Work Text:
Love hurts, love scars,
Love wounds, and mars
Any heart not tough
Or strong enough
To take a lot of pain
Nazareth - Love Hurts
Velren lingers on the threshold, clearing his throat again and again. Running his speech through his mind. Normally he has no trouble communicating, but right now any words seem wrong. He only has one attempt.
And only enough confidence for that one attempt.
He looks around the small hall, his gaze catching on a sign that reads Level 165.
High up. Not a place he’d want to jump from. Velren suddenly frowns, noticing the white boots of a guard sticking out from behind the corner. He moves his fingers, channeling the Force to shift the body out of sight.
Of course, everyone’s alive. Satele wouldn’t appreciate him killing her guards.
Satele Shan. The name on the door monitor tightens his throat with unease.
Satele Shan, Grand Master of the Jedi Order—their sworn enemies, ideological opponents, rivals for millennia. Darth Occlus threatens from the podiums to wipe that cursed sect into dust. Velren once bought a holoprojection of their leader.
A limited-edition figure in ceremonial robes.
It’s probably strange to feel such a storm of emotion toward someone he’s known for barely a week. The long operation on Yavin-IV turns everything inside Occlus upside down, dragging to the surface Velren with a living, beating heart. And she is the reason.
Velren slowly runs his hand across the door panel. He waits, still cloaked in the Force.
Shan opens the door herself—not a droid, not a servant. She’s wearing a simple gray home dress, her hair braided to one side. Without even trying to hide it, Velren looks at her with tenderness—this image surely few have ever seen.
And he smiles. Foolishly, like a boy.
Satele takes a short but noticeable breath. She barely manages to smooth her eyebrows back into place and, not very Jedi-like, pushes her guest inside the apartment.
“You’ve completely lost your mind, haven’t you?” she asks in her usual restrained tone.
“Many people think so,” Velren says evasively.
His carefully prepared speech vanishes from his mind the moment he finds himself under the gaze of those sky-blue eyes. Now all he can do is improvise.
“How did you even get to Coruscant, Lord Occlus?” Shan asks, shaking her head in disbelief. “You’re a member of the Dark Council. There’s a war on. You’re not getting out of here.”
The Sith tries to take a step into the room, but Satele firmly blocks his way.
“Worried?”
“I won't be able to help you,” she says.
“You’re worried.”
After a heavy pause, Shan reluctantly steps aside, allowing him in. Her graceful movement carries the weight of years of training. Her straight back and serious gaze—an eternity of authority.
With a smooth turn of her hand, the Grand Master gestures toward a low table surrounded by poufs. A few minutes later she brings over a pale-blue teapot and several cups. Herbal tea flows slowly into thin porcelain. Velren normally dislikes “natural” cuisine, but from Satele’s hands he’s ready to eat and drink anything. Almost anything.
“Got any cookies?” the Sith asks politely, sniffing the tea.
“Don’t behave like a child.”
Velren snorts, lifting his cup. He grimaces as the sharp, fragrant liquid coats his tongue but bravely takes another sip, demonstrating his acceptance of the situation.
Shan sighs wearily.
Then she returns with a small basket of sweets.
“After that you’ll leave,” Satele reminds him sternly as she takes the seat across from him. “But first, I want to know why you’re really here.”
“Because of you,” Velren answers honestly.
For a whole second, it seems that Master Shan is about to behave like an ordinary woman. That she’ll give a gracious smile, feign confusion, lower her lashes, radiating the proud poise of a desired chosen one. But instead, her face softens into the compassionate expression of a civilian therapist who genuinely wants to help.
A flicker of disappointment flashes in Velren’s yellow eyes.
“Your feelings are troubling you,” she says.
Exactly. That’s like describing a monstrously deadly avalanche that wiped several settlements as simply “some snow fell.”
The fine lines at the corners of her eyes deepen slightly with guilt when Satele realizes she’s understated it. The acknowledgment of that mistake pulls the dam open—Velren’s words spill out in a rapid, breathless rush.
“Satele, I know I’m indecently young, we’re on endlessly opposite sides, and then there’s that damn… that strict Code of yours. But it hurts without you,” he says, jabbing a finger at his chest. “Right here. Something burns, melts, fades, then flares up again, twists, aches, tears apart. I patch it together during the day by burying myself in duty, but at night it all falls apart again. It sharpens in meditation, and then it feels like I love you more than I love myself.”
“You’re right.” Shan, though she drops the formal tone, still shows nothing outwardly—she merely refills both cups with calm precision. “You’re young, and your emotions burn bright within you. I can’t give much advice to a Sith. Don’t be afraid to feel, but don’t let those feelings dictate your choices. In time, they’ll find their place.”
“That’s how you soothe yourself, isn’t it? When you look at Theron or… his father?” His steady baritone carries just a drop of poison. “You tell yourself it’ll pass?”
“My emotions are a part of me,” Satele says, unshaken by the provocation—or by the attempt to pry for details. “I accept them, but I don’t allow them to take control.”
“People say your heart’s made of stone.”
“Not true. But the heart and the position of Grand Master are incompatible.”
Velren knows that love, first and foremost, means pain. It’s separation, longing, grief, betrayal, and an endless trail of scars on the soul. Anyone who’s been through that grinder swears they’ll never again step onto its treacherous path.
And then they meet a Jedi with impossibly blue eyes—and renounce every oath they’ve ever sworn.
The Sith swirls his cup, watching the residue spin into a vortex. He thinks the galaxy is the same cup, the Force the remaining tea, and they—the tiny specks caught in the merciless whirlpool. And no matter how hard one resists, the Force will still smear you along the walls and drag you to the bottom. Swollen, faded, decaying—only to give the universe, the tea, its color. No matter the power, allegiance, or deed—each of them is just a grain of dust in the endless flow of the Force.
“You think I’m an idiot,” Velren finally says aloud.
“I think you’re insane for sneaking onto Coruscant,” her face lights up with a smile for the first time. Beautiful. “Still, no one can accuse you of lacking zeal or determination. With those qualities, Lord Occlus, one could achieve great things. Don’t waste them in vain.”
“Has anyone ever done something like this for you?” Velren laughs, but the sound fades quickly. He darkens, releasing a question into the air he doesn’t truly want to ask. “If things had turned out differently—would I have had a chance?”
Satele is silent for two heartbeats too long, leaving another scar across his soul.
“Things turned out the way they did, Velren.”
A faint note of sadness lingers in her voice, barely audible beneath the calm, measured tone. And Velren understands—it doesn’t matter what Satele is thinking about, or who.
He simply reaches for her hand. Beneath his touch, the steady hand of the Grand Master of the Jedi Order becomes that of a woman—fragile. Satele doesn’t pull away—not after two, three, four, five seconds—and it sends a cold shiver down his spine. Because as Velren opens himself to the Force, he feels her emotions too.
Loneliness, above all. So much like his own.
“Wherever you are, just know,” he says, sounding now a little like that proverbial civilian therapist, “that you’ll always have me. A strange and ridiculously handsome Sith Lord who loves you. And if you ever happen to feel lonely again—remember me. And this moment.”
The tea has long gone cold. The soaked leaves have settled into stillness, frozen in time—like the two human hands resting on the table, still covering one another.