Location: Jutrand Academy [Training Yard]
Tag:
Darth Carnifex
[Haru]
Artemis Dreadmoor stood still in the center of the training yard, breath soft but steady from exertion. The echo of her final landing had barely faded when she became aware that the darkness overhead was not cloud cover but the movement of a war galleon passing slowly overhead. She might have looked up sooner, but she had to finish her set. Poor weather was not an acceptable reason not to practice until her feet ached and her hands bled from beneath their bindings. She had to beat her current time. Luna...Luna was good. But, she always needed to be better.
Better than everyone. Better than...Even Sol. Things came so easily to her brother.
Or so it seemed.
There was a subtle pressure behind her eyes that began to feel all too familiar. Eyes of shining silver dollars fixated on the treeline, peering into the shadows, not because she knew who waited, but because she knew something had shifted. The air bent not from the Force but by sheer presence. Lunaria had only known two people capable of breathing power without intent, simply, because it was what they were. Her mother...
Her mother and—
When
Darth Carnifex
spoke, the rest of the world ceased to matter. His voice. the voice of her Haru, reverberated through her soul like a song heard in a forgotten dream. It stirred memories of blood and stars, of ash and lullabies, of learning and a life that she yearned to return to in the orbit of Cularin. The simplicity of it. The Jutrand Academy of fraught with tests and terrors. It was a wonder that the young woman still drew breath. In all that time, however, this titan of a man, had been silent. She did not flinch from him.
Instead, she straightened, brushing a silver braid back behind one ear. Her gun-metal blue eyes met his—the ones that could never be fully hidden beneath any hood. And then, she smiled. It was not full of joy. It was not morose...But it carried a sense of finality that he would not recognize.
"Of course I have...You left me no choice, Haru."
Lunaria had long ago figured out that some of their "tests" and assassination attempts didn't come from their school instructors. There were a few that happened just because of rankings, and others because she was Echani, and rumors said she lived for a fight. But, the moments that had created real fear? Immediate danger? It wasn't part of the curriculum.
It had been so long.
She would seem different to him. Luna had been smaller, years ago, lithe and wiry. More of a sparrow than a hawk. The snow-haired youth had grown enough that she might have been a few inches taller than her mother. Her form was elongated and elegant, shaped by countless hours of acrobatics, combat forms, and meditative discipline. There was no softness exhibited in her silhouette—Only precision and control. Her hair had also grown much longer, now falling to her waist in endless platinum strands. braided and knotted in ways that mirrored Echani tradition. At eighteen years of age, however, it was her eyes that had changed the most. They had grown sharp.
Unlike her younger self...She did not immediately seek his approval. They were measured. Calculating. Lunaria had inherited the quiet of her upbringing, but now, she wielded it like a weapon versus hiding beneath a shield. Silence had become a statement. Not submission.
She was no longer his little ghost, hiding behind him. She couldn't be.
Soft footsteps brought her toward the robed man, easily and without fear. Haru had taught them a great many things...But never to fear him. Not directly, anyway. He was even taller than she remembered. Her movements were graceful, no longer girlish, but with his presence saturating the area, it almost made her feel small again. It was surprisingly nice. "We waited for you."
"I...I waited for you."
The airy footsteps brought her into him, and thin arms wrapped around him. Possessive. As always. She only had so many people in her life who could be trusted outside of Soldane. She could count them on one hand...And it made her existence, occasionally, a very lonely place. Her cheek rest quietly against him, and she simply stayed that way. There were no tears. No accusations. Just...This one moment. A bubble in time where every other hour of her day was a storm. Just because she was an adult now didn't mean that things had changed in his absence.
Lunaria would always love her Haru.
She was angry with him as well, deep down, but she settled on the fact that two things could be true at the same time. Love and hate.
"Why...Why have you come? Why here? Why now?"
