Private Shadowlands

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

The doors of the Republic Intelligence Bureau shut behind Cassian Abrantes with a dull hiss, their sound swallowed by the polished marble corridor that led out toward Theed's upper terraces. The air inside had been thick with the hum of data servers and the clipped voices of agents exchanging coded briefings, but outside outside, the silence felt almost unnatural.

The sun was already long over Naboo's capital, gilding the city's domes in a faint amber sheen. Streams of air traffic glided through the sky lanes above, silent from this distance. The plaza was nearly empty too empty for late afternoon. Only the rustle of the breeze through the willows lining the nearby canal offered any sound at all.

He paused for a moment, letting his gaze travel across the rooftops. Theed was beautiful in its symmetry and serenity, but the calm today felt staged, as though something unseen were holding its breath. Something to soft to name, was enough to stir the hairs on the back of his neck. He turned subtly, scanning the crowd. A vendor was closing up a flower stand. No one looked directly at him.

And yet, he felt it. The weight of a gaze that lingered just long enough to be more than paranoia.

Cassian resumed walking, his pace unhurried, though his eyes flicked briefly toward the reflection in a polished storefront window. A shadow shifted at the corner of the street a figure cloaked too heavily for the season. When Cassian turned, the figure was gone, swallowed by the shadows.

He let out a slow breath and then hearing his comm buzzing faintly within his coat, a reminder that he was expected at the base long past already. Still, he lingered for a heartbeat longer, his instincts whispering that something in the quiet wasn't right.

The smallest glint of the rooftop, signaling that the sunlight had at last died, but before he could focus, the wind rose, stirring the petals from the vendor's forgotten flowers into a swirl that drifted across the square.

Cassian stepped forward, eyes narrowing beneath the golden light. The peace of Naboo was never without its shadows. And somewhere above or behind him, one of those shadows was still watching.

He started moving again at his regular pace.

 

[Shade]

Her name moved like a whisper through certain circles; she accepted that. Nobody truly knew who she was beneath the mask, and she preferred it that way. No loyalties bound her—only credits. Money was the axis that turned her life, and when a job landed on her datapad, she investigated it and accepted.

Graham Deras was the only name tied to the contract. Normally, she would vet an employer, dig until the dirt was readable, but something in the back of her mind told her Deras wasn't worth the trouble. It might bite her later. For now, she took the job and did what she did best: watch.

Her target was the heir to House Abrantes. Graham wanted Cassian brought to Nar Shaddaa, alive. Motive? Shade didn't waste breath speculating. She studied schedules, habits, the tiny rituals that make a man predictable—and Cassian was anything but. Some days he rose before dawn and moved with precise purpose; other days he slept until midmorning and drifted through the evening without pattern. His inconsistency stretched her stakeouts long, but the pay was good, and patience was in her ledger.

Deras had pinged for an update, his impatience thinly veiled. No outright threats, but the implication was clear: slow work cost credits. Shade curled a lip and let the irritation pass. She wouldn't let a hurried client make her sloppy.

She had earned her name—Shade—by earning the title Shadow of Csilla, and it suited her. She used the Force the way others used breath: to still the tremor of her pulse, to blur the edges of her presence, to fold herself into dusk. When Cassian paused in the square, her throat went tight; she let him finish his crossing. Timing mattered more than speed.

Her robe and hood were black—practical, unremarkable, designed to drink light rather than draw it. She kept her face covered, only the slightest silhouette visible where the streetlamps caught the edge of her hood. As he moved out of the pool of light, she began again, closing the distance with catlike economy.

Knives gleamed for an instant in her hand—small, efficient, their tips wiped and coated with a fast-acting sedative. A nick at the right place, and the toxin would take him before alarms could ripple outward.

Wind threaded through the square, making leaves shiver and throwing the lamplight into motion. The sound might have been an enemy; she made it an ally. When a gust brushed the exposed skin at her forearm, she dropped low, folding into the moving shadows beneath the trees. The breeze masked her breath, the rustle covered the slide of her robes.

Crouched and coiled, she read his silhouette—the angle of his shoulders, the rhythm of his step—and planned for the simplest, most reliable strike: a slash to the back of the leg. Not flashy. Not lethal. Effective. If the sedative did its work, he would go down quickly and quietly, long before any guard realized what had happened.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian moved further on down the road each step echoing softly off the marble tiles beneath his boots. The breeze that had scattered the petals moments before carried them now along the canal, drifting lazily over the still water like small fragments of a forgotten ceremony. He followed their motion out of habit, though his focus remained elsewhere stretched thin across every reflection, every sound out of place.

A flicker caught his periphery again. Not light this time movement, faint but deliberate, reflected in the water's surface. Cassian slowed, letting his stride falter as though distracted by a passing thought. He bent at the edge of the canal, ostensibly to adjust his comm at his wrist, his reflection rippling below him. But behind that shimmer, he saw it.

Cassian turned around and gave a casual glance around, as if he was taking in the sights. But in truth he was searching and his eyes were deep and direct.

His hearing was impeccable, as were his instincts. The shadows moving in the dark, he remembered the sand, sea and blood. Perhaps it was something more that was keeping him alive. Cassian turned quickly as he heard the faintest of sounds, he adjusted his stance and he felt the faintest of pressures against his leg. The blade that passed was enough to pierce the clothing and there was the smallest of cuts against his leg. Whoever sent it, it didn't hit as it was supposed to.

He didn't call for help, he did feel a small strange sensation creep over him but he shook his head lightly, anger and purpose flooding through him. He reached for the twin daggers at his side pulling them from their sheathes.

"Come on and finish it!"

 

[Shade]

A shadow uncurled from the stonework like smoke. For a heartbeat, the figure was nothing more than a darker shape against the canal's reflection—then the hood fell back and Shade stepped forward, silent as the breeze that had scattered the petals.

She did not press closer. She did not smile. Her blade was still low at her side, the tip glinting wet in the light; the cut on his leg had been shallow, deliberate. Up close, she looked smaller than the echo of the strike suggested—black fabric, hood, the hard line of someone who did not waste motion. Her voice was quiet, flat, almost bored as it slid across the water. "Finish it?" she echoed. "No. That wasn't the plan."

She let her gaze travel once over his stance, the way his hands curled around the hilts. "You were meant to go to Nar Shaddaa, alive and unbroken. I was supposed to make that possible." A pause, and something like a rueful shake of her head. "Some nights, the line between 'quick' and 'dead' looks the same. Tonight I misjudged distance."

She tightened her grip on the hilt for a breath—an idle, respectful motion, not a threat. "You can fight me and die for what you've done, or you can come with me and find out who paid good money to keep you breathing." Her eyes—half-hidden, implacable—tracked his reaction. "I prefer the second. It's cleaner for everyone."

She eased one boot back toward the shadow that had made her, the knife still at her side. "Move slow. Don't make me change my mind." Then, without another word, she slipped away into the dark where the canal swallowed sound, leaving the choice very much on him.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian let the world narrow to the hiss of the canal, the soft slap of water against stone, the faint metallic scent from the cut on his leg. Heat flared where Shade's blade had opened him more irritation than pain but it was the kind of reminder he welcomed; it sharpened his senses instead of dulling them. Blades in his hands, as he shifted once she came into view and Cassian took a patient and easy glance around. Noting everything from the small leave scattered along the road to the light laughter in the distance.


"You misjudge a lot more than distance." he said, voice low and even, the Naboo lilt softened by long years in Republic service. He took one step back, while his other moved forward slightly, measured, not hurried; the vendor's petals drifted between them like confetti from a celebration for two ghosts. He let his eyes sweep her again small, efficient, every line of her posture economical. A professional. Professionals had habits. Habits were useful.

"You say Nar Shaddaa." he continued. "That was never on my agenda. Whoever sent you didn't know my itinerary, unless they wanted me dead somewhere else entirely." He paused, letting the idea hang in the cool air. "So tell me which is it. A miscalculation, or a very particular lie."

"You were meant to go to Nar Shaddaa, alive and unbroken. I was supposed to make that possible."

"You can fight me and die for what you've done, or you can come with me and find out who paid good money to keep you breathing."

"Well, you already failed. Because that's not going to work out to well for everyone. And I assure you, I have no intention of going to Nar Shaddaa unless its to pull out the heart of the one who hired you."

Cassian was ready. "The choice isn't mine, its yours. But you are not taking me anywhere."

 

[Shade]

Shade's crimson eyes were steel. She shifted her stance, the motion small and economical, and the knife at her hip came free in a single, smooth draw, blade held low and ready, thumb resting against the spine, a tool for fight, for disablement, for defense. No flourish. No drama. Just purpose.

"You're stalling," she said, voice even, flat as a ledger. "Waiting for a patrol, or a friend to make courage contagious. Fine. Hope is cheap."

She closed the distance by a half-step, enough that he could feel the absence of space as plainly as the chill from the canal. The blade didn't dance; it hung there, a quiet promise. "You can try to call for help — bring a patrol into a knife fight — and this will get messy fast. Or you can stop pretending the choice is yours."

Her gaze swept him once, cataloging his posture, the favoring of his leg, the set of his hands. "Last chance," she said, voice colder now, each syllable measured. "Move with me now, or I disable you here and take you to Nar Shaddaa myself."

She did not threaten. She stated the outcome. The knife waited, patient as the tide.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade
​

Cassian's breath tightened, a sound so small it might have been missed by anyone but Shade. The warning in her voice, the blade at her hip—everything about the moment insisted patience. And yet patience would have been surrender. Cassian let the slow moment snap. He moved as if answering a bell not with drama but with the precision that had kept him alive through worse nights. His hands moved with the blades by habit, not ostentation—and the twin daggers whispered free. The metal sang once in the hush of Theed; petals scattered between their shadows.

"I don't need their help. I've survived far worse than you. And make no mistake, I will...survive you."

The first contact was a clack of metal on metal as the knife met the pistol's spine. Sparks didn't fly—only the low, intimate scrape of two professionals testing each other. He advanced against her, the pain in his leg nothing more than a slight against him. While whatever it was had met it's mark. Not as directly as it should have. Instead of the potent supplie of sedative against him, it was drive, determination that course through him now. Angling attacks against her as he moved to push her back.

 

[Shade]

Shade's stance remained tight and deliberate, each movement economical, precise. The red of her eyes glinted beneath the dim light as she adjusted her grip on the knife, letting the hiss of her breathing punctuate the pause between their strikes.

She didn't flinch at the scrape of his blades against hers; instead, she tilted her body just enough to redirect the pressure, keeping Cassian's advance from tipping the balance. Her steps were measured, minor adjustments that read the rhythm of his strikes without committing to one of her own—yet.

"You're fast," she murmured, voice low, almost drowned by the soft echo of metal. "But speed isn't the same as control."

A slight weight shift, a pivot of the foot, and she deflected another press from him, keeping her knife ready to counter, block, or disable—not to kill. Her expression didn't change, though the tension in her shoulders spoke volumes. Every motion was precise, meant to disarm, to protect, to test—not end a life.

Her eyes didn't leave his, reading intent, gauging hesitation, waiting for the first mistake. "Last chance," she said, calm but sharp. "Move wrong, or I stop this before it goes any further."

Every muscle was coiled, her knife poised to act the instant she judged the opening sufficient, a predator measuring her equal across the narrow corridor of Theed's shadowed streets, determined to survive the encounter without taking his life.

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian's next movement wasn't a rush it was a correction. The moment Shade's weight shifted, he mirrored it, matching the rhythm of her breathing like an echo drawn from training halls and fieldwork. He wasn't faster; he was closer, and close was where precision became personal.

"Control's a matter of perspective." he said quietly, circling. His voice was steady, the warriors patience overlaid with the cold efficiency of someone who'd done this before. "You think you're the only one who knows what restraint looks like?"

Their boots scraped against the marble as they turned. The sound of the canal wind rose, tugging loose petals across the ground like drifting ghosts. Shade's eyes never blinked, red and unreadable. Cassian could see the faint tremor of a controlled breath in her chest, the same rhythm he'd been trained to watch for in interrogation rooms, battlefields and everything else up into the moments before a confession or an attack came.

He didn't strike to kill just to break her rhythm. As he pressed forward he would look to use her momentum to force the blade off its intended line. The sound of metal scraping stone followed as he redirected the weapon downward, using his shoulder to press into her guard and crowd her space.

"Now." Cassian murmured, low enough for only her to hear, "You can tell me who sent you. Or we keep dancing until the river runs red."

 

[Shade]

The strike hit home. Metal scraped and parted fabric, biting shallow but sharp across her ribs. The shock of it jolted through her pain, pure and electric and then it steadied her.

Shade drew a single breath through her teeth, the exhale measured, controlled. Her armor was scored faintly where his blade had hit it. She didn't step back this time. She leaned into it.

"So that's what restraint looks like to you?"

Her tone was quiet: the kind of quiet that came before something broke.

The canal wind stirred again, cool and damp, carrying the scent of water and earth between them. She pivoted on her heel, red eyes catching the light as she let the movement hopefully pull him forward, his own proximity becoming her opening.

Her blade swept low, then turned sharply upward, the motion clean and surgical. It should catch his shoulder just enough to score through fabric and draw a dark line of blood before she pulled back. Not a killing stroke — a reminder.

The sound of their boots echoed off the marble, the dance resuming. Hoping it wasn't going to call down any of the patrols, Shade tilted her head, her breath even despite the wound, that faint, almost teasing curve tugging at her mouth.

"You ask who sent me," she said, circling him again. "But if you think I'd sell a name for my own blood…"

She let the words trail off, not defiant, but final, before she added, softer, "You'll have to do better than that, Cassian."

Their blades brushed again, the contact sparking faintly in the dark. She didn't press forward again...not yet. She wanted him to feel the shift, the subtle claim of momentum tilting back in her favor.

"Besides," she murmured, red eyes glinting like a promise, "if I told you everything, what would we have left to dance for?"

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian read the shift in her weight before the blade came. The moment her heel turned and her shoulder dipped, he moved—instinct, not thought. He twisted sideways, dragging his body out of the strike's line and letting the knife skim past the edge of his coat instead of flesh. The blade caught fabric, slicing through the hem and leaving only a whisper of pain where it grazed air.

He used the momentum to his advantage, stepping into her guard instead of retreating. The motion was tight, economical, the kind designed to control—not crush. He pivoted again, pulling her off-center, their boots scuffing against the marble.

They broke off and circled each other, Cassian showing a small smirk. "This isn't going down how you think. I'm not going anywhere. You will....have to kill me."

He didn't speak anymore, not right now. The silence was its own weapon. His eyes tracked hers, calm, sharp, waiting for her next motion, ready to meet it with another calculated counter.

 

[Shade]

For a heartbeat, the world narrowed to breath and movement. The hiss of her blade through the air, the rasp of marble underfoot — everything else fell away. Shade didn't answer him immediately. Her focus had honed to the rhythm of Cassian's stance, the subtle read of his balance. He didn't fight like a mercenary; he listened...the kind of man who could turn restraint into a weapon.

Her knife made a slow, deliberate arc, catching the lamplight. The glow of her red eyes shimmered against the blade's edge, that faint Chiss radiance sharpening the moment's tension.

"Kill you?" she echoed at last, voice low and even, carrying just enough bite to be dangerous. "You talk like you're worth the effort."

She struck again, not wild, not brute, but measured. A feint at his left, turning into a hook meant to catch him when he shifted. He did. Instinct met instinct, his counter forcing her back, the two of them locked in motion tight as breath.

The clash wasn't thunder; it was a whisper, a dance. Precision. Pressure. The language of those who'd learned that silence was the deadliest sound.

He was stronger. She was faster. And between every strike, the air seemed to hum with something that wasn't quite hostility.

Shade pivoted, slipping free of his guard. The hem of her coat brushed his arm as she turned, a streak of blood showing faintly through the cut in her armor where his counter had grazed her side. The pain grounded her — real, sharp, and almost welcome.

"Not bad," she said, her voice soft but laced with challenge. "You read people too well, Cassian Abrantes. Dangerous habit."

The faintest smile ghosted her lips — more defiance than humor.

Then came the sound. Boots. Metal on stone. A patrol, closing fast.

Her gaze flicked past his shoulder to the lantern-lit walkway beyond — then back to him. She didn't flinch. Didn't flee.

Instead, her stance eased, the blade lowering but still poised, a crimson gleam catching in her eyes as she studied him.

"Looks like we're out of time," she murmured. "So what's it going to be—do we talk our way out, or do I vanish before they notice?"

The patrol's voices grew louder, and she stepped just close enough that her next words brushed the space between them like a breath.

"Choose fast, Cassian. I don't run from fights… but I do know when to walk away."

Cassian Abrantes

 

[Cassian Abrantes]

Shade ​

Cassian’s head tilted slightly, the motion small enough to go unnoticed by anyone who wasn’t watching for it. The sound of boots carried clearly now armored tread, regulation pace, closing from the main street. Patrol. He exhaled through his nose, slow and steady, the same rhythm he’d used a hundred times before when decisions needed to be made faster than fear could take root.

His grip loosened on the hilt. The tension in his stance didn’t. He stepped once to the side, cutting the angle between her and the approaching light, the movement placing his body between Shade and the street. His eyes didn’t leave hers.

“Then you walk,” he said quietly.

He turned half toward the canal, coat shifting with the motion, and in one smooth movement sheathed his weapon. His free hand came up to his comm, thumb brushing the control to cut its faint hum a precaution. No witness, no recording. The less Republic Intelligence heard about this encounter, the better.

He scanned the plaza once a reflection of helmets in the marble, five, maybe six guards. Too close for a fight, too far to read details. His voice dropped even lower. “Stay north of the waterway for about thirty meters before the next checkpoint. Take it”

“You have skills, something I could use on my side, why are you wasting it on someone who would sell you out in a heartbeat.” he said. “Go…” And the word was command, not plea.

He waited until the sound of her boots dissolved into the damp hush beyond the canal. Then, just as the patrol turned the corner, he straightened his posture, rolled the stiffness from his leg, and stepped into the lamplight as if he’d been there all along just another officer on his way back from another late meeting.

The soldiers passed him with cursory nods, none the wiser. He let them go, then turned back toward the river where the last ripple of her passage disturbed the reflection of Theed’s golden towers.

He didn’t smile. He only adjusted his coat, thumb brushing the faint tear in its sleeve, and muttered under his breath.

“Next time, I’ll get that name..”

Then he walked on, the hum of the city rising again to swallow the silence they’d left behind.

 

[Shade]

The word walk wasn't a suggestion — it was an order. And Shade obeyed.

Her gaze held his for a moment longer, a silent measure of defiance that never quite formed into rebellion. Then, with the smallest exhale, she stepped back. The tension in her shoulders shifted from readiness to purpose. One knife slid back into its sheath at her thigh, the other reversed neatly in her palm before following suit — each motion clean, practiced, final.

She didn't thank him. She didn't need to. The act of following his direction was acknowledgment enough.

As she moved north along the canal, the echo of her boots softened against stone, swallowed by the hum of the city. She kept to the shadows, just as he'd advised — the water to her left catching the faint reflection of Theed's towers, fractured by ripples.

Somewhere between the bridges, she allowed herself one last glance over her shoulder. No movement. No trace of him. Only the faint gleam of lamplight on marble where he had stood.

Her lips curved, subtle and sharp. "Efficient. Predictable. Command suits you," she murmured, voice low enough to be claimed by the wind. "Though I doubt you give it freely."

The patrol's voices drifted faintly across the water — reminder enough to move on. But his question lingered longer than it should have. Why waste it on someone who would sell you out in a heartbeat…

That thought followed her as she crossed into the quieter streets, knives resting easily at her sides again. There were always offers, and most she ignored without a thought. But his — his carried weight.

"I will consider it," she said under her breath, though there was no one left to hear.

Then the wind turned, carrying her words away, and Shade vanished into the northern dark — a shadow obeying its own orders once more.

Cassian Abrantes