Private When The Truth Comes Out

[Irina Jesart]

The corridors of the Vigjfall were a flurry of activity, all hands preparing for the coming fight as hyperspace coloured viewports with blue swirling patterns. Irina weaved between the flow of personnel, her mind reeling. Now was not the time, they had a battle to prepare for, she knew this and yet she couldn't let it lie.

Five years as Gerwald's apprentice and she knew nothing about him. He was a stonewall. His only interest in her was how she could best serve him, and that should have been fine. It had been fine.

So why did she feel so betrayed by Aerik's revelation?

To learn that his mother had been killed by the same man he called Master…to realise that Gerwald allowed this to happen.

There had to be a reason, there had to be logic behind the decision to simply do nothing and she didn't for a second believe it was something as simple as an attempt to forgive old wounds.

The CIC was busier than the corridors, reports flowed from each station updating the central holoprojector with new information as they learned more of what was waiting for them in the Brosi System.

“Master.” She said quietly, stepping up on Gerwald's left, anger rippled from her, quiet and controlled. Losing her temper here, would gain her nothing.

“I need to speak with you.”

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald stood at the holotable with his hands resting lightly against its edge, the projection before him cycling through the latest battlefield projections. Landing zones for the Dreadborne and their allies shifted in slow rotation, each one the result of weeks of calculation, correction, and quiet argument. Supply lines updated in real time. Patrol routes adjusted to account for resistance that had not yet realized it was being watched. War, at this stage, was an exercise in patience rather than violence.

His attention moved through the data without hurry. Every movement had already been considered. Every outcome weighed and discarded until only the viable paths remained. This was the part of conflict he preferred. The moment before blood was spilled, when control still belonged to the one willing to wait.

The doors swooshed open with more force than necessary, their mechanisms protesting as they slid apart. The Dread Wolf did not look away from the holotable displaying the landing zones for the Dreadborne and their allied forces. He did not need to. The presence behind him carried the same flare and fire it had for the last five years, unmistakable in its intensity and unwillingness to be ignored.

A smug little smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth. It was barely visible as his attention lifted from the battle plans, golden eyes tracing the final movement of icons across the projection before acknowledging the intrusion.

“Irina.”

He did not ask whether it was important. Gerwald had never required permission for his apprentices to speak their minds. They were free to do so, so long as they understood the cost of idle words. Consequences had always been clear under his instruction, and Irina knew them better than most.

Of all the students he had trained, she had remained at his side the longest. Longer even than Palm-Imer . That fact alone set her apart, whether either of them cared to admit it or not.

Gerwald turned from the holotable at last, folding his hands behind his back as he faced her fully. The room settled into stillness around him, the war waiting patiently for its moment.

“Speak your mind, firebird.”

 

[Irina Jesart]

Firebird.

Her anger abated, just a little. He didn't show pride or affection towards her often so the weight of the nickname settled exactly as it should have. Irina blew a sigh out of her nose, stepping up to the table hands coming to rest on its edge as her gaze swept the display, not truly taking it in, instead using the chance to pick her words carefully.

Five years and she had never pressed for more from him, never asked about Aerik or his siblings. there had been a invisible line drawn between their personal lives, but he closer she and Aerik got the more blurred that line would become. Five years was a long time to serve a man when she knew little of his history, and yet he knew everything of hers.

"Why didn't you tell me about the Nocna Mora?"

Why didn't you tell me about Prazutis? Why did you let your son kneel to him? How much danger is he in?

She pushed back from the table, mirroring him as she folded her own arms and watching him carefully.

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald did not look away from the holotable when she asked. The projection continued to cycle through its data layers, showing the Dreadborne landing zones resolving into final approach vectors. Timers counted down in quiet increments. Support elements shifted as new telemetry updated the margins. The operation was past the point of debate. It was already executing.

“Because it was none of your business.”

The answer was delivered evenly, without emphasis. He did not expand on it. He did not soften it. His attention returned fully to the display, fingers brushing the edge of the table as one of the drop lanes adjusted by a fraction of a degree.

The silence that followed was deliberate. Not punitive. Contained.

Gerwald allowed it to settle long enough for its meaning to register. The boundary was not born from anger. It was a priority. Personal histories did not interrupt active campaigns, and questions that arrived too late did not reshape decisions already made.

He shifted one icon slightly, correcting for a change in orbital drift. The projection stabilized again.

“You are here because I trust your judgment,” he said without turning. “That has not changed.”

Nothing more followed. The war continued to unfold in steady motion across the table, and the room held the quiet understanding that the matter had been answered as far as it would be answered.

“Why does my personal life matter now?”

 

[Irina Jesart]

She understood the response. The boundaries were drawn when Aerik and she had been separated, it wasn't critical information, it did nothing to further her development nor did it make her any more or less efficient at exacting his will. Yet logic did not soften the blow as it landed, as the silence stretched deliberately. He always said more without words than he ever did when he spoke. She had learned over time to understand the different weight of his silences.

He turned away, his focus shifting back to the battle, signalling that she was not going to get anything more from him on the topic. Not yet at least.

The question he threw back gave her pause. Her initial reaction was emotional, born from a girl who had lost everything and grown beneath his tutelage in spite of it. she had given him loyalty and obedience without question, and would follow him into Hell itself if he asked it of her. Did she not deserve more of him? It hadn't been the first time she'd asked herself this question, and she answered it the same way she did before.

He was not her Father. He was not her family. There would be no filling the void that they had left behind.

She folded the emotion carefully back into its box and took a measured breath.

"Because our personal lives are no longer clean cut. And finding out second hand that your son is apprenticed to the man who killed your wife is not an easy pill to swallow, no matter how you deliver it."

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald did not turn away when she finished. The holotable continued its steady rotation beside them, the operation advancing without regard for the tension that had settled in the room. He allowed that contrast to linger, then shifted his stance slightly so the projection fell more fully between them.

“It seems clear you learned this from Aerik. That knowledge was his to share if he chose to. I did not interfere with that choice.”

The statement was delivered without heat. It was placed, not defended.

“You are letting what you feel for him shape the way you are framing this. That does not make you incapable, but it does mean your judgment is being crowded. You are reacting to what this means to you rather than assessing what it means to the situation in front of you.”

A brief pause followed, long enough to separate the correction from what came next.

“You are asking the wrong questions because of that attachment. Either set it aside, or learn how to account for it. Proximety does not always bring perspective. Sometimes it makes you do irrational things that could get you killed.”

He raised one hand and gestured toward the holotable, then stepped closer and guided her in with a quiet motion that placed her beside him rather than across the room. The shift was deliberate, narrowing the space and redirecting her attention.

“Look.”

The projection adjusted under his touch, resolving into clear drop vectors and timing windows that mapped the coming engagement.

“Tell me what you see.”

 

[Irina Jesart]

Of course he would turn this moment into a lesson. It took every ounce of her self control not to roll her eyes at him. For once, she wanted him to stop teaching and just talk to her. she blew a sigh out of her nose and closed her eyes briefly, taking his words in despite her frustrations. Setting what she felt aside was not an option, recognising it and how it clouded things? That was something she could do, or at least try.

Irina opened her eyes as he moved, allowing herself to be guided to the table she unfolded her arms, settling her hands against the edge as he directed her attention to the holotable and the drop vectors. Her irritation showed in the way she shifted her feet but forced focus all the same. "I see part of a battleplan, flight paths to ensure we get to where we needed quickly with minimal loss."

She cast him a sideways glance. "I don't see what this has to do with Aerik."

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald did not pull away when her irritation surfaced. He remained where he was, close enough that it did not need to be addressed directly. The light from the holotable caught along the edge of his armor as he watched her steady herself and watched the choice to refocus take hold.

One hand rested against the table. The projection slowed at the contact, the vectors holding long enough to be considered instead of skimmed past.

“You are right. What you are seeing is a way in. A way to move quickly and limit loss.”

The words acknowledged her assessment without softening it.

“When I look at it, I see places where we are trusting what feels familiar. That is usually where things go wrong.”

He shifted slightly, not to claim space, but to share it. The table no longer sat between them in the same way. One of the approach paths separated from the rest, its clean line almost reassuring at first glance.

“This is not about Aerik as a person. It is about what happens when someone matters to you and you do not notice how that changes the way you look at a problem. You start protecting outcomes you want instead of questioning them.”

The isolated path pulsed once and then steadied.

“I have done that before. More than once.”

The room stayed quiet. The plan remained unchanged. Nothing demanded urgency yet.

He withdrew his hand from the table and let the projection continue on its own.

“Look at it again. Not as someone who wants it to work, and not as someone who is invested in the people involved. Look at it as it is.”

The space that followed was intentional. He did not fill it or guide her further. He trusted her to step back far enough to see the situation in front of her without needing to be told what to find.

 

[Irina Jesart]

Irina recognised the weight of his words, the space he shared. All of it subtle but done with purpose, yes there was a lesson here, but beyond the lesson, he was letting her in. Boundaries remained, they always would, but here and now, she was getting a glimpse of the man behind the walls. She let that sit, studying the vector rather than him.

Until he admitted to error, then her head turned slowly to regard him. He didn’t want her to make the same mistakes.

Understanding settled, and she looked away before emotion could betray what that meant to her. She drew a measured breath exhaling slowly as she settled her attention where he wanted it to be.

She was quiet for a long moment, dark eyes surveying the map in front of her. She stopped trying to find a problem and simply watched it, letting the problem reveal itself. Her hand moved, bringing up the other vectors again, comparing them, a frown creasing her forehead.

Brosi was not familiar to her and no matter how much she looked she could not see the fault in the approach.

“I’m trying to understand why you would let Prazutis take him. I know that he also made his choice. And you want him to make his own choices, like any parent would…”

She went quiet, tearing her eyes away from one puzzle to settle on another. “But I still don’t see why.”

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald watched her work through it without interruption. The silence held long enough for her to find her footing again, and he allowed it. She was still circling the same question. The thought settled behind his eyes without urgency. She was asking why when the moment called for what came next. That difference mattered more than any answer she hoped to hear.

No correction or dismissal followed. His hand moved across the holotable instead, widening the projection so the broader engagement came into view. The battlefield resolved into something larger than the single path she had been studying, lines intersecting where pressure would build whether they wished it or not.

He stepped slightly aside, leaving her a clearer view of the map.

"How would you handle it? Not as me. Not as his father. As the one responsible for the outcome."

The question settled into the space between them. It was not a challenge. It was an invitation to commit to her own judgment.

Gerwald kept his attention on the projection rather than on her. Icons shifted across the display in steady motion, timers counting down toward decisions that would soon belong to no one at all. He did not press her for an answer. He did not fill the silence.

The lesson, if there was one, had already been given.

 

[Irina Jesart]

Irina watched the projection change, more information filtering in painting a bigger picture. She straightened, a frown creasing her forehead trying to muddle her way through the puzzle. She turned her back entirely on the projection, arms folding across her chest as she pondered his question, trying to separate herself from the way she felt about Aerik to allow herself to look at the situation clearly.

But no matter how she tried the answer was still the same. Even without all the information, without understanding the full picture she would have stopped him. Or she would find a way to get him out. But how? She was missing something. She closed her eyes and took a breath, trying to ignore to the fear that twisted quietly in her gut after his last message.

"I would protect him, by any means necessary." she said exhaling, and turning back to the map.

"I don't have all the information, I can't make a plan, I can only react."

Irina's reactions to harm coming to those she cared for historically had been volatile, driven by one purpose, not thinking ahead she just tore through whatever lay in her path without thought for the consequence. She blinked, realisation dawning.

"You reacted." She said softly.

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald did not interrupt her when the realization came. He watched it settle instead, the way her voice softened around the truth of it. The holotable continued its slow rotation beside them, casting shifting light across the room, but his attention did not follow the battle. It stayed on her.

Silence stretched.

One hand rested against the edge of the table, fingers still as if anchoring himself to the present while something older pressed quietly at the edges of his thoughts. The war map flickered beneath his palm, and he did not look down at it.

A breath left him at last, controlled and measured.

“Yes.”

The word came low and reluctant. He let it remain between them before continuing.

“When I was not much older than you are now, I was only a squire among the Knights Obsidian. I did not command fleets or decide wars. I followed orders and learned how to survive them.”

His gaze drifted past the projection, distant without losing focus.

“That is where I met Naedira Darcrath .”

The name settled into the room without flourish.

“We were sent on a mission together. At the time it felt no different from any other assignment, but it is where the bond between us began, though neither of us understood it then. We learned to trust one another before we realized what the Force had already done. My feelings changed long after that. They grew slowly, and I kept them to myself. She loved someone else, and I did not interfere with that choice.”

The holotable shifted beneath his hand as icons slid across the projection.

“When the Confederacy went to war against the Mandalorian Empire on Taanab, she stood her ground aboard the flagship when Darth Prazutis boarded it.”

His fingers tightened slightly against the table’s edge.

“She fought him. He killed her, and the end was neither clean nor quick. He bound what remained of her to a Nocna Mora.”

The words remained even, though the stillness around him carried weight.

“I was told to stand down. I was told it was not my fight and that revenge would change nothing.”

A long pause followed.

“I went anyway.”

His hand did not leave the table. The projection continued to move beneath it, steady and indifferent to the past he had finally allowed into the room.

The projection continued to turn beneath his hand, steady and indifferent to what he had spoken into the room.

Gerwald moved without warning. His hand lifted and his thumb pressed firmly against the center of her forehead. The Force did not open gently between them. It surged outward with sudden violence, tearing the present away and forcing the memory into her mind before she could prepare for it.

She would know the cold corridors of a warship that no longer existed, the oppressive weight of Darth Prazutis filling the space like a storm that refused to pass. Gerwald’s anger burned through the vision, bright enough to keep him standing long after reason should have failed him. Pain came again and again, never allowed to end, and each time his body began to fail the Force pulled it back together so the torment could begin anew. There was no mercy in it, only patience and control, a deliberate cycle meant to break him without granting the release of death.

The memory pressed harder, the rhythm of destruction and restoration repeating until time lost meaning. Gerwald’s fury never faded, even as exhaustion crept into the edges of the vision. He fought because stopping meant surrender, and surrender was something he refused to offer.

Another presence drew closer through the Force, sharp and undeniable. The shift was immediate. Prazutis ended it without ceremony. Gerwald was cast aside, hurled from the ship as though he no longer held value, his body thrown into the void and left to die without witness or acknowledgment.

The vision shattered.

Gerwald’s hand withdrew from her forehead, and the war room rushed back into focus around them. He did not step away. The holotable continued its steady rotation beside them, unchanged by the past that had just torn through the present.

“That,” he said, the words quiet but unyielding, “is what came after I chose not to listen.”

Silence settled between them once more, long enough that the Dread Wolf was certain Irina knew what he was saying.

“Now do you know why my little Firedbird?”

 

[Irina Jesart]

Irina was still beneath his gaze, the silence stretching between them was heavy as she waited for the answer to come, the single word of admittance made her shift her feet, turning to face him fully, to meet his eyes as he began to tell her, filling the gaps in her knowledge.

He had been like her.

The parallels between them were unmistakable, but she dare not interrupt, noting the way his hand tightened on the table. Her death still angered him, even now, even though she was alive now. There was rage there, controlled as always, but it was there.

When he finished and the quiet filled the space, Irina opened her mouth, the question of what happened next when his hand moved, thumb pressing against her forehead, forcing the room out of existence and plunging her into a memory that was not her own. The power of Prazutis was suffocating, but the pain dominated all. Irina could not stop the scream that split her lips, even if she had wanted to.

Over and over again it seared as she felt Gerwald’s undoing and remaking again and again the only thing holding him still in place was his rage, rage that she understood, rage that burned. When another presence drew close, Irina tried to identify it but the rest moved too fast as he was cast into the void.

The war room returned just as roughly as it had been thrust from her and she staggered back, trembling. She shook her head, not to disagree, or to tell him she did not understand, but because she wanted to shake it from her mind. She set shaking hands on the table, turning away from him and closing her eyes, desperate to quiet everything, to bring calm back to the nervous system he had just shattered.

The lesson landed, but it did not quiet the anger that flared beneath it all.

“You let him go. You let him go, to that?” she didn’t need to raise her voice, the shift in temperature slowly rising was enough for him to know.

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald did not reach for her when she staggered. The tremor that moved through her settled into the room like heat rising off stone, and he felt it without needing to look for it. Her awareness brushed outward through the Force again, searching for the presence that had lingered at the edges of the vision, and he closed that path with quiet restraint. The denial was gentle, but it carried weight. The boundary held.

“Yes.”

The word fell into the silence and did not soften the air between them. The holotable’s light moved slowly across both of them, painting their armor in shifting gold as the projection continued to update, indifferent to the tension that had taken root.

Irina’s anger did not flare wildly. It settled instead, steady and dangerous, like coals banked beneath ash. Gerwald recognized it because it mirrored something he had once carried himself. He did not attempt to cool it. He allowed it to exist.

“You have seen the lengths he will go to get his way,” he said, betraying his intent. “You do not break a mountain with fire. You wear it down with a steady stream.”

The words were not meant to soothe her. They were meant to steady the ground beneath her feet. The air between them felt narrower now, the room quieter despite the constant hum of the war table. He did not look away when she met his gaze. The Dread Wolf let her see that the decision had cost him more than he would ever say aloud.

“If I had stopped Aerik, I would have taken away something essential to who he is becoming.”

The admission did not carry regret. It carried weight. His hand remained on the table, fingers relaxed but unmoving, as if anchoring himself to the present while she processed what he had placed in front of her. The tension in the room shifted then, no longer sharp but heavy, shaped by a shared understanding rather than the opposition she had started with.

“You are searching for something else in that memory, someone,” he said quietly. “Leave it. That is a truth for another day. Just understand that my oaths are yours now. Do not go looking for answers until you are ready for the burden that comes with them.”

He allowed the silence to stretch again. The holotable continued to turn, the coming battle unfolding in cold light while the space between master and apprentice settled into something quieter, more honest, and far more dangerous than anger alone.

 

[Irina Jesart]

Irina drew another steadying breath, forcing calm, straightening again and turning back to face him, one hand resting on the table’s edge while the other still shook slightly at her side. She closed it into a fist to still it, her anger still burning quiet and steady but not out of control. Just there.

There were a dozen reasons for it, that it had taken so long for this conversation to happen, that he had kept her distant from all of it. That he allowed Aerik to step onto a path that might break him. That Aerik was stupid enough to do it himself. This was why he had kept her out, this was why he had tried to keep the two of them apart for so long.

Anger settled into understanding, weight settling in her chest as she recalled the words in Aerik’s last message. Proximity and patience create opportunity. Anxiety knotted in her stomach, a dozen possibilities stretched before Aerik, none of them clean, all of them wrought with pain in one form or another.

When Gerwald spoke again, it was of someone she could not identify, a new boundary drawn and one she accepted without question with a simple nod. “Your oaths were already my oaths, Gerwald.” she said softly “Even if you weren’t willing to allow it until now.”

She let the words hang. Irina would have walked into hell and back if he had asked her, regardless of Aerik and not just because he was her Master. He was the closest thing she had to family and the only constant that had been with her in the last five years. He didn’t have to be, he had chosen her as much as she had chosen to stay with him and that truth was not lost on her.

“Does he know…” her voice wobbled, she paused swallowing trying to contain her emotion but giving up after a beat. “Is he aware that you are using his proximity to Prazutis?”

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald did not answer her immediately.

The shift in the room was subtle but unmistakable. Her words lingered between them, heavier than anything that had come before, and he let the silence hold its ground rather than rushing to fill it. The holotable continued to move beneath his hand, vectors sliding across the surface as if the war itself refused to pause for what passed between master and apprentice.

Golden eyes studied her without pressing forward. The tremor in her hand did not escape him, nor did the effort it took for her to steady herself again. He watched the anger settle into something quieter, something closer to resolve, and the Dread Wolf allowed himself a breath before he moved.

His hand lifted from the table, not in command but in acknowledgment, and he stepped closer just enough that the projection’s light cut between them.

The question landed.

It was not an accusation or an act of defiance. It was something more dangerous, because it came from trust.

Gerwald’s gaze did not leave hers, but something in his posture shifted, the weight of titles and distance easing by a fraction as he considered how much of the truth she was ready to carry.

He did not answer yet.

Gerwald’s gaze held on her a moment longer before he answered the earlier words she had offered him.

“It was never about allowing you to bear them or not.”

His hand returned to the edge of the holotable, thumb resting against the cool surface as the projection shifted beneath it.

“Ignorance protects you from the weight that comes with knowing. Once you see the whole of it, you do not get to step away again. Every choice carries a consequence after that.”

He let the words settle without pushing them further, leaving the space open for what she had asked next.

Gerwald did not answer her immediately. The question lingered between them, heavier than the projections turning across the holotable.

“Yes and no.”

His hand shifted slightly along the table’s edge, fingers brushing the outline of a flight vector before settling again.

“Aerik walked to Prazutis with open eyes. He knew the truth when he made that choice. Whether he carries a plan of his own is something he has not revealed, and I will not assume one where I have no knowledge of one.”

The holotable shifted beneath his palm, light moving across his armor as he continued.

“For now, it is better that you and I remain ignorant in his eyes if there is one. Pretending not to see gives him room to move, and it keeps his attention where it belongs.”

 

[Irina Jesart]

Irina didn't break eye contact, the admission of him protecting her settled between them. Gerwald had been protecting her from the consequences of her actions since the day he took her from Eliad. From the academy and from Aerik.

She had grown beneath his tutelage into a force to be reckoned with, she earned the right to stand with him with every choice and every lesson learned and she would not let this be any different.

He was trusting her, giving her the opportunity to show that she could handle more than just battle and command. As he explained about Aerik walking into this with eyes wide open and advised she let it be, she felt the true weight of it settle on her shoulders.

Irina was quiet, silence slipping between them as she processed everything he'd said. There was emotion she dared not give name to that tied her to Aerik and had done since the day he told her he was with her. She had clung to it with desperate hands, pushing every time she saw him, needing to know if her felt the same.

She'd been so focused on what she needed from him, she had not once stopped to think what he needed from her and now the promise of a conversation after Brosi loomed ahead.

"I understand." She said finally, the fury with with she had entered had gone completely, the room cool in its wake. "I hate it, because saying nothing feel like a lie, but I will not be the reason his focus slips. I cannot be." The last words were whispered, the fear of what might happen if it did still fresh in her mind.

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald listened without interruption. The quiet that followed her words felt heavier than the war map turning beside them. The holotable’s light shifted across Irina’s face, and for a moment the Dread Wolf saw not the commander she had become, but the girl he had pulled from Eliad, angry and unbreakable in equal measure. He did not allow that thought to linger. Memory had a way of softening edges that could not afford to dull.

Her calm did not reassure him. It reminded him of the moment before a blade falls, when stillness carries more danger than fury. He felt the tremor she tried to hide, felt the way her focus bent toward Aerik even as she forced herself back to the lesson. That pull was not weakness. It was attachment, and attachment always came with risk.

“It is not a lie if we do not know.” His hand settled against the edge of the holotable, thumb tracing the faint outline of a vector as it shifted beneath the glass. “Ignorance can be a shield when it is chosen with purpose. That may feel like a convenient distinction, but it is still a distinction.”

He watched her reaction rather than the projection, measuring the moment with the patience he had learned long before she had come into his life. The room felt smaller now, quieter, as though the war itself waited beyond the walls rather than pressing in from every direction.

“Do not chase answers you are not ready to carry. Truth has weight, and once you claim it you do not get to set it down again.” The words were not a warning so much as a reminder of what Gerwald had told her just moments before.

Gerwald’s gaze did not waver.

“What if Aerik has a plan of his own? Would you try to stop him because you fear where it leads, or would you trust that he understands the path he chose?”

He let the question hang between them. The holotable continued its slow rotation, and the faint hum of the war room filled the silence while he waited for her answer.

 

[Irina Jesart]

Fingers trailed to tables edge as she looked away, watching the projection move without truly seeing it. Don't ask. If she didn't ask what he was planning, then she wouldn't have to carry the weight of it, of knowing whatever danger he was walking towards and doing nothing.

Her feet shifted and she turned her back on the projection, leaning against the table and folding her arms across her chest. All of it was easier said than done, but that was what Gerwald had meant about protecting outcomes. The way she felt about Aerik made her reckless. She set aside logic and reason and acted purely on emotion without thinking ahead on the consequences. Her visit to Kaas had proven that.

So when Gerwald's question landed, she already knew the answer. She swallowed slowly meeting his gaze again. "I wouldn't stop him." She said softly. "I'd go with him."

Irina didn't care if it was the wrong answer, because it was the truth.

"Just because it is his fight to chose, does not mean he should fight it alone."

Gerwald Lechner

 

[Gerwald Lechner]

WEARING: This
WEAPONS: Ferrum Solus | Blodmåne | Strømafbryder
SHIP: Vigfjall
TAG: Irina Jesart

Gerwald watched her turn away from the projection, watched the way her fingers traced the edge of the table without purpose. The holotable continued its slow rotation, light shifting across her shoulders while she stood with her back to the war that never stopped moving. He said nothing while she found her footing again. Silence had always been one of his sharper tools, and he let it do its work now.

Her answer did not surprise him.

Golden eyes held on her as she met his gaze again, and for a moment the Dread Wolf said nothing, weighing the truth she had offered rather than the words themselves. The admission settled into the space between them, honest and unguarded in a way she rarely allowed herself to be.

His hand slid from the holotable’s edge. He stepped closer, not enough to crowd her, only enough that the light from the projection cut between them.

“What if he does not want you to know.”

The question came quietly, without accusation or challenge. It was not meant to pull her back from what she felt. It was meant to force her to consider the space between loyalty and control, between standing beside someone and stepping into a place they had not offered.

Gerwald held her gaze after that, waiting, the room settling into a heavy stillness that belonged more to them than to the war turning beneath the table.