Private Shadows of the Past

[Kael Varnok]

Kael's boots clicked against the hangar floor, the scent of burnt metal and oil thick in the air. His eyes caught a flash of white hair crouched over the frame of a battered TIE Reaper, hands moving with precise, practiced motions.

For a moment, he froze, disbelief washing over him. "No… it can't be…"

He had looked up to her once—so much. She had been brilliant, untouchable, someone whose skill and resolve had inspired him long before he ever imagined walking his own path. And now… here she was. Older, scarred, a living reminder of everything he had thought lost.

Kael swallowed hard, his heart hammering in his chest. He wanted to call her name, to demand proof, to collapse into the relief that she was alive—but he couldn't. Not yet. Not when just seeing her felt like stepping into a dream he wasn't sure he deserved.

He took a cautious step forward, breath shallow. Every instinct screamed that this shouldn't be possible. Yet there she was, moving with the same precision, the same quiet command that had once made her untouchable in his eyes.


Kael's hand twitched toward his sabers, then stilled. He didn't need to fight. Not her. Not now. He could only watch, torn between awe, disbelief, and the pang of regret that he had ever thought she was gone.

Cora

 

[Cora]

As Cora worked to repair some minor laser damage to the hull of her junkyard TIE Reaper, she felt a twinge in the force. Her next movements were instinctual after years of mercenary life. She whipped around to face the approaching figure, drew her lightsaber and ignited its crimson blade. Her one free arm outstretched toward the man, ready to utilise the force should she need.

Cora's brow lowered and her good eye narrowed, the silver flash of her eye piercing through the space between them. A beat passed as she observed the man before her. Then her expression softened as she recognised the familiar face before her.

Cora relaxed and straightened her posture, but her lightsaber remained drawn. She was weary of the Jedi. Weary of her past. There was no telling where his allegiances lie. The low hum of the saber's glowing blade filled the long silence. Surely he had come to kill her, she reasoned with herself. Her eye remaining fixated on the man, she poised herself to a defensive stance, waiting for him to make the first move.

Kael Varnok

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael froze for a heartbeat, every instinct screaming at him to reach for his weapons—but he didn't. Instead, he kept his hands at his sides, taking measured steps forward, careful to respect the space she had claimed around herself. His eyes were wide, disbelief and awe tangled together as he studied her.

"The… it's really you," he breathed, voice barely above a whisper. He couldn't look away from the crimson blade, the subtle hum of it filling the quiet hangar, a stark reminder of the path she had taken. "I… I thought… I thought you were dead."

His gaze softened slightly, tracing the lines of her scar, the way she carried herself—so strong, so alert, so untouchable. "After everything… all those years… you're still here."


Kael paused, keeping his distance, letting her read the mixture of awe, relief, and lingering guilt on his face. He didn't know what to say next. Words felt clumsy, inadequate. Yet he couldn't step back. Not yet. Not when the person he had once looked up to—who had shaped so much of his early life—stood before him, alive and… different.

Cora

 

[Cora]

Motionless, she let his words linger. A knot formed in her stomach. She held her breath for a moment as some memories flooded her mind. The young boy who would come to confide in her in the temple whenever he'd made a mistake, now all grown up. Memories of Cora correcting his stance or his grip on his lighssaber when they were practicing while their mastered shared stories. She felt ashamed.

Her chest heaved as she wrestled with the memories in her mind. Did he even know what had happened, why she was no longer part of the order? Would he even understand? She pulled herself back into the present, took a step backwards and withdrew her blade. Softly, she finally whispered his name. "Kael..."

Then a wave of guilt hit her. Not only had she let her master down with her fall. She'd let him down. Her eye dropped at this realisation. Then she snapped her head to the side, avoiding further eye contact with Kael, fighting back a tear. She thought back to that young boy again, the one who looked up to her all those years ago. How did he see her now? A failure? An enemy? A murderer?

A single tear slid down her cheek.

Kael Varnok

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael's gaze lingered on her, searching past the blade, past the scar—and then he saw it. A single tear, cutting a line down her cheek. For a heartbeat, he couldn't breathe. This wasn't the unshakable figure he had idolized in the Temple… this was someone weighed down by years of pain. Someone who, for all her strength, was breaking in silence.

Something in him softened. His hands, which had hovered near his sabers only moments ago, slowly lifted—not to fight, but to open. He stepped forward, careful, measured, until the distance between them was nothing more than a choice. His arms spread slightly, a silent offer.

"It's… good to have someone I know still alive," he said quietly, voice trembling with honesty. "Everyone I get close to seems to be taken from me. Vara… so many others. But you—" his words caught, eyes shining with a rawness he rarely showed, "—you're here."


He held the space open, waiting, not demanding—just offering. A bridge across years of loss, regret, and silence.

Cora

 

[Cora]

She wanted to accept. To pull herself into his gentle embrace. To feel the warmth as her body pressed against his.

But she wouldn't move. Couldn't move. Instead, her face tightened and she let out a solemn sigh. "I'm not that person anymore." Her words cold and unforgiving, like a tiny dagger holding the distance between them.

The inner turmoil rose to her surface. It looked like her eye flashed an amber colour just for a moment as her face scrunched tightly. These thoughts that plagued her nearly every day since the incident, a conflict between two identities. They were the reason she'd fallen all those years ago.

She clasped her hand to her head. The pain unbearable. Then she looked back up at Kael. Not with her single remaining eye that had witnessed the years of her own neglect, but with the eyes of the innocent padawan she once was.

"I am glad to see you, Kael." This time her words were soft, as if his presence had somehow broken through the veil of darkness she'd covered herself in. It was a hint of vulnerability that she hadn't shown in years. Something about Kael made her finally feel safe.


Kael Varnok

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael's eyes softened as they traced the scar cutting across her closed eye, a wound that hadn't been there in the Temple, when she'd seemed untouchable to him. It spoke of years he hadn't shared with her—years of battles, pain, and survival.

Almost without thinking, his gaze flicked down to himself. The faint marks on his forearms, the ridges across his hands, the hidden scars beneath his tunic, the lines on his wrists—all reminders of his own "difficult times." For a moment, he felt the weight of them pressing against his skin, a quiet acknowledgment that he was no stranger to suffering either.

When his eyes lifted back to hers, his voice was calm but unwavering.
"I don't care how much you've changed. Those scars… they don't erase who you are. Or what you meant to me."


He stood steady, letting the silence fill the space, not hiding from her pain—or his own.

Cora

 

[Cora]

"You... You don't understand." She stammered, her words shaky and her hands trembling. Her gaze fixated on the floor beneath her feet. She couldn't bear to look him in the eye. "I'm a monster!" Something changed in her voice on that one simple word. It sounded hollow and distant, as if they weren't Cora's words at all. Then came a whisper, "How could you ever understand?"

All these swirling emotions pressed down on her, making her feel heavy. Cora collapsed to her knees. A quiet sob that she tried to hide echoed around her. With all her might, she willed the Force to take her back to that moment so that she may stop herself from ever having made that mistake. But that's not how the Force worked, and she knew that.

Slowly she brought her eyes to meet his. Her pain flowing through the Force out toward Kael. An expression of pure hopelessness clung to her features as tear after tear streamed from her eye. "There is no redemption for what I have done. And there is no end to my torment." Choking through the lump in her throat, her words carried with them her defeat. "Please," She pleaded. "Make it stop."

Kael Varnok

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael froze as her voice cracked, the word monster tearing through him like a blade. The hollow echo in her tone wasn't just her—it was the darkness she carried, clawing at her from within. Watching her collapse shook him, and for a moment, he almost felt like that boy again—the boy who had once looked up to her as unshakable.

But he wasn't that boy anymore.

"Cora…" he breathed, dropping down to his knees in front of her. He didn't hesitate this time. Slowly, he extended his hands, palms upward, revealing the faint scars etched across his skin. "You think I don't understand? My hands are just as bloody as yours."

His voice wavered, but he pressed on, letting the truth spill. "Innocent lives… ruined because of me. That's why I left the Order. Not because I didn't believe in it, but because I couldn't carry the weight of what I'd done and still call myself a Jedi."

For a moment, his gaze dropped to the floor between them, heavy with guilt. Then he looked back at her, steady this time, his eyes burning with something fierce and unyielding.

"But listen to me—" he leaned forward, and without waiting for her to move, wrapped his arms around her trembling form, holding her tight against him. "Redemption is possible. No matter how far you've fallen. No matter how deep the scars go. You're not alone in this torment. Not anymore."


His voice broke, but his arms only tightened around her. He wasn't letting go. Not of her. Not again

Cora

 

[Cora]

Her eye studied his scars as he presented them to her. She recognised the pain in his voice. It was a pain they both hid well to others, but each had finally let go in their reunion.

Then she froze as he pulled her into a tight embrace. Her breath hanging on every word he said. When he tightened his grip even more the words softly spilled out. "You fell too?" She hadn't known.

Finally she felt able to breathe again and her body melted into his. The weight she'd carried for over a decade had finally lifted. Her burden shared with him.

Cora wrapped her arms around Kael as the pair cradled each other there on the cool floor. "I... I killed my Master..." It was the first time she'd said it out loud. The first time she had admitted it to anyone.

Suddenly it was as if she was back at the Temple with the younger boy by her side. Their bond was unbreakable, no matter how shattered they each felt now. For the first time in years, Cora felt at home. And home was here in his arms.

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael's arms didn't loosen even as her words struck like a blade. He held her as though she might vanish if he let go. Her confession trembled in the air between them, heavy as the years they'd both carried.

"I know," he whispered, his voice rough, the scars in his tone as raw as those on his body. "I know the weight of that pain. Because I carry it too."

His head dipped, lips close to her temple, as though he was speaking only to her. "There was someone once. Vara. She was… everything. We stood together in the fire, and when she fell, I could have saved her. I could have healed her. But I didn't. I froze, Cora. And I watched her fade."

The words caught in his throat, a rare crack in his armor. His hand pressed gently against the back of her head, fingers brushing her hair. "So when you tell me there is no redemption, I know you're wrong. Because if there's no redemption for you… then there's none for me either. And I refuse to believe that."


He pulled her closer, tighter, his breath steadying against her. "We're broken, Cora. Both of us. But broken doesn't mean beyond repair."

Cora

 

[Cora]

"You... You really believe that?" She struggled to speak through broken sobs. Her voice full of hope that she'd long abandoned.

With her nose nestled into the crook of his neck, she inhaled his scent. An earthy musk, soothing and warm. She clung to him for a while longer, no more words to surface. Just the two of them together, bridging the past to the present.

It felt like hours had passed them by in the moments they held each other. Then finally, she withdrew, pulling herself an arms length away. She looked deep into Kael's sky blue eyes, searching beyond what she could see.

Then she reached for his hands and pulled them into her lap. Turning them over in her own, she examined the scars closely, tracing them with her fingers.

Cora finally broke the silence. "Vara would not have wanted you to carry this burden." She spoke so softly it was nearly a whisper. Looking back to his eyes, she brought a hand to his cheek for a gentle caress. His beard rough in her hands. "Don't hold onto it as I have mine."


Kael Varnok

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael huffed a breath that might've been a laugh if it hadn't sounded so tired. The corner of his mouth tugged upward in a crooked, humorless smile.

"Let go of the past?" His voice carried that rough edge of sarcasm he often turned against himself. "Cora, I can't even let go of what I had for breakfast last week. The past is carved into me—every mistake, every face I couldn't save. Vara. My master. All of them."

He shook his head slowly, gaze dropping to where her fingers traced his scars. "But… maybe that's the point. We're not meant to forget it. We're meant to learn from it. To carry it without letting it crush us."


His eyes lifted back to hers, tired but steady. "I've been broken plenty of times. I just refuse to stay that way."

Cora

 

[Cora]

"But it wasn't your fault." She insisted. "Being unable to save someone is vastly different to-" Cora stopped herself before she revealed the true extent of her crimes.

But her mind wandered back to that moment. She felt her lightsaber connecting with her Master's flesh. Saw their headless body fall to the ground at the swing of her own blade.

Cora recomposed herself, wiping the tears from her eye. She cleared her throat, pushing back all the emotions she'd just unveiled to Kael. "So, uh... What are you doing out here, anyway?"

She paused for moment and let out a slight chuckle. "At first I though you were here to kill me." Her brow furrowed as she looked back at Kael. "Or you were here to kill me until you realised who I was?"

With that thought lingering, she scrambled back to her feet and took a step away from the man. How could I let my guard down like that? Anger rising within her again, a feeling she'd become accustomed to.

She waited for an explanation from the man she had just confided in. Her fingers lingered on the hilt of her saber, her eye firey and fierce.

Kael Varnok