixtures dimmed to dusk. The place smelled like floral cologne, stale cigarras, and regret.

He hadn't meant to come here. Not here. Not to Theed. Not to this bar where the servers poured brandy like liquid silk and the nobles sipped it like it cost them nothing. He wanted quiet. Anonymity. A break from the Vanguard, from the Order, from his responsibilities. He was off duty, or at least pretending well enough to fool himself for an hour.

That was before he saw her.

Blaire.

Her silhouette stood out in the mirror behind the bar before her actual form even registered. She was perched on a high stool, cradling a glass of something, untouched. Her eyes scanned nothing.

Lorn knew that look.

It was the look of someone halfway between the present and the past, stuck in the pause between thoughts that hurt too much to finish. He'd worn that look after battlefields. After funerals. After Sunkiller.

His stomach turned.

He could leave. She hadn't seen him. Not yet. He could slide out through the back and disappear into the Theed night, and no one would know.

But he didn't. He stayed.

His hand tightened around the edge of his glass, not drinking. Just... grounding.

Their first meeting had been chaotic. Loud party. Life Day. Too many voices, too much pressure to be social. He hadn't been ready. She'd said something, he barely remembered what, and he'd panicked, leaving in a rush that probably landed somewhere between confused and offended.

She must think he was cold. Or worse, arrogant. The idea twisted in his chest.

But now, here she was. Same woman. New silence. He knew now, because the reports from Sunkiller that he himself had filed, hadn't lied: her kids were part of it. Stuck in the twisted ruin of a warped reality, and his team had just confirmed it.

They were going in soon. Blaire probably had no idea how close help was.

He stood. Not smoothly. Not like some holodrama hero. He hesitated halfway up like he might sit again. But he didn't.

Crossing the bar felt like walking through fog. He passed tables of senators, traders, admirals in dress uniform.

He stopped a few paces behind her. Cleared his throat softly, but she didn't turn.

"Blaire." he said, voice low. Just enough to reach her over the strings of some Naboo quartet drifting through the speakers. Lorn didn't smile. He wasn't good at that. But he tried not to frown.

"Do you mind if I sit?" he asked, nodding to the empty stool beside her.

 

[Blaire Sal-Soren]

Another night. Another bar. Maybe, the same bar. The same bar it had been since Life Day. Here. There.

Naboo or Malastare. They were all the same to her.

It didn't matter if it was Veeda's in marble, gorgeous, regal, Theed, surrounded by emerald seas of plains and hills, with a thousand variety of wineries, with their fields a flame with the color of a thousand fruits or Merrick's in smog choked Keren City where one was just as likely to find a blade in their belly as a beer.

Tonight Veeda's was hers. A room filled with old money, some even older than hers. There were faces she thought she knew, she hadn't really cared to investigate and none had yet dared to approach her. Why would they? Blaire Sal-Soren was the shame of her family's long name.

Her father. A great man, once the hand of the Queen, had disgraced their name by founding a terrorist organization which successfully pulled off a number of grotesque and evil attacks in the name of their cause. Bombs going off on Coruscant, untold numbers of casualties, and the attacks on Naboo itself which the world had yet to recover from, no it was worse than that, they were still dealing with the results of these attacks. Deadly netherworld portals had opened spilling monsters and fiends into the cities and fields of this perfect world. Her father had caused that.

Her siblings did not share the same ire Blaire received. They were Jedi and had come to Naboo's rescue over and over at great personal risk and personal cost. Blaire? Well, Blaire went and got herself knocked up by one of those terrorists, Jaa Ardan who had been outwardly blamed for the attack on Coruscant and heavily linked to the attack on Coruscant. Blaire knew he…Blaire hoped he had nothing to do with those things.

"Who are you tonight?" The bartender asked.

She was a pretty woman around Blaire's own age. Her blonde hair was pulled back in a tight professional ponytail, save for a lock in the front that would fall in her face as she talked, requiring that she brush it away in the most adorable fashion.

"Me?" Blaire responds pausing to think it over.

Her dark, wavy, hair was down past her shoulders settling at the small of her back. She wore a dark green dress, adorned with golden leaves, one shoulder strapless and a slit up the left leg.

When she was here a handful of nights ago, she had worn her hair up in a severely stern bun, a tight black number with bare shoulders, and a cigarra between her teeth. That look was still different from the night or two before that when she was again here in this bar.

Upper class or working, Blaire found her way to stand out or blend amongst them.

She didn't belong anywhere, so she used that the fit in anywhere.

"A L'lahsh, I think." Blaire ordered a drink.

From behind her a voice said her name, almost so softly she didn't hear, but there was no mistaking the reflection of the man in the mirror behind the bar.

No mistaking but perhaps some forgetting. Blaire knew they knew each other. Obviously he knew her but for a moment she struggled to recall and then it struck her.

Life Day. Blaire had allowed Briana and the champagne…and Jaa Ardan, to make a fool of herself that day.

"Lorn, right? Yes, please join me. What were you drinking?" Blaire waved the bartender back over so she could get Lorn a drink. It was poor etiquette after all to drink alone.

"Forgive me for saying so but this doesn't strike me as your sort of scene, were you hopping to run into someone special or am I just fortunate?" She smiled softly.

Lorn Reingard

 

[Lorn Reingard]

Blaire Sal-Soren

​

Lorn didn't sit so much as settle, the way someone does after carrying too much weight for too long. His shoulders dipped, tension bleeding out of them slowly, like they weren't quite sure it was safe to relax yet.

He nodded to the bartender, his voice low and steady. "Corellian whiskey. Neat."

The bartender gave a curt nod and moved to pour it, her expression neutral, professional. Lorn glanced at Blaire with something just shy of a smile. Not quite warmth, not quite regret. A flicker of both, maybe. Or maybe just exhaustion in a new shape.

He chuckled softly at her question, the sound dry and brief, like he wasn't used to doing it.

"No," he said, eyes tracking the golden sheen of the bar, the faint reflection of nobles behind cut crystal. "It's not my scene. That's exactly why I came."

He paused, looking at her now - not the mirror version, the real one. "I needed to not be… anyone. Just for a night."

The drink arrived, amber and unforgiving. He wrapped his hand around the glass, letting the chill kiss his fingers before lifting it slightly in a gesture of thanks. He didn't drink yet.

"But," he added, voice softer now, "I'm glad I ran into you."

His gaze lingered on hers. Not invasive. Just… present. Real.

"I owe you an apology. For Life Day. I didn't mean to disappear. I was still getting my feet under me, back on Naboo. Back in… everything."

He looked down at his glass for a moment, swirling the liquid gently, then back up.

"I must have left a bad first impression."

He sipped the whiskey then, just enough to taste the fire, to chase off the nerves creeping up his spine.

"And you?" he asked, setting the glass down. His voice had that quiet weight again, like the question carried more than it seemed. "What brings you to Veeda's tonight? Or are you just trying to beat me in the 'brooding alone' competition?"

 

[Blaire Sal-Soren]

Blaire did love a man with taste.

"A man after my own heart." She said, regarding Lorn with new interest. Blaire didn't even know the man beyond introductions at a party and Shiraya knows how many of those Blaire had made in her life, though she could recall a certain appetite when she had first spotted across the packed floor of the mountainside manse.

She had pretty swiftly dismissed any interest in him after that though. It was nothing to do with Lorn personally. How could it? Lorn could thank Brandyn for her attitude, if he cared what she thought at all, that is. He had seemed just her type from afar. Rugged, mysterious, haunted, dangerous even. It was Brandyn who had revealed Lorn to be not only a Jedi but a standup man as well and that had sunk it for him right then and there.

Was Lorn handsome?

Was he ever she thought, looking at him in the mirror behind the bar.

Sadly, Blaire thought a requirement of being handsome was being dangerous.

And if her brother thought Lorn was a good match for her then in Blaire's mind that made him too much like Bran. Blaire loves her brother but she didn't want to get a room with him, you know?

"Top shelf only." Blaire told the bartender as the blond woman was reaching for something midshelf. "Put it on my tab,"


Lorn explained his desire to go unnoticed for an evening. To spend some amount of time where he was allowed to be nothing, to have no past haunting you or no future taunting you. Blaire understood that impulse all too well. When she was younger, she spent many many nights out acting like she were someone else. She had always been her though. Her father's daughter and saddled with everything that may have meant. So unlike Lorn, Veeda's and places like it were not where she could hide.

It may not be Lorn's scene but it was entirely hers and unlike Lorn who hid within it, Blaire had spent some years hiding from it. She knew what they whispered about even without her being present. One week it would've been about her drunken speeder race through Theed, the next it would be the paparazzi holos of her with an unnamed nobleman from Hapes and their enjoyment of lines of mysterious white powder, and then there was the time that she had been caught up in a raid on The New Way.

Baros Sal-Soren's daughter arrested amongst a group of terrorists. Daddy had pulled what strings he could to keep it quiet enough that the news never really left Naboo and the official spin had been, 'wrong place wrong time', Blaire had to imagine that the RSF was not happy being forced to call her arrest a mistake without so much as an investigation. Even then Daddy didn't know how involved with his vision Blaire was. He didn't know that until the end.

Blaire sipped her drink but did not shrink from Lorn's gaze. No, she sat comfortable as you please under his scrutiny. It was Lorn who broke their eye-contact. He brought up Life Day and who owed whom an apology. His sheepishness was just a little endearing and totally sweet. Blaire was mildly thrown off by it. She was not exactly used to the men in her life offering apologies, especially to her.

Blaire softly placed a hand on Lorn's wrist.

"As someone who has not exactly gotten their own feet under them, I can assure you: you've nothing to apologize for, Lorn."

Blaire took her hand from Lorn's wrist and pulled a cigarra from her clutch. The cigarra was in a slender black holder so that she could smoke without getting her fingers all smelly. Blaire swore as she duh around her purse unable to locate a way to get the cigarra lit. She motioned to the bartender who at present was busy dealing with customers at the other end of the bar.

"In fact. It's me that should be apologizing. My behavior was just dreadful. Sometimes I can forget that other people may not be interested in playing along with me and my family. So I can forgive you if you can forgive me." She smiled softly.

"Seeing as you left your brooding to come interrupt my own, I think we can say I won that little competition," she teased. "Truthfully, I came here tonight to find out if coming here would be worth it and honestly until you showed up it very much hadn't been."

She took another sip of her drink. Cigarra still unlit.

"Have you managed to get your feet under you yet?" She asked. "I'm afraid I'm not quite there myself."

Lorn Reingard

 

[Lorn Reingard]

Blaire Sal-Soren

​

Lorn let out a quiet breath he hadn't realized he was holding, a small easing in his chest at Blaire's words. He hadn't completely crashed and burned with everyone after Life Day it seemed. That was... better than he'd expected. She had that way about her, fluid, like a stream winding through whatever room she entered, never forced, never hurried. It made him feel almost heavy by comparison, the way stone feels heavy next to water.

He watched, half amused, half admiring, as she dug through her clutch with growing impatience, clearly seeking a lighter. Without really thinking about it, Lorn shifted in his seat, letting his focus drift. A lighter, silver and battered, sat forgotten near the end of the bar. A simple tug with the Force, subtle and practiced, pulled it into his palm.

He thumbed the flame to life and leaned across the space between them, offering the tiny blaze. The flame flickered, catching the end of her cigarra as easily as if they'd rehearsed it.

Lorn smiled, small, a flash of something warmer beneath all the usual armor, and sat back, setting the lighter gently on the bar between them.

"You're right." he said, wrapping both hands around his whiskey now, letting the glass anchor him. "Life Day wasn't exactly my best showing. But... hearing you say that... it helps." His gaze flickered up, steady now. "I'm glad we found a better second impression."

He sipped his drink, savoring the slow burn down his throat. The buzz of conversation around them rose and fell like a tide he no longer felt the need to swim against.

"Naboo's... a lot." he admitted after a moment, the corners of his mouth twitching like he almost meant to smile again. "Beautiful. Grand. Whole cities like living paintings. But sometimes it feels like the place itself is too big, too perfect... like it'll swallow you up if you don't keep moving."

He shrugged.

"I'm finding my corner. Piece by piece."

His eyes drifted back to her, curious, a little puzzled.

"I'm surprised you're not already settled here," he said, honest and easy. "The Sal-Soren name carries weight. And you..." His gaze skimmed her, taking in the effortless way she fit the gilded room - the dress, the poise, the way she smoked like she was born to places like this. "You look like you belong here. Like you grew out of the marble and the politics and the wine."

He tipped his head slightly, studying her not like a Jedi would study a target, but like a man genuinely trying to understand something that didn't quite add up.

"So... what's holding you back?"

 

[Blaire Sal-Soren]

"You look like you belong here. Like you grew out of the marble and the politics and the wine."

"I can't tell if that's a compliment or an insult," she teased.

“What's holding you back?”

"All of it for a start. My name does carry some weight. That's true but Naboo is an old place and old places have long memories. It will be a long time before Naboo forgets what happened to her thanks to a man named Sal-Soren. Thanks to Daddy and his New Way, the Sal-Soren name is more anchor than cudgel now." Blaire took a drag from her cigarra. Slow and deliberate just for the taste. Smoke billowed softly around her.

"Half the people here when they see me feel sorry. The other half hate me or maybe not me specifically and you know that's even worse. If they hated me, well, then I could do something about that if I chose to but what's to be done about being hated for the actions of a dead man?"

Blaire's tone was entirely conversational. If she felt any bitterness and Shiraya knew that she did, she did not let it poison her words. Boy was she ever fething bitter though. She just wished so much that Mama and Daddy were still here. She'd had quite enough of being alone.

"My siblings have found their way have they not?" She asked him this Jedi, "saviours of Naboo. Jedi all of them even Baby Bast. What am I? A former ballerina and a single mother who was fool enough to lay with a terrorist who betrayed my family."

Blaire finished her drink.

"I'm not sure where I fit on this world anymore, Lorn. Not sure if I ever did truly but there's no where left to go. So tonight I'll start by fitting in here, see where the night takes us, who knows who could be fitting in where by the end of it."

| Outfit: xxx | Tag: Lorn Reingard | Equipment: xxx |​

 

[Lorn Reingard]

​

Lorn listened.

Not the passive kind of listening people do when they're just waiting for their turn to speak - but really listened, his gaze steady, his drink untouched. As she spoke, something in his expression shifted: the quiet creasing of his brow, the softening at the corners of his mouth. Not pity, he wouldn't dare insult her with that, but understanding, maybe. Recognition.

He'd seen enough lives pulled sideways by the sins of others to know when someone was still carrying a weight that wasn't theirs.

When she finished, when the last of her smoke curled through the air like punctuation, he didn't respond right away. He just nodded, once. Like a soldier acknowledging the battlefield.

"I didn't know." he said finally, voice low. "About your father. Or all of it. I mean-" he offered a faint, sheepish huff of breath, "-I've spent most of my life offworld, in places where the gossip columns don't reach. Most of what people seem to know about you, I don't. All I know is the woman sitting in front of me."

He took a drink now, more to fill the pause than from need. The silence was brief, but not awkward.

"I know what it's like to be defined by the wrong things." he added. "To be remembered for the worst days. It makes it harder to figure out what kind of life you're even allowed to build after."

Her last line floated back to him, and he wasn't sure if it was meant as a joke, a flirt, or just another one of her adaptive, shimmering masks. Probably all three.

His smile was small, crooked at one side, like it didn't quite know where to land. "You know, I think I'll just pretend you meant that in the innocent sense. Safer for my ego."

He set the glass down gently and glanced sideways at her, more amused than unsure now. "But seriously… ballerina, single mother, recovering aristocrat… that sounds like the start of a story, not the end of one."

A beat.

"I'd like to hear more of it, if you're willing to tell it."

Blaire Sal-Soren​