Private Ye Ancient Gates

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr

The warning reached him a fraction before the movement did.

"Your left."

Casimir turned with the words just as stone exploded outward from the collapse. The creature burst from beneath the rubble in a spray of broken rock and snow, one ruined arm hanging lower than the other while blackened blood streaked across its side. Even wounded, the devil moved with frightening speed.

Its claws came first.

The crimson blade met the strike head on, sparks and distorted plasma scattering into the freezing air as claw scraped against saber. The impact drove his boots backward across loose stone before his body shifted with the force behind it instead of resisting directly. Movement flowed into movement. The Echani turned at an angle and redirected the creature past him rather than trying to stop it outright.

Orange light flared behind him at nearly the same instant.

The unstable hum of Efret's blade cut through the wind as she closed into the fight with him instead of hanging back. Casimir caught the flicker of orange in his peripheral vision while the creature twisted violently toward them again.
Wrong.

Not the wielder.

The crystal.

Even in motion, the inconsistency stood out to him. The blade strained against itself, unstable in ways a properly aligned kyber should not have been. It felt neither fully bled nor restored. The contradiction lingered in his thoughts for only a moment before instinct forced his attention forward again.

The devil lunged a second time.

Its wounded arm lagged behind the rest of its movement. Casimir saw the imbalance immediately and stepped in before it could recover fully. The crimson blade carved upward toward the creature's ribs while his free hand drove outward with the Force, hurling broken debris from the collapse into its exposed flank alongside the strike.
The beast roared hard enough to shake snow loose from the ridge above them.

Loose stone rained down around the narrow pass as the creature staggered sideways beneath the combined pressure. Its glowing eyes snapped between them now, forced to divide its attention instead of driving toward a single target.

Good.

That made it easier to kill.

The mountain groaned beneath another violent step from the creature as claws tore fresh trenches through the frozen stone. Heat rolled from its body in waves that clashed against the brutal cold surrounding them.

Casimir adjusted without thought, blade angled low for the next exchange while his position shifted naturally to keep Efret from being isolated against the cliff edge.

Then the devil charged again.

 

[Efret Farr]

As the demon charged towards Casimir again, the force of its talons clambering for purchase as it went sent rock shards of various sizes into the air. Efret slashed through the projectiles that flew too close to her, their seared halves clattering harmlessly near her feet.

Hatred twisted her gut. For once, it was not self-loathing. She had been no stranger to that feeling over the last years, predating her encounter with Mercy in the Gungan sacred swamps. No, this flavor had an external focus. A target.

The creature.

Its roars, rumbles in her chest threatening to crack her ribcage from inside, didn't scare her anymore. Nor did she pity it for having gotten trapped in the Netherworld to live out eternity surrounded by fire and brimstone.

She just hated it. It needed to die, preferably at her hand.

What had come over her?

She reached down with her unarmed hand to unclip the retractable tether keeping her saber connected to her belt. Most of her world faded again, light filtering only through the abstract shapes of her field of vision. As she wound her hand grasping the hilt back, the Force drew up to support her throw, arcing through the air with it as it hurdled above the beast.

She caught the hilt with the Force midair and drove it downwards. Her orange blade cleaved into the devil's back. A great muscle flexed against the intrusion. The beast gave an impossibly deep howl that echoed far beyond their battlefield, sound tumbling into the valleys far below. Both the mountain and the demon shook violently, the latter enough to dislodge Efret's lightsaber.

The howl, rather the way it shook the air in her lungs, also prompted her to let Force Sight flow back. She turned her head to track sudden movement to her left now: her saber. It sailed through the air, still activated, humming with fiery-tinged fury, and slammed into a rock wall opposite of Casimir's position. The blade pivoted, carving horizontally into the stone before shuddering off. The hilt fell to the frosted stones below, bounced shortly over them, and then disappeared between them.

Efret swallowed with intention. A moment was all she needed to commit the environment immediately ahead of her to memory.

Force Sight ebbed and Force Speed rushed in to replace it.

She dashed towards the hidden rock pile.

The toe of her boot brushed against it. Her surroundings came into view again as she stooped down, scanning for her lightsaber.

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr

The creature crashed toward him again with enough force to shake the ridge beneath their feet. Talons tore into stone as it fought for traction, sending jagged fragments outward in violent sprays. Casimir shifted through the debris without losing ground, crimson light snapping through the air as his blade cut one larger shard apart before it could strike his shoulder.

Then orange crossed above the beast.

His eyes tracked the movement instinctively.
Efret's saber spun through the mountain air trailing unstable light behind it before the Force caught and redirected it downward. The orange blade buried itself deep into the creature's back. The devil convulsed beneath the strike, massive muscles tightening hard enough to warp flesh around the wound.

The howl that followed shook the mountain.
Casimir felt it through the stone before the sound fully reached him. The ridge trembled violently beneath their footing while loose snow and fractured rock broke free from above. The creature's rage crashed outward through the Force without restraint, violent enough to scrape against his senses like broken metal.

The saber tore free.

Orange light spun wildly across the battlefield before carving into the opposite wall. Stone burst outward beneath the unstable blade as it gouged through the rock face and disappeared somewhere below the frost-covered debris.

Casimir saw Efret move immediately after it.

Too exposed.

The thought struck with a force that felt older than the battle itself. His eyes locked onto her movement through the drifting dust as the creature's attention snapped in the same direction.

NO!

The reaction came instantly, sharp enough to override everything else. Kaelis had been taken from him once. The Force had carved something out of his soul and left the wound open. Casimir had spent years chasing ghosts through ancient ruins and forbidden knowledge because he could not accept losing what belonged beside him.

That instinct had never faded.

People under his protection became his responsibility in a way that bordered on obsession. It did not matter that Efret was nearly a stranger. She was here. She was Fighting beside him. That alone was enough for the possessiveness buried deep inside him to close around the situation like a vice.

The devil lunged toward her.

Casimir moved before thought could catch up.
The Echani closed distance aggressively this time, far less restrained than before. Crimson light carved violently across the narrow pass as his saber slashed low toward the creature's legs, aiming to cripple its balance before it could gain momentum. At the same moment, the Force crashed outward from his free hand with enough pressure to hammer loose rubble and shattered stone into the creature's wounded side.

The mountain groaned beneath the impact. Stone exploded outward around the beast as the combined strike forced its massive frame sideways across the ridge. Casimir pressed forward immediately after it, refusing to give the creature space to recover while deliberately forcing himself between the devil and Efret's position near the fallen saber.

The thing was not even going to get the chance to touch her.

"Get your weapon," Casimir barked over the chaos as boots slid across fractured stone to maintain footing. "Now."

Casimir drove himself between the devil and Efret without hesitation. The crimson blade stayed in constant motion, forcing the creature to answer each strike instead of pursuing her. Whenever the beast tried to push past him, the Force crashed into it hard enough to throw off its footing across the uneven stone. The narrow ridge worked in his favor now. There was not enough room for the creature to simply go around him, and Casimir used that mercilessly, giving ground only when it allowed him to keep himself squarely in its path.

 

[Efret Farr]

The shockwaves shook the ledge with each monstrous step taken by the demon on its bounding approach. She knew their source; she didn't need to turn around to confirm it. Consequently, she didn't hear Casimir's order, but she shared his sense of urgency. To her, it was even restrained panic.

Efret braced one palm against the stones and leaned down. Her other snaked through a thin gap as far as possible, fingers barely brushing against the hilt's soft leather wraps. Force Sight blinked off then back on as a short burst of telekinesis pulled the hilt into her grasp.

She turned and straightened simultaneously, ready to rejoin the fray, she studied the battlefield quickly. Since Casimir had pushed the clash onto a narrower stretch of ledge, she could contribute the most with another bout of Force use. Maybe another Force Pull to trigger more rockfall from above? No, there was nothing loose on the ridge above the devil now.

As she scanned the environment for a weapon of opportunity, a slight shimmer trickling out of the beast's skin like golden-toned mountain streams caught her attention instead.

Blood.

That was it.

"I'm going to try something," she announced though she was unsure if her vocoder could be heard over the clamorous struggle. Once more—hopefully for the last time during this encounter—her sight gave way, allowing her to channel the Force into another power. This time, she chose Tapas, but attempted to push it outwards as it tried to flow inwards. The Force's resistance felt like a rock wall of its own, one she had to break through rather than climb.

Another effortful grunt broke out of her mouth and into the chilled air.

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr

The devil slammed against him again with enough force to send fractures racing beneath Casimir’s boots. Claws crashed against crimson plasma while the narrow ridge around them shook beneath the struggle. Snow and shattered stone tumbled into the valleys below with every violent collision.

Still, Casimir held the creature there.

Every movement remained deliberate despite the mounting pressure behind them. The crimson blade turned aside one claw before carving across the creature’s chest in a burst of sparks and blackened blood. Heat rolled off the beast in suffocating waves that clashed against the brutal mountain wind whipping through his loose white hair and dark robes.

Behind the fury of the exchange, part of his attention remained fixed on Efret.

Not because he doubted her ability. The instinct came from somewhere older and harder to reason with than simple caution. Once someone fell under his protection, the possessiveness that followed settled deep. Kaelis had been ripped away from him despite everything he had tried to do. That failure had carved itself into him permanently.

He refused to experience it again.

Pale corrupted eyes caught the moment Efret recovered her weapon and paused long enough to study the battlefield instead of rushing back into the fight blindly. Good. She was thinking now. The creature pressed harder against him as if it sensed the shift as well.

Then she spoke.

Casimir did not hear every word over the roaring wind and crashing stone, but the change in the Force around her told him enough. Whatever she intended required focus and time, which meant the devil could not be allowed anywhere near her while she worked. The creature lunged again and Casimir met it head on, stepping directly into the attack instead of yielding ground. One hand snapped upward as the Force hammered into the beast’s wounded side while the crimson blade drove hard across its forearm to keep the claws away from him.

Stone exploded beneath their footing as the impact forced both of them sideways across the narrow ridge.

The creature roared in his face.

Casimir answered by driving his shoulder into it and forcing the devil backward another step.

“You want something?” the gravelly voice snarled through clenched teeth. “Then deal with me.”

Its attention remained locked onto him exactly where he wanted it.

Another strike crashed toward him. Casimir turned with the blow instead of trying to overpower it directly, redirecting the force past his body before the crimson blade snapped upward toward the creature’s throat. The strike failed to land cleanly, but it forced the beast to recoil and reengage him instead of turning toward Efret.

Nothing was getting through him while she worked.

 

[Efret Farr]

Surrounding Casimir, the air continued to grow uncomfortably humid. The creature's heavy breath carried the heat of its home, easily overpowering the chill of the altitude. Sizzling warmth also rolled with the smell of ozone from his red blade, and pour out of the creature with the metallic tang of blood. Physical exertion added to the discomfort too.

Then another sensation begun to waft through the air. A strange, new warmth came over Casimir first. It might roll through his body, bringing with it more than a sense of unease: it was attempting to shift his very blood.

But, as soon as it came, it completely passed.

And latched into the demon, anchoring into it like a fog.

The blackened blood spilling over its bare skin in rivulets began to writhe and steam, building to a boil.

The creature forgot about Casimir as it let loose its most horrible howl. It reared up and twisted, trying in vain to run from its newest assault.

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr

The change hit him instantly.

Heat rolled through his body in a sudden wave that had nothing to do with the creature or the mountain around them. For a brief moment, Casimir felt something inside him shift beneath his skin, as though the blood in his veins no longer fully belonged to him. Muscles tightened on instinct. His grip around the saber hilt hardened.

Then it passed.

Pale corrupted eyes narrowed immediately as the sensation left him and flooded into the creature instead.

The effect was violent.

Blackened blood steaming across the devil’s body began to writhe unnaturally as heat built beneath its flesh. The creature’s attention shattered completely. Its glowing eyes tore away from Casimir while the beast twisted against itself in panic, claws gouging deep trenches into the stone as it tried to escape something it could not physically fight.

Impressive.

The realization settled hard in his chest as he looked toward Efret through drifting steam and snow. Whatever she had just done was not uncontrolled desperation. There was precision behind it. Intent. The Force bent strangely around her, but there was power in it that made his blood stir in ways that had nothing to do with combat.

The devil reared upward again, exposing the ruined side they had spent the entire fight breaking apart.

There.

Casimir moved before the creature could recover enough awareness to defend itself. Boots drove hard against fractured stone as he surged forward through the drifting heat. The crimson blade came low at first to avoid the creature’s thrashing claws before rising sharply upward toward the exposed gap beneath its ribs where blackened blood boiled hardest beneath cracked flesh.

The strike was not wild.

It was precise.

The red blade punched deep into the weakened side and drove upward through the creature’s core while the Force exploded outward from Casimir’s free hand at the same moment, pinning the beast in place long enough to prevent escape.

The devil screamed.

The sound broke apart halfway through.

Blackened blood erupted from the wound in a violent spray as cracks of crimson light spread beneath the creature’s skin. Its body convulsed once against the blade before the strength abruptly left it. Massive limbs failed beneath its weight. Claws that had torn through stone moments before scraped uselessly across the ridge as the devil collapsed heavily against the fractured mountain path.

Then it stopped moving.

Steam rolled from the corpse into the freezing air while the smell of burned blood and ozone settled across the battlefield. The nethergate behind it churned once more before falling silent.

Casimir slowly pulled the crimson blade free.

The creature did not rise again.

“Hmmm. Neat trick.”

 

[Efret Farr]

The air went still, its lack of movement telling Efret that the fight had concluded.

She pulled her Force back from the fallen beast and gathered it back around herself...but she felt nothing. She saw nothing new. Through the abstract spots of her own visual sense, she made out parts of the monster's form as well as Casimir's—or what she assumed to be them based on where they had been before she had channeled Tapas.

Her gaze shifted to her feet, the blurred leather of her boots entering her field of view. She brought up her hands, fingers wide, to examine them. Even out of focus, she noticed new dark marks marring her skin. Their matches on her neck had faded during the struggle, but these were fresh, at least for now.

The world bit into her colder than it had been before she had opened the Nethergate though the wind still did not stir.

It was more than post-exertion chills. It wasn't even in her muscles or skin at all; it was in her mind.

Suppressed panic, but not for herself as it had been before, and not to be so easily restrained for the sake of survival. Now that the mountaintop was quiet again, the feeling flared up to overtake her. Somewhere beneath its intensity was pure bodily exhaustion, though Efret didn't notice. When she sunk to her knees, she didn't only fall upon stone and snow. She fell into a sorrow that she had been staving off since she had been separated from Elias in Theed.

None of the pain registered at first—not the jolt in her knees, not the muscles slightly jammed across her upper back, not the scrapes on her palms. She didn't even realize yet that her vision bond with Nirrah was severed as she looked down at the tan pavement of the plaza. As she desperately flipped around, she unknowingly smeared a small amount of her blood over the street. Elias' parcel connected with her chest, bouncing softly into her lap. It went unacknowledged for now too.​

It was like a tea that had been steeping for a year: gone incredibly cold and incredibly bitter.

She couldn't see him, only the glowing edges of the rift quickly disappearing into the void in the center of her vision. Just as she shifted her head in hopes of glimpsing him out of her peripherals, the Netherworld's connection to reality blinked out of it.​

The Force had answered her then, when he had pushed her back through the rift moments before it swallowed him and Nirrah. It had risen to fill the holes left by them both and had siphoned away some of her reactionary grief, turning her wail into a song that coaxed new life into some of the courtyard plants. But here, on a planet she hadn't care to know the name of, the Force refused to return to her aid.

Her throat clenched with the trauma of that day that her body hadn't forgotten, but exhaustion had caught up with her. No sound as much as tried to wrench free. Instead, she doubled over to silently sob, bringing the heels of her palms over her eyes.

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr

Everything went still as time seemed to halt around him. The violence that had consumed the ridge moments before vanished so completely that the silence felt unnatural. The only sound Casimir could hear was his own breathing, heavy and rough as cold air burned through his lungs. Steam drifted from his mouth in uneven waves while the mountain settled around them with distant groans of shifting stone and falling debris somewhere far below the cliffs.

Corrupted eyes did not leave the creature.

The devil lay twisted across the fractured ridge where it had fallen. Blackened blood spread outward beneath the corpse in thick streams that steamed against the frozen stone. The smell of burned flesh, ozone, and something older lingered heavily in the mountain air. One claw twitched once from dying tension before finally becoming still.

Cas needed certainty.

There was no rise or fall of breath now. No twitch of muscle beneath ruined flesh. The thing that had crawled out of the Netherworld moments before was dead.

The woman had boiled it alive.

Impressive.

The thought lingered longer this time, carrying weight beyond simple admiration. What she had done came from pain. Casimir knew that instinctively now. Power like that did not emerge from calm places within someone.

Then he felt her falling before he fully understood what was happening.

His head turned sharply just in time to see Efret collapse to her knees against the unforgiving stone. This time he had not been there to catch her. The impact scraped skin against frost and jagged rock, but the pain radiating from her through the Force had nothing to do with bruises or blood.

It was guilt.

Sorrow followed so closely behind it that the two emotions blurred together until they became impossible to separate. The empathy she had carried earlier remained somewhere beneath it all, but now it drowned beneath grief powerful enough to hollow out everything around it.

Casimir knew this kind of pain too well.

Memory came without invitation.

Kaelis was smiling beside him during training beneath the pale skies of Eshan. The sound of her laughter when they fought too hard and frustrated their instructors reached his ear. Every plan they had ever made had included the other without question because neither of them had understood how life could exist any other way. The connection between them had never needed words. It existed in every thought, every instinct…

…every breath.

Some called bonds like that a dyad. Casimir had always thought the word too small.

Guilt tightened around his chest as the memory shifted again to the moment everything ended. Three seconds, perhaps less, was all it took. One glance away from her had been enough for the universe to tear his sister from existence while he stood there helplessly reaching for something already gone.

Twenty years had passed, and the wound of her loss remained exactly where it had always been.

The portal still stood open behind him. Light and shadow churned slowly within the ancient archway while heat rolled out into the freezing mountain air. All he had to do was walk through it. Maybe Kaelis waited somewhere beyond the threshold. Maybe every step of his life had led him here for a reason. The pull of it dug into him viciously now that the battle had ended, whispering promises directly into the hollow places inside him.

Then he heard her crying.

Casimir turned enough to see the dark-haired woman folded into herself against the stone. Her face rested in her palms while tears carved clean trails through soot and blood across her skin. The sight hit harder than he expected because he recognized it immediately.

Mourning.

They shared that now, the same guilt, the same helplessness, the same desperate wish that something terrible could be undone if one simply suffered enough for it.

It belonged to them both.

“Frak.”

The word left him quietly.

Cas turned his back on the portal, a choice that hurt more than the battle had.

Boots crossed fractured stone as he moved toward her without further thought. His arms wrapped around the woman and pulled her close enough to matter. The warmth of her body contrasted sharply against the freezing wind still tearing across the ridge. Saffron and clove lingered faintly beneath blood, smoke, and ash.

Nothing he said would fix this, not even if she could hear him. He knew that because words had never fixed it for him.

Still, Casimir steadied his own breathing deliberately, slowing each inhale and exhale until it became controlled and measured. The rhythm settled between them like something tangible, something she could follow if she wanted to.

“Breathe.”

The word came low against her hair.

It was probably futile.

“Come back.”

 

[Efret Farr]

She couldn't see him and thus couldn't hear him with her face buried against him, but she could feel plenty.

The steady rise and fall of his chest broken by patterns she knew to be words. Granted, she had no idea of their exact meaning, though she assumed that they were uttered with comforting intention matching his kinetics. As a child, she had found great comfort in the vibrations made by another's body: her mother's, her father's, her second master's, the few significant others she had had over the years before meeting Elias. She hadn't been in a like position for a long, long time, and never once with him. With Elias.

She thought about it too frequently, another way that that particular evening on Bogano in his quarters might have ended.

Not carnally, no. Efret had found during her research into Gentian culture that they mated for life, or at least many of them did. In such, what some beings might consider the highest level of physical intimacy possible was retained for after marriage. In the tense silence between them that her sudden departure from the enclave for the Grand Temple had caused, in which he thought that she didn't long after him in return, she had found that in learning about his people, even if just from records, she could forget her regret.

She had left him to spare him from the Darkness descending on her mind in the wake of the ambush on Jedha, even as her body healed.

But all she had done was doom them both to limbo, a state where they would forever be everything and nothing to each other.

Now, as Casimir's warm breath caressed down her back, she couldn't help but imagine that it was the Jedi Master who held her. Her arms didn't return his embrace, but her palms pulled away from her face.

She shifted on her haunches to softly brush further into his warmth.

Slowly, one of her fists unballed and her fingers worked over his tunic.

Then they pulled back to sign in the small space between them.

"I can't see," her vocoder announced, tone hollow as her heart.

She had only very rarely been ashamed of her Deafness. More common was frustration at other's ignorance or barriers that she had to face, often alone, or so it felt. It was easier to feel embarrassed by her Blindness, for that she had acquired later in life. She could still remember being able to see the whole world unaided, even if the time was very distant.

Though Lysander had told her that the flaws in the function of a body did not preclude it from strength, she still clung to the false dichotomy that the Jedi had presented her: that the Sith were completely inflexible and unforgiving to those like her.

Not Jedi; the ones that the galaxy might think flawed in physical design.

But Casimir was not Lysander. That much was clear to her. She tensed her shoulders, bracing for the Echani to cast her aside and leave through the portal churning behind him.

Casimir Thorne​

 

[Casimir Thorne]

WEARING: xxx | WEAPON: x | x | TAG: Efret Farr

Every shift within her felt tectonic. Her emotions crashed into him in relentless waves that reminded Casimir of storms breaking against the cliffs far below the mountain ridge. The Force carried everything without mercy. Guilt. Sorrow. Helplessness. Whatever had broken the woman in his arms had cut far deeper than flesh, and the sensation tore through the Echani as though her pain had become a blade designed specifically to open old wounds inside him.

The mountain itself seemed to mourn with her.

Wind screamed through the shattered ridge and clawed at their robes while steam still rose from the corpse behind them in twisting columns that vanished into the freezing air. The ancient portal remained open in the distance, its crimson light pulsing faintly against black stone while heat rolled from the archway in uneven breaths. Snow melted where that unnatural warmth touched the ground before freezing again moments later beneath the brutal cold of the altitude.

"I cannot see."

The metallic distortion of the vocoder cut through the wind hard enough for Casimir's expression to tighten immediately. The realization settled heavily in his chest because he should have noticed during the battle. Somehow she had hidden the extent of her blindness from him even while fighting a creature dragged from the Netherworld itself. The thought lingered longer than it should have because admiration mixed dangerously with guilt inside him.

"Hmmmm."

The low grunt reverberated through his chest where she rested against him. Casimir did not move otherwise. How could he? Even if he walked away now and the gate sealed behind him forever, the woman would remain stranded on the mountain alone and vulnerable. The idea twisted something ugly inside him because abandoning her to fate felt too close to the failure that had haunted him for nearly twenty years.

Casimir had not been able to save his sister.

He could help this woman.

The Echani shifted carefully against the frozen stone before taking her palm into his hand. Her skin was cold from the mountain air despite the heat lingering around them from the battle. One finger traced slowly across the back of her hand, deliberate enough that she could follow the shape of every movement.

"B-R-E-A-T-H-E."

He stopped long enough for the word to settle between them while the mountain wind howled through the broken ridge. The scent of blood, ozone, and ash still lingered heavily around them, yet beneath it all Casimir could still catch traces of saffron and clove every time the wind shifted.

Slowly, he guided her palm against the center of his chest.

The steady cadence of his breathing rose and fell beneath her hand while the measured rhythm of his heartbeat remained calm despite the chaos still tearing through his thoughts. Casimir could no longer use empathy through the Force the way he once had. The darkness had hollowed those parts of him out long ago until rage, fear, and obsession were the emotions which answered him most naturally. His body would have to say what the Force no longer could.

After a moment his finger returned to the back of her hand once more.

"C-O-M-E B-A-C-K."

The request settled between them while his gaze drifted unwillingly toward the open portal again. Crimson light churned endlessly within its depths. Somewhere beyond that threshold might rest the answer to every sleepless night he had endured since losing Kaelis. The pull of it dug at him viciously now that silence had returned to the mountain.

Still, he did not let go of her.

A realization settled slowly into his chest as he looked down at the woman in his arms. The ease with which she had opened the portal became far more profound knowing she could not see. Every weakness forced adaptation. Every adaptation had sharpened her connection to the Force in ways Casimir had never considered before. Efret had not survived despite her blindness. She had become stronger because of it. The thought unsettled him because it forced him to confront how narrow his own understanding of power had become.

For the first time in years, something had shifted inside him.

His hand returned to hers again, though this time the hesitation lingered before he began tracing the letters. The confession felt dangerous in ways battle never had. Dependence was weakness. Need was vulnerability. Both had destroyed him once already.

Still, he could not deny the truth of it.

"I N-E-E-D Y-O-U."

 

[Efret Farr]

When she realized that first shape that Casimir traced in her palm was a letter, she choked. When she realized what the first word he drew was, water welled up in her eyes. Disbelief and joy rose at once. Sorrow was still there too, blockading her emotions inside. They came forth in a whimpering trickle. Her throat began to burn in spite of the cold air swirling around them.

She rose her free hand to wipe at the tears slowly rolling down her cheeks.

On one swipe of many, her thumbpad paused. He...needed her?

She melted into him again, this time crashing into him and winding her arms around him. The possessiveness barely hidden underneath his confession still occurred to some small, dying part of her. He had no good reason to feel that way, not after they had just met today, but Efret didn't abide by the same type of good reasons that she used to.

All she needed was someone to transfer her broken and unfinished memory of Elias into—not literally, but to preserve her fractured sanity. In many ways, the Echani and the dark-skinned Genetian couldn't have looked or behaved much differently. Efret was desperate, not delusional. She would never be able to convince herself that Casimir literally was Elias even if she wanted to—and a horrible, hurting part of her wanted that, but she couldn't manage it. She could see reality and, when she couldn't, she could feel it. There was no disguising that.

Though, whatever discrepancies Casimir had relative to Elias, they both shared one crucial characteristic: they had feelings for her. While these feelings came from separate sources, they had a common effect: desire.

And that similarity was more than enough to comfort Efret.

For now and maybe forever.

Casimir Thorne
Exit thread​