ANDROMEDA GALAXY

Who’s children would you most like to have?

oh my GOD boy oh boy rishla would never like to have her own children ever (even though she has like several pseudo-adopted children) just like, i cannot see rishla ever DESIRING to be pregnant so like the answer to this would be Long n Complicated 

Who would you most like to make out with?

well she definitely made out with noa @nniedra before pre-order 66, probably khadis @khadisshrike just to see what’s Up, llewyn if they were both drunk and it was platonic @llewynalarcon

Who would you most like to punch in the face?

answered!!!

Who would you most like to make love to?

okay who WOULDN’T want rishla to top them like SERIOUSLY just fucking look at her like she is the stud of my dreams Um Anyways i have no answer to this question because everyone here is either someone she knew when they were padawans/younglings or people she sees as siblings?? she made out with noa @nniedra once upon a time tho so this one might be the only one who comes close fsdkhkds

Who would you most like to go to jail with?

okay so there are Groups for this one, and they are as follows

noa and llewyn / @nniedra @llewynalarcon because that would be SO GOOD 

mathias / @knighthimself mother & son bust out of jail together, i’d pay to see that

orion / @accessdecried just watching them work together would be (chef’s kiss)

Who would you most like to send to jail?

khadis @khadisshrike, no hesitation, next question but also i feel like that would turn khadis on idk, which just makes this so much funnier

Who would you most like to punch in the face?

sorin @sorinnoveske and orion @accessdecried jesus christ what is it with these knights who were appointed so early on in the clone wars 

Who’s the most intelligent person you know?

hmmm i think rishla views this as like, everyone is intelligent in their own specific Area?? idk there are a lot of factors that can play into this but, i think she definitely sees a lot of potential in nareen @nareens

Who has the best butt out of everyone you know?

cue flashback to rishla smacking llewyn’s ass Really Hard when they were knights bc she was (and still is) an asshole @llewynalarcon

The first words she says are those he’s used to hearing, those expected. We need you alive, because your hand is a weapon, and that is all. Not alive as a person, not alive as a voice, but an asset. So usual, he’d almost accept as a reason to stay, if he didn’t hear them so often. So, it’s the next words that leave him tongue-tied, eyebrows knit together, eyes not hiding their questions, the half-angered shadow, snap, and unable to understand. He doesn’t press it, because it’s easier not to. Easier to leave it, before things can rise in his chest. 

(He’s befriended queens, and con artists, and when asked to stay, just this once, he still ended up here. Everyone flickering, no matter their impact, because he knew they would be. People don’t come back, until Rishla did.)

He meets her gaze, but its flickering now too, back and forth, toward and away. He about says, yes, only out of habit alone, he doesn’t. “No,” arms not crossed, but his posture is still defensive, fist flexing like it feels empty, cold. There is something to prove, he knows there is. And it doesn’t belong in remaking Jedha. It doesn’t belong in making that action better. 

Forgiven, but he must pay for it.  He knows how it goes.

“Am I supposed to know what you want?” He’s quieter now, as if tired, all after she said she needs him alive. He says it again, “Take the name too.” Because he’s really asking what it takes to deserve it. Doesn’t know how to . Doesn’t want to. It’s only there, as an emotion, as a feeling past his eyelids. 

He’s paying for this, and it’ll be more than today. It’ll be more than the glances he’ll receive when he walks out of those doors, stealing and flickering and evasive. It’ll be more than his face across the galaxy. It’ll be more than the need to decide if he’s safer here than somewhere else he can’t be found. (As if safety is what matters to him.)

They’ve all been flickers for so long. Rishla doesn’t know the exact truth of what Mathias has been through, but she can see it—it’s written all over his body, his face, the way he carries himself, the way he never truly intends to be something permanent. “You believe you need a reason to leave this Rebellion, one that involves someone else making the decision for you.” Whether consciously or not. “I refuse to give you one.”

(See, Boy, the General made a promise to you decades ago that she could not keep. But she does intend to make up for it—she does intend to let her voice ring out true and sharp, like durasteel.) 

“This isn’t about what I want; I’m not a client.” She wants him by her side in this fight, it’s clear in her eyes. She wants him here. Mathias’s lack of understanding shows her more than she could have ever known had he told her what happened to him after Order 66 in words. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

This isn’t about whether or not he’s worthy, this is, what does it mean to be worthy? This isn’t about who is deserving of worthiness, this is, what does it mean to be deserving of something? (It’s all up to him. It’s only ever been up to him.) 

Rishla lifts her chin. “The name is yours as much as it is mine.” She is telling him: no. 

“The fact of the matter is: this is our reality now. There are consequences for what we’ve done—and we will shoulder them, together.” Silence as she allows the words to settle with the dust. Her commlink blinks on, letting her know it’s time for the debriefing.

(Does she see herself in Mathias’s recklessness? If she thinks back, can she recall what it felt like to have him asking her endless questions? What does this tattoo mean? And that one? And that one?)

He could barely tell anyone apart, but she was right he needed everyone to get back to the ship. He couldn’t handle it if they lost anyone.“Does anyone have sights on them, Bail and Leia?’” . Rescuing them was the most important part of the mission and what good would the whole mess be if they failed.

He had promised himself that he would no longer get involved in senseless things, would not allow the rebellion to drag him down the rabbit hole he had just climbed out of. He had come too far to give in so quickly, later it would all feel like a moment of weakness. Nothing more. Nothing less

The fact she didn’t say it made it worse, that their history meant he could read it on her face and the distance between them made it harder for him to guess the inflection. He gave her a coded expression of his own, something caught between a plea and a dismal: don’t ask me like that. He turned his face away from her. She had to know by then that he didn’t have answers anything anymore, especially that.

They needed to find Obi-Wan. It would be better if they were all together. Rishla would probably feel better with someone more certain. More dependable. 

But then she speaks to him directly. Decades upon decades upon decades. Training and training ( a winner. a loser. a stalemate.)  Laughing. Smugness. Struggles to catch their breath. Looks of encouragement, of understanding, of defeat (and that if such a thing exist they would be too stubborn to ever know it.). 

All of it condensed into a single moment, into three words. 

He gripped his lightsaber until he felt a piece of metal digging into his hand. It had taken so my lives it wouldn’t notice one more. His hands discolored from battles, from taking the most extreme to cleanse them, knew the difference.

( phantoms didn’t just exist in the shadows, they were the last thing someone say saw before they died. not everyone sung of praise, but they were singing nonetheless. heroes weren’t forged from inaction, it took more than mantras to save a thousand lives.)

He spent so long trying to snuff it out, the fire that burned inside his chest and existed long before thing fell apart. A level of self control through sheer force of will was the thing that separated Llewyn from his enemies. If he gave into Rishla now it proved that at the first offer he had caved and was just the man he was trying to prove to the galaxy he was not.

No matter where he went it was always the same, past overlapping with the present around him. Each could be the other. 

He didn’t remember turning on his lightsaber but at the familiar crackle he holds it up to his face. The glow was nearly blinding but didn’t look away. There was no other shade of blue that could match it. The last time he had ignited he had held it that close he had wondered if was by possible to die by your own saber. It was not tested theory yet.

He knew what he needed to do, but first he needed to hear Rishla say something else. Being a jedi was like walking in the mirrors and Llewyn knew what he’d see reflecting back at him if he looked behind him, it might even be something he could live with, but first he needed her to tell him to turn around,

“Do you permit it?”

Rishla shouldn’t ask this of him.

In a better world, they would have a choice; in a better world, they wouldn’t be here. A better world would mean wiping nearly twenty years from existence. Moments slide over her like water. Her, unmoving and stalwart and true. And hurting. They’re both still hurting. 

The world dissolves. Mathias and Fein jump to the stage, and the sound of lightsabers igniting fills the air. Llewyn’s follows, casting its familiar hues over both their faces.

Rishla shouldn’t, but there’s no other way. 

She knows what he’s going to ask moments before he even says the words aloud. They worked side by side long enough during the Clone Wars, so much she came to know him almost as well as she knows herself. 

Her golden eyes narrow. 

She detaches her saberstaff from its leather strap and holds it horizontally above her head, unignited. The motion is a warning for those around them to stand back, and the crowd parts, a wide circle of space around them. 

“Master Alarcon,” Said lowly and carefully. Shocked faces surround the both of them, whispering. (Their faces were plastered on countless war propaganda holos during the Clone Wars. Will they be recognized?) One end of her saber ignites, and then the other, dark blue light arching over them when she tells Llewyn: 

Something else Noa would disagree on. Death has always known them. What a luxury it is to ignore it. Maybe that’s why the dreams of Coruscant still stay with her, stayed with her on her nameless planet. She let herself forget Death’s power, let her forget grief, just for a few years. Long enough for her spend decades barely eating, swallowed by vines, let her stare at the edge of the galaxy and wonder if her planet’s orbit will finally make it’s way out of it. She’d like to meet beings that live longer than her. Think her lifespan is a flicker. She’d like to meet a people that don’t know death, so maybe she knows it too. She doesn’t have that luxury. And neither does Rishla.

Rishla sits beside her and she’s met with a soft gaze, soft smile, a gloved hand to her back, scratching a spot between the shoulder blades, comfortable. She’s glad to see the relaxed posture, the arm on her knee. Maybe it’ll remind you of a past life, of a Creche after a spar, and the two of them left breathless and sitting and laughing. New weapons on the table, and Noa ready to hear everything the other can tell. Noa misses the voices Rishla had then, almost expects it now, would, if they were here under different circumstances.

“Maybe too well. And as you know me.” There’s a long moment she watches Rishla after she speaks, more to let the words settle for Rishla than herself, let her be alone with her thoughts, let her rest while she can. “If?” 

With knitted brows, “Rishla, I don’t care if you think I know, if you think everyone knows. I hate to tell you, but your thoughts are more elusive than your realize to those outside those doors, and nothing will change that,” fondness in the words, an old humor, before becoming more serious. Rishla’s more reserved now, more quiet, so Noa speaks more. “Our need to act is as important as hearing your words on any matter.” A beat, followed by slow words, “You don’t need to be ready to lead, Rishla, you can wait as long as you want. But what will happen, what we do as an Order will continue on with or without you. You remaining silent will have just as much impact than if you wanted to be active.”

“If,” Rishla repeats again in the exact same tone, tilting her head and lifting an eyebrow in a manner Noa would know more than anyone is playful. They know better than that. Noa knows better. It was common knowledge amongst Masters, Knights, and Padawans alike that Rishla Ilesar always had something to say—and she would say it, whether in six-hour long sessions before the High Council or in a lift of her chin. 

Noa’s hand on her back is welcome. She meets the other woman’s gaze, unwavering, and smiles softly. There’s a pause before she then moves to pick up her hair, near-black and grown long now, well past her waist.

Her shoulders rise and fall with a soundless sigh. Won’t say, I’m trying. Because there is more than just trying; you either act, or you don’t. You either succeed, or you fail—but failure isn’t a solid wall, an endpoint. The decision is whether or not you stand up again. (See, she rooted herself into the ground. The water over her builds and builds; yes, she is immovable. Yes, she still is. But the test now is whether or not the Jedi will rise again, herself included.)

Golden eyes pierce, unreadable, burning in their intensity. Her lips press into a straight line. “I have so much to say.” There’s a tightness to her words, in the way they’re said at half-volume like there’s a hand at the base of her throat. “It’s been so long.” She’s forgotten how. 

“It’s no excuse,” Her voice is low, deadly serious, “But you deserve to know. I took a Vow of Silence the day the Order fell.” A serious pact amongst Lorrdians—for her, woman hell-bent on making sure her words were felt. “And I broke it the day Obi-wan found me.” 

Which means she spent sixteen years in silence. It’s something she hasn’t confessed to anyone. 

eyes cinch for a second, as if confused - there’s too much racing across minds to decide what exactly is the source for this acidic aftertaste left behind - perhaps a cumulation, even - but he swallows it, fixes smiles haphazardly to be something as close to normalcy as it can become.

they all know it is but a poor guise. there has always been shame in how he wasn’t a better liar. 

“maybe.” he says simply, eyes half-crinkled with a half-smile. “next time, then - we’ll see. i guess it doesn’t hurt to show some spirit.” 

any mask of careful regularity cracks at her words, eyes automatically falling onto hands, onto floors. heads bowed with embarrassment, hands knotting and unknotting, teeth breaking skin of lip. 

repeat it in heads: pity. pity. pity. nothing more, nothing less. don’t forget. 

“it was just luck.” he hates how words are too close to a whisper. hates how he feels too small, how he can’t look at her. “the others did more - i was - i was just there. nothing else.” 

he hesitates, perhaps for too long. knows that answers are half-tries at best, can only draw eyes up to shoulders. 

“i’m not - not a rebel. i’ve only ever been - lucky. that’s it. there’s no space for that in a rebellion like this.” 

Rishla shakes her head a fraction and tells him, “Don’t fake your smile.” It doesn’t work on her. Boil down to what’s essential, to what’s most him. Normalcy is a concept. If it needs to be faked in order to achieve it, then it isn’t normalcy at all; it’s a lie. She lifts an eyebrow and tips her head down a fraction. 

Says, I see your guise. Says, there is no need to lie.

“There’s power in community.” She tells him, nearly laughing at how much like her old Master she must sound now. “You’re all on your own paths—but right now, you’re on them together.”

(What becomes of a woman raised of two ideals? Jedi and Lorrdian, the identities not always intersecting. See, she builds an identity of her own, one that encompasses both. One that encompasses her. Xavis is curled shoulders and hands. Lowered head.) 

“There is no such thing as luck,” Her voice is stoic, clear and precise, “If there is, then the fact that the Rebellion is still standing could be based on sheer luck.” Rishla looks up from him, gaze cast out on the courtyard, “Look around you, Xavis. Do you realize where you are? The people you’re surrounded by?” 

(If luck existed, then it’s the only reason why she’s still alive. Why everyone around them have died—why they’ve been left behind.)

TRANSMISSION…

[There is nothing left to be said on the intruders, on the Emperor, until they are both on the Rebel Base again, the warning has been given, they know what it means. This is not the place for conversation. Noa passes the commlink over the blueprints, as her gaze and fingers brush past the weapons, gauging them.] It’s corruption. There’s ten Crystals, forced together into this one thing. Their real power is beyond anything they could understand.

TRANSMISSION...

She must’ve gone mad. Being in the presence of so many adepts of the Light side of the Force is corrupting – it’s the only feasible explanation for why she’s deigned to come on board the Jedi’s ship for what can’t possibly turn out to be a leisurely stroll through the Emperor’s archives. The last time she went there, she wasn’t even at ease, and then she had done less preparation than she has now – or well, less preparation for that particular part. Sometimes, she follows her instincts, and those had told her to go to the Vaults, even though she’d known little about how they were guarded, and it all turned out fine. Really great, actually. Except now she’s going back. “Very. Far too silent, there.” A lightning-quick grin passes over her face before she saunters into the cockpit; unceremoniously flopping in the co-pilot’s seat, she stretches out and takes up far more space than she needs. “Say, Ilesar. I know you’re all very talented Jedi and some of you, experienced war criminals – but I’m purely asking this as an interested party. How big is the chance that any of you lot will freeze with joy upon seeing your old home?”

“Define joy, Shrike,” Is her response, mimicking Khadis’s voice on the latter word. (She hardly moves. Except, her thumb and index finger tap together once, then twice.) “Will you freeze with joy upon seeing your face plastered up on the Wanted holos, alongside the rest of the Jedi? You’ll practically be one of us.”

Rishla has to wonder what the Empire taught Khadis. They’ve twisted the history of the Jedi—kill the dissidents in the older generation off, or beat them to the point of silence. Then, make it so that the younger generations have no alternative information to dispute what the higher power deems is known, and you control the masses. 

“I only hope they haven’t renovated the place too much.” No tone in her voice. (Look closely, and you’ll see the way her jaw ticks.)

She watches the other woman through their reflections in the viewport, stretched out like a cat in the co-pilot’s seat. Rishla wonders what all the ex-Inquisitor learned before she was welcomed into the Empire’s fold. Her countenance isn’t that of someone raised among them from early childhood; the years don’t quite line up from what little information Fulcrum could gather on her. (Was she taken, or given? Who were her parents, her siblings?) 

Orion likens the vaults to a tomb. She had never been down here, too young and unruly in her Padawan days to ever be granted access to the Jedi’s most sacred knowledge. Even then, after leaving Coruscant the first time, Orion had little desire to turn back.

Until now. Locked away together with the knowledge kept from her for so long. The only thing that stood between her and an eon of philosophy were a few doors. From her perch at the corner of the room she had been eyeing the depths of the vaults, a pitch black corridor leading to parts unknown. Sleep was nothing to a woman once hunted.

And then she hears Rishla’s voice, sees the corners of her form ascend. They’d discarded the titles after Jedha. The way Orion spit them out even before the disaster, it was for the best. A thin glow blankets them, and the Master has granted her a new mission. This way of communicating is easier. It reminds her of her youth; one foot in front of the other, until the objective is complete.

Orion merely nods, her footsteps at first heavy for the sake of the other Jedi in the room with them in various states of unsleep. They slowly fade to nothing, the practice of a child trained to spy, to transmogrify from body to living lockpick. “No time like the present.”

Orion readies the decryption keys, she had prepared for the mission, slotting one into the blast doors at the end of dark hallway, working by Rishla’s light. The tiny circuit board sticks out from the keypad, triggers springing from it like one of those ancient typewriters. Orion adjusts it slightly, and the doors open for them. “After you.” She slides low under her natural tone.

This deep in the vaults, they cannot be sure what awaits them. Best to be careful, lest they encounter a minotaur.

Rishla tips her head at Orion before stepping forward into the dark, arm outstretched, lightstick reflecting off of durasteel walls. Each one is lined with drawers, databanks filled with information. She peers down at her commlink and says aloud, “The maps identify this room as schematics.” Meaning: they shouldn’t touch any of these. They need to leave this place exactly as they found it, with no sign that there was anything tampered with. 

Although Orion spat at her title as a Jedi when they last spoke, Rishla can pick out remnants of what she was taught. Orion moves like a shadow. Rishla knows the amount of training that went into it; Padawan to Spy, faceless and unknown. 

It was not the way.

She allows the thoughts to slide over her like water as she breezes past the main circuit boards which control the Palace’s primary functions. “But...” Stopping in front of one of the last columns, she motions for Orion to stand beside her, holding out the glowstick to illuminate the labels. “If we can access the correct files without triggering any alarms, perhaps we could retrieve more accurate blueprints of the Vaults.” 

They could always abandon this venture for the sake of safety, which would leave them wandering around in the dark with only Fulcrum’s outdated information to aid them.