[SpringsSong]

"As close to it as he dared," Xyshari chuckled. "I suppose that our time working together with the Yavin Coalition hadn't completely left him, even if he still blamed you for his capture on Rishi. Which was completely intentional, and I can understand both sides of that coin."

"I'm glad that you can. I had suspected that he had never truly forgiven me for that," Lana said with a heavy sigh, taking Xyshari's hand into her own and idly rubbing circles in the short fur there. A soft purr resonated in Xyshari's throat as she met Lana's eyes and held her gaze for several long minutes.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"...you're not challenging me to a duel, are you, my love?" Lana asked with a note of nervousness after a few moments more. "I remember you mentioning that it's a thing with your people to not make direct eye contact unless you intended to--"

"--challenge them. You remembered," Xyshari purred happily. "I'd like to think we're on equal footing, ra svet. I was... thinking, nothing more."

"Thinking about...?" Lana coaxed, and Xyshari smiled as she shook her head.

"I had a feeling I wouldn't be able to get out of that one so easily," she said, blinking lazily a couple of times. Lana offered a smile as she leaned forward to press a chaste kiss to her wife's lips.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"You remembered that one, too," Xyshari said, and Lana nodded as she sat back down.

"I have been learning some of your tendencies, my love," Lana said in a soft voice as their cocoa and pastries arrived. "Do you not remember what I said I'd wished we had been able to do when we had that moment on Yavin?"

"Something along the lines of running away from our responsibilities for a week and taking the time to learn each other: our likes, dislikes, what we were looking for..."

"...everything that we could learn about each other," Lana said. "Now that we have all the time in the world to be together, it's time to make up for lost time."

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"Hmm, I daresay you're right," Xyshari said, taking her cup of cocoa and sipping it gingerly. After the first touch of hot milk to her lips, she withdrew, exhaling a couple of times sharply on the liquid. Meanwhile, Lana let hers sit as she nibbled on the pastry first.

"Let's start with something... simple," Lana said, humming after a moment as she set the pastry down and picked up her cup, swirling the cocoa within around for a few moments. "What is your favorite thing to drink?"

"H'kak tea," Xyshari answered without hesitation. "Sweet, but not too sweet. There's also an element of... comfort associated with it for me."

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"You mentioned that you only started drinking tea after your master's death. It was that blend, wasn't it?" Lana asked.

"It was," Xyshari said. "When the Order didn't offer sufficient coping mechanisms to deal with his death - I had only been his Padawan for a couple of months when he died, and I was almost ten - I had to find other ways to process his death. The tea offered more comfort than their words, which were to clear myself of all emotion whenever thoughts of him crossed my mind," she said.

Lana sighed. "I know you've heard me say this before, but you knights are never taught to--"

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"--properly channel our anger?" Xyshari finished tentatively.

"--properly process ANY emotion," Lana corrected. "Anger, hate, joy, love, grief - channeling it and using it to your advantage, or simply DEALING with it at all."

"You're more right than you know," Xyshari said. "Remember how I said I had an ex-husband?"

"That 'Doc' character, correct?" Lana asked.

"He... wasn't my first love," Xyshari said, and Lana leaned back in her chair slightly. Her yellow-orange eyes seemed to light up with interest.

"I get the feeling this is a story I need to hear, considering this is the first I've heard of it," she said.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"And you deserve to know," Xyshari said. "We were Padawans around the same time, though he was a few years older than I. He was Knighted before I was, naturally, but even when I was a Padawan and he was a Knight, we still worked together a lot because we were training in the same advanced skills. I couldn't... begin to tell you when we began to form a Force bond. Was it when we were fighting modified HK droids and I routinely put myself in front of him and took them down? Was it when he pulled me to the side after I was knocked out by a missile blast?"

"Did you say a missile blast?" Lana asked incredulously.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"Yes, that's another story on the list of stories I need to tell you," Xyshari said, continuing along. "Point being, that bond took root, and it grew. At first, it was nothing more harmful than good friends who always had each other's backs - because we could sense when the other was in danger. He was the first one I was able to communicate with freely with telepathy, because he and I shared a bond stronger than I'd ever known. The first time I had reason to fear that bond... we were on a diplomatic assignment. I led a detachment of two Padawans, one of them mine, and I felt him get knocked out."

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"I knew then and there that, whoever we were looking for, they'd taken advantage of the fact that we'd split up into two groups, leaving him behind to guard the security station," she said. "I told my Padawan and the other one to follow me, and leapt down easily two stories to get to the ground level. I stayed back long enough to make sure that they got down safely, and then, charged towards where I knew he last was. Sure enough, he was knocked out on the ground, and I'd just drawn the attention of his attackers."

"You diverted a mission to rescue him," Lana said.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"And I don't regret it. He had chosen me to succeed him when it was time for him to move on, and... call me selfish, I wasn't ready for that to happen. I saw to it that he got proper medical attention afterwards, along with the rest of the injured. After that... our interactions grew closer. When it was just the two of us, we dropped the formality of our titles and simply called each other 'friend'. We spoke freely with each other, as we could not when we were in the presence of other Jedi."

"You loved him," Lana said. Xyshari nodded.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"I'm guessing something happened," Lana ventured. Xyshari drew in a shaky breath.

"I don't know when friendship turned to love. I remember fighting an Empire - not your Empire - with him one night, feeling him get cut by an assassin's vibroknife as though the blade had bit through my own skin, and the next morning... he was gone. He left in the middle of the night to accept an assignment on the front lines of the fight with that Empire, and left a recording for me that said he knew I would have tried to convince him to stay, or to let me go with him," Xyshari said.

"He was protecting you."

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"He was protecting both of us," Xyshari said. "But... that's the funny thing with Force bonds, as I'm sure you've become aware."

"We could be on opposite ends of the galaxy, and I'd still feel if you got injured. And the same would be true for you," Lana said, and Xyshari nodded.

"I could feel his every injury, and he could feel mine. I could feel when he was lonely..." she said, trailing off.

"...and he could feel when you felt the same," Lana finished.

"He almost felt me die. I was ambushed at the embassy I maintained on Kashyyyk. He reached out to me as I could feel my grip on the world fading..."

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

Lana sat there in silence, placing a hand on Xyshari's. Xyshari took that hand and squeezed it, drawing in another shaky breath.

"...he told me to hang on, 'don't you dare die on me, Shari.' The next thing I remembered, my former Padawan was sitting near me, looking like hell, and a couple of healers were standing over me, literally bringing me back from the dead. I could feel his relief flood into my senses, but that was quickly replaced with my own panic as one of the healers, another dear friend of mine, began to fade. She had poured... everything into saving me," Xyshari said.

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"After that, we came to a... mutual agreement without even speaking. We tried our best to deaden our bond, because as I had laid there, dying, he was similarly affected. Had I died, the chances that he would have died would have... been similar," she said. She met Lana's eyes as this sank in.

"So... since we have such a strong bond with each other, if one of us dies..." she began.

"...the chances of the other dying as a result of losing that bond," Xyshari said. "If you're..."

"I wouldn't change that for anything, my love," Lana said. "I already almost lost you once, and it all but killed me."

[ 3BPs awarded ]

[SpringsSong]

"However... we failed in completely deadening our bond," Xyshari said. "He returned from his assignment on the front lines, but I had since left along with my former Padawan. He left me a holomessage explaining that he had returned, but I... couldn't bring myself to return it. I had left because of complacency, returned to the regular order for a time. I was... returning to Kashyyyk when I felt it. My body was electrified, and I found myself unable to move. I felt as though my very essence was draining, and I felt as though my life was being siphoned away from me."

"But it wasn't you, it was him," Lana said.

[ 3BPs awarded ]