Private Upward Momentum

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound

Why.

"Because I don't know how to use one," she answered bluntly. "And because she needs to learn."

"And how is she relevant to what I just asked you?"

"I dunno, Ace. Are you going to get moody with me again? Are you going to plead with my 'better self' to temper the Covenant?" There was some bite in those words.

Arris sighed and looked down at herself. It was... a stark reminder of who she was underneath it all. Fears of inauthenticity and a longing for organic touch. It was the price she paid to teach him, and now she was beginning to wonder if she had failed in that goal, too.

Maybe it was time to change her approach. Slightly. Only it was difficult to find the right words. It felt both dangerous and disingenuous to say that Kirie was her friend.

"I..." Arris paused. "She..." Again. "Mm..."

"Having friends is good, but you don't want their help."

The immense guilt she felt just thinking to herself: "But I'm different."

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace gave a short, humorless scoff at that, Arris not knowing how to use a lightsaber. His gaze flicked once to the weapon still resting in his hand.

"Didn't seem to be a problem for you earlier."

Then she pivoted, back to him. Using the little sliver of restraint he'd shown as a weakness, using it against him. The Force around him stirred, irritation flaring hot and fast. His jaw tightened, but before he could snap back, she… shifted.

The bite drained. Her eyes dropped. Her posture changed in a way that didn't look tactical. Didn't look calculated. It looked… unsure. Ace watched her struggle to say something. Start. Stop. Restart, her words catching.

He blinked once.

"…What?"

The anger didn't leave him, but it stopped growing. Through the Force, something flickered again. Guilt. Arris's again.

Ace felt it, but he didn't move toward it. Whatever compassion he'd been clinging to earlier, whatever instinct to see something salvageable in her had burned away in the last exchange. In the flood. In the corruption. In the shot that nearly tore his arm off.

He felt the guilt, he just didn't care. So, he just waited for her to spit out what she needed to say.

Arris Windrun​

 

[Arris Windrun]

Acier Moonbound

She ignored his first remark. Instinctively, she reached for a pocket that wasn't there, hoping to find her cigarettes. Something inside of her nearly snapped right then and there.

Arris looked back at him with an expression that said she was barely holding it together.

Whatever she had to say about Kirie, it never left her lips.

"You will teach her how to fi--..." No, that wasn't it. "How to survive." She stated plainly.

 

[Acier Moonbound]

Location: Coruscant

Equipment:
Acolyte Robes | Lightsaber | Cybernetic Arm

Ace noticed the aborted reach into her pocket, the microfracture in her composure when her fingers found nothing. Her expression shifted again, not rage, not dominance, but strain. Like something inside her was pulling too hard on whatever leash she'd wrapped around it.

And for a split second, he wondered if she was about to break in an entirely different way.

When she finally clarified, he didn't miss the correction nor what she'd almost said. He turned his head slightly, breaking eye contact for the first time in several exchanges. His hand drifted toward his side, fingers pressing briefly against the graze where her slug had nearly ended him. The ache pulsed under his touch.

Survive. The word landed differently than the rest of her barbs had. Not as a challenge. Not as a threat... as something else. Like survival was the only honest currency left in the galaxy for people like them.

It stung... not because it was wrong, but because it wasn't clean, noble or heroic. It was ugly. And it was him.

"Whatever."

The word came out flat, a placeholder, neither agreement or refusal. His gaze shifted back to her, measuring, he didn't know who Kirie was. He didn't know why Arris was suddenly invested in her survival. And he definitely didn't trust that this wasn't some deeper angle.

But he would find out.

Arris Windrun​