Private The Diarchy Misfits in the Water Park

[Veyran Solis]

@Open​

The light burned more than he expected. Not in the way of pain, but in the way of honesty raw, unfiltered. The sun was too bright, too clean for someone like him. Veyran stood there for a moment, barefoot on the edge where the sand met the tide, letting the heat crawl up his legs like an accusation. He should've hated it. The Sith in him wanted to. But today, he had decided against instinct, against training that hate would not rule him. Not for an afternoon.

He dropped the small bag beside him and sat down, shorts brushing against sun-warmed grains. Inside the bag, a datapad, a ration bar, a training crystal that hummed faintly with dark energy he refused to touch. He stared at the waves instead, their rhythm too slow to be useful, too patient to be conquered.

The wind carried salt and softness. It made his hair shift across his forehead. He found himself tracing the foam lines with his eyes, wondering if hate left him, what would be left? Power had always been the goal, vengeance the fuel, but neither had taught him what to do with quiet.

He took a long breath. The sea answered with another wave. It was a conversation of sorts—one that didn't demand dominance or blood. Just presence.

"Pathetic." a voice inside him whispered. The echo of his own hate..

"Maybe." Veyran murmured back, closing his eyes. "But it's mine."

The tide reached his toes and receded, and he didn't move away.

 

[Aknoby]

Aknoby stopped eating and looked at the newcomer, surprised. Diarchy had no problem with Force users as long as they were registered, so it was safe, but... but the problem was something else.



The young Chiss stared at the newcomer, his heart racing, his blue skin slightly flushed. Ak looked away, drinking more chocolate milkshake before anyone noticed, but he already suspected that Iandre Athlea had noticed something. He already considered her his older sister, so he just hoped she wouldn't tease him about what he had just felt in front of the other Misfits.


Veyran Solis

 

[Xian Xiao]

Somewhere beyond the dunes, Xian watched from a distance, leaning against the warm curve of a dune. She didn't speak—didn't need to—but the Force hummed faintly around her, a tether to the quiet that had taken him. She understood the weight he carried, the choice to let the sun burn honesty through him instead of allowing the dark dictate every thought.

Her fingers twitched against the cloth of her sleeve. She wanted to step closer, to let the faint pull of her presence remind him he wasn't alone. But she let the moment be his, letting the tide and the wind and the sun do what words never could.

"Even you," she whispered, just to the wind, "deserve a quiet day."

The Force shifted gently, carrying her thought toward him, a reminder that strength wasn't always about fire or fury—it could be the patience to exist, and to let the world move around you without tearing it apart.

Veyran didn't move, probably didn't even hear her, and yet somewhere in the rhythm of the waves and the hum of the sun, a small part of him remembered what it felt like to be more than the dark he wore like armor.

Veyran Solis

 

[Veyran Solis]

Xian Xiao​

For a long while, he didn't move. The sea breathed, and so did he shallow, reluctant, but real. Beneath the hum of the tide, something else stirred; faint, familiar. Not a voice exactly, but a presence that brushed against the edges of his awareness, gentle where everything else in his life had been sharp.

His jaw tightened instinctively. The Sith in him wanted to reject it, to snarl at the idea of being seen. Yet, there was no command in the touch only quiet acknowledgment. A reminder, subtle as the air between heartbeats, that someone else still lingered in the same light he tried so hard to ignore.

He didn't turn toward the dunes, though he felt her there, Xian. Her presence was a scar remembered by the Force, steady as her pulse once pressed near his. He should have been angry that she saw him here, that she was to witness this fragile rebellion against what he was made to be. But he wasn't.

Instead, he picked up a handful of sand and let it run through his fingers, each grain slipping away like seconds he didn't know how to name.

"Even me." he muttered under his breath, almost an echo of her words though he hadn't heard them not with his ears, but something deeper. The Force carried meaning in strange ways.

He set the thought down beside him like a weapon he no longer wished to hold. For a fleeting moment, the waves sounded less like ghosts. The light no longer accused.

And for that moment alone, Veyran Solis allowed himself to exist, not as a Sith, not as a creature of hate but simply as a man sitting beneath the sun, trying to remember what warmth felt like.

 

[Xian Xiao]

Xian rose slowly, letting the sun warm her skin as she stepped onto the sand. Each footfall left a shallow print in the dunes, her movement deliberate, unhurried, carrying the quiet certainty of someone who didn't need to hurry.

Her eyes couldn't help but notice him and the way the sun glinted across his skin, the way his dark hair fell into sharp shadows against the light, the subtle play of muscle beneath the curve of his shoulders and arms. She told herself it was nothing more than observation, but a part of her chest fluttered in quiet acknowledgment of something she wasn't yet ready to name.

With each step, the faint hum of the tide mingled with the rhythm of her pulse, threading a subtle path through the Force, guiding her toward him. When she was close enough to kneel beside him, she paused, letting the space between them shrink without rushing it.

"You don't have to do anything right now," she said, her voice soft and grounding, though her gaze lingered a fraction too long. "Not fight, not prove, not hide. Just…be even if it's hard to remember how. I will help you."

Her hand hovered for a moment over the space between them, fingers brushing the air without touching, a presence that mirrored the pull she felt in the Force. "The sea doesn't judge. The sun doesn't demand. You can let them touch you without having to fight them. Sometimes…that's enough."

A stray lock of her hair caught in the wind, and she tucked it behind her ear, her eyes still on him. "And I'm not leaving. Not because you need me to stay, but because I want to. Because some things…are worth being here for. Even when it's hard to know what they are."

Even as she spoke, she felt the tiny, undeniable tug of her own interest, unspoken and unacknowledged, as the sunlight played across his form, tracing him in gold and shadow.

Veyran Solis

 

[Veyran Solis]

Xian Xiao​

Veyran felt the warmth before he heard her voice the sun soaking through the damp salt of his skin, the whisper of sand moving beneath her feet. The tide breathed against the shore like something alive, drawing him out of the haze that had clung to him since Bastion.

He didn't turn immediately. For a moment he let the sound of her footsteps reach him, slow and certain, each one a quiet reminder that he wasn't alone. The wind lifted the edge of his hair, and when she finally came to stand beside him, the air itself seemed to change, lighter somehow, threaded through with the pulse of the Force that always seemed to hum between them.

When she knelt, the light shifted; he could see her shadow fall across the sand, long and soft, and something inside him stilled. Her words reached him, low and even, carrying that same patience that had pulled him from the edge before.

Just be… I will help you.

He drew a slow breath, the salt air rough in his lungs. "You make it sound easy." he murmured, voice barely above the surf. "Just being. I've spent so long trying to be what everyone else needed, I'm not sure I remember how to just stop." The faintest curve touched his mouth, not quite a smile. "But I'm trying."

Her hand hovered near his, close enough that he could feel the warmth radiating from her skin. He didn't reach for it, but neither did he pull away. The nearness was enough the shared quiet, the rhythm of their breathing in time with the waves.

"The sea doesn't judge." he echoed softly. "That's dangerous. Makes a man start to think he could belong here."

He glanced sideways at her then, and the sunlight caught her eyes in a way that made the air tighten in his chest. The same light that crowned the horizon brushed across her hair, gold and fleeting. For a heartbeat, he forgot to breathe.

A pause. Then softer, with the ghost of a smile.

"Guess that means we've got something in common."

The wind moved between them, carrying the scent of salt and sun-warmed stone, and for once, he didn't push it away.

 

[Xian Xiao]

Xian shifted slightly, letting the sun warm her shoulders as she knelt beside him, the sand soft and yielding beneath her knees. Her gaze lingered on him, tracing the way the light glinted across his skin, the dark sweep of hair catching fleeting gold in the sun's rays. She told herself she was merely observing—taking in the lines of his form, the way the light softened him—but the flutter in her chest disagreed. Subtle, almost imperceptible, but unmistakable: a pull she wasn't ready to name, threading itself through her awareness.

"You're trying," she said, voice low and measured, letting each syllable drift across the small distance between them. Gentle, coaxing, carrying the same quiet patience mirrored in the rhythm of the waves. "That's enough for now. Just…being here, letting the sun touch you, letting the sea touch you, letting it matter that you're still here. That you survived. That you chose to be."

Her hand hovered near him, warm but not pressing, more a presence than a touch, steadying in its quiet insistence. "It's okay to belong somewhere, even if only for this moment. You've earned that. And you…You're allowed to take it."

She let the words trail into silence, the kind that didn't demand a response, the type that was. The wind shifted across the dunes, carrying salt and heat, the faint cry of distant gulls, and the unspoken hum of the Force threading between them. Her eyes lingered on him longer than necessary, the sunlight tracing along his shoulders and arms, and in that quiet, unguarded moment, she acknowledged a truth she had tucked away: a part of her wanted to be here, wanted to stay by him, wanted to matter in a way she had never admitted before.

Her chest tightened, a breath catching as her heart betrayed her thoughts. She realized she cared—more than she expected, more than she had intended. He wasn't Caelan, yet the pull was achingly similar: quiet fascination, the desire to be near, the thought that his survival mattered in a way beyond reason or duty.

She shifted closer, careful not to intrude, letting the warmth of her presence linger. "You… you don't have to be strong all the time. Not here, not with me. Just… be. That's enough."

Even as she spoke, a faint, stubborn part of her tried to push it away—the warning that she was too young, too inexperienced, too reckless with her heart. Yet another part, quieter but insistent, clung to the truth she wasn't ready to voice: she wanted him close, to protect him, to feel the brush of his life against hers in a way that made her pulse quicken and her mind tangle with possibilities.

She didn't touch him yet; she didn't need to. Her attention, her presence, the way she let herself watch and breathe alongside him, was enough to anchor her feelings for now. And in the quiet corners of her heart, she admitted—even if only to herself—that the first threads of love were curling around her carefully, dangerously, and she wasn't sure she wanted them to stop.

Veyran Solis

 

[Veyran Solis]

Xian Xiao​

Veyran didn't look at her right away. He felt her before he saw her, her presence in the Force like sunlight caught in motion, warm but deliberate, drawn toward him despite every reason not to be. The shift in the sand beside him announced her, quiet as breath. For a long moment, he just listened to her words, to the sea, to the small tremor beneath his ribs that he hadn't felt in years.

You're trying.

The phrase hit something deep. Not a wound, those were too easy, but something older, buried beneath the ruin he'd built around himself. He let out a low exhale, not quite a laugh, not quite a sigh. "Trying." he echoed, his tone rough with disuse. "That's not usually something people encourage me to do."

The sun caught the edge of his eyes when he finally turned toward her. She was closer now, the wind tugging faintly at her hair, her gaze steady in a way that unnerved him more than any enemy ever could. There was no pity there, no fear, just… faith. Quiet and stubborn.

Her words pressed into the hollow places in his chest, the ones filled for so long with anger and command and the voice of a master who told him feeling was weakness. But here, kneeling in sand that burned his skin and staring into eyes that refused to look away he began to wonder if maybe weakness wasn't always the worst thing to be. He lowered his gaze to the water again, letting the surf wash just high enough to cool his ankles. "You shouldn't waste your patience on me." he murmured. "You don't know what I've done."

But the words lacked their usual bite. Even he could hear it the exhaustion in them, the quiet plea for contradiction.

The tide receded, and he reached absently for the small bag beside him, tracing the seam of the leather, grounding himself in the simplicity of the motion. "Still." he added after a pause, softer now, "You are here."

The Force shifted around them again, not as power but as pulse a slow rhythm that threaded between their heartbeats. For the first time in years, Veyran didn't feel like fighting it. He didn't pull away. He turned slightly toward her, enough that the sun framed her profile, the wind brushing between them. "Maybe… for now, that's enough." He didn't reach out, but the space between them, the shared quiet, the way their shadows met on the sand—it was its own kind of closeness. One he hadn't thought he'd ever allow again.

And somewhere deep beneath the armor, the darkness, the hate something fragile began to stir. Not redemption. But want. The want to stay. To breathe. To remember what it felt like to be touched by light and not burn.

 

[Nyva Shei]

The warm water slides against my skin as I wade deeper into the pool, savoring the contrast between the sun's heat and the gentle coolness of the waterpark. I close my eyes for a moment the sound of splashing and laughter around me is almost soothing. Then I start to swim, slowly, alternating between lazy strokes and long underwater glides. The weightlessness calms me here, everything feels lighter, easier.

When I surface, hair plastered to my face, something catches my eye on the terrace. Servants are setting up a buffet that definitely wasn't there before: white linens, steaming dishes, glasses catching the sunlight. Everything arranged with a kind of elegant precision. I don't need to guess Lyssara's touch, or at least her command, is all over it. A small smile tugs at my lips.

I make my way to the edge of the pool, water streaming down my arms. After a few steps on the warm tiles, I wrap myself in a towel and head toward the buffet. The air is thick with the smell of spices, toasted bread, and ripe fruit. Lyssara sits nearby, composed as ever, exuding that quiet confidence that never seems to leave her.

"Thanks for the buffet, Mistress, It's perfect."

I smile at her before serving myself fresh salads, a few hot bites still steaming, and bright fruits I pile on the plate with little concern for order, just instinct. I sit down not far from her, sipping cold water, letting the salt on my skin blend with the taste of food.

Across the way, my gaze drifts toward Xian. She's talking to another man one who looked tense at first, visibly irritated but as Xian speaks, I can see the tension ease from his posture. I pause for a moment, curious, before turning my head away. I'm not going to interfere. Xian knows how to handle things.

When my plate is empty, I rise, pleasantly heavy from the warmth and the food. On the table, the glasses still glint under the afternoon sun. I take two. In the first, I pour something cool for myself fruit and mint. In the second, amber whiskey, poured over a few cubes of ice. The soft clink of the glass fills the quiet air.

I turn toward Lyssara, offering her the drink with a small smile.

"For you. Mistress With ice, as always. "
"Oh, thanks Nyva, come here, you're welcome!"
"Thanks you!"
I raise my own glass and clink it lightly against hers, my eyes drifting back toward the pool where the reflections ripple and dance. The afternoon stretches on golden, unhurried, suspended somewhere between sunlight and water. I sit on the long chair where lyssara is.

Lyssara Thrynn