vi.
MOON WOUNDS

✶

"Night is a history of longing,
and you are my night."
— Mahmoud Darwish, A River Dies of Thirst

It was just before noon when the Faultless returned to Coruscant, landing at the temple and unloading its precious cargo of three Jedi; the sun, barely at zenith, filtered feebly through the choking smog that clung to the city like a cataract. Chrysaor Rook was substituting for his master—once again—as lecturer to a clan of younglings, but word of the arrival came through the mouths of off-duty padawans, coursing like a flood to reach his eager ears. He concluded class as quickly as he could and went off in search of Fallon Kryze, his strides sharp but impatient, his corded arms hanging by his sides. Like the fraying ends of a noose, his hands trembled as he walked, fingers moving with a mind of their own. His thumbs curled into calloused palms, dancing across old wounds since healed, over the gentle creases set into the skin over the joints of his fingers.

He reached Fallon's quarters quickly, the route encoded to memory. Thanks to his master's tendency to disappear on assignment for days on end, often shrouded in secrecy and without much warning, Chrysaor spent more time in the temple than most padawans, finding himself perpetually left behind. For once, however, the boy had some idea as to where his master had gallivanted of to: Quinlan Vos, in all his sarcastic and nonconforming glory, was on the trail of an intergalactic crime family whom the Council apparently had reason to believe had been convinced by Count Dooku to finance an expansion of the Separatist Army. It was a common enough occurrence for Quinlan to leave like this, abrupt and unannounced; by extension, it was also common enough that he would leave his padawan behind.

Chrysaor had made his peace with it, mostly. Very quickly he had grown accustomed to pacing the temple halls, until it felt like he knew the floor better than he knew himself; to spending his time training younglings even though, with his position as a commander for the Republic army in a war that was very much real and very much ongoing, his training was more pertinent; to meandering aimlessly until Fallon returned from her missions, like debris floating in space. Floating and waiting for her gravitational field to pull him back into orbit.

More often than not these days he felt like this, like debris, inconsequential and ineffectual, like some piece broken-off a space station or satellite. There was an emptiness that came inextricably attached to the feeling: Chrysaor had told Fallon he wanted to be the greatest there ever was, of both the Jedi and the Mandalorians. But how could something—someone—so useless, so small and unimportant be the greatest at anything?

          Even a small piece of orbital debris can damage a ship as long as it travels fast enough, he imagined Fallon would say to comfort him, if he shared with her his feelings on these matters. He knew her well, without doubt, and he had confidence that the version of her that lived inside his head was accurate. It was soothing, at least: she would smile petal-soft, affirming her platitudes and allaying his anxieties—and maybe, for a few moments, brief but lovely, he would be pacified.

And then he would remember that it didn't matter: he could damage nothing if he was kept confined at the temple, and he would never gain enough speed if he was forced to keep still.

Chrysaor had to lied to Fallon, as well—by omission—by paring off parts of the truth to keep for himself, whether it was out of further fear that he would face judgement, or that by saying it aloud he would speak into existence a reckoning, draw omens from his own words, a self-fulfilling prophecy born and spun from his own speech.

He did not only want to be the best, but he wanted to be loved—rather, he did not want to be feared. A silent observer, speaking only when it was necessary, Chrysaor had seen what fear did to people. Like a bad seed, it was sown in others, growing and festering into something weedlike, uncontrollable and suffocating. It staked through flesh like thorns; he had watched it tear through Nadya Saxon, only poisoning her anger even further, only forcing her to grow thicker skin. He had watched it stalk Hiro Wren like a monster in the shadows, fill the silences she left when she disappeared into the dark. Chrysaor wondered if she had stopped resisting fear, and instead chose to wield it as a weapon. Yes, monsters were vicious, dreadful things, with all their teeth and claws and savagery, but what was scarier to Chrysaor, what would always be scarier to Chrysaor, was what he couldn't see. What whispered from unseen places.

And Hiro took an excruciating pleasure in remaining unseen.

Then there was Fallon. She would never admit she was scared in a way that mattered—whether it be of Mandalore, of her family name, of what it meant—but Chrysaor knew she was. He saw the way she bit back her words around the other padawans, the way she never shared her strategies with anyone but the masters, with whom military victory superseded bias. The way she kept herself guarded at all times, like she was a secret that could never be told. Not even to Hiro. Not even to him.

There was a time when he was sure Fallon hadn't been scared—there was at least once. It had been a month, maybe two, after the war had begun, and the first mission they had been sent on together, to a forest planet in the Outer Rim. Moving in the dark, nothing but shadows amongst the trees, they had been hunting some intangible thing, some monstrous being that had picked off a clone platoon one by one as Republic forces waged war on the then-newly manufactured Separatist army down a nearby valley. Their masters had gone ahead, their backs just visible through the trees, with Quinlan flicking his boyish grins and witty asides to Kil, who wicked them away with a patient smile and the gentle shake of his head. His hair had not yet gone grey. Fallon and Chrysaor lingered behind, shoulder-to-shoulder as if threaded together by an invisible rope. They had grown up side by side, been raised in the same youngling clan, and he supposed in retrospect he had always liked her, but only now was he starting to notice her in the way he wasn't meant to: the gentle slope of her nose, the high of her cheekbones, the soft down-turn of her lips.

Chrysaor had been scared. He remembered that well, and with no small amount of shame. Something had shifted the leaf litter behind them and made the tree roots set deep into the forest floor creak and groan under its weight. The moonlight, which seemed permanent on the planet—he couldn't recall its name, he had no affinity for such things as Fallon did—had leaked through the canopy above, casting hazy shapes onto every surface it could find to linger upon. The valley made soft sounds to the west of their party, the steady stream of water discernible from all the noise if you stopped to listen. Every now and then, as they moved deeper and deeper into the forest, Chrysaor's eyes would catch on something sleek and dark. His ears would detect a rustling, a shift, the sound of movement heavy but fast. He would stop, and Fallon would stop beside him, and he would turn to look properly. But nothing would be there but shadows and soft, damp soil.

He had felt like an idiot, he remembered that well. The word for it in Mando'a was utreekov, and he must have said it under his breath a hundred times, a thousand. But despite his paranoia, which was tangible in the sweat of his brow and the heave of his chest, every time he paused to look for their silent stalker, every single time, Fallon would pause with him, wait for him, reassure him. There's nothing to be afraid of, Chrys, she would say, with no trace of annoyance in her words. Her smile was half-hidden by the night, a counterweight to the droop of her lips. It's just the dark.

          It's just the dark, he repeated back to her, and they fell into step once more.

Temporarily placated, it had been an hour since Chrysaor had last stopped when Fallon heard the rustling, too—until that exact moment, she had only been indulging him. She did not freeze in fear as he had, but in curiosity: planting herself firmly on the forest floor, she scanned their surroundings, a finger placed to her lips to silence any questions Chrysaor might ask. He had none—he was too busy watching her. Quinlan and Kil had disappeared up ahead, the glow of their lightsabres eking into the night. It was only Chrysaor, and Fallon, and whatever had followed them. Whatever lurked in the shadows.

Fallon had an eye for things, for both noticing them and remembering them. She had stayed as still as the trees around her, learning from their guard, simply listening, watching, waiting. Chrysaor had to force himself to settle, restricting the urge to move. Luckily for him, Fallon had chosen a patch of light to stand in and set her vigil, so he could see her, moonlit. She seemed ethereal, and he could see the shape of her determination spill through the silver-skinned confines of her body. Stand with me, her expression said. Come into the light. He could read it in the crease of her eyebrows, in the frown that looked all-too-natural on her lips. He didn't dare move.

Then, in a flash of blue light, she struck, like lightning in a storm, moving so fluidly and so swiftly that Chrysaor almost missed it. The snake's body cleaved open in clean halves—though later Fallon would tell him its scales were like armour, resisting the heat of her blade—and came apart, its innards glowing red-hot. There was a sharp hiss as it lifted its head up to the moonlight, its black eyes glittering with fading malice before it fell, defeated.

Quinlan and Kil heard the commotion and doubled back for their apprentices, finding Fallon crouching to inspect the serpent's carcass—and the half-digested clones littered in the cavern of its stomach—and Chrysaor simply watching her. After, as their masters set up camp in a nearby clearing, the glow of their fire permeating the dark of the forest, Chrysaor found the words he wanted to say. Thank you, he said to her, green eyes settling on her side profile. She didn't look up from the serpent as she ran her fingers across its skin, having removed her gloves so that she could feel every ridge, every overlap. She found beauty even in something that had tried to kill her. And she didn't seem to have heard Chrysaor speak.

He swallowed his pride and tried again. Thank you. She heard him this time and turned her head, offering him a smile. Small, and perhaps a little sad, but a smile all the same.

          Like I told you, she said to him as she stood up, there's nothing to be afraid of.

Chrysaor knocked at her door. It opened in an instant, and he stepped through just as fast, hands stilling at his sides. Fallon was sitting on her bedroll, her back against the wall and her datapad resting on her lap. Her eyebrows were scrunched in thought, the space between them creasing as she absorbed whatever shone blue light from her screen. Folded neatly beside her was a cloak, dark and familiar.

          "Fal." His heartbeat thundering in his ears, he strode over to her, unhooking his lightsabre from his hip and placing it carefully on Fallon's windowsill. Although he would never part with it otherwise, the weapon looked perfectly balanced there. "How was Jalid?"

Fallon took a few seconds to reply, reluctantly tearing her eyes from her tablet. She shifted the cloak, making room for Chrysaor to sit beside her. He took the unspoken invitation, his shoulder brushing against hers as he sat. It sent a strong enough current down his arm to cancel out his ministrations, and he turned to her dutifully as she opened her mouth to speak. "It was exhausting. And cold." She gestured to the cloak. "That's Nadya's. Apparently, I looked so affected by the temperature it overrode her charming personality and triggered instincts previously unheard of."

Chrysaor chuckled, his eyes flickering down to her screen with mild curiosity. He caught a few lines of text before she switched off the device and put it face-down beside her. "Was that your report?"

          "Yes." She looked dissatisfied, her lips pulling into a frown. "There was something so wrong there, Chrys. It settled over me, you know? Like film. Like a second skin."

He shook his head. "I don't know, no. Tell me."

          "There was this man, Talos. He was the overseer for the base, a Jali. Loyal to his people, loyal to his planet, loyal to the past."

          "Who isn't?"

          "No-one, apparently. Anyway, he claimed he cared for his people, and that he would do anything for them—but he hurt them." Chrysaor watched her as she spoke, transfixed on her face (as he often was). He had never seen such palpable malcontent plague her features, and it didn't look right on her, more like a parasitic wasp bursting through the skin of a soft-fleshed fruit than an expression on his best friend's face. "He led the Separatists to Jalid and staged this bombing to... I don't even know. To show his people that we, the Republic, couldn't protect them. But he killed them."

Fallon turned to face Chrysaor, fixing him with an indecipherable stare. Her hair, recently pulled free from a braid, was swept over her shoulder and fell in pale, glossy waves, like the gentle swell of an ocean calmed. "I could never fathom doing something as selfish as that. Something as hypocritical."

Chrysaor leaned his head against her shoulder. From where he rested, he could see the symbol on her robes, emblazoned onto the fabric just over her sternum: the iron heart, the insignia of Mandalore for pacifists and traditionalists alike. One thing they could agree upon. Called Kar'ta Beskar in Mando'a, the symbol could be seen almost everywhere on Mandalore, in its architecture, in its technology, in its citizens' attire. Along with the iron heart, Chrysaor had noticed Fallon often wore deep blue, a colour favoured by many citizens of Sundari—it was a small comfort, one she could get away with under the suspicious eyes of those in the Order who still bore old prejudices towards Mandalore. It intrigued Chrysaor that a colour, that a symbol—a simple diamond, small and made of six sides, nothing more, nothing less—could mean so much to someone.

Though, in all honesty, Mandalorian culture had never really interested him. Republic or otherwise, it had always been war.

          "What did Kil have to say about it?" Today, Fallon wore white. She looked pretty.

          "Nothing I wanted to hear." Fallon instinctively lifted a hand to cradle his head, his hair, and with her fingers she laced a crown. "Sometimes I think I understand him. Sometimes I think I don't, and that maybe I never will."

          "Do you want to talk about it?"

          "Kil? No, not particularly—I'm sure it's nothing. I probably just misunderstood him, anyway." She ducked her head to look at Chrysaor, examining his face with her ice-melt eyes. "How are you? Other than emotionally traumatised from being separated from me for so long."

          "That commences after two rotations, Fal. You've only been gone one." Chrysaor snorted gently, his eyes rolling. "I am fine. I'm always fine."

          "But bored." She lifted a brow, the corner of her lips twitching.

          "But bored," he repeated. "Quinlan was here for a moment. And then he was gone. Again."

Her features softened, filling like a well with understanding. He was conscious of her hand now more than ever; it had dropped a few inches, her palm curling around the side of his face. The rope that was coiled tightly in his core began to unwind, inch by inch. "But I'm sure he'll be back for me eventually. It's not like I'm here permanently to train as a healer, or that I've been put on probation. And I know I look delicate, but if I'm to be broken, I'd rather it be, I don't know—" He bit back a chuckle, "—in some shady alleyway somewhere, chasing after some intergalactic crime lord."

          "Your ambition never ceases to amaze me." Fallon laughed as her hold on him gave way, hands slipping from his face to find his waist. She drew him closer, her embrace loose but comforting. "The name Chrysaor Rook will be written in the stars."

          "What about yours?" He pressed his face into her shoulder, his hands flush against her back. "Carved somewhere near mine?"

          "I can only hope so. Definitely in the same system, though probably written smaller. Less shiny," she mused, giving him a gentle squeeze. Lightning staked through his chest. "It'd be more an afterthought—like 'Chrysaor Rook, oh, and his friend Fallon Kryze'—than a commemoration."

Chrysaor pulled back gently, levelling his gaze with hers. Their faces were barely an inch apart. "An afterthought is better than nothing."

          "Says the greatest Mandalorian-slash-Jedi that's ever lived."

          "Don't you want to be remembered?" He arched a brow.

          "You know what I want." Fallon tensed, working her jaw. Death will be glad I've left the land of the living, he recalled. She had always been a skilled orator, to the point of poetry. Even as a child, she had always chosen her words carefully, and as she grew older it had habituated into effortless eloquence; though Chrysaor had been commended on his own ability to speak—golden-tongued, they called him, with his warm words and warmer smiles—Fallon's skill was still enviable. Whether it was in Galactic Basic or Mando'a, every sound that left her lips was perfect, smooth, as if slicked over with gloss. He could listen to her talk all day.

          "I don't know, actually. You were quite vague."

          "Vague?" She met his gaze, expression soft again; malleable, almost, like he could take her face in his hands and sculpt it as if it were made of clay.

          "And flowery."

Fallon lifted a brow, her eyes flickering down to his mouth as he spoke. He felt a blush seep into his cheeks, inch up the side of his neck, warm and splotchy.

Chrysaor cleared his throat, looking away a moment. What teetered at the tip of his tongue had been lurking inside him for a while now, an infinity, stuck snugly between his ribcage, peeking through his bones every so often to take a look at the lining of his chest. If someone took a knife and sliced him open, what would they find? Something small, tumour-like, blackened and greasy like an oil spill, throbbing and covered in teeth? Or something soft, tender, smooth-skinned, a summer fruit plucked right from its tree? Something he could take in his hands, feel continuous in his palm, crush between his fingers until all he felt was its pulp, dripping warm like blood down his knuckles. Is this what his heart looks like? Either option was killable, easily destroyed if he wanted it to be. Or, more accurately: how Chrysaor imagined the Order would want it to be.

But if Fallon knew, what would she ask him to do? Every look she gave him felt like an autopsy. Did she know? Was it not obvious? Did he have to spell it out?

Did she feel the same?

          "Somewhere in your..." Chrysaor's eyes lifted to meet her ceiling, seeing nothing but grey as he searched for the right words, "...vision, dreams, wishes, somewhere between now and your death—which I'm sure will be very honourable, very proud, as you've said—is there nothing else?"

          "I don't quite understand your meaning."

He flushed deeper, hotter, looking back at her. There was no tell, no blush, no nothing, just her eyebrows creased together, her jaw set, as if they were back in the forest and she was searching for the snake once more. "I don't quite understand my meaning, either." He laughed in spite of himself, and her lips twitched at the corners, smile peeling back like paper. "I just mean... is there nothing else you want?"

          "No."

          "No? Not outside of the Order? However scandalous it might be?"

          "Scandalous?" Fallon lifted a brow, and Chrysaor cursed silently to himself. Oh, yes, the golden boy and his golden tongue. How articulate.

          "You heard what I said. Scandalous."

Fallon scrunched her nose. "I would like to live on Mandalore."

          "Is that all?" A heartbeat. Two.

She fixed him with a pointed look. "Is there meant to be more?"

          "I would like for us to be more." Another beat, a pause. Utreekov. "For there to be more, I mean."

Utreekov utreekov utreekov.

          "Oh."

          "Yep." Chrysaor's mouth went dry. He tracked the micro-expressions across Fallon's face: finally, she reacted, serenity gone and something else, something new, setting in. "Ambition is good."

          "You sound like my master." Her hands didn't move from his waist.

          "Is that such a bad thing?" Whatever was inside his chest had grown legs, a million of them, glossy and spindly, and was testing them out on his ribcage, scuttling over his bones, liver, lungs, spleen. This was humiliating. Fallon looked at him like he was an insect she'd trapped under a bell jar; oh, what he would give to grow wings at this exact moment and fly away. "Fal—"

          "I care about you, Chrys."

          "I know."

Fallon paused then, in thought. "But we have our commitments."

          What's one more? Chrysaor wanted to ask. But he bit back his words. "I know that as well."

          "Then you also know we should stop talking about this."

           "But it's always been us, Fal."

           "So? One day, it won't be. We will become knights, we will stop being padawans, we will take on our own." Fallon said sharply, her tone succinct, economical. Conflict shone in her eyes, but she didn't let it control her. Chrysaor envied that. "We are already tied so tightly together. Any tighter and there will be no gentle way to untangle us. It will be a knife, or nothing."

          "Well, there's no 'gentle way' for me to let this go." Chrysaor retorted. "Fallon, I don't want to let you go. Whether we're friends or something... else."

Fallon sighed, dropping her head to his shoulder in what seemed like defeat. "Chrys—"

          "—Now, what have I walked in on?" A familiar voice came from the doorway, knifelike and dripping with sardonicism, talons sinking into Chrysaor's ears. "Six inches apart, children, or I'll grab whatever I can get my hands on, take my sabres, and hack those six inches off." Hiro Wren grinned demonically, tilting her head to the side as she leaned against the wall. She tossed one of her lightsabres between long, slender fingers, her eyes on his. "Careful, Chryssy-wissy. You might be coming up short somewhere."

In an instant, Fallon jerked away from him, disentangling herself from his arms and rising, hands smoothing back her hair as if they hadn't been holding him a moment before. Her expression had already morphed back into neutrality, pacifism in eyes, a mouth, and a nose. Hiro flicked her a look, a dark eyebrow arched in amusement. "Didn't realise mom and dad were having private time. I'll knock next time, sorry for interrupting."

          "You didn't interrupt anything," Chrysaor muttered, fixing the hem of his robes as he too stood. He swiped his lightsabre from the windowsill, cutting Fallon a pointed look. But she had already turned around, and Hiro caught it instead, and her smile only widened. Any bigger, and her face would split open.

          "A lovers' quarrel, was it?" Hiro was shorter than them both, but her smugness compensated for it tenfold. "I can call one of the masters to sort it out for you."

          "Ha ha, Hiro," Fallon said dryly, clasping her hands behind her back. "Did you need something, or are you just here to abuse Chrys?"

          "I'm always here to abuse Chrys." Hiro slotted her sabre into its place on her back, then pushed herself off the doorframe to stand straight. "But I also have news. Fun news."

          "Fun?" Fallon flattened against the wall so she could face both of her best friends. "Fun, as in my kind of fun? Or your kind of fun? Because those are two vastly different things."

          "I have somehow found the middle ground between the two." Hiro rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet like a child, every inch of her acrobatic. When they were younger, before she dedicated herself to the art of invisibility, she had been known to enter rooms through flips and kicks, all performed with the grace of a trained dancer. Look at me! Hiro would say giddily, her grin wide. Now, she was much different. "Guess."

          "No," Chrysaor and Fallon said in unison. Their eyes met for a moment—a nanosecond that felt as long as a night to Chrysaor—before their gazes swiftly found other things to settle on. Her own hands, in Fallon's case. In his, it was her pillow, where the feathers bowed in memory of where Fallon lay her head.

Hiro watched them, then rolled her eyes. "You're both the worst. Anyway, Adi has just returned from Saleucami with Masters Skywalker and Koth. She and Koth are on rest for the next two rotations." Slapping the front of her thigh with her palms, she made herself a drumroll, "And so, I have requested us a day visit to Mandalore! Applause, please." Hiro grinned, then, genuinely and without cruelty, and Chrysaor understood why people stopped and stared at her wherever she went. Even in the temple, she was a precious thing, stealing attention like a common thief. Even now, it felt impossibly difficult to look away.

          "Hiro, that's amazing," Fallon's expression lit up immediately, her eyes a frozen lake just beginning to thaw. She reached for Hiro, whose thin arms slipped around her immediately in a tight hug.

Chrysaor was sceptical. "When you say 'us', do you mean all of us? All three?" He wasn't sure what he had done to incur Hiro's wrath, however ultimately ineffectual it was, but he didn't imagine that her idea of a perfect day included him.

          "I did actually request all of us, loverboy, but you can't come." Hiro said, her words lilting like a birdsong as she lifted her head from where it rested in the crook of Fallon's shoulder.

          "Excuse me?"

          "Something about you being busy—Kryze isn't the only person who wants a piece of you." Hiro snorted as she pulled away from Fallon, who suddenly found the iron heart on her chest the most interesting thing in the galaxy. "Master Vos has returned from his assignment, as well. He wants to see you. Something about an off-world mission."

Chrysaor froze, split in two even halves. One part of him was ecstatic—Quinlan finally had something for him to do—but the other was disappointed. He had not been to Mandalore in over a year, and although his strongest tie to it, his mother, was not there presently, he was still attached to the planet. All three of them were.

He did not know what to say, so he remained silent. Fallon appeared in front of him, crossing the space between them in a blur of platinum-blonde hair and white fabric, and placed her hand on his shoulder gently. Hesitantly. He didn't miss her reluctance to touch him, all acts of affection, all he had to show that she felt the same way, was taboo now more than ever after the exchange Hiro had interrupted. The thought of it was slow venom, working its way to his heart. "At least it's something, Chrys." Fallon's thumb circled an old scar. "You won't be bored, for once."

          "But I won't be with you."

          "Or with me, lover. It isn't nice to exclude!" Hiro called out, eyes rolling. She was still pretty even when she was taunting, though her beauty took a different shape, something more grotesque, a photograph with a dozen tiny errors you could only see if you looked closer. Chrysaor did not want to look closer.

          "We'll be back before you know it. And I bet you'll have much more to tell us than we will you." Fallon offered him a smile as a peace offering. It was small, but bright and blinding as the moon on a clear night.

          "Okay." He eyed Hiro warily. "Do you know where Quinlan wants me to meet him?"

          "The hangar, probably."

Chrysaor heaved a deep sigh, raking his fingers through his hair. He managed a smile for Fallon. He was happy for her. "I'll see you two later, then."

          "Or will you?" Hiro smirked. Then, she grabbed Fallon's hand, tugged her away, and together the two girls disappeared out the doorway and into the hall.

✶

Again, Chrysaor moved through the Temple halls, a four-limbed hurricane, thrumming with electricity, alive with frustration and anger all the things he wasn't meant to feel. His fingers dug into his palms, searching for blood that didn't come: he kept his nails short for situations like these, having learnt his lesson from a month of crescent-shaped cuts at the beginning of the war. Finding no comfort without the pain, Chrysaor closed his hands into fists. They shook like thunder as he walked. We are already tied so tightly together. Any tighter and there will be no gentle way to untangle us. It will be a knife, or nothing.

He couldn't get Fallon—nor her words—out of his head. There will be no gentle way to untangle us. His mouth moved around the words, lips making the same shapes as hers had. Was that all he would ever get? His tongue felt heavy between his teeth.

He almost missed Nadya as he passed her. She, however, always a predator, always alert, did not miss him. "Rook!"

Chrysaor snapped to attention, coming to a halt instantly, a fraction of his frustration scraped away by her tone. Her voice was like a scalpel, sterile and surgical. She stopped as well, a second after he did, and though she was at rest, she was still intimidating. Antipathy in the flesh, she was animosity in the shape of a girl that stood almost as tall as him with more than twice his conviction. There was a certain kind of beauty in her fury as well, thundering beneath her warm-brown skin, glistening like spilled blood in her dark, long-lashed eyes. Chrysaor did not care to learn, but she was a lesson in abundance: in both her achievements, of which there were too many to count (nearly-unparalleled duellist, prodigal strategist, accomplished fighter pilot just to name a few) and in her savagery. There was no shortage of anger in her, and she appeared to have disdain for everyone and still, in her wolf heart, had more to share.

Disdain for everyone, except for him—begrudgingly—and the girl that was almost always visible at her side. Trilla Suduri, the kind and compassionate, the antithesis to Nadya's teeth and claws, who had intellect to rival even the wisest of masters. Though secrets were not commonplace nor a currency within the temple, especially amongst the padawans—whom, despite their biases, Chrysaor felt he could trust without doubt—it was still a mystery to Chrysaor how Nadya had friends. It wasn't that she was unlikeable—because as much as she seemed to despise everyone, people were still drawn to her, like a fly to honey—but more so that she appeared to have no need for them.

That was fair, he supposed: there was room for only one at the top of the food chain. Still, Trilla seemed Nadya's friend more than anyone else did, her eyes pearlescent like opals, gifted with some secret sight that allowed her to see past the carnivore-façade that Nadya bared to the rest of the world.

"Nadya," Chrysaor forced a grin, the smile lines on both sides of his lips creasing involuntarily. His anger threatened to spill up his throat, black waves lapping at a frozen riverbank. "According to Fal, you had a fun time on Jalid." He looked to Trilla, who acknowledged him with a nod, a reserved smile. "Suduri."

"You could call it that," Nadya said, giving a one-shouldered shrug. There was no bite in her bark when she spoke to him. "Fallon handled it well."

"Did she, now?" He had no doubt she had. "I didn't get the details."

"She did what she had to do." Nadya licked her lips, dark eyes shifting from Chrysaor to Trilla, then back again. She seemed to sense his animosity, his irritation: the consummate prey, he was weak, full of emotion and she, ever the predator, had picked up his scent. "Is there somewhere you have to be?"

"The hangar. Quinlan's finally taking me on a mission."

"How momentous. I'll walk you." Nadya turned to Trilla, murmuring a quiet farewell, before moving to stand by Chrysaor. "Let's go. Don't want to keep him waiting."

Trilla continued down the hall, disappearing into periphery behind Chrysaor and Nadya as they made their way to the hangar. They walked in silence, their hands interlocked behind their backs, resting over their tailbones. Chrysaor wanted to say something, but the words did not come. Unlike Fallon, he could not conjure them at a moment's notice, and rather, relied on the words of others to draw his own. It was a careful, cautious skill, decoding the speech of others and twisting it into something palatable, sanding it down and smothering it with honey so that it might be swallowed smoothly.

Nadya was not so concerned with being delicate. "There's something on your mind. Spit it out."

"There's nothing."

"You're a terrible liar." Nadya's tone was a thousand needles, a thousand tiny pricks upon the surface of his skin. (And ego.) Hiro could make him angry, but only Nadya could make him squirm.

"I am not!"

"I have no patience for this. Save your defences and your façades for Fallon."

Chrysaor inhaled sharply. "She said something to me."

"Yes, she often says things to people. Spit. It. Out."

          "You know we are close."

          "Everyone does." They turned a corner. "Continue."

          "And we are friends."

          "Obviously."

          "Best friends."

          "Rook, I've known you for sixteen years, all of them full of painfully long moments like these. Get to the point or I'll cut it out of you."

Chrysaor's eyes narrowed. "I've thought of her—of us—as more." He looked about their surroundings for eavesdroppers, his eyes like birds diving into the sea. There, and then gone, and then there again. A gannet whose beak came up empty, he found them alone. Some small part of him relaxed. "And I told her that."

Nadya's expression was iron. Even the prettiest of words could not coax her thoughts from their prison, draw them like venom from a snakebite. At least he could be assured that whatever he said would remain between them, clandestine and well-kept; for all her snickering, all her toying, Nadya had proved herself to be trustworthy ten times over. Sometimes, Chrysaor wondered if that exterior of hers, of fangs and fury, hid secrets rather than a heart.

          "She didn't reject me, or say that she didn't feel the same way. She just said that..." Chrysaor's mouth went dry again, "She thinks it's already going to be difficult enough for us to part when the time comes for us to attempt the trials."

          "She isn't wrong. You're far too attached to her."

          "As she is attached to me," he returned.

Nadya's features finally shifted into something tangible: an apathetic 'eh'. Chrysaor locked his jaw, and he cut Nadya a flat look. He could not exist in a universe where Fallon didn't feel the same; he would not be the fool who fell for a girl who felt nothing but indifference for him. He could count on one hand the people in his life that he cared for and cared for him in return, and Fallon always came first, her name the one always lodged in his throat, whether coated in honey or the suffocating oil of his heart. Then, came his mother Selda, the healer. Then Quinlan. But Fallon would always be first, with her lily-white skin, her wave-swell hair. "I don't need your doubt."

          "You need my detachedness. Get over your crush and move on."

          "I can't do that."

          "Then when the time comes, you're going to fail." Nadya said, shrugging. "What does she offer you? A pretty face? Comfort?"

          "Compassion."

          "Compassion isn't the same thing as love."

          "I never said—I don't love her. She doesn't love me."

          "But you're willing to risk your place here?" Nadya questioned, baring her teeth. "All for a crush? For compassion?" In the same way his words were sweetened, Nadya's were sour. Curdled, like milk. "You can't even admit it to yourself. I can scarcely believe you admitted it to her."

Anger rose in Chrysaor again, acid coursing through his veins, lightning striking in his chest. Nadya slanted him a glance, her eyes filled to the brim with quiet intrigue, gleaming black like a scorpion's tail in the desert sun. But some part of her was right—he knew that. He did not know enough about those things forbidden by the Order to even understand what he wanted from Fallon: if she told him she felt the same way, if she reached for him, he would not know what to do with his heart, let alone with his hands. Still, he was prideful, not unlike Fallon could be, and so, he hissed back at Nadya, snakelike. "Have you never felt this way? Towards anyone? Anyone at all?" Has someone taken your heart? Is that why you're like this?

          Or did you cut it out yourself?

There was a moment of hesitation, so swift that if Chrysaor had blinked he'd have missed it. "Never," Nadya said curtly, and that was it. A silence settled over them, thick like smoke. They reached the hangar.

Chrysaor looked at her, still seething. He was going to say something to her—what exactly, he wasn't sure, but he knew it would be clumsy and very, very loud—when they were interrupted. In periphery, he saw the figure approach, tall and broad-shouldered, swathed in dark robes, a shadow six feet tall.

Nadya's gaze, which had not left Chrysaor for the entirety of their conversation, despite the heat and pressure she'd placed upon him, finally moved, settling on the newcomer. Something changed in her expression, something Chrysaor could not recognise on her face. An ill-fitting mask, it was unsettling, like a taxidermy: he could recognise Nadya's features, but they looked off. A mirror self. She was Nadya, and she wasn't.

          "It's been a while," Nadya called out, turning completely from Chrysaor now. The boy's eyes followed hers, anger ebbing away and curiosity taking its place.

He understood her distraction immediately. Anakin Skywalker strode towards them, long limbs filled with purpose, and with his chiselled features and boyish smirk, it was impossible not to watch him. He exuded confidence and charm and perhaps a little cockiness, but every inch of him was the paragon Jedi Knight, each scar on his face a mark of success, another score to add to the tally of his victory. Lean and lithe, there was also an undeniable magnetism about him, an allure that saturated his features, both exact and rugged at the same time, simultaneously hardened and softened by war.

If the galaxy were to honour a hero, to sculpt statues in their likeness and erect memorials in their name, Anakin Skywalker would be a fine choice. He had more than enough accomplishments—all of which Chrysaor imagined would be written in proverbial stone, remembered for aeons to come. And he had the exact type of beauty a sculptor would want preserved in marble, with his angular jaw, his careless charm, his kind eyes. Even the scars and the dark rings under his eyes seemed heroic, the imperfect parts of him just an extension of his righteous character.

Chrysaor had only crossed paths with him a few times; the older Jedi was always on assignment, leading his padawan and the 501st Battalion to victory against the Separatists. Still, Chrysaor admired him, though he was not alone in that respect. Anakin was something of an idol to the padawans; if it wasn't his mastery in lightsabre combat, his prowess as the Order's greatest pilot, or the bravery in the field he'd proved time and time again, it was the fact that he was the youngest Jedi to ever graduate from padawan to fully-fledged knight. Anakin was barely twenty. A year older than Nadya, who had become, by default, the most accomplished padawan in his stead.

          "Hey, Nads," Anakin grinned, slowing to a stop before them. Eyes bright, he folded his arms. "Missed you on Geonosis."

Nadya ran a hand over her hair, a smile on her lips. Chrysaor watched, astounded. "Alek pulled me out before the fun really began." Her expression turned brackish for a moment, before smoothing itself over, "but I heard your padawan performed well under pressure."

          "You know Ahsoka. Wouldn't doubt her for a second."

          "Sounds like you. Overwhelmingly confident to the point of idiocy, convinced that everyone else is just as committed." Nadya cocked her head to the side, preening. "One day you're going to be stuck strategising with some old miser with barely any life left in him, a man who will ask you to retreat. What will you do then?"

          "If you mean Obi Wan, Saxon, just say it." Anakin shook his head, chuckling. "I can hope that you'll be there to suffer with me." He glanced at Chrysaor then, his lips curling upwards in a playful smile. "Padawan."

          "Master Skywalker."

          "You know, Saxon, you should technically be calling me 'master', too." Anakin slanted Nadya a look. He spoke solemnly, but there was an unmistakable gleam in his eyes, a phantom light. "I'm a knight now. Put some respect on my name."

          "I will when you've earned it."

          "There it is." He smirked, sending a dimple deep into the smooth skin of his cheek. "Meet Nadya Saxon: exceptionally gifted Force user, relentless commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, reasonably competent lightsabre duellist, and sole source of all the Jedi Order's sarcasm."

          "That's a title we both share." Nadya bared a smile. "I think you're forgetting something."

          "Oh, yeah." Anakin shifted his weight from foot to foot, his grin directed first at the ground, then rising to settle on Nadya. "I forgot. Best starpilot in the galaxy, second only to yours truly."

If anyone else had doubted her abilities, Nadya would have destroyed their lack of faith in an instant, exploded in a paroxysm of leonine anger. But she did not explode at Anakin Skywalker; he did not even light her fuse. Nadya simply lifted a brow, as if she were entertained. "Only second?"

          "You heard me."

          "You're impossible."

Chrysaor's eyes darted between the two, the rapport between them practically palpable. Nadya had not spoken of Anakin before, but Chrysaor supposed it made sense that they would know each other; Anakin had only recently been knighted, just before the war began, so he would have trained with Nadya prior. It seemed that they had been separated: Anakin was the master, now, while Nadya, despite her prodigal nature, her dedication, remained a student.

Perhaps she was not at the top of the food chain after all.

          "Anyway—Master Skywalker, why are you here, if I may ask?" Chrysaor asked, arching an eyebrow. Both Anakin and Nadya turned to face him, their eyes twin pairs of burning intensity. One set shaped from midnight-dark onyx, glistening like hot tar, the other electric, the truest blue Chrysaor had ever seen. "Have you and Ahsoka been assigned a mission?"

          "Actually, I'll be joining you and Master Vos." Anakin clasped his hands together. Over the outer corner of his right eye was a scar, short and thin but prominent. It writhed when he smiled. "Ahsoka is resting up after our campaign, and I've never had the pleasure of working with your master. What I've heard of him from Obi Wan makes me think he's quite—"

          "Interesting?" Chrysaor smiled, protective.

          "Unorthodox."

          "Close enough, I guess." Chrysaor cast a glance to Nadya.

She pursed her lips and turned to go. "Have fun, Rook. Think on what we've discussed—I know you don't want to hear it, but sometimes the truth is bitter and can't be sweetened." Nadya said evenly. Then, she looked at Anakin, saluting him and shooting a smirk in his direction that for once lacked her trademark razor edge. "See you around, master."

          "That's more like it." Anakin watched her leave, a flash of dark robes and deep-red hair, before gesturing to the hangar. "I heard Vos has a habit of being late."

          "Indeed he does." A light chuckle left Chrysaor's lips, "You get used to it, eventually."

          "We can do better than him. C'mon."

Anakin began to walk, but Chrysaor did not follow. His fingers dug into his palms once more, a gravedigger's shovel biting into cold, hard clay.

He did not draw blood.

          "Padawan, are you coming or not?"

He took a deep breath, opening his palms to examine them. The scars had long since healed over, but he could remember them with haunting clarity, eight silver crescent moons carved into his tan skin. The pain was easy to recall too, sharp and needling and clarifying. A phantom ache twitched in his fingers, haunting him as a ghost did a home, urging him to dig, to cut into the flesh and make things clearer. It was a sick compulsion, and he knew it.

But if he pressed harder, he would feel it, surely—

He let his hands drop to the sides, sighing in near-silent resignation. In periphery, he saw Anakin turn expectantly, his silhouette darkened in wait, hemmed in by the overhead lamps. They were pale, silvery.

Chrysaor walked swiftly towards the light.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

okay so last update i said that we'd be seeing death watch this chapter. umm if you've gotten this far you know that we did not in fact see death watch—i'm so sorry, lol, that'll be next chapter. (i promise!). ignore my redundant writing, if i reread this tomorrow and hate it, i'll take it down and edit lol.

this chapter might seem a bit like filler and i suppose, in a way, it is. but i really wanted to examine fallon and chrysaor's relationship more in-depth, because, obviously, as this is a lux fic, whatever happens between them does not ultimately work out. fallon's pov has seen chrysaor mentioned a few times, mostly in passing or brief recollection of memory, but as we can observe here! chrysaor! is! much! more! invested! than! she! is! let me know what you think of that 😈😈

some other things of note i wanted to mention (!):

✶ aren't chrysaor and nadya so soft?? depending on how my planning pans out, we might get to see more of their sibling-like relationship! nadya as we know can be quite mean, but she respects chrysaor deeply, for reasons that will be explained later.

✶ hiro and chrysaor do NOT get along. it is not for sexual tension reasons, hiro is a jedi first and a GAY second, but they also have a very interesting dynamic. it is based on unaddressed jealousy and an unspoken rivalry. their relationship is very much a rollercoaster, all throughout dynasty.

✶ if you couldnt tell, the first year of the war was pretty shit for everyone involved. nadya lost her first master and chrysaor began (then recovered from) self-harming. these two are arguably the most respected of the four within the order, and the facades they wear—+ what is hidden underneath—will be examined in later chapters, too.

🙄🙄 what to expect next time, ipromisethatthiswillhappenandimsorrywedidntgetoseedeathwatchhereimjustachronicoverwriter: anakin, quinlan & chrysaor on a boys' day out aha aha! fallon and hiro on mandalore! maybe featuring korkie and satine!!

ALSO EXCUSE MY PORTRAYAL OF ANAKIN I JUST WROTE THINGS AND HEARD THEM IN MATT LANTER'S VOICE I'M SORRY IF IT'S OOC IT ONLY GETS WORSE FROM HERE

dedicated to freddycarters 💖💖