MAYALL'S OBJECT

Despite Atticus being in the rebellion for the past decade, his room on Yavin IV will always appear perpetually new—new furniture, new bed, nothing personal in its drawers, only clothes and beakers and droid parts and the scratchings of notes when it is far too late for his mind to scream so loud and all he can do to quiet that same constant storm was to work, on anything. the one mark to distinguish Atticus' room from something almost vacant are the walls, eternally marred with a showering of lightsaber slashings that don’t appear random—but in defense of something, of himself. they hold their own echo, if ghost stories could be held in the heart—in the way Atticus breathed so harshly in the corner of his own room, like his own ghost story. He doesn’t remember his own screams. Or the convulsions. Or the crashing. Or why there are scratches on his arms and shoulders, deep enough to break the skin. (He doesn’t want to believe it was himself, but there’s too much coloring the walls—is this real? Is this real?)

And just like that, he accepts her promise to him in that not-quite way Atticus tends to work around things rather than try to bind them to a formal logic. He operates in the realm of intuition, feeling. She has always tried to build systems around him, translate his moral compass into rules she can understand, a dependency of sorts. How utterly foreign, how completely like they were.

His face does a strange thing, and she nearly cannot map it until she realizes — oh, Atticus Prior is smiling at her. Automatically, she calculates the years she has spent forgetting that smile. Like so many other tiny joys, this one slipped away from her, replaced by the curious blankness of a drug-induced amnesia.

But seeing it again, she locates that smile across time, charts its evolution and moon phases until she lands here again. Not quite a grin, never a smirk, dancing on the edge of alien but always superhuman in warmth. She remembered him in thought, in battle, in pain, but never like this.

SEND ME THREE NAMES + A NUMBER… 

1. FUCK, MARRY KILL.

Fuck: Xavis & Kal

Marry: Sorin

Kill: i don’t wanna

SEND ME THREE NAMES + A NUMBER…

MARRY, CUDDLE, SLEEP WITH

Marry: Rishla

Cuddle: Noa

Sleep With: Llewyn

SEND ME THREE NAMES + A NUMBER… 

KILL, BETRAY, HAVE ON YOUR ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE TEAM

Kill: I don’t Wanna

Betray: Luha

Have on your zombie apocalypse Team: Khadis & Orion

Just like Atticus to always ask what was needed, not desired. Fein smiles, a little shy in the face of one of the few founders of the rebellion, and shrugs a little, “I haven’t really been looking too hard, I suppose,” he concedes, “The temple’s always been nice enough.”

He flexes a hand, heart still swelling with pride at the way Atticus murmurs Padawan. It only ever feels real when he and Dorian and Noa murmur the word, when they acknowledge his return to the rank he’d achieved before … it all.

“Nah, not you, Attie,” he circles back to the question before (had he ever been able to address the things that scare him first? Was he ever the brave one in the creche, facing it all head on? No. He was always the one circling the edges, waiting for the moment of safety to throw himself into the fray. It had paid off in the arena, but here – these people knew him. Knew who he’d been.) “Things … happened before I got here,” he shifts uncomfortably on his feet a bit, “I mean obviously, you know. You saw me when they brought me here. I spent a lot of time fighting in those pits. It … they put me up against some terrifying things.”

He laughs, hollow and empty. His words tell Atticus it was his enemies that terrified, but nothing’s ever scared him the way he himself did. It’s not funny, but he doesn’t know how else to make this conversation feel less uncomfortable, he wants air. Wants to breathe, to remind himself he’s not still in a cage waiting to be drug out onto burning sands for the whims of others.

Of course he asked what's needed. Doing what's wanted is a thought he hasn't had for as long as he can remember, or even wondering what he wants doesn't cross his mind, is a far off thing that's too far out of reach. There are many things he doesn’t consider. Including calling himself a founder. Just think of himself as someone going where he’s needed, wherever it may be. Now, it’s here, beside the younger man at dawn.

“No harm in that,” a soft smile in it, and too at Fein’s other words, “No harm in looking for as long as you want, and then longer after that,” things are fickle, so movable, they both know that. The world always moved too quickly, and the Temple may well too. But there’s benefits in waiting, in observing before something takes the blow, before you can make a mistake. Bravery is so closely thought of as recklessness, when it doesn’t need to be, in any part of life. (Part of the reason his former Master can be so cruel to him, is because he doesn’t think the vision is the true person. Thinks the vision is a part of his mind, so he doesn’t analyze, so he doesn’t overthink, and it’ll kill him, when it truly matters to look at the cracks. He thinks it’s him.)

He's stayed with her, in his mind, in memories, the both of them covered in sand, across their eyes, him carrying her back to the ship as the mission fell apart behind them. There was more to worry about then, like the look in her eyes that he knows the feeling of. Has seen in mirrors. Think of it like drowning. He's gone to check up on her more than once since they've left Jedha, since it's been over a week since it's passed. Memories don't disappear so quickly, this kind of a universe won't let them. As lunchtime passes and he’s on break—if he still has one these days—he leaves it to slip past into the lab, droid parts skewed about the room, an astromech he almost trips over, and gives him a well deserved series of beeps.  

Atticus is like a light, flickering in and out of Dorian’s vision. (Is he there in the moment the man’s life became all spiral; is he there in the wreckage, in the blood, in the soot caking him from head to toe? How many died that day? How many are dead on their feet, replaced with something else, something darker? Sometimes dead is better.) 

He sits at Atticus’s side, though not entirely present. Gaze fixed to some unknown spot on the opposite wall. Soundlessly, he stands, and like a ghost gliding across the space, comes to stand in the middle of the corridor. 

“I’m having the strangest dream,” His words are lost. And then—he slips.

Atticus is there, but not; he turns to look at the man, sitting against the wall, and sees him as years younger. Slowly, he tilts his head. “Atticus?” Voice sounding muffled, like it’s traveling through water. 

“I’m sorry, I’ve…” (He’s there; he is, but not seen.) “…Where are you?” Someone else is here; the Watcher Behind The Eyes, the snake wearing a familiar one’s face. The image Dorian is trapped in is frozen, moments before the carnage takes place. Except for Kai—he swears their eyes slide left, watching him.

Atticus wasn’t there, here, when the Order fell. He was in another place, waiting for a droid to take one of his legs to pull him out of the wreckage. But, maybe he was here too, only in these vaults, only in this room. Standing a few yards away, falling head first to the ground, forehead catching the hurt of the fall. A being above him, eyes flashing. Light pink reflections. Maybe he never got up again.

They’ll look like ghosts together, at least they have this, if they have nothing else.

Atticus doesn’t hear him, not at first, doesn’t hear anything at all, except one voice, except something scratching, except jazz that’s just a bit off tune and getting louder. “Me?” A real question, and minutes too late. Gaze following a missing pattern, looking for Dorian’s head, leaning town to his height, almost, without hurting his back. “I should ask you that. I should ask you. Are you still here?” He’s looking in all the wrong places, until his eyes follow his former Master’s, where they stand behind him.

DATE & TIME: 1/15, 8:00AM LOCATION: Yavin IV’s Jungles TAG: @atticusprior

Water hangs thick in the air here, unlike Tatooine; plants that she could have barely ever dreamt of flourish (picture, a little girl, later young woman, with tiny seedlings growing from bird skulls. Trying desperately to make something grow in a place where nothing could. Not even her, at times). The sound of footsteps, hers and Atticus’s, are steady background noise. She’s come to be somewhat relaxed around him. Shoulders down, head tilted back, gazing up at the canopy. 

His presence lingers impossibly soft on the edge of her awareness. She tips her head down, focusing on the line of light that glows around his hair like a halo before she takes a few longer strides to walk beside him.

She’s memorized every turn they’ve taken since leaving the base. It’s comforting to know the way, to know that maybe some other day she could be the one to lead Atticus out her, if she wanted to. 

“I never thought a place could be so green,” Said with a small smile in her voice, hands down at her sides, fingers tapping habitually against the outer parts of her thighs. “It’s beautiful.” Different from the dry, arid heat of the planet where she had been raised. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, before turning her head to look at him more directly, “Thank you, Attie—” Her eyes pop open a fraction. (Where had she heard that before?) She corrects herself, “—Atticus. For being here, it… you didn’t, you didn’t have to.”

(Still trying to learn a reason for the gentleness of his hands; he owes her nothing, and she’s been raised her whole life to believe that everything must be an even trade.)

It’s every so often, and more than he’ll be able to say, because it’s more often than not, that his gaze turns down to see her. Not looking away when he sees the tilt of her chin, turning to face him too. There’s a limp in his step, concealed from years of learning to hide it, almost two decades, he won’t ask to lean on her, won’t ask to stop, because he’s doing everything to see her face now. He’s used to canyons, covered in green, on Eshan. Volcanoes that’ll erupt some day and begin the process of life all over again.

Her presence still lingers like twin suns, across a desert. The line of fuzzy heat in the corner of his eye, when he looks to the distance of a plain that goes on forever. He’s walking slow to keep her pace, waits every few seconds for feet to be beside each other. Gaze forward, keeping track of paths indicated by only ribbons on the branches, before there are none at all. (There’s the worry, of becoming lost. And the feeling, that’s for now only a feeling, that he doesn’t mind at all.)

She speaks, and he stares a bit too long, says quietly, “Just you wait,” moving to be ahead of her, holding out his hand to help her over a steep break in the ground, places the water has weathered away. “Just wait, for everything,” he gives to her other words, speaking softly, don’t thank him yet, “We’re not anywhere yet,” a look that say she doesn’t have to do anything, he wants to. He wants to be here. Wants to eat popcorn in front of a holoscreen and watch it over again.

He felt worn out after everything that had happened on Eadu. He was always very active and thought he’d be fine making a sudden change from simply going on missions and not necessarily doing much except staying behind on ships, but this time things had been different. Thankfully, he hadn’t really been injured, but his body felt sore and there were a few scrapes and bruises all over him. Tobias felt like he needed something to make him feel better, especially as he knew he had a lot more he had to do and didn’t have time to be walking around sore or get any infection in any of the cuts. “Um, yeah,” Tobias answered. “It should be simple. I need some medicine and that should be about it, I think.” 

There’s a difference between being active and missions, a difference between living a normal life and having it combined with the Order. He learned that in the Clone Wars, when relief missions had to be changed into relief on battlefields; he learned it again in the Rebellion. Learn it again now, all over again. There’s more dangers to face, and far too many ghosts these days. Atticus doesn’t miss the bruises on the younger man’s body, looks at Kal silently, a doctor’s gaze, they’ll heal, they both know it, but he can help with the pain, speed the process. 

Orion might have howled, a beast in pain. Because in some sense, he is right. For all his fatalism masquerading as faith, Atticus Prior is right. She forces herself steady where a moment ago she was madness. Still she shakes, but maybe that’s just the first stumbling breaths of withdrawal.

He watches her and she gets the distinct sense that maybe he is really watching her from a different time, a dual vision that they share from moments worlds apart and somehow familiar. They run along parallel tracks, never quite able to escape the long shadows of before, even as a new future rises to blind them.

She can’t bring herself to say back, I’d be here with you. To stay, but not for any lofty cause or sense of duty — just to be by his side, the way he sits now by hers. Has sat. Will always. Orion knows she is not so special; this is just who Atticus is. And that is why she would.

“I suppose I don’t have much choice, then.” And finally she looks at him, her next words as unsteady as her gaze itself is the muttering of a promise. “But to make sure it doesn’t.”

And for the first time since Orion touched the ground of Yavin IV, she feels the painful spark of hope, even as it is borne from desperation and surrounded by a kind of willful dishonesty.

He doesn't have to try, he doesn't have to do anything at all to see her as she was then. To see the memories flicker across her face. As one of the last of his childhood left alive. As one of the last that will get to know each other through most of their lives. Miraculously still alive, and even more—in front of each other. All he knows is desperate hope in every part of life.

But, he can suppress the memories, tell all to pause in his mind so he can watch her. Notice the steadiness, the way it hits her limbs, maybe notice it before she does. The persistent trembling. Blame it on the trained eye.

“That’s all you need—to promise yourself to something.” A half-smile her way, genuine. Whatever’s enough. Enough to be spoken about. Enough to face. “No one will make you stay on Yavin, if you don’t want to. If you don’t want to stay, after this.” A beat. “I won’t make you.”

The almost-blue, almost-not of his eyes reminds her of something she’s seen before in a dream. (Water from a fountain in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. There are stones at the bottom that she used to collect. She’d show up to the creche with her entire sleeves soaked from reaching beneath the surface to select the smoothest ones.) Atticus watches her beneath white lashes, and she watches him, wisdom in her owlish gaze. Sees the fight inside, the fight he’s known. Sees that he understands. She allows her hand to rest a little more readily in his palm. 

Atticus is all calm. A ripple in still water; something known beneath it, comforting. Her posture relaxes. She only realizes after it’s been a beat too long that she hasn’t taken her eyes off of him, and when she does, she forces her gaze back down to their hands. There’s still a small smile on her face. 

In return, she peels her Force signature back, allowing it to spread. It stretches out like a Tatooine sunset, something melancholic in the memory of the planet’s twin suns steadily making their way over the horizon. If she closes her eyes, she can still picture them. (Hot wind over her cheeks. She misses the dry heat.) 

Her smile grows at his words, “A date?” Echoed, eyes flickering back up to meet his. A question. She then nods, “A date, then. Are there—are there very many waterfalls, here? On Yavin?” 

From the way he answers her question about time, Nimm doesn’t immediately chastise herself for being nosy. Twelve years in the Rebellion, twelve years of healing, of fighting. She nods a little. Part of her wonders when Atticus first knew of the Light inside of him. Of what it called him to do. She can’t help but ask him, “Did you ever—was it ever something you knew? How to… heal, I mean. Outside of being taught in the Temple.” (The last formally taught Healer alive. That was another thing Nimm heard.)

Her fingers curl back into her palm, hand lowering to her lap again, “I’m ready for the vaccinations.” Straightens up her shoulders and lifts her chin, the movement playful. His next words cause her to tilt her head and swallow, quiet for a beat before, “It’s… it’s okay. It is. Maybe,” Subconsciously, she touches the small line on her throat, “Maybe some other time.”  

He feels it all as it's there, like a wave. And so much at once, it's almost overwhelming for him, when to anyone else this moment will look calm, look quiet. He'll notice the way her hand steadies in his palm as he inspects and reaches out. He feels it as her gaze is on him just too long and his brows furrow at it, wondering—first, if something's wrong, but what? If he said something wrong? 

Then, the warmth, felt all around due to the wave of his own Force signature that's so close to her veins now, like parts of himself. He leans into it slightly, the way someone does to a lit window. Dry heat meets cool water, like a beach in the morning. Eshan's mountains meet Tatooine's sun. 

His smile isn't one he gets to hide, but he tries, by shaking his head, but not meeting her eyes except in small moments. Can only look at her through a half-lifted head. "More than I can count. Maybe enough for two—no way to be sure until." Please don't point out the small warmth on his ears. He’ll take her to every one he knows, and beyond it. Wants to see the look on her face, waits for it, doesn’t want to linger there so it’s more when they’re there. Doesn’t want to dwell on those thoughts anyway, fear there.

At her words, at her cue, he leaves to the corners of the office, to the supplies and vaccinations that need to be ready always, at a place like this. New people arriving every day. He looks at her, over his shoulder, when he can, anytime he can. When there’s a needle in sight, he speaks to her words, “I won’t ask for the story,” of the scar, “But I might ask for another anyway. How long were you with Isond?”

Her eyes adjust quickly to the dark, and she catches the tail end of his movement, an echo of amusement surrounding them. Obviously, she’s not comfortable here – surrounded by Jedi on all sides, and not the younger ones either. These are old enough to remember – and most of them strong enough to fight, to survive, if it comes down to it. Still, if she’d doing this, she’d rather be surrounded by former enemies than by untrained Padawan, even if the latter tend to be easier company, though she’d much rather not be noticed at all by those on the outside.

“I don’t think so.” Almost reflectively, she lowers her voice to match his. Still, it’s odd for so many of them to be on Coruscant – but she can’t help but suspect Jedha has something to do with it. Even on Mustafar, rarely were all the Inquisitors present at once; it wasn’t as much the headquarters of the Inquisitors as the dominion of Lord Vader. Most of the Acolytes just passed by there, on their way to an early unmarked grave. Not much of permanence to be found there in the flowing lava.

She can see, though, and she can count, and she came up short when it came to the fleet of her old Order. Little bits of personality have always shown through in their personal choices, from their diet to their preferred ships, and it makes identification easier for someone in the know. “I’m missing at least two. If I had to guess, those present have the lovely task of prostrating themselves before the Emperor, to pay for the failure of Jedha.” For letting the Jedi grow under their noses. She counts herself lucky to have defected when she did, else she’d be up there, knees scraping the floor, or already killed in a fit of Vader’s rage.

Even as his eyes adjust, even as he's used to areas of the galaxy someone shouldn't be walking (his height aside), crumbling walls and ceilings ready to collapse, backlit rooms, his body on a surgeon table (one he would never put his patients on unless dire), he’s too late to stifle the soft ding sound as his forehead nicks against a hanging part of the ceiling. Skin red, if he could see it. He’s unsure of what to call Khadis. The guilt of his own conscious changes how he views others, makes it a need to not see enemies, even as they’re holding a knife to his chest, even as they would kill him. (Do you feel his Master’s laughing form just floors above them now? They were born laughing.) How is a corrupted mind meant to define Khadis, when he can’t look at his hands without his sight blurring? He doesn’t except her to turn on him, as long as she doesn’t expect the same of him.

“We both know—we know, there’s no entrance into these tunnels and the vaults except one. And those are outside,” he doesn’t miss the way her voice drops. His goes even lower as he speaks, meant for her. Meant as a comfort. They won’t be seen, neither will she. Punishment would be bad for a Jedi. Worse for a traitor. How, he doesn’t know. But when wouldn’t the Empire do worse for their own?

He came prepared, usually did whether he knew he needed to be or not. Somewhere, he's still a child carrying wrapped candy in one pocket and bandages in the other, steady hands that flickered into trembling creatures between moments of brief calm. Child so worried. Child who screamed in the night and forgot about it at morning. Child that leaned as far away from himself as he could to avoid his own skin. Worry born selfishly, to avoid himself, and born of a simple, genuine concern.