Private Something So Studious

[Ishida Ashina]

Bernard of Arca
​

A private library, exclusive to the royal family! What an honour. A privilege bestowed out of extreme gratitude for their service — “Better or worse than another velvet duvet?” Ishida had elbowed Bernard after the invitation had been extended to the pair.

Whatever his answer, Ishida almost forgot it the moment the door opened and the guard stepped away. It was so cozy, so intimate, so ornate, that it seemed a nook carved out of fairytales. Shelves and shelves of intelligently architected design were filled with texts ranging from ancient days, hidden secrets, misprints, and eventually organized themselves into digital, more modern renditions.

At first, they’d excitedly poured through the titles, prickling their fingers long spines and pulling ones of interest out, flashing the titles to one another before greedily just reading themselves and stacking them into their cradled arms and setting down for a few hours of digesting.

Ishida had needed a break for air about an hour in and gone to practice a routine with her swords instead of losing herself to words any further. But now she was back, and the light had shifted in the small space.

The library was so small that it was almost exclusively lit by the wide, single-story window that filled the space with broad and yellow afternoon light. It was so amber, that the daylight changed the spines of ancient texts to golden rods.

On a bench seat beneath the impressive stretch of glass, Ishida sat cross-legged and faced the bench beneath the window to benefit from two things:

One — the natural light.
Two — the tiny compact settled on the flat of the cushion that wasn’t overtaken by books yet.

The mirror was small, no larger than the size of her fist, but it was enough. Any amount of reflection she could see helped with precision, and with a few seconds of undisturbed concentration, she traced the line of her lid and extended the line beyond the corner of her eye into a black, inky wing. To further emphasize its shape, she moved the pen to create a tiny 'v' in the inner corner, bringing it out slightly toward her nose to resemble the shape of a vulptex’s.

She blinked and moved on to the other when she was satisfied with one eye.

When both had wings with a sharpness was to her liking, she clicked the compact shut and folded her elbows on the cushion, and propped her head up with a hand, looking over to Bernard buried in a book.

“What are you reading?”

 

[Bernard]

"Better or worse than another velvet duvet?"

"That depends entirely on the quality of their collection," Bernard had replied when they'd first arrived.

The library held a wealth of historical texts. Most related to the epics and histories of Onderon's people, but many included the events which intersected with the Jedi and Sith. From early uprisings to the burial sites of Jedi Masters, and tales of lone Sith Lords wandering Onderon's dangerous moon, the selection was expansive and, to Bernard's delight, quite comprehensive.

As he passed the books he made a mental note of titles of major importance and started to keep a list of texts to read, copy, and skim. He began to gather several of them into a pile, setting them down on one of the few desks available, and, once it was full, continued to use the bench next to it.

While Ishida went to practice her blade work, he delved deep into myths and legends of the Onderonian Moon. Time passed quickly when spent focusing intently on hand-written letters or glowing holobooks. Words began to blend, figures from history resembled others, patterns emerged from the pages, and the secrets of Onderon's history began to unravel as Bernard studied. Though it had never been of significant importance to him, Onderon began to take on a curious role in galactic history, as a site of notable importance in several key events.

It turned out to be much, much better than another rug to decorate living quarters that rarely got used.

"What are you reading?" Came Ishida's voice from his side.

She'd returned at some point and Bernard hadn't noticed. Guilt bit at his conscience for a moment.

"Records of events that occurred roughly five thousand years ago," he replied.

He set down the holobook in his hand and looked up from the pile of vellum and electronics for the first time in what must have been hours. His back ached, and his limbs felt stiff from a lack of movement. Straightening up in the chair, he began to lightly stretch.

"It turns out the library even held some of the original texts from a period when the Jedi had nearly gone extinct. They're quite fascinating."

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

"Really?" Ishida pressed her fingers against some of the books that were stacked where she might have wanted to sit, lightly pushing them in the silent query of can-i-move-these. None of them could leave the walls of the library, so the dependency of memory relied on the reader.

"Diaries of sorts?"

What an alarming thought. The complete eradication of an entire warrior sect.

A chill ran through her, and she firmed her push into a scoop and lifted about three or four titles from the cushion to the floor beside her. She lifted the cover of one, looking at the handwritten dedication on the first page — an unrecognizable signature.

"That's intimate. Any major takeaways?"

 

[Bernard]

The stretch extended to encompass his whole body. His limbs seemed to lose cobwebs as a pleasant strain settled into his bones from the stretching. He straightened between chair and desk, creating some distance between them before he settled back.

Residual warmth radiated through his limbs, and he turned the chair more toward Ishida, setting an elbow on its armrest to support his head.

"They're not diaries, they're important historical accounts from direct sources.

"Hardly intimate, but certainly informative. Onderon played a bigger role in galactic events than anticipated. Its moon, Dxun, at least.

"Did you know that once every summer, Onderon and Dxun orbit close enough that their atmospheres merge and any winged species from Dxun can cross over to Onderon?"

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

"Personal accounts are direct sources." Ishida countered and folded her arms to lean back against the bench's structure. She remembered once stumbling across her mother's diary. It had been long since updated, stories of her teenage years through difficult-to-read shorthand, but it still felt deeply important. And direct. The other accounts of her mother's archery had been paid historians, required to emphasize someone's qualifications above all else. Her mother's instances had been more heartfelt and vulnerable.

A small, tight smile wound its way through her expression. She felt her eyes narrow at him, the neutral expression shifting to something more straight-faced to convey a why-would-I-know-that. For a flash of a second, it was defensive. So much of her still required that she be prepared for every situation, know what she could on intergalactic topics lest she be outdone or reduced to inadequacy. But Bernard of Arca wasn't trying to be hostile, or corner her. It took her a few heartbeats to resolve that internal argument, and after a stretch of silence, she exhaled and forced herself to look at him and not anywhere else.

She had to face her lack of knowledge, even in this abstract topic.

"I did not." She admitted her imperfection and gave some welcome to curiosity. "What does that mean for Onderon?" Her mind cast back to the dragon migrations on Chaldea, and how many forms she'd had to fill out just to run away from dragons. "Well, I guess it sounds like a colossal tourist opportunity."

 

[Bernard]

Undeterred by her expression, and motivated by her question, Bernard continued.

"Oh, doubtful. It has historically allowed the tribes of Dxun to raid Onderon for resources and wealth. Airborne barbarians and their summerly attacks continued well into the age of the Old Republic, believe it or not. That time period was known as the Beast Wars."

He held up a finger to indicate more to the tale.

"Furthermore, one source even claimed that this phenomenon allowed a Sith Lord to escape a certain and slow death in Dxun's jungles. Apparently, he played a key role in the development of the Sith Order, too, meaning that Onderon's gravimetric peculiarity is directly responsible for the propagation of evil in the galaxy."

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Her expression fell. That was the opposite of what she'd theorized.

"Huh." She exhaled and prepared to suggest that Onderon should have been more prepared when Bernard of Arca lifted a finger to hold her off. All of a sudden, the rhythms of rotations became a propagator of evil and she became all the more irritated with Onderon. The royal family had been frustrating. The queen had been so proud that she'd blinded herself to a situation that could have put her entire planet in jeopardy. And now she was learning that with their lack of preparation, they'd been fertile grounds for The Sith Order's evolution. "That's annoying."

Stacking her knees on top of one another, she rotated to face him and kept her elbow on the bench's cushion. "So, records from five thousand years ago —" not problems they could solve now. "How much more is left in that volume? Are you applying the contents to the galaxy of now?"

 

[Bernard]

"History has a habit of repeating itself. The actors change, but the play rarely does as most beings refuse to learn from mistakes their elders made," he said.

The recurring rise and fall of both Light and Dark seemed to span the galaxy's history, in particular, shaping entire millennia through the wills of a few beings. The more he read, the more this through-line of history became apparent, and the more it became unsettling. His eyes fell to the stacks of books he'd queued up for reading. They conjured both excitement and apprehension in equal measures.

He'd started to idly wrap his fingers against the side of the armrest. Annoyed, he started to reach for his collar, but stopped himself, and stood up instead.

"How did the palace fare for spots to practice swordsmanship?" He sat down on the ground next to the bench, resting an arm next to her legs for support.

His eyes trailed down to her shoes.

"Sit back," he instructed quietly, to make the interruption to her response as minimal as possible.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

He had this habit of speaking detachedly from what he observed, ingesting the information solely for what it was and not taking it personally. From his vantage point, he could see all those players moving, predict their moves and not feel disappointment or triumph at the outcomes. Just consuming and storing that information to, when appropriate, apply it for himself and not fall victim to those same repetitive notions that threaded their way through history.

"Learning from the past must require astute self-awareness in the present," Ishida let her thoughts air, for fluff's sake and sunk deeper into her palm. It wasn't something she thought about too often, the histories she'd been born from — her own mind lingered much on how to handle scenarios before they happened with all the different moving pieces and how to move them together. She hadn't taken the time to think about reading back through patterns that might be adjacent to hers. "Hard to do when the play-makers are often so focused on the future."

"How did the palace fare for spots to practice swordsmanship?"

She hmm'd before answering, giving him time to resettle.

"I found a few willing sparring partners among the royal security detail." Had he been at that desk the entire time she'd been gone? "They weren't bad.." She'd gotten an itch to move so soon into their time with the library — he'd certainly outlasted her tolerance within the heavily-stacked walls.

"But it's beautiful here," Ishida admitted and smoothed a hand over his forearm and she acquiesced easily to his suggestion, adjusting her position while still talking. "Even in the westmost courtyard, where their guards train, murals cover the walls. You can tell how important history is to Onderon."

 

[Bernard]

"You wouldn't guess when meeting their people, but their architecture does attest to it."

His hands moved to her shoes, carefully peeling off one, then the other.

"Onderon has always been the more civilized sibling. I wonder how much Dxun's peoples differ by contrast. The texts mention them sparingly, only as Drexl-riding raiders," he finished his digression, shifting his attention to her legs again.

With one efficient motion, he slipped a sock from her right foot and pulled it closer. He held it close to his shoulder, drawing circles over her sole with his thumbs.

"It seems they really weren't all that bad if they got your feet so tense," he frowned, going between her eyes and his work.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

“We could always take some time to find out.” Ishida suggested with a shrug. How different could they be, really? They were within the same system and only lesser by the distinctions between moon and planet.

“Maybe there’ll be a library there that undoes everything the Onderonians have collected here.” The flash of her roguish grin popped and melted into something more uncertain when he casually acted his intent. Instantly, she felt the heat in her cheeks that made her face redden.

Instantly, a level of self-conscious defence flared up and she couldn’t help the involuntary twitch when her socks were gone. To keep herself from reacting, she flexed her fingers against the bench and she forced herself to breathe, deeply, to remain still. But it wasn’t the breaths that calmed her or accept the kind gesture as sheer affection, it was Bernard of Arca ’s relaxed handiwork. Unhurried, delicate and caring, she felt a release of pressure she hadn’t been aware of travel up through her ankles and settle around her hips.

“They are not so tense.” She protested and flinched at the sound of her own objection. Her defensive gaze met his intermittent glances, and her defiance deflated. Her expression eased, and she sunk back into the heels of her hands to support her backward lean.

“But fine, you’re right. They weren’t bad.” The sun warmed her back and the top of her head through the pane. She was used to stretching after sessions, or other acts of self-care but his attention to detail was considerate. She let herself melt into it. “Just different. If we weren’t here, and something went wrong tonight, the queen would be in good hands.

At least good enough for that to feel nice.” She sighed. “Thank you.”

The mention of tonight made her straighten a bit, and she sat a little straighter. “You didn’t answer my question. How much of that volume do you have left to read?”

One of her hands lifted, and her fingers twisted through the air to coax the book he’d left on the desk to float over to her lap. She was careful with its trajectory, so as not to lose the page he’d left open.

She made a face.

"All this, and everything else you haven't started — all before tonight?

Want me to read to you so you don’t lose time?”

 

[Bernard]

"At least good enough for that to feel nice." She sighed. "Thank you."

He hid the small smile her compliment elicited. It was a subtle one. Only barely noticeable, anyways, by the motion that curled the corners of his mouth slightly upward. A dilatant wouldn't distinguish it from Bernard's usual empty-frown expression or lack thereof.

Not that anyone would ever take enough interest to notice the subtleties.

"You didn't answer my question. How much of that volume do you have left to read?"

He watched the book float over, still open on the page he'd left open.

"All this, and everything else you haven't started — all before tonight?

Want me to read to you so you don't lose time?"

"I'm taking a break to let things settle in." He paused the work on her foot briefly to pluck the book from her lap.

He glanced at the page number before he shut it closed and set it down on one of the many piles they'd set up. Once safely stored with its companions, he resumed his work, pushing his thumbs up along the side of Ishida's foot with slow, staggered movements.

"It's a fool's errand to try and read even half a library in a day. I'm trying to stick to the highlights. Among them, the books that caught your interest are more intriguing to me. What did you end up picking up on your list?"

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

“This is a very small library.” Ishida negotiated, believing entirely that if Bernard wanted to, he could consume every written word on these shelves. Especially if challenged with a timeline. “Does the size of the fool count?” To secure her jest, she did her best to sink into a moonish expression in peak daylight hours.

A deadline didn’t guarantee resonance, however. And that’s what he was seeking apparently. She watched him close the book and folded forward to catch a glimpse of the page’s digits herself.

Ishida tried not to let her emotions bleed too obviously into her expression (especially the saturation of her pink cheeks). How stupefied she was to be the focus of his affection, and the one to appreciate the subtleest sparkle in his eyes!

But whether by the pressure on her sole, or the genuinity of his words — Ishida felt herself unwinding. He did this to her and made it seem so easy. So pure. All his expressed interest and demonstration of affection, and it filled her with a swelling warmth of appreciation she felt foolish just gagging out.

“I skimmed through a few,” Ishida admitted. “This seemed relevant.” Her hands moved to reach to the top of the pile she’d left hours earlier. It remained untouched, and the emerald cover that had caught her eye on the shelves opened in her hands. She flipped through a few pages and flashed the title back at Bernard. THE WATCHMEN OF ONDERON. Within its pages was a detailed compendium of the later Master Arca Jeth and his padawans. One of which was Ulic Qel-Droma — who, unbeknownst to Ishida, Master Varobalder had once paralleled to Bernard of Arca . “To you, Inosuke, and Henna anyway.”

If she were a little more firm in her self-trajectory, perhaps she would have been a Watchmen of Atrisia alongside her brother too. The concept of planetary overseers was not as fresh as The New Jedi Order might have made it seem. History was repeating itself.

“And this.” Another front cover, deep tangerine, flipped up to face Bernard. She was about to read out the title of a Chronology of Conflict: Onderon Edition when she drew in a hiccup-like breath at the unexpected pressure when of thumbs against the arch of her foot. Her shoulders, previously loosened from bliss, tightened.

“Ah!” Ishida set the book down, curled her toes and drew her foot back. Her skin buzzed, and the pain disappeared. Her shock had a more delayed reaction and took a few seconds longer to fade. Probably cumulated from the earlier surprise of his casual care.

“Careful.” She faux-warned, a slyness she half-felt curled the corners of her mouth into a sharp incline.

She folded forward, moving her hands to either side of his face and tilted his chin up gently to look up. The shape of her silhouette would stop him from being blinded by the afternoon sunlight, and she leaned forward to press her nose to his forehead before giving a small kiss to the space of his face she could reach without shifting too disruptively.

“I’m so tense, remember?”

 

[Bernard]

He glanced back briefly to read the title. Ishida had been drawn to the Watchmen of the past, likely due to familiarity with the topic. She moved on to a different book before he could formulate a thought or response, in part because he'd been too busy watching her instead of giving consideration to the book.

There had been a long stretch of time between their time in his apartment on Denon and now during which they'd barely had any time together. It occurred to him that this was the first time they'd been alone, together, for an extended amount of time with any degree of privacy.

He found himself lost in thoughts, fixed on her eyes, then her lips. He swallowed and apparently lost his concentration. Ishida made a noise of discomfort, and he was quickly startled back to the moment.

"Careful," she said.

She leaned closer, fixing his head with her hands as she pressed her nose against his forehead. Bernard felt a slight flush build in his expression, and the sensation only deepened when she placed a small kiss against his cheek.

"I'm so tense, remember?" Her voice came much too close.

Bernard bit down on the inside of his lip, keeping his mouth closed as though the words on his tongue might have leapt out on their own if he didn't. He held his breath, focusing on managing something else in response at the very least to save himself.

"Y-yeah."

He pulled back, gently, and turned away, trying to hide the blush in his expression by settling back into the previous rhythm. With much greater care, he began to caress her foot again, feeling out the tension beneath her skin as best as his unfocused mind allowed.

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Bernard’s eyes met hers, but only partly. They were cast inward to private thoughts. Her wry expression hitched, suspended in waiting for her partner in jest to rise to the occasion as he so often did.

"Y-yeah."

Instead of his usual rise to meet her with posturing, his tanned skin pinked with scandal and he fumbled and stammered in a way she’d never seen before. His voice was almost remote and unattached. It was brief, and he was quick to look elsewhere.

Her feigned smirk neutralized to something tighter and more apprehensive. Had she said something wrong? Her hands fell away from his jawline and she found herself unable to assuage anything he might have been feeling. Did she have to tell him she had only been teasing?

That was backward-thinking. It would be better to move on, probably.

Silence settled between them again, strained and living, and she felt a tightness crawl along her skin. She might have drawn everything back into herself if he hadn’t gone back to kneading the base of her foot, more careful than before. Diligently applying her feedback.

The thumbwork against her sole felt pleasant, fingertips drawing patterns of remedy that untangled tension she hadn’t been aware of until it melted away. It would have been easy to lose herself to the bliss of feeling his touch ride against her skin, but there was an awkwardness to the position and to just…letting herself give in to the extension of what he was willing to offer.

She couldn’t do it. And her discomfort spread to her sole and what had felt nice was starting to just tickle.

“I think you got it,” she reached forward and slipped her hand between her foot and his hands, her lean putting her face next to his again. His blush hadn’t fully disappeared yet, and the flush in his cheeks was almost contagious. “The tension’s gone.”

 

[Bernard]

He stopped as her hands moved his away, keeping a distance.

"That was a terrible lie." He cocked his head at her sudden shift.

The blush faded, but not entirely. Shifting, he shuffled around to face Ishida, putting some distance between them to better see her face. He placed his side against the bench, leaning on it with his elbow, and held onto his arm with his other hand. Concern replaced his previous attention to her with a different kind. He looked into her eyes.

"What's wrong?" He asked, knitting his eyebrows.

Ishida Ashina

 

[Ishida Ashina]

"It's not a lie." She insisted, and drew her foot back. At least, she hadn't thought it had been.

He asked the question she'd chosen to ignore. But there it was. Unignorable.

How audacious she's been to think she could just push through emotion and redirect it. Hesitation defeated her again.

"I feel silly idly sitting here while you —" she gestured in a loop above the space where her foot had been and sighed.

"And I was going to ask you the same thing."

 

[Bernard]

His expression scrounged up in incredulity. He pushed his lips together into a line and deepened the furrow of his brows.

"While I take a break from reading by demonstrating my love and care for you because it brings me genuine joy to spend time with you?" He asked with an edge of amusement to his voice and raised an eyebrow.

The disbelief gave way to a soft blush and small smile.

"It's been a while since we just got to spend time together. We have a lot to make up for."

 

[Ishida Ashina]

Everything about Bernard of Arca 's expression pointed inward to the nexus of his nose. His brows sloped in, his eyes narrowed, and the angle of his mouth became small and tight.

Ishida stayed like that for a few seconds, settled in her tightly wound discomfort and stared back at him from her lofty position.

Outside, the golden afternoon continued to glow through the windowpane they sat beneath. Shadows of branches whispered against the glass, and somewhere at the other end of the library, an open window’s pane vibrated. All else was still and quiet.

They had been apart a lot since their blissful fall-into-the-other reunion, but the circumstances of their separation were far less devastating than their original separation. But the margin still existed. And it widened when acknowledged.

And when Bernard finished her sentence, she realized how much time he meant.

Still, she couldn’t shake the smarmy sensation of being a taker. And she was still somewhat uptight about the connotation that she might have had to exert more effort than necessary against some palace guards. So much for becoming a legendary swordswoman.

It was near-farcical the delusion of self-consciousness that she managed to conjure up in only a few heartbeats of hypotheticals. She’d tried to conceal her nerves with flirtatious comments, but they hadn’t landed. And each and every possibility of insecurity was dashed almost instantly when he reminded her how deep his wellspring of devotion ran.

Her eyes darted away, to the corner of the bench where the stack of books he’d read earlier that morning lay basking in the afternoon rays. There were no answers for her along their spines, and she had to come up with her own response.

“Yes.” She answered, daftly. The syllable felt like half a dozen marshmallows in her mouth. Stupid, fluffy and unswallowable.

“Make up for and get used to.” In an attempt for amends, she sighed and the newfound tension unwound. She untucked the foot from beneath her and she settled back down and leaned into the heels of her palms again, keeping a micro-bend in her elbows. Same as before when he’d first suggested she sit back.

 

[Bernard]

Although she sat back the same as before, Bernard found himself hesitating. Idly enjoying his attention didn't seem to be something she was comfortable with, not now at least, if her words were anything to go by. It might take her time to warm up to it, to let it sink in that when she was happy, it in turn brought him happiness as well.

He didn't want to push her more, today. Something had already made her uncomfortable moments earlier and he didn't want to spoil the afternoon any further.

Bernard stood and stepped over the bench, sitting on it with a leg on either side. An idea began to form in his mind.

"You know," he began, scratching idly at his chin, "all this time, even while you were out practicing with the guards, it didn't occur to me to take a break."

He leaned sideways to better catch her eyes.

"I kept studying and studying, and not once did the thought of one come to me. Even now I find myself unable to find respite."

He paused for a short, dramatically appropriate, moment. Then he turned back to her and took one of her hands into both of his.

"You have offered to tutor me in this once, but I was too short-sighted to see the value in your offer.

"Would you still teach me?"

Ishida Ashina