Private The Long Way Back to You

[Rynar Solde]

Location: Bastion – Imperial Detention Block, Diarchy Naval Bastion
Rynar Solde didn't remember lowering himself to the floor — only the cold when it kissed his bare back.


The cell smelled like metal and disinfectant, sharp enough to sting his nose every time he breathed. He sat there in nothing but his undersuit pants, torso exposed, skin mottled with bruises in shades that hadn't existed before Bastion. His armor was gone. Not confiscated — removed, piece by piece, like it had never belonged to him at all.


"Smart," he muttered hoarsely to no one, head lolling back against the wall. "Real smart, Solde. Walk right into it. Thought you were clever."
A short, broken laugh escaped him. "Thought you mattered."


The light above flickered.
For a heartbeat, it wasn't the cell he saw.
It was her.


Dean stood just at the edge of his vision — not whole, not real — just the suggestion of her shape, the memory of her eyes. His breath caught hard in his chest as he stared, unfocused.
"…Dean?" he whispered before he could stop himself.
The light steadied. The image vanished.


Rynar squeezed his eyes shut and growled under his breath. "Idiot. She's not here. She's not thinking about you." His fingers dug into the floor as if he could anchor himself there. "Why would she remember some nobody the Diarchy scraped off the board?"


His head throbbed as another thought surfaced — colder, worse.
They don't take prisoners. They take erasures.
Files sealed. Names scrubbed. Records rewritten until Rynar Solde never existed. No trail. No body. Just absence.


"They've got me," he murmured, voice shaking now, anger bleeding through. "Which means I'm already gone. You hear that? Gone." He barked a laugh that turned into a cough. "No record, no name. Like I never mattered to anyone."
The light flickered again.
This time he almost saw her smile — or maybe that was just pain bending memory into something crueler.


"Don't," he snapped at himself, sharper now, harsher. "Don't do that. Don't put that on her. She doesn't owe you remembering. You didn't give her anything worth holding onto." His jaw clenched, teeth grinding. "You couldn't even keep yourself alive."
Footsteps echoed faintly down the corridor.


Rynar straightened a fraction, breath hitching, eyes unfocused but alert. Fear crawled up his spine, tangled with fury and shame and something dangerously close to grief.
"…if they wipe my name," he whispered, almost to the wall, almost to her, "then you never knew me. And maybe that's easier. For you."
He swallowed hard, forcing air into burning lungs.


"But if you do remember," he added quietly, stubbornly, "then I'm still real. And they haven't won yet."
The light buzzed overhead.
This time, he didn't look up.

Deanez

 

[Deanez]

Dean noticed the absence before she allowed herself to name it.

Life Day passed quietly on Bastion—too quietly. Lights went up in the promenade, garlands threaded through docking concourses, and the usual forced warmth layered over military precision. Dean moved through it all with her usual efficiency, completed her duties, acknowledged the holiday where protocol demanded it, and returned to her quarters with the same controlled rhythm she always kept.

But Rynar did not check in.

At first, she told herself it meant nothing. He was independent. He did not report to her, did not answer to Diarchy scheduling, and owed her no explanations. Their connection had never been built on constant contact. Silence, by itself, was not an alarm.

Then a day passed. Then another.

She reached out once—brief, neutral, phrased the way she phrased most things. No response. She waited, deliberately, allowing space. She reached out again two days later, a fraction warmer in tone, still restrained. Still nothing. That was when the concern settled—not sharply, not dramatically, but with the slow certainty of something that refused to be dismissed.

Dean did not open Diarchy intelligence files. She did not query detention logs or request restricted access under false pretenses. That line, once crossed, would leave a mark she could not erase, and more importantly, it would mean acknowledging a fear she was not prepared to name.

Instead, she searched the periphery. She asked questions that did not sound like questions. Checked docking schedules under the guise of routine audits. Listened more closely than usual to idle conversation in corridors and mess halls. She watched for patterns—ships that departed without manifests, units that rotated too cleanly, names that stopped appearing where they should have continued.

Rynar Solde did not appear anywhere. No departure record. No requisition trail. No informal mention from the kind of people who always knew things before they were official. That absence was worse than confirmation.

She found herself pausing mid-task more often than usual, attention drifting despite herself. A hand lingered over her comm longer than necessary before she closed it again. A quiet calculation running beneath her surface composure, testing possibilities and discarding them with the same ruthless logic she applied to missions.

Captured was possible—but unlikely without ripples. Dead was possible—but there would have been noise, rumors, aftermath. Gone by choice…did not fit.

Rynar was not careless. He was not someone who vanished without intention.

That left only the option Dean did not allow herself to fully articulate: that he had been removed so cleanly that even the edges of his existence had been smoothed away.

She did not panic. Panic was inefficient. But something cold settled behind her sternum, a pressure she did not try to dislodge.

On the evening after Life Day officially ended, Dean stood alone at the viewport in her quarters, Bastion's stars reflected faintly against the glass. Her expression was composed, her posture straight, every visible sign of discipline. Only the stillness betrayed her.

"I remember," she said quietly, to no one and to someone all at once. Not as a promise. Not as a declaration. As a fact.

Whatever had happened to Rynar Solde—whatever machinery had closed around him—he had not simply slipped out of her awareness. He existed in her memory with a clarity she did not grant lightly. That, at least, had not been taken.

Dean turned away from the viewport, her face settling back into its familiar calm. She did not know where he was. She did not yet know how to look. But she knew one thing with absolute certainty: She would not forget him.

Rynar Solde