Private Under the Oak Tree

[Corazona von Ascania]

- Ukatis -​

At the crest of a hill overlooking the Von Ascania family manor stood an oak tree. Its great, broad trunk rose from the earth like a silent sentinel, giving way to a network of sturdy branches that clawed in gently arched paths toward the sky.

Cora sat with her back to the chestnut bark. There were a few smoother dips in the otherwise rugged texture.

This was where they would rest.

A rainy summer had transitioned into a lush autumn. This was the time of year when, for just a few weeks, the Ukatian foliage blazed with a dazzling mix of bright reds, fiery oranges, and sunset yellows.

Cora watched as an ochre leaf drifted lazily through the air. When it passed over the swell of a nearby field, she heard laughter. His laughter. Golden curls bouncing in the spring sunlight, bright and clear.

The memory made her smile, but then it made her hurt. It stirred the muted ached that lived beneath her breastbone.

Then, it dissipated into something softer. Longing and guilt and betrayal bled together until she couldn't quite name them - didn't want to name them.

When her eyes fluttered closed, she could still see the leaves falling. One by one, in their own time. Nothing hurried, not yet. Communication hadn't been their greatest strength. There had been no designated meeting, no timetable.

But when the Force had called her beneath the oak tree, Cora answered.

Lysander von Ascania

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Corazona von Ascania​

His freighter pierced Ukatis' upper atmosphere, illuminated by the golden hues of a dying sun.

Here, in this peaceful setting, he noticed that the light was softer, devoid of the harsh glare of warzones he’d seen and the cruel horizons of Korriban. It was almost apologetic, as if begging forgiveness for the atrocities Lysander had committed.

By the time word of Coruscant’s fall reached him, he’d already been en route to Arkania, chasing a bounty. He hadn’t expected to feel her there, his sister’s Force signature, ever bright. Adrenaline had drowned the desire the reach out; for the stakes were high, the mission clear. And afterwards, in the quiet between jumps, it had begun to gnaw at him, a cruel and merciless shadow that followed his every move.

He was weary, beyond exhausted. He longed to stop fleeing the ghosts of choice and consequence.

Only once before had he passed beneath these skies since the king’s death, a visit of necessity, once the Sith’s specters had vanished; only then had Lysander been granted a moment to finally stand beside his father's grave. But this time around, there was no need for coordinates as his hands moved over the ship's controls, guided by memory.

The family manor rose in the distance, unchanged, though the years between now and his boyhood felt like lifetimes. Moments later, a ramp descended. Boots met firm earth with a thud. Mid-step, he faltered; the silence pressed close.

Lysander didn’t hide who he was. The black Sith armor clung to him like a confession. Absent was the helm that often erased his identity, revealing the one thing that still tied him to the boy who’d once run freely in these hills–the hair of summer fields.

At his hip, the serpent‑like curve of his saber’s hilt was plain to see, its presence a warning to any who might be watching, who might dare to cross him. Only a few had seen what he was truly capable of unleashing.

It was the same weapon his sister had guided his hands to build, shortly after his first trip to Illum as a Padawan.

His gaze ascended; even from here, he could see it. The oak tree. Lysander had written about it once, in a letter before the Galactic Kaggath. When he half believed he was ready, when part of him wished the tournament might deliver redemption through death.

The journey from his ship felt longer than it should have, each step dragging the time he could never take back.

With every pace, her presence in the Force grew sharper, cutting into him like a blade.

Then, there she was - the one person who had mattered most, and the one he had failed all the same.

But now, as he approached, the ancient branches reached out more like skeletal fingers, their grip tightening around his heart.

He stopped beneath them, the black sheep of the von Ascania lineage - a creature that had spilled innocent blood without a trace of hesitation, who had savored the satisfaction of revenge upon rivals time and again. A scar sliced through his brow, a reminder of the pain endured, and the hidden burn marks that still marred his chest and back whispered stories of failure upon Ruusan.

Buried even deeper, where no mortal eye could see, his soul lay in shards - shattered by a break that began on Voss.

A thin line drew across his lips, absent of a frown yet far from neutral, a carefully crafted facade. Several loose strands fell over his forehead, shifting in the wind.

The space between them now felt wider than the hill itself.

"Did you ever stop to wonder if I'd return?"

His words lingered like smoke in the air; and for a moment, he only heard the shifting of leaves.

"Or did you simply learn to exist without me, as I was forced to learn without you?"

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

"Wonder?" Eyes closed, Cora chewed on the word as if there was something more there than a simple question. She drank in Lysander's presence slowly, one sense at a time, for trying to absorb him all at once might be too big of a shock for her to handle.

"No," she decided. "But I have always hoped."

A stray gust carried a swirl of leaves between them, as if partitioning the two siblings. Cora opened her eyes just as they drifted out of view.

There he was. Clad in armor the color of night, with all the particularities she'd come to associate with the Sith. Bearing a saber with their ichor. What struck her most was not his newly forged, surprisingly entrenched ties to the Dark – though that did insert another barb of sorrow into her failing heart – but the lack of baby fat in his face. His visage was more angular now, the sharper lines of a boy on the cusp of manhood.

A surge of emotion rolled up her chest, and into her throat. Cora lurched forward, covering a sharp gasp with her hand. Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, shaking her head."I didn't...by Ashla, you're alive. You're here. And you...you've gotten so tall, Lysander!"

The last time they'd met, he'd been nearly her height. If there was anything that underscored the passage of time, it was witnessing a younger sibling grow.

Even if the direction they were growing in was drenched in shadow.

Lysander von Ascania

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Corazona von Ascania
​

The wind worried at the oak’s high branches, a murmur that sent leaves skittering over the slope. A few brushed against the greaves of his armor.

Lysander heard his sister before he allowed himself to see her; not just her words, but the tremor that caught in her throat, a sound that seemed to reach him through the years.

Another lock of hair slipped free from its constraints, tugged across his cheek by the same wind, and with it too came the shadow of Korriban, and the drilled reflex to cauterize feeling before it could be wielded as a weapon. The remembered voices echoed in his mind, sharp and certain: family is a chain, mercy is a flaw. Now, that old certainty began to falter, and something buried deep shifted in that grave.

And beneath it all, another truth: he was looking at the murderer of their father.

That knowledge remained a frozen dagger in his heart, impossible to thaw, driven deep.

For the first time, Lysander was weighing which truth would inflict the least amount of pain.

"Don't think I came back for Ukatis," he said, voice low, the words carrying the venom of wounds left to fester in the dark. "The hills, the manor.. the tree, they're just familiar shapes. I could've left those buried."

Amidst the turmoil and inner struggle, there was a clarity that had not been present in months, a mind free from the haze of medicinal herbs and the seductive influence of spice. That clarity hurt. He found himself still aching from memories revolving around the Kaggath. Those very thoughts scraped against the inside of his skull.

It was a trail of guilt that he could not escape from.

"I kept hearing your name through every trial. No matter how far I ran, I couldn't burn that out of me."

He drew a slow breath, and the plates of his armor naturally shifted with the movement.

They felt heavier now.

“I don’t know if that’s a curse.. or the only thing keeping me connected to my humanity.”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

A curse or humanity?

Cora blinked back tears. Her fingertips remained pressed over trembling lips until they could steady themselves. An inhale through her nose, followed by a slow exhale helped to control the cadence of her breathing.

Lysander did not approach. His armor caught the light, sun glinting on the points of black plating.

In the Force, her wound stirred. It had carved itself beyond her flesh, beyond her lungs and the vessels of her heart. Another slow breath lifted her chest in time with Lysander.

Cora was struck with a ghastly similarity: how many times had she stood across from a Sith? Only this time, she did not stand tall. No lightsaber snapped to life. Her senses did not stretch out into the weave between them, probing for weakness.

Instead she remained seated beneath the oak tree. Hands now folded in her lap. Pale, haunting him like a ghost.

Her eyes fell to the hilt of his lightsaber, and the ache in her chest bloomed further. Wider. Her lips parted in a murmur that carried on the wind.

"Have you come to discern whether I am a shackle, or a tether?"

Cora's gaze rose back up, meeting his own. The deep, blue irises they shared had paled since her ordeal on Arkania.

Lysander von Ascania

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Corazona von Ascania
​

Lysander’s gaze was fixed on the tremor in her expression, stirring ghosts of memories he’d spent far too long on Korriban trying to bury; for a singular breath, the steel of his posture eased. The shadows gave way to something more human.

Already, he was mustering the strength to bury it again.

Even from a distance, he could see the moisture in her eyes. It was an impossible sight to miss, much like the fact that she had not risen to meet him, a curious lack courtly manners. That was.. strange. For all the etiquette drilled into them as children, she remained enveloped in a ghostly pallor beneath the oak.

There was a shift in her demeanor that he couldn’t quite place, but it registered as a warning, leaving him unsure if he was truly prepared to face whatever secrets lay beneath the surface.

His jaw tightened, not out of anger, but from a sorrow he could no longer mask. The plates of his armor shifted with the hesitant rhythm of his breath.

“Call it a shackle, call it a tether. I don’t care,” he said softly, “It’s the only burden I’ve carried that never loosened, the only hurt I’ve never learned to escape.”

One of two chains; the other he would not name just yet.

A step closer was taken. “I kept my distance because I thought the truth would hurt you. But when your silence came, I learned how to carry my own. I told myself it didn’t matter.”

His voice dropped, pulling from somewhere deep. “I lied. That’s a wound the Dark can’t cauterize.”

The scent of autumn filled the silence that lingered after.

It reminded him of the games they used to play here.

Once, that tree was a fortress, and he the commander. She never let him fall.

That was, until the galaxy taught him how to stand.

“I don’t care about the crown of Ukatis, not the manor, not the bloodline.”

Only the faint flex of his gloved fingers betrayed him.

In an instant stolen from time, the Sith vanished, and in his place stood the boy who once looked up to her with adoration.

“Just you, Cora. My sister. My first shield. That’s the truth. From the Outer Rim to the Core, I have kept that promise.”

​

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

A burden.

Once, familial ties were all that mattered. Underneath the watchful eye of their father, Cora had thrown herself into the fire for duty. Duty became burden, a noxious thing that crushed her soul as it sucked the air from her lungs.

Her expression fell into quiet sorrow. Had she become that to Lysander? An inescapable tie that bound you to something you sought to break away from?

Silence had become a familiar harmony between them. The galaxy could be overwhelming, and Cora told herself that Lysander was simply trying to find himself in the Outer Rim. Then, she returned to her council duties and her classes and her wars.

She looked to Lysander. Really looked. Determination worked the sharp line of his jaw, but something softer and human stirred beneath the surface. Beneath the glint of black armor and the grim restlessness of his demeanor, traces of her brother shone through.

"I was there," she murmured. "At the kaggath. I saw you…fall." She looked away here, her own jaw now tensed, the curve of her cheekbone catching the autumn light.

An echo of her own scream reverberated in her chest, twisting and turning as the wound fed upon her staggering emotions.

"I tried to find you, but they said you'd been taken off-world."

Cora's voice shrunk as she recounted yet another failure, stacked neatly atop a mountain of missteps and mistakes.

A deep breath lifted her chest, and again she looked to Lysander. This hurt. It hurt to see him bearing the insignia of those who sought to either burn the Galaxy or bend it to their will. What the dark offered tasted like freedom; but a puppet danced easier when they thought they were the one in control.

Cora bit back the admonishment. She bit back the sorrow and the shame and the guilt, laying them to the side rather than at his feet. She'd nearly died on Arkania. She might be dying now. Only one thing cut through the kaleidoscope of sentiment and remorse. Only one thing still mattered.

"The only thing I will ask you to be here…"

She lifted a hand towards Lysander, fingers spread, a silent gesture that beckoned him closer.

"…is my brother."

Lysander von Ascania