Fraulein

His attention is drawn back to the jedi at his side - his jedi. She waits ever so patiently, never judging or pushing him. His gut instinct is to be irritated with her jedi calm. She is the one that needlessly dragged him out to this neutral water planet in the middle of nowhere. Now even the sky pesters him with its harmless attacks.

His fondness for her wins out instead.

"I have not felt the rain for over three hundred years," he admits quietly. "Not like this, at the very least."

She softens, her big dark nautolan eyes squinting just slightly in affection. He hadn't realized he had catalogued such body language until they were reunited and he found her expressions locked in his memory like puzzle pieces.

"Let's move off the landing platform," Dira suggests. "Then we can take a moment to enjoy it."

"I'm not sure 'enjoy' is the right phrasing," Scourge grumbles, but he takes the hand she offers him anyways.

She pulls him along the walkways until they are out of the way of the bustle of the landing pads and Dira turns her head up to the sky. She seems so alive in the salt air, a small smile on her face and her eyes alight. He can already understand why she wanted to share this place with him. He has seen her miserable and dehydrated on Tatooine. He has seen her bundled up and irritable on Hoth. He has even seen her ill on Quesh - the toxic atmosphere punishing to a species that breathes through its skin.

Just being on Manaan brings her joy, and that's a joy that she clearly wants to share with him.

They stand for a few minutes just taking in the rain. Dhaidira seems content just holding his hand and feeling everything alongside him. It settles him as much as it stokes the warmth in his chest.

"Come on," Dira says. "I want to show you something."

Instead of elaborating she leads him to the planetary shuttles. A speeder ride later they arrive at a private facility, white and gray like the rest of the plain structures.

"Do you know how to swim?" Dira asks.

"Of course I know how to swim."

"I spent a lot of time here while you were gone so I invested in a stronghold," she confesses. "There isn't much except basic facilities but that's not why I like it. I like it for the swimming."

He follows her down a set of stairs onto a lower platform, the water lapping at it's edges.

He considers his next words for a moment. "Why swimming?"

"I had never been in the ocean before I came to Manaan," she explains. "It was like nothing I've ever experienced. The wildlife, the plants, the water… It felt like coming home and then I realized the only thing missing was you. I want to share this with you, if you'll join me?"

Curse this jedi and the way she makes him feel.

"No laughing if I make a fool of myself," he sighs reluctantly. "I haven't had reason to swim in a very long time."

"Don't worry, I wouldn't let you drown." Her happiness rings through their bond and echoes through him until he finds himself returning her smile. She taps his armor. "You'll have to take this off though." He rolls his eyes.

They disrobe. He can't decide if he's surprised or not that she goes entirely nude. He's aware in general of alien physiology (it's an important thing to know when you need to know how to kill anyone at a moment's notice) but he never considered that nautolans' concealed genitalia meant they would have no social taboos about nudity. He always figured it was something the Jedi would condemn, considering the Order's stance on sex and attachment.

She flashes him a grin and then takes a running Force-assisted leap off of the deck, diving into the water so gracefully she barely even leaves a ripple behind. He huffs and shakes his head at her antics. It's moments like this that remind him just how young she is.

Not one to be outdone, he strips down to nothing and joins her - albeit more slowly - in the water. There's a ladder off of the side of the platform that he uses to ease himself down carefully. He can't remember the last time he was submerged in water like this. The closest he recalls is being submerged in a kolto tank as the Emperor's Wrath.

Dira swims back over once he's submerged up to his chest, using the ladder to gain his bearings. She radiates concern-question-care through the bond and he brushes it off.

"I'm fine," he asserts out loud. "I will hardly be bested by an oversized body of water, Jedi."

She sinks back into the water up to her cheeks but it does nothing to hide the mix of amusement and fondness that fills the Force.

It takes him a minute to get comfortable enough to release the ladder and unevenly tread water. Dira, to her credit, leaves him be despite how much she clearly wants to steady him. Once she's confident in his ability not to drown she ducks under the water and swims away again. He watches the way her green form twists and spins under the water, even more agile than she is on land. The water is clear enough that he can see the vague shapes of plants and fish deep on the ocean floor.

He takes a deep breath and submerges his head. He's left floating in the water's embrace. It's freeing in a way. It reminds him of the moment of free fall before slowing his descent with the Force. After so many years he's forgotten the way water sounds, the soft hush of water moving around him and distant noises of creatures sending ripples around them.

He senses Dira nearby and blinks open his eyes, ignoring the sting of salt. She looks truly otherworldly in the water. Her clear set of eyelids make her wide eyes look paler than usual and her unbound tresses float freely around her head. Something learned in him urges him to beware the alien in its natural environment. Then she smiles with all her sharp teeth and waves cheerfully and the immense affection he feels for her overtakes his fears. The feeling is as dangerous as it is heady.

He goes back up for air. Dira joins him, blinking back her clear set of eyelids. It's strange how she doesn't gasp for breath like he has to. Another difference he's never considered.

"Do you want to go deeper?" she asks him.

He nods and they dive together. It gets darker the deeper they go but it doesn't take long for Dira to hold up a hand for him to stop. She closes her second set of eyelids and extends herself in the Force. Through the bond he feels her make a connection and his own senses pick up a group of tiny living things heading towards them. He turns towards the signature and watches a group of colorful fish swirl around them.

Dira opens her second set of eyelids and smiles at the fish, holding out a hand. One of the tiny fish pecks at her fingertips. Another creeps annoyingly close to his chin tendrils and he shoos it away. He offers his own hand instead and jumps when the fish nips at it. It's not painful but certainly feels strange.

Dira laughs next to him, the sound muffled underwater. His heart swells with her laughter.

They return to the surface, Dira somehow speeding up their rise. He couldn't say if it's the Force or her natural affinity for water. He waves her off and returns to the ladder, hooking an arm through the ladder rung to relax and watch her.

Three hundred years of bottled up hope all wrapped up in one jedi. His feelings for her run so deep and are so complex that he still can't untangle them after months of her help. Watching her, he unveils another layer of his emotions for her.

She's beautiful.

Her green skin, the dark mottled stripes down her tresses, her big round eyes, the deceptively lithe muscles that shape her figure. Everything about her is beautiful.

His appreciation for her physical form has always been based in her skill and her poise. When he sees her across the battlefield she is the striking powerful figure from his vision - the one that cut down the Emperor time and time again. He knows well the admiration he has for the weapon she has molded herself into. This feeling is not that.

He doesn't see the galaxy's savior who's face he had three hundred years to memorize. All he sees is the person he wants to spend the rest of his mortal life with.

"Dira," he calls the next time she pops her head out of the water.

She must feel his intention because she swims right over to him and is happily reeled in for a kiss. Dira's lack of experience and Scourge's sensory overwhelm means their kisses are usually more affectionate than exploratory. Today Scourge just wants to know the parts of her that he's never gotten to experience before.

Her skin is smooth and hairless against his. He finds he doesn't miss the softness of human breasts, their flat chests pressed together and his nipples pressed into her padded muscles. He keeps a hand on the ladder to anchor them and an arm around her waist to keep her close. It feels like no time passes before she makes a surprised noise and pulls away.

"Sorry," she says breathlessly. (And how funny it is that she's out of breath now only after kissing him.)

"For what?" he asks.

"My uh, my teeth caught your lip," she informs him sheepishly.

He licks his lips and tastes blood. He can't help but laugh.

"I don't mind," he promises. This time she kisses him and he gets to taste her smile.

"Thank you for humoring me today," she says. "I'm sure this wouldn't be your first choice for your day off."

"There is nowhere I would rather be than by your side," Scourge reminds her. "The rest of it wasn't objectionable."

Dira giggles at his attitude and he stops talking for a moment to admire her fondly.

"This place is important to you and I am… honored to see it," Scourge admits. "I would come back again to see you happy."

"Thank you, Scourge," she replies quietly. "That means a lot to me."

So first I made a screenshot that I thought I could work with, but when I started adding the characters I ran out of space, so, they all moved to the taxi platform XD But yea, thats why the line work seems wonky, I used brush size 7 and then started scaling them :/ Not fully happy with my shading, but sometimes you gotta accept that half assing something is also awesome XD