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

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael let the silence sit for a moment, watching her draw herself back into the armor she wore around the galaxy. He slowly pushed himself to his feet, brushing dust from his palms before meeting her fiery gaze without flinching.

"I wasn't hunting you, Cora," he said at last, his voice low, steady. "I'm just here to patch up my ship—nothing more. Didn't even know you were within a hundred parsecs of this place."

His eyes flicked down to her hand on the saber hilt, then back up again. A faint, dry smile ghosted across his lips. "And if I had come to kill you…" he let the thought hang before finishing, "I wouldn't have waited until after I had my arms around you."


He exhaled slowly, the weight of their earlier embrace still heavy on him. "You're not my enemy, Cora. Not now."

Cora

 

[Cora]

Cora looked the man up an down. It was a good point: if he'd really wanted her dead, he wouldn't have hesitated. "Repairs, huh?" They were there for the same reason then. "You, uh... Need a hand?" She offered, still a sliver of hesitation in her words. "After all, you never were the best at fixing things." She teased as sharp laugh escaped her. Of course that wasn't really true, but it was reminiscent of their shared time at the Temple when he'd once asked Cora to help repair his lightsaber hilt before his master could see.

Her stance had softened again, welcoming him back into her space. "Let me lock up the ship and I'll take a look at yours." Cora turned swiftly and disappeared into the darkness of her ship for a short moment. Inside, she set down the Jedi Holocron she'd found for safe keeping. Besides, she didn't want Kael to see it, or to learn that she was unable to open one anymore. Then she took a breath to recompose herself before exiting the vessel, closing the airlock behind her. "Lead the way!"

Kael Varnok

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael nodded, a small, tired grin creeping in at her offer. "Thanks," he said, standing and dusting off his hands. He motioned down the tarmac, toward the silhouette of the Brama Harand — his pride, his burden, his home and his fight.


As they walked, the ship loomed into view: matte black hull with burn-red detailing that caught the dying light, its custom folding wings tucked in tightly, the tribal etchings along the nose and wing-edges etched with both creed and regret. The bone-plated fin on the dorsal hull cast an angular shadow, reminding him of past battles and still-fresh scars.


He stopped a little way off, where the air was still, and turned to face her. "This is the Brama Harand." His voice was soft, proud but edged with the weariness of someone who's poured blood, sweat, and guilt into every panel. "She's been through more than she—or I—ought to have. But she flies."


Kael held out a hand toward the side access hatch. "If you want, I'll show you what needs fixing. And… I could use your help." The offer was simple, but meant everything.


He glanced at her, sincerity in his sky-blue eyes. "You don't have to believe it all yet, Cora. Redemption isn't about forgetting. It's about reaching out—even when you're sure it's pointless."

Cora

 

[Cora]

Gazing up at his grand design, Cora's jaw dropped in awe. The story carved into the ships design reflected much of her own, a reminder of the paths they had both chosen. Her hand brushed the surface of the hull as she approached the side access hatch. Every crack, every crevasse, like the scars on her own flesh. "It's beautiful..."

At the access hatch, she investigated the problem; poking and prodding around at the wires and components all charred with a layer of black soot. Well, something was severely damaged. Cora turned to face Kael, her expression showed her lack of faith in his words. "I can't undo what's been done." Her tone was colder than the ship's hull.

But before Kael could try convince her otherwise, she changed the subject back to the task at hand. "Aha! Looks like you've blown a capacitor. Guess that means a trip into town?" She didn't have a spare to offer him, and guessed that if he hadn't replaced it yet it was because he also didn't have a spare. "Might as well grab a drink while we are there?" She asked as she brushed past him toward the township, then checked back over her shoulder when he didn't follow in step immediately. "Well, you coming?"

 

[Kael Varnok]

Kael's eyes lingered on her hand as it brushed across the hull, then on her expression as she shifted back to business. He let out a small huff through his nose — half laugh, half sigh — at her cold words. "Maybe not undone," he murmured, low enough that it could almost be lost under the hum of cooling metal. "But scars… they're proof we survived."

When she brushed past him, tossing the suggestion of a drink over her shoulder, Kael stayed rooted for a beat. His lips curved in the faintest smirk. "Careful," he called after her, his voice carrying that rare flicker of warmth. "You ask a Jedi exile out for a drink, people might start thinking it's a date."


He stepped forward then, catching up with her stride, his hands clasped loosely behind his back as he added, quieter this time, "And… yeah. I'll come. Can't pass up the chance to drink with someone who still remembers who I used to be."

Cora

 

[Cora]

Cora gave Kael a playful shove and teased, "If I'd known you'd think this were a date, I would have worn my nice tunic." Her smile warm and welcoming, an expression she hadn't been able to muster in years. It was followed by some laughter. She didn't realise she still knew how to laugh. That made her laugh even more.

They stopped by the small parts shop on the way to grab a new capacitor, then headed to the cantina for that drink they'd talked about. There were a few empty booths but the cantina still felt like it was at capacity. Cora darted to one of the free booths to secure them a table before it was claimed by any other patrons there. She knew Kael would keep up.

"First round's on me," she said as she waved the server over to their table. "I owe you one."

As they sat together and drank their first drink, Cora found it hard to find much more to say. Their exchange in the hangar was heavy and she wasn't sure whether she wanted to press him further about the details of his past since she left the Order, or whether to keep things light. Sipping on her whiskey, she kept her gaze fixated on the man, looking past the face full of hair and seeing that young boy at the Temple again.

"I... Never realised how much I missed you." A pause. "Or anyone from the Order for that matter. My whole life was at the Temple, and it was all taken away so suddenly." Her expression saddened again as she glanced down to stare at the drink in her hands. "Do you think anyone else remembers me? Or would even forgive just as you have now?" She let out a hefty sigh before downing the rest of her drink, then continued to stare blankly at the now empty glass between her fingers.


Kael Varnok