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“We should head back, it’s getting late,” Avar said as the sun slipped slowly down below the waves. She and Elzar sat shoulder to shoulder, looking out over the glittering Eodan Sea of Kattada, with Elzar’s robe providing a thin barrier between them and the powder-fine sand. On the edge of the robe by their feet were two drained wine glasses and an empty bottle of what had once been rosé.
The beaches of Kattada were famed for their beauty, and now finally seeing them for herself, Avar could understand why. The sand had been soft and warm under their feet—their boots long since kicked off—and the normally crystal-blue water shone in shades of pink and orange as it reflected back the setting sun.
Avar had come out here looking for Elzar, knowing if he were anywhere to be found, it would be by the water’s edge.
“You’re going to be finding sand in the pockets for years,” Avar had said dryly when she approached.
“You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he’d replied, closing his eyes and basking in the late evening sun. Avar smiled. Elzar looked so peaceful, so content. It was a nice change of pace after their most recent mission.
Avar had sat down on the edge of the robe and pulled a satchel off of her shoulder. From it, she produced a bottle and two flute glasses. Elzar hadn’t opened his eyes as Avar filled one of the glasses halfway with a vibrant pink liquid, so she’d nudged him with her shoulder. She couldn’t help the smile that crept over her face in the process.
Elzar turned and raised an eyebrow as he caught the mischievous glint in her eye. “What’s this?” he’d asked.
“A gift from the prime minister, as thanks,” Avar responded, still grinning.
Elzar had taken the glass from her, asking hesitantly, “What is it?”
“Just try it,” she asserted. “Master Indeera said it was alright.”
Elzar paused just before the drink touched his lips and smiled. “Oh?” he asked.
Avar stifled a giggle. She’d watched as Elzar gave in to curiosity and took his first sip. Avar could see on his face the moment he realized what she had handed him.
Kattada wasn’t only famous for its beaches. It also produced some of the finest wine in the galaxy, and a conspiratorial grin spread across Elzar’s face as he took a second sip. The drink was sweet and bubbly, with a crispness that reminded Avar of citrus, and before long she was pouring another glass for the both of them.
And so the pair had spent the last hour or so enjoying the sweet rosé, watching the sunset, and laughing about their recent adventures. Rescuing the Kattadan Senator from pirates hadn’t exactly been on their schedule, but Jedi were often called upon to do the unexpected, and the Padawans had been eager to follow their masters into the fray.
Avar couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt this relaxed, this content. It had been at least a year since she and Elzar had ended up on a mission together, and she hoped that based on the success of this one the Council would realize what a good idea it was to let them work together. They had an almost instinctual understanding of each other. In complete unison, without even discussing it, they had pulled off a nearly flawless retrieval of the senator from the ship that the Shara Raiders were transporting him on. They’d both given their respective masters a bit of a scare when the comms had stopped working and they’d failed to follow the original plan, but plans rarely worked as intended. Without more than a glance at each other, Avar had cut a hole into the door of the hold, and Elzar had slowly sealed off all other access points, meaning they were able to dart into an escape pod and jettison away just in time.
The thrill of their success still thrummed in their veins, although the wine had made the world feel a bit blurred around the edges. Avar rested her head on Elzar’s shoulder while they watched the sun descend through the pink-streaked sky.
“Master Stokes told us not to linger too long past sunset,” she informed him with a sigh, shifting finally to stand. “We’re leaving early in the morning.”
Perhaps it was the realization that they were sitting so close, or perhaps it was the unexpected way that Elzar took her hand as she began to rise, but when Avar looked to him for confirmation, his eyes met hers and she felt her face flush. As their fingers touched, it was as if a jolt of electricity had ricocheted through her body, or like a colony of flare-wings was trying to burst from her abdomen. Elzar’s eyes shone with the fading light, like evening stars cutting through the haze, and Avar opened her mouth to ask what he wanted, why he was staring at her like that, but she couldn’t make any words come out.
“You can’t leave without testing the water,” Elzar said with a grin, seemingly unaware of Avar’s sudden inability to speak. He was already pulling her to her feet.
“I’m not a very strong swimmer…” Avar reminded him, but Elzar was already discarding his belt and tabards.
“Then it’s a good thing I am,” he returned with a wink. “We don’t have to go far. We’ll be back in plenty of time for evening meditation.”
Avar stared at him as she tried to give the decision the necessary time to crystallize in her mind—a process likely impeded by the amount of rosé she had just consumed—but all she could focus on was the confident grin that lit up Elzar’s features. Hope sparkled irresistibly in his eyes, and Avar returned the smile.
“Oh alright,” she conceded as she began to shrug off her outer layers.
In an instant they were racing towards the water’s edge with gleeful abandon, Avar’s heart pounding as Elzar took her hand and pulled her eagerly into the waves. The water was surprisingly warm, and it pooled around her ankles, and then her knees, and then her hips, until they had trudged far enough that she felt her feet lift ever so slightly from the sand. The sensation of floating was disconcerting at first—partially because it didn’t feel all that different from the way the wine made her feel, and she was suddenly, acutely aware of this—but Avar tried her best to focus on Elzar.
Unlike her, Elzar was in his element out here. He swam further, moving as gracefully as a member of the Mon Calamari Aquatic Ballet, and Avar did her best to keep up. She was grateful that the sea was relatively calm, but small waves still pressed towards them at uneven intervals. Avar was determined to not let Elzar see how much effort it took for her to stay afloat as they swam over them.
“Should we swim back?” Avar asked finally, glancing back at the shore.
“We’re not that far,” Elzar answered, more nonchalantly than Avar had hoped. “And if we swim a little further, there’s fewer waves and the water is calmer.”
As Avar tore her eyes from the safety of the shoreline, she suddenly saw a larger wave rolling unavoidably towards them. Her eyes widened as Elzar held his breath and dove gleefully into it. Avar, however, did not share his enthusiasm. A shadow of dread washed over her. It’s fine, she told herself, just paddle over it, keeping your head above the water . But the wave grew higher, and her resolve melted away. The wave broke in frothy white peaks just before it reached her, the strength of the wave catching her off guard and dragging her down beneath it. Avar flailed as the wave pulled her back towards the shore, realizing that she didn’t know where Elzar had gone, or which way was up, and the panic that rose in her chest drowned out all logic. She found herself tumbling, her shoulder slamming against the rough shells of the ocean floor, and both pain and panic threatened to overwhelm her.
“ Relax ,” she heard, as much as felt in her mind. Hands suddenly wrapped around her arms, tugging her up, until she broke the surface and took a heaving, sputtering breath.
“I’ve got you, it’s okay, you’re okay,” Elzar was saying. Avar’s heart was pounding in her ears and she barely registered his words, but she realized that he was attempting to radiate waves of calm to help quiet her mind.
“Finding the surface is easier when you stay calm,” he said finally, wrapping an arm around her waist to give her a sense of stability. “If you’re holding air in your lungs, it will always bring you back up. Just wait, and don’t panic.”
Avar nodded, still feeling a bit dizzy, but grateful that Elzar was hanging on to her. Was he using the Force to keep her steady? She realized that she wasn’t actually treading water.
“Thanks,” Avar finally said as she took a shaky breath, beginning to kick her legs enough to stay afloat again. “I think…perhaps swimming after wine isn’t the best idea.”
Elzar laughed. “Yeah, maybe you’re right. We can head back, if you want.”
Avar nodded, and Elzar let go as they turned to swim towards the shore. She felt a bit silly that her heart was still beating at the same breakneck pace. She knew, looking back, that she’d never really been in any danger; she knew that if she’d kept calm then it would have been easier for her to call on the Force. Elzar was right, and she wished that he wasn’t. As grateful as she was for him, she was embarrassed that he’d had to help her at all.
She wished that she could make any sense of the tangle of emotions in her chest. Since when was she self-conscious of the way Elzar saw her? When had they ever been embarrassed at helping each other?
“We’re going to have to walk all the way back to the hotel dripping wet,” she joked as they made their way up the beach to collect their belongings, trying to push aside her internal questions.
“We don’t have to go just yet, do we?” Elzar asked, picking up her cloak and cocking his head playfully. He looked intently at her, and again she saw that sparkle of hope, that damned confidence and reckless desire. It was enough to cause her heart to stutter.
The flurry of emotions that Avar had tried to shove aside suddenly caught her off guard, crashing over her like that wave in the sea. Why was he looking at her like that? Why did she suddenly feel flustered, and self-conscious, and lightheaded…
“You’re bleeding,” Elzar said, eyes going wide. He reached for her shoulder, and Avar turned to see that he was right. There was an abrasion on top of her left shoulder, where she had been pushed down to the ocean floor by the waves, and blood had begun to stain her tunic.
Elzar pulled the fabric aside, his fingers ghosting across her skin, before looking around for anything that could help.
“It’s fine,” Avar said hastily, pushing Elzar’s hand aside to place her own hand over the cut and adding a bit of pressure. “It’s not deep.” She lifted her hand to look at it again, confirming that it really wasn’t much blood and it was just a small scrape. The blood on her tunic was the more annoying issue.
“Still,” Elzar said, spotting his belt amid their pile of clothes and reaching for it. He pulled out a small bandage roll from one of his pouches, and tore off enough to cover the abrasion.
“Here,” he said gently, moving her hand to press the bandage to her shoulder. His hand was warm against her skin, and his other hand found purchase on her upper arm, as if he needed to steady her.
“It’s fine, I’m fine,” Avar lied as she became aware of the slight sting.
“I’m sorry, this is my fault,” Elzar murmured, releasing the bandage and running his fingers over the collar of her tunic.
Avar shook her head. “No. It would have been worse if you hadn’t pulled me up. I half expected to get dragged up the shore by that wave.” She offered him a reassuring smile.
“But I pulled you into the water,” Elzar insisted. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I thought I…”
“You thought you could protect me from the whole ocean?” Avar asked, raising an incredulous eyebrow. “El, be reasonable.”
“I am being reasonable,” he argued, taking half a step closer into her space. “And I promise I won’t let you be put in harm’s way like that again.”
“You can’t possibly make that kind of promise,” Avar countered. “We’re Jedi. We put ourselves in harm’s way practically every day. You can’t stop that from happening.”
But as Avar looked at Elzar, she saw the resolve in his eyes, accompanied by an adoration that took her by surprise. Avar’s heartbeat quickened, and her cheeks flushed, and she was struck by the depth of emotion that she felt for this boy in front of her. They were Jedi. They weren’t supposed to feel like this. She wasn’t supposed to feel like this, not here, not now…
All at once, she was back in the ocean, with the ocean rolling uncontrollably toward her. For a brief moment Avar wondered if she should resist the event in the same way that she had tried to resist being swallowed by the sea…
But as Elzar’s hand tightened around her shoulder, pulling her closer, Avar surged forward to meet him, abandoning all sense of which way was up.
For one thrilling and terrifying moment, her heart soared…until her nose collided with his.
Avar winced as they both jerked backwards, at the same moment that they were interrupted by the chirp of a comlink. The pair scrambled apart to figure out where it was. Avar finally retrieved it from the pocket of her robe, which lay in a crumpled heap a few feet away, clicking the button to receive the signal.
“Padawan Kriss? Did you find Padawan Mann?” came the voice of Indeera Stokes.
“Uh, yes, I found him,” Avar replied, clearing her voice. “We’re on our way back.”
“Good,” Master Stokes replied. “Oh, and you didn’t happen to see where that bottle of Kattadan rosé got off to, did you? I was going to pack it away to bring back to Coruscant.”
Avar glanced at Elzar, whose eyes widened as realization dawned on his face.
I thought you said it was alright? Elzar mouthed.
Avar shrugged, trying desperately to find the right words that weren’t a lie but that also didn’t result in a scolding via comlink.
“Um, I saw it earlier…” Avar began weakly.
“Mmm, as did I,” Indeera replied tersely. “Perhaps we can talk it through when you return. Stokes out.”
Avar blinked as she looked up at Elzar, who burst into laughter almost as soon as the com clicked off.
“I can’t believe you had me convinced that Master Stokes let you take that whole bottle!” Elzar exclaimed.
Avar would have felt herself blush if her cheeks weren’t already crimson from the events of the past few minutes. “I didn’t lie! She did say that we ought to accept and appreciate the gift…”
“Right, of course,” Elzar said with a wink. He leaned down to pick up her robe and tossed it at her. “Well, we might as well walk back.”
Elzar began walking on ahead, as if nothing had happened. Were they going to talk about what had transpired? About their almost-kiss? She suddenly felt very foolish about the whole thing. What had come over her? What had come over Elzar?
Perhaps if she didn’t acknowledge it, if she didn’t mention anything and just continued walking, they could forget this ever happened. That would be for the best, wouldn’t it? They were Jedi after all…
“I bet Stellan is going to be jealous that we met the Kattadan Prime Minister,” Avar said, forcing her voice to sound as lighthearted as possible. “He’s been rambling on about galactic politics of late.”
“Oh I know,” Elzar replied, rolling his eyes. “He’s been insufferable about it.” At that they both laughed and settled into comfortable conversation, poking fun at their closest friend, as they trekked back to the rooms they’d been given. They shifted to other topics, from Padawan classes to upcoming holo productions…everything in the galaxy that they could think of.
Everything except the events of the evening.