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Caldis was nine when a boy with the prettiest eyes she’d ever seen kissed her in her mother’s study. He was perfectly nice: the son of an Alderaanian statesman, with gentle hands and a knack for negotiation. Caldis thought she could possibly settle down with him if her mother required it. Then his mouth found hers, and all thoughts of duty fled her mind.
That was nice, he said upon pulling back, his voice sly, and perhaps a little nervous.
Caldis, who could think of nothing complimentary to say, blurted, I don’t think we should be in here, and promptly left the room.
It was just as well. A few months later his house was revealed as a Thul proxy, and even at the age of nine, Caldis knew she wanted nothing to do with Imperial scum.
Decades have passed since then, and Caldis finds she almost regrets it. At the very least, kissing in her mother’s study would’ve taught her where to put her hands.
Before we get going, Theron said not five minutes ago, there’s just one last thing I had in mind, if you think you can keep up.
He kissed her. It was nothing like the boy in her mother’s study, with his chapped lips and shaky hands. When he pulled back, all Caldis could think to say was, Is that what you had in mind?
It’s a start.
Caldis thought he’d pull her into one of the small, abandoned tents, littered with rations and the odd crate of archeological equipment. Instead, Theron leads her into the woods where the Force thrums pleasantly, creatures vying for space in the shadows. Away from Darth Marr and Master Satele, from Lana and Kira and Jakarro and C2-D4, Caldis can almost hear herself think.
“This is better,” Theron says into the silence. “Don’t you think?”
It’s not the first time they’ve been alone. But there’s something about the Yavin moon. She can’t explain it, only that at certain times, on certain occasions, the Force feels almost blindingly alive, corporeal in ways she’s missed since the Emperor’s fortress. Even now, the air tightens around them, as though the Force wants them closer.
Maybe, thinks Caldis stupidly, it does.
Theron reaches for her hand. Caldis turns to face him, only a little bit relieved when her back hits the nearest tree. At least she doesn’t have to worry about staying upright.
Finally, he touches her jaw. His skin is warm and rough. Caldis sighs, tilting her head slightly, lips parting when he thumbs her pulse point.
“Theron…”
“Callie.” He tilts her face up. “Is this okay?”
Kissing in her mother’s study would’ve taught her how to touch him. As it is, it’s all new to her: the heat of him, the solidity, the muscles lithe and strong. She was gentle, once, she’s sure of it. Made for delicate things. But the war has hardened her, made her incapable of touches that do not end in violence. Even now, she’s afraid of hurting him, of holding him so tightly that one of them ends up bruised.
Theron frowns, eyes flicking between hers. “Callie?”
She’s clutching his jacket. She’s not sure when that happened. Better than clutching his forearm, she supposes, but she still feels vaguely like she should apologize or, at the very least, ask for permission. “I might be bad at this,” Caldis hears herself say.
Kissing? Wanting? Trusting her feelings? For the longest time, Caldis thought she was above all this; she needed nothing but the Force. Then she left for the Emperor’s fortress, and her world upended itself, an apocalypse she once associated with falling to the Dark Side. She dreamed of serpents devouring themselves, of endless, bloody cycles, and suddenly nothing was as Caldis expected it to be.
“I might be bad at this,” says Caldis again, tugging at his jacket.
Theron laughs, a gritty, rumbling sound, settling between her shoulder blades like the embers of a star. “That’s not possible.”
His mouth finds hers in a quick slide. It never occurred to Caldis that kissing could be simple. Even as a child, it struck her as complex, weighty, a thing of devotion between imperfect people. Now she finds the opposite is true. Their teeth clack together, and if it were anyone else, Caldis would die of embarrassment. But all Theron does is pull her closer, a hand slipping between her armor and cloak, and somehow that small act has her unspooling, moving to the tip of her toes.
“For the record,” Theron murmurs against her mouth, “I think I prefer the robes.”
The very galaxy seems delicate these days. Poised to shatter. She supposes that’s what happens when you kill an emperor. But if Caldis focuses, follows the fault lines to their origin, she can see the break occurred before Dromund Kaas, before Quesh even. It started on Alderaan, Master Orgus dying before her eyes. The hologram sputtered out, and Caldis thought with startling clarity that the war would never end, that she would always be losing parts of herself to endless and bloody conflict.
Ever since then, she’s felt fragile, as though one wrong move might send her spiraling. She clung to the Code. She clung to the Order, to the Republic, hoping that at some point she would find herself again. But she never did. If anything, she’s become increasingly unrecognizable, the girl she was horribly unlike the woman she is now. The only thing they have in common is the ease with which they break.
She’s thinking of the stained glass in her mother’s study, how it bled crimson over carpet, when her teeth snag his lower lip. Caldis pulls back with a gasp.
“I’m so sorry. Are you okay? I’m so sorry, I wasn’t thinking, I—”
“Callie.”
Her name comes labored, breathless. Caldis cradles his jaw.
“Firstly,” Theron huffs, “there’s nothing to apologize for. And secondly…”
His eyes fall to her mouth. Caldis shivers. “Secondly?”
Theron braces himself with a hand next to her head. She’s always liked his hands. Gentle, like the boy she might’ve married if her mother had demanded it, and quietly sure. Now, though, her eyes are drawn to the veins clumping like flowers at his wrist. Unthinking, she traces one with a fingertip.
Don’t let me break this, Caldis prays.
“Stop thinking,” Theron tells her. He kisses her again, tongue parting her lips, a hand fisting in her hair. His body presses against hers, and it’s delicate, simple, perfect.
Unbelievably, Caldis thinks of nothing at all.
Later, Kira finds them flushed and panting, glitterflies surrounding them in a green-gold haze. Theron shoves his hands in his pockets. Caldis thinks of her mother’s study, portraits hanging solemnly on the wall.
Her padawan, who was always more a friend than a student, gestures toward the tree line. “Satele’s looking for you.” Her eyes flick from Caldis to Theron to Caldis again. “Both of you.”
Theron waits until Kira is gone before kissing down her jaw. “That was close.”
“Too close.” Kira is open-minded as they come, but there are things even she struggles to accept. Still, Caldis tilts her head to accommodate the press of his mouth. “We should… go.”
“Yeah.” If Caldis didn’t know better, she’d think he sounded petulant. It does something to her. “Yeah, alright.”
He helps her back into her cloak, which slipped off somewhere between kisses. She’ll never be able to wear this armor without thinking of Theron’s hand in her hair. It doesn’t distress her nearly as much as it should.
“Just like I thought,” Theron murmurs as they step into the light. “Good at everything.”