Chapter Text
He didn’t remember noticing at first, although whether he’d simply refused to believe it or he was simply too deep in his own hatred to feel it, he wasn’t sure.
The first time he’d been aware of this…pull, had been at the end of their battle on his flagship. When they’d stood, triumphant and uncowed by his rage. It had only been a faint flicker then, an itch behind his ribs that reached out to them.
At the time he’d assumed it was his father’s doing, some sort of trick to scatter his focus so the Outlander could strike. The assumption had persisted until he met them again, in the Temple of Healing. There, with his mind whirling with confusion and the dawning horror of his mother’s death, he’d looked back from the transport and the pull nearly knocked the breath from his lungs.
He ran. Barked a command to the pilot, and flew away.
The ritual had left him feeling raw, like a deep, infected wound that had been opened up and scrubbed clean. Everything felt so bright and overwhelming to a mind that had been mired in darkness for so long. The wordless revelation of that connection to the Outlander had been too much to take on top of everything else.
They met again on Zakuul, both seeing an opportunity to take his sister down, and he was surprised to find that the connection felt just as intense as the last time, it was all he could do to keep his voice from pitching with the ache in his chest.
This was…. unfortunate.
Force-Bonds were common among the Force-sensitives of Zakuul, and various orders like the Knights looked favorably upon bonded pairs, but for the love of Scyva, why did his Bondmate have to be the Commander!?
It had to be some sort of cruel cosmic joke that he would be bonded to a non-Force user. A small punishment for the atrocities he’d committed. To have to live and work alongside his unknowing Bondmate was a unique form of torture.
And they would stay unknowing, if he had anything to say about it.
He’d put them through so much; to know that they were tied to him on such an intimate level would only burden them further. They didn’t deserve to be dragged down by that knowledge, they didn’t owe him anything, and almost anyone would be more worthy of their love than him.
So Arcann put his head down, tried to drown that ache in work, and tried to ignore the looks of pity he could feel from his mother and the sith advisor.
That he was here was enough….. it had to be.
He was lucky to be able to work with them, and luckier still to be able to protect them in battle.
It didn’t matter that it felt hard to breathe around them, that his fingers itched to touch them, that the slightest smile or kind word from them sent his heart racing.
It was agony, but he would bear it. This was no more than he deserved.
They could never be his.