DOOM!

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] 12 short J/TK stories

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 05:27:47 GMT

There are 12 new short Jacen/Tenel Ka unnamed stories (each paired with a song) that I wrote within the past few weeks and they can be found over at this post. Some are short, some are long, but six concern post-LotF J/TK if Jacen survived and the other six concern canon, where Jacen has died. So yes, new J/TK craziness. ;D

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] Stay

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 05:29:19 GMT

Title: Stay
Series: Star Wars: EU, post-LotF
Characters: Tenel Ka
Rating: PG? I guess?
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I just have fun with them. Wangsty fun. DDDDDDD:
Notes: Mush mush mushhhhhhhh angsty depressing musssssh... ugh I want them back canon so bad. OH WELL TIME TO MAKE MY OWN CANON. D:

STAY

Every morning now she came out here to be alone. She came out here to think.

She would wake early, as the suns were brightening, slip on a pair of sandals and pass the guards along the hallways of the Fountain Palace. She would emerge into the cool morning air, sweep her eyes over the capital city below and take the path around the stone palace, through the forest to the water. The sandals would come off and she would cross as careful as ever, slowly seeking out the rocks under the surface until she glided across the water to the grove.

Some mornings she could still hear him.

Tenel Ka.

Her eyes would snap open and she would peer around her. There was nothing. There never was.

She would be seated on the stone bench in the small clearing, her legs pulled under her and her muscles tense. She didn't know what it felt like to relax anymore.

Tenel Ka hadn't felt calm since Jacen Solo died.

Sometimes when she came out here she would just sit and listen to the lapping of the water around her, outside the walls of vines. Sometimes she would cry quietly. Sometimes she sprawled out across the bench and stared at the sky.

Today she found herself on the ground in the grove, laying with her head on her right arm and her ivory nightgown against the soft grass. The scent of the blades drifted over her and into her system; it was sweet and, for some strange reason, heavy. A shock shot through her mind, telling her that this wasn't right; she was open, she was vulnerable.

But that shock failed to penetrate the dreamlike state she had already fallen into and her body seemed to be closing up on itself. Her knees were drawn to her chest and her eyes drifted shut.

Tenel Ka...

"Tenel Ka."

Turning her head towards the entrance of the grove, she felt a smile try to creep its way across her face at the sight of him. He was silhouetted against the setting suns and as he stepped into the shield of vines surrounding them, she could see he was dressed in pale gray. His eyes were bright and his hair was mussed -- that lopsided grin of his was threatening to cross his face, she could see it.

"You made it."

"Of course I did." His bare feet padded through the grass and he stopped in front of her, kneeling in front of where she sat on the stone bench. "I slipped a couple times in the water, but I managed to find the rocks. I mean, I'm not completely drenched, yeah?"

She wasn't speaking of him finding his way to the grove; she actually wasn't sure what exactly she was speaking of, but that didn't matter now. What mattered now was that they were together. Their time together was always so short, so furtive. A small chat in the main hall of the palace surrounded by people, a brief meeting in the hangar in the middle of the usual staff -- a stolen moment in the Queen Mother's wardrobe; lips locked and bodies together against a row of extravagant gowns she never liked to wear.

Leaning forward, she wrapped her right arm around him and buried her head in his neck. She felt him stand under her and she stood with him.

"I have missed you," she murmured into his skin. It was warm and soft, it was alive.

I've missed you too.

He shot the thought back to her through their bond in the Force since his lips were too busy seeking out hers at that moment. There was a hunger from him that she hadn't sensed in a good while. The longer she thought about it, the more she realized she felt the same. As his lips moved from hers and traveled to her neck, she released a heavy breath into his ear that she hadn't even known she hadn't been holding.

She figured that must have been what sent Jacen Solo over the edge at that exact moment, as he pulled her away from the stone bench and pressed her back into the thick wall of greenery. She could feel her hair getting tangled in the vines behind her and her cheeks brushing against the turquoise flowers as he drifted fingertips across her jaw line, shifting her head to the side to gain better access to the skin of her neck and shoulders.

Pale gray covered ivory as Tenel Ka grabbed a handful of his shirt and pulled him against her before moving her fingers from his clothing to his hair. He had an arm around her waist and a hand at her shoulder, fingertips gently prodding the strap of her nightgown to fall from where it sat. His breath was hot, his skin was warm and his lips were moist... but wasn't he gone?

In a moment of weakness, a little something she only ever revealed around him, she whispered in his ear. "Stay with me."

His lips instantly stopped their furious work on a soft spot above her collarbone, and he pulled his head back to stare into her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak but he said nothing. And with no warning, he leaned forward and kissed the smooth skin below her ear. She could feel him against her, breathing, his chest against hers. She could feel his hands drifting down her sides; she could feel him drawing in air to speak...

"Your Majesty... I..."

Tenel Ka.

Gray eyes shot open, seeing the world ahead of her on its side. After a few moments, Tenel Ka shifted, pushing herself to a sitting position. She had left a faint outline of her sleeping form in the grass and from the suns overhead, she noted that her small nap had only lasted a mere few minutes.

But she felt years older.

Stumbling to her feet, she reached out to grab at one of the latticed vine walls around her, clenching her fingers around the wire inside to keep her steady. After rubbing the sleep out of her eyes she blinked repeatedly and managed to amble to the waters edge before collapsing to her knees. Bending over and closing her eyes, Tenel Ka scooped up a handful of the cool liquid and splashed her face.

As the water slid down her cheeks and dripped from her chin, Tenel Ka took a few deep breaths and opened her eyes, staring down at her reflection. The first thing that caught her eye were the copper waves of tangled hair that hung around her face -- she reached up to pick a couple of leaves from the strands, and that was when the mark on her collarbone caught her eye. It was a vaguely rounded discoloration that sat along the top edge of the bone and her breath hitched in her throat when she remembered that was where Jacen's lips had been.

Quickly spinning her focus around, her eyes locked on a spot in the grove. What she figured she would see was only on the ground next to one certain area of the wall of vines -- there was a small smattering of turquoise petals and bright viridian leaves in the grass. Back to her reflection she went, her eyes not able to leave the mark on her skin. When she brushed her fingers against it, a warmth seemed to spread over her body.

How... how did he...

Tenel Ka heard a soft whistle and looking up and out towards the lake, she saw a figure in black standing on the water. From the placement, she could tell that it was on the path of rocks. But the more she looked at it, she realized it didn't even need the rocks. It was almost transparent.

"Jacen..."

Shifting slightly, the hood of the cloak was thrown back and she saw his face. His eyes were pale, changing from a brown to what seemed like an orange-yellow. They were fading. The tips of his hair brushed his cheeks and a darker shadow of his lopsided grin had stolen his lips.

Moments passed as she stared at him and she watched as the disgusting smirk vanished from his face and his eyes seemed to sink into that familiar brandy shade. He lifted a hand to his lips and did the last thing Tenel Ka ever expected.

He blew her a kiss.

A shudder racked her body, she blinked and whatever she had seen was gone.

He was gone.

The fingers of her right hand absently moved to her collarbone, lightly gliding over the discoloration he had left with his lips.

He was gone, wasn't he?

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] Just Yesterday

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:50:00 GMT

Title: Just Yesterday
Series: Star Wars: EU, post-RotJ, featuring some Solo family love and also some heavy Death Troopers love
Characters: Han Solo, Chewbacca, Jacen Solo, Anakin Solo, Trig Longo
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I just have fun with them. Wangsty fun! D:
Notes: I loved Death Troopers way too much and after the book was over I sort of wondered what went down with the whole incident in Han's head later in his life. I mean, you can't just forget something like that.

JUST YESTERDAY

"Be careful, Chewie."

The wookiee grumbled an affirmative and peered around the corner of the building, Han Solo peeking around Chewbacca in turn. There was nothing down there in the alleyway, just streaks of sunshine hitting the worn pathway and the non-descript walls of the buildings that made up Hanna City.

Han and Chewbacca were on Chandrila, running a couple business errands for Mon Mothma and Admiral Ackbar (much to Leia's delight -- and after she prodded a little bit too). When they had arrived and found a place to stay for the few nights they were going to be there, they were contacted. A message had been left for them on the main terminal at the front desk of the inn.

Heard you were on Chandrila. Would be honored if you would stop by to say hello to an old friend.

- "Kid"

Kid? This could've been anyone. Han called everyone younger than him kid. Corellian Hells, this could've been from one of his sons for that matter. Of course, Jacen and Anakin were thirteen and eleven, respectively, and were too busy getting into innocent trouble to leave messages like this. His mind raced back to them for a moment. He told them to stay put at the inn, in their room with the doors locked (Leia had insisted she bring them as well -- "male bonding time with Dad and Uncle Chewbacca", she told him). With a quick shake of the head, Han turned his focus back to the task at hand.

They were prepared for some sort of trap, of course. So here they were, making their way down an alleyway to the address that was attached to the message, weapons in hand and concentrated grimaces on their faces. Anyone could have left that message. Friend or foe. Even though Han had been out of the smuggling business for awhile, he knew there were still people (and beings) out there who would love to have his head, along with that genuine smirk, right up on their wall. Chewie's too. Snarl and all.

"Hey."

Shifting quickly, Han and Chewbacca spun around and raised their weapons in unison, business ends pointed at a man seated in a chair under a canopy on a stone porch. Solo let his eyes flicker fast to the right side of the front door, where a small set of numbers and letters let him him know that the address they were in front of was the one that had been attached to the message they received.

"Whoa, whoa, guys. Come on."

Han studied the man from over the barrel of his blaster, his mind shuffling through faces of people he knew and met throughout his life. This man looked familiar; his eyes had seen way too much, Han could tell. And his calm expression -- the way his lips upturned slightly, like that was as wide as he could smile -- that jogged his memory a bit.

The man spoke up, and Han placed who he was just as the word slipped from the other's lips.

"Purge."

"Trig Longo."

Chewbacca brayed loudly in an excited fashion, holstering the crossbow he had pointed at him and leaned down, gathering him up in his arms and pulling him from his seat, wrapping him up in a hug.

"You can put me down now." Trig smiled his tight-lipped smile once more and Chewie obliged, setting him back on his feet and tousling his hair a bit. Chewbacca remembered carrying him before, but he was much lighter and a lot more angry then. Trig had said the same thing to him then too. Of course, it had been in a meaner and more curt fashion.

Han could tell that to Chewbacca, Trig Longo was still that thirteen year old little scamp they had helped back on the contaminated Star Destroyer so long ago. It made a lopsided grin spread across his face.

"How've you been, kid?" He almost flinched at his use of kid, knowing that Trig wasn't a kid anymore. He had gotten older and he had been through too much. And Han knew that the too much had all taken place on that Imperial Prison barge and the Star Destroyer in those dark hours years prior.

"Not too bad." He jerked a thumb back to the small home behind him. "Living the quiet life, I guess."

"How's Cody?" Han asked, remembering that Trig and Zahara had stuck together once Han and Chewie parted ways with them.

"She's good. She's actually on Corellia now, working as a doctor. Helping people."

"Naturally. It would be weird for her to be doing any--" Han paused, mid-sentence, his eyes shifting up to Chewie, who stood on his left.

Slowly, Han leaned backwards, peering around the mass of fur to see two small heads at the end of the alleyway, vanishing from sight the moment he caught them.

"Would you excuse me?" Han bolted past Chewbacca and sped down the alleyway in a clumsy sort of run, skidding to a halt as he reached the end and looked down the adjacent alley he and Chewie had come from. The two heads he had seen were now on two bodies that were loosely clutching at each other and almost cowering a bit as well.

"I thought I told you two to stay in the room!"

"But..." The younger one started, his words failing him after that one.

"Dad, it was boring in the room."

"Yeah!"

Knowing that their contact wasn't any sort of dangerous, Han motioned for them to go in front of him, down to where Uncle Chewie was standing with a man Han had met when the guy was roughly his children's ages. "Go on."

With a whoop of delight, Anakin Solo took off running down the shaded alley towards Chewbacca. Jacen seemed content to walk back beside his father. "Who is that guy with Chewie?"

Han looked down to his oldest son, noting the way his face stayed slightly wary. The boy was careful. And the boy asked a lot of questions, but Han realized that he would never get sick of them. "He's an old friend. Chewbacca and I helped him out through a rough time."

"What happened?"

Another question, naturally.

"We helped him escape somewhere bad. Very bad."

"Why was it bad?"

"It was a prison barge, he--"

"What did he do to be in prison?"

"Nothing. He was wrongfully arrested, along with his dad and his brother."

Jacen tilted his head slightly as they walked side-by-side. Only moments passed before he asked, his voice lowered. Han thought it looked like the boy already knew the answer to the question he was about to spout. "What happened to them?"

"They died." Han caught the flinch of Jacen's expression. "He was there when it happened to each of them."

Han knew Trig hadn't been around for Kale Longo's real death. Trig had been with him and Chewie when that happened. But the boy had later relayed that the thing his brother had turned into had come after him, and almost killed him had Trig not pushed him to his death into the ventilation shaft.

He kept his head turned a bit longer, his eyes locked on his son. Jacen didn't flinch that time, no. His whole expression almost melted at what Han had said. He felt his hand being touched and peered down to see that Jacen had grabbed it and was holding onto it tight and when his eyes looked back to the boy's face he saw that his gaze was locked on his little brother. Han knew that the answers Jacen had got to his questions were really turning some gears in that boy's mind.

"And who might they be?" Trig inquired, as Han strolled up.

"These are my sons." Han shook Jacen's arm, their hands still joined. "This is my oldest, Jacen." And pointing to his youngest, Han grinned as he watched Anakin running circles around Chewbacca's legs. "That's Anakin." The boy stopped long enough to wave.

"Your... your sons." Trig said.

"Yeah, I know." Han returned. "Can you believe it?"

Trig Longo sighed as he looked between them. He had always figured Han Solo hated kids. He hadn't been that excited when he found Kale and Trig all those years ago pointing blasters at them. Sure, they had blasters, but it's not like they would've been able to shoot anything with them if they had tried.

"Hi boys. My name's Trig."

"Hello mister," Anakin exclaimed, reaching out to shake his hand.

"Nice to meet you, sir." Jacen stuck his hand out as well.

Trig took both of them in turn, glancing up to Han as he did. The man looked proud and that almost made Trig chuckle. The man's face shifted quickly from pride to disgust though, as he spotted the chrono on the tower in the square they were near.

"Nggggh. We have a meeting to sit in on that's starting in a few minutes." Han shook his head. "Politics."

"You? Politics?"

"Doing it for the wife."

"Awwww." Trig said, watching Han's cheeks turn the slightest shade of pink. "I would've never taken you for a man like that after seeing you in those orange jumpsuits after your stint in solitary."

"You were in solitary?!" Anakin squealed. "Wow, Dad!"

"Oooooh, let's not talk about that right now, buddy. Don't want to give the kids any ideas."

"Come on, Dad." Jacen spoke up. "Like we would do anything you used to do."

"Hey!" Han decided to drop the subject, both of his boys staring up at him expectedly. "Say bye to Trig, we have to head out so we have time to lock you in the rooms at the inn again so we can get to this meeting." Under his breath he added, "Not that I want to really go."

Trig knelt down, glancing between Han's sons as he spoke. "You two look after each other okay?"

Offering a sloppy salute, Anakin responded, "Always!"

"Of course." Jacen said at the same time.

"We should grab a bite to eat or something later tonight, Longo. Catch up. I actually want to know how you're doing, unlike a lot of other old friends who contact us."

Chewbacca rumbled an agreement.

"Yeah, definitely. You know where I live, guys. Just let me know later."

"Will do." Han smiled.

Chewie ruffled Trig's hair once more and started off down the alley with Han by his side. Jacen and Anakin followed, Anakin stopping to climb up on some waste bins. Trig watched as Jacen gently pulled his little brother down and grabbed his hand, leading him down the alleyway behind their father.

He saw a little bit of what he had been in Anakin -- curious, opinionated. But what hurt him the most was that he saw Kale in Jacen. He saw that caring and devoted big brother.

Trig turned away, violently wiping tears from his eyes. He hadn't cried for his brother in years. Seeing Han's sons though, that did it. Trig just knew that there would be something... something in the future that would test those boys, just like it had with him and Kale. Something that would happen to one that the other wouldn't be able to stop. It was hard for siblings not to have moments like that in hard times.

Drifting back into the chair he had been lovingly pulled from, Trig Longo rested his arms on the table beside him and buried his face there. It had been twenty-three years since the outbreak on the Purge. Twenty-three years since he was forced to kill what was left of his brother. But now he was crying like it just yesterday.

Down the alleyway, even over Anakin and Jacen's excited chatter, Han Solo heard a muffled sob from the way they had come. He shut his eyes against it and felt Chewie squeeze his shoulder. He had been placing Jacen and Anakin in the positions Kale and Trig had been in and the sob he had heard had driven it all home. He felt for the boy. More now than he did then, twenty-three years ago.

kdjfklajsdkfdjflkagj DT was such a good book. <33333 I had to write something.

FANFICTION // [Stephen King's The Long Walk] Better Than You Know

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 02:00:38 GMT

Title: Better Than You Know
Series: Stephen King's The Long Walk
Characters: Peter McVries
Disclaimer: THE LONG WALK IS NOT MINE OMG YOU GUYZ. It all belongs to ~~Uncle Stevie~~ Stephen King and I'm just having fun with the characters and such. :D

BETTER THAN YOU KNOW

He was dancing somewhere between disgusted, angry and depressed. One of those feelings that didn't have an exact word and was hard to describe, but one of those that was so very easy to feel.

He had returned from the hospital mere minutes before, half past one in the morning, to an apartment full of drunk roommates. He didn't know where the booze had come from, nor did he care. And he wasn't shocked at all when none of them bothered to notice the freshly stitched up gash on his cheek.

"Hey Pete, sorry we drank all the beer!" One of them called out, not really sorry in the least bit. Could've been Mark, could've been Gunther.

Peter McVries didn't give a sweet fuck which one it was. They all sounded the same when their words were slurred. He just strolled through the tiny living room area, into his even smaller bedroom and quickly shut the door behind him. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do at that point, but he knew it would either be a.) pick up the lamp on his nightstand -- the crooked one without the shade -- and chuck that motherfucker against the wall or b.) slam his back against the door and slide down it for a sob or two.

C. C won. C was Peter standing aimlessly in the middle of his room, jaw slack, eyes glazed over, fingers tracing the stitches over the gash on his face. Touching it hurt like hell, but that didn't matter. What mattered was her.

"Pris."

Moments passed. Moments where Peter just stood, swaying slightly, staring at nothing imparticular. He didn't know what to do next, where to go, how to live. He had been living for her, day in and day out. But now that she had told him to get out -- get out for good -- he wasn't sure of anything anymore. Did he have a reason to get up in the morning? Did he have a reason to feed himself lunch or dinner? Did he have a reason to live?

His mind didn't bother working through any of these questions while his feet carried him to his thin mattress of a bed. He and Pris would snuggle up together in it occasionally, her fitting with her back to his front in a perfectly warm fashion. She complained about how flimsy and cheap his mattress was, but always said that the heat and comfort he provided made up for it.

Now it was just Peter, sprawled out on his back with his arms over his face. One wrist brushed against his stitches and he flinched, grunting in pain. Pulling his arms away, he turned onto his side and froze when he saw a pair of shoulders. They were rising and falling slowly and Peter found that his own hitched breathing was matching with the movement ahead of him. The room was so dark that Peter couldn't tell what color the head of hair was, but he saw the outline of a pale body lying next to him, under his sheets.

"Pris?" He murmured. "Priscilla?" The second inquiry was even quieter, his voice almost failing him.

Whoever that was under his sheets hadn't been there moments before and under any other circumstances Peter would've flipped his shit. But now... now he just stared. Was the pain in his cheek causing him to see things? Was he so emotionally drained that he was getting delirious?

Reaching out, his shaky hand landed on the shoulder of the person in his bed. He was expecting a mess of dark hair, Priscilla's dark hair, to brush his fingertips, but no. No, this person had short hair. This wasn't Pris.

The touch stirred the body and suddenly Peter was face to face with a male. Some guy he had never seen before with sleepy blue eyes and a curious expression. Peter reeled back in confusion, almost falling out his own bed. He had never seen this guy before, ever, but somehow he knew his name.

"Ray..."

Jolting awake, Peter McVries realized he was walking down the middle of an asphalt road, his feet drifting surprisingly close to the yellow line. That dream, those were the worst kind. The ones where you relive moments you never enjoyed, your brain adding in things that make it even more dreadful, if it's even possible.

The worst part of it all was that Peter couldn't decide whether the addition of a comfortable and disheveled looking Ray Garraty in his bed was a good thing or a bad thing.

God dammit.

"You okay?" A voice suddenly spoke up behind him, full of a solid and serious concern.

"Fine," Peter shook Ray's hand off his shoulder and glued his eyes to the road ahead, shifting away from Garraty. "I'm just fine and fuckin' dandy, thanks."

It's like slash, but not really. Hehe.

FANFICTION // [ ObsCure: The Aftermath ] Eight Husbands

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:48:02 GMT

Title: Eight Husbands
Series: ObsCure: The Aftermath
Characters: Shannon Matthews, Stan Jones (and a hint of Amy Brookes)
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters and I'm not making any money off of this -- I just wanted to have some emo-fun with them. XD
Notes: I changed a couple details in the set-up of this. Amy doesn't room with Shannon and they don't really know each other that well at the beginning of the game, but I changed that (lol artistic creative whatever) cause I was having fun thinking of Shannon and Amy banter back and forth. Hehe. Also, I have a total crush on Shannon and Stan. Even though Stan probably texts like a d-bag. Hehehehe~

EIGHT HUSBANDS

"Shannon, which one?"

Amy's voice would've startled her if Shannon hadn't been idly staring at the door to her room when the blonde popped in. She was standing there now, a shirt on a hanger in each hand. Shannon let her eyes roam over the items of clothing momentarily before leaning back in her chair and propping her booted feet up on her desk.

"Depends on who you're trying to impress tonight," she answered flatly.

It was a statement meant to be playful and a bit teasing. It wasn't really meant to be answered or responded to. But Amy Brookes never let anyone down, no sir.

"Sven."

Resting her head back against the chair, Shannon let her eyes move to the ceiling and placed her hands in her lap as she tilted the chair back and forth in a lazy fashion. She knew the answer would be Sven or her brother, Kenny. Sven or Kenny. Not that she was really expecting an answer. "Sven?" She made sure to clarify.

A quick glance at Amy showed the girl nodding so fast that her blonde pigtails threatened to come loose.

"Then you should just go in nothing. That's what he'd like."

With a high-pitched giggle, Amy vanished from the doorway back to her own space in their dorm and Shannon could hear her begin talking to herself as she rummaged through all the clothes she had. She returned moments later in a low-cut gray sweatshirt with a barely there tank top underneath it. It was actually quite conservative for Amy, who was now presenting herself to Shannon like some sort of supermodel. When Shannon quietly chuckled at her display, Amy entered the threshold of her room and pulled at her arm, trying to get her to stand from her seat.

"Come on! You're coming to Sven's right?"

"Yeah, yeah. At some point." Shannon reponded, watching her arm in Amy's grasp. The girl was still attempting to pull Shannon, who wasn't budging, out of her seat.

"Don't just say that and not show up!"

"I won't. I'll be there."

"And don't be late or all the booze will be gone."

"Of course," Shannon crossed her arm back in its place and watched Amy swish her way out back towards the front of the dorm. She stopped momentarily and turned back around, remembering something.

"And we might go crash the Delta Gamma Theta party too! So you really can't be late." An angelic smile crossed the girl's face.

"Wouldn't miss it."

"Bye Shannon!" The sound of a door slamming put a period at the end of Amy's farewells and it left Shannon in silence.

She tilted her head back again and stared at the ceiling, her eyes tracing the patterns along the thin tiles. Her mind drifted to other things, like it did these days, more often than not. Not a day went by where she didn't think of what had happened to her and her brother and Stan Jones at Leafmore High School.

Stan.

A sound broke the silence a few minutes later, and it took Shannon a second or two to realize exactly what the noise was. Her phone vibrated on her desk in front of her and picking it up, she flipped it open to check the text that had just arrived. The number was recognizable to her, so much so that she didn't even have to scroll to the bottom to see the name.

bringing dinner. hope ur in ur dorm.

It was from Stan.

Shannon stood from her seat and instantly looked to the mirror that hung over her desk. She hadn't meant to do it, and scowled when she saw her reflection, but it seemed like a reflex after learning that Stan was on his way over. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and straightened her black and red striped sweater out before briefly wondering how far away he was and how long--

A knock derailed her train of thought and she found her feet carrying her over to the entrance of the dorm without a second thought.

Pulling the door open, Shannon came face to face with a grinning Stan Jones, hip cocked out to the side, head tilted, with a pizza box balancing in one palm and the other pressed against the doorframe.

"Why hello there," he said, in the suavest tone he could muster.

Shannon only managed to arch an amused eyebrow, at him before waving him in and moving away from the entrance.

"What?" He entered and let the door shut behind him, following Shannon into her room and gently setting the pizza down on the small table in the middle of it. "Isn't that how all the bad porno flicks start?" He raised his hands up in the air and waved them around a bit, simulating a knock on a door. "Delivery guy! Got your pizza, miss!"

"Do I look like a connoisseur of fine porn to you?" Shannon cracked a smile and grabbed some old fast food napkins from her nightstand before sitting at the table.

Stan shrugged. He pulled his hat off after that, revealing a head of messy black hair, and shoved it in his back pocket, standing awkwardly next to the table.

"You can sit down, y'know." Shannon eyed the pizza before looking back up at Stan. "And thanks for bringing me dinner."

"Us," he corrected. He only fixed the sentence again when Shannon opened the box to a pizza missing three of its slices. "Okay, I got hungry in the van, so yeah, dinner for you. Y'welcome."

She grabbed a slice right out of the box and began eating it. She hadn't known how hungry she had been until the smell of the food hit her nose and she realized, as she was eating, subsiding the ravenous hunger that had entered her system at some point, that she probably looked pretty unladylike and maybe even a tad disturbing scarfing the food as fast as she was -- but she couldn't help it.

"Jesus, Shan, hungry much?" Finally sitting down at the table across from her, Stan couldn't help but grin.

"Just a little," she managed to say between bites.

"So what's going on tonight?"

Finishing her last bite of crust, Shannon took a swig from a bottle of Coke that was still sitting on the table from earlier in the day and answered the question only after she closed the bottle and set it back down on the table. "Sven's having a get together."

"And by get together you mean everyone sits around and gets drunk, yeah?"

Shannon nodded quickly, "Absolutely." Picking up a second piece of pizza, Shannon was about to take a bite when she stopped, adding something to her previous thought. "Amy mentioned something about crashing the big Delta Gamma Theta party tonight, so there might be that too."

"Sounds fun," Stan said blankly, picking at the edge of the table with his pointer finger.

She knew he was feeling down about that part. He always seemed a little forlorn when they would talk about something happening at the university. Even though he never said it, Shannon knew Stan felt like he was always out of the loop since he didn't go to college.

"You should come with us."

The brief ghost of a smile appeared on his lips for a moment and then disappeared as he looked from the table up to her. "I would, but I'm on break now -- I have to go back to work after this. There's more pizza to be delivered, you know."

"There's always pizza to be delivered," Shannon mumbled before taking a bite of her second slice. She wondered if there was any way he could take the rest of the night off and was about to ask when he spoke up.

"Can I get a glass of water?" He jabbed a thumb out towards the kitchen area across the dorm behind him.

"Of course."

He stood and wandered off towards the sink, grabbing a glass from the small cabinet and filling it to the brim with water. Shannon watched him do this, quietly and absently noting the way his fingers wrapped around the glass and the way his head shifted a bit as he turned the water on and off. She quickly looked back to her half-eaten second slice of pizza when he headed back into her room and sat down at the table again, sifting through his pocket momentarily before pulling out a small bottle of medication.

She recognized it instantly. It was the same thing her brother had to take. And between the medication and the thought of going back to work, Shannon figured Stan needed something, anything, to get him in at least a slightly better mood.

"So were you planning that whole porn entrance all night?" She nodded to the door with a slight upturn of her lips.

"Nah, I'm just always afraid I'm gonna deliver a pizza to a house and some skeevy cougar is gonna be there waiting to invite me in and talk about my pepperoni or something. Approaching any door with a pizza in hand makes me think of things like that now."

"Now that's a legitimate fear."

"Hey, you never know."

"So older women creep you out then?"

"No! Oh no, I mean there are some extremely hot older women." He paused to take two of his pills and then set the empty glass on the table. "But knowing my luck, the woman who would find me attractive would drag me in her house, take her teeth out and attempt to seduce me -- only after telling me how she murdered her eight husbands."

Shannon briefly got the mental image of Stan clawing at a screen door from the inside of a kitschy sort of house, screaming his lungs out, voice cracking all the way before being dragged into the bedroom by his feet and the door slamming. The sound of the door slamming in her head was punctuated by Stan slapping his open palm on the table.

"It would be a nightmare!"

"I'm sure there's worse things..." Shannon dragged one of the napkins across her lips and threw it in the almost empty pizza box, her eyes catching the sight of Stan shrugging lazily.

"I'm sure there are too."

Pushing the box back towards the middle of the table, Shannon leaned forward and rested her elbows on the hard surface, her eyes meeting Stan's. "So then if I opened the door to you, Mr. Pizza Delivery Boy, and seduced you --"

"I wouldn't be opposed to that at all."

"-- and then told you that I murdered my eight husbands."

"Okay, that's where it would get a little creepy." Stan continued to pick at the edge of the table, a grin apparent on his face. It vanished momentarily as he stood. "I guess I should get out of here."

"So soon?" Shannon inquired, standing after him and grabbing the pizza box. "I haven't even gotten to tell you about my dead husbands yet."

She moved to the trash can in the kitchen area and dropped the pizza box into it, washing her hands under a stream of warm water at the sink. Shannon figured Stan was already by the door, ready to say his quick goodbyes and leave, but after she grabbed a paper towel and before she turned away from the sink, there was a whisper in her ear.

"Well at least you finished the seduction part."

Her hands stopped fiddling with the paper towel and she turned her head, her chin touching her shoulder and her eyes caught sight of Stan Jones, behind her, his lips close to her ear.

"How?"

Shannon could feel him sigh slightly, his breath drifting across her neck. Then she watched him begin to back away, pulling his hat out of his back pocket and stretching it back over his head. There were black locks that still peeked out from the bottom here and there, but he pushed them away from his eyes and offered her a smile. "By being yourself." His backwards motion was stopped by the front door to the dorm and as Stan felt around behind him for the doorknob, he bowed slightly. "I guess I'll see you at some--"

"Come over after you get off work."

"I don't know how late that'll be..."

"I don't care," Shannon replied quickly.

Stan's smile widened as he pulled the door open and began to exit, leaning back into the frame to deliver a quick response. "Done. And tell everyone I said hey." With that, the door shut.

The paper towel Shannon had been drying her hands with was absently dropped onto the counter and it took her a few moments to tear her thoughts away from Stan Jones. She was suddenly looking very forward to seeing him again and wondered exactly what their next meeting would bring.

LOL AND THEN THERE WERE MONSTERS!

I love Shannon/Stan, but Sven, man. I NEED TO WRITE BILLIONS OF SVEN STORIES WHERE HE'S A VIKING AND STUFF. SVEN WILL BE A VIKING FOR HALLOWEEN~ XDDD

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] Not Right Now

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 05:39:13 GMT

Title: Not Right Now
Series: Star Wars: EU, NJO-era, during Star by Star, with a tiny smidge of the Legacy of the Force series
Characters: Jacen Solo, Zekk
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I just have fun with them. Wangsty fun!
Notes: Jacen and Zekk...? I really don't know what other notes I could include here that might beat that one. D:

NOT RIGHT NOW

"They asleep over there?" A voice sounded calmly through the dark, carrying over to the only other coherent occupant of the chamber.

"Yeah," a pause. "They are. They're out."

"They need it."

That came to his ears in a whisper and Zekk wasn't sure if he was meant to respond or not. It didn't help that the blackness surrounding them obscured everything and made it impossible to see his companion across the sea of sleeping bodies sprawled out ahead of him.

They were all worn out and tired. They hadn't even been on Myrkr long and they'd already lost some of their team.

Pulling an active blue glowrod from his pocket, Zekk muted the light with his hand and raised it in front of him, flooding the chamber in a soft cerulean bath. He saw a pair wide eyes peering at him and then the owner of them raise a hand and motion him across. It took him a good standard minute or two, but very carefully he managed to make his way past everyone who was sleeping and over to the tall crates they were using as a lookout post.

Zekk pulled himself up first, the glowrod becoming bright again as he took his hands away from it and stuck it between his teeth. Once he got to the top of the crates, easily big enough for at least three to keep watch from, he shifted around and looked back below, down roughly ten feet to the floor.

His teammate was hesitating, still crouched beside one of the sleeping bodies. It was Tenel Ka. Zekk could tell by the outline of the body under the thin blanket and the braids that rested on the ground around her head. His companion had a hand at the small of her back and then within seconds he was up on his feet and shifting onto the crates. He managed to pull himself up with no help and then flattened himself on his stomach beside Zekk to peer out the old, rotted viewport to the planetside beyond.

Zekk felt like they were kids again, staring out one of the windows on Yavin IV, shooting their invisible blasters at hordes of stormtroopers, cackling about contrived Academy-wide gossip, digging in the mud for some strange new creature that never bothered to show itself --

"Jacen," Zekk murmured, turning his head to the side to look at his friend.

"Hmm?" Jacen Solo mirrored his action, shifting to look at Zekk with those wide eyes of his.

The diffused lighting that seeped through the viewport from the outside hit Jacen's face in a way that made the already battle-hardened eighteen-year-old look like he should have at that age, young and full of life, with that spark of mischief still present in his eyes. His expression was mildly inquistive and Zekk noted his body language was surprisingly relaxed for the tense pressure they had been under for the countless previous hours.

To Zekk, he looked like a warm and inviting individual. Something he never felt from Jacen's twin sister.

"I just..." he shook his head and turned back to the viewport. "Nothing."

Zekk could feel Jacen's eyes still on him, lingering for a few more moments before he looked back out the small viewport as well. The horizon seemed quiet.

Stretched out on their stomachs along the top of the crates with their heads propped in their hands, they had to be side-by-side to give them both a good view out of the broken transparisteel. Where their shoulders were brushing together, Zekk could now feel cold air against his left side as the man next to him began shuffling around. He craned his neck again, turning his head and tilted it slightly, almost curiously.

Jacen was on his back now and it took no time at all for him to swipe the blue glowrod away from Zekk and drop it on the brown jumpsuit covering his stomach. Seconds later, his hands were hovering over it, shifting into shapes that threw huge shadow puppets onto the ceiling above them.

Trying to quell the grin that seized his lips, Zekk moved his eyes from the shadow puppets to the puppeteer below.

"What are you, twelve?"

"Sometimes I wish I still was," Jacen muttered.

It had been about eight years since Zekk was twelve and every day since then just seemed to get longer and more difficult. "I know how that feels."

The sour tone in his voice didn't go unnoticed by Solo and the moving shadows on the ceiling behind Zekk slowed and stopped momentarily as Jacen swept his hair across the crate and turned his head to look up at him.

"Wanna talk about it?"

A question so simple, yet so powerful and it sounded so earnest coming from him. Zekk would've never heard that from Jaina. Was Jacen joking?

Zekk's elbows ached and he moved them slightly, but he managed to peer down at Jacen as he did so. His brandy-brown eyes were wide again, in an eager sort of fashion. No, he was serious. Jacen Solo was serious.

He managed to chuckle uncomfortably, shaking his head. "No, that's... it's okay."

Looking back out the viewport, Zekk attempted to get his thoughts under control. Things that Zekk wished he could see in Jaina -- traits, mannerisms, feelings -- they all belonged to Jacen. Her twin brother had them all. He was so damn caring, so emotional, so open-minded when it came to people and the way they worked.

He was trying like the nine Corellian Hells to keep his thoughts in check, but he knew some of them slipped past his mental wall when he caught Jacen out of the corner of his eye. Solo was resting on his side now, facing Zekk, his left elbow propped up on the crate and the side of his head resting his hand, fingers splayed haphazardly through his mess of brown hair. His right hand was absently drumming the glowrod up and down on the durasteel crates, the sound, surprisingly, was almost silent.

Seconds later the noise stopped and a sea of still, clean blue light washed over them both. It vanished when Zekk felt Jacen lean towards him, covering the glowrod in the folds of his jumpsuit. He was reaching out with his right hand and Zekk felt him brush a lock of black hair behind his ear. His touch was gentle, not that he expected any different at that point, but it mildly shocked him to not feel Jacen's hand pull away after that, but to linger on his neck, skin against skin. The hand that had been resting at the small of Tenel Ka's back earlier was now resting on his neck, and like Jacen's general aura earlier, Zekk didn't hesitate to tell himself that Solo's touch was exactly the same. Warm and inviting.

"I'm here if you ever need to talk."

He had moved closer and that came as a whisper in Zekk's left ear. It finally caused him to turn back to Jacen, the man who he expected to have a sly smile on his face and an arched eyebrow and a sudden air of slight arrogance at his actions. He was so used to that from Jacen's sister.

But no, when he looked over he saw the curious brown eyes and the slightly furrowed brow and an innocent almost naive shadow of a half-smile. He could feel the honesty from him and the desire to rescue Zekk from whatever emotional hole he had dug himself in this time. He wasn't getting all hands-on because he wanted to annoy or tease or hurt, he was doing it because he cared.

And someone caring enough for him to get that close wasn't something Zekk was used to. Force knows Jaina never did. He never knew his parents. And Peckhum wasn't a touchy-feely kind of guy.

"Thank you."

Gently moving his elbows out from under him, Zekk quietly placed himself on his side on the crates next to Jacen Solo. He could feel Jacen's breath on his neck; it was deep and slightly fervent, and Zekk could match it to the movement of Jacen's chest.

"But not right now," Zekk finally finished his thought, breathing it into Jacen's ear. "One day."

He could feel Jacen nodding in the dark.

I'll always be here.

The thought echoed loud and clear in Zekk's head and Jacen punctuated it by squeezing Zekk's hand. He was about to pull it away when Zekk blindly grabbed for it and held it in his. It was comforting and familiar. It was something he wanted. He was telling himself, in the dark, that he could pretend he was curled up next to Jaina, but he realized at that point he didn't want that. That didn't matter. The breath he felt on his neck and the rustling of jumpsuit fabric next to him was Jacen Solo. Emotionally alluring, truthful and empathetic Jacen Solo.

"My turn started ten minutes ago, why didn't one of you guys wake me up?"

Zekk sat up quickly, Jacen following suit after rolling over and retrieving the glowrod that he had been laying on. They both murmured a garble of nothings until Jaina's next question quieted them.

"Anything happen?"

"No," Jacen answered simply, tossing a brief and knowing glance to Zekk.

"No." Zekk repeated.

"Alright." She pushed in between them both to settle at the lookout point.

Jaina was already at the viewport watching, the light from the glowrod heavily obscured by her grasp, when Jacen got to the end of the crates to climb down. Zekk shifted so the other could pass by and felt Jacen hesitate, leaning towards him in the dim light. His hand brushed against Zekk's stomach and their cheeks touched as Jacen practically sighed in his ear.

"Talk to me."

As he pulled away, Zekk turned his head with the movement, absently managing to keep their skin touching as long as possible. He could feel his cheeks flushing slightly, his head spinning quickly back to Jaina, who he expected to be looking at him with a disgusted sort of expression.

No. She was concentrating on the planetside. As she did for a good amount of time before tearing her eyes away from the horizon.

She was still sitting by the viewport, legs crossed and back hunched, but now she was periodically moving her eyes between the world outside and Zekk. He could feel Jaina's eyes on him, but he had already pushed her out of his mind for the moment, his own emerald gaze settling on her twin brother. He was already curled up under a blanket and falling asleep below on the hard floor of the chamber.

Perhaps he had been focused on the wrong Solo all his life.

Jacen Solo sat on the bridge of the Anakin Solo in an oversized chair that he was mildly amusing himself with by shifting back and forth. His brandy-browns had dulled to an almost orange and he was toying with spreading news of his recently changed name with the galaxy when the panel on the arm of his chair lit up with an annoying blue glow. There was a new message.

Leaning forward, he readied himself to punch a few keys and watch some most likely useless holorecording from someone who was most likely wasting his time -- then he navigated to the message screen. One new recording. It was blinking.

The subject line read: "Talk to me."

It was from Zekk.

Open-minded, emotional, sensible and inviting Zekk.

He didn't need that right now.

And with a simple swipe of a gloved hand, Darth Caedus' pointer finger met with the delete button.

He didn't need that right now.

I COULDN'T RESIST. D:

FANFICTION // [Star Wars: EU] The Feigned: Absolved

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 01:46:03 GMT

Up through chapter 5 of Absolved -- the third story in The Feigned series -- is online finally and can be found right over hereeeee. And yes, things are starting to get a little crackish, like always. Did you expect anything different from me? D:

FANFICTION // [Stephen King's The Long Walk] Lucky Her

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 04:53:47 GMT

Title: Lucky Her
Series: Stephen King's The Long Walk
Characters: Priscilla -- I would say Peter McVries too, but he's not technically in the story. Hehe.
Disclaimer: THE LONG WALK IS NOT MINE OMG YOU GUYZ. It all belongs to ~~Uncle Stevie~~ Stephen King and I'm just having fun with the characters and such. :D

LUCKY HER

There were times in bed, when she was pressed between the wall and his body, that she could hear him snoring quietly and she would curl up against his back and run her fingers up and down his spine, thinking about the name "Priscilla McVries" -- it had a nice ring to it. The air had been cold -- it was always cold in that place -- but when he was sleeping beside her in her small bed, his feet hanging off the side and his hands tucked under his face, she could get away with a thin sheet as her cover. He was always so warm to the touch and she wasn't surprised that his body could basically heat her whole shoebox of a room.

They were poor as a couple, financially and mentally. Physically, they were fine, healthy even. And emotionally they worked wonders together. But they fought over their jobs and their mindsets. Goddammit, they fought.

She will always remember slicing his cheek open with that silly souvenir letter opener. Paddington Bear never looked so lethal before, in his oversized coat and his floppy hat. She will always remember the way it felt when she pulled the blade across his skin. It felt slick and disgusting but at that moment it felt so right.

Priscilla remembers it now as she's sitting in front of the television watching him walk and walk and walk and slowly commit suicide. She can see the scar on his cheek, standing out as a bright white line against his already pale skin. The cameras bobs along with the Walkers, the views switching between groups. She feels herself jump slightly as it cuts back to Peter who is currently walking with another boy, his eyes boring straight into the camera lens momentarily before he goes back into his discussion with the other Walker.

She isn't able to hear what he's saying over the chatter and din of the crowd around them, but he looks quite subdued, which is unnatural for him.

She leans forward in her lumpy recliner with her elbows planted on her knees and laces her fingers together, resting her chin on them. She remembers yelling at him to leave her alone and to get out after she cut his cheek. She didn't want to see him, she didn't even want to offer him another glance. But now she wasn't able to take her eyes off of him.

Priscilla stays up all night and watches the live coverage of the Long Walk. Every fifteen minutes she tells herself she's going to get out of the chair soon and stumble to her bed and pass out. But every fifteen minutes she doesn't. She continues to sit in the recliner, rocking back and forth slowly and gnawing at her already stubby nails.

One by one, the Walkers are shot. One, then another five minutes later, then the next after an hour. For a few fleeting moments Priscilla thinks -- and doesn't admit to herself that she also hopes -- Peter might take this whole thing. He might survive. She also can faintly picture herself seeking him out afterwards and seeing if they could work things out. Not even for whatever he takes as a prize, but for the mere fact that she still feels her heartbeat quicken when she sees him.

And if her heart wasn't going faster than normal at this exact moment because the cameras are showing him again. He's goofing off. She still can't hear him over the crowd but she's definitely watching him and he's making some obscene gesture with his hand and pasting a stupid and familiar expression on his face. She can see all the other boys around him laughing and she can feel herself smiling, something she quickly catches herself doing and stops. There was no smiling now, not with him out there marching to his own death.

They continue to drop at different intervals. Some by sunstroke then gunshot, some by fatigue and gunshot, some by just plain old gunshot. She's watching it all with glazed eyes, still leaning forward in her chair, her legs and arms falling asleep and tingling slightly. Minutes pass, hours pass. Her stomach rumbles. She's not moving from that position and the only thing changing is the steady beat of her heart, depending on what is flashing by on the television.

There he is again. This time he's dozing off as he's walking, his head bouncing up and down comically with each step. The next time they show him, he's absently rubbing his scar and listening to one of the other boys talk. The next time he's pulling one of the other Walkers away from the crowd. He's yelling. There's twenty left, there's sixteen left, there's nine left.

There's three left.

Finally he stops.

She watches him as he sits down. She stares, wide-eyed, as he gets shot and killed. While it's all happening, out of the last two boys, one is watching absently and still walking while the other is screaming and yelling and trying to get Peter back up. Priscilla knows how the first feels, just wanting to walk away from him -- the problem. But she also knows how the latter feels. That one had talked to the real Peter, the one that Priscilla still harbored feelings for. The one who was jovial and quick-witted -- a gentleman in a perverted sort of fashion.

The sight of him in his last moments and taking his last breath sucks the feeling out of her and physically she doesn't move an inch. She doesn't want to believe what she had just witnessed, even though she knows she has to. The cameras were showing a high-shot of the street. She could see the last two boys still walking and she could see the pool of blood where Peter McVries had sat himself down and had been shot and killed. Nothing is tearing her gaze away from that pool of blood on her small television set.

The high-shot gets higher and higher and more of the crowd is coming into view, as is more of the road. The image changes to something else, but Priscilla's eyes are still locked on the spot on the screen where that crimson bath had been smeared all over the road. Her thoughts were going to worse places as the time passed. She knows, just like the time she slipped that blade into his skin, she will always remember this moment. She will never forget the moment Peter McVries died. She always thought she would see him again one day, that maybe they could work something out. Now that day was never going to come.

Another gunshot or two sounds a good time later and her tired eyes still aren't leaving the spot on the left side of the television.

But that blonde pushing her way to the front of the crowd suddenly catches Priscilla's attention. The way she screams at the final walker and pleads with the guards to let her through. Must be his girlfriend.

Lucky her, Pris sneers.

But as she finally moves, letting herself fall back into the old recliner and pulling her legs up to her chest, she takes back what she said about that girl being lucky. Yeah, lucky her for getting her boyfriend back. Her shellshocked, gaunt and now mentally absent boyfriend who will never, ever ever be the same.

Suddenly she wants Peter back so bad that a few tears manage to spill from her eyes and her breath hitches in her throat. She moves again though, pressing herself against the back of the recliner and burying her face in her hands. She wants him now more than ever. She wants his dirty sense of humor and his horribly endearing tactic of saying the right thing at the wrong time. She wants to apologize for introducing the Paddington Bear blade to his cheek. Priscilla wants to feel him in bed beside her, warming up her room and trapping her between him and the thin wall of the shitty apartment. She wants their arguments and their fights and their problems --

She just wants him. She'll always remember that moment and she will always blame herself for his death. If she hadn't driven him away, he just might be in the other room right now, snoring quietly, shirtless and half of his body hanging off the tiny bed.

And then she finally drifts off into a light sleep, a haunting and familiar feeling settling across her skin as she dozes, something she is so used to feeling as she falls asleep. She swears she can feel Peter's calloused fingertips along her spine.

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] The First Time

Sat, 19 Jul 2008 05:08:04 GMT

Title: The First Time
Series: Star Wars: EU, post-LotF
Characters: Zekk, Tenel Ka, Allana, Darth Caedus, a few others...
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (except a choice few, lol), I'm just having a little whiny fun with them. Muahaha~
Notes: Drunk Ze...! Wait, I mean drunk TK?

Chapter Seven --

Isolder had cut in to dance with Allana at some point, and Zekk just remembered meandering off of the floor, his eyes searching for the girl’s mother. He spotted her speaking to other Hapan noblewomen at the top of the stairs, which he climbed and hesitated at the top of before seating himself back down where he had eaten dinner.

He had gotten another glass of wine, plus a tall tumbler of water and leaned forward on the table staring at both. Zekk chugged the wine, finishing it off and setting the glass down lightly before he picked up the water and nursed it in his hands, taking small sips here and there.

The politicians that were seated at the other end of the table – and had been that way all night – began to broaden their conversation, essentially inviting him into it. The conversation lasted for a good while and he spoke to them about a number of things that weren’t related to just politics. Zekk was finally slightly relaxing and enjoying himself a bit when he felt a tug at his pants.

His first instinct was Allana. The little girl was probably hiding under the table and playing a joke on him. He grabbed at the tablecloth and pulled it up quickly, peering under it. Within mere seconds he dropped the fabric back down and looked up to the men and women seated around him.

“What’s wrong, young one?” One of the older women asked.

“I dropped my napkin,” he answered nonchalantly.

They all laughed politely and waved him on while they continued their conversation. He listened with one ear while he leaned down and picked the tablecloth up again, his free hand clutched around a napkin.

She looked like Allana sitting there on the ground. Big, curious gray eyes, curly copper hair, huge smile on her face. But she definitely was a little too old to be Allana.

Zekk placed the tablecloth back over his lap and looked back up to the officials ahead of him, waving his napkin in the air. "Found it! And yes, I can definitely see why that would be a problem." He was beaming as he answered the question he only half-heard and anyone who knew him at all would've known that was the fakest grin ever, but these older men and women seemed to be eating it up.

"Oh sonny, you're gonna be a great politician one day!"

"That's what I'm hoping!" He continued; his right hand under the table and holding onto the strap of the Queen Mother's dress so she couldn't get away.

He had set the napkin on the table beside his free hand and didn’t hesitate in knocking it off the table with his elbow. “Whoops!” The others glanced at him again, still amused, and then they dove straight back into their conversation. Zekk let them talk for a moment before he slid to the ground, under the table.

Tenel Ka smelled like wine. She opened her lips to speak but Zekk shoved the balled up napkin into her mouth, which seemed to confuse her momentarily. It also kept her from making noise. Zekk was afraid of what would happen if those politicians above them looked under the table and saw the Queen Mother of Hapes in a slight daze on the ground.

He pointed past her, to the far end of the table and then watched her shakily shuffle and shift over, her dress dragging on the ground under her as she moved across the carpet and past expensive looking shoes. He leaned over next to her once they were at the end and he peeked out. Everyone was either down on the lower floor dancing, or talking at the tables behind them. He yanked the napkin from her mouth and dropped it under the table then managed to help her out from under the table and pull her to a standing position before anyone even noticed them.

It took a few moments for the people at the table to even realize they were standing there.

“Oh there you are, young man! And the Queen Mother as well! Good evening, Your Majesty!”

“Evening, Colonel Boushett.” Tenel Ka managed to smile politely and bow her head.

“I’m here!” Zekk began to prod Tenel Ka in the direction of the stairs. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re going to do have a dance or two before the band quits for the night.”

“Of course! Enjoy yourselves!” And back into the political ramblings the man went, leaving Zekk clinging to a slightly swaying Queen Mother.

He guided her down the stairs and across the floor with a hand on her shoulder, tugging her out into one of the many hallways of the Palace. There was no one out there except for the two of them. Everyone else seemed to be inside the hall enjoying themselves. Looking back to her, he let go of her shoulder and his jaw dropped at what he caught sight of her clinging to.

“Where did you get that?!”

She lifted a flute of wine, a look of mock innocence and pure curiosity on her face. Zekk found himself biting back a laugh at the sight.

“Yeah, that.”

“Handmaiden on the way out. She had a whole tray. What else was I supposed to do?”

“Not pick one up, for starters.”

She shrugged and marched past him, seating herself on a window ledge across the corridor. Zekk watched her for a moment before following her and placing himself on the edge, his back to the window. She was seated facing him, a leg resting on the sill and the other on the ground, holding her up. The wine was already half gone.

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Mmmhmm, that Vitan sure is a good date.” Her voice was a bit huskier than normal, cracking at spots.

Had she really had that much to drink?

Resting her head against the large transparisteel pane, the velvet purple curtain seemed to swallow her and lock her between it and the window. Zekk figured if someone walked by it would look like he was seated there alone – unless they saw the Queen Mother’s foot sticking out from under the curtain, of course. He shifted slightly, pulling the curtain from his side across as well, causing them to join in the middle. She giggled at his gesture and was about to take another sip of the alcohol.

Giggling was where Zekk drew the line. She never did that.

"No, you know what?" He leaned over and took the seemingly always full flute out of her grasp, setting it on the ledge behind him. "I think that's enough of that for you tonight."

"Really?" The word was actually a tad slurred and drawn-out.

"Really." He nodded. "How many have you had?"

"That was two!"

Zekk's cheeks puffed out as he turned back to look at the glass once more. It was still about half full. "So, you've had one and a half glasses of wine?"

"Yessir."

He stifled a laugh, hiding his mouth behind his hand.

"Whasso funny?"

"You are a total lightweight, that's what."

"I don't usually drink." She shrugged, the motion exaggerated and childish. Zekk saw hints of her daughter again.

“So what made you do it tonight?”

Another lazy toss of the shoulders. Her expression suddenly grew morose as she stared out the window overlooking the town below. Zekk figured he knew why she had bothered with the alcohol. It was something different. It was something to get her mind off of everything. He felt himself sigh.

Reaching out, he placed a steady hand on her shoulder. “How about I take you up to your room and get you a nice cup of caf, huh?”

As his fingers touched her skin, the Queen Mother seemed to shift against them and collapse into his arms. Her head on the clear window had been the only thing holding her up. Zekk chuckled and looked down at her. She seemed to be resting peacefully enough.

Peeking out through the curtains, he saw no signs of anyone – and through the Force he couldn’t feel anything – so he managed to shift off of the ledge and throw his other hand under her knees. He had one arm under her back and another under her legs; and the silk of the dress she wore was cool against his hands and wrists. He managed to get up to the second floor with no one seeing him, but once he hit the top step of the grand staircase, he almost came to a complete halt.

It was the group of suitors, the same ones they had seen when they had first arrived.

“Oh, look who it is,” one of them smarmed.

Zekk was surprised at the sudden swagger he took on once more, Tenel Ka still dozing in his arms.

“Yes, look who it is. Now would you please excuse me?” Zekk raised an eyebrow and motioned to the Queen Mother with his chin. “I have places to be.”

They seemed shocked and appalled when he scooted them all out of his way with a nudge of the Force here and there, but none bothered to challenge him -- probably because of the cargo in his arms. He was sure news of this would be around the suitor’s hangout in the morning, and normally he probably would’ve cared. But at this point he didn’t. He was helping a friend.

With his chin up in a haughty sort of fashion, he sauntered past the suitors and past Gadell’s empty desk, punching in the code to enter with his left elbow. Entering the salon, he quickly made his way across it to the bedroom and hitting the panel with his right elbow this time, the door slid back. Except this time, there was no empty room. There was Allana, seated on her mother’s bed with a stuffed wampa.

“Hey, kid. Shouldn’t you be in bed already? I thought Isolder brought you back here earlier to tuck you in.” As Zekk spoke he could feel his heart racing. The image of him standing there holding her sleeping mother probably wasn’t a particularly pleasant one to see. Especially after losing her father so recently.

Her eyes narrowed slightly and then widened as she jumped off of the bed and rushed over to him, tugging at her mother’s dress. “What’s wrong with Mommy?!”

“Nothing’s wrong, she’s just tired.” He gently set Tenel Ka on top of the royal blue comforter on the bed, his eyes lingering on her before moving back down to Allana. “Now really, shouldn’t you be in bed?”

“I couldn’t sleep! Grandpa tucked me in and read me a story but I wanted to say night to Mommy before I sleeped.”

“Ah.” Zekk turned away from them and wandered over to a long table against the wall near the door, flipping the switch on a small caf dispenser. It shot out a small cup of the steaming drink which he brought to the bed where Allana was up beside her mother, stirring her from her sleep. When she managed to open her eyes, Zekk pressed the small, disposable cup into her hand. “Drink up.”

“What?” She murmured.

“Drink up. It’s caf.”

Taking the cup from his hand, Tenel Ka slowly began to sip the drink, her eyes moving lethargically from Zekk to her daughter. The little girl looked excited as she turned to the dark-haired man.

“Are we gonna have a sleepover?!”

Stifling a chuckle, Zekk risked a glance up to the Queen Mother who was smiling slightly down to her daughter. “No, kid,” he responded. “Sorry. I’m gonna head out of here and let you and your mother get some rest.”

Allana looked surprisingly crestfallen and frowned before turning and ambling back off into another chamber of the quarters, towards her own room most likely. Zekk watched her vanish, stuffed wampa and all, before turning his attention to Tenel Ka.

“Oh…” He jerked a thumb back to the entrance he had carried her through. “I ran into some of your fan club out there. They watched Vitan carry you in here. Hope I didn’t mess anything up by letting them see that.”

She laughed quietly, taking another sip of the caf. “You are welcome to sleep on the sofa out in the salon if you want to keep up the charade.”

With a smile, he hesitated, debating on saying yes before he shook his head. “Nah, no worries.” Motioning to the balcony, he continued. “I’ll just creep out that way. They’ll think I was here all night.”

“You’ll hurt yourself if you do that.”

“Me? Come on, Your Majesty. Give me some credit.”

She watched him from her place on the bed, the green gown twisted around her ankles and fanning out under her across the comforter. Her eyes were threatening to drift shut and there was a dull pain in her head, but she managed to keep her eyes open long enough to place the half empty glass of caf on the nightstand and stare at him as he emerged onto the balcony and hoisted himself over the railing.

His hands were visible around some vines momentarily and then vanished in an instant, followed seconds later by the loud rattling of some bushes below.

Tenel Ka fell out of bed and stumbled across the room, blinking quickly and grabbing the balcony door frame for support. She didn’t think she had that much to drink, but her wobbly trip across her chambers proved otherwise. Completing the last few steps to the railing, she clutched it with her right hand and threw her head over to look down.

Zekk was crumpled up in the bushes below, shifting out of them slowly and kicking the branches as he pulled himself out of the tangle of vines.

“Zekk!” Tenel Ka hissed.

“I know!” His voice drifted back up from the courtyard. “I know! You told me so!”

“Are you alright?”

He finally looked up to her and forced a grin, his back cracking as he stretched. “I think I’ll manage.” Tossing her a lazy wave, he then pulled a twig from his hair and threw it aside. “Get some sleep.”

“Good night, Zekk.”

“Night, Your Majesty.”

Tenel Ka watched him meander across the courtyard before pulling herself back into her bed and instantly falling asleep in the exact thing she wore to the banquet. Except for her shoes, of course. She at least managed to kick her heels off before collapsing back into bed to sleep her headache off.

......

The royal hangar was completely empty at that time of night. He saw a few of the Queen Mother's smaller transports here and there, scattered aimlessly around the large chamber and in the back corner he saw his own ship, The Lightning Rod. As he ambled across the hangar towards it, he smiled slightly at the fact that it survived through the years with no major problems.

His bag was still on the ship. He had been offered a fairly amazing room in the guest quarters the night he had arrived, but for some reason he always ended up going back to sleep on his ship. Sure, the bunk on it wasn't the most comfortable thing, but it was like home for him. Something and somewhere he had known since he was young.

As he wandered to his ship, the words Caedus had whispered in his ear earlier returned to him. Why would Caedus be warning him about getting near Tenel Ka? Why would he want Tenel Ka? Of all people...

Stepping back from the situation in his head, he looked at it all objectively. Tenel Ka was attractive, sure. She was rich, powerful and she was a good ruler. But those things didn't really matter to him. When Zekk zoomed in a little though, he started thinking about the more personal things he knew about her and the gestures and expressions that only her friends saw.

He thought of the freckles on her shoulder and the feel of her fingertips on his neck. He thought of the way she took care of his scratches even after he screamed at her. He thought of the way she tried not to burden anyone around her with her problems, the way she cleverly masked her emotions and the way she played with words while speaking. The light that would spark briefly in her eyes when she was right or how she would be totally oblivious to an obvious joke but laugh at the complicated ones.

When he had carried her back to her quarters earlier, a part of him was reveling in the way her body felt in his arms -- how she snuggled up against him, a faint air of perfume and wine hitting his nose as he moved. Before he had straightened up into the Jedi he was now, he probably would've stirred her from her sleep and attempted something with her. He wasn't sure what, but he had had his share of adventures with inebriated females on Coruscant when he was younger, and some were fairly amusing and fulfilling. But that was a long time ago. And none of them were ever his friends.

Something in him told him to turn around and climb back up to her chambers, if only to sit there and watch her sleep.

She was the kind of person he dreamt about when he was younger and scavenging on Coruscant. He always imagined he would grow up and marry some rich, gorgeous woman and have ten kids and live in an oversized palace. He didn't think of anything other than how she had to be rich and how she had to be extremely attractive, but as he got older -- and as he developed deeper thoughts on the opposite sex -- he was attracted to strong-willed women willing to stand their ground. It was what drew him to Jaina Solo.

Once he realized friendship was their course, he tossed his ideas about what he wanted, companionship-wise, to the ground. As he stood there alone in the dark hangar, he realized that maybe he should pick those ideas back up and dust them off. He had never seen the vulnerable side of any of the strong-willed women he had known in his life until he had arrived on Hapes.

He was watching the vulnerable side of the Queen Mother, and he had been for a few days now. She was locked in a spectrum of slight mood swings, hiding each one when he entered the room. She would zone out here and there. He would find her staring blankly out the windows in a corridor at some random intersection in the Palace. And tonight, he had watched her get drunk over a little less than two glasses of Hapan wine. But through it all, she was still ruling her subjects like there were no problems anywhere in the galaxy. And she was still being the perfect mother to Allana.

Zekk realized it was one of the most mesmerizing things he had ever seen.

He was used to people around him being either battle-hardened soldiers, mindful Jedi or through most of his childhood, rude street rats and emotionless pupils of the dark side. Peckhum was his big link to the mentality of normal and good people, and later the Solo twins and Lowbacca. And Tenel Ka, whom he was now seeing a whole different side of.

When they were younger, he knew there had to be more to her then she led on. He just didn't realize he would ever see it -- and now that he was, he couldn't help but grin at the fact that it only took decades for him to finally witness it.

Now Caedus' words seemed to matter.

"Oh, vent crawler.”

Spinning around, Zekk continued to let his eyes adjust to the dim light of the hangar. He didn’t see anyone around him. There was no one who could’ve said that to him in the immediate vicinity. There were guards outside, two females. And that voice he heard was definitely male. He recognized it. He had heard it earlier, in fact. It was Caedus again.

Zekk stalked towards his ship, preparing to ignore the taunt. The nickname. That was just what he managed to do as he entered his ship and changed into a simple pair of pants and a sleeveless shirt, wandering back to the entrance in his barefeet to shut the hatch and lock it.

As he retreated into the ship to his bunk and set himself down to sleep, the reflection of Darth Caedus remained outside along the shiny hull of The Lightning Rod, a sly smile on his face. Zekk had stomped right by him without a glance. Caedus was sure Zekk didn’t even know he was there.

Soon he would know. Very soon.

Huzzah!?

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] Princess

Fri, 30 May 2008 03:07:22 GMT

Title: Princess
Series: Star Wars: EU, NJO-era, during Star by Star
Characters: Jacen Solo, Tenel Ka, Ganner Rhysode
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I just have fun with them. Wangsty fun. D:
Notes: Jacen Solo gets jealous of Ganner and pouts. ~~Then he goes and writes about it in his livejournal!~~

PRINCESS

The three of them were holed up together in a makeshift area of rest on Myrkr. The Jedi Strike Team had split up and Tenel Ka had found herself in a small group with Jacen Solo and Ganner Rhysode. They, as a group, decided they needed to take a break for a bit and found a small alcove out of the way of the path they were on. They were each taking turns scouting around and keeping watch while the other two regained some lost energy.

Jacen Solo was currently out on watch.

Tenel Ka could feel him through their connection, pacing back and forth outside of the entrance, blaster in hand, lightsaber on his belt and senses alert.

She could also feel a throbbing pain across her back. There was a gash down her right shoulder blade and ending in the middle of her back, placed there by a Yuuzhan Vong's amphistaff a few hours earlier. She would've been taking care of it herself, but still without her left arm years after her accident, it was hard to reach for that exact spot. She had to ask Ganner for help applying bacta lotion to it, something she really didn't mind asking for since it was a case where she definitely couldn't take care of the problem herself.

She could sense someone nearby who did mind, though.

"So Princess," Ganner started, as he sat behind her on the flat rock they had covered with thin blankets -- their makeshift bunk. "Are all the women on Hapes as pleasant as you?"

She couldn't help but stifle a chuckle. "I am afraid not. I am afraid most of them are nothing like me." She never really considered herself pleasant, but she figured that compared to most of the females on Hapes, she definitely would fit that adjective better than most.

"Are they at least as good-looking then?"

She could feel his right hand on her skin, rubbing the bacta lotion over the gash in a circular motion. He was very precise with his movements, his fingers never straying from right around the injury.

"I guess..." she murmured, awkwardly. Along with pleasant, good-looking was never something she would've used when asked to describe herself. Determined, sure. Forward, yes. Maybe even aloof sometimes. But good-looking? She felt her lips upturn slightly at the offhanded compliment.

She felt the third member of their group nearby, still outside, but pressed against the spot by the entrance now. She could sense his sudden frustration with the whole situation and... was that envy, as well? Pulling her mind back to the matter at hand, she steeled herself against Ganner's palm, which was now moving down the gash, pushing bacta lotion straight into the tissue. He pulled his hand away. "And that's that. Sorry if that hurt, but we have to make sure it gets anything that's not supposed to be there out."

Tenel Ka nodded.

"And it'll have to be reapplied in about an hour. You should probably get some rest, Princess."

She pulled her tank top back up over her chest and then over her shoulders, where she straightened the straps. Leaving the top half of the jumpsuit around her waist, Tenel Ka turned to look at Ganner, who was rubbing his right hand on the leg of his own jumpsuit to get the excess lotion off and glancing out one of the small holes in the wall of their alcove. She was thankful he was a part of their group. He had been through a lot more than some of the members of the team and she knew that his gruff exterior and straightforward demeanor would help to keep Jacen's mind on the right track.

"Thanks, Ganner."

"No problem."

He forced a smile to her and as she turned over and settled on the rock, tucking her hand under her cheek, she realized it was the first time she'd ever seen Ganner Rhysode crack a smile that hadn't followed a perverted comment or a snide remark. She was asleep within seconds.

...

Tenel Ka didn't know how long she had been sleeping, but when she pulled her eyes open she saw someone sitting on the rock near their bunk, staring at her. She could feel her face flush slightly, a feeling which she quickly tried to banish from her system. How long had he been sitting there watching her? His lips were thinned and his eyes were still locked on her, even now that she was awake. She could feel a sudden wave of goosebumps along the skin on her bare arms and she found herself shifting awkwardly to a sitting position and stretching before turning her full attention to the man beside her.

"Jacen..." Her voice was low, almost a whisper as she tilted her head and tossed a few of her warrior braids from her shoulder. She was about to continue until he interrupted her.

"How's your cut?" He asked, in an attempt to be nonchalant, his hands placed in his lap and his back straight. He looked almost like a humanoid droid with his posture, except with a glaring glitch. His lips curved downward on one side in a lopsided frown. Tenel Ka figured he didn't even realize he was doing that.

"Hurts."

"Oh?" He finally changed the way he was sitting, placing his feet apart from one another and stabbing his elbows onto his knees. He then leaned forward towards her and let his hands dangle between his legs. With a lowered voice and an arched eyebrow, he continued. "I figured that after he rubbed bacta lotion all over it that it would instantly feel better, Princess." The emphasis he put on the nickname Ganner had been using for her was punctuated by a violent waggle of his eyebrows.

She could feel the laugh in her throat and she tried like the Nine Corellian Hells to keep it down but she couldn't. It erupted through her lips in a giggle that she tried to stifle by shifting her right hand to her face. But it was no use, it was definitely audible and he definitely heard it. She knew this because he leaned back and slammed himself into the wall of the alcove, arms crossed stubbornly over his chest.

"Are you jealous of Ganner?"

"No. Of course not," he answered instantly and in a surprisingly stern fashion.

Still attempting to keep a smile from her face, Tenel Ka spun around and grabbed the canister of bacta lotion. She was on the crude bunk, her back now facing Jacen, and the bacta canister was beside her, already open. She said nothing, and Jacen was still silent after his quick response to her question, which she counteracted with a simple action.

Tenel Ka gently shifted the straps of her tank top off of her shoulders and slowly pulled the fabric away from her injury, pushing the shirt down around her stomach and leaving her bare back facing Jacen. She could feel him tense up through the Force -- and she realized his jaw was clenched and his eyes narrowed. He was genuinely put off by this whole situation, which only helped to amuse her even more. She hadn't seen him in so long before the mission to Myrkr that she had almost forgotten how open he could be with his emotions.

"Could you help me with this, please?" She asked quietly.

Those words caused his intensity to shatter, she sensed it through their connection. He wasn't used to her asking for help and she could feel his sudden rush of concern. And mere seconds later he was pulling himself on the rocky bunk behind her and cringing at the cold bacta lotion on his hands.

Ganner had been very professional with the first application, just like a comrade on a battlefield should be. He was quick, efficient and very mechanical with the medical salve. Jacen, on the other hand, was much more meticulous and personal. If it was anyone else, it would've made Tenel Ka feel uncomfortable -- but the way he moved both of his hands across her skin and traced the gash down her back with the medication made her feel at ease, almost relaxed. She could feel his breath on her back as he worked carefully around the cut, making sure to get enough in and around the tissue that it would help, but not so much that it would start to harm.

"There," he whispered. She felt the word more on her neck than she heard with her ears, and turning her head to the point where her chin touched her bare shoulder, she managed to give him a grin.

"Thank you, Jacen."

He was still close to her, his breath still escaping his lips and hitting her neck. Tenel Ka could tell he wanted to vocalize what he had been repeating in his head while he was helping her with the gash.

What if I die on this mission? What if she dies? What if we both die? I should tell her. I should. I love you. That's all you have to say, just say it. Tell her.

Over and over again, different words and phrases, same basic thought. He was so tied up in treating her injury that he hadn't bothered to block his thoughts off from her. She knew exactly what he wanted to say and she wanted him to say it.

Say it.

"You're welcome, Tenel Ka."

He shifted off of the rock and grabbed the bacta canister, turning away from her and shutting it. It took him a couple tries, she noted, because his hands were shaking.

Looking away from him, she pulled her tank top back and shifted, slowly rolling her shoulders until the fabric was as comfortable over her gash as it was going to get. There was an awkward silence that filled the small alcove and Tenel Ka knew Jacen would get rid of it very soon. He was always good at --

"You know you laughed earlier, right? Out loud."

"I know. For once, Jacen Solo made me laugh."

She felt his hand run down her back, over the tight fabric of her tank top, and he let his fingertips linger at the small of her back where a patch of tan skin peeked out from under her shirt. "Get some more rest and I'll wake you up when it's your turn for watch."

She turned her head towards him as he was speaking, her chin coyly touching her shoulder again and when their eyes met, he finished his sentence.

"Princess."

FANFIC100 // Smell.

Sat, 17 May 2008 05:07:38 GMT

Title: Sunshower
Fandom: Star Wars EU, post-Legacy of the Force
Characters: Jacen Solo, Tenel Ka, Allana
Prompt: 36. Smell.
Word Count: 1202
Rating: PG.
Author's Notes: A post-LotF mushy little piece. It's actually totally AU from the LotF ending. WHOOPS. D:

Sunshower

It smelled like rain.

He had always loved the smell of rain. It made him aware that a storm was on the way; a storm that would deliver rain which would cleanse everything it touched, washing away the dirt and grime.

For now, he sat in the sand, his hands holding him up and his palms planted in the ground behind him. The sand felt cool on his fingers and the breeze pushed grains across his wrists and up his arms. He could hear birds chirping and creating a symphony of calls in the forest behind him. He could hear the giggling of a little girl and the subdued chuckles of her mother ahead of him, their splashes in the water causing him to crack a smile.

Jacen Solo shut his eyes.

He thanked the Force he was still alive to experience this moment. He was still bent out of shape a bit, physically and mentally -- not to mention emotionally -- but in the two years that had passed since his reign as Darth Caedus, he was able to stop physically hurting himself for everything he did. He was able to stop blaming himself for every single thing that ever went wrong. He was able to finally stop crying.

He had gone through months of interrogation and apologies and therapy. He had even told a joke to his sister the other day.

It was the first he had told in decades. And she still didn't find it funny.

Although, she had wrapped him up in a hug after he told it, crying into the crook of his neck. She had told him time and time again that she missed her twin brother. She had missed Jacen Solo. She told him how overwhelming it was to have him back and how wonderful it felt to have that spot in her heart that was his filled again. They had sat awake all that night together in their nightclothes, both wrapped up in their own little cocoon of blankets and talked about everything from their childhood to the war to their parents and their little brother. He had asked her how her love life was doing, which got a good long-winded and unsure response -- and she asked about his. She asked about Tenel Ka.

"I'm gonna go live on Hapes," he had simply responded.

"What?!"

"I was told to relax... take time off to recover. And to contemplate everything that I've been through."

"And you think that can be accomplished on that planet?"

"I know, the suitors and the... the..." The everything, he wanted to say. "But Tenel Ka's there. And Allana. The most relaxing thing I can think to do is sit and watch her." He had paused, pulling the thick blanket tighter around his neck. "Jaina, she means the galaxy to me. Looking at her reminds me of... of everything I did... but I can't... I mean... I just want to be with her. I want to be there for her."

"And Tenel Ka?"

"Love her with all my heart."

Jaina had tilted her head, knowing her brother wanted to continue his train of thought. She felt it.

"Always have," he added in a whisper.

She had nodded at his statement, even though for years she had already known what he said was true. They had fallen asleep on the floor of her quarters at the Jedi Temple in Coruscant, in their respective messes of covers, as the first ray of sunlight stretched over the city.

So Hapes wasn't the most relaxing place in the galaxy he could've gone to, but at that exact moment in time it had to be the most peaceful Jacen had ever felt -- with his toes dug into the sand ahead of him and his head tilted back towards the graying sky.

"Daddy!"

His eyes slowly opened and shifted to the waves lapping at the sand ahead of them. The little girl was yelling for him and it made his heart leap every time he heard her call him that.

"Daddy! I'm gettin' all wet!" Her right arm shot up over her head as she pointed above her.

"Of course you are!" He called back, a lopsided grin seizing his lips. "You're in the water!"

"No, it's rainin', silly!"

He felt the warm drops on his face first; one on his forehead and another on his upper lip. Once those hit him, the shower grew a little steadier, covering him in a thin blanket of moisture.

"Well, then grab your mother's hand and you two get out of there. It's time for your nap anyways."

As the little girl grabbed her mother's right pointer finger, Jacen squinted against the raindrops and watched them both approach him. She was in a tiny sundress of pale blue and her mother was in a simple outfit that almost matched, except hers was a dark gray. Their feet were bare and the girl's hair was piled on her head in a messy bun. Her mother's was down and cascaded around her shoulders in copper waves, the strands getting darker as the rain hit them.

"Come on, Daddy!"

"Coming, Allana..."

She let go of her mother's fingers and ran off behind him, back towards the Palace, and Jacen continued to sit on the sand, watching the girl's mother approach. He couldn't tear his eyes from hers. They matched the sky. Her lips pursed slightly and a drop of rain shifted down her jawline and dripped off of her chin. The way her dress had dampened against the curves of her body caused him to shift forward, pulling his hands from the sand. He was at her attention. He always was and he always wanted to be.

He loved Allana -- his heart beat for that little girl. But it belonged to Tenel Ka. It always had.

And Caedus had killed her father. He was surprised she would even look at him, much less still love him.

"Come on, Jacen. Let's go inside," she murmured warmly, holding her hand out to him to help him off of the ground.

He loved it when she said his name.

Slipping his hand into hers, he stood awkwardly, nursing his left leg and shifted his arm around her waist. "Sounds good, Your Majesty. We can go get you out of those wet clothes. We don't want you catching anything."

Over the steady patter of the quiet storm, he heard her laugh slightly and then felt her rest her head on his shoulder. They were moving together over the sand and the soil. He still had a limp in his left leg, from where his sister had injured him in their fight two years before when he had been Caedus -- and he knew he would have it for the rest of his life. It was another reminder of who he had been, just like Isolder's empty office he passed in the Palace everyday or the way Tenel Ka would occasionally fall into trance like states with her eyes glazed over and staring endlessly out to the sea.

With their daughter galloping ahead of them, he hugged her close to him as they walked, turning his head to plant a kiss on the crown of her head. He inhaled slightly, catching a scent from her hair and skin. It was clean and inviting.

She smelled like rain.

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] Lullaby

Sat, 17 May 2008 05:02:54 GMT

Title: Lullaby
Series: Star Wars: EU, post-LotF
Characters: Jacen Solo, Tenel Ka
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I just have fun with them. Wangsty fun. D:
Notes: A post-LotF story. There's no real spoilers here per se, but it's totally AU from the real ending of LotF, so that could actually be considered a spoiler in itself. Hehehehe. Originally written on 05/05/2008.

LULLABY

Jacen Solo wasn't used to feeling nothing.

Right now he should've been able to feel the people outside, the lush surroundings around the building, the insect crawling across his arm.

But he could feel nothing. And all he could bring himself to do was stare at the ceiling of his cell. Day in and day out.

He had gotten no sleep since he was put into the cell days ago. He was completely numb, emotionally and through the Force -- physically as well, except for the wound Jaina had given him in his side. It hurt then and it still hurt. Normally he would've used the Force to quell the pain and to calm himself down. But he didn't have that luxury anymore.

The fight he had with Jaina seemed like years ago, when it had only been about a week. And the subsequent talk they had, which lasted for hours and happened mere days before seemed like it had taken place months ago. She had sat on the other side of the soundproof transparisteel with a comlink in her hand. He had the counterpart in his cell, given to him through the same slot in the door he received his food through.

"Do you have any idea the kind of insanity you've been causing out here for the past few months?" She had asked in that shrill tone of hers.

Of course he did. He said nothing in response though.

"Do you know what you put us through? What you put Master Skywalker through?"

Silence.

"Talk to me."

"No," he had croaked in return.

She had said all sorts of things ranging from threats to retellings of the things she had been through during his brief reign. Nothing made him talk. Nothing made him react.

Until she showed him her datapad.

"When were you gonna tell me about her?"

There was a picture of a little girl on it. She had a mess of copper hair and stormy gray eyes -- and she looked so much like her mother.

When Jacen was able to tear his eyes from the image on the datapad and look to his sister, he noticed the steely resolve and the quiet rage that had been building up in her as she spoke had dissolved now. She looked tired and there were tears in her eyes.

"Why didn't you tell me about her?"

Jacen moved his eyes from Jaina's face and slowly crushed the comlink in the palm of his hand. He didn't have the Force anymore, but the strength he had built during his Sith training and rule was still present. That was something that he would never let leave him. He had grown so used to being the Solo child who thought too much. Anakin had been the strong one, Jaina had been the clever one and he had been the one always lost in his own thoughts. Daydreaming about the universe, how to make it better and the bright future ahead of him.

Recently, he had just wanted to be all of it. Strong, clever and thoughtful. The last had escaped him.

"He won't talk to me." Jaina said, matter-of-factly. "And he broke the comlink on his side of the cell. We're waiting for a replacement to arrive on the next supply shipment. Sorry about that."

A curt nod in response, and then an observation. "I can't..." The woman across the table from her slowly waved her right hand to her head, indicating her right temple.

"You can't feel him..." Jaina nodded. "Master -- Uncle Luke stripped him of the Force."

Standing up, Jaina Solo rounded the small table and helped her friend out of her seat. She was perfectly capable of doing it herself, and Jaina knew this -- Tenel Ka was always capable of doing things herself -- but she had taken note of the slight case of shakes the Queen Mother had suddenly developed and she could feel her despair in the Force.

"Can you watch --"

"Can I watch my niece for you?" Jaina forced a small smile and guided Tenel Ka to the entrance of the cell's observation chamber, stopping in front of it. "Of course." She opened her mouth to say something else but shut it again and punched in the code to open the door. "Let me know if you need anything, alright?"

The Queen Mother nodded and slipped into the observation chamber, the door sliding shut behind her.

Dim light from the setting sun outside filtered in through the tattered curtains that were pulled shut on his side. Besides that, the room was dark and Tenel Ka had to stand beside the door for a moment to let her eyes adjust before she could properly assess the chamber she was standing in.

The room was long and a full transparisteel wall ran along the length of it, reaching from the floor to the ceiling. On her side of the chamber there was a simple chair and a table. On his side there was the same thing, plus a cot and a basic refresher unit. When her eyes finally caught sight of him in her visual sweep, she froze by the door.

The lighting in the room was dim, but she could still make out his features and his body. He was seated on the cot, his hands locked together in his lap and his feet placed firmly on the ground in front of him. They were bare, as were his arms, which protruded from a dirty sleeveless shirt that clung to his chest like a second skin. It was tan, like his pants which were baggy and thin and hung on his frame because of a haphazard knot he managed to tie at the top.

He was staring at her, wide-eyed and pleading. His expression was one of muted shock, like he never expected her to be there. He wasn't moving.

He looked horrible. Cut-up, gaunt, vacant -- but he looked like Jacen again.

All she could recall of his most recent visits to Hapes was of him always lost in thought and brooding. He played with Allana in an absent sort of fashion, always focusing on her and not the act of spending time and laughing with her. And when he managed to crawl into bed late at night, she could remember always asking him what was wrong and he would just brush her question off and wrap her up in his arms, falling asleep with a painfully overprotective grasp on her. Some nights he would get in bed and she would see flashes of his old self again, as he tried to joke his way into her good favor -- which usually led to a quick and rough round of lovemaking before he fell asleep and left early in the morning without a goodbye.

His eyes were dead whenever she had seen him. For once in her lifetime she had been scared.

But not now. Even in the dark she could see that something had returned to his gaze. There was sadness, a deep depression swirling in those brandy-brown eyes. But at least his eyes were alive.

He was alive.

Slowly, Tenel Ka begin to approach the transparisteel, a bundle of her pale green traveling gown bunched up in her hand so she wouldn't step on it. She dropped it once she reached the clear wall and she pressed a palm to the surface, her eyes meeting his.

Jacen bolted up from the cot at that point, rushing to the wall and practically slamming himself into it, his palms splayed out on the transparisteel in front of his chest.

"Jacen..." she murmured, knowing he couldn't hear her. She realized how good it felt to just say his name, and actually be speaking to him and not through some opaque filter of anger.

She couldn't hear his response, but from the movement of his lips and all that she knew about Jacen since the first time she met him, she knew what it was.

"Hey."

Tilting her head, she gave him a once over. She could now see the lumps on his side under his shirt where the bacta bandages were and if he was feeling any pain then he was pushing through it to stand up and attempt communication with her. His shoulders were shaking and his hair was damp with sweat, but she found herself focusing on the color rushing into his cheeks and the way he was furiously blinking his eyes. They were wet with tears or sweat or both, she couldn't tell which, but she also couldn't look away from them.

There was a wall between them but he was so close to her. He was so close and he wasn't hissing about something, or talking politics or ignoring her.

He was crying.

She watched him sniffle and drag his arm across his face, his eyes suddenly red. She then watched him lean down slightly, so that he was right in front of her face, and he took a deep breath before letting it out and fogging up a small patch of the transparisteel. Before it vanished, he quickly and deftly wrote a simple one-worded question -- backwards to himself so that she could read it.

Joke?

He had written the last letter wrong and it was backwards to her -- that was something he noticed and openly scowled at before looking to her for an answer. He was forcing a smile through the foggy surface and she saw that once it evaporated he had on that grin of his father's. That lopsided grin that she hadn't seen since Allana was born. She felt the sudden and impossible urge to wrap him in a hug.

She could only shake her head in response though. He mocked a frown and then she watched him swallow what could only be a mouthful of dry, stale air.

They stood there like that for a good few minutes, her palm still on the transparisteel and her gaze following a tear that had escaped his eye and was traveling down his defined jawline. He stood on the other side just simply taking in the sight of her. He reveled in the way her hips curved and the way her hair fell around her shoulders. He found himself particularly entranced by the hollow of her neck, which was a place he had always let his lips linger during their more intimate moments. He shut his eyes and pressed his forehead against the clear surface -- he could almost smell her. The pale fragrance of the flora on Hapes had taken up a permanent residence in her hair and on her skin and thinking back to the time he spent there, he swore he caught that scent.

When he pulled his eyes open, she was staring at him still, her face flushed and her palm still on the surface. She had moved closer though and her shoulders were raised around her a bit. She looked unsure.

She was. Having him back like this was an unbelievable thing -- especially after having him gone, emotionally, for so long.

From her time as the Queen Mother of Hapes, she had picked up a few skills when it came to reading lips. And those lips that she always welcomed on hers were moving, as were the hands that she always loved to feel on her skin.

"We need to talk." He said this behind the transparisteel, motioning with his hands between them and then making a crude talking motion with his right hand. His expression had fallen when he said this, and she knew why. She knew they were going to have a very long discussion about what was happening to him, what he did and all the problems he caused throughout the galaxy -- not to mention how they were supposed to deal with these events and letting Allana know about everything. The prospect of that conversation caused her stomach to drop and her chest to tighten, but she knew it would have to come sooner or later.

She nodded to him, blinking back tears.

"Tenel Ka?"

He tried to get her to look back up at him, but her head had dropped and her hand had moved away from the surface between them and to her face. Finally, she turned away from him.

"Tenel Ka!"

Jacen knew she couldn't hear him, the transparisteel was definitely soundproof. But that didn't stop him from trying. "Hey!" Slamming his palms against the clear wall, he felt his nostrils flare at the sudden frustration coursing through his system.

He tried to call out to her once more through the transparisteel but, of course, she couldn't hear him. He resorted to calling out to her through their connection, their bond in the Force.

And then it hit him again.

He wasn't connected anymore.

All he could do was stand there and watch Tenel Ka's back, her shoulders racking with sobs.

She began to shift to the far side of the room, attempting to wipe her eyes with her right hand. He followed her along the wall, his right hand gliding over the transparisteel with her body as she moved. He couldn't take his eyes from her. She noticed him still with her and quickly walked back to the other end of the room, still wiping her eyes. Everything he had done was flooding back into her mind at the mention of them having a talk and she was afraid to look at him. What if he did it all again?

He had paced with her; back up the length of the room, following her like a caged animal. And she noted, with a bitter amusement that when he was younger, some of the animals he had kept in cages used to do the same to him. She expected to look at him and see that snarl she was so used to. That loathing sneer he wore in the past few months.

When she whipped her head back up to him, he was standing there, lips pursed with a frown and eyes dropped to the floor. She felt a wave of relief wash over her at the sight, but it still didn't do much to settle her nerves. Part of her wanted to scream at him for everything and wanted him to suffer for what he put everyone through and the other part just wanted to help him get cleaned up and then pull him into bed with her for a long nap.

She loved him. She loved him for what he was before and what he hopefully could become again. Jacen Solo.

When he used his fists to bang on the wall a couple of times, she snapped out of her trance and waited. He breathed on the glass again, a bigger area this time and quickly scrawled out another message.

I love you.

The "e" was backwards again.

He noticed this once more and his face twisted into an expression of disgust before he looked away from his mistake and to the Queen Mother, hoping for some sort of reply. Anything. He didn't want to watch her turn away from him again.

Tenel Ka stood there momentarily, staring at the words as they slowly began to vanish. She couldn't respond to that yet. Not just yet. But she did plant a kiss on the tips of her fingers and place them firmly in the middle of the "o" of "love" in his foggy declaration. The letter his own lips had been behind.

Once the words disappeared, he pressed his forehead to the transparisteel and watched her begin to back away from the wall, back towards the door. She raised her hand in a goodbye and he forced that lopsided grin back at her. He tried to put all the feeling behind it he could, since he couldn't reach her through the Force.

She smiled back to him. It was weak and her lips were quivering. But it was a smile. And from her, that was enough for him.

She was outside of the cell again, away from him once more, and a cold and artificial air settled over her.

"Thank you very much, Jaina." Tenel Ka said, the door sliding shut behind her.

"Welcome, Majesty."

Just like Jacen, Jaina had taken to calling her nicknames relating to her position. Tenel Ka noted this with a bit of warmth. They were still more similar than they wanted to admit.

"Did anything happen?"

"Nothing too important."

Jaina nodded and motioned out the entrance. "Allana's out playing with Uncle Lowbacca."

With a smile, Tenel Ka thanked Jaina again and the two hugged tightly before the Queen Mother took her leave.

Yawning, Jaina stretched and tilted her head to the side, wincing at the crack her neck made. She looked at the security monitor that was focused on Jacen's cell at all hours. He was on his cot.

He was sleeping. After eighty-six hours he was finally sleeping.

"Nothing too important..." She murmured to the empty security chamber around her. "Right."

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU] Insomnia

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:30:14 GMT

Title: Insomnia
Series: Star Wars: EU, post-LotF
Characters: Jaina Solo, Kyp Durron
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, I just have fun with them. Wangsty fun. D:
Notes: I know I posted this on my regular LJ, but I needs it here since it's a WRITING AND ALL OMG. It was a thank you present for blood_sorbet for help with the kitty bills! THANK YOU AGAIN~! <333

INSOMNIA

Jaina Solo had been awake for thirty-four standard hours straight, six of which had most recently been spent staring at the blank wall of her temporary quarters on Coruscant.

Night had fallen and apart from the city lights streaming into her window, there was no form of illumination in the room except for her datapad which was tossed on the plain sofa beside her, still lit up with the message from her mother.

I hope you're okay after the meeting the other day. Please contact me and let me know.

Jaina could hear in her head the part her mother wanted to add at the end of the message -- You're all I have left -- but didn't. She didn't need to be told that, she could feel that from her mother. It was that sense of desperation that Leia Organa Solo would mask with her strength and her steely resolve. There was a bit of that distress that chewed a hole in her mother when Chewbacca died, it just got bigger with Anakin's death. Now with Jacen's fall to the Dark Side, it had been eating her mother alive.

In her first major movement of the night, Jaina let out a long sigh, pressing herself back against the decorative pillows behind her. She heard her back crack, as well as one of her shoulder blades, but neither the noise nor the feeling jarred her.

Her mind bounced around hundreds of thoughts in the amount of time she had been sitting there, the main two being her twin brother -- or what used to be her twin brother -- and her family in general. All the things they would never have. There would be no family reunion dinners later in life where her brothers would argue about stupid things and Chewbacca would break them up with a big furry arm between their mock-angry faces, there would be no holos taken of the Solo family at big gatherings -- their dad with nerf ears over the boys. No brothers to talk to when their parents were fighting and no brothers to gather strength from when she was having a particularly annoying day.

No brothers to smile up at her from the front of the crowd when she got married one day.

No brothers to be uncles to the children she might have one day.

No brothers to help her bury their parents in the hopefully far future.

She knew children who had no siblings. Zekk. Tenel Ka. They were strong without siblings, sure. But they never knew what it was like to have them. To have them and then watch them ripped away in such a violent fashion.

She felt a fleeting pang of sympathy for Alema Rar and how she lost her twin sister.

Jaina swallowed a mouthful of stale air and balled her fists up in her lap.

She attempted another Jedi calming technique. Something she had tried and failed at roughly forty times within the previous six hours. But unlike those past attempts, this one was interrupted by something. A knock at the door.

Her lips thinned into a line and her brow furrowed. It was probably her mother, worried about the lack of response to her message. That thought changed when she heard the voice coming from the corridor beyond her front door.

"Jaina?"

With a flick of the wrist -- and the joint cracking in the process -- Jaina used the Force to flip the switch to open the door. She never looked away from the spot on the wall and her hand fell back into her lap next to the other.

A block of light flooded into her quarters from the hallway, vanishing as quickly as it appeared once her visitor shut the entrance behind them. Rounding the couch, the visitor stopped; hip cocked, arms crossed and head tilted. She finally shifted her head and her eyes, looking up at him.

She had been spending all of her time working with Zekk and Jag, listening to them banter, keeping them from arguing. She found that keeping herself from arguing with them was just as difficult as keeping them from doing it with each other. Kyp Durron was a welcome change from all that. He usually wasn't any more pleasant than the others she had been spending time with, but tonight he looked like a different man. Maybe it was because she hadn't seen him in so long.

He was standing up straight and the slouch she was used to wasn't apparent. It had either vanished completely or he was hiding it well. His ebony hair, now peppered with distinguished streaks of gray, was past his shoulders and clean -- not up in that crooked ponytail and slightly greasy, like she remembered. Normally a dull shade of green, his eyes were now a bright emerald and wider than before. He looked like a high-ranking official and a well-respected Jedi Master. He looked like a grown man.

Finally.

"Hey there," his voice echoed in the quiet room. It was still the low, husky tone she knew.

"Hi."

"That's it?"

"What were you expecting?"

"I don't know. 'Kyp! I haven't seen you in so long!' or maybe 'Oh Kyp! How I've missed you!' I would've also accepted, 'Your hair looks horrible like that, cut it!' or 'You clean up nice.' I guess a plain old hi is fine too. At least you said something."

She stayed silent.

Durron sighed audibly and sat to the left of Jaina, the blinking datapad still on her right.

They sat in silence next to each other for a few minutes, Kyp fiddling with a stray thread hanging from his tunic. He knew why she was acting the way she was, or part of the reason, anyways. He had been at that meeting. Han and Leia had shared with the family and a few close friends that the child they had helped rescue wasn't only Tenel Ka's, but Jacen's as well. They discussed how obvious it should've been to them, what with how close the two had always been and all the times Jacen or Tenel Ka had dodged the subject. Discussion turned to Jacen himself and all the things he had done and Kyp could see that Jaina had been growing distant throughout the whole meeting.

"You okay?" He finally asked the dark room ahead of him, nudging his right shoulder to her left.

Jaina responded with only a grunt, which Kyp took as a no.

"When was the last time you ate?"

She shrugged.

"When was the last time you slept?"

"What are you, my mother?"

"If I was, you wouldn't be sitting around here moping like this." He turned his head to look at her, shrugging slightly. "Not that I don't think your mom doesn't do a good job with her kids. I particularly like your mom."

"It's not like she has to work that hard anymore. Two of her kids are dead."

The universe seemed to come to a halt after Jaina's words hit Kyp's ears. He knew the girl had a slight temper, he knew she had been through a lot. But he never expected something like that to come out of her mouth. He didn't acknowledge it, knowing it would only fuel her frustration. Instead, he pushed himself back against the couch and placed his hands in his lap, mirroring her posture. Her temper didn't seem to stop with that comment though, and a few minutes later she spat out a question.

"How are things with you and your girlfriend?"

"Do you really care?" He snapped back.

Jaina said nothing.

Standing up, Kyp stretched briefly before pacing behind the couch towards the small kitchen area and getting himself a tall glass of water. He didn't ask her if she wanted anything. He figured she didn't. He figured she would ignore him if he asked her. So he just returned to the couch and sat beside her once more, the water glass in his left hand and resting on his thigh. With his right hand he reached over her and fiddled with the datapad until he got a good grasp on it, then he pulled it to him and glanced over the message on the screen, flipping a switch on the side to get the backlight to dim and turn off.

The message Leia had left on her datapad stuck in Kyp's mind after he turned the screen off and set the device on the low table ahead of them. He knew Jaina hadn't answered the message.

He took a long, cold swig of the water and sighed, asking another question to the dimly lit room that surrounded them.

"So how does it feel to be an aunt?"

Kyp didn't mean for the question to garner the reaction it did, but Jaina moved. She moved from her frozen position on the high-backed couch and collapsed to her left against his side, her shoulders suddenly racking with violent sobs. Without hesitation, Kyp shifted his right arm around her and absently rubbed his hand up and down her right shoulder. He knew there had to be something to break her out of that trance she was in, he just didn't know that Jacen's daughter would be the thing to do it. She seemed to hate everything that remotely related to her twin these days -- a fact that Kyp wasn't surprised by at all. But he remembered the look on her face when Leia and Han had put that image of Jacen and Tenel Ka's daughter up on the holoscreen at the meeting. Jaina had visibly flinched, her jaw setting and her eyes flashing. Like someone had slapped her square across the face.

Little Allana was going to finish growing up without a father, just like Jaina had finished growing up without her brothers. The little girl knew him and loved him and then he would be viciously torn apart from her, just like Anakin and Jacen had been stolen from Jaina.

They had both lost Jacen and Kyp figured her reaction to his question was more for her niece's sake then her own.

Hugging her to his side, Kyp finished his glass of water and reached forward, setting it on the table. He whispered an apology to Jaina for having shifted, but when he moved back and glanced down, he realized she hadn't heard him. There were faint trails on her cheeks from the few tears she had cried, but those had ceased and she was sleeping peacefully against his side.

"Guess that answers the sleeping question," Kyp murmured to the dark room. He let his eyes drift over to the window and watched the hover traffic pass by outside as his hand continued to rub up and down Jaina's arm. The night went by very slowly for him and he made the time pass by letting his mind wander, before finally falling asleep himself, his head propped against the arm of the sofa.

When Jaina Solo woke up late the next morning, Kyp was gone and her datapad was on the table ahead of her beside the empty water glass, flashing with a message.

Goddess,

You're welcome for helping you with the insomnia. You know where to find me if you need me. Feel better.

- Durron

FANFICTION // [Star Wars: EU] The Feigned: Absolved

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:22:44 GMT

The first chapter of Absolved -- the third story in The Feigned series -- is online! It can be found right here!

YAY I'M FINALLY DOING SOMETHING WITH THIS SERIES. XD

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] The First Time

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:59:39 GMT

Title: The First Time
Series: Star Wars: EU, post-LotF
Characters: Zekk, Tenel Ka, Allana, Darth Caedus, a few others...
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (except a choice few, lol), I'm just having a little whiny fun with them. Muahaha~
Notes: Zekk plays dress up! :O

Chapter Six --

"So you don't even know what the banquet is for?"

A tired exhale sounded from the Queen Mother as her eyes drifted lazily to his. "I don't really pay attention anymore, unless it's something extremely important."

“It’s a celebration for the completion and signing of the treaty about the economical policies and trade routes between Maires, Relephon and Gallinore,” Anhaje said this as she brushed through Tenel Ka’s hair, slightly smiling at the Queen Mother’s lax attitude. She usually acted like that when getting ready for a banquet.

Tenel Ka waved her right hand in the air towards Zekk, as if to simply say there’s your answer.

He tried not to stare as the handmaidens all flitted around her, buttoning clasps and tying knots here and there. Some were fiddling with her hair and some were still in the wardrobe picking out things for her to wear. Zekk expected them all to start singing some merry tune while they worked on her, like one of those old fantasy holos all the young kids watched.

He blinked, slightly shocked at how fast time moved on Hapes. Just two days before, Tenel Ka had attended her own small funeral for the man she loved. Her grieving period had been brief, and now she was back to her daily life -- royal functions, meetings, parties – stuff he figured Tenel Ka most likely wasn't a big fan of, while Zekk, when he was younger, only dreamed of.

Her mixture of depression and boredom had been noted both through the Force and on her face, and Zekk, whose feelings of both emotions probably weren't as strong as hers, felt like he needed to do something about it. Friends were supposed to help friends through things like this and even though they hadn't spent much time with each other in years, she was still one of the few people he always felt the least bit comfortable around.

He opened his mouth to say something to her, but quickly shut it and bowed slightly before exiting the chambers. She most likely hadn’t even noticed – her eyes had been glazed over again and locked on some random spot on the floor.

Walking up the hall to the front of the chambers where Vessau’s desk was, Zekk saw the man leaned back in his chair with his feet up on his desk. His holoterminal was still dead and he was dozing off, his hands resting comfortably on his stomach. He poked the secretary’s shoulder. When the man didn’t move, Zekk went from one finger to a whole palm and slapped the man’s arm.

A grunt sounded as Gadell bolted upright, knocking a stack of datapads over with his feet. He looked around quickly and straightened his jacket before shaking his head and snapping his eyes to Zekk, who instantly blurted out his request.

“Lemme borrow one of your uniforms.” He waved his hands in front of him, looking for more descriptive words. “One that you don’t wear often.” He knew it had to be something fairly unrecognizable to the Palace staff, most of who probably saw Gadell almost everyday, no doubt.

“What? Why?”

“Just… please.” Another pause. “Something nice.”

The Hapan man just arched an eyebrow.

Zekk rolled his eyes and scoffed. “I’m gonna go to the banquet tonight.”

Gadell laughed, “Why?”

“Because I’m… I’m bored.”

“They’re not very exciting.”

“That’s what I hear, but anything’s better than sitting around doing nothing. Or sitting around waiting for something to happen. Same thing.”

The secretary seemed to think on this, a sly expression crossing his face. He moved to make a request in return, which Zekk was expecting and hoping would come.

“I’ll fix your holoterminal.”

The expression quickly turned from sneaky to delighted as Gadell’s eyes widened. “Really? You can do that.”

“Of course.” Zekk reached over Gadell’s head and slapped the terminal on its side. “I’ll do it first thing in the morning.”

Gadell pondered on this thought for a few moments, most likely weighing the good and the bad, before nodding and sliding from his seat. “Alright then, yes, definitely. Let’s go find you something to wear.”

......

Allana was used to Zekk in Jedi robes, so when he came barging into the Queen Mother’s quarters dressed in a stylish, pale gray Hapan uniform, she giggled and clapped her hands. “Why’re you dressed so funny?”

He peered around the quarters, noting the absence of the handmaidens and Tenel Ka. Scooting closer to where Allana sat on her mother’s cushy bed, curled up under the covers, he leaned down to her and whispered conspiringly in her ear. “I’m gonna have some fun tricking some suitors. Want to help me out?”

Her face lit up like the twin suns of Tatooine. “Yes!”

Zekk was about to fill the girl in on his plan when Tenel Ka rounded the wall near the bed, exiting the refresher. The wide smile he had pasted on his face slowly vanished at the sight of her.

Her copper hair was piled loosely on her head with a few random curls drifting out and down her neck and there was a silver band that sat against the crown of her head, which matched minor silver accents in the gown she was wearing. It was silk, dark green and it swept the floor as she moved. It wasn’t the same tacky satin contraption thing he had seen the handmaidens stuffing her into earlier. It was much simpler – and definitely more elegant.

“Hey,” was all he could manage to say.

She had come to a complete halt when she saw him standing there, and she wasn’t sure how to react to his presence at the moment, especially when he was so nicely dressed.

“And who might you be?” she asked softly.

“Yeah. What did you do with Uncle Zekk?” Allana added.

His lips upturned again, only slightly, and he delivered a surprisingly regal bow to the Queen Mother. “I’m…” he paused, his eyes shifting around as he waited for anything to pop into his head. “Vitan… Whipper…whip. Vitan Whipperwhip! From uh…”

“Charubah!” Allana beamed, naming one of the sixty-three planets in the Consortium.

“Charubah!” Zekk said it right after Allana and winked to her in thanks. He then looked back to the Queen Mother. “And I’m here to accompany her royal majesty of the Hapes Consortium to the banquet tonight.”

Her eyebrow arched and Zekk could see that she was trying to keep the corners of her lips from shifting upwards. He stood up straight and locked his hands behind his back, puffing his chest out. “Shall we go?”

Allana whooped in delight and threw the covers off of her, jumping out of the bed. She was clad in a little party frock of blue with a matching flower in her hair.

“Well don’t you just look smashing, kid?”

“I do!”

Tenel Ka eyed her daughter momentarily.

“I mean, thank you Uncle Zekk!”

Laughing, Zekk nodded to the girl and peered to Tenel Ka. He thought she looked just as amazing, but didn’t vocalize it – he also didn’t mask his thoughts very well and Tenel Ka caught the sentiment, quietly voicing her response.

“Thank you,” she whispered to him, almost silently.

He realized his mistake and looked over to the door, trying to keep the sudden flush of his face out of view. Allana grabbed his hand and tugged him towards the door where she attempted to reach the panel to open it. Zekk moved his arm over her head to do it but she protested, claiming she would do it herself. He pulled back and watched her until he felt a hand on his shoulder. Turning his head, he noticed Tenel Ka studying the designs on his clothing – he figured she knew where he had gotten the outfit from.

"You look good with shoulderpads," Tenel Ka smirked at his jacket.

"Not wearing shoulderpads."

Her expression seemed to falter and she placed her open palm on his shoulder, patting it awkwardly. "When did you get so big?"

Zekk threw his head back and laughed at her blatant question -- also at the fact that she, for some reason, didn't find it amusing at all -- and shook his head. "While you weren't paying attention, Your Majesty."

Finally reaching the door, Allana strode out first with Tenel Ka and Zekk in tow. The little girl looked proud and ready to go mingle with the company at the banquet; even though her mingling usually consisted of giggling at people dancing and drinking the rainbow punch that made her teeth look funny colors.

Gadell laughed quietly as they passed by his desk, throwing them a lazy wave.

“What about you?” Zekk asked, spinning around to face the secretary as they walked.

“I always show up fashionably late, thank you very much!” Gadell called back as Zekk and the ladies vanished around the corner.

......

He didn’t think she would let him enter the Grand Hall with her, but she did. She had Allana skipping beside her on her left and led Zekk into the huge chamber with her hand pushing at the small of his back. He was instantly shocked at the amount of media attention the entrance to a Hapan banquet got, and was almost blinded by glaring lights and surprised by the sudden barrage of political questions. Although, he did hear a few that weren’t related to her job at all.

“Your Majesty, who is this?”

“Who is Allana’s father?”

“Greetings,” Tenel Ka spoke quietly from behind Zekk as they moved forward, pushing through the crowd of holoreporters and cameramen – blatantly ignoring all the questions asked. He felt her hand leave his back once they got in the middle of everyone and he figured she was waving. Royalty always waved, or at least that’s one thing he always thought they did.

After escaping the mass of reporters by the door, Zekk almost let out a sigh of relief. What stopped him though was the group of men who strode up to him and the ladies he was with. They were all impeccably dressed and had their chins held up high. Zekk figured they were suitors. They just had to be.

They ignored him momentarily, all eyes locked on the Queen Mother.

“You look absolutely extravagant tonight, Your Highness.”

Zekk didn’t look back to her after the one in the front spoke; he just kept his eyes locked on them and shoved his hands in his pockets. He could feel himself trying to suppress a scowl. Some of them were looking at her like she was a piece of meat and they were a pack of hungry nexu. Did she deal with these hydrotools every day? Did they always look at her like they wanted to eat her for lunch?

He felt her right arm snake through his left and refrained from jumping at the touch. That was the last thing he expected her to do, but he smiled at the gesture inwardly. Zekk knew she had to be about to mess with the suitor’s minds and he was more than ready to play along.

They hadn’t paid any attention at all to Zekk until Tenel Ka touched him – then all their eyes had shifted to him and turned from a testosterone-filled-hunger to a seething hatred. It was amazing the emotions these Hapans could portray with just the slightest sneer or raise of the eyebrows. Zekk smiled widely.

“And who might you be?” One of the suitors asked, haughtily.

“Name’s Vitan,” he answered, with absolutely no hesitation at all. “I’m from Charubah.”

He could here Allana giggling quietly on the other side of her mother.

One of the blonde suitors hanging on the outskirts of the small group crossed his arms over his chest and cocked his hip out. “I’m from Charubah and I’ve never heard of you.”

Zekk rolled his eyes in a theatrical and over-the-top sort of way before taking his right hand out of his pocket and resting it over Tenel Ka’s, which was still clinging to his left arm. “Then you, my good friend, must be deaf.” He paused, looked to the Queen Mother for a moment and turned his nose up. “Let’s be on our way, Your Royal Highness.”

Tenel Ka seemed to give the suitors a prim little grin before motioning to Allana to go ahead of them, and then she shifted away from the group, her arm still locked with Zekk’s. Once they were far enough away from the men, they both started chuckling. It felt like a stupid prank from the Academy.

Her led her to the head of the main table and pulled the ornate chair out for her, waiting for her to seat herself in it before attempting to turn away to find a table of his own. He was halted by a hand on his chest. Glancing back down to Tenel Ka, she pulled at the front of his jacket until he was leaning down, her lips in line with his right ear.

“Sit over there at the suitor’s table.” Her warm breath hit his neck and he was suddenly very jealous of Gadell for getting to feel that whenever she gave him orders. “And stay where I can keep an eye on you.”

“You just want to stare at my handsome face all night, Your Majesty, don’t lie.”

She didn’t outwardly and instantly deny it, which mildly surprised him. It was something she would’ve done when they were younger, if he had ever had the nerve to say that to her. She just countered with a snip of her own. “I want to make sure you stay out of trouble.”

“Of course.”

Tenel Ka watched him pull back from her and stand up straight, slightly bowing momentarily before turning from the main table and swaggering to the closest one, seating himself on the side that gave him a perfect view of Tenel Ka and Allana. She shot him a quick and polite grin before turning to look up at her father, who was seating himself at the table.

The man jabbed a thumb over his shoulder. “Was that Zekk?”

“Yes, father.”

They began eating the food that was served and once Tenel Ka had a mouthful of greens, her father spoke up again, breaking the silence at their end of the table.

“He’s not going to eat any centerpieces this time, is he?”

She almost choked of the leafy fronds in her mouth and took the time to swallow them before taking a long swig of water and promptly delivering a playful slap to her father’s arm. “I think he’s past that stage now.”

“Let’s hope so.”

Allana giggled at the exchange, which caused Isolder to start relaying the story to his granddaughter. The one about Uncle Zekk and the centerpiece he believed was a part of the meal from a banquet years before. Tenel Ka never knew why her father loved to tell that story so much, but she took the time that the others were occupied to toss a glance to the table to her right.

There was a gaggle of suitors at the one end and a smattering of politicians at the other. Zekk was seated on one of the ends, surrounded by suitors. He was poking at a fairly well cooked slab of meat and she watched him place a piece in his mouth before washing it down with a gulp of wine. When he set the glass down, he had caught her looking at him and gave a single suave and exaggerated nod of the head.

She was surprised at how well he was getting into his suitor persona.

Keeping a grin hidden from her lips, she looked back down at her plate and continued to eat.

......

Zekk watched her from his table. He had been sick of listening to the suitors to his left squabbling so he decided to tune them all out and look around a bit. The plates had all been cleared and taken away and a band was starting to play on the lower floor. He sighed and grabbed the wine flute ahead of him, finishing off the last few drops of his third glass. Setting it back down, his eyes shifted from the sparkling rim to above it, where the Queen Mother sat.

She was seated at the head of the main table, Allana on her left and Prince Isolder on her right. Her father still appeared as handsome and tall as he ever did and there was something brighter in his eyes now though – it probably appeared once his granddaughter was born.

The three of them were talking about something, Allana playing with her food during the conversation. The little girl laughed when Isolder said something – and he quickly joined her giggling. Tenel Ka didn’t look amused. Her father reached over to her, something which she ducked to avoid but stopped when she realized she had nowhere to go. He grabbed at the pin in her hair and pulled it out, causing her copper curls to fall around her shoulders.

“Much better,” Zekk heard Isolder say over the din of the hall. He said something else after that, something about Tenel Ka’s hair and her mother, but Zekk couldn’t pick up exactly what it was.

Allana laughed and clapped her hands together a couple times.

Leaning forward, Zekk rested his elbows on the tabletop and set his chin his hands. So much had happened to them, Isolder’s mother had gone mad; he had lost his wife and Tenel Ka’s mother, while Tenel Ka and Allana lost their lover and father respectively, but they were still a family. They laughed and joked and talked and it was something Zekk wished he had. He had no one to lose because anyone he had was gone – they had never been there in the first place. He had never known what a family was like.

With a sigh, he was about to halt one of the handmaidens stalking around to ask for another glass of Hapan wine when he felt a tug on his sleeve. Peering down, he found Allana standing beside him with a wide grin on her pale face and her hands on her hips.

“Come dance, Uncle Z.”

“Out there?” He pointed incredulously to the open space to their left. It was down a large flight of steps and there were already a few couples on it. The music wafted up to the tables.

“Yes! Where else?”

“Her Tiny Royal Majesty wants to dance with me?” He laughed.

She attempted to pull him out of the chair and he helped by standing up. Then she began to drag him around the table and towards the stairs. Zekk tossed a wide-eyed look to Tenel Ka as they passed the table. She was almost beaming and trying not to appear guilty.

“Did your mother put you up to this?”

Allana just giggled as she pulled him down the stairs. For a five year old, she was surprisingly strong and Zekk found himself ducking under arms and dodging dancing couples that Allana breezed by because of her size.

“You know I can’t dance, Allana, right?”

“I can’t neither!”

She stopped in the middle of the floor and began wiggling horribly out of time with the music. Zekk couldn’t do anything but laugh. “I don’t think that’s how you dance to this kind of music, kid.” Once he got himself under control, he held his hands out to her. “Here.”

Grabbing his hands, she looked up to him with an expectant and wide-eyed wonder. The kind of look kids always got when they were waiting for their mom or dad to read them the ending to their favorite bedtime story.

“Stand on my feet.”

“But it’ll hurt you!”

“Sweetheart, you weigh like five pounds, come on.”

Zekk had almost shocked himself by how well he was dealing with this. He never thought children were his strong suit. Whenever he saw a kid somewhere, whether it was a youngling at the Temple or a little brat walking down the street of a major city with their parents, he would sort of shy away from them or smile uncomfortably. Allana didn’t cause him to freeze up and play dumb though. Maybe it was the way she laughed or the carefree attitude she seemed to have – two things that Hapans usually didn’t do or possess.

She gently stepped up onto the tops of his boots and he shifted around the floor clumsily to the music, both of them laughing and not paying any attention to their stuffy surroundings.

Up at the top of the grand staircase, the Queen Mother stood with a glass of wine in her hand. She looked as though she was watching her subjects and guests dance the night away, but she was quietly and contentedly keeping her eyes locked on her daughter and Zekk as they swept around the floor enjoying themselves.

“I never would’ve pegged him as being good with children,” she heard her father murmur behind her.

She slowly shook her head, taking a sip from her glass. “Neither would I.”

YAY OR SOMETHING. XD

FANFICTION // [Star Wars: EU] The Feigned: Absolved

Sat, 05 Apr 2008 06:20:31 GMT

The prologue of Absolved -- the third story in The Feigned series -- is online! It can be found right here! :D

FANFICTION // [Bioshock] Sunset Blooms

Sat, 22 Mar 2008 01:40:56 GMT

Title: Sunset Blooms
Series: Bioshock
Characters: Henry Holton (OC), Mae Grant (OC), Gerald Winters (OC)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything pertaining to Bioshock, I am just having fun in Rapture! I did make up a couple of the characters though, but so what? XD
Notes: This one is happier than the others! It's also a PG-13, methinks, since one of the major plot lines is a random sexual encounter, BUT WHATEVER. YOU CAN DEAL, AMIRITE? Hehe, okay on with it.

SUNSET BLOOMS

To him, she was an example of hope and strength. A light in the dark. A breath of fresh air. A tiny sprinkle of purple flowers in the middle of a gray wasteland. To him, she was the sun.

And they hadn't even properly introduced themselves to each other until after they had sex.

She worked at Eve's Garden, some nights as a dancer and some as a waitress. He worked down at the wharf, for Fontaine at the fisheries in the day and for Bill McDonough at the tavern at night. Some days, if he was lucky, he got to put in some time at McCracken Crabs -- but that was only if he was lucky. One major constant he always had at his job though was the fact that he would deliver wine and beer to Eve's Garden every Friday night.

And he would see her there, smiling and laughing. She would be on stage either dancing by herself in a gown of feathers or maybe dancing backup for Jasmine Jolene. Sometimes she was on the floor carrying trays of drinks or cigarettes. But his eyes would always manage to find her.

He never expected her to look back at him, or even to acknowledge him. He was just a poor guy from Apollo Square who would come in with a cart of booze, dressed in a pair of brown pants, old boots and a dirty white shirt almost buttoned to the top with the sleeves rolled up. Sometimes he would have suspenders on too, but it was usually just the same old look. His hair was a rich shade of black and shoulder-length, usually pulled back in a loose tie and occasionally hidden under a brown pageboy cap. Same outfit, same job and same outlook on life for six years in a row -- ever since he was fourteen.

One night though, everything changed. She began to notice him.

He would cart in the delivery and pass by the bartender to stock it, peering over the counter to find her. One night he saw her peek around the curtain backstage to catch a glimpse of him and another night she made sure she came to get an order while he was behind the bar stocking. When she was standing there, he could only blush slightly and look away, biting his lip.

The bartender would occasionally catch him staring and scold him for it. One night when she was on stage the bartender even gave him a nice smack in the back of the head. "You're paid to deliver the goods and get out, boy, not to stare at the girls."

"Sorry," he had responded, quickly finishing the job and leaving.

He didn't know her eyes had followed him out -- and that she had been worrying about the knot that was forming on the back of his head.

He came back the week after that and noticed she was serving that night. That was the night she brushed right past him, full tray in her left hand and someone's empty wine glass in the other.

"Excuse me," she whispered as she went by, squeezing between him and the table he was passing.

"Mmmhmm." It was all he could manage to respond with, especially after he caught her eyes. They were a bright blue surrounded by long pale lashes and the way they lit up when the fabric of their clothing rustled against each other's made his heart hitch in his chest. It took him longer than normal to stock the delivery that Friday because he was too busy daydreaming.

He was surprised she even noticed him. Most of the citizens spending time in Fort Frolic seemed to ignore people like him, the dirty lower class who pretty much did all their work for them. They were nonexistent in Rapture. They worked the machine and got no recognition for it. Just a measly salary to barely live by and a few laughs with a stray injection of EVE and old plasmids here and there. It was no wonder most of his acquaintances were turning to drugs and other not very appealing hobbies.

Weeks went by like this; a glance here, a blush there -- once or twice he swore she even winked at him. Was this some sort of joke or something? Were her rich kid friends getting her to play a big prank on the dummy from the wharf?

One night he came in late with the cart, his eyes darting to the bartender as he entered.

"It's about time, kid."

"My apologies, sir. Problems at the tavern."

"Of course," the bartender replied in a bored sort of tone. "Grant!" He called out after that.

There was a questioning grunt from somewhere else in the establishment.

"I'm out of here for the night." The man began to shift towards the voice, weaving in and out of tables and stopping at the entrance to the hallway which contained the dressing rooms. "The stocker's here with the Friday shipment. You can lock up after he leaves, yeah?"

He had watched the bartender walk away and began to stock the bottles under the counter, like he did every week. Past the bar he could hear the 'tender leaving and someone else shuffling around. Most likely that Grant fellow or whoever it was.

"Hi there."

He jumped and smacked the back of his head on the underside of the counter in the exact place the bartender had hit it a few weeks earlier.

"Oh! I'm sorry!"

With those words, the inflection and the tone, he had realized that the Grant fellow was most definitely female. And when she vaulted the bar and helped him out from under it, he realized that it was the same one he had been eyeing for weeks. She tried to apologize again, but he waved his free hand in her face -- the other clamped over the new bump on the back of his head.

"It's fine, it's okay."

She opened her mouth to say something else but nothing seemed to come out and her lips just ended up working around soundless words. The pinks and purples of the lights around them cast a comforting glow on her face and he couldn't find any way to tear his eyes from hers. Weeks and weeks of staring and coy smiles and now they could talk with no interruptions -- but neither of them could find anything to say.

She reached up to him, the palms of her hands resting on his chest and sneaking to either side, where her fingers toyed with his suspenders. He had to resist the urge to jump again. A woman hadn't put her hands on him in years. Emily Chambers smacked him square across the face a few years before, for looking at her the wrong way. His mother hugged him and ruffled his hair all the time before she died in 1955. But this, this was different.

He hadn't realized it but his own hands were on her shoulders, rubbing the silk of the robe she wore and twirling strands of thick blonde hair around his sooty fingers. This is what he needed in his life. He needed companionship, he needed someone else, he needed her. Rapture had so many people in it and he had never found a single one he wanted to spend any time with, not one, until this point. He desperately hoped she wasn't playing some sort of trick on him, although, why she would put herself through something like this for her or any friend's amusement was beyond him.

"I..."

Whatever he had planned to say was cut off by her lips pressed against his.

Joke on her part or not, he didn't hesitate with kissing her in return, reveling in the way her arms snaked around his neck and the way her curves felt under his calloused fingers. Moments later she pulled back, and stepped away from him for what he thought was going to be forever.

But he watched her round the bar and head to the front door of Eve's Garden, locking it from the inside and shooting him a sideways glance before retreating back towards the hallway she had come out of earlier. Before she disappeared into the corridor, she stopped herself with a hand on the doorframe and turned to look at him once more. Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were pursed slightly. She raised her eyebrows once and then vanished from sight.

This was wrong, there was something completely off about this. He kept repeating it in his head. But he couldn't stop himself from meandering back towards the dressing rooms, shoving chairs out of his path and knocking into tables on the way. His delivery was only half unpacked behind the bar, but it was forgotten for a good few hours after he followed her back behind the stage, a multitude of closed doors on either side of him.

One was open at the end of the hall and a soft blue light was seeping out of the entrance, which he found himself drawn towards. Once he had managed to make it to the door, he hesitated before peeking around the frame. She was standing by the chair in front of her vanity, her arms by her sides and her head tilted slightly. She motioned for him to come in and a few moments passed before he stepped into the dim dressing room.

He slammed the door behind him and in a matter of seconds she was in his arms and their lips were locked again. They stumbled around a bit before she ended up pulling him to the ground into a surprisingly cushy pile of dresses and costumes used while she was on the clock. He could feel the feathers of one of the costumes tickling his back as she snapped his suspenders and tugged his shirt off. His fingers went to the tie of her robe.

Joke or not, he was amazed at what he was doing. The first real deviation from his normal life in six years. And it was a huge deviation. His mind wasn't anywhere near any thought at all of his normal life though. He had forgotten the delivery out by the bar; he had forgotten the yelling at the wharf and the arguing at the tavern. Nothing went through his mind concerning his barely there mattress he slept on every night or the thin, tasteless soup he ate for dinner. The smell of the dead sea life mixed with the stench of booze and the hushed whispers as smuggled goods were transported through the wharf -- it was all forgotten. And he definitely wasn't preoccupied with thoughts of his father screaming at him about what he was going to do for the rest of his life.

His mind, along with his hands, were on her. This woman from Eve's Garden. He didn't know her favorite color, her hobbies, where she went after work -- he didn't know how old she was or if she had any siblings. He didn't even know her name, but now he knew what she was like in the middle of one of the most intimate and engaging acts humans could take part in.

A very pleasant introduction, in his humble opinion.

He felt her fingernails in his back one last time before she relaxed, tilting her head back and letting her face disappear into a mess of the satins and silks they were laying on. He watched her for a few moments, his lips upturning slightly at the way she had closed her eyes and was attempting to catch her breath. Once she opened her eyes and peered up to him, she smiled.

"Henry Holton," he was still hovering over her as he said this, still breathing heavily himself, the air displacing strands of dark blonde from her forehead.

She laughed and it was a rich, lush sound that echoed in the small room. "Mae Grant."

"Good to meet ya, Mae." He felt a smile on his own face, which was flushed red.

She nodded in agreement and then bit her lip, stifling back another laugh.

"What?" Henry's smile vanished and he figured this was where the big joke was revealed.

But it wasn't because there was nothing to reveal. It was no prank.

"Nothing, I just..." Mae blinked and Henry shifted, settling beside her and waiting for her to go on. "That was the craziest thing I've ever done." She turned her head to look at him. "Ever."

The grin returned to his lips. "Me too." He still couldn't believe what had just happened and with a mouthful of dry air, he blurted out his next question. "Why did you do it?"

"I don't know... I've always been drawn to you. You're unlike any other guy who has stepped foot in this hellhole. You're polite, you're a gentleman, you're cute."

"I'm also poor," he stated quickly, matter-of-factly, and almost angrily.

"Who gives a rat's ass?" She leaned her head up on her hand and shook it almost violently. "I'm sick of this class shit. Andrew Ryan brought us all down here to banish that kind of thinking and now we're right back to it."

Henry couldn't help but smile inwardly at her language. She had always appeared to be this unreachable, prim and proper female of the species -- upper class, mingled with all the rich boys and girls. But here she was -- naked, lying curled up beside him in a pile of wrinkled silk and cursing just as heavily as the guys down at the tavern. She was a breath of fresh air.

He reached out and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Henry did it hesitantly though, thoughts of her suddenly being repulsed by him drifting through his mind. Mae responded only by nuzzling her cheek into his palm, which he took as a good sign. After that, she asked the same question of him.

"What about you, why did you do it?"

"I've been doing the same thing for about six years now. Wake up, get dressed, head to the wharf to work for Fontaine, head to the tavern to work for McDonagh, make deliveries, go home, eat dinner, go to sleep." He turned on his side to face her and watched as she shivered and reached down, pulling her robe up over them to their waists like a blanket. She looked back to him and expected him to go on. He did, but only with a single sentence. "This was something different."

"That's the only reason? 'Cause you wanted something different?"

He chuckled. "No, of course not. I mean, I know this probably sounds really bad, but I've thought about you a lot the past few months. You're the only thing that's ever made me smile during the day. I would think about Friday when I'd get to deliver the booze to Eve's Garden. I always look forward to seeing you, just catching a glimpse of you or hearing your voice place a drink order. Hell, I've been at the wharf gutting fish and I'll start having stupid, childish fantasies about you."

"A lot of guys've told me that." She dropped her head from her hand and laid it down beside his, their noses only half a foot apart. "Know how many of them I've done this with?"

Henry felt his heart lurch at the thought of the question she asked. "I... uh..."

"None." She smiled at one of his many random bouts of boyish innocence and shrugged. "All the girls here get that kind of stuff said to them all the time. You should hear what they say to Jasmine Jolene."

"So I'm just like all the other guys then?"

"No, that's not what I meant, Henry." She poked his chest with a red fingernail. "When you said it just now, I actually felt a reaction to it. When they say something like that it's just sort of unsettling."

"But I didn't say it to you until after all this," Henry waved a hand between then at their extravagant little mess of bare skin and costumes and discarded clothes.

"True." Mae's eyes lit up as she turned her gaze to the clear ceiling of the dressing room, her eyes following a small school of fish in the water beyond. "But there was always something different about you. You would apologize when you accidentally bumped into someone, whether it was me or not. You would always tilt your hat with a smile when you saw me, or passed any of the other ladies on the way in with your delivery. You never wolf whistled or yelled nasty things out there like all the others. You even opened the front door for me once a long time ago." She turned her head to look at him once more. "You probably don't remember that but that was when I first really noticed you."

"I remember that like it was yesterday."

In reality, it had been almost eight months since the night he held the door open for her and that night was when Mae realized that there were men in Rapture who weren't rich and bitter and perverted. There was more out there in the city than what she was used to. And she wanted it. He was what she needed in her life. A gentleman who cared more about others than himself and his money. Someone she could talk to and laugh with.

Her face flushed a little when she realized she had been staring at him, absently studying the way his hair fell over his face and the way his eyes matched the color of the leaves on the trees of Arcadia. Mae tucked her hands under her cheek and curled up under the robe, drawing closer to him. She felt his hand on her side and dared to look back up to his face when he began tracing patterns on her skin.

"Where did this come from?"

She already knew what he was asking about when the question fell from his lips, but moved her head slightly to look anyways. Henry's weathered fingertips were dancing on an irregular-shaped bruise that was smeared across her left side. It wasn't too large, and was lightening from the dark blue-black it started as, but he still caught a glimpse of it in the soft cerulean light of the dressing room.

Inhaling deeply, she let out a shaky sigh. "His name is Gerald Winters."

"A regular here?"

"Sort of." She shuddered again and pulled the robe further up their bodies. "He was for awhile, then one night he asked me out on a date and after that, he basically tried to court me. We went out on a few dates. I didn't know what I was doing. I was young, he was my first boyfriend, and he was the man I thought I would end up marrying. I just settled for it."

Henry nodded, waiting for her to continue. His expression had darkened considerably once he found out the answer to his question about the origin of the bruise was a name.

"We were dating for a few months and one night when it had been particularly busy around here, I told him I was gonna be late for a dinner date. I was gonna help Jasmine and Alexander clean up a little around here. Gerald didn't like that. So when I got to the Kashmir Restaurant to meet him for dinner, we ate in silence and then as he was walking me home he got angry about the situation and..." She shrugged tiredly. "... he started yelling at me. Once I told him I had enough and was done with the whole thing, he threatened to tell my parents where I worked."

"Your parents don't know you work at Eve's Garden?"

"It's a big city, dollface." She delivered a lopsided grin. "Anyways, I'm twenty-one. I can make my own decisions about my life and work, thank you. They're too busy paying attention to themselves and their artistic visions as it is. They don't have time for me."

He nodded, mildly shocked that parents of the upper class were just as distant as the ones in the lower class.

"To make a long story short, he didn't want me leaving him or being with anyone else. So he..." She tilted her head up a tad, the satin rustling around her.

"He beat you for it."

Mae whispered an affirmative.

They sat in silence for a few minutes, laying on their backs next to each other and staring at the city outside. Mae even dozed off for a couple minutes with her head on Henry's chest at one point. They talked some more once she woke up, about their families, friends, their jobs, their lives in general. They shared laughs and stories about their memories from being small children on the surface. They were together in the dressing room for over four hours, under a silk robe and lying in a cushy pile of chiffons and feathers. It seemed like something so simple, but to Henry and Mae it seemed like the best thing in Rapture. It seemed like the best thing in the world.

Henry left early that morning, around five. He left after he finished unpacking the delivery, which Mae helped with, wrapped up in her robe once more. She snapped Henry's suspenders as he pulled the empty cart to the entrance of the Garden, and they both shared another giggle before standing at the door for a few moments staring at each other. He leaned down to kiss her on the cheek and she shifted so their lips met. Her cheeks had flushed slightly when she pulled back and then she rushed him out of the Garden so she could close up, a grin apparent on her visage.

His breath caught in his throat as he exited the establishment out into Fort Frolic. He was worried that it would be the last time he ever saw her.

It wasn't.

Henry saw Mae many times after that. They went to McDonagh's Tavern together, they sat by the wharf, she took him to some of the shops and casinos at Fort Frolic. They got dirty looks occasionally, for mixing with each other's classes, depending on where they were. But they didn't care.

Late one Saturday, Henry wandered for a bit around Rapture before heading to Eve's Garden at closing time to pick Mae up. They were going to head to the Tea Garden together and eat a late night snack by the stream. He had picked a few of the flowers on the way through Arcadia and ended up with a handful of purple blooms to give to her when he arrived there to meet her after closing.

He found the door of Eve's cracked open when it already should've been locked and leaning towards the crack, he peeked in. Mae was standing there in a simple long skirt of gray and a white blouse buttoned to the neck. Her wavy bangs were parted to the side and her hair was down, the ends reaching the middle of her back. She appeared frustrated -- and that was when Henry heard a man's voice coming out of Eve's Garden.

"I brought you these and you don't even care?"

"I don't want your damn flowers!"

Henry quickly felt himself tense up and shifted his view through the crack in the door to a tall man standing a few feet away from Mae. He had broad shoulders and brown hair slicked back out of a tan face. The man was holding a huge vase of red roses and Henry could feel his own grip tightening around the small batch of purple flowers he had picked for her. Shifting, the man moved back across the large room, back towards the hallway leading to the dressing rooms.

"What are you doing?" Mae shrieked as the man moved farther into the corridor.

"I'm putting these in your dressing room."

"Gerald, I don't want them. I don't want you!" Mae followed after him and Henry strained to hear the words after that.

He was tempted to barge in and help her out with this guy, but he knew she probably wouldn't appreciate him pushing his way into her business like that. He trusted her.

"Get out! I don't want to see you ever again. We've already been through this!"

The man said something in return, his voice suddenly angry and rough -- Henry couldn't make out what it was though. There were a few more unintelligible verbal spars and then he heard the shattering of glass.

And the shrill cry of a female.

Throwing the door open, Henry stormed into the main chamber of Eve's Garden and peered around, making sure there was no one else there besides him, Mae and the tall man. "Mae?"

The first to stride out of the corridor at the back was the man, who instantly eyed Henry with a narrowed and calculating gaze.

"What the hell are you doing here? Garden's closed."

"I know. I'm here to pick up my girlfriend."

As he said the last word, Mae stumbled out of the corridor behind the man and pushed him out of the way, passing him and rushing onto the main floor of the establishment. Henry saw a new bruise on her face, reaching from her jawline up to her ear. He was mildly surprised her jaw wasn't shattered. Her face was red and flushed and she looked highly irritated at the whole situation as she glanced back to Henry. Mae slowly began to shift past tables to stand behind Henry, away from the other man.

"Oh wait, is this the Henry I've been hearing about from others? The one that you're hanging around with so much?"

"Henry Holton," he nodded solemnly, before Mae could answer, his adrenaline suddenly pumping. "You must be Gerald Winters."

A sly smile crossed the man's face and he shrugged his broad shoulders. "In the flesh."

"Well, Gerald, it's been nice meeting you. But if you'll excuse Mae and me now, we have a date to keep. So if you'll step out so she can lock up..."

Gerald tried his hardest not to scowl, but he couldn't help himself and a sneer crossed his face. "I don't think she's going anywhere with you, Henry."

He was shocked at what he was saying. He never fought before -- he had broken up a few barfights at the tavern, and a couple arguments at the wharf -- but he had never been in a fight himself. By the look in Gerald's eyes he felt like he was about to get into his first. His right hand still held the purple flowers while his left casually went to his back pocket. There was a small needle of EVE in there. He had it for months and months, always carried it around with him, and never figured he'd use it. He hoped the plasmids he had in his system still worked and would awaken if he injected the EVE. It had been a long time since an afternoon between jobs where he and his old friends would fiddle with some of the plasmids they had swiped from various places.

"Come on," Gerald casually moved towards the bar, his eyes never leaving Henry's. "I see the way you're looking at me. What are you gonna do about it?"

They stared at each other for what seemed like forever, Gerald leaning his back against the bar and Henry fingering the EVE needle in his back pocket. Only seconds had passed before Gerald was charging at him, throwing chairs out of his way and brandishing a corkscrew he had pulled out from behind the bar. Henry moved quick, stepping to the side and dropping the handful of flowers so he could roll to the floor and duck past Gerald. He went to crawl away on his hands and knees but Gerald had already turned around, his free hand clasped around Henry's ankle. Using his free foot to smash Gerald's cheek in with the scuffed and grimy bottom of his boot, he clambered to his feet and fished the needle from his back pocket.

Gerald recovered surprisingly quickly and saw what Henry had in his hand. "Goddamn poor people, stealing all the ADAM." Gerald lunged at him and grabbed him, the needle flying out of Henry's hand and landing on the stage. Winters wasted no time in tackling the slightly smaller man to the ground and stabbing the corkscrew into his left arm, where he would've injected the EVE, and then dragging it upwards towards Henry's elbow. With something between a growl and a scream, Henry's eyes rolled back into his head and he shut them against the pain, struggling against Gerald.

He felt his head getting lighter as Gerald twisted the corkscrew into his muscle a bit before pulling it out. His whole body was growing weak and the only thing that brought him out of his daze was a scream and the sound of wood breaking. Forcing his eyes to snap open, Henry saw Mae standing over them with the top half of a broken chair and Gerald holding his back and slightly squirming far enough off of him for him to scramble out from under the man. The bloody corkscrew was on the floor by Henry's right hand and he was about to pick it before he heard his name.

"Henry! Catch!"

Turning towards the stage, he saw Mae on it, proud and gorgeous like he had seen her there so many nights before. What was left of the broken chair was beside her, dropped from her left hand, and her right had the EVE needle in it, which she tossed at him. He caught it with his right hand and didn't hesitate in jabbing it into his left wrist, wincing at the pain as the needle went straight into the wound Gerald had made with the corkscrew.

He could feel the plasmids running through his bloodstream now, awake and ready. He switched to the one he used to fiddle with on the wharf, and focusing on what was left of the chair Mae broke, he set it on fire. She gasped slightly and shifted away from it before looking back to him. He then switched to one of his few others and raised the chair in the air, making it drift over to hover above Gerald.

"Would you like to leave now, Gerald?" Henry asked this as calmly as he could, raising his voice only slightly over the crackling of the flaming wood and Winters' painful grunts.

The man shifted and opened his eyes, which looked more hungry and deranged than before, and locked his gaze right on Henry. "Not until I kill you." The words came out in a low rumble and he was already on his feet heading towards Henry. But it took much too long and Henry had already used his right hand to guide the burning wood crashing onto Gerald's back. It knocked the man to the ground again and set his clothing on fire, which he quickly tried to thrash around and put out.

Henry had no reaction to the smell of burning flesh. He had smelled worse down at the wharf. He noticed Mae was turned away from the scene though, on the other side of the room in between tables, her hands over her mouth. Within a good number of seconds Gerald had put the flames out and was shuffling to his feet, limping quickly towards the front door of Eve's Garden, which was still cracked open. He was coughing and choking out another empty threat.

"This isn't over, you little bastard."

"Oh, I think it is, Winters." Henry watched Gerald exit the Garden and stumble away from the front door and he waited until the charred rich boy was out of sight before he turned and stalked past Mae, leaving a trail of blood on his way back to her dressing room to clean himself up in her sink.

She stood in the middle of the floor, arms clasped around her midsection and her frame shuddering slightly. She felt the need to apologize to Henry, but she wasn't sure what for. She never wanted to drag him into something like that and to see him bleeding and bruised broke her heart.

Her pale eyes went to the thin string of blood that led from the front door back to the dressing rooms and she warily followed it, but not before leaning down to pick up something he had dropped on the way.

It was the first time Henry had ever seen Mae Grant cry.

She came back into the dressing room where he was seated at the vanity, the broken vase of roses laying next to his feet. He was holding a towel to the wound on his arm, red already soaking through the white cloth. Mae choked back a sob at the sight and the sound caught Henry's attention. His head snapped up and he looked at her reflection in the mirror ahead of him. His own image was a fairly disturbing sight in itself. He was a lot paler than normal, his jade eyes were dull and wide and his face was covered in a sheen of sweat. Strands of damp black hair hung limp around his face and his lips were thinned, his teeth gnawing on the inside of his cheek against the pain in his arm.

Their eyes met in the mirror and Mae ripped her gaze from his within moments, approaching him from behind. He stood to meet her in the middle of the room, turning towards her and instantly noticing what she had in her hand.

It was the tiny bouquet of purple flowers he had picked for her in Arcadia and dropped in the middle of the Garden when Gerald had challenged him to a fight. They looked a little tired and worn, and were drooping a bit. But Mae shifted past him and put the stems in a tall glass of old drinking water that had been sitting on her vanity. "I'm sorry. I didn't... I didn't want you in the middle of that." She held back another fit of tears and bit her lip. "And thank you, Henry," she finally whispered as her fingers sifted shakily through the violet blooms.

After she turned back towards him, he nodded in response to her apology and her thanks and held his free arm to her. She stepped forward and pushed herself into it, burying her head into the crook of his neck and throwing her arms around his chest. Henry rubbed his hand up and down her back, which was shuddering with quiet sobs. She fell silent after a few moments and they stood there in the blue light of the dressing room, clinging to each other.

"I love you..." She finally whispered into his ear, breaking the silence.

"I love you too, Mae."

He answered with no hesitation and she responded to it by tightening her grasp on him. She was never planning on letting him go, and Henry Holton felt exactly the same way about her. He had watched her and dreamt about her, and once he found out she had been doing the same concerning him, he realized that he never wanted to be apart from her. She was the small patch of flowers in the middle of the wasteland. She was his sun and everything they had been through was her promise to him that she was never going to set.

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] The First Time

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:57:53 GMT

Title: The First Time
Series: Star Wars: EU, post-LotF
Characters: Zekk, Tenel Ka, Allana, Darth Caedus, a few others...
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (except a choice few, lol), I'm just having a little whiny fun with them. Muahaha~
Notes: Caedus is so vain in the mirror, wtf. D: Also, Zekk being snippy. I have no idea where these notes ever come from. XD

Chapter Five --

She felt a pair of hands on her hips.

"You're looking pretty tonight, dear."

Snapping her head up, she looked in the mirror ahead of her. The sight she caught stopped her breath in her throat.

Tenel Ka could feel his fingers digging into her sides and his mess of brown hair against her neck as he leaned over behind her and trailed a crooked row of kisses along her bare shoulder and up her neck. They were hungry and urgent, just as his voice was when his lips got to her ear, strands of copper hair tickling her skin as he spoke. "I miss you already. I miss this."

She felt his arms around her, his hands splayed across her stomach, fingertips pressing against her bare skin.

But when she spun around to push Darth Caedus away from her, there was nothing there to push.

He was there when she looked back up into the mirror though, hovering behind her and letting his eyes work their way around her back and up her neck and finally into the reflection of her eyes. She shut her eyes and tilted her head downwards before opening them, and once she did, she found herself staring at the comlink that was automatically set to call Zekk if something happened. She was relieved she hadn't had to use it yet -- but now, she realized, would be the exact kind of thing she should call him for.

But she didn't want to. This was her problem. She wanted to deal with it. It would pass. She would look up and he would be gone.

She counted out sixty standard seconds; sixty standard seconds of her staring at the same spot on the stone counter ahead of her.

He was still there when she moved her eyes back up to the mirror.

Except now he was seated in a chair behind her, by the towel rack. The main light in the refresher was hung over the counter above her and fairly dim. In it, she could only make out his dark outline -- but she could definitely see those glowing orange eyes in the dark.

Stifling an angry whimper, Tenel Ka grabbed the comlink off of the counter and turned towards the refresher door, throwing a glance to the actual -- and empty -- chair before grabbing her robe and exiting the small chamber. She stuck the comlink between her teeth, biting down so hard she almost crushed it, and then put her robe on before taking the device from her teeth and comming Zekk.

He was there within minutes and he was out of breath when he arrived.

"What? What is it? What happened?" He asked, pressing the panel on the door behind him to shut the entrance to her chambers.

Her hand, which was still clutching the comlink, waved towards the refresher. "I... I got out of the shower and he... he's sitting in the chair."

Zekk passed her, as she stood alone, swaying and vacant in the center of the floor, and peered around the corner into the refresher. He saw a chair in the corner near the door. It was empty. For a moment he felt like he was going to laugh at her paranoia, but he stifled that thought as quickly as possible.

"He's not..."

"In the mirror. In the mirror, he's in there."

Zekk stepped into the refresher and looked around. Nothing seemed out of place. There was a long mirror along one wall that stretched over the sink and countertop. Across from that was a towel rack and an ornate chair -- there were a few discarded items of clothing on the ground beside the chair. The shower was across the room from him, the curtain closed. He slowly stepped further into the refresher, his eyes scanning his surroundings once more.

When he got up to the mirror, he turned to look in it, convinced that whatever Tenel Ka had seen was gone now.

But it wasn't. He was there. Darth Caedus was there in the mirror like she had said.

He was in the chair Zekk had just passed -- the empty chair he had passed. Clad in black, one booted foot resting on the other knee, hands in his lap. His eyes met Zekk's in the mirror. A fiery orange against a suddenly tense green.

Zekk wasn't sure how long they peered through the glass at each other, but he found himself unable to look away. Caedus leaned forward in the chair and reached down beside him, his gloved hand pulling something from the pile of clothes on the stone floor beside him. His gaze never wavered from Zekk's as he did this.

It was something silk, most likely a nightgown, and it was ivory, which looked rich and bright as it sifted through the black leather-clad fingers. It moved through Caedus' hands as he lazily pulled it to his face and sniffed it, exhaling slowly into the garment. He stood, pulling the ends of the nightgown tight in his fists.

Zekk felt himself tense, his lips twisting into sneer. He knew there was no one behind him. The chair was empty when he entered and no one came in -- Zekk knew he would've felt a ripple in the Force had someone entered. He knew this was just a vision he had to wait out. And the vision was stepping closer to him, their eyes still locked.

Caedus was as tall as he was now. Jacen Solo and Zekk used to measure their height at the Academy when they were younger, always joking around when one had a particularly noticeable growth spurt. It always led to lots of short jokes and playful banter about who would be the tallest once they got older. Jacen had been quite tall during the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, but Zekk grew after that and passed him by a standard inch or two during the Killik crisis. The last time they joked about their height had been a quick verbal prod at the debriefing when Raynar Thul was brought back and put into rehabilitation.

"Looks like I win, Solo," Zekk had said, with a playful smirk.

"S'okay Zekk, I got it where it counts."

They both had chuckled and went on with their business. Besides being one of the last times they joked about their height, it was one of the last times they had really spoken.

Zekk's sneer lost some of its anger and turned into a frown, his brow furrowing. Looking into the eyes of this thing that used to be his friend brought back silly little memories about their childhood that he thought had long escaped his mind.

Caedus threw the nightgown up over the front of Zekk's head. He didn't see it pass it front of his eyes, but he saw it pass over his head in the mirror, and he could feel it around his neck, he could smell the faint trace of Tenel Ka as the fabric moved over his face. Caedus was pulling the fabric taut around Zekk's neck and when he brought his fingers up to pull it away from his skin, there was nothing there to pull.

"I would stay away from her, if I was lucky enough to be dirty, poor Zekk."

"I don't want her," he hissed.

He could feel his head growing light as he stood there and clawed at his own throat. From far away he could hear someone approaching the refresher door -- he could feel them through the Force and as hard as he tried to call out to them, he found he just couldn't use his voice.

"Zekk!"

He snapped his attention away from the mirror, turning his head towards the door. His whole body seemed to move with a spastic jerk as he did so, as if he was trying to shove something away from him, and his chest filled his air as he drew in a deep breath.

"Did you see anything?"

"I..." He couldn't continue. He was still trying to catch his breath.

Tenel Ka padded into the refresher, her robe tied even tighter around her than it was when he arrived at her chambers. Her eyes were wider than he had ever seen them, her brow raised and her mouth switching between dry gulps and just hanging open. Her right hand went to his neck, where he flinched away from her touch.

"That hurts."

"I would think so. There are bruises all over your neck and your bleeding in places... you look like you've been scratched by a rellcat."

"Yeah, I--"

She shook her head quickly, her expression shifting to what Zekk took as fear.

"You've only been in here for about ten or fifteen standard seconds, Zekk."

He paused. He had been about to shush her for interrupting him, but when he saw her expression and listened to what she had to say, he lost his train of thought. "What?"

"You came in here. I walked over to the entrance to the chambers and locked the panel and then I came to the refresher to check on you and see if you found anything. And you're..." She waved her right hand to his neck. "You're bleeding."

He spun around. The chair was empty, just like it always had been and the nightgown Caedus had been using to attempt strangulation was lying discarded on the floor beside the chair, just like it had been before. He leaned down and swiped it up, studying it for any signs of--

It was ripped from his hands as fast as he had picked it up and was thrown back in the pile on the ground by an angry Queen Mother he could've sworn was blushing slightly.

"What do you think you're doing?" she demanded.

"I saw him in the mirror when I got in here." He started matter-of-factly, his voice raising as he went along. "He was sitting in the chair, like you said. He stared at me for what seemed like a good long while and then he picked up that nightgown and pretty much tried to choke me to death with it, Your Majesty. So I'm sorry if I picked up your secret royal nightie and destroyed the silk with my man touch while trying to figure out if it could've been something that almost got me murdered." He inhaled deeply after he finished, exhaling in an angry sigh.

Her face showed no change and they stood in the refresher for a few moments, eyes locked and expressions sour. Tenel Ka was the first to move, and she grabbed his wrist and pulled him to the chair, herding him into it before shifting over to the counter. He watched her with a furrowed brow and sharp eyes, his expression only softening slightly when he saw she was gathering a few things to help him get cleaned up.

She turned to him and kneeled in front of the chair. Her face was still marred by the shadow of a scowl as she ripped open a bacta cloth with her teeth and reached up to his neck. He expected her to take her anger out through that, and swab it back and forth across his scratches as hard as possible. But she was surprisingly gentle with it, moving it back and forth over his neck. He flinched a little -- partly because of the pain, but also because it tickled slightly.

"Did you do that to yourself?" Her voice was quiet and calm.

He nodded, his chin bouncing softly off of her wrist as he did. "When I was trying to pull it away from my neck."

Zekk stared down at her as she worked on his minor cuts. Her robe had slid off of her left shoulder as she moved and Zekk found himself following a small pattern of freckles on her skin. They seemed to form a little curve there and as Zekk stared at it he could feel her brushing a lock of his hair away from the left side of his neck. From all the training and work she insisted on doing herself, he was surprised as how soft her hands were.

"Sorry I yelled at you," he said, suddenly.

She shook her head and didn't let her eyes meet his, "It's fine." She continued to mop up the trickling blood on his neck. Once she finished patching up the scratches, she stood and pulled him up to stand. "Do you feel alright?"

"Yeah, thanks..."

They both turned to look in the mirror, to the chair Zekk was just sitting in and its surroundings. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the glass, just the reflection of the two of them standing beside each other, their eyes locked on the chair and their features tired and blank.

"Well, thank you for showing up.” She nodded slowly and exhaled a shaky sigh before attempting to herd him out of the refresher. “Now if you'll excuse me, I have a banquet to get ready for."

"What?! Today? Now?" Zekk snapped his head towards her, wincing at the pain it caused him, a look of shock apparent. How could she even think of something like that now?! When her dead boyfriend just had his way with them in her refresher mirror?

"Yes."

He continued to peer down to her, an expression on his face that seemed like a mix of surprise and curiosity.

"Zekk, you're on Hapes. I want you to think about your question again."

She had a point and all he could do was nod. He would never understand this planet or its culture. He wasn't sure he wanted to. "I'm gonna go contact Master Skywalker and let him know what happened. Then I'll come back to check on everything. That sound good, Your Majesty?"

An absent nod racked her head.

The look on her face made Zekk want to reach out with some sort of words or some gesture to comfort her. But nothing seemed right. Not after what they had seen.

"Better get ready," was all he could manage.

Before she could respond with anything, he had vanished, leaving her alone once again.

......

Nothing came to her while she continued to get ready in the refresher. She washed her face as she stared into the glass, expecting Caedus again. She brushed her hair, her eyes locked on her reflection, expecting him to pop up over her shoulder again -- that sneer on his face.

There was nothing.

A knock was delivered to the door and she turned her head, instantly recognizing the presences behind it before calling out. "It's open, come in."

One of her most trusted handmaidens came strolling in, her fingers clasped firmly around Allana's. They were both still giggling about something and Tenel Ka watched Allana crawl up into the chair Caedus had been in before her eyes met the handmaiden's.

"How has everything been going, Anhaje?"

"Fine. Normal. Allana drew a picture for Gadell of a nerf farm, which we dropped off at his quarters and then ended up seeing him in the gardens. So the three of us took a walk, made fun of Droekle and some of the other suitors and then realized it was time to come help Mommy get ready for the banquet tonight."

Tenel Ka felt the corner of her lips upturn slightly, but only for a moment before she set down her hairbrush and looked to Anhaje. "I'm glad you had a good afternoon. It was much more exciting than mine."

"Of course it was; you're the Queen Mother of Hapes -- which makes anything seem more fun." Anhaje winked and slipped around behind Tenel Ka, gently pushing her out into the closet space beyond the refresher, Allana close on their heels.

They stood in the midst of over a good hundred dresses, some on their left, some on their right, some ahead of them -- most if not all made out of the finest Hapan silk. Anhaje was speaking to Allana, getting the girl to help pick out a dress for her Mother to wear to the festivities that night, but all Tenel Ka could do was absently stare ahead of her, her eyes glazed over and her head slightly tilted to the side.

The voices around her tuned out as her mind drifted around the Palace. She could feel Gadell in the Grand Hall making sure the preparations were going alright, and a frustrated Zekk in the Communications Wing speaking to Master Skywalker. He was more open than she had ever felt him, his irritation with the situation feeding into the Force. She attempted to reach through and calm him slightly, which she felt a surprisingly thankful reaction to, but was snapped out of her trance when Anhaje and Allana began to shove dresses in her direction.

She sighed inwardly and briefly wondered why anyone would actually enjoy doing this – banquets and parties and social networking – day in and day out.

And that is all for now, omg.

FANFICTION // [Bioshock] Happy Birthday

Sun, 24 Feb 2008 06:20:27 GMT

Title: Happy Birthday
Series: Bioshock
Characters: Bruce Green (OC), Lois Green (OC), Bobby Lee Green (OC)
Disclaimer: I don't own anything pertaining to Bioshock, I am just having fun in Rapture! I did make up a couple of the characters though, but so what? XD
Notes: I know, I know, another depressing Bioshock story. I swear the next Bioshock fanfic will be a lot happier than this one. D:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Bobby had been growing distant during the couple of weeks leading up to his death. His parents noticed it instantly.

Bruce tried to take him out to the plaza to play catch, but the boy just stood there and held out his hands, the ball flying over his head without him even making a move to retrieve it. Lois just hid in her room and cried and when speaking to Bobby, tried to keep the tears and shakiness from her voice.

She broke a plate one night after dinner when carrying it into the kitchen from the dining room. Bobby had been standing there behind her when she turned, staring up to his mother, his face whiter than she had ever seen it, eyes glazed over and mouth hanging open. The look on his face caused her to drop the plate on her feet, the pieces cutting through her stockings and scratching her skin.

"I wanna play with Joyce again, Mommy."

It was all he had said for weeks.

He had followed Lois into the bathroom, repeating this phrase while she took off her stockings and washed her feet in the bathtub. Bruce had found them there when he returned home from work. His wife was seated on the edge of the tub in a wrinkled green dress, her feet soaking in a pool of dark pink water. Bobby was standing beside her, his head clutched against her chest. Bruce could hear her crying.

Leaning down, he grabbed Bobby and led him away from the bathroom and into his small bedroom. He quickly helped his son change into his nightclothes and tucked him into bed, planting a quick kiss on his forehead before rushing back to the bathroom. He pulled Lois up and away from the tub. She stood up on scratched feet and fell into his arms, burying her head into his work clothes.

"Bruce, what have we done wrong?"

He could only hush her and gently rock her back and forth. He had no answers for her. He wished he did, but there were none. Right now he could only hope to keep her hysterics from reaching Bobby.

"What did we do to deserve this!?"

"Shhh, Lois, we didn't do anything."

His eyes always comforted her and she had looked up into them to try to regain her composure. They were brown and rich and they always reminded her of chocolate. Bobby had Bruce's eyes. They widened a little when he leaned close to her and whispered something Lois hadn't really had much thought about.

"We could be in the Ragland's shoes right now..."

The Raglands were Joyce's parents. Sophia and Clarence. They lived next door.

Their daughter had been taken away about a month and a half earlier and put in with the Little Wonders program. The Ragland's worried about her day in and day out, but were assured their daughter was getting superb care and an amazing education.

They saw her harvesting ADAM one day in Arcadia, a couple weeks after she was taken; her gray skin and glowing eyes matched the metal and sensors of the Big Daddy guarding her. Her little yellow dress was the one Clarence had purchased for her to wear at her ninth birthday party. She was happily talking to her knight in dull and rusted armor about all things ranging from tea parties to ham to angels. Clarence could only stop and stare. Sophia had fainted and collapsed into a smattering of bushes beside the spot where they were standing.

Sophia killed herself later that night.

She had dived into the water around one of the bathyspheres and attempted to swim back to the surface -- where "things like this just don't happen!" -- she had screamed before she went, with only a deep breath and a prayer. She didn't make it far. One of the Big Daddies had to retrieve her body, which had caught on some pipes out in the water near Fleet Hall.

Lois nodded quickly, recalling the Ragland's current state. Sophia was dead, Joyce was gone to them and Clarence seemed like he was slowly going crazy. She had felt so horrible for the family. Joyce had been to their place many times to play with Bobby. They would play checkers (and not correctly, either -- which always amused the adults), they would play tag and hide and seek. Lois figured the two would end up getting married once they got older -- she and Sophia would always joke about things like that.

"I just wish we could get him to stop acting like this, Bruce."

"I know, I know. It'll just take time."

She didn't speak up, but some instinct inside her told her time was something they didn't have down here in Rapture. Especially not with everything on the slow downward spiral that it seemed to be taking within the previous few months.

The day after the episode with the plate, the three of them headed to the Farmer's Market to pick up some food and other essentials. Lois had a few tomatoes in her left hand and a block of cheese in her right, while Bruce carried a large melon in his left and had the fingers of his right wrapped around Bobby's hand. They set their items up on the counter and debated on what meat to purchase for dinner that week.

"Bobbo, do you want hamburgers for dinner tonight?"

The boy had his head turned away from them and the meat counter.

"Bobby?"

He didn't look at Bruce. It didn't even look like Bobby had heard him.

"Bobby Lee Green, you listen to me when I'm talking to you." Bruce shook Bobby's hand.

He was supposed to be at Joyce's ninth birthday party that day, but after her quick and sudden installation into the army of Little Sisters Rapture was building, it was cancelled. They didn't tell Bobby what happened to her. They told him she was off living with some relatives somewhere in Apollo Square now.

Something -- the first thing in weeks -- had caught the boy's eye. He pulled out of his father's grasp and stumbled away from his parents, flying towards a familiar face across the market, screaming something happily as he ran.

"Joyce!"

It was the first time his parents had seen color in his face for weeks.

He was beaming as he ran. Lois realized at that moment in time that her child looked more beautiful and alive than he ever had before.

He was bounding across the market to Joyce. Bruce was running after him. Lois could only stand at the meat counter clutching the edge of it. Her fingernails were digging into the wood ahead of her and her legs were shaking, threatening to give out. Her eyes followed Bruce, who was chasing Bobby and dodging citizens and shoppers standing in his way. She couldn't see Bobby anymore but she could definitely see the big hunk of deathly metal he was running towards and she could see the back of Bruce's head -- then the crowd closed around him and blocked her view. She heard her husband's voice though.

"Bobby, no!"

"Happy birthday, Joyce!" Bobby had thrown his arms out, ready to wrap his friend up in a huge hug.

Bruce was on his heels and was only feet behind him when the Big Daddy beside Joyce pulled his hand back and slammed it into the side of Bobby's face. The boy flew backwards and landed in a small clearing roughly ten feet away. A red light settled over his small body as the Big Daddy hovered over him and studied him for a moment. The threat to the Little Sister was dead. His neck was broken.

Shopkeepers and other citizens had grabbed onto Bruce and held him back without him even realizing he had stopped moving towards his son. He watched as the light cast over the boy shifted from red to yellow -- a brighter color that gave Bobby a sort of golden halo as he laid there frozen on the ground. Bruce was telling himself over and over that Bobby wasn't dead, but his fears were most definitely proven true when Joyce, the Little Sister, skipped over to him and studied him momentarily.

There was a hesitation in those big sad eyes of hers, but it quickly passed as she took the tool in her hand and reared it back, jamming the needle into Bobby's midsection.

Bruce clenched his eyes shut and turned away, writhing into the crowd of people behind him. He could hear sympathies coming from all sides, surrounding him. He could hear other people crying around him at what they had just witnessed. Hands were brushing his shoulders and his arms and fingers in support. Lois stumbled through them all and grabbed onto Bruce's hands. She hadn't seen what happened, but she had most definitely heard it. The silence of the crowd that separated her from the scene was enough to let her witness it all through her ears -- Joyce's tiny voice, Bobby's footsteps, the mechanical shudder and squeak of the monster's arm and then the wet smash as it pummeled into Bobby. She heard Bruce cry out, she heard the crowd get louder and that was when she knew her boy had died.

Lois and Bruce clung to each other as the people around them led them back into the main market area, some stood around and talked about what just happened, a few others went about their business, some even whispered about rebellion -- but a choice few stuck beside the Green's as they were led to a bench beside the fruit stand. Bruce nodded when one of the keepers asked if they wanted glasses of water, Lois cried into a handkerchief a woman had handed her, but both seemed to be lost in their own minds -- both wondering what they could've done differently.

The Big Daddy that was leading Joyce was walking through the crowd with her galloping merrily behind him. The people parted for the two as they headed towards the other side of the Farmer's Market, and as they meandered by the bench Bruce and Lois were seated on, Bruce just watched the robotic beast pass, a look of anger now permanently pasted on his face. Lois didn't look at her son's murderer -- she watched Joyce, tears filling her own eyes at the girl's oblivious nature.

"Happy birthday..." she whispered quietly before she fell into another round of sobs and dropped her head on her husband's shoulder.

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] The First Time

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 03:30:05 GMT

FANFICTION // [Bioshock] Stars Don't Shine

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 03:25:46 GMT

Title: Stars Don't Shine
Series: Bioshock
Characters: Thomas Turner (OC), Judith Turner (OC), Shirley Turner (OC) -- with cameos by Andrew Ryan, Atlas, Tenenbaum and Dr. Suchong.
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: I don't own anything pertaining to Bioshock, I am just having fun in Rapture! I did make up a couple of the characters though, but so what? XD
Notes: MMMMM, BIOSHOCKY. And I didn't want this to turn out so depressing, but it is. D:

STARS DON'T SHINE

Judith was born into money. I wasn't.

I didn't marry her for that though, no. I loved her with all my heart. She was my everything.

We came down to Rapture right after it was built to live a better life, to balance our classes out, to stay away from the greed and corruption on land. Of course, after seeing what this place was turning into, we occasionally debated on whether or not we had made the right choice. We occasionally joked about it, like it would never affect us and it would sort itself out. Andrew Ryan and Frank Fontaine were like two distant politicians to our collective mind, arguing and coming to terms at some point. Our city would be better in no time, like always.

We had a daughter together here, in Rapture. Shirley Turner.

I remember her eighth birthday. The end of November in 1958. I remember her sitting on the floor of our apartment at the Artemis Suites, playing with the teddy bear we got her. It was a big thing, almost the size of her, and she would stomp around in her barefeet, running back and forth with it in her tiny hands. It had brown fur, almost the same color of Shirley's eyes and hair.

I remember near the end of December, laying in bed with Judith one night. I had her wrapped up in my arms and we had been talking softly about life in general, nothing specific. Then seemly out of nowhere she pulled her head from my chest and looked at me with those big blue eyes.

"I want to see the stars again, Tommy."

It was a jolting sort of thing to say. We were thousands of feet under the water and we were set to live out our lives there. No contact with the surface, no items from the surface, no nothing from the surface -- which definitely meant no going back to the surface.

I just smiled at her, agreed with her that I would like to see them one day again too and pulled her head back to my chest. She fell asleep a few minutes later while I stroked her dark hair. I never really thought of the surface much anymore.

I worked in Neptune's Bounty, at Fighting McDonagh's Tavern. Judith didn't know I was also skirting on the edge with the smuggler's. I never did any of the dangerous jobs with them though, no. I had a family to worry about. When there was talk of rebellion against Andrew Ryan, I laughed it off. There was nothing like that where Judith worked. She was over in Le Marquis D'Epoque at Fort Frolic. People didn't talk of rebellion there. People talked about money and clothes and tobacco and other people.

Since ADAM was so scarce, we had only tried out a few of the new plasmids, usually just amused at their effect. I would levitate Shirley's bear just out of her reach while she giggled and jumped at it, Judith sometimes cheated while cooking and used a bit of heat to speed up dinner, and I fixed some of the electronics around the apartment with only a small injection of EVE. I also liked to give a little playful electric jolt to Judy at the small of her back while she was waking up in the morning. It took us forever to drag ourselves out of bed in the morning. We never wanted to leave each other's company.

Life seemed perfect. Nothing could go wrong. Rapture was on the rise and us Turner's were in an almost perfect place to take advantage of it.

Until New Year's Eve, 1958.

And I only say almost because of our class. There was a rigid sort of system in Rapture, even though that seemed to be one of the things we were all collectively trying to escape when coming down here.

There had been talk of Atlas, the leader of the main rebellion against Ryan, leading a set of raids right before the new year rang in. I saw the man with my own eyes, rallying people at the Wharf, out of the public eye. He was telling us of Ryan's greed and corruption. Atlas was saying we should be living the way we want to live and not how Ryan wants us to live. He told us that he had control of most of the ADAM in the city -- he said a whole number of things, the guy did. And they all made sense. I found myself a casual follower of Atlas and his preachings.

I had to go to work on New Year's Eve, and Judith and Shirley were watching television when I left. I had leaned over the couch and planted a kiss on Judy's forehead.

"Don't come home too late," she whispered before I pulled my head away from her.

"Why?" I moved back and looked at her, eyebrows raised suggestively.

She managed to almost suppress a tiny lopsided grin, the one she always got when she was hiding something -- the one that made me fall in love with her again every time I saw it.

"No reason," she murmured.

"Mmmhmm, sure." I responded in the tone I used when I knew she was lying, not managing to keep the grin from my face as I did so. Turning my attention to my daughter, I whistled to her. It was one of the only things that could get her attention away from the television. "See you later, Shirls."

"Bye daddy!" She jumped up and ran to the door to cut me off before I got there, throwing her arms around my legs and giving me as big a hug as she could manage. "Hey!" Pulling back, she looked up into my eyes as I stood in the open doorway. "Want to have a New Year's Tea Party with me tomorrow?"

"Of course I do. That would be very nice."

She ran off after I responded, across the living area to her mother, where she started spouting excitedly about her upcoming tea party. Judith nodded to her and laughed, peering over Shirley's head for a moment to blow me a kiss. I winked to her and left the apartment to head to Neptune's Bounty.

The raids were being prepared for when I got there. I didn't think they were actually going to go through with it, but when I saw that they were, I could feel my heart instantly pounding. I saw people with needles of EVE, I saw people loading guns, I saw men laughing, women talking. Atlas walked over to me. Atlas himself.

"Tommy Turner!"

"Evening, Mr. Atlas."

What the hell else was I supposed to call him?

"Have you come just to work? Or have you come to join the rebellion?"

I had been ready to go in and wipe down the bar and serve alcohol to some of the off-duty fishermen like every other night, but Atlas definitely had me intrigued. And he knew this.

"What is the plan exactly?" I asked.

Atlas shrugged. "To hit the upper class, of course. We work so much harder than them down here, yet they get paid more and get more benefits. Their living situations are better, their workplaces are better. They get everything for nothing -- and what do we get?"

I stared to him, waiting for an answer.

"We get nothing! So it's time to show them what we got, boyo." He shoved a shotgun into my chest. "Do it for yourself." Leaning in closer, he gave me a pat on the back. "Do it for your family."

I had my fingers clutched, white-knuckled, around the shotgun. My mind was ready for this. I was ready for this. My family was ready for this. We deserved better than an apartment with a bathroom, a bedroom and a small kitchen off of the tiny living area -- not to mention the number of things broken in there. I was sick of coming home smelling like booze and fish all the time and not being able to wash the stink off. I was suprised Judy ever bothered to touch me, let alone kiss me.

Atlas had turned away from me and was rallying all the rebels and assigning their targets.

"We're off to get the uppers, men! You all over here are headed to Olympus Heights. You all, Fort Frolic. And you all," he pointed to the area where I was standing. "Kashmir Restaurant. I hear they're having a swinging party there tonight!"

Things blurred there. I remember injecting myself with EVE, gaining a number of plasmids after receiving more ADAM. I felt stronger, more alive. I felt ready.

We walked calmly towards Kashmir, our group did, weapons hidden from plain view. We got looks as we walked, some people hid from us, others gawked -- a group of more than four people together was almost unheard of in Rapture. Security didn't bother coming after us. But we knew that Ryan was watching us through every camera we passed. We knew he was calculating this action and trying to figure out exactly what we were up to.

I'm sure we shocked him when we just showed up at certain places unannounced and pulled weapons and explosives. There was a sea of revelers dressed in their finest when we arrived at the Kashmir Restaurant, all of them wearing some sort of animal masks. I saw cats and rabbits mostly, masks Shirley would've thought were adorable. I could hear her begging for one in my head. I smiled. I was doing this for her and Judy. For my family.

A number of the rebels cried out. Some charged, blunt weapons like wrenches and pipes swinging into the uppers closest to where we entered. Some took a perch on the bar and began sniping at the masked patrons with their firearms. I waited for a lull in the shooting and followed a few men and women to the balcony overlooking the lower floor. A sea of masked people were tensed, looking up at us with blank eyes. They didn't know what was happening on the upper floor, but we were damn well ready to give them a taste of it.

I vaulted over the railing to the bottom floor, absorbing the impact with one of the many plasmids in my physical stock and opened fire on all the angry and suddenly violent upper classmen who were coming at me. I saw other rebels doing the same. I saw plasmids being used. Telekinesis on knives which were thrown, untouched by the human hand, into the chests of rabbit-faced men. Burning cat-faced women screaming as they ran by, arms waving wildly. I was having a grand old time with a pompous ass who was teasing me about working near the fishery. He was threatening me with a small pistol he had pulled from his jacket.

"Here fishy fishy! You smell like your job, you piss poor--"

He couldn't finish his sentence before I blasted him in the chest twice with the shotgun Atlas had handed me.

I killed a good number of them before I heard something over the chaos.

"Tommy?!"

That voice. That voice.

I lowered my shotgun and ducked behind a table, turning towards the sound of the voice calling my name.

Judy. Oh God, Judy.

There was a party mask on her face. A cat. But I could still tell it was her. I knew her voice. I knew her body. It was her.

She was stumbling forward, grabbing tables and chairs on her way by, to keep herself from swaying right to the ground. There was a slash across her face. It looked like a bullet had grazed her cheek, but I couldn't really tell. I didn't have time before one the rebels tossed an explosive over the side of the railing on the floor above. It hit the ground near her and threw her backwards when it exploded.

"Judy!" I yelled to her, my ears still ringing from the blast. I couldn't hear myself. I couldn't hear anything for a few moments except a loud ringing. "Judy!" I started to run towards where she had been, throwing the shotgun to the floor. There was a steady stream of water coming into the restaurant from somewhere to my right. I figured the blast had caused it to spring a leak or two. All the more reason to get her and get out of there as fast as possible. I briefly wondered why she was there, but didn't bother thinking of it again until much later -- right now I was focused on getting her help.

The smoke lifted and I saw her once more.

"Thomas!"

She was screaming to me, crawling across the floor as the water spilled onto the marble around her, through the trampling feet and the high heels and the rebels and the debris. She was bleeding profusely from the nose and mouth, her arm reaching out and up towards me. Her feline mask was hanging off of her left ear now, which was covered in blood and matted hair. I could see the plastic whiskers tickling her cheek and tracing lines through the crimson across her face. She had another mask in her hand, a rabbit.

It fell into the pool of water which was now forming in the lower area of the restaurant. A circular area almost completely surrounded by windows made up the main part of the floor, and was sunken down a few steps. Judith had been seated in that area when we bursted in, no doubt.

I was on the bottom step, kneeling beside her, the water up to my knees if I was standing and it was still rising. I pulled her to me, and wrapped my arms around her. She was completely soaked now, in water and blood, her dress -- one that I always thought she looked absolutely gorgeous in -- was damp and torn, and the pale blue fabric was stained crimson.

I was so caught up in the fact that Judith was horribly injured in my arms that I didn't even realize what the bastard behind me was doing. I heard a scream of "Atlas lives!" -- and then an arc of lightning flew from the man's hand over our heads and into the water. Into the water we were wading in. Into the water that a good number of uppers were still trying to make an escape from.

The rebels were lucky enough to have the Electric Flesh plasmid in their system -- I was lucky enough to. We had planned it this way. We injected it before we left, knowing we'd need it. The electricity in the water didn't hurt us. We were ready. We were lucky.

Judith wasn't.

I tried to pull her out of the water in time. Goddamn, I tried.

I held her in my arms as she died, twitching and holding onto me, fingers clutching and then relaxing, over and over again until they didn't move anymore.

We were still causing trouble. I saw men in the water ahead of me, using wrenches to beat bone and muscle still moving, guys upstairs still shooting the upper class. There was movement all around me from the living beings, fighting and screaming. There were bodies, stationary, floating around me in the water. I let Judith go, pushing her out into the large pool of water that made up half of the lower floor of the restaurant now. They had taken care of all the uppers there, so the pool ahead of me seemed somewhat serene now. The rebels were still fighting behind me.

I wanted to take her body with me, desperately. But I didn't know where to go with it.

She was gone. And I was alone now.

I had to get back to Shirley.

It was almost impossible to get out of that restaurant without getting harmed. A bullet grazed my shoulder and I almost got slapped in the face with a wrench. But I made it out and was still able to sprint, which was the only thing I cared about at that point. If Judith was at Kashmir, where was Shirley?

I ran out of the restaurant to chaos. The level below me was dotted with small fires, but I managed to make it to the bathysphere alright, which I took with a couple other rebels to Apollo Square. As we moved through the ocean, I could only stare wide-eyed out the glass portal. Flames licked in different windows along the city, some areas had lost power -- there were tunnels which were airlocked because there were leaks in them. A few fish passed the portal and I almost screamed out in shock. I had been looking at the damage we were causing so intently that I had forgotten everything around me.

We were really causing trouble, except I had caused enough to last me a lifetime and beyond now.

The others raced out ahead of me when we arrived, to where I assumed they were going back to their families, who were all alive and well, most likely.

I stumbled out of the bathysphere and headed towards Artemis Suites. My vision was blurry and my head felt heavy. I could feel my heart hammering in my chest. I was now going back to only one of the most important women in my life, to a place where they both should've been. I wanted to scream out to Judy, to ask her why she was there.

Why the hell was she at the Kashmir Restaurant?! Why tonight? Why now? Why there?

I busted through the door of the apartment and stormed around, looking for my daughter. I knew Judith wouldn't just leave her there alone but I knew Judith also wouldn't have let me come home from work to find them both gone. There it was -- she left a note on the bed. I could smell her perfume lingering in the air, which drifted into my nose as I sniffled. I read the note through my tears, which appeared when I saw her handwriting scrawled across the paper and they streamed down my cheeks, falling onto the note and smearing some of the letters.

Tommy,

Hope you get home before 11:30. I got us a special reservation at the Kashmir Restaurant to celebrate the new year! I also have something to tell you, but doing that and celebrating the new year can go hand in hand. Killing two birds with one stone, that's what you always say, yes?

I know you've always wanted to eat there but always say you're too poor, which you know isn't true. So I got us a reservation through a few contacts at Fort Frolic and I was hoping you'd join me before midnight. Shirley is with Martha next door. The little angel was already asleep by nine and Martha said she would take care of her while you and I had a night out.

I'll be at a table on the lower floor, in the circular salon and I'll be wearing that dress you love so much. It shouldn't be too hard to find me, I hope! See you soon.

Love always,
Judy

Dropping the note back on the bed, I felt my stomach churning and my head getting lighter. I felt like I was about to vomit or pass out. I figured both would come within a matter of seconds until my thoughts went to Shirley. I had to go next door to Shirley. I had no idea what I was going to tell her about her mother, but I needed her in my arms. I was so blinded by my sudden rage and grief that I didn't even bother to change out of the clothes that had her mother's blood all over them.

This would be the worst thing ever, I thought. Telling my daughter her mother was dead while cradling her to my chest, which in turn was soaked in Judy's blood.

But no, worse still was the note I found at the apartment next to ours with Martha, who I found crying her eyes out in a ball on the floor. There was a piece of crinkled paper in her hands and she was screaming unintelligible words. I moved to her, to help her up and as I did, she shoved the paper into my chest and heaved the words:

"They just broke in..."

My heart sank. I knew what the note was going to say. I knew exactly what it would say. I had heard rumors of that kind of note before but I wasn't sure they actually existed -- that they actually did this sort of thing.

The urge to vomit and pass out returned as my eyes hit the paper. I was right.

Good evening!

We are leaving this note to inform you that we have taken your daughter to help save Rapture! She is an important asset to the beautiful city we all live in and is needed to keep it magnificent. She is safe with us and there is no need to worry. Please do not try to contact your daughter as she will be busy with the super significant task of saving our wonderful world!

Stay safe!
-- The Little Wonders Team

There was a drawing of a smiling little girl on the upper corner of the paper, which I promptly crumbled up and chucked across the room, over Martha's head. I said nothing to her, I knew it wasn't her fault. I knew she couldn't stop them.

I went straight from the apartment to Andrew Ryan to plead my case, running across the courtyards and corridors, through tunnels and over plazas. When I was moving through Fort Frolic, I passed Le Marquis D'Epoque and felt my stomach turn over once more. They were short an employee now, probably more, because of the multiple raids. The city was still going insane around me with the aftermath of it. Nobody was paying attention to me as I ripped through the crowds and the debris towards the bathyspheres.

Guards tried to stop me once I got to Hephaestus, but after an announcement to let me go came over the loudspeaker from Ryan himself, I was taken to Rapture Control Center -- a place I had only ever heard about. I wasn't sure if he would listen or not, seeing as how I was a member of a branching rebellion, parts of which were still happening in the city -- but he seemed open to hear me out when I finally was let into his office after nearly two hours of waiting in the lobby.

"You killed your wife in the raid at Kashmir Restaurant, yes, Mr. Turner?"

It was the first thing that was said once the door shut behind me. I had no idea how he knew, especially in the short amount of time since it happened. I know I didn't kill my wife no, but I was part of the group that did. I was part of them problem. It was my fault. It's like I put my own hands around her neck and shoved her underwater.

I really didn't want to cry in front of Mr. Ryan, especially since he had some of his goons with him, but I couldn't help it once he asked that. I could only nod and wait with my hands at my sides as a few tears escaped my eyes.

"Did that teach you anything?"

It taught me to not bother with causes. It taught me to sit back and take it. It taught me to throw out everything Andrew Ryan was trying to preach when he built this damn place.

I just nodded. Ryan steepled his fingers in front of him, his elbows resting on his desk. There was silence for a few moments. I had to stifle a sob. I still couldn't tear my eyes from the bastard.

"I'm so sorry, Mr. Ryan. I wasn't thinking." I blurted out. He looked as if he might be sympathizing with me. What else did I have to lose? "Please, I just want my daughter back. I can take care of her."

"Oh no, no, Mr. Turner. You're in no state to do that. We're taking good care of her, I promise."

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw that German scientist woman flinch when Ryan said this, but I was probably seeing things. She was standing behind him to the left, while that Dr. Suching or Sucheng, or whatever his name was, was on his right. I couldn't stop staring at him, at Ryan, he seemed so sure of himself. I had seen Fontaine from time to time at the Fisheries before he died -- he looked the same exact way: confident, powerful -- almost arrogant. Atlas did too.

Was that Ryan's plan? To bring a bunch of butting heads down here to doom us all?

"Well, Thomas, I'm honored to tell you that Shirley is needed to help save Rapture--"

"No..." I croaked. I knew where this was going. No. Not Shirley.

He stood from his desk and slipped past the doctor, around the massive piece of furniture to where I was standing alone in the middle of his office. He gently placed his arm around my shoulders and pulled me close to him. I could smell his cologne. They must've made it in Rapture. It smelled like Rapture.

"Dr. Suchong tells me Judith was pregnant with your second child."

Suchong, that's his name, I knew it was something like-- wait, he had told me my wife was pregnant with our second child and I was busy discussing in my head the stupid doctor's name and how I almost had it right. Andrew Ryan had told me my wife was pregnant. My wife. The woman I watched fry to death in the pool of water at the Kashmir Restaurant roughly four hours earlier.

Happy Fucking New Year, Thomas Turner.

His arm tightened around my shoulders when my knees threatened to give out at the news. He had me propped up against him. I don't remember much of anything after that. He told me it was important that I stick with Shirley now. I asked him how was I to do that when they took her away. He told me I could watch over her for years to come. I vaguely remember him handing me over to Suchong, who put me on a gurney and wheeled me away. I remember watching Andrew Ryan's horribly handsome face smiling and waving goodbye to me as I was rolled from Rapture Control Center. I remember briefly wondering why we were headed to Point Prometheus and not the Medical Pavilion. Surely, I needed medical attention. Surely, I did. Shirley.

Shirley.

There was nothing left of me after that night. My little apartment was empty. My lovely wife was floating dead at Kashmir. My daughter...

I was just a pile of organs, a bag of bones, grafted into an old diving suit and assigned to my daughter. Shirley. The Little Sister. I could only do what I was told, what I was shown how to do after that. Watch over her as she gathered ADAM -- one of the things Atlas told us to fight for.

I had no thoughts left in my head except for one. The thought of something, someone, anything coming down here and fixing things. Forget the city, forget Rapture and all it ever stood for. Just save these children, save these little girls.

I wanted my daughter to be able to see the stars one day.

No, I didn't just want her to see the stars. I wanted her to reach for them.

I wanted her to touch them.

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] The First Time

Thu, 24 Jan 2008 05:43:36 GMT

Title: The First Time
Series: Star Wars: EU, post-LotF
Characters: Zekk, Tenel Ka, Allana, Darth Caedus, a few others...
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (except a choice few, lol), I'm just having a little whiny fun with them. Muahaha~
Notes: The introduction of Tenel Ka (and Allana!) and Zekk gets his hair braided. :P

Chapter Three --

Something was holding her against the wall. She couldn't see it, but she could feel it. The pressure points here and there. One on her stomach, one on her right wrist. She couldn't move her legs. Something warm was spilling down her body, and she twisted her head as far as it could go to see that her robes were covered in crimson. It was blood.

"Don't you let him trick you," a voice hissed in her ear. "Don't you let him near you, d'you hear me Your Majesty?"

More struggling.

"I'm watching you."

She felt her head get pulled forward and slammed back against the wall.

That was when her eyes opened.

Tenel Ka was standing in the shower under a stready stream of hot water. She looked down at herself. No clothes. No blood. Just water. Just a vision.

Shaking her head slightly and disregarding the experience, she reached over to turn the water off, and heard a squealing coming from the refresher entrance as she did so.

"Mommy! Social Man Gadell is banging on the door!"

"Are you sure it's him, Allana?"

"He said the magic words! Pretty Poodoo!"

Tenel Ka reminded herself to tell Social Man Gadell to change the magic words as she reached out from behind the curtain and grabbed her towel off of the rack, exiting the shower. "Alright, you can open it." She wrapped the towel around her and padded out of the refresher after her daughter, over the plush carpet and stopped near the bed. Allana let Gadell in and then skipped back over to her mother, jumping up on the bed beside where she was standing.

Her social secretary was never phased by what she looked like, so her standing there in a towel was no different than when she was standing in front of him decked out in full banquet regalia. He tilted his head towards the door he just shut and jabbed a thumb back out in that direction. "There's someone here to see you."

Opening herself up to the Force, she felt a familiar presence out in the front of the salon. It was a tad cold, and closed off, which was what gave him away.

"Zekk."

"Yeah... that guy. What's his deal?"

"What do you mean?"

"He's creepy," Gadell responded, placing his hands on his hips.

"Uncle Zekk isn't creepy!" Allana giggled furiously, rocking back and forth on the bed beside her mother.

Tenel Ka knew Allana was fairly fond of Zekk, even though they had only met a few times before. But Zekk had let the little girl braid his hair once, and that instantly made Allana one of his best friends. She had even threatened a makeover on him.

Gadell continued, not taking Allana's words for truth. "And he says he has a--"

Shaking her head in a quick and severe fashion, Tenel Ka stopped him from speaking, and shifting her eyes to the side to make sure Allana couldn't see her lips, she mouthed "Jacen" to the social advisor.

The man's composure changed completely, his expression hardening as his lips thinned and his eyes softened. "Oh, alright. Should I..."

"Let five minutes pass so I can get ready and then let him in."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"Thank you."

He nodded and turned, slipping out of the chamber.

The quarters were filled with silence for a few moments, Allana breaking it with a tiny voice. "You okay, Mommy?"

Tenel Ka felt herself nod and once she stopped, she realized a tiny pair of arms were wrapped around her middle. Tilting her head, she saw her daughter seated on the bed with her arms wrapped around her towel-covered midsection and her face now buried in her stomach. Her hand absently went to Allana's hair, where she stroked the back of her head softly, her mind still attempting to wrap itself around the fact that the little girl's father was dead.

The two of them were used to him being absent. He was always busy with things at all corners of the galaxy, so they were used to him visiting every once in awhile, they were used to feeling his presence far away from them. But it was always there. It was always there somewhere. And now it had flared out. When she went to feel Jacen Solo, she would feel nothing. Before it was gone, it was a corrupted Jacen, yes. But he was still there. Now he was nowhere.

"Evening, Highness."

Snapping her head to the left, she saw Zekk standing inside the entrance to the quarters, the door sliding shut behind him. He had a storage unit hovering beside him and he was standing awkwardly beside it with his hands clasped nervously in front of him. His eyes were everywhere but on her. Tenel Ka watched them shift from the floor to the windows at the far end of the chamber to the silk canopy over the bed and then back to the floor. That was when she remembered she was standing there in a towel.

Had she really been lost in her thoughts that long?

She felt Allana shift from her spot, her demeanor picking up considerably as she saw another familiar face. Her movement as she pulled away from Tenel Ka and jumped from the bed almost caused her to take her mother's towel with her, but the Queen Mother grabbed it in time, keeping her composure and expression calm as usual.

Zekk finally met her eyes as she turned away from the bed to face him and she could tell it was taking a good amount of his willpower not to look anywhere else.

"Welcome, Zekk." She paused, then nodded. "Excuse me for a moment." She began to back away, back into the dressing room and the refresher beyond. "Allana, could you keep our guest company?"

"Can I braid your hair again, Zekk, pleeeeeease?!"

Zekk watched the Queen Mother vanish back into other rooms of the royal quarters before shaking his head quickly and looking down to her daughter, his eyes wide and his expression surprised -- like Allana asking about his hair was a completely new and exciting experience. "Sure thing, kid."

She pulled him towards the bed, climbed on it and stood behind him, setting to work, her tongue pressed against her upper lip in concentration. As she yanked and tugged at his shoulder-length hair, Zekk couldn't help but stare at the storage unit. He briefly wondered if Allana had any idea that she was in the same room as her father's dead body.

......

He had never seen Tenel Ka dressed in black before. The closest thing had to be the dark brown jumpsuits they had all worn on Myrkr. This was extremely different from the jumpsuits on every level besides the shade. It was a simple dress with short sleeves and an empire waist, the bottom hem sweeping the ground over a pair of flat sandals. She had pushed the mane of copper waves behind her shoulders and Zekk could see a pale chain of shells around her neck. Just like Jacen's lightsaber, Zekk instantly recognized that from their past as the necklace Jacen had given her so many years ago.

When she finished adjusting her sandals, she looked up and their eyes met, before hers shifted a little to the right and then left of his face. He figured she was looking at the two lopsided braids that were resting on his shoulders and that caused him to paste a cheesy grin on his face.

"Amazing, yes?"

"Oh, of course. They look professional. I think you should keep your hair like that for awhile."

Allana clapped madly, still seated on the bed and was now beaming at her handiwork. The girl scrambled to her feet on the cushy surface and edged over to where Zekk and Tenel Ka were standing beside it. She paused for a moment and then let her hands zoom back up to Zekk's head, where she started placing wisps of bangs on either side of his face. He squinted, hoping she wouldn't accidentally knock him in the eye with her fingers and watched her carefully, catching Tenel Ka's mildly amused expression behind the little girl.

"Allana, can you go get Mommy's cloak for her out of the refresher? It's hanging on the back of the door."

The little girl nodded and slid of the bed, then bounced back into the hallway, leaving her mother and the Jedi alone in the main area of the quarters.

Zekk was about to speak up when he noticed Tenel Ka staring blankly to some spot on the carpet around them. "Your Majesty?" He felt so silly calling her that. "Tenel Ka?" He waited a few more moments and when she didn't respond, he stuck his hand out where she was looking and snapped his fingers a few times.

Shaking her head, she looked up to him, blinking a few times. "Sorry."

"Understandable."

She opened her mouth to respond to him, but was quickly cut off by a shrill voice from the back halls of the royal chambers. "Mommy, I can't reach it!"

"Use the stool by the wardrobe," Tenel Ka called back over her shoulder. Waiting for an answer from her daughter, she didn't get one right away and figured Allana was busy with her task. She felt a tiny pang of guilt in her chest for making her daughter go through all the trouble, but she new she needed a moment alone with Zekk. "Thank you very much for bringing... him..." Her voice was low and subtle, as if Allana still might be able to hear it.

"It's nothing." Zekk began to absently undo the braids in his hair, his hands deftly working through the uneven knots and weaves Allana had put all over his head. He followed the Queen Mother to the large wall of windows, and watched her as she looked out over the Palace grounds and the sea beyond. Her eyes had that glazed look in them again, the one he had seen moments before when he had to snap her out of her trance. "You alright?"

He knew it was a dumb question, considering what had taken place over the past couple months, but he still didn't feel right not asking it. He knew Tenel Ka though, and he knew that if she was anything like how she was when they were younger then she would say it was. Because she, more often than not, hid her emotions.

"Yes, I'm fine."

"Here, Ma!"

Tenel Ka turned around and paced away from the window and Zekk didn't turn his head to follow her. He just continued to stare out the window, eyes narrowed and fingers brushing through his loose hair. He figured he could catch a shuttle back to Coruscant within the next standard hour or so -- he knew they ran all night from Hapes. Many planets had public transports to Coruscant running at all hours, especially now that it was almost built back to what it had been before the Yuuzhan Vong War. Behind him, he heard Tenel Ka's cloak clasping and Allana's hopeful inquiry.

"Want me t'get your belt and saber too?"

Leaning against one of the beds wooden posts, the Queen Mother felt her brow furrow, but nodded slightly at Allana's sudden bout of helpfulness. She usually acted like this when company was around and Tenel Ka didn't mind at all. "If you really want to, Allana."

She watched her daughter disappear around the corner again and then turned to the storage unit that had been hovering on its silent repulsorlifts by the main entrance. With a deep breath, she crossed the room to it and placed her hand on the scanner, waiting until it beeped and the green light showed itself before pulling her hand away. She didn't hesitate at all when pulling the lid up -- she just wanted to see him and then shut the unit before Allana came back. Just once.

Jacen Solo was inside, floating in a flood of red, his hands pressed against the transparisteel layer between the inside of the unit and the heavy lid. His eyes were open wide and he was trying to catch his breath as he choked on mouthfuls of the blood that seeped through his lips.

Tenel Ka stifled a scream and stumbled back from the unit, her right hand catching on an ornamental vase that sat on one of the endtables in the room. It tumbled to the ground and cracked apart. Zekk caught the sudden surprise in the Force before the vase shattered and spun around. His eyes landed on her first and then went instantly to the storage unit. Zekk could see something crimson sloshing around inside.

Rushing across the chamber, away from the windows and around the bed, he halted in front of the unit and fumbled with the latches on the transparisteel cover. He had no idea what was going on in there, where the blood came from, why Jacen's eyes were open, why he was choking when he was dead.

Finally throwing the last latch, he heaved the transparisteel cover up, throwing it back on the units hinges. He expected blood to wash out over their feet, he expected gurgling noises, he expected a sick smell and a sticky heat to hit them from the inside of the unit.

There was none of that. Just green shimmersilk and the peaceful body of Jacen Solo.

Zekk could hear Tenel Ka breathing heavily behind him, the air shuddering in and out from between her lips. Slowly backing a few steps away from the unit, he turned to look at her and saw that her eyes were still sharp and wide, still locked on the body of Jacen that he assumed they both had been seeing the same way a few moments earlier. Bloody, in danger and alive.

"You saw the..." Zekk motioned to the unit with his hands, waving them towards it. When he spoke, he realized he was out of breath as well.

"The... the blood and the..." Tenel Ka nodded and then quickly approached the unit and shut the transparisteel cover and the heavy lid. Mere seconds later, her daughter came careening back into the chamber.

"What's wrong?" Allana asked suddenly, halting in the center of the room. Her mother's belt was slung around her shoulders and she stood with her hands on her sides -- a stance that reminded Tenel Ka of Han Solo -- an expression of curiousity in her eyes. "I felt you guys get all surprised out here. I thought bad guys broked in or somethin'."

"No, kid. Everything's fine." Zekk forced a smile and threw his arms out to the side in a shrug.

"Promise?"

Zekk tossed a quick glance to the girl's mother before answering. "Promise."

Tenel Ka shifted forward and took her belt from Allana, thanking her and setting the piece of equipment on the bed. She wasted no time in pulling the lightsaber from it and tucking it into a leg holster hidden under her dress. "Allana, could you go out and spend a few minutes with Gadell? You can tell him the story of Little Furry Bantha Cub again. I'm sure he'll enjoy it."

"'Kay! You gonna be coming out soon?"

"Yes. Then we can go down to the beach and..."

"Say bye to Dad?"

Tenel Ka nodded.

Allana turned and prepared to speed out of the quarters to the front desk where the social advisor sat, but paused by the storage unit. "What's in the box?"

"Nothing." Tenel Ka replied, without a moment's hesitation.

The girl only stared at it a few seconds more before giving up on it and passing it, exiting the royal chambers.

The Queen Mother let out a long breath and turned to Zekk, her eyes tired and still locked on the storage unit. When she finally looked to him, she was blinking back tears. "I... I don't..." She motioned to the unit behind him, floating quietly and hanging there like another useless piece of decor. Her hand dropped back down by her side and her lips thinned and twisted momentarily while she attempted to keep her expression blank -- deciding to drop the matter of what they saw altogether. "I can call for a shuttle to come pick you up to take you to---"

"No." Zekk shook his head, his arms crossing over his chest. "I actually think I'm going to stay here for a day or two, if that's alright with you."

The sudden command in his tone caused her eyes to widen a bit and her muscles to tense. She hadn't heard him sound that way in years.

He noticed her change in emotion through the Force and softened his features. "You saw what happened just now in there." He jerked a thumb back to the unit. "I don't think I should be going anywhere till that gets figured out. I don't think the Council would be too pleased if I just dropped this matter."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I'll stay in an Inn in the city and just---"

"No, I mean about it." Tilting her chin in the same direction he had pointed in, she briefly ran her hand across her eyes, ridding her face of the sudden cloying heat she felt around it.

"Oh." He paused. "I'm not sure yet. I'll comm Master Skywalker and let him know what happened -- see what he has to say about it."

She nodded slowly and then inhaling and exhaling a deep breath, she passed Zekk and approached the storage unit. "Then I guess I should get this over with."

"Do you want me to come with you?" He stepped up beside her and threw his arms out when she turned to look at him. "I mean, I don't want to intrude or anything. But if something like that happens again..."

"Please do." Pressing a few areas on the panel of the unit, she began to let it drift at her side, leading it out into the foyer of the quarters.

Gadell was seated at his desk, Allana in his lap, and they were both currently smacking his holoterminal on opposite sides, still trying to get it to work. Gadell looked like he was more on the fixing side of things, while Allana just seemed to be content with hitting the piece of machinery and giggling everytime it shook after a particularly hard slap.

Leaning down beside her advisor, the Queen Mother whispered something into his ear, her breath misplacing a few strands of his disheveled mop of black hair. Zekk watched this small ritual, of the ruler giving quiet orders, with a mild sense of interest and also with a pang of wonder. If he had been in Gadell's position, with the Queen Mother breathing against his neck like that, he wasn't sure he would've been able to keep at least a slight shudder from his system. Of course, Vessau probably got orders like that everyday and was used to it.

"Ready?"

"Hm?" Zekk snapped back to attention, his eyes meeting Tenel Ka's expectant gaze.

"Are you ready to go?"

"Yeah, of course."

She nodded and passed him, the storage unit on her right. Zekk swiftly stepped in place slightly behind her and to her left and they began to make their way down the long and massive corridors, a silence hanging over them. He waited until they were well enough away from the royal chambers before he spoke up, his question snaking into her ears from behind her.

"What did you tell him?"

"I told him to watch Allana for a little bit and then bring her to the shore so she could say goodbye to her father."

Zekk nodded, his eyes averted to the floor again. When he brought them back up, he let them lock on the back of the Queen Mother striding ahead of him, her head held high and her feet moving across the carpet of the Fountain Palace, towards the outdoors and the wilderness beyond. To the place where she would let go of the man who betrayed everything he stood for, the man who fathered her daughter and visited them only when no one was looking.

The man who still loved her.

ALRIGHT BEDTIME. :O Hehe~

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] The First Time

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 06:12:23 GMT

FANFICTION // [Star Wars: EU] The Feigned: UV

Mon, 07 Jan 2008 05:27:00 GMT

Chapters 35 - epilogue of Urbania's Void are online now and they can be found here. DONE. AFTER THREE YEARS DOOOONNNEEE. Hehe.

Third story in the series to follow soon. ;)

FANFICTION // [ Star Wars: EU ] The First Time

Fri, 04 Jan 2008 05:07:33 GMT

Title: The First Time
Series: Star Wars: EU, post-LotF
Characters: Zekk, Tenel Ka, Allana, Darth Caedus, a few others...
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine (except a choice few, lol), I'm just having a little whiny fun with them. Muahaha~
Notes: I'm not sure how many chapters this is going to be, but I have a basic idea of what's going to happen and where it goes -- I THINK. So we'll see what happens. Hehe~ it's basically a bunch of little events strung together in one big line of crackishness. SO YEAH.

Prologue --

It was the first time she had seen him this lost.

The ship was silent except for the low hum of the generators. There were usually crew members and officers crawling all over the bridge. But not at this moment. Not anymore.

She stood staring into his eyes, the eyes that used to match hers in their intensity and their wisdom. His had flared from a brown to a red, orange flecks permeating the sea of crimson that made up his iris. She twitched, almost springing foward for a thrust or a slash.

Darth Caedus didn't move at all, except his lips, which formed a question.

"What is it you want?"

"I want you dead."

He seemed to smile, although his lips upturned into a thin crescent that formed a sarcastic sneer. It was so far from the grin she used to see on her twin brother. She supressed a shudder, her sweaty fingers tightening around the handle of her lightsaber.

"Oh, dear sister," he said. His lightsaber, the blade matching his eyes, was being twirled stylishly -- almost lazily -- around in his grasp, from one gloved hand to the other. Back and forth. His gaze never left hers. "You're not even going to try to save Jacen?" The name came from his lips in a hiss, like it burned his tongue to say it.

"Jacen's dead."

A whoop of amusement surfaced from Darth Caedus as he let the lightsaber fall into his right hand where he brought the blade down beside him. "You're a smart little mynock, aren't you?"

Jaina Solo could only smirk back at him, her mind debating on the perfect time to strike. What he did next though caught her off guard. And she wasn't a big fan of being caught off guard.

Caedus dropped the handle of his lightsaber to the ground, the weapon rolling across the dull durasteel of the ships main cabin, casting a red halo around it as it moved. He began to circle her like a nexu circling it's prey, his hands clasped behind his back and his boots echoing loudly on the bridge of the deserted Star Destroyer.

"Did you want to achieve something, sis? Live up to the Solo name finally? Hold your own for once?" He nodded, tilting his head to the side, his eyes locked on her visage. He looked completely relaxed as he paced around her, except for his face. His lips were pursed, fading from a sneer to a frown and back, while his eyes were sharp and calculating. "That's understandable. I guess it's your turn to finally do something."

Stopping in front of the Anakin Solo's oversized viewport, Caedus turned to her and held his hands out to his sides. "I'm giving you this fight."

"Pick up your weapon. I'm not letting it end this way."

"Either I continue to live and continue with what you're trying to stop, or you kill me now, Jaina."

"Pick up the damn lightsaber."

He shook his head, along with his right pointer finger. Back and forth. He could sense the rage bubbling up inside of her and he embraced it, that shadow of a smile crossing his face yet again. He could feel her growing more and more ready to slash him down with no second thought. That was what he wanted. Approaching her slowly, he held his hands out to her, to show that he wasn't going to do anything drastic. She tensed, but stayed still, letting him shift up to her, letting him put his gloved hands on her cheeks. She was ready to throw him off, ready to twist the lightsaber into his neck -- she had the perfect opportunity at this exact moment in time. But she had to admit a small part of her was curious about just what the kriff he was doing.

Darth Caedus seemed to pull Jaina closer to him, in one last unsettling embrace, his lips shifting over her left ear.

"If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

He lingered for a moment before pulling back from her and holding his arms out to the side once more. "Go on. I know this is what you want." He provoked her with his eyes, with his hands, with his mind. "I know this is what you need. Save the galaxy from me, be a hero."

She hadn't believed his words, the ones about him becoming powerful after death. In fact, she laughed inwardly at them. And they rang in her ears as she drew her lightsaber back and let the blue-violet blade drive itself into the man that was once her twin brother.

Chapter One --

He wasn't sure why he was hesitating when he stepped up to the door, his fist hovering in front of the durasteel barrier. With a sharp inhale, he rapped his knuckles against it and waited momentarily.

"Who is it?" A female voice called.

"Zekk."

Moments seemed to drag by before the door slid back into the wall and the face of Jaina Solo appeared, her lips thinned and her eyes slightly narrowed. Zekk knew that look. He had seen it many times before.

"What?"

"Can I come in?"

She did nothing to mask the annoyed sigh that passed through her lips as she backed away from the open door. Sliding into her quarters, he shut the door behind him, trying to ignore her sudden flare of attitude. He watched her rummage through her drawers and then let his eyes lift to the window past her. Maybe if he gave her a few seconds before he spoke, she would calm down.

The sun was setting over Coruscant and the beams were lazily tossed around Jaina Solo's quarters on the northern side of the Jedi Temple -- the lanes of passing hover traffic causing nonstop movement outside her window. Zekk, in his own quarters, had a nice view of the Entertainment District, the neons and flashing lights seeping into his room at night. Jaina had a view of the closest spaceport and Zekk wasn't jealous of it at all. She got to hear ships coming and going at all hours of the night. Zekk just got to close his curtains and he would have instant peace and quiet.

Maybe that's she's in such a bad mood -- no sleep.

"Are you here to give me one of your morality speeches?" She slammed a drawer shut and moved to the next, digging through stacks of garments.

No, there it is.

He crossed his arms over his chest and cocked a hip. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I killed my brother -- well, the monster that once called himself that -- and I haven't heard a single word from you about it. It's been six days." She found whatever she was looking for and threw it on the bed on the heap of clothes already there and then headed towards the desk he was standing beside, grabbing a datapad off of it.

Zekk eyed her carefully, biting his tongue at the sudden flood of things he wanted to say. There was too much that he was trying to hold in though and some managed to make their annoyed escape. "Is that what you want, Jaina? Because I can definitely give that to you." He reached out and placed a palm over the datapad screen, pulling the device down from her face, causing her to look at him. "Why didn't you try to save him?"

"You saw what he had become. He had to be stopped. He was completely consumed by the Dark Side!" She threw her arms up in the air, like they had argued this point a billion times before.

"You saved me from that exact thing."

"Yeah, well people change."

"So now you're saying you've changed to the point where your too good to even attempt to save your own family member -- your own twin brother -- from the Dark Side?"

She didn't even bother to answer the question, she just ripped the datapad out of his grasp and began to pace back towards her bed. "Are you done now?"

Zekk felt himself close his eyes, and he could feel himself subconciously trying to run through every calming technique he had ever learned from Master Skywalker. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his pants, clenching and relaxing his fists, trying to shove all the negative energy from his system. He got like this every once in awhile, but Jaina was never really the cause of it. Now though, right now was a different story.

She finally turned to look up at him, tilting the top of the datapad towards the door and repeating her question. "Are you done now? If you're done I'd like you to excuse me. I have a date tonight."

"Nice," he replied flatly, trying to keep the sarcasm from his voice and failing -- most likely on purpose.

She continued to ignore him, her jaw set and her hands back absently shifting through the pile of clothes on the bed.

He finally felt himself calm enough to a point where he could speak again, although the words that came out were anything but that. "Well, I hope you're happy now, Jaina. Your niece doesn't have a father anymore."

She flinched momentarily -- Zekk knew he wasn't supposed to catch it, but of course he caught it. He knew her. He knew that hit her right where it should have.

"Enjoy your date," he said, spinning on a heel and slamming his palm into the panel by the door. Seconds later it slid open and Zekk left Jaina's room, leaving her in a shuddering mass of sudden depression and rage.

......

Zekk had dozed off in his bed, the holoscreen across the room running news -- stories about the end of the war, stories about death, birth, life. He was too busy sleeping to hear them, sprawled out on his stomach, the neons from the Entertainment District outside drifting in and bathing him in pinks and violets. He turned over as the monotony of the room was broken by a knock on the door and picked his head up, blowing black hair out of his face. Zekk had shifted so quickly that the sheets he was tangled in pulled him to the floor, where he landed on his tailbone with a thud.

He growled and pulled himself to his feet, shaking his legs to get the sheets unwrapped and then leaned over the bed and picked up the shirt he had thrown there before he fell asleep. Pulling it over his head as he stumbled to the door, he attempted to wake up, blinking his eyes furiously and punching at the panel to open the door.

"Good evening, Zekk," a voice said, holding back a polite chuckle.

Finally getting his head through the hole in the top of the shirt, Zekk pasted a smile on his face, "Master Skywalker! How nice of you to drop by." He slammed a hand on his hip and threw the other arm up against the doorframe, trying to appear casual and welcoming.

"Are you busy?"

Zekk turned his head, shooting a glance to his disheveled bed, as if he was actually considering the answer yes.

"No, no of course not. What's up?"

"I came here to ask you about a favor."

"What is it?"

"I was wondering if you'd be able to accompany Cae--" Luke Skywalker stopped and closed his eyes momentarily, collecting his composure and opening them once more. He lowered his voice slightly. "I was wondering if you'd be able to accompany Jacen's body to Hapes."

"Hapes? The Solo's aren't doing anything with it?" Zekk realized the phrase "doing anything with it" sounded very cold and impolite, but he wasn't sure how else to word the question.

"They were going to say their goodbyes and take care of it, but they thought Tenel Ka should have that honor, the last goodbye. If you want to call it that. She..." Skywalker stopped again, this time he inhaled deeply, letting the breath out in a tired sigh. "She stuck with him the longest."

"And they weren't at the funeral here a couple days ago..."

"No, the Queen Mother and Allana couldn't make it."

Zekk nodded.

"Lowbacca was heading back to Kashyyyk and offered to take the body there, but he only has the time to drop it off. I was wondering if you could go with him and disembark at Hapes, to make sure it gets to Tenel Ka herself. Who knows what the Hapans would do to it if they got their hands on him... it." Luke seemed to frown, but quickly masked the expression.

Before he even thought about his answer, Zekk nodded again. "Of course I can."

"Thank you very much, this means a lot to Tenel Ka -- to myself also. And I know it means a lot to Han and Leia. Ben as well."

Zekk noted the absence of Jaina's name and wasn't surprised in the least. "No problem."

"I'll let Lowbacca know and he'll contact you with the details. I believe you'll be leaving sometime tomorrow, in the afternoon."

"Thank you, Master Skywalker."

Luke nodded his head and bowed slightly before turning and retreating down the corridor. Zekk watched him until he vanished around the corner, back towards the main hall, then he pulled himself back into his room and shut the door. He stood there for a moment, back against the wall, and let his eyes drift to the heap of sheets on his bed.

Delivering Jacen Solo's dead body to Hapes.

Maybe he should've just stayed in bed.

With a sigh, he moved deeper into his quarters, preparing to find his bag to pack but stopped when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror near his bed. He had put his shirt on backwards and inside out -- and just finished talking to the Grand Master of the Jedi Order.

"Oh yeah, good one, Zekk." Mumbling to himself, he pulled his travel bag out from under the bed and opened it.

His eyes were locked on the holoscreen as he stood at his old wooden chest of drawers, opening each one and tossing items of clothing he would need behind his back, hoping they landed somewhere near his bag. He watched a story about a pet acklay who found his way home after six standard years and another news story about a wampa who learned to speak basic before he finally turned back to his bed and frowned. All the clothes he needed were now out, but they were strewn from the door to his refresher, all the way across the bed, and over to the the window where the neon lights were flooding in.

"Of course," he murmured, scowling.

He fell asleep halfway through packing and woke up the next morning to a message left by Lowbacca and about a standard half an hour to finish packing and get ready. That was fine. Zekk worked well under pressure.

......

"Tell Tenel Ka we said hey -- and we hope she's doing okay. Allana too." Han seemed tired, his eyes were bloodshot and there were visible bags under them. "Tell her we're always here for them and we'll comm them very soon."

"Yes, sir."

Leia wrapped him up in a hug, throwing her arms around his neck and patting his back. She had questioned Zekk in the past, many times, over many things and only when Han told her to step back and look at everything he had done over the years did she realize how important an aspect he was to her relatives and friends. "Thank you so much, Zekk. You've always been there for our family. If there's anything we can ever do for you, let us know."

She pulled back, both of them still holding onto each other, and he could see her eyes were the same as Han's. He involuntarily clutched her upper arms at the sight, trying to comfort her, not knowing how she was able to keep pushing through all of this. Chewbacca, then Anakin, now Jacen. The Solos had enough. Pulling his hands down to hers, he gave her fingers a quick squeeze before backing up the ramp of the ship and waving solemnly to Han and Leia.

"You're welcome, and I will. Thanks." At thirty-three, Zekk thought he wasn't capable of blushing anymore. But he could feeling his cheeks flushing the slightest bit.

The Solos watched him board the ship and Han's mind was ticking off where Zekk was. He knew Zekk was going to see Tenel Ka, who was on Hapes, and they had seen Tahiri on the way to the hangar. He had no idea where Jaina was. But here he was making sure he knew where all of his kids were -- even though three of them weren't really his children at all. Leia seemed to pick up on his thoughts.

"Han..."

"Hmmm?" His eyes were still locked on the ship and he watched the ramp pull back and the hatch shut.

"If we had Tahiri, Tenel Ka and Zekk as our own children, would they have turned out the same way?"

Han felt himself swallow a mouthful of dry air, his throughts whirring at the fact that their three children were lost to them now. Their boys were dead and their little girl was grown up and ignoring almost everyone, including them, in her sudden bouts of grief and anger. And their kids' closest friends, that Han and Leia looked at like children of their own at times, the three of them were alive and doing quite well for themselves. Tahiri was training to become a Jedi master, Zekk was as well and also heading up the Orpheus Squadron and Tenel Ka was the Queen Mother of Hapes with a beautiful daughter of her own. Their granddaughter.

He hugged his wife into his chest, her tears -- which he thought were all dry by now -- soaking through his shirt. "Don't think about things like that, sweetheart."

HARHAR that's all for now. I think. Heh.