Private What Remains, and What Does Not

[Iandre Athlea]

The world was quiet in a way she did not understand.

It was not the stillness of meditation or the calm that came from balance. This was something else entirely, a hollow weight that pressed in around her without offering any clarity in return. Iandre stood at the edge of a shallow rise where the land opened into a sweep of green and silver. The wind moved gently through the tall grasses, bending them in slow, patient waves that carried no urgency or demand. Somewhere in the distance, water moved over stone with a quiet rhythm threading through the air like a fading memory.

It should have felt peaceful. It did not.

Her hands rested loosely at her sides, unmoving, her posture composed in the way it had always been. There was no outward fracture and no visible sign of the storm she carried. There was only stillness. Too much stillness.

"You are meant to listen," she murmured to herself, her voice soft against the open air. "To feel what remains. To understand."

That was what she had been taught and what she had lived by. The Force was not silent, and it did not abandon. It shifted and changed, carrying those who had passed into something greater, something that could still be touched and followed if one only knew how to listen.

She closed her eyes and reached. There should have been something. An echo or a trace, the faintest impression of a presence that had once stood so close to her own that she could feel the rhythm of it without trying. But there was nothing. It was neither distance nor a fading light. It was simply nothing. Her breath stilled for a moment as the realization settled.

"That is not how this works," she said quietly, though there was no conviction behind the words. "There is always something."

Her brow tightened slightly, the only outward sign of her strain. She reached again, more deliberately this time, extending her awareness further than before. She searched beyond the immediate space around her, looking past the wind and the living world that still answered her in quiet and familiar ways.

Life was there. The Force moved. But him. There was still nothing. Her eyes opened slowly, and the horizon came back into focus. It remained unchanged and indifferent to her searching.

"You did not fade," she continued, her voice growing softer. "You did not return to the current in any way I can follow."

The words felt wrong even as she spoke them. Rellik had stood beside her. He had been there, and then he was not. There had been no body, no presence, and no transition. There was only an absence.

Her fingers curled faintly at her sides, the motion small and almost imperceptible.

"A ritual," she said, as if giving the thought shape might finally make it make sense. "An event I did not witness. A moment I cannot retrace."

There were too many unknowns and too many missing pieces, none of them leading anywhere she could follow. She exhaled slowly, steadying herself against the growing weight of the void.

"You are not gone," she said, though the certainty she had once carried was no longer there to support her. "That is not what this is."

But if that were true, where was he?

The question lingered unanswered, stretching out into the quiet landscape around her. Iandre did not move. The wind passed around her, and the world continued as it always had. The Force remained present and alive in everything it touched.

Everything but him.

She stood there, caught between what she knew and what she could no longer prove, searching for understanding in a silence that refused to give anything back.

Caltin Vanagor

 

[Caltin Vanagor]

TITLE
SHE’S ON… WAIT WHERE IS SHE?
I’M ON WHEREVER

Before she could prepare herself, the wind, the air, the very Force Shifted and suddenly, there he was. Caltin Vanagor. Looking around. Anyone who knew him well enough, knew exactly what Caltin was thinking right now. “The Force has a sense of humor, but this is ridiculous!” It was when he saw the woman just “there”. Despondent, hurt. She was lost and trying to regain something. Have we ever truly met? The last time I had seen you was in a karaoke club on Coruscant.

Caltin had a memory that made databanks envious.

He did not say this until she had finished speaking to herself. Yes, he had heard everything but would openly address none of it without her sayso. She was dealing with loss, and she was not a Jedi, maybe she was at some point, not now. Perhaps that is why he was here? Who knows. If she was not worth the effort, the Force would not have brought him on this trip. I'm sure I wasn't who you were looking for. So, how can I help?

TAGS • Iandre Athlea

[Text in Brackets is spoken on Comm-link] ~Like this is through the Force~​

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not turn immediately.

For a long moment, she simply stood with her back to the apparition, the wind moving gently around her as if the world were still the same as it had been seconds ago. But the Force had shifted, not with the rhythmic, predictable hum of the living, but with a sharp, intentional clarity that pierced through her grief.

It was a signature she hadn't felt in a lifetime. One that should have been extinguished.

Familiar.

Her breath caught, a sharp hitch in her chest that she couldn't suppress, and slowly, with the cautious deliberation of a soldier stepping into a fog, she turned.

Her eyes found him, and for a long second, she said nothing. There was no immediate shock, no rush of relief, only a profound, searching stillness. She stood there trying to reconcile the figure before her with every law of the Force she had ever mastered.

"…Master Vanagor," she said at last, the name leaving her lips like a half-forgotten prayer. A flicker of something passed through her gaze, faint, but piercingly real. "We crossed paths...more than once. During the war. I did not think you would remember a face among so many."

There was no accusation in her voice, only the flat weight of fact. Her gaze lingered on him, studying the way he existed within the current. It was different, the way the Force held him, or perhaps the way he held it. It didn't fit the patterns she knew.

"The last time I saw you…on Coruscant…I chose not to approach," she admitted, her voice dropping to a near whisper. "I thought there would be another time. There usually is."

A hollow silence followed those words. But not this time.

She steadied herself, though the disorientation remained like a physical weight behind her ribs. When she looked at him again, her composure was a thin veil over a deep, aching confusion.

"I was not expecting anyone," she said, the honesty of it raw. "Least of all you."

At his offer of help, Iandre's expression finally faltered. It wasn't a break, but a visible fraying of her certainty. She looked at him with a steadiness that required every ounce of her will to maintain.

"I do not know that you can," she answered. Her gaze dropped to the ground before lifting back to his. "I am trying to understand something that defies the very nature of what we are. Someone I…"

The word loved caught in her throat, jagged and sharp.

"…lost," she corrected, her voice straining. "There was no transition. No presence left behind. Usually, there is a ripple, a fading echo...but with him, there is nothing in the Force I can follow."

Her brow tightened, a flash of a soldier's frustration threading through the widow's grief. "That is not how this works. Energy does not simply vanish."

She searched his eyes then, not for comfort, but for the logic of a Master. For a fundamental truth.

"You stand here," she said, her voice dropping an octave, "a presence that should be gone, yet you are undeniable. And he… he is nowhere."

The contrast hung between them, a cruel paradox. For the first time, her composure thinned enough to show the fragility beneath.

"If the Force has brought you back from the silence to find me," she continued, her voice trembling slightly, "then I must ask you…In all your time beyond...have you ever felt a nothingness like that?"

The question was simple. The desperation behind it was absolute.

Caltin Vanagor

 

[Caltin Vanagor]

TITLE
SHE’S ON… WAIT WHERE IS SHE?
I’M ON WHEREVER

She knew him. During the war. Wait? Which one? Didn’t matter, just that she knew him. Of course she did. Everyone and their mother knew him. Yet the funny thing is so few seem to up and approach, or did anyway. He listened to her story, it was of love and loss, though she would only talk about the loss. That told him that she wasn’t a Jedi, not that it mattered. ”I thought there would be more time” is a common misconception. Tomorrow is not a promise.

He didn’t touch on why she said what she did about “tomorrow…” that was not important. What was, was her loss… Why is it important to you that you can feel him? Is it not important to remember him? Who he was? He wasn’t trying to be harsh, and his tone was clear in that. She did not need an explanation, she needed clarity. Clarity in her own view.

TAGS • Iandre Athlea
[Text in Brackets is spoken on Comm-link] ~Like this is through the Force~​

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not answer him immediately.

His question did not strike like a blade. It settled instead, quiet and deliberate, finding its place somewhere deeper than the grief that had been threatening to overwhelm her. For a moment, her gaze drifted and became unfocused, as if she were turning something over carefully rather than merely reacting to it.

"I do remember him," she said at last. Her voice was low and steady despite the strain beneath it. "That has never been in question."

Her fingers shifted slightly at her side, grounding her in the present.

"I remember who he chose to be. I remember the weight he carried and the way he bore it."

A faint pause followed as her expression softened without breaking.

"That does not disappear."

She drew in a slow breath, letting it settle before she continued.

"But memory is not the same as presence," she said more quietly. "One is something I hold. The other..."

She did not finish the thought this time, for she did not need to. Her gaze lifted back to him, clearer now and more focused, taking in the sheer, mountain-like scale of the man standing before her.

"You are asking me to be satisfied with what remains," she continued. "I understand that."

There was no resistance in her tone, only a quiet acknowledgment.

"But I am not there yet."

The honesty in her words was simple and unadorned. For a brief moment, the silence between them shifted, no longer fragile but measured. Then her attention turned fully to him, her focus sharpening with a more deliberate intent as she sensed the strange, ancient hum of his presence in the Force.

"And you have given me a different question to consider," she said, studying him with the eyes of a veteran who knew that appearances were often the first layer of a lie. "One I cannot ignore."

She took a small step forward. It was subtle but entirely intentional, a closing of the distance between two survivors of a forgotten age.

"You should not be here," she said plainly. "And yet you are."

Her gaze did not waver as she looked up at him, searching for the truth beneath the heavy armor and the weight of centuries.

"So I will ask you directly, Master Vanagor..."

A beat.

"What are you?"

Caltin Vanagor

 

[Caltin Vanagor]

TITLE
SHE’S ON… WAIT WHERE IS SHE?
I’M ON WHEREVER

She was giving a lot of doubletalk about who this person was and what he had chosen to be, and so on. That told Caltin one thing… he was a Sith, or at least one of the Dark Side. okay, so be it. That was her business, and her path in the Force to walk.

How long has he been gone to you, if I may ask? You do not need details, or even to answer, should you not wish so. It could not have been that long, if she “was not there yet”. This of course led to her shift from grieving woman to investigating officer. She looked like she wanted to interrogate him on a stolen Bantha.

Then she asked him…”What are you?”

The eyes would be evident… he was caught off guard. Not out of guilt but of confusion.

... uhhh…. An Aries? He had no idea what he had just said, but the feeling to say it was there. I don’t have all the answers for you. It’s not like there is a desk I can walk to and some deity on a throne could tell me everything. It does not work that way. All I can tell you is that if he is meant to come to you, if he is that bonded to you… you will feel him. Give yourself some grace… and some time…

TAGS • Iandre Athlea
[Text in Brackets is spoken on Comm-link] ~Like this is through the Force~​

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not answer him immediately. His words did not miss their mark, but they failed to settle cleanly into her mind. Instead, they lingered and turned over in her thoughts with a weight that was not quite comfort and yet not quite resistance.

Her gaze lowered slightly as she retreated into herself. She was not avoiding him, but rather shifting her focus inward as she considered the true depth of what he had asked of her.

"It is important because it should still be there," she said at last, her voice remaining steady even as it grew noticeably quieter than before. There was no sharpness in her tone and no defensiveness in her posture. She was simply stating a fundamental truth that she was not yet willing to set aside.

"I am not searching for him as he was, for I know better than to chase a ghost." A small pause followed while her brow tightened faintly as she chose her next words with painstaking care. "But the Force does not simply erase a life."

That was the part she could not reconcile with her reality. It was not a matter of clinging to memory or drowning in grief, but rather the absolute nature of the absence itself. Her gaze lifted back to him then, appearing more focused than before, though the strain beneath her composure had not eased in the slightest.

"You ask if remembering him is enough to sustain me." Another brief pause followed as she let the weight of the question hang between them. "It is not a question of what is enough for my heart." Her hand shifted slightly at her side to ground herself against the grass. She kept her posture perfectly intact even as her words began to carry more visible weight.

"It is that what I am experiencing does not align with anything I have ever known of the Force or of the nature of loss." There it was. It was not an act of defiance or a refusal to move on, but a technical and spiritual problem she could not solve.

"If he had truly passed into the Force, there would be something left behind." She spoke much softer now, her voice nearly a whisper. "There would be an echo, however faint."

Her gaze held his with an intense searching quality. She was not looking for comfort, but for confirmation, contradiction, or anything at all that made sense. "There is absolutely nothing." A long beat passed in the heavy silence.

"So either I am failing to perceive a presence that should be there…" She hesitated for the briefest moment as the doubt flickered across her face. "…or something has occurred that I simply do not understand." She did not look away from him this time. "And I do not know which of those two truths I am meant to accept."

Caltin Vanagor

 

[Caltin Vanagor]

TITLE
SHE’S ON… WAIT WHERE IS SHE?
I’M ON WHEREVER

She was still grieving, and her lashing out was a result of it. Caltin was no therapist, or counselor, but he could understand that. He also was not fabricating anything when he said he did not have all of the answers. The relatively young woman was in the demanding phase of her process, and there was nothing that was going to change her position, not that he was trying to. She wanted her loved one back.

Look, I don’t know what you want me to say here. It was not the most compassionate thing to say, but it was the truth. What did she want from him? She obviously was not looking for him, he was not looking to come here, but here they were.

There is a friend I have… a “brother” really… he lost the love of his life. Just up and disappeared, both in physical, but Force appearance. No need to give her the details about who it was, the man(and woman) deserved their privacy in that regard. He went from always looking to her, and vice versa, for love, companionship, and comfort to nothing. Nothing at all but an empty void. He had to learn to move forward, and I am not telling you to do this, you act how you feel you need to. What I’m saying is you have two possible realities. Same as he does. You have to either accept that he is outright “gone” or that he is out there somewhere, and protecting you because he knows you would follow and he doesn’t want that. He doesn’t know her details, he doesn’t know if she (as bad as it might sound) watched him die, or had confirmation… but he was here, and she was looking for something… anything.

He wouldn’t be who he was if he didn’t try.

TAGS • Iandre Athlea
[Text in Brackets is spoken on Comm-link] ~Like this is through the Force~​

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre stood with a profound, unnerving stillness as he spoke, noting that this moment felt fundamentally different from any that had come before. It was not merely the weight of his words that moved her, but the very nature of what he had become; she could sense a faint, unfamiliar presence that made her chest tighten with a strange complexity. It was not the hollow absence she had grown used to, nor was it the presence she remembered, but rather something hauntingly in between.

Her grief, usually so quick to lash out in defense of her pain, remained quiet this time and simply listened.

"I do not know what I want you to say," she admitted in a low voice, her words finally stripped of the sharp, defensive edge she had carried since her loss. Her gaze remained fixed on him, searching his features with a quiet intensity, but she no longer demanded the impossible answers he had already confessed he could not provide. "If I had the words for what I needed, I would have asked for them long ago."

She took a slow, steadying breath, feeling the immense weight of his story. Not the names or the specific details, but the universal shape of a loss that left nothing behind to hold onto. Her fingers curled faintly at her side as she grounded herself in the present moment, resisting the urge to reach back into a past that was no longer there.

"Those are not equal paths you've laid before me," she observed thoughtfully, her voice gaining a deliberate, weighing quality as she considered the choice. "To accept that he is truly gone is one thing, but to believe he remains somewhere just beyond my reach is entirely another."

She lowered her gaze, let the silence stretch, and allowed the gravity of that realization to settle.

"One path asks me to find the strength to let him go, while the other requires the far more difficult trust that he has already found the peace to let go of me."

That thought sat heavier than the rest, prompting a long, measured exhale that felt controlled but far from empty. When her eyes eventually lifted back to his, they were clearer, though the persistent ache of her mourning still shimmered just beneath the surface.

"I understand the truth of what you are telling me, Master Vanagor, and I recognize that I cannot remain suspended in this state forever. Standing between these two conflicting realities while refusing to accept either one is simply not a sustainable way to live."

The tension in her hands finally began to thaw, signaling a quiet shift in her resolve.

"I will not pretend that I am ready to make that choice today, but I hear you, and I will stop seeking answers from those who were never meant to carry them. This burden was never yours to bear, but I thank you for trying to help me find my way through it anyway."

Caltin Vanagor

 

[Caltin Vanagor]

TITLE
SHE’S ON… WAIT WHERE IS SHE?
I’M ON WHEREVER

She did not like what he had to say at all, but that was to be expected. She was grieving, still hadn’t fully accepted what happened, Caltin understood this, more than he let on. Everything he had been through in his time, all of the experiences, what she was going through was entirely understandable. No, they’re not equal, and I hope for your sake that I am wrong, but answer me this. The man you love, your loss. Say he is out there somewhere, not hiding, but somewhere doing something… serious… dangerous… if he felt about you the way you clearly feel about him… would he want you there or would he want you protected? She misunderstood what he was saying, which had happened before with others.

Forget “let go”... Quietly his head shook, if that is what she was thinking then he had to re-explain.. I have a son, and he knows my friends as well, in fact my son is so convinced that the love of my friend’s life is out there that he spends every free moment searching. I wouldn’t say anything different of you.

Clearly she was looking to leave, it made sense, they were probably never meant to meet like this. Give yourself some grace… you’ll never hear a Jedi say this again probably, but let yourself feel…

TAGS • Iandre Athlea
[Text in Brackets is spoken on Comm-link] ~Like this is through the Force~​

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre did not answer him immediately.

His words pressed into a quiet space within her, targeting a resistance born not of defiance but of the simple fear of what acceptance might mean. Her gaze lowered as he posed the question, and the silence stretched because the answer was already there, waiting for her to acknowledge it.

"He would not want me there," she said at last. Her voice was softer now, possessing a certainty it had lacked before.

There was no argument or hesitation left in her. It was a truth she had been avoiding because it hurt more than the empty alternatives she had been clinging to.

"If it were dangerous...if it were something that could take him from me, he would not risk me beside him."

A small, weighted breath followed. Her fingers curled at her side, not with the tension of a fight, but with the quiet settling of a fact that had been true long before this conversation began.

"That was always who he was. And it may be why I was not there to begin with."

It was not regret that moved through her now, but a heavy kind of understanding. Her gaze lifted back to him, clearer than it had been, even if the grief remained a constant shadow.

"I grew up in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant before the Clone Wars," she said, her tone carrying a faint, reflective edge. "You are right. I did not expect to hear a Jedi from that same time tell me to feel as you are."

There was no criticism in her voice, only a quiet recognition.

"We were not taught that. We were taught control and distance. We were told to let go before attachment could take root deeply enough to break us."

She lingered on him, studying the man differently than she had moments ago. It wasn't disbelief she felt, but a deep sense of consideration.

"And yet, here you are telling me to do the opposite. To feel it and to not turn away from it." Her voice softened, the edges rounding out. "That is not weakness. It is simply unfamiliar."

She did not move to leave. Not yet.

"But I think I finally understand what you are trying to give me," she said after a faint pause. "It is not answers. It is permission."

Caltin Vanagor

 

[Caltin Vanagor]

TITLE
SHE’S ON… WAIT WHERE IS SHE?
I’M ON WHEREVER

She understood what he was asking, and there it was. Iandre had to accept that she might have to move forward when she was not ready. As someone who has had to “hide” from those to whom he wanted to protect, trust me when I say, if your love is out there, it is not easy in what he is doing. Even if you do not trust in the Force. Trust in who he is. It may mean something, it may mean nothing, that was for her to decide.

I know I hated the feeling… Quietly his head shook.

One thing about the “old guard”, and I was a part of that guard… was the mistake of “feelings”.

He sighed. I learned something quietly from our old Grandmaster, and you know who I am talking about. I was struggling with the issue and he told me, asked me to keep it to myself best I could. He told me… and I am paraphrasing here: “Feelings are inevitable, but do not let them define you. So let yourself feel, but allow yourself to trust too. Trust not to hold on too hard... don't let go... but don't grasp too tightly "Grasping too tightly" could end badly for her, for both of them if he was still alive and Caltin was proven right.

TAGS • Iandre Athlea
[Text in Brackets is spoken on Comm-link] ~Like this is through the Force~​

 

[Iandre Athlea]

Iandre listened without interruption, her attention steady as she allowed the meaning behind his words to settle in the spaces where she had previously resisted them. When he spoke of trust, her gaze lowered. It was not out of distance, but in a quiet, thoughtful tension, as if learning how to hold a weight without letting it break her.

"Trust in who he is…" she repeated softly, testing the shape of the idea. "That is easier than trusting what I cannot feel."

Her fingers curled faintly at her side, grounding her as she listened to him speak of the old guard and their complicated relationship with emotion. At the mention of the Grandmaster, a subtle shift of recognition and respect crossed her features. She knew exactly who he meant.

"I think I have been doing both wrong," she began, her voice carrying a quiet, newfound clarity. "I tried to hold onto him so tightly that I left no space for anything else, and when that failed, I told myself there was nothing left to hold onto at all. But neither of those is trust."

Her eyes lifted back to his, clearer now despite the lingering ache.

"Trust would mean believing that who he is does not change, even if I cannot reach him. It means I do not need to chase him to remain connected, nor do I have to abandon him in order to move forward."

The admission was hard, evident in the way her voice softened at the edges, but she held his gaze with a steady presence.

"I do not know if I can do that yet," she admitted, honest and unembellished. "But I understand it now. And that is…more than I had before."

Caltin Vanagor

 

[Caltin Vanagor]

TITLE
SHE’S ON… WAIT WHERE IS SHE?
I’M ON WHEREVER

She was starting to come around, not to his way of thinking, that was fine, but at least she was not despondent and ready to bite someone’s head off.

It would have been scary if you got it right off the bat. He smirked.

She didn’t need to be “good” right now, she still had some feelings to process. Otherwise there would be problems she would not be able to grow from it.

He sighed. Even a journey of a thousand light years begins with a single step….

TAGS • Iandre Athlea
[Text in Brackets is spoken on Comm-link] ~Like this is through the Force~​