Private What in the Nine Hells Were You Thinkin'?

[Danger Arceneau]

“Honoring those who fell in the Battle of Kashyyyk between the One Sith and Republic, so many years ago, I give you the FIRST ROUND of the GALACTIC Kaggath!”

“A solider, a poet, a king…someday, maybe. Today, good audience, we find out if the pen is mighter than a cold heart made of durasteel. He’s the Wayward Bard of the von Ascania royal family. Hailing from Ukatis, LYSANDEEEEEEEER VON ASCANIAAAAA!

Danger nearly choked.

The sip of Corellian Reserve she'd just tipped back hit the wrong way, singeing its way down her throat like a liquid blaster bolt. She swallowed it whole, a slow blink masking the flicker of sheer disbelief behind feline green eyes that narrowed into slits in an instant.

"What in the bloody blue blazes…?" she murmured in that singsong, low and husky drawl, her voice suddenly tight behind a smile so practiced it might as well've been lacquered on.

With a click of her heels and the sweep of her hips, the Queen of Trade left the holotable, weaving gracefully through the crowd. Her datapad buzzed once again, reminding her of the three unread messages from some weapons magnate still trying to lock in a transport route, but she ignored it, eyes narrowing toward the edge of the balcony overlooking the massive Woshyr tree and the various Kaggath fights.

The arena cameras flickered, focusing on the next match.

And there he was -- even if dressed in that armor, Danger recognized him.

"Well, I'll be…" she whispered, lips drawn into a thin line as she stared down at the armored figure of a kid she had definitely not expected to find in a gladiator's ring. Especially a martial death tournament where contestants dueled each other to prove who was the mightiest warrior in the galaxy? Absurd.

She exhaled slowly, nose wrinkling slightly as she set her drink aside, but the longer the match dragged on the tighter Danger's jaw got.

At first, she'd watched with that same cordial poise, one hand loosely around a fresh glass, the other perched delicately on her hip. But as blows landed and the droid opponent moved with relentless, pitiless force, her calm began to fracture. Her fingers drummed sharp and steady against the balustrade, feline-green eyes narrowing with every crunch and clash from the pit below.

Why was he here?

How in the blazes had Lysander von Ascania ended up in the Kaggath, of all damn places?

Danger's lips drew into a razor thin line as the droid advanced again, saw the terrible flash of lightning, the vicious scream. Her gut twisted with a cold, burning mix of dread and fury.

Without ceremony, she snatched up her comm, flipping the cover with her thumb, then jabbed at the button. Her voice dropped low and sharp, lined with durasteel.

"Aeri," she said in a terse, but husky tone, "get me whoever's runnin' these damn Kaggaths. Need a handle on a particular fight to intervene if necessary before this damn fool of a child gets himself killed. And a medic suite"

She didn't need to say who.

However this ended, she wouldn't see it end with his life.

Not on her watch.

Medbay, VIP Recovery Suite

Shortly after the match…

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

The medical monitor's pulse was steady, but louder than it had any right to be. In the quiet aftermath of violence, every artificial sound in the room echoed like a hyperspace flare against silence. The sickly sweet antiseptic scent of bacta hung in the air, undercut by the spicy burn of the cigarrillo smoke.

Danger didn't move.

Not at first.

She sat in a low, cushioned chair beside the recovery bed, her posture all that of a Trade Queen despite the storm churning behind her eyes. The room was VIP class, all smooth curves of permaglass and soft, muted lighting, with a view overlooking the wide curve of the Rusaan horizon. Dusk had painted the sky in streaks of lavender and rust, the distant suns bowing low to nightfall.

But Danger wasn't admiring the view.

Her gaze was fixed on the teenager in the bed.

Lysander.

He looked a far cry from the charismatic Jedi Padawan golden boy she remembered. He was a ruin of bacta wraps and synth skin covered in bruises already turning from violet to the sickly yellow of deep trauma. Synthetic flesh had been sprayed across one forearm where the armor plating had fused to skin, as there were rents in his arms and third-degree burns on his palms and fingers where electricity had chewed through flesh. Even the glimmer of a neural spine stabilizer pulsed faintly at his temple, keeping his nervous system from going into shock.

He hadn't screamed when they pulled him out of the fight. Hadn't moved.

He still didn't.

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

Danger lifted the cigarillo to her lips and pulled a long, deliberate drag. The ember flared a bright cherry red, casting a brief glow across her sharp cheekbones. She exhaled slowly, the smoke drifting like fog between them, curling toward the medbay ceiling in lazy whirls.

"Well, reckon you got quite a tale to tell..." she murmured finally, voice low and sharp with something too brittle to be amusement. She had already instructed Aeri to conduct a deep background check on Lysander starting from when she left him on Naboo until now. What came in the aftermath had prompted the Queen of Trade to down another glass of whiskey and two more Cigarillos before the briefing was done.

What in the gorram Nine Hells have you been through?...And what were you bloody well thinkin'?

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Danger Arceneau

The acolyte was shrouded in a heavy fog as an oddly familiar voice sliced through the air; it was one he could've recognized among a sea of people, for it was that of Dangeruese. Now, it tried to anchor him to reality.

Slowly, Lysander's senses began to return; he registered the medical bed beneath him, yet all of his limbs felt.. distant. His breathing was shallow and felt sluggish. Atop of that, there were whispers of pain, but they were distant, and somehow familiar, as they were echoes of another concussion experienced on Korriban months back, a cruel lesson delivered by a rival student.

One that was now rotting in the ground.

Nausea slithered through his stomach, a serpent of discomfort, and persistent ringing in the ears cut through him. Every muscle was heavy, as every sensation was like a dulled blade. Being consumed by darkness felt better than this.

His memory was like that of a malfunctioning protocol droid.. unreliable to say the least. He wasn't even sure if the final blow landed before or after he hit the ground. Several breaths were spent trying to recalibrate his awareness, but it was an agonizing affair, making him question just how broken he truly was.

Sequences of the entire day played through the projector inside his skull, blurring together, mixed with bright flashing lights. All the voices were muddled too. And the harder he tried to understand them, the more pressure built, behind his eyes.

Like a corrupted kyber crystal begging for light, emotions that were nearly foreign surged within him, and were more complex than the sting of defeat. Multiple chapters of his life passed since the tradeswoman saw him as a Padawan, a time when he wandered lost without purpose in the Mid Rim. A scar etched across the left eyebrow, and even more inked across his knuckles, he wondered if she had seen those too, aside from the mess he'd become today in the Galactic Kaggath. Still, even if his usual bravado were present, something deeper stirred beneath the surface. It wasn't love, nor was it longing; it was quiet admiration, something that carried warmth.

It kindled now.

His antics were well-known, stretching from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim, but that wasn't to say he was blind to the world around him. In truth, Lysander was always aware, always calculating. Somewhere between a ride to Otoh Gunga in a submersible along with burning down half a swamp together, he did come to one conclusion: she was one of the very few that saw past his recklessness, and one that seemed to actually care about him. And now, lying here, that belief was reaffirmed. But with that, guilt arrived, gnawing at him.

The Dark Side disciple would slowly try to shift from his current position, but all it did was bring a fresh wave of pain across the side of his face. One eye was reluctant to open, barely, but the other remained swollen shut. The concussion's grasp was without mercy, offering only discomfort and more confusion.

Whatever the woman had spoken earlier, didn't quite register, other than the familiarity of voice.

"Your voice," he rasped, "it still sounds like.. Naboo." Like another open wound, just the mention of the planet caused something deeper than physical torment to bloom inside; it still bled heavy with regret and burned like acid in his veins. He forced a slow exhale. "Part of me wanted to disappear," he confessed. "Maybe for good this time." Even scrunching his nose sent ripples throughout his body. The teen's tone became dry. "Ms. Dangeruese, if the afterlife smells like cigarillos.." a weak smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth, "I'd much rather go to hell."

Gaze narrowing, he then looked up at the ceiling. "I just want to get back out there."

Yet, he currently had no idea where 'there' even was.

"Where.. am I? Where is Corazona von Ascania ?"

Gravity would not allow him to sit up, for he tried once more.

In the current state, his brain was more unguarded than ever, lest he begin asking for someone who'd already forgotten him. "Where is my Sibylla?"

 

[Danger Arceneau]

Danger didn't speak at first.

Didn't move either, save for the slight shift of weight as she crossed one leg over the other, smoke curling in lazy swirls by her head from the cigarillo perched between her fingers. Once again, thanking the void that she at least ditched the fake vapes and kept to the real thing.

And she needed plenty of the narcotic vice for what was to come.

To anyone from a distance, the Queen of Trade would look composed, almost regal. But up close, her jaw was set a little too tight, her bright emerald eyes a little too sharp. She wasn't watching the machines. She was watching him.

Lysander von Ascania .

Half boy, half man, and entirely too reckless.

Menfolk sure had a way of gettin' themselves killed, she thought with no amount of wry amusement, taking another deep drag, and the young ones? They just did it louder.

She didn't know why he was in that arena. Not yet. But her credits had made damn sure he got out of it. Without them and without a team of medics she'd browbeaten into working overtime, he'd probably be bleeding out under a tarp.

Not exactly a memory she wanted to sit with.

Instead, she watched and listened.

Watched him stir. Watched the pain draw across his brow like storm shadows. Watched his voice rasp out something halfway between poetry and a cry for help.

The words cracked something in her, and her expression couldn't help but soften.

He went on, drifting between confession and broken humor. But she could see right through the bullshit. The humor used as a mask. For there was something hollow in his eye, something lost. She'd seen it before -- in soldiers, in survivors, in herself on a bad year with too many names to mourn. But this? This was fresh. Raw. Like he didn't know whether he wanted to climb out of the crater or bury himself in it.

Her full lips parted, but just barely, the spicy white smoke trailing out between them as she gave a low but barely amused chuckle. It wasn't cruel. It wasn't warm, either. Just real.

"Well, I am hell," she said quietly, the words dry as Tatooine's Western Dune Sea, indicating that he was now with her if that's how he wanted it.

"And you're lucky all you're breathin' is spiced tobacco leaf and not bacta through a rebreather."

She leaned in to rest a forearm to knee, her cigarillo balanced between her fingers with practiced ease, fixing those emerald fire eyes on the boy trying too hard to act like a man who didn't care if he lived or died.

"That fool stunt you pulled down in that arena? That wasn't bravery. That was pain wearin' armor and hopin' no one'd notice the cracks....and it nearly got you killed." She didn't say it to hurt him. She said it because it was true. Her eyes softened then, searching the one green eye that wasn't fully swollen or bruised shut.

"You tryin' to disappear on me, Lysander?" she asked, quiet now, no judgment in the tone, just weight. "You best tell me why."

She took another slow drag, the red tip flaring crimson light before she flicked the ash into the nearby tray. Her background check could provide her plenty of information, but nothing would hold as true as what Lysander would provide. That is, if he so chose to.

Since he mentioned Corazona and Sibylla, the former she could only assume was a relative, but the latter required more information.

"Cause it sure looks like we've got more than just busted bones to sort out."

She didn't move from her chair but she stayed close enough that if he drifted too far, he'd hear her voice again. Close enough that when he was ready to talk, she'd still be there.

Waiting.

Because whatever brought Lysander to the edge of a Kaggath fighting ring, it wasn't just foolish pride.

It was ghosts.

And she wanted to know which ones were haunting him.

 

[Lysander von Ascania]

Danger Arceneau

​

Time stretched on, each second tugging at the edges of his willpower. Reality began to feel heavier. The longer Lysander stayed awake, the more he felt like he was stuck in quicksand, for it was exhausting and persistent. There wasn't any improvement in his limbs, and the air around him and Danger thickened as he absorbed her words carefully. As more thoughts unraveled, they only threatened to spiral him into memories that were distorted.

In his sixteen years of this journey called life, Lysander had faced a number of horrors that many would have fled from, but surprisingly, they paled in comparison to this, a mark etched deep with the shame of needing help.

Silence lingered after the tradeswoman spoke, and he was tempted to stop fighting the tide that so desperately wanted to drown him. He lay there, one eye cracked open, caught in a prison between consciousness and what might've been the void. His gaze remained fixed on Danger, searching for something, anything, to hold onto amid the tempest of emotions. Deep beneath the walls he'd fortified, the teen knew he could trust her.

But now, trust was a cage he wasn't ready to unlock.

His brows furrowed faintly, not in defiance as they so often did, but in ways that were closer to melancholy and heartache. The acolyte’s fingers twitched against the blanket over his immobile legs, the same ones that’d curled around his curved lightsaber hilt earlier with all the certainty one could possibly imagine.

Perhaps now, they were searching for something to hold onto besides her voice.

“..No,” he finally murmured, forcing himself to look away, even if for only a beat. “Not from you, Danger.”

Already, he wanted to retreat back under the numbness that her warmth could not penetrate. A slow breath escaped his lips, another crack in his armor revealed. "I was hopin' you'd already forgotten me. The Kaggath didn’t bother me. It’s being seen like this.. before you.. that hurts the most.”

Still, he hadn't broken eye contact. Lysander's stare clung desperately to hers, as it was one of the only things keeping him tethered to the moment.

Looking away would've been like closing a door.

The demons that lurked within his soul hissed, taunting him with doubts. His failures were whispered.

All of this was a consequence of the figure before him now.

The pull of darkness became alluring.

The one orb he peered through became distant and detached, as if it were no longer a part of his being. With a sharp exhale through his nostrils, the blonde looked almost as if the very air itself caused him pain. "You're still searching for the Padawan that once followed you through the swamps of Naboo. But that boy is long gone now. He wouldn't last five minutes in my world." His voice was hollow, like a gravestone without flowers. "I don't mourn him."

Lysander's grasp on the blanket tightened in an instant; though, it was not out of comfort, but out of a need to have control, to quiet the chaos in his mind, which also pulsed through his nerves-endings like a storm. “Whatever you thought I was, whatever you saw back at the Southern Systems Bazaar.. that boy’s long dead. The Kaggath didn’t kill him."

He paused, then swallowed hard.

“I did.”

​

 

[Danger Arceneau]

The quiet in the room had Rancor teeth.

Sharp things they were, tugging at the fabric of time and memory.

Danger watched him, the soft hiss of her cigarillo the only sound breaking the weight. Smoke curled in elegant spirals above her head, catching in the pale medbay light like netherghosts refusing to leave. Her gaze stayed on Lysander von Ascania , steady as a space station in high orbit even as his words came like vibroshivs dulled by despair.

She caught how his gaze drifted away just a moment. No one else in the 'verse would have caught it but Danger. Every man has his 'tell.' Either a woman can read it or not.

Voids above.

Lysander's words hit harder than any shockboxer's fist.

Danger jaw worked slightly, but she didn't speak, not yet. Instead, she brought the cigarillo to her lips, took a long contemplative drag, and let the silence steep between them just a breath longer. The spice leaf carsunum laced smoke burned slow and bitter at the back of her throat.

Then quiet as a dying hyperdrive the Queen of Trade exhaled in a cloud of white smoke.

"Gorram, damn fool boy," she muttered low under her breath, so faint it might've been mistaken for a sigh.

It wasn't meant cruel. No venom behind it. Just the raw, rattled concern of a woman watching someone she had concern for walk into fire and call it a choice. Bha'lairs were less ferocious guarding their young than Danger Arceneau. Especially one she'd taken a fondness to. Makai Dashiell had seen plenty of that the majority of his life even if he wasn't born of her womb. Sure, perhaps she had babied and sheltered him right into manhood, fussing over him and protecting him with teeth bared. But that is just how Danger expressed her affection.

So had Lysander been younger like Makai decades back, still all elbows and snot filled whimpers, her tone might have come gentler. But Lysander was on the cusp. Not a child. Not yet a man. But runnin' headlong into the worst parts of both.

And so her voice when it came next, was durasteel wrapped in velvet. One that was soft but forged in far too many years of loss.

"No," she said plainly in her husky drawl. "I ain't lookin' for a Browncoat Padawan, and I ain't mournin' some wide-eyed-swamp-walker who didn't know better than to follow me through half of a Gungan terrorist hellhole." Her eyes held his, unflinching.

"That boy's gone? Fine. Maybe he needed to be."

Danger shifted and leaned back in her seat, but the weight in her emerald fire gaze didn't lessen.

"What I did see," she continued, slow and deliberate, that cigarillo perched between two fingers painting a smoke trail as she gestured, "was a fire in you. Not the kind that burns hot and burns out, but the kind you feed with grit, and fight, and stubbornness enough to shame a Rancor in ruttin' season."

The corner of her mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Something more like ache.

"You ever watch a sword get made, Lysander?" she asked, quiet now. It had been nearly the same question she asked Makai when he was seven years old.

"Not one o' those fancy laser sabers, but a real one. You gotta toss the metal in the fire, over and over. Beat it flat with a hammer 'til it screams. Dunk it in ice cold water. Hold it to the heat again. Fold it, break it, fold it again."

Her eyes softened just a shade then as she reached up and flicked ash into the tray on the small bedstand beside her.

"And with every fold? It gets stronger. Tempered. Ain't a Jedi Browncoat code or hooky hoodoo playbook in the 'verse that'll teach you what life will beat into your bones if you let it."

She let that sit between them a second. Let it settle.

"Now you tell me that boy's dead," she went on, taking a deep drag of her vice.

"Fine. But if you think what's left of you ain't worth seein'? If you think bein' seen wounded, bruised, bare ain't the bravest damn thing you've done yet?"

She let that spicy blue white cloud settle between them, before her voice fell lower into that husky drawl again.

"Then you don't know a damn thing about what makes a man."

She tapped the side of her cigarillo, watched the ember flare soft and angry.

"The verse’ break us. But we get to choose what's built back in the ashes. You don't owe anyone a version of yourself you can't be no more. Not me. Not Naboo. Not the ghosts behind your eyes."

She leaned forward again, elbows to knees, her voice gentler now like a current just beneath the surface.

"But you are here. You're breathin'. You can chose to survive. And that kinda choice? That'll tell me there's still somethin' in you that ain't ready to give up. Not entirely."

She paused, let the words linger like coals on a forge.

"So what I want to know," she finished, "is who or what chased you into that pit. And why you thought pain was the only way to make the ghosts stop whisperin'."

Her eyes didn't leave him. Not once.

She wasn't lettin' him drift this time. Not without a fight.