Author's Note: If you have any tips writing tips, please feel free to comment.

As always, I continue to hope that I am doing justice to the spirit of Star Wars as well the respective authors and characters from which I borrow. Again, I gratefully accept constructive criticism as a means to help me develop my skills further as a writer.

There are no Mandalorian (Mando'a) words in this chapter. 

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Chapter 41

I could not manage to break through Commando Jas' barriers of silence, but his sentiments for Arlesse are noble. There is something very real and honest in his eyes, and I believe the observations from Jedi Paxa do not require further challenging. However, due to orders that come from an authority higher than our monarchy, he cannot stay long enough to have his intentions proven. Their distance would either make them stronger or tear them apart forever, and I think we should find a way – utilizing our laws – to let them attempt the bond that they wish to know. I believe such an experience will authenticate their intentions and show us just how serious they truly are.

Duchess Janelle Napith's report to King Vollan Psach after her interrogation of Jas

Tochin Moon II, 787 Days ABG

Arlesse took residence in her favorite hiding place. There was a small bench that leaned against the trunk of a large weeping orchid tree. When the tree was in bloom, she could hide beneath the long, thin branches as they scraped along the ground, reminding her of a yellow curtain. The orchids that were still closed in their early spring buds were braided throughout the yellow leaves but would emit a sweet aroma once they opened. Studying the unopened lavender blooms for a moment, Arlesse decided that they looked more like small speckles hastily dripped over a yellow canvas than actual flowers.

Leaning against the back of the bench now, Arlesse felt her eyes drift from the impending blossoms and looked to her empty hands, not concerned with the lack of a flimsi-plast novel in them this time. This time, she just wanted to be alone to deal with her emotional wounds. It wasn't the first time she felt them, but this time they hurt the most, and she knew that if she stayed in the palace, she would be too tempted to find Jas and try to convince him to make those aches stop.

Arlesse closed her eyes, taking in the faint scent of the early spring blossoms on the shrubs around her and mentally listened to Jas' voice still talking in her mind. Even as an imagined sound, his accent still shot through her chest and found her heart. Letting her imagination wander in the memories of the past couple days, she continued to feel the residual touch of his strong hands as they held her, and despite her tiny size she seemed to fit with him. She could still feel the touch of his lips as they lingered on hers, the prickly warmth of his unshaven skin and the gentleness of his strength never overpowering but tender and careful.

She fought against the sting her in eyes and the pain in her chest that threatened to drag her once again into the abyss of loneliness that she had known for her entire life. The more she thought about any of the men in court that she had once wanted to pursue, the more she found her thoughts returning to Jas.

Keeping her eyes closed for just a little longer, Arlesse could still picture his dark irises and how they gently looked upon her. Those brown orbs could see right into her emotional essence, and she had gladly laid her inner-self bare for him to know. He was the only man who ever learned the truth about her mother, and as Arlesse opened her eyes she realized that her fingers were upon the locket that forever hung around her neck.

Familiar sounding footsteps caught Arlesse's attention, and for the briefest of moments, she had thought that Jas had come to find her. Bringing her eyes up and trying to peer between the thin branches, Arlesse tried to find that recognizable silhouette of gray armor amidst the flowery shrubs. However, the man that emerged through the tree's curtain wasn't the Republic soldier she had foolishly hoped had returned to her. Her eyes skimmed over the identifiable form of the average-sized man who wore a dark blue outfit and the sash that identified him as the king of Tochin. 

As Vollan Psach stepped closer to his daughter, Arlesse noticed the gentle concern in his blue-gray eyes and how his light brown hair had seemed to have turned even grayer after her rescue from Hazar. Although he was far from old at a mere forty-seven standard years, he walked with a weight on his shoulders that melted away the moment his blue eyes caught Arlesse's. His face brightened, and he smiled as he moved closer to his daughter, taking a seat on the hidden bench that she liked to spend her time upon.

Arlesse was not blind to how Vollan was always the caring father to her, concerned with her happiness and her comfort more than his own. Continuing with his smile of relief, Vollan reached a hand out to Arlesse's and took it offering reassurance and kindness.

His voice was apprehensive and the frightening emotions her abduction had given him were no longer hidden. It was the way he always was when alone with her. He became a different man, leaving his title and his court manners behind him. Now, he was just a father, a man who was devoted to his daughter, his family. "I had been worried that I would never see you again. I was in agony, trying not to give up hope, but after so many days of your continued absence, I knew the odds of you being safe were falling with every moment."

Arlesse swallowed down the hard lump in her throat. It was selfish of her to want to stay with Jas and Crimson, especially when she had a loving father who would have found a way to comb the entire galaxy for her. The man who raised her had done everything in his power to give her happiness and attention, and it would be so wrong of her to thank him for all that by disappearing with a squad of aging soldiers.

Forcing a heavy breath into her lungs, Arlesse sighed sadly. She wondered if she should tell her father about her romantic interlude, her fantasy for a cloned man who was bred for war and cursed to die far too soon.

Vollan saw that his daughter was struggling with emotions that ran deep. Her breathing was irregular, fighting the tears that he could see sitting in the brim of her eyes. Touching her hair, he brushed it back over her shoulder wondering how he would be able to heal such pain in her.

"I need to know honestly if that bastard who stole you hurt you," he said softly. "Written reports can only tell so much."

Arlesse brought her eyes to her father, not used to hearing him speak with such language, as it was entirely uncharacteristic for him. Thinking of her time with Hazar, she remembered the droid, TaK, who had shocked her with one of its mechanical devices, causing the intense pain to awaken her. Then, she thought about the nameless clone trooper who died protecting her, a man who was tortured for no other reason than because Hazar perceived him as a replaceable flesh droid that he could take apart.

"Hazar's droid hurt me one time, stinging me out of my unconsciousness," she admitted. "But, Hazar wasn't interested in me. The Separatists were paying him a bribe to stay distant, and part of that bribe was a clone soldier who Hazar forced me to watch be tortured to death."

Vollan felt his stomach drop in regret, the safe world around his daughter destroyed by some sick mercenary. He pulled Arlesse against him and kissed the top of her head softly. "I'm so sorry, Lessa. I should have done something more to protect you."

"Papa," Arlesse said, gently pulling out of his embrace. She lifted her eyes towards his. "Don't you understand? I'm overprotected, and that's the problem."

"So, after a week with a commando squad you want combat lessons?" he asked lightly.

Arlesse lowered her eyes and couldn't control the blush on her face as she remembered how she conformed into Jas' arms when he helped her fire a blaster for the first time. Then, that same day, he merely handed her his blaster to protect herself while he and his brothers set off to stop the people who wanted to harm her father.

Arlesse forced another breath into her lungs as she realized that moment in the woods was so much more than actually holding a weapon. It was the way Jas trusted her, the way he gave up control of being her protector to give her the opportunity to know what it was like to take care of herself. It was a sensation that she had never known living behind the walls of the palace, and she was certain now that once Jas was gone, she would never know that feeling again.

Vollan caught the deep emotion pass over her eyes once more as he saw how she stared at nothing for a brief few seconds, a sign that a memory had flashed before her. "You barely ate anything at breakfast this morning, and you've been sulking as though you lost everything. Please, Arlesse, what troubles you so greatly?"

The princess stared at her hands as they stayed in her lap, the fantasy around her dissolving with every moment it got closer to midday and Crimson's departure. "I see how they all look at Janelle. No one here ever looks at me like they do her, and no one ever will."

"Arlesse, you shouldn't keep weighing yourself against your cousin," Vollan reasoned, knowing that there was something bothering her that was more than just her usual comparison to Janelle. "Don't underestimate your intelligence and your skills. You know that her position requires her to play the role of a doll for the men of the court, and while doing so she needs to have an underhanded understanding of politics and law. I spared you that life, to let you become your own person who knows compassion and love, not tricks and exploitation."

Arlesse raised her eyes once more to her father as he continued, "I'm sorry that my doing so seems to have doomed you to a life of loneliness, but I just couldn't bear to destroy the safe and happy world I created for you. I feared that teaching you deception and manipulation would only turn you into another of these thoughtless nobles I have to deal with."

Touching her face gently, Vollan finished, "You're my daughter first, and I love you more than anything. If there is any way to give you happiness again, just ask it, and you know that I will do what I can to make it be so."

Swallowing down the lump again in her throat, Arlesse knew her father's words were honest and true. He had a knack for twisting what needed to be done in royal court, but with her, he always was straightforward and sincere.

She prepared to have her words come out as a guilty admittance, expecting the disappointment she knew her father would feel when she explains how her emotions had developed for a cloned man who was cursed into a short life of war.

"You're in love with him," Vollan answered for her, aware of his daughter's confusion about how to explain emotions that he could see she didn't fully understand, but completely felt and experienced.

Arlesse sucked in a breath, her expression the shock of one who had been caught with her hand in the proverbial candied fruit jar. Then, she wondered if her father knew which of the men in Crimson she actually had grown a fondness for.

"He's protective of you," Vollan continued, "I'm not blind to see how his eyes held you in high regard at just the mention of your name. He's willing to die for you, even if he doesn't entirely comprehend that kind of raw emotion."

Arlesse shook her head, fighting the pain in her heart that Jas' departure continued to give her. "How...?"

Vollan took one of her long curls in his hand. He sectioned off a thin, six-inch section near the bottom and tied it off with a piece of cord from one of his pockets. While a smile of genuine humor flashed over his face, he began twisting the strands into a braid. "Do you think one who has been in love wouldn't see it? I loved your mother, truly and honestly. I would have done anything for her, and I have. All she wanted... all she needed to be was to be free. She didn't belong here, and we both knew that."

Arlesse watched her father's fingers tightly weave her hair, his movements careful and slow as though trying to draw out the moment.

"What happened with Mama?" she asked softly. She hoped that everything Zech told her was a lie and that her mother didn't run away just to be with some pilot. She couldn't understand how any woman wouldn't love her father. He was kind and gentle, especially with those he cared for most.

Vollan's smile faded now and his eyes clouded with the past as though living a memory again. "She told you in her letter. She needed to be free."

Arlesse pushed aside the ache in her heart that Zech had put there, the seed of doubt he sowed for her parents' relationship. "Baron Erle told me that Mama left because she loved another man."

"I see," Vollan said and nodded absently. Then, he looked to Arlesse, allowing his eyes to be open and clear so she could see the truth in them. "Months before your mother and I were arranged to be married, a Jedi named Djinn Altis visited our world unexpectedly when his ship needed repairs. He had been on a solo mission but would not get into the details of that mission. In fact, he never even dressed as a Jedi, and we figured he was doing some kind of reconnaissance that required him to be covert in his operation. However, after meeting your mother, Djinn believed that his ship's breakdown was not accidental but a sign from the Force. Darian had told me how Djinn instantly saw something in her the moment they met, something that defined her differently. He had explained to her that according to the traditional teachings of the Jedi Council, she was too old for training in the Jedi temple, but he said he was part of another sect that doesn't adhere to the strict rules and regulations of the masters on Coruscant."

Smiling sadly again, Vollan saw the sparks of Darian in his daughter. The woman he continued to love was present in the angle of Arlesse's cheeks and the tight curls of her hair. "Your mother was destined for more than being a simple queen on some antiquated mining colony. She had a gift for calming others when they were upset or angry, and she had a natural ability to draw others to her. Djinn told her that if she ever wanted to pursue a life helping others in the galaxy and learn how to harness her abilities to their full capacity, he would return for her whenever she was ready and teach her the skills of a Jedi."

"Mama's a Jedi?" Arlesse asked, suddenly breathless.

"Not in the traditional sense," Vollan replied. "Maybe by now she had learned how to wield a lightsaber, but when she left she had planned to be a negotiator, someone who would bring reason and sanity to torn worlds."

Arlesse looked to her hands for a moment and understood now why Zech had thought her mother was having an affair. Arlesse remembered a story she read one time describing how Jedi training was both exhilarating and tiring, especially to someone that was just beginning such training. However, Arlesse quickly pushed her thoughts aside as her father tugged on her hair as he continued working on the braid.

"Before you ask, no, you do not have any Force adeptness," Vollan explained with a gentle laugh. "Djinn tested you when he came back to get your mother and there was nothing extraordinary about the way the Force interacted with you. Somehow your mother was meant for more than any of us ever dreamed. Darian and I had chosen for you to stay here with me where she wanted you to have a quiet existence. We had both agreed that it was safest not to boast about her talents and her want to enhance them as we feared it would bring unwanted attention to you."

"Zech lied," Arlesse said softly, feeling anger and resentment for the baron because of the way he tried to manipulate her. "Jas told me not to believe him."

"Erle probably didn't lie, Arlesse," Vollan explained. "Whatever he observed of your mother's interactions with Djinn led him to believe your mother was unfaithful to me."

Arlesse looked away briefly, the overload of secrets hidden from her so overwhelming and yet, strangely fascinating.

Vollan smiled again, having caught the brief spark that shone in his daughter's eyes when she mentioned her soldier's name. He decided it was time to change the subject and get onto matters he could control rather than pine for the wife he had let free. "Janelle had spoken at length with Jas last night, and he never admitted anything, keeping his silence solely to protect you. He wants what's in your best interest, and Janelle said that she could see it so clearly in his eyes that when they talked about you, it was unmistakable that he loves you. He may not understand it yet, but he does. And, now those same emotions are echoing in your eyes."

Arlesse felt the shock register on her face of something she thought for certain would remain her secret. She never imagined that anyone would notice the infatuation and attraction she had developed for a soldier, a cloned man who had no rights and wasn't even a citizen of the Republic for which he fought.

"But, we can't be together," Arlesse sighed, her sadness making her voice broken and soft. "I didn't mean to feel this, but it just... happened."

Vollan held the thin, six-inch long braid in his hand and tied off the bottom tightly. With his other hand, he pulled out his knife and cut the braided lock of hair off of his daughter's head. Handing it to her, he put the knife away and smiled warmly.

"I spent the better part of last night and this morning reviewing old laws and researching loopholes in our society's limitations. Because Jas was not born into a similar status as you, you must see to it that he vows his loyalty to you as a royal knight. It's an old law, put into place at the early era of our civilization, but it had never been removed from the doctrine so it is still valid. This law is the only way I can save you from living a life that will never bring you any happiness. Your companion wasn't meant to come from Tochin royalty, and I wouldn't want you to become the object of someone's resentment just because they feel obligated to be with you. I let your mother go because it was the right thing to do, and I always knew you wouldn't follow in the traditional duties of your station either."

Arlesse brought her eyes to her father, her chest filling with warmth as she took her braided hair into her fingers and realized that he had just given his blessing for her to be with Jas.

Brushing some of the curls back over Arlesse's shoulder, Vollan smiled again. "Noon is fast approaching, and he'll be gone before too much longer."

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