Private Waltz for Anaxes

[Makko Vyres]

Note: Set during: Golden Orchid Gala

Corazona von Ascania

ANAXES

Makko pushed open the door, holding it for Cora like a proper gentleman. A private smile flashed Cora’s way could have been Makko saying that yes, I do have some manners. The chill of the night air was brisk after the warmth of the dance floor, but it wasn’t cold. A glance at the sky revealed a low haze that obscured the stars, but acted as a blanket over the city for the night.

The city was not what Makko would have called a city. Even from here he could see the mountains rising up, a crown of deep red as the sun caught the treetops from below the horizon. On Denon there had never been an end to the urban landscape.

The door hissed shut behind them, closing out the noise of the guests. Few had retired to the hotel above the club or to catch an airspeeder from outside the front doors. Makko could tell from the soft buzz in his ears that the music had been quite loud. He moved to the balcony, hoping Cora would join him there.

Makko set down the glass of amber bubbly on the stone balcony. His hearing returned enough for him to hear soft fizzing as he leaned on the stone. Makko reached for his collar. It felt stifling. With two fingers he loosened it a little, felt the cool of the air and the flutter of his own pulse.

“I enjoyed that,” he said quietly. He knew that they were never going back to where they had been, but he was starting to feel more comfortable about where they could be going. Slowly. Step by step.

It was why he was nervous. He had almost never been nervous around Cora. Excitement and anticipation that bordered on being painful had been common, but not plain nerves. It was rare that he struggled to start a conversation and say exactly what he felt.

“I really enjoyed it,” he said, wanting to find the words to express that sharing a few minutes of time, being swept off his feet was something he truly valued.

“And that dark blue really suits you,” he added. Makko leaned one arm on the balcony, holding the stem of his glass so that he could turn to look at her.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Normally, a quiet reprieve from the night’s festivities would have been welcome. It still was, but as the cool air touched the warm flush of her cheeks, Cora realized that tonight felt very different.

That wasn’t a bad thing.

Away from the music and lights and distractions, Cora felt less prepared to engaged with Makko in such a private setting. It was easier to hold herself together in public, to steady the bounding of her pulse when they were in an environment so familiar.

She didn’t answer Makko right away, not when he was looking at her like that. He wasn’t eyeing her in a lecherous manner, not even a hint of suggestion in a quirked eyebrow.

He simply saw her. It made her heart stutter in a way that was so sudden and deeply felt that she’d been caught off guard. The peek of skin at his loosened collar didn’t help matters, either.

“Does it?” She answered quietly after what felt like far too long of a pause to be considered normal.

Heels clicked softly against the balcony floor as she joined him, a regrettably awkward smile on her face. Force, she’d forgotten just how handsome he was.

“I enjoyed tonight, too.” Cora lifted her skirts slightly so that the fabric sat more evenly once they were released a moment later. “It reminded me of how we…”

The words died in her throat and she shook her head. They’d never been like how they were now.

“Tonight was the first time in a long time where I actually enjoyed a formal event and didn’t just pretend to.”

Makko Vyres

 

[Makko Vyres]

Makko hadn’t even thought about it like that. All those events and public gatherings she was expected to attend, or even organise. The calm, placid outward demeanour she had to wear and the rage she had to suffer as soon as she was out of prying eyes.

“I’m sorry…for the circus you had to go through,” Makko said. It wasn’t his to apologise for, but he still felt it. A small nod and he chose to move the conversation on. There were times when it felt right to open that box. To let it wash over her and to offer support. To make it hurt less each time. This didn’t feel like one of those moments.

They had lives to lead too.

“It reminded me too. That’s alright,” Makko said. “Didn’t tread on your toes last time we danced.”

He smiled before glancing out across the city. It wasn’t the night bustle of Denon, or even Coruscant. There were barely any speeders darting across the sky.

He reached out with his left hand and playfully flicked a sleeve upwards. It drifted elegantly back down towards the floor. It was a strange thing, to be alone with her and to feel a touch awkward and a deep streak of nerves. At the same time, it felt like turning over another page in the book and finding it blank and just a touch exciting.

“It’s a really nice dress. You look amazing in it.”

Makko tilted his head to one side. He quite appreciated the shoulderless dress. It made him feel another flutter of a different colour of nervous. But he could also see how the cool air brought goosebumps to her skin.

Makko balanced the glass on the balcony.

“Stay,” he told it, with a smile. He didn’t want it to fall to the street below and land on someone. Makko shrugged his jacket from his shoulders. Underneath the jacket he wore a simple long-sleeved black shirt with a high collar. He still looked more formal than she was accustomed to.

“You’re cold.”

Makko grasped the shoulders of his jacket and took a step closer. If she didn’t protest he would drape it across her shoulders to offer a little more warmth.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

There was a sourness to her smile when Makko mentioned the circus that was her life as a Princess of Ukatis. A spell of bitterness moved through Cora briefly, and she allowed herself to feel it for a few moments before letting it diffuse into the night air.

“At least I was privy to some top-tier gossip.”

A small comfort and guilty indulgence she’d clung to during her own tumultuous period. Savoring other people’s drama helped to distract from her own, even if it only lessened the pain and humiliation for a moment.

“I’m not-“ She protested, eyes falling away from the silky sleeve as it drifted back down, to the jacket that was then slipped over her shoulders. It was warm. It felt like him, a fact that did nothing to dispel the goosebumps that had risen along pale skin.

Cora settled, wrapping the jacket around her chest a little tighter.

“This dress would be considered scandalous by Ukatis standards, you know.”

Maybe that was why she liked it so much. Not that she wanted the negative attention, but there was something powerful in subtly defying the cultural standards that had caused so much damage to her life.

Feeling a little bolder, she wrapped her fingers around the thin stem of the champagne flute and lifted it to her lips. The fizz tickled the inside of her mouth and she pulled back with a hum.

“Not as bad as your dancing.” She decided.

 

[Makko Vyres]

“Oh, you’re going straight to my lack of class?” he asked.

He grinned from one corner of his mouth. His jacket would smell of the usual unisex fragrance he liked: geranium and pepper and oak moss. The bond between them was woven of all the moments they had shared, but that expression and that scent was able to evoke so many of them in a heartbeat.

“You should come in a suit to the next one. I’ll wear a dress. Then we’ll have a scandal. Perhaps not as much as Lady Preena’s rotating cast of Nanny’s once you published the story…”

In the darkness, helping to set up the secret network to publish her stories without a trace had been a little light of fun. He had enjoyed the stories too and the way

There was a little more ease to his movements and he started to speak a little more freely. The few glasses of fizz he had drunk already helped. It wasn’t something he drank often.

Makko reached out and squeezed her upper arm through his own jacket.

“I’m having fun. And this isn’t bad.”

He reached for his glass, grimacing as he knocked it off the wall and immediately had to catch it with telekinesis. Damned nerves.

“Didn’t spill a drop. Do they always serve so much of it?”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

“Hmm,” Cora pursed her lips as her eyes rolled upwards in an exaggeration of thought. There was no cris-crossing of speeder lanes up above, only the faint twinkling of stars punctuated by the occasional passing transport.

“I think I’d look quite good in a suit.” She declared haughtily. “And we’ll have to get you something that shows off your shoulders.”

Cora tilted her head down and laughed lightly, breath catching in her throat when she caught the scent of Makko’s fragrance that clung to the collar of his jacket. It was familiar in the most comforting way.

He squeezed her arm gently, and when Cora turned to look at him, all she could see was the bare skin of his neck where she would bury her face when she held him closely.

She blinked away that image, perhaps regrettably, and stared at Makko dumbly for a few moments. Cora’s reflective mood broke the moment he knocked over his glass.

The aristocrat stifled a giggle against her hand, poorly so. “They do, yes. Got to keep the upper echelons satiated, of course.”

She raised her glass to his own. “To the Jedi.” She announced.

 

[Makko Vyres]

“To the Jedi,” he agreed. Clinking his glass to hers. It made a pleasant sound. Real glass, not plastic. Not the perfect note of the very best glass, but good enough for the VIPs in the public setting.

Makko met her gaze and held it for a moment before he lifted the glass to his lips. It was a more important statement than it might have seemed on the surface. There was a strength behind those three words.

When she had returned from Thule she had been lost. Makko hadn’t truly appreciated that at the time. She hadn’t even been certain that she would stay, let alone walk the Jedi path again. That had changed. He hadn’t appreciated her position at the time because he had become so wrapped in his own pain, in visions of Cora being in the arms of a Sith.

Makko smiled. She was certain of her path and there were things that he was more certain of too. He was beginning to feel comfortable in his position as a Jedi Knight, that he had made the right choice too.

He had returned to Denon for Cora, but he hadn’t stayed just for her. They had been careful to make Makko feel important and special. For the orphaned street boy it had been a little too easy for them to keep him there.

He drew in a long breath through his nose and let it out slowly. He was also feeling, with a much greater clarity and certainty, that when Cora was ready that he wanted to be with her again. He wanted her closer to his life, closer to his heart.

“I can’t express…how glad I am to see you with us again. I just can’t believe you don’t think we should show off my legs. But you would rock a suit…”

Makko slowly placed his glass down on the balcony next to her.

“And I could talk for a while about how I feeling a lot better about… and…all of that. Or we could just stand at the balcony for a little while and let the city go by?”

Makko stepped into the space behind her. He let his left arm wrap around her over the jacket. He brought her close to his chest, both of them facing out over the balcony and let his chin rest on her right shoulder.

His daze drifted slowly across that distant horizon. The flare of red now a faint line as the sun fell deeper into the night. In the lights from the gala behind them, he was all too aware of the silhouette of her face on his left.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

“Either your legs or your shoulders. Showing off both would make you look like a harlot, and I won’t have that.”

There was a teasing, musical note to the way she spoke. It lacked bite. They were beyond blowing up at each other for a bit of taunting, especially so given that it was less malicious and more affectionate.

When he stepped in behind and pulled her close, Cora couldn’t remember the last time either of them had been truly malicious towards the other. In the cafeteria, probably. They’d come so far from that moment that Cora couldn’t even remember the words that had been spoken, only the raw feeling of anger that twisted inside of her.

She flinched, just barely, when he placed his hand at her hip. A fleeting tic from being touched, but it made her heart beat rapidly for a very different reason.

Cora had kept herself from entertaining the thought of them getting back together. Not because she didn’t want Makko - she did - but she imagined that after the pain and turmoil she’d put him through, he wouldn’t want to venture down that particular road with her again.

Standing here with him, so close, Cora allowed herself to feel the reality of the situation.

Unless he was just looking for - no, he wasn’t that person anymore. Giving in to her own self doubt wouldn’t be fair to Makko, to their feelings, and to everything they’d built despite the galaxy trying its hardest to rip them apart.

Cora was certain that he’d be able to feel the heat radiating from her cheeks even as she turned her head, just slightly, towards his face where it rested in the crook of her shoulder.

A gentle brush of her lips against his own had her stomach fluttering and her pulse bounding.

“I missed you.” She admitted softly. “Through everything.”

Not just Ukatis, but Thule, too.

 

[Makko Vyres]

So she was judging him in imaginary dresses? He thought to himself, smiling. He might have worn some outlandish clubwear, but he couldn’t remember anything deserving of the Harlot description. It had mostly been brightly coloured and as far from what he was wearing now as possible. Even an item of clothing could be an act of rebellion.

Makko could almost feel her thinking as he held her. He watched that last halo of scarlet on the horizon fade to darkness to quiesce his own thoughts.

Thoughts that fired into overdrive as she turned her head towards him and spoke just a few words.

He might have been more open to his own feelings over the past months, but it had been a turbulent ride. Makko hadn’t sealed them away, but there were barriers between him and those emotions.

All his love for her was there mixed in with so many other things. She made him feel so much. No one else touched his life quite like Cora. There was the pain and disgust for what she had suffered, the shame at not taking action other than his foolish deal on Denon. There was the raw fear that she would die on Thule and the pain of feeling rejection to find she had taken another lover when he felt he had been waiting.

Those words - the idea that she had missed him through all the time they had been apart - they drew down those barriers in a flash. It shone a light upon everything. He felt everything.

His breath hitched, he turned to face her. His gaze searched hers, glancing down to her lips and back up again. His hand slipped under his own jacket and pressed against her. She had to see what that admission had done to him, what it meant. For how complicated it all was, it would take simplicity, honed down to a sharp edge to cut through it all.

He had missed her since her return from Thule, so close and yet so far away. It was time for that to stop. Step by step they had drawn closer, circling slowly as if they each danced their own waltz on the same floor instead of together.

“I want you back,” he said. The confession was so quiet, it could have been stolen from his lips by the breeze. “So stop and just kiss me.”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora shivered at the feel of Makko’s hand pressed almost to her skin. A sheer layer of silk couldn’t keep out the warmth of his touch.

It was nearly overwhelming, having him this close and looking at her like that. Like she was precious to him, desired for who and what she was.

After a lifetime of dancing around her feelings and needs, Cora was learning to be more honest. Makko deserved as much. He was so much more to her than a comfort or an indulgence; he was her rock, her light, her love.

She was on the precipice of melting into his arms.

“Still?” She murmured against his lips, voice tightening. “After everything…you still want me?”

 

[Makko Vyres]

His journey to becoming a Jedi had been a long one. He might have had the innate talent to understand and manipulate people's thoughts and feelings, but that was not the same as appreciating them and respecting them. A Jedi needed to set boundaries on how they altered someone else’s perceptions but it was on Makko as a person to work out how to be empathetic to others.

For all he adored Cora, he had come to realise that she had been through far more on Ukatis than he knew. Those small windows into the worst moments when she needed his strength were not everything. Since the revelations of Thule, he had been preoccupied with his own pain.

Cora’s reaction caught him off guard. He felt a sudden pang of heartache. He had always seen her as so strong and capable, but people needed to be vulnerable too.

After his reaction to her time on Thule it was only natural for her to assume that he would never want her back. Makko had not even known himself if he did at first.

“Of course I do,” Makko said softly. “I’ve had enough time to know. I know.”

His left hand remained wrapped around her. His right slipped from the balcony. He brought it up to slowly draw a long stand of gossamer hair back across her ear. The gesture was comforting, familiar, grounding.

“I want you sitting with me in the evenings watching terrible shows you insist I should like. I want you correcting my manners. In the morning I want to wake up to you.”

He sighed, his lip trembling for the strength of the admission. He smiled from one corner of his lips and canted his head to one side.

“That enough?”

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Cora realized that she’d been clenching the silk of her skirt. Unwinding her grip from the fabric, she placed one hand on Makko’s bicep while the other slid against his face to cradle his cheek.

Force, that half smile made her weak in the knees.

“I can’t do…all of that now.” She murmured, careful on how to phrase her thoughts in a way that was fair to the both of them. “But I want to.”

Excited as she was at the prospect of being able to rebuild what she and Mako had lost, possibly into something more, Cora was still very anxious.

Horace had left deep, lasting scars on her ability to feel truly relaxed and comfortable with intimacy. Even though she’d found temporary solace in another man, it hadn’t been the same. The depth of connection wasn’t there, and the lingering influence of a dead man had left Cora confused and submissive to a fault.

That began to change the moment she’d intercepted her father, refusing to be hit. A singular interaction, one that had lasted a little more than a few moments, was a defining act that influenced the person Cora was becoming.

Makko had been there to witness it. He’d noticed the subtle changes in her since that day, things Cora didn’t even recognize in herself.

There was clarity in the way that Makko spoke, genuine in the way he threaded an errant blonde strand behind her ear. He wanted her, and she wanted him in turn. For all of the little moments, the comfortable silences, the disagreements and lazy hands wandering among the sheets.

Her lips were all but pressed against his own, balancing on the precipice. She breathed, slow and hot.

“With time.”

Cora tilted her head forward, a soft, subtle moment that brought her lips firmly against Makko’s own.

 

[Makko Vyres]

They picked a heading, together. The compass point set, but the journey ahead was unknown. That was exciting in its own way. His smile widened, even as she set some boundaries.

She had just set herself on the Jedi path once again. Her homeworld had suffered the mandalorian assault and its support of the Alliance wavered. With so much up in the air, and so many scars etched where no one could see them, he had to respect her need for time.

“And you don’t…have…

The word to was lost.

Makko’s hand slipped down behind her ear and came to rest against her neck and the moment she tilted her head forwards he met her in the kiss.

Everything else faded away. The distant cityscape, the raucous sound of the partygoers and the steady beat and discordant melody of the jazz. The pain of what had come to pass and the fears of what the future might put in their way.

There was only the way he held her close and kissed her back. Tentative pressure, giving way to a more insistent grip. Makko tilted his head to one side, deepening the kiss, his tongue dancing across hers.

When they broke he was out of breath. Makko pressed his forward to hers and closed his eyes. When he breathed out, the tremble of his lip turned it to a shuddering sigh.

“I missed that,” he admitted, struck by the strength of his own admission before placing a gentle, chaste kiss to her lips.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

A soft murmur of surprise slipped from her lips to his as Makko deepened the kiss. Cora pressed herself a little closer, spurned on by how insistent and familiar his touch was. The kiss was a release of tension and a promise all in one. A new start they’d both been dancing around.

They wanted each other. For the big moments, and for the little ones as well. For everything.

Their lips parted, still a hair’s breadth away when Makko pressed his forehead to her own. The flush at her cheeks had crept down her neck, beet red skin soothed by the cool night air.

“M..me too,” She whispered, tripping over her own tongue. Cora’s lips were parted and her chest heaved gently, normally subtle changes that stood out harshly among the evening backdrop.

Her hands were clenched into the fabric of his sleeves. One lifted from his arm, taking his hand in her own, and placed it over her heart. She shivered visibly at his cool touch, and he’d be able to feel erratic beating beneath her skin.

 

[Makko Vyres]

​

Makko let his hand rest there, feeling her pulse race away. His hand rose and fell with her chest as she breathed short and shallow. Rather than reply, he gave a slow nod of his head.

Joy filtered bright and clear through the Force from Makko. He couldn't even sort through the heady mix that she felt in return. That had been a big moment, but there was a lot for them to still work through. Some of those feelings she had been unable to explain on the ship back from Denon were still there. Her resolve was galvanising about what she wanted, who she wanted, but the scars ran deep.

He turned his hand around, gripping hers and leaving them intertwined just above her breastbone.

There was so much he wanted to say about the past, but there was a connection to the future that suddenly stood out to him. Makko smiled wide, even as a tear welled in the corner of each eye.

“How much time did we even have when we weren't hiding this or…or staring down the barrel of that blaster knowing it all had to stop?” he asked rhetorically.

When he looked back, he realised how short that period of time was. Then he turned his thoughts to the wide open space that was their future. The possibilities to explore. The Galaxy always wanted to pick a fight with them, but they still had more freedom than ever before.

“Don't have to hide what we feel, not from anyone,” he said. “Not from ourselves,” he tacked on. Makko brought her hand to his lips and kissed it.

“When we go back in - when you want to and if you want to…” he started, but he paused. After his bold admissions it might have seemed as if he was about to ask a shockingly important question. One where her answer might break him. He was nervous.

“...you could hold my hand?”

The smallest of steps, but Makko looked so hopeful for the chance to take it together. Little moments could be big moments too.

 

[Corazona von Ascania]

Whenever Cora and Makko had found themselves with a few moments, they were usually quick. Frantic even. They had to be, when they were only afforded bits and pieces of one another and never knew when they'd get the next chance to sneak away.

The hand resting at her chest did little to help calm her racing pulse, but it made her realize that they didn't have to rush. They could take their time. Part of Cora didn't want to wait, she wanted it all now, as it had been.

But there would be time for that later, when she was ready. They could explore one another, what they had become, and their feelings, in their own time.

She blushed deeper when he brushed his lips against her hand, if that was possible. His pause created a certain sort of tension, a held breath.

Cora smiled, an expression that reached every corner of her being.

It was such a simple thing, but it said so much. They didn't have to hide from anyone; not from the Jedi, not from her family, not from themselves.

They could simply be, and no one could take that away from them.

Carefully, she maneuvered her hand so that her fingers would twine with his own. "Yes." She told him. "Yes, I think I can manage that."

"But if I catch you dancing with any other women tonight…" She trailed, arched brows matching her faux-threatening grin.

 

[Makko Vyres]

There were times when he forgot that even in their limited time he had come to know her so well.

His chest rose and fell slowly. They were different. Makko was near an inch taller than when they had first met and was broader across the chest and shoulders now from the training. He filled out the fitted black shirt rather well.

“No other women, no other men,” Makko laughed. Vera certainly did not count as a woman. He broke eye contact deliberately. She had told him that she wasn’t ready for everything right away. After Ukatis, he would always give her the space he needed. There would be a time for pushing his luck, just as he had many times before to push her out of her comfort zone.

He released her hand for just a moment. Makko stepped behind her to take back his jacket. His fingertips graced the bare skin across her elegant neck and across her bare shoulders. He tried not to let his gaze settle on the gold clasp or imagine what the sheer fabric would be like with nothing beneath.

Makko’s breath stuttered as he slipped his jacket back on. Taking her hand back grounded him in the moment and the pure joy of what they had just agreed.

“You kissed me,” he stated happily in a playful tone as he led her back towards the door.