more time travel. always more time travel.

Eight shakes his head, sadness reflected in his eyes. "Leave me, Grail. Your father's retaliation will be too great. I can't let him hurt you."

Red hot anger flashes across Grail's features, and he inwardly curses Arcann for what he's done to him. He stomps his foot. "No! I won't accept that! He's kept you locked up here for the entire time I've been alive, longer even! We're getting you out of here, and I'm not leaving you behind this time!" He pointedly ignores Eight's soft protests as he tightens his grip and jerks them down the winding hallways of the Spire, half-stumbling and half-running, until—

"Just where do you think you're going?" A voice that he never wanted to hear again booms, and he cranes his neck around slowly to meet the enraged gaze of Emperor Arcann.

His blood runs cold, but he manages to lift his chin defiantly regardless. Eight stiffens behind him, and he moves protectively before him with shield raised.

"I see." Arcann rumbles, singular blazing eye flicking from him to Eight. He ignites his lightsaber, and the knights flanking him enter formation. "You will return him to me. You may be prince, but you have overstepped your boundaries, young one."

"I think not," Grail retorts, bristling. "He's my father, and we're leaving." He and Arcann stare at each other, neither of them willing to back down, and the tension is so thick that one could cut it with a vibroblade.

A sigh. "You really should learn to listen to your betters," Arcann answers almost mockingly, as if he had expected this, and strikes.

The fight can barely be called one. Grail stands his ground against Arcann's assault, but he proves too experienced, too strong, and Grail finds himself almost immediately winded as he stumbles backwards and falls to one knee.

Lightning gathers in Arcann's hand.

"Stop!" Eight flings himself in front of Grail, covering his body with his own. His beseeching, fearful eyes meet Arcann's, and he hugs his son tighter, as if he would be torn from him at any moment. "You don't need to hurt him. He's beaten!"

"He must be reminded of his place," Arcann says coldly.

"He knows it. Please, forgive him," Eight begs, and Grail hates the fragile way he sounds, so desperate to keep him safe, but he can do little else in reply save for dig his fingernails into his arm.

Instead of answering, Arcann lowers his lightsaber. He beckons for Eight to come him.

"Dad, don't," It is Grail's turn to plead, but Eight only looks back at him with the deepest of sorrows reflected in his features as he stands up from shielding his form.

"I love you, Grail. Don't ever forget that." Eight plants a fleeting kiss atop his forehead, and Grail suddenly feels like his heart is being ripped out of his chest as he helplessly watches his father return to the man that had stolen his life away. No. No!

He grits his teeth and touches the earpiece hidden behind the curtains of his hair. "Koth! We need you!"

"Hang onto something!" Koth shouts back across the commlink, and Grail yanks Eight back to him with the Force just as the windows explode around them. A ship rises before the shattered transparisteel panes, its guns spinning.

"Time to go!" Koth yells, this time in person as the shuttle's miniguns fire upon Arcann and his retinue, who deflects them all with his lightsaber. His knights are not so fortunate, scattering like ants.

Grail doesn't hesitate, choosing to leap across the length of the room with his father in tow, shooting directly into the shuttle bay as soon as Koth flashes open the doors. They land with a thump, shaking the entirety of the little ship as it begins to takeoff. He hears a mighty roar behind him, and Grail turns as Arcann looks up at their fleeing forms, hate burning in his eyes.

"Goodbye, Arcann," He says above the howling wind with contempt. "You'll never deserve him."

-/-

When they return to Odessen, Lana and Theron are already waiting for them.

"Welcome back, Commander," Lana greets Grail cordially, but the entirety of her focus is instead trained on the next person to exit the shuttle, and Grail finds her features soften with a nostalgic look on her face he's never seen before. "Eight. It's good to see you again."

"And you," Eight says, brightening as his gaze lands on the two familiar faces in the room. "It's been a long time."

"That it has," Lana remarks with an incline of her head, and her voice turns sympathetic. "I only wish we were meeting under better circumstances."

"I'd say these are pretty good circumstances, all things considered," Theron adds, offering a brief smile alongside Lana. He nods at Grail. "Great work out there. No casualties, and the extraction was a success."

"Then why the doom and gloom?" Koth pipes up, poking his head out from the shuttle. "We should be celebrating right now. You should've seen the look on Arcann's face!"

Grail opens his mouth to join the banter, but falls short when he notices his father standing furtively to the side. He lightly brushes against him, then reaches out to hold his hand. "Hey. It's going to be okay. You're safe here, and we'll all protect you. I promise he can't reach us here." The rest of the Alliance goes silent, mood made less jovial as Grail whispers soothing words to Eight.

"He could've killed you, Grail. If anything happened to you—"

"There's others protecting me," Grail interjects, wounded as his pride is that his strength was not yet up to the task of facing his other father. "Arcann will have to go through all of us."

"I'm not worth that price."

"You are," Grail insists, "you'll see. I'll show you everything he kept you from. You'll change your mind."

Theron suddenly coughs into his fist, and Lana steps forward. "Grail, why don't you let Theron show Eight around the base? We can talk more while he's getting settled." She gives a stern look to Koth, who immediately whistles in another direction and pretends he saw nothing.

Eight gives him a quizzical look, but Grail urges him on. "We'll catch up later," Grail says as Eight leaves with Theron. When the two of them are out of sight, Grail turns to Lana, his face falling. "Lana…"

"I know, Grail." Lana's own sadness is made manifest, and Grail only notices now the wrinkles in her face and the bits of grey in her ombre hair. "It shouldn't have happened this way."

"Why didn't anyone come for him, Lana?" Grail finally asks, his throat closing as he thinks of the ways his father suffered in solitude for so long with no one but a monster for company. "Why did we leave him there with him? Why was he so alone?"

Lana offers no apologies, but her eyes remain downcast, and Grail merely suppresses a sob as she places one hand on his shoulder.

lavai is force blind. he can't use it, can't touch it, can't feel it even when it's being actively used against him unless it's causing some sort of physical effect (i.e. a force push).

he was the only heir(ess) to a sith couple of high standing, and obviously. you dont want a sith kid who can't even FEEL the force. having more kids was not part of the equation, and they were big sith alchemy types, so... why not just put the force into this one?

so they ended up fusing him with a tuk'ata in the Force. not on a physical level but in the SOUL, if you will. so now there IS a part of him that can use the force but it's literally only the tuk'ata part lmao. and its super aggressive adn relentless and more likely to try to bite people than communicate with him so. another setback.

but its cool! they can fix it!

(they cannot fix it)

well maybe they could have except a rival sith family destroys their house except for their poor force-bllind heir because 1. he's not a threat and 2. they won't be called out for exterminating a pureblood lineage. look! its fine! he's right there! [smashcut to an incredibly traumatized preteen]

he did at one point have a dark council assigned caretaker that the tuk'ata ends up killing eventually and he's old enough to be left to his own devices by then so that's how it is...

he doesnt even like sith politics or powers i think. he is a hater in that way he HAS a saber and he HAD to learn to use it but he doesn't like it. he probably keeps it somewhere in the house with all the old sith literature and research his family did. the tuk'ata brain doesnt need a lightsaber to rip people apart with the force and he is honestly genuinely concerned about what might happen if it figures out how to use one. they are semi-sentient…

i'm still figuring him out but here are some facts to go

i know he sings but hates to do it in front of people (because presumably his dark council assigned caretaker made him perform to try to draw shame and anger out of him and therefore the force...)

i feel like being scholarly runs in the family so hes deffo got some sort of interest there im just deciding what. NOT SITH ALCHEMY. FOR OBVIOUS REASONS.

he does hate his parents

hes trans because i think having an heiress that decides to be an heir or vice versa after they grow up so they can correct people and say it was like that the whole time and they're just misremembering is fun. baller trope is what it is.