Dedicated to NBNiar

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Song: "Maz's Counsel" from The Force Awakens OST

Bent laughed when they returned to the settlement, his great shoulders quaking. "Qymaen! Contact has been received from Unen and Kudlaa. They will send reinforcements for the attack at Kaleela."

He addressed Shia. "Men have been wounded today. They are around camp."

"Very well. I will attend to them." She left, her gold head-scarf blowing about in the evening wind.

Bent placed a hand on Qymaen's back, steering him gently to a place by the ocean where they sat alone. "You're ill."

Qymaen tilted his head. "I don't understand. Just because I'm—" the rest of his sentence was choked off, and he was silenced. Just because I'm still grieving doesn't mean I'm sick. "I'm just tired, Bent."

"Your eyes look different," he said. "Too much moisture."

He rolled his eyes. "Enduring pain is courageous, and I will lead Kalee to victory. I will make the Yam'rii pay for what they did to Ronderu."

An eye-roll. "You're of age. You would do well to act like it."

He flinched. "Bent, you don't understand—"

"Listen," Bent said, closing his large hand around Qymaen's shoulder so hard that it hurt. "I do understand. Ronderu was my friend too, and I grieve for her as you do today. The difference is that after the fight, I had to lead our forces while you stayed inside by yourself."

"You will never understand what Ronderu and I had," he growled back. "Never."

"Maybe, maybe not." A sigh. "Her death is taking a physical toll on your body. I don't mind leading the kolkpravis for now, but you must listen to yourself."

Qymaen pressed his lips together. Fatigue had caught up to him immensely. But as his grief hallucinations were telling him, victory was right between his claws. "I will rest when Kalee is free again."

"You don't know how long that will be," Bent said, shaking his head and walking away from the shore.

✺✺✺

After the next training session, Shia asked him a surprisingly personal question. "How are you really?"

A pause as he fiddled with the moss. "I'm your trainer, not your friend. There's no need to—"

"You're in pain, Qymaen."

The sound of his name on her lips, rather than the title Your Grace, prompted him to raise his head. Shutting his eyes, he forced himself to tear the memory of Ronderu's lips against his the day before she'd been slashed to pieces by the Yam'rii.

"I could have saved her," he murmured. "It is a stain on my honor."

She scooted closer to him, but didn't touch him. "Nobody thinks that except you. When you love someone, you'll blame yourself for their passing."

"We were political allies, nothing more."

"Have you no honesty?" she asked. "I heard what you said in my bay. There's no use in hiding the truth. You loved her."

Relief cascaded over him as sorrow bubbled from his throat. And he collapsed into her arms, letting his tears out quietly.

✺✺✺

Shia sighed as they stood together on the balcony of the Kharankhui tree-dwellings. "It was my fault for sending her into battle with her wounds. She could have survived if she was healthy."

"You weren't there. She was...overrun," he said, his voice breaking on the last word. He forced himself to forget her eyes, flashing like coins in his mind, terrified and exhausted and in pain as she sank beneath the waves. "I was too much of a coward, saving my own skin instead of looking after those I loved."

"Qymaen." Her own gold eyes, with the round pupils, flashed in the dark light. "Even if that was true, there's no reason you can't become better. The past is written in stone, but the future is yours to decide."

"I don't want to forget my mistake," he murmured, taking a shuddering breath. Letting his pain out to Shia felt good, almost as good as slashing the Yam'rii down.

She ran her knuckles down the thin fabric of his shirt, and his scales prickled with sweet sensations. The four weeks gone by training her seemed like forever. Her gentle, quiet spirit and desire for him to be happy were attractive in a way that was unhealthy....but he couldn't stop himself.

Perhaps Ronderu is replaceable.

No, maybe she can be found again in Shia.

He checked to make sure nobody was around, then took off his mask, unsure how to indicate to her that he wanted her to kiss him. Ronderu had seemed to always know. But with Shia, there was nothing more than a slight feeling of trust, of friendship.

Was this how it felt to be like any normal person?

She shook her head, bringing it back to rest against his face. "I'm not like her. I won't break modesty—not even for you."

And as she turned to enter her house, he let out a shaky sigh, climbing down to go back to his own. What did I just try?

✺✺✺

Shia and Qymaen had become friends over the next two months, but Qymaen had great difficulty keeping it that way. Her sheer beauty captivated him in the most shameful way, and she was deeply attracted to him, as she tried poorly to hide it.

After several more training sessions with Shia, they sat beneath the trees together. He'd taken off his headscarf and mask due to the summer heat of Kalee's rainforests seeping into his skin. Tracing the cracks in his mask with the claw of one of his left thumbs, he ruminated on a crazy idea. To his surprise, he was hesitant and slightly shy as he forced the words out, gripping her hands. "I want to ask you to be my bride."

A long pause. Shia's eyes glittered, and she smiled. "I would be honored." Leaning forward, she cupped his cheek in a hand and pulled his lips to hers. He made himself kiss her back — those soft human lips which betrayed the woman he should be kissing.

He sighed, but mostly out of cold guilt that clamped onto his body. She thought he had asked her to marry him because he loved her. But it was untrue; though Shia was certainly a friend and a good apprentice, she was nothing more than a friend, a nobody compared to Ronderu.

No, in truth he had asked her to marry him because it would benefit them both. She would live on believing that her romance had happened, and he would have a family. And perhaps he would learn to truly love her in time.

✺✺✺

The ceremony happened the next day at high noon. He held the corners of Shia's cape, his face veiled only by a small cloth, hers likewise. When the priest gave him the word, he covered her face with his own veil, pressing his mouth to hers, but her lips were cold. The kiss was emotionless and meaningless to him.

◈◈◈

Did you know....

● Grievous' eccentric, borderline-insane behavior in The Clone Wars is explained by what happened after Ronderu died. He suffered from psychotic depression and grief hallucinations about her up until he got the cybernetics, and his mind was broken even further to alleviate them.

Tell me what you think....

● Why is Qymaen so quick to move on after Ronderu's death? Could you do the same in his situation?

● Do you appreciate there being context behind Grievous' borderline-insane behavior in The Clone Wars, or have you never minded it by itself?

Don't miss this story by NBNiar....