Private Rough Edges

[Corazona von Ascania]

The failed Summer Rain Rebellion had only taken a day, but its consequences stretched far over the following months.

A thunderous crash reverberated through Canella district. Among the ruins of burned-out houses and partially collapsed structures, a building had suddenly caved in. It wasn't so much the clatter of duracrete bricks and sharp, violent snapping of beams of wood that roused the attention of passersby. Such sounds were common in the aftermath of the assault, given that over half of the city had been destroyed.

It was the woman, trembling as she held her face and screamed in desperation.

"Help! Please-" she cried. The basket she'd been carrying and been dropped in a fit of fright, and small, round fruits rolled along the sidewalk and street, coated in dust. "Th-there are children in there! I sa...saw them before it collapsed!"

Cora hadn't looked to see if anyone else descended on the ruins of the apartment building. Bright yellow caution tape was strewn about the rubble, denoting that the structure was off limits. Like many of the damaged buildings, it was deemed unlivable and due to be demolished.

Suddenly, she whipped her head back towards the woman. "How many are there?"

"At least...two, I think. Boys. There could be more."

Cora turned back to the building. The east-facing wall was still intact, and she could see a broken window on the second floor. Gloved hands found purchase on the rough stonework, and she climbed.

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Canella District | Ukatis
TAG: Corazona von Ascania
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman stood at the edge of what had once been a marketplace, but now resembled the carcass of a forgotten city. Smoke no longer rose, not visibly, but it clung to everything, settled into the stones, soaked into the fabric of the wind. A half-toppled clock tower lay across the square like the corpse of time itself, and the charred remnants of banners fluttered weakly from poles that had no audience anymore.

Ukatis.

He had once stood in this very square while Cora bartered for some absurd trinket, claiming it had "character." He hadn't said it then, because he never did, but he liked it here. The chaos of the galaxy always seemed to hush a little in this corner of space. People had laughed here. Children had run through these streets. The kind of peace Roman didn't think he deserved had lived here.

Now it was ash.

The sky above the Canella district was a dull, overcast gray, as if the heavens couldn't bear to look directly at the wounds below. Roman walked with measured steps, the heavy boots of a soldier moving like he was afraid to disturb the dead. Every face he passed was worn thin. Every breath the city took was through grit-stained lungs.

He kept his hood drawn, the long coat disguising the silhouette of a man built like a ghost of war. His Force signature, once steady, once burning under the steady hand of his Master, was drawn inward, locked behind walls he'd built like a bunker. He wasn't here as a Jedi. Not anymore. He wasn't here as a soldier either, not technically. This was personal.

He'd heard the stories. Everyone had. The madness in the capital, the toxin, the Sith. The Rebellion that lasted only a day, but shredded the soul of a world.

And then the rumors. A Jedi woman who'd killed her own father. A noble's daughter wielding a saber with fire in her eyes.

Cora.

He reached the ruin just as the woman began screaming. Her voice carried through the street like glass shattering in silence. Roman's head snapped toward the noise, scanning with the instincts of a man who'd lived too long in battlefields and bad decisions. The structure was on the verge of collapse, more memory than building now, and it was marked clearly as condemned. But Cora was already climbing.

"Still doing this the hard way," he muttered.

He moved fast but quiet, cutting across the rubble with long, sure strides. Civilians stepped back without thinking. There was something in his presence that suggested authority, or danger, or both. He stopped only when he reached the edge of the structure.

She was already inside.

He hesitated for only a breath. He should call out, let her know he was here. But something in him flinched, some part of him ashamed for being gone too long. For not writing. For not being there when this planet cracked open.

So he did what Roman did best. He went forward. Quietly. Precisely.

There would be time to talk later. Maybe. For now, there were children in the rubble and Cora was risking her life to save them. Some things didn't change. Not for her.

And Roman, despite it all, was still the kind of man who followed his Master into the fire.
​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Hairline cracks webbed across the broken, jagged glass of the window pane. Cora switched her grip, hanging from the far side of the ledge as sharp fragments fell away. Once her makeshift entrance was cleared, she lifted herself through the window.

Her boots gingerly touched the now-slanted flooring. Dust hung heavily in the air, kicked up from the collapse. Cora buried her nose and mouth into the crook of her arm with a cough.

Below her, she could hear soft, muffled cries.

"Is anyone there?" she called, pausing to clear her throat against her sleeve as she inched forward. "Keep making noise, if you can!"

The cries continued. There were two, maybe three distinct voices. Something tugged at the periphery of her mind - something familiar. It wasn't malicious, so she tucked that observation away for now.

Glowrod in hand, Cora made her way through the rubble. The unit she'd landed in was partially damaged, but the one next to it had collapsed into the two units below.

Carefully, she picked her way through a tangle of broken beams and snapped floor boards. A severed wire occasionally sparked in the darkness, giving her pause. Eventually, she came upon an obstacle she couldn't easily surmount - a snarl of wires and shattered ceiling beams. Muffled shouting emanated from within.

Cora's heart stopped, then galloped forward. She placed a hand upon one of the broken boards and let out a shuddering exhale.

"How many are there of you? Is anyone injured?"

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Canella District | Ukatis
TAG: Corazona von Ascania
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

The hallway groaned as Roman entered, dust cascading from the ceiling in tired little drifts. The structure had all the integrity of a lie, barely holding itself together. Every step felt like a negotiation with fate. His boots crunched over shattered glass and splintered wood. Smoke and dust curled in the glow of his wrist light.

He didn't need to follow her Force signature. He could smell the stubbornness. Same as always.

The cries were louder now. Young. Trapped. Frightened. Roman paused beside the fractured remains of a load-bearing column, placing a gloved hand on the wall to steady himself as the building gave another low, unhappy creak. He glanced up at the slanted ceiling above. The second floor looked like it had given up halfway through the collapse, now draped like a drunken curtain over the ruins below.

He heard her voice.

"How many are there of you? Is anyone injured?"

Roman didn't announce himself. He didn't need to. He just climbed, quietly, moving like a man whose bones remembered war more vividly than peace. He reached the snarl of debris just seconds after her voice cut the silence. A rusted beam blocked the path, thick with hanging wires that spat idle sparks like lazy threats.

He crouched.

"Still chasing disasters, Master?" His voice was low, rough with disuse, as if the words had to fight their way out of his chest. "You're consistent, I'll give you that."

He stepped around the beam, wedging his shoulder under one of the larger supports. His coat caught on a nail and tore, but he didn't stop. The muscles in his back pulled taut, legs braced against the ground. With a grunt and the ugly screech of metal protesting change, he shifted the beam just enough to give her clearance.

The glow of her rod caught his features briefly. Time hadn't been kind. His face had thinned, sharpened, more angles, less softness. A hard cut of jaw. Stubble. Eyes like a wolf that never really left the woods.

"Still with me?" he asked without looking at her, his voice clipped with strain. "I lift, you crawl. We trade places if it gets worse."

Below them, one of the voices cried out again. A boy. Afraid.

Roman's jaw tightened.

"We move fast," he said. "This whole building's one bad breath away from falling on its own grave."

He finally looked at her. The moment stretched, but he didn't speak.

He just gave a small nod. The kind that said we'll talk later, if we live.
​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Roman didn't announce himself; not directly. He was heralded by the particular way his footsteps fell against fragments of glass and slats of wood, by the way debris jostled in his path. Even as the Force coalesced into something persistent, it was her sense of hearing that told a more familiar story.

Cora didn't know that it was him until his features caught the light of the glowrod. Long, deep shadows sunk across Roman's face, casting his features into something grim. It wasn't just the way the light played; the lines of his visage formed something harder. A man who had seen much more than he'd ever been meant to.

Cora was tired. She wore her fatigue in the hollow spaces just below her eyes, in the down-turned corners of her mouth. A woman dragged down by an incredible weight. Yet, in that moment, her expression flared in surprise.

"Ro-"

She choked on his name. A sudden coughing fit was smothered in the crook of her arm. Cora never did well with dust or chance meetings.

A pang of something bittersweet struck her; Roman had changed in their time a part, but she'd seen the beginnings of it lingering in his eyes before he'd even left the Order.

Before she could gather her words, he was already working. Cora glanced to the narrow space he'd opened up, and returned his nod. No more time was wasted began crawling her way through. It came as a relief that she still felt that mutual trust. Their bond had been stretched, but it hadn't broken.

"I don't chase them," she lied, murmuring a delayed thought. "They find me."

The pair picked their way through the rubble in sync. A thousand questions whirled in her mind, and each time one managed to bubble to the surface, something happened. A jostle to the building. A snapped wire almost hitting her in the face.

Eventually, they reached the children. As Roman shouldered the remains of a stone fireplace, Cora shifted a shattered beam with steady movements of her hand to reveal a pair of terrified, soot-caked faces.

"A-are you going to get us out of here?" One asked, his voice trembling. When Cora held the glow rod closer to assess him for injuries, she saw that the dust clinging to his face had become wet with tears.

"We're going to do our best," she soothed, voice low. "Does anything hurt?"

"Our brother," the other boy croaked, pointing to the side. Blood caked beneath his fingernails. "Please get him! He's over there, I…I think."

Sure enough, a third voice could be heard wailing behind another pile of debris. This one sounded pained.

Cora shot Roman a desperate look. "Can you get these two out of here?"

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Canella District | Ukatis
TAG: Corazona von Ascania
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman crouched low, eyes narrowing as the third voice rose from behind the next ruin of stone and timber, smaller, raw with pain, the kind of sound that sliced straight through armor. His jaw clenched so tightly it ached.

Three kids. One injured. Time bleeding out.

Cora's voice pierced the moment.

"Can you get these two out of here?"

He didn't hesitate. Just nodded once, short and sharp.

"I've got them," he said, already moving, already calculating.

He reached the two uninjured boys, one arm wrapping firmly around the smaller of the two. "Grab onto me," he said to the other. "Tight. You don't let go unless I tell you."

The boy hesitated only a second before clinging to Roman's cloak like it was the last stable thing in the galaxy. Smart kid.

Roman looked back at Cora. "If that building shifts again, you pull out. No martyr bullshit."

The threat of collapse wasn't just a possibility. The structure was talking to him now, groaning with the fatigue of standing. Roman had heard that sound before. Buildings, battalions, people. Everything made the same noise just before it fell.

He turned, shielding the boys with his body as he moved through the corridor of broken furniture and drywall. Every step was deliberate. The smaller boy buried his face in Roman's side, shaking like a leaf.

Outside. He just had to get them outside.

Roman glanced over his shoulder once, catching a final glimpse of Cora's silhouette half-swallowed by rubble. His fingers tightened on the boy's shoulder.

"I'll be back in two minutes," he muttered to no one in particular.

Because of course he would be. Because this wasn't finished. Because Cora was still in there, and some kid was still screaming. Roman didn't believe in much anymore. Not destiny. Not redemption.

But he believed in her. And for now, that would have to be enough.
​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"I've got them," Roman said. Cora's gaze didn't linger. It didn't need to. She trusted him, and he'd always had her back no matter how hairy the situation.

Then, she glanced just in time to meet his eyes. They sight of the boys clinging to Roman, their terrified little faces coated in dirt, stirred her heart. Anger threatened to rise up her throat like bile, but she swallowed it down. The Sith would pay.

Another pained sob behind the debris spurred her into action. "Right," she nodded before starting toward the rubble.

To the fading tune of Roman's careful footsteps, Cora dug through the debris. She grunted, heaving a chipped stone slab aside with effort to reveal a third frightened face. He might've been smaller than the other two, but it was hard to tell in the enclosed space and low lighting.

"Hey," she said, breathless and saccharine. "Hey there. Are you hurt? Can you show me where?" Her glowrod passed over the boy's face, then his chest. A cursory examination of his torso lead to his leg, buried beneath a pile of debris. Cora raised her arm, casting light on a mountain of bricks and stone tiles towards what used to be the ceiling.

"It's alright, it's alright...oh dear, I think your leg is broken."

Holding the glowrod closer, she could see the blood. The discoloration. His leg had been crushed, and she bit the inside of her cheek so hard that it bled, too. There would be no way to dig him out, not quickly, and certainly not without the building collapsing on them.

As if the universe had read her thoughts, the structure groaned. The boy let out a cry as Cora shielded him from the falling stones. Though the shuddering lasted only a few moments, that was all the time she needed to make a decision.

"Bite down on this," she said. Her low, soothing voice had become edged with nerves as she offered the boy a snapped portion of wooden table leg. She ran her hand along the intact portion of his leg, retrieving the saber with her other. The boy flinched and whined at her touch.

"I know, I know," came her murmur. "Look where the hall is. My friend will be back soon. Watch for him, okay?"

Cora let out a slow breath. Her saber flared to life. In an instant, it passed just above the boy's knee, cauterizing flesh with a sizzle.

He screamed, the dowel falling from his mouth. The building trembled violently, as if moved by his pain. Mirroring it.

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Canella District | Ukatis
TAG: Corazona von Ascania
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman emerged from the wreck like a shadow spat out by the smoke. The two boys clung to him still, limbs locked in place by adrenaline and fear, until a relief worker spotted them and rushed forward. Roman handed them off without a word, gave the older boy one last firm nod then turned back.

He was already moving before the scream tore through the air. High. Small. Agonized. Roman froze. Just for a second. The kind of stillness that came not from fear but from recognition.

He sprinted.

Rubble cracked underfoot. Smoke blurred the path. The building's bones groaned again, and this time they sounded angry. He didn't care. He moved with lethal grace, carving a path back into the corpse of the home like a knife to a wound that hadn't finished bleeding.

Cora was still there.

He found her crouched low, saber in hand, the light of it washing her features in harsh white-blue. The boy beside her was shaking, teeth bared in a scream that had already lost its edge to exhaustion. A cauterized stump smoked where his leg had been.

Roman didn't flinch. He'd seen worse. Hell, he'd done worse. But his throat still tightened. Cora looked up. For half a second, she looked like she'd aged ten years in ten minutes.

Roman didn't speak. He just moved forward, dropped to one knee beside the boy. No theatrics, no hesitations.

"I've got him," he said, voice low and absolute. He wrapped the kid in his arms, careful not to jostle the ruined leg. His grip was strong, but there was a kind of gentleness in the way he balanced the weight, as if holding something already halfway gone.

He stood, the kid's body a feather to him, though his breath hitched slightly, more from what he felt than what he lifted.

Then, finally, he met Cora's eyes. For a long second, they just stared.

"You did what you had to," he said. Flat. Quiet. Honest.

He looked up. The ceiling above them was sagging, fractured beams cracking like splinters beneath the weight of failure.

Roman turned back to her. "Stay with me. We're almost out."
​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

The aftermath of Ukatis demanded immediate action. As long as she was busy, Cora could outrun her dark thoughts. Grief always loomed in the distance, though, like a creeping shadow that threatened to swallow her whole when she turned away.

There were still little things that caught up with her, strangling her in the moment. What she'd done. What she'd done.

Roman dispelled that haze with quick, quiet words as he gathered the boy into his arms. Cora could only nod, extinguish her saber, and follow.

Together, they navigated through the dilapidated structure and into the daylight. The building gave one final heave before the intact portion caved inward, sending plumes of dust billowing through the block. Cora instinctively raised a hand to shield around the boy's head as particles of debris rained down upon them.

She was squinting, still adjusting to the light when an aid worker retrieved the boy from Roman's arms. The nearby medics moved with a practiced, albeit grim efficiency.

That left Roman and Cora covered in dust, lingering among the rubble. Suddenly, their role in this task was complete.

Her head turned toward him in little degrees. Roman Vossari had been her apprentice once - no, more than that. He was a brother. He still was, no matter where his calling or lack thereof took him.

Cora had tried to understand when he'd left the Order. As much as it had felt like a personal failure, she stayed her tears and offered him well wishes instead. Keep in touch, she'd insisted. He knew that she'd worry if he didn't.

He also knew that she'd worry no matter what.

Before her mind could catch up, she'd thrown her arms over Roman and squeezed, her face buried into the hard plating at his shoulder.

"Thank you," her voice came in a wavering, watery whisper. "Thank you for coming. It…it's good to see you again, Roman. Truly.”

To hell with poise and manners. To hell with this hardass persona he'd cultivated in his time among the stars.

They were family.

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Canella District | Ukatis
TAG: Corazona von Ascania
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman didn't breathe as the building behind them finally gave up the ghost and collapsed into itself. The rumble rolled through his boots and straight into his spine. But his eyes didn't leave Cora.

Dust settled. Screams quieted. Medics moved like ghosts with purpose. And in the strange stillness that followed rescue, Roman found himself in a moment he hadn't rehearsed.

She turned to him, slowly, like she wasn't sure if he'd still be there. Like part of her expected him to be gone again.

Then she wrapped her arms around him.

The contact hit him like a detonation, silent, slow, and total. Her cheek pressed to his shoulder plate, and for a second he didn't know what to do with his hands. It was easier holding broken things. Wounded kids. Rifles. Rage. But this?

He closed his eyes and pulled her in tighter.

"I came as soon as I heard," he said quietly, voice low and sandpapered with guilt. "Sooner if I could've. I should've been here."

His hands curled lightly around her back, careful, as if she might vanish if he held too hard. He'd been across stars and fire zones, and yet somehow he hadn't known she'd been carrying all this. Alone.

"I saw the reports," he added after a beat. "Didn't believe half of it. Couldn't."

He pulled back just enough to look at her. Really look. Her face was thinner, eyes heavy with the weight of too much done and too little said. She'd always been the strongest person he knew. That was the problem. She never broke where anyone could see.

"You're not supposed to have to carry this alone, Cora." His voice cracked at the edges. He didn't care.

His thumb brushed some of the dust from her cheek like it mattered. Like it would help.

"I'm here now. I'll help wherever I can. But I think we should get you somewhere to get rest."
​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

As Roman embraced her back, it felt as though something between them had settled - that distance and time had not eroded the bond between Master and Padawan, even if they no longer called themselves that.

"You…you wouldn't have known," she murmured. "We only knew at the last second."

The Alliance had been tipped off as an army of Ukatian rebels, supported by the Sith, marched for Axilla. Even the King hadn't quite believed it - or if he did, he'd resigned to locking himself inside the palace and feasting with partygoers. A desperate scramble erupted into a violent clash, scoring deadly wounds straight into the heart of the crown.

The surge of relief that flooded her system was quickly swallowed by a thousand shades of guilt. Of course he'd been privy to the reports. Nefaron had practically broadcast the moment she'd murdered her father across the planet.

How many times had she cautioned her students against shouldering unmanageable burdens? Against being resistant to help? And yet, here she was, trying to hastily sew the cracks in her own psyche with frayed thread.

"It's the least I could do after what I've done," she muttered as they pulled away. Roman's visage had been shaped by his own anguish, and it hit something tender in her. "I suppose we're both terrible at taking that sort of advice.”

Had she unintentionally taught him that?

"I'm just…glad to see you again, Roman. In whatever form that takes. I’m sorry that it had to be this.”

Cora took a step back and drew in a sobering breath. The back of her gloved hand came up to rub the remainder of the dust from her cheek. The subtle gesture of his thumb had not gone unappreciated.

"Come on," she signaled him to follow with a wave. Through the broken streets, she'd lead him to a largely intact pub. With a nod to the barkeeper, the pair would pass into the back area of the establishment. Cora would bring Roman to a small room with an old wooden desk and a cot in the corner.

"They've been kind enough to let me stay here for the time being," she said briskly. There was the slightest tremble in her hands as she began to rifle through the paper files scattered across the desk. Shipping manifests, lists of missing civilians, and damage reports created an endless stream of information. "The Alliance is helping, but it's still a lot. They don't know Ukatis like I do." A pause. "At least, that's what I tell myself," she muttered.

Cora moved quickly from one task to the next, focused in a way that was unsettling on the outside but fragile to those who'd come to know her mannerisms. She slid a pile of papers Roman's way.

"Organize them by date," she instructed. Another pause, this one longer. "How…have you been?"

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Canella District | Ukatis
TAG: Corazona von Ascania
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman followed her through the shattered streets. The city moaned beneath its own wounds, every crumbled wall and scorched window bearing the weight of memory. He kept close, boots crunching over gravel, coat swaying around his knees like a phantom's cloak. Cora walked ahead with purpose, but he could see it in the set of her shoulders, the fatigue pretending to be strength.

The pub was unassuming, but Roman liked it. A place that had survived. It smelled of stale liquor and effort. When they stepped into the back room, he scanned it with the reflexive caution of someone who'd seen too many back rooms turn into battlegrounds. Then she spoke, and the tension in him shifted, just enough to draw a breath.

He didn't speak as she moved. He didn't need to. He watched. The tremor in her fingers didn't escape him. She passed him the pile like it was some kind of shield. "Organize them by date."

Roman took the stack and dropped heavily into the desk chair. It creaked under his weight, loud and offended. "Orders from a woman who hasn't slept in days. Fine." His tone was dry, almost amused, but not unkind.

He sorted in silence for a beat, fingers surprisingly precise. Military training never left the hands. He lined the papers in neat rows, dates at the top, red ink underlined, names that looked like ghosts on a ledger. Gone or missing or broken.

Then she asked. How have you been? His hands stilled. "I've been…" He stopped. Looked down at the papers. Then up at her. "I've been in the kinds of places where you don't ask that question unless you want to lose your appetite."

A ghost of a smirk twitched at the corner of his mouth. It didn't last. "I've been tired. Angry. Alone, mostly. I'm good at that part." He set the stack down gently. Looked back to her. "But I'm not dead. And I'm not gone. That has to count for something."

He let the silence linger, his gaze steady but soft. He'd gorwn a hard edge, a blade honed by life on the other side of mercy, but with Cora, it dulled a little. Just enough to be human. "I missed you," he said finally, low and true. "More than I thought I would. Not sure what that says about me."

He leaned back in the chair, arms crossing. "I'm sorry about all of this, Cora. I'm sorry for leaving..."

His eyes flicked toward the papers. "Want me to file the names, too? Or is this just busy work so you don't have to sit still?"
​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

To his comment regarding her lack of sleep, Cora shot Roman a half-hearted glare. Where normally sharp, her expression had been dulled.

She tsked, but saw no reason to make further comment as he joined her in sorting.

Never had a such a simple question felt so loaded. Roman might've paused and looked over to her, but Cora continued working. Eyes cast down, as if scrutinizing the stamped dates.

It didn't feel right, but she couldn't look at him. Not when she felt as though she'd had a role to play in causing him to harden against the galaxy. Perhaps he would've told her otherwise. Perhaps he wouldn't have.

Tired, angry, and alone.

Those words stung. Roman used to smile. Inwardly, she mourned the loss of the boy she'd once taken under her wing. How confident and warm and playful he'd been despite his demons.

That she could only help him so much and so far weighed heavier than a collapsing building on her soul. She couldn't shake the feeling that she'd failed him.

Cora braced both hands on the desk. One on the papers, the other on the wood.

"Don't-" she choked back the beginning of a sob, voice raw and rough. A slow, audible inhale helped her to swallow down the violent sorrow, but the guilt still rose to the surface.

"Don't do that. Don't be sorry. You…you shouldn't stay in a place out of obligation. If I’d been more attentive, I would have noticed you were struggling sooner. That there might've been something I could do so that you wouldn't end up so tired, angry, and alone."

With great strain, she managed to crane her neck upward. Finally, she found it in her to look at the soldier who'd once been her apprentice. A sheen covered tired, red eyes. Cora couldn't recall if she'd ever displayed such emotion in front of him.

"I'm the one who should be apologizing to you, Roman," she croaked. "I wish I had known how to help you then. I wish I knew how to help you now."

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
Canella District | Ukatis
TAG: Corazona von Ascania
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman didn't move. Didn't speak right away.

His jaw tightened as she spoke, not in anger, never at her, but from the pressure of everything he'd kept dammed up. For years. Her voice, cracked and hoarse, dug in like a blade between the seams of his armor. And she looked at him, not with blame, not with judgment, but with grief. For him. Because of him. Because somehow she still thought this was her fault. He hated that. Hated it more than anything.

"Cora," he said, voice low and frayed. "You shouldn't be sorry. For any of it." His eyes met hers, steady despite the storm behind them.

"There was nothing you could've done. You gave me everything you had. More than anyone ever did. But I was dealt a bad hand. That's not on you. I had to grow up with it. Carry it. Figure out how to live with it or get eaten by it. That's not something you could've fixed. That's just life in the mud."

He leaned forward in the chair, elbows on knees, fingers laced together like they were trying to hold something in.

"And when the time came, when I had a choice, I left. I chose to walk. Not because of you. Not because of the Order. Because I didn't know who I was in that place anymore. I didn't know if I ever did."

He looked away for a moment, blinking hard. Just once.

"I don't know if it was the right decision. Maybe it wasn't. I've lost so much of who I was. I miss him. That kid you met. The one who still believed in people. Who laughed more. Who didn't wake up choking on the weight of everything he couldn't fix." His voice cracked then, real and jagged. "And I miss you. Every damn day."

He swallowed hard, trying to wrestle the tremble from his chest. He failed. "But this? This... me? This version of me?" His hand gestured at himself, broad and empty. "You didn't make him. I did. Every step, every cut, every time I came back from a mission wishing I hadn't, that's on me."

His knuckles went white as he clasped his hands tighter. "I don't even know how anyone could help me anymore. Anneliese is gone. My family's gone. I don't have… much. Just my name. My rank. Some scars nobody bothers asking about."

He exhaled, slow and hollow. "And some nights, I dream I don't make it back. That I just vanish into some dark corridor with no return orders. No medal. No name on a wall. Just… gone. Like I was never here."

The room went still, even the creak of the chair subdued. "But then I think about you. And it stops me. Just enough."

He looked up again, and his eyes were wet now, but unflinching. "You gave me that anchor. And you're still here, Cora. Still fighting. Still trying to heal everyone else, even when you're bleeding yourself."

He shook his head, voice softer now. "Don't carry me like one of your failures. You kept me alive, even if you didn't know it. That's more than anyone else has ever done."

He sat back, looking like a man who'd just ripped open his chest and handed her what was left.
​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora fell quiet. There were several moments - hundreds, really - where she wanted to interject, but she'd lost her eloquence. Words failed her. She could only watch and listen.

There was nothing you could have done.

That struck like lighting, and the sting just burrowed further and further into her skin, seeping into her marrow with a deep, resonant ache. Cora didn't want those words to be true.

"I…I never wanted you to simply live. I wanted you to thrive. Perhaps I was arrogant to think that I could give that to you. You were…"

You were supposed to be better than me.

Her lips trembled with words unsaid. The last thing she wanted was to make Roman feel like he hadn't lived up to expectations while he was struggling.

She could not fight his demons for him, try as she might. Relinquishing even a bit of that protective energy was difficult, especially when he was here, in the flesh, scarred and damaged.

Cora drew in a sharp breath that steadied a fresh wave of grief. A few silent tears gathered at her lash line.

"I had hoped that your path would give you solace. I knew that you had to find your own way, but it's frightening to know how little you care for your own life."

To not just know, but to feel. The bond between Master and Apprentice had been stretched by time and distance, but like a rubber band, it snapped back into place.

And I miss you. Every damn day.

It was a deathblow to her emotional dam. Cora clasped a hand over her mouth, hunched over the desk, and sobbed into her palm. Her shoulders shuddered. The column of her supporting arm trembled. A few long moments passed, after which she rapidly shook her head.

"Y-you're still the same person to me, even if you ca…can't see it." Another pause, during which she drew in a sharp, audible breath to keep the hyperventilation at bay. "I look at you and see…see a man who hasn't given up. Some…thing in you wants to live, Roman. You may talk like a soldier with nothing to lose, but you still have your compassion. It led you here. It led you into a building on the verge of collapse, to save three innocent lives and watch out for one foolish one."

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
TAG: Corazona von Ascania
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman didn't speak at first. He watched her fold in on herself, sobs ripping through the silence like shrapnel, and something inside him broke again. Not all at once. It was slower this time, quiet, aching. Like a rope fraying thread by thread. The same rope he'd been hanging from for years. His hands curled into fists in his lap, then loosened, useless. There was nothing to shoot, no orders to bark, no shield to raise. Just this. Just her. Breaking in front of him because he broke first.

He stood, slowly. The chair groaned behind him. He crossed the small room in a few heavy steps and knelt beside her, close enough to feel the tremors in her frame. Close enough to hate himself for every second of this. His voice, when it came, was low and jagged. Like it hurt to push the words out through the armor of his throat. "I don't know who I am anymore, Cora."

He sat there beside her like a ruin beside a temple. "I made a choice. I left because I thought I'd find myself out there. That maybe I'd see the galaxy, help some people, do some good, and figure out what was left of me."

His breath began to hitch. "I didn't find myself. I lost more. Piece by piece." His gaze dropped to the floor. To the tear-stained edge of the desk. To nothing.

"I've done things, Cora. Terrible things. Things I can't wash off, can't file under orders or war. Things that don't feel like they came from someone who was trained to protect. They came from someone desperate. Cold. Efficient." He shook his head once. Hard. Like the motion might dislodge the images behind his eyes.

"I don't know if there's a way back from that." He turned toward her, gently placing one hand over her trembling one on the desk. "I failed you." The words landed like a death knell.

"You trusted me with something sacred. And I took it and twisted it and turned it into something I don't even recognize anymore. And now you're sitting here, breaking for me, when I'm the one who should've been strong enough not to leave."

His voice went smaller. Strangled. "I don't know what to do."

He closed his eyes, and a tear slipped free, silent and hot against the jagged edge of his cheek.

"I don't know how to come back from this. I don't know who to be. All I know is I'm tired, and I'm hollow, and I keep waking up hoping the next mission will be the one that ends it. Just so I don't have to keep pretending I'm okay."

His grip tightened slightly over her hand. "But then you're here. And suddenly I remember what it felt like to be someone else. Someone who had a future."

He opened his eyes again, searching hers like they might hold a map he lost somewhere along the way.

"I just… don't know how to find him again."
​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Her agony wouldn't help him, but something in her wanted him to see it. Cora couldn't work out if it was honesty or a loss of control. Perhaps both. They'd grown up in such similar circumstances; scions of noble houses, shaped by the conniving wills of their respective fathers. Tragedy wasn't just common, it was an old friend.

Roman's voice was softer, now. Each admission was felt as a blade sliding between her ribs. The hand that covered her own was a tether, warm and alive. Roman was her brother, and she anchored herself to that thought.

Calm, she reminded herself. You're not much help as a teary mess.

"You haven't failed, Roman. You just…you're taking the long way. I did, too. Sometimes we get lost."

Curling her sleeve around the fingers of her metal hand, she dabbed at her tears and took another deep breath.

"And it's no wonder. You've experienced more hardship in two decades than most ever will in their lives."

She turned her hand, palm up, and gave his own a gentle squeeze.

"I wish I had something wise or inspiring to say. But instead, all I have is…"

She'd been named the Caretaker of First Knowledge, but she didn't know how to help him. Maybe there wasn't an answer, not when they were both suffering from dreadful losses. Words failed Cora again, and she reached over to gently swipe at the tear that slipped down his cheek with the hem of her sleeve.

Roman was like her. Always moving, always having to work towards something - he'd even called her out on it earlier with the paperwork.

Her sleeve fell away from his cheek, and Cora rifled through the drawer nearest to her, producing a datapad. One tap on the surface, and the lock screen flared to life. The background was a photo of them with Lysander von Ascania - the day they'd gone fishing on Naboo. Both young men looked bright and happy, their smiles infectious as they posed for the camera. Cora stood between them, halfway caught between irritation and disgust as she awkwardly held her catch with stiff hands, lake ooze dripping from one side of her face.

"Remember him?"

The smile that followed was watery, but genuine enough as she pointed to a younger Roman.

"Be someone who helps. I think he'd like that. Ashla knows that there are plenty of people here who need it. Maybe you'll find him along the way. Maybe you’ll find someone different. But you didn’t come here because you’ve given up - you came here because at your core, you want to do good.”

Her next inhale was slow and silent, but the breath that followed was audible.

“And there are many ways to do good.”

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

Lieutenant Roman Vossari
TAG: Corazona von Ascania
GEAR: X | X | X | X | X

Roman stared down at the datapad as though it were a window to a life he'd never really believed was his. The photo glowed faintly in the dim room. He didn't remember the sound of the image being taken, but he remembered the sun on the lake. He remembered the way Lysander had laughed after the shot, the way Cora had sworn under her breath with the fish held in her hands. He remembered laughing. He hadn't laughed like that in years.

The smile that cracked across his face now was fragile. Brittle. It didn't reach his eyes, but it tried. "I remember," he whispered, brushing a thumb over the frozen image. "I'd give anything to be him again. Just for one day. One breath."

He lingered, letting the silence stretch like a goodbye. Then he turned the datapad gently, almost reverently, and set it back on the desk between them. His expression shifted as he pulled away, like gravity returned to his face all at once. The light dimmed. The weight settled back across his shoulders. Cora's words still echoed in his head, soft and steady, a lifeline thrown out into the dark.

But some part of him just couldn't reach it. "I hear you," he said quietly, voice like dusk. "And I believe you mean it."

He rose slowly to his feet. The warmth of her hand still clung to his skin, but it was fading. Slipping through the cracks. He took a step back. Just one. It felt like ten. "But I'm not sure if helping others will help me find him again. I don't know if there's enough good left in me to do anything that matters anymore."

He looked at her then and something flickered behind his eyes. Not quite peace. Not quite pain. Some tired mixture of the two. "I didn't come here to be saved, Cora." He shook his head once, slow and somber. "I came because I needed to see you. One last time. Because if I didn't… if something happened and I never got the chance…"

The words were final in a way that settled like fog. "I wanted you to know, you didn't fail me. Not even close."

He swallowed hard, and for a second, he looked like the boy in the picture again. "You were the best thing in my life. The one person who believed in me even when I didn't believe in myself. You still do. And maybe… that's why I had to see you. To tell you that. To give you that closure."

His gaze dropped to the ground, then drifted toward the doorway like it was calling him. "There's something I have to do. Something I can't walk away from. I won't drag you into it. It's mine to carry."

He turned toward the exit. "I don't know if I'll make it back."

His hand hovered near the doorframe. Then dropped. "But if I don't, I want you to keep going. Help more like me. Keep that light in you burning. You don't know how many people it's saved."

He looked back one last time, eyes shadowed, voice thick. "Goodbye, Cora. And thank you... for everything."

Then Roman stepped through the door.
​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"I…"

Cora wanted to scream.

At Roman. At her father's grave. At his father's grave. At herself in the mirror. She wanted to scream until her lungs collapsed under the sheer weight of both her and his own guilt - that was, if she could manage to wrest it from him.

He wouldn't give it to her, though. Roman's choices had been his own, and that was the hardest concept for Cora to embrace. That perhaps, in a sea of failures - the ravaging of Ukatis, Lysander's disconnection, Roman's pain - some of it had not been entirely her fault.

She wanted to grab Roman by his armored shoulders and shake him. You don't need to do this! she'd cry.

But he did. Cora could not control every facet of his life. Some lessons, some paths, needed to be forged on their own. At least partway.

You're making a mistake. Whatever you've done, there is surely another way to repent for. You don't need to put yourself in danger like this!

Still braced on the desk, the hand that Roman had held curled into a fist. Cora bit the inside of her cheek as he spoke. He drifted further away with each syllable.

Then, she was moving towards him without realizing, her steps as heavy as her heart.

"I suppose I can't protect you forever. But then again…"

Before he would pass through the doorway, before he had the chance to walk out of her life and onto another battlefield, Cora reached to unclasp the talisman from around her neck. Perhaps he still carried his own from all those years ago, but this one had been with her. Steadily, she'd fed fragments of herself into it. Whispers of a familiar Light.

"…I suppose I can try."

Roman would not be given a chance to refuse as she grasped his hand, all but shoving the trinket into his palm. It was a strange contrast; the Light was soft and gentle, but her movements bordered on aggressive.

Cora lifted her chin. Little dark lines streaked down either cheek, marked from where soot and dust had gathered as she wept. Her watery expression hardened, firm and resilient.

"I won't stop believing in you, Roman."

If the worst came to pass, she would drag his spirit back from the Nether herself.

Roman Vossari

 

[Roman Vossari]

​

LOCATION:Ukatis
TAGS: Corazona von Ascania

​

Roman wasn't meant to wake up. Not anymore.

But pain, cruel and insistent, had other plans. It clawed him back from the void, inch by agonizing inch. There was no sudden, dramatic resurrection, no heroic gasp for air. Just a tiny flicker, a fragile connection pulling him from the edge. A pulse, not his own, but something alien, something bright. It threaded through the Force, a vibrant counterpoint to the fractured remnants of his own presence. It was Light, pouring through his chest like a second, unfamiliar heartbeat. The talisman Cora had pressed into his hand throbbed with it, no longer gentle, no longer kind. It commanded.

The Force around him shifted, whispering a mournful song before erupting into a deafening roar. Then came the pain, a tidal wave of it. His body convulsed on the ship's floor, the dried blood beneath him a grim testament to what he'd lost, yet something held him here, tethered him.

Cora.

A wet, choked cough tore from his throat. He rolled onto his side with a desperate grunt, his fingers scrabbling towards the control panel. His other hand clutched the talisman tighter to his chest. He didn't know what he was doing, only that he couldn't stay here, couldn't give in.

The room swam. The ship's console blurred in and out of focus. His breath came in ragged, uneven gasps, but it still came. With hands shaking as if he'd spent a lifetime in the cold, Roman slammed coordinates into the navigation system.

A destination. Ukatis. The stars twisted and screamed as the Black Sun vessel ripped into hyperspace. Roman slumped forward, and darkness swallowed him whole.

------

Days blurred into a miserable stretch of rain. A cold, relentless downpour that mirrored the grief he couldn't express.

Roman surfaced in a gutter. Awareness returned in a wave of pain, a sickening symphony conducted across his ravaged body. Each breath, each twitch, threatened to tear him apart. Drenched to the bone, he felt the sticky warmth of blood mingling with the icy rain on his skin.

His armor, what was left of it, was a mangled mess. Shattered plating exposed raw flesh at his ribs, stained dark with what he knew was his own life leaking away. But beneath the wreckage, pressed against his skin, was Cora's talisman. He could feel its faint hum, a fragile pulse of life mirroring his own unlikely survival.

He had no memory of the fall, or the agonizing journey through the city. Only this: he was here. Canella District. And the pub. That pub. The one place where she had looked at him like he still mattered. Where he'd said goodbye as though it were his last.

His breath caught in his throat. His hands, almost unrecognizable, gripped the wall beside him, hauling him upright like a corpse clawing its way from the grave. The streetlights bled across the rain-slicked pavement, distorted and unreal like faded memories.

No one gave him a second glance. Or perhaps they did, and simply saw another ghost haunting the streets. He lurched forward, his legs refusing to fully support him. His lips were cracked and dry, his eyes sunken and shadowed, but they burned with a flicker of something he hadn't felt in years.

He couldn't explain his survival. Didn't know why he was here. Maybe it was all he had left.

The pub door beckoned ahead, spilling a warm, inviting light onto the rain-swept cobblestones. But he stumbled forward anyway, one agonizing step at a time. Bloodied. Broken. But breathing.

Roman hadn't died in the dark. He was home.