The Unbreakable Threads

"You can sleep if you need to."

Theron nearly jolted at the sound of Lana's voice breaking the cavernous silence. Bogged down by the haze of his fatigue, he rubbed his eyes with a heavy exhale in a bid to ward off the gnawing threat of slumber. He let his head drop back against the cold stone wall he'd been seated against. All SIS agents had undergone long days on assignment deprived of precious sleep. It was the simple, expected reality of the life, but even Theron had his limits. How his companion still managed to remain as sharp in her vigilance as she had been was confounding.

Gathering his wits, he turned his dubious gaze to her, seated at rest on her knees across from him. She was awash in the same cool hue of the night that veiled all else visible to the eyes. If not for the merciful luminescence of the stars and moon, peering through the shroud of night into the humble reaches of their found refuge, Theron would not have discerned the faintest hint of weariness in her countenance then. A doleful reminder that Sith were every bit as mortal as the next man.

Straightening himself against the stone, he let its cold face siphon warmth from his neck and back in hopes of letting its bite sober his senses. "I'm fine," he tersely responded, though he knew he wasn't fooling either of them.

Lana's gaze hung in the air, still as the grave. There were times when she found his abrupt tendencies to be rather perplexing. He would be welcome to pragmatic compromise at all appropriate and opportune moments, being the sound reasonable man that he was. Yet in other instances, the same man would prove to be relentlessly tenacious in his stubbornness. And though he had never shown at all to be a sentimental individual, it became clear to her in short time that bitterness and resentment were familiar company to a man like him. Like the uninvited visitor always too frequent and too long to take leave of its host.

And yet, for all her understanding and all her patience, she always found forgiveness to pardon him this occasional, lingering disdain, so often misdirected toward her whenever she'd unwittingly tread along the horizon of his finite line of sight. In silence, she drew her knees up, encircling her arms around them.

Theron peered over from the corner of his eyes as he spotted her shifting. He watched as her unfocused gaze roamed, watched as she traced a finger through the coarse sediment of sand and dirt dusted along the grounds of this enclave they'd found shelter within, watched as the glimmer of distant nostalgia began to obscure her conscious presence.

Lana's mind recalled familiar walls in her eyes as they wandered along those of this hallowed ruin. She saw familiar vaults overhead. Familiar stone, familiar ground...

Familiar cold. How sorely Lana disliked the cold.

Although her eyes gazed upward, her mind was elsewhere, walking along the concourse that meandered through her memories. Old as they had been, they were far from forgotten. Slowly, she shut her eyes.

Never before had Theron seen her wander away so distantly into her own thoughts. He'd seen how pensive, how deeply contemplative and insightful she could be. This was something different. Feeling disinclined to unwittingly disturb her as she was, he rested in his discerning silence outside the boundaries of her reclusive sphere.

Lana's eyes were carried upward as if drawn by some ambiguous, colorless presence. To no one in particular, she began whispering to the air in a murmur. "Peace is a lie, there is only passion..."

The muscles around Theron's eyes stirred as he listened to these elusive words, only faintly recited on a breath. She closed her eyes, appearing as though she were trying to listen for a response he was certain would never come.

"Through passion, I gain strength... Through strength, I gain power..."

Her eyes, now renewed in their regained sight, continued along, drifting and reaching through the hollow expanse all around them in search of something. She seemed to be grasping at some gossamer thought hanging overhead, fluttering in the space above her.

Lana's voice dropped to the barest sigh. "Through power, I gain...victory..." Once her gaze stopped its aimless sweep across the emptiness spanning the ruined enclave, her voice waned even further, sinking beneath her slightest breath. "Through victory...my chains are broken." Her eyes once again shut, she uttered her closing verse. "The Force shall set me free."

As unfamiliar as this mantra had been to his ears, he was almost certain of their meaning for her. These were a Sith's words. An enchantment. A hymn. Theron lingered at the foot of her silence, hesitant even with his very own breaths, suddenly feeling like an interloper encroaching on her private, solitary world. His lips drifted apart with an incomplete question hanging on his tongue.

As though awakening from the oblivion of drifting unconsciousness, her eyes slowly peeled open. The memory unfolded behind her eyes, projected forth to the emptiness of the space she found herself still at the very center of, having never left at all to begin with. With a jaded blink, a distant smile crept across her lips. No mirth colored her countenance then. It had been an empty smile—almost bitter, even. One that had been all too familiar in its essence to Theron.

"When I was an acolyte," she began in a hush of a voice, only a touch beyond a whisper, "I'd undergone my final trial..."

It now became clear she had returned. Indeed, she'd begun to speak toward her companion again. Her eyes stilled before the vacant dark before them. Whatever perceived apparitions that beckoned her senses were now banished away from the corner shadows of her present thoughts.

"...In a place much like this. A tomb." She licked her lips as though the memory of thirst upon parched lips came slithering into the reality of this very moment. "I remember," a pause as she searched for the words, "I remember...I, too, was terrified of sleep." Upon this admission, Lana's eyes once again drifted back to find Theron's own. "But we were exhausted. Overwhelmed." Paled by the sinking lamentation set upon by this cold reflection, she drew in a deep inhale, fatigued by the simple memory of it all. "I had never seen so many of my companions die as I had, wandering within the grounds of that tomb."

Theron had taken notice of the grave shift of her bearings, the clear impression this memory had left on her being. He watched as she kneaded her two hands within one another, an unconscious gesture of hers he had never recalled seeing in the long months he'd known her. To imagine—what haunting perils could have befallen Lana, that she'd been left so profoundly imprinted?

"But we survived," she spoke candidly. "Only two of us."

Another pause settled as she followed the threads backwards through her memory. "Of the final group, I was last to sleep. All of us battle-worn, I remained the most able-bodied and thus had been charged to stand vigil first to allow the others to rest. When it came turn for me, I was filled with relief. And dread." Closing her eyes, she let out an ironic little laugh. "Afraid that...the remaining few would abandon me. Out of spite. Out of...some misconceived necessity I...hadn't been made privy to..."

Her smile lingered as she continued, "But in due time, I learned. I understood—no such thing mattered then. Not in that place. Not beneath the looming gaze of Death."

At that moment, Lana realized she wasn't entirely certain of why she felt compelled to share this experience with him. It struck as though some uncanny notion, some extraordinary, coercive impulse had seized her inclinations, urging her voice to articulate the imaginings still sojourned within her conscience. Upon this thought, she also came to realize that she'd shared these very sentiments not once with any other soul. Why that was, she couldn't say. It had never surfaced. That had been the obvious excuse. Unquestioned, and therefore, unrevealed. And undisturbed. But Death had always been a most sinister, foreboding presence in the farthest reaches of her subconscious being.

"Like our own shadows, Death stalked us, matching our every stride. Set us against all odds to its macabre amusement." Another wry laugh escaped her breath the moment she registered the essence of the words she'd just spoken. "How...poetically dismal it all sounds now," she mused, turning her eyes back to her single companion. The first coat of humor now painted over the dulling grey of her gloom. "But such was the reality we were dealt."

Like a discerning crow, Theron's attentive eyes had not left Lana once as he listened. He remained silent in watchful patience until opportunity ordained it appropriate for him to sound. This had been the first time in all his remembrance that he'd listened to her speak so extensively of herself. Ignorant of her trials and tribulations, he had not considered with much regard how Lana Beniko came to be. Why she'd been the person she was. Admittedly, he'd stood lacking much interest in unveiling the facets of this conundrum. Yet now, upon peering into the faintest embers of Lana's existence, he'd observed a newfound insight, an entirely hidden layer between the folds of the tempered steel forged into her very core.

With her gaze aloft once again while the ideas formulated and reconfigured themselves in her mind, she continued. "I learned something very important that day. What mattered. It wasn't the Code. Nor was it success or victory...or even the Force." Lana elaborated on the spindling thread of thought. "Yes, there had been a task to fulfill. But it hadn't been...delusions of our accomplishment that offered me comfort."

Once again gazing upon her countenance, Theron was brought to ease to find that the light of her unquestionable verity had been reignited.

"The safety. The refuge...found behind my companions... Our solidarity. That had been our deliverance."

As the remnants of the obscure idea fell into place, Lana slowly uncovered the meaning behind what had compelled her to share all of these innermost thoughts. It had been a response of her conscience—proof of her truth and her fidelity, all embedded in the pieces and shards of herself revealed through these sparks of memory. As she'd come upon the realization of herself and her allies, faced with oblivion in the depths of Tulak Hord's tomb, she'd drawn the connections, pulling at the loose threads between then and the present. With these same threads, the tapestry was woven taut between Theron and herself. It had never stopped weaving, yet only now had the story told in its imagery begun to emerge. More threads. More colors. Then clarity.

The silence between them lingered. Theron hadn't uttered a word in the entire time Lana spoke, but the weighted stillness began to grow heavy in the air. "I'm guessing these trials are something like the what the Jedi have to go through for knighthood..." he murmured idly, turning his gaze in acknowledgement. "Guess I'm glad to know you came out of it just fine." In honesty, he wasn't sure what else to say.

"No one survives the trials unmarked," she asserted, reminded of the scars she most certainly bore. These were the very same bleak words she'd spoken to one of her companions that day.

Hearing this, a smolder of puzzled curiosity highlighted his gaze. Lana always appeared in perfect shape and health in his eyes. He'd witnessed the most savage battle scars of countless Jedi and Sith alike. Even ordinary soldiers and operatives like himself collected their fair share. He'd been no exception.

Between them, a shared look of comprehension emerged from their unspoken cues. Briefly, Lana averted her eyes before shifting herself where she sat, turning her back to him as she tugged her shawl loose from around her neck.

Theron had been slightly unprepared for what she intended to show. He unconsciously held his breath high in his throat as he watched her pull at her open collar past her right shoulder, drawn into a muted reticence. Her movements had been most demure as she delicately revealed the trace of what he recognized had been a horrific wound, now an uneven scar where it'd healed quite imperfectly.

Lana brought her opposite hand behind her, pointing out the path of the scar that remained duly concealed beneath her clothing. "It extends..." she murmured, trailing the path of the wound diagonally downward, "to right about here." Her finger stopped at a spot close to her waist.

"What happened?" he questioned in a breath.

She briefly peered over her shoulder at him. "K'lor'slugs."

Theron was deeply aware of what it had meant for her to impart unto him this fragment of herself. All lingering shadows of his guarded scrutiny dissipated. In his eyes and to his every understanding of her, he'd known Lana to be a most reliable and resilient warrior, witnessing the extent of her prowess with his own eyes. In spite of whatever daunting uncertainty they crossed, he'd never known her fortitude to falter or yield under any circumstance. Yet in a single execution, this lone remnant of her being came upon him as a sobering reminder of one fundamental certainty shared between them. It had been the set of threads that bound them, setting into permanence their places within the woven tapestry—their undeniable, very vulnerable, very human mortality. Theron took great care to remember this. Against her assumed stoicism, it had been all too easy to forget. Although, Theron observed, masks like these could only be entirely intentional on her part. Whatever perceived strength of Lana's, however willful or resolute, was finite. Quantifiable.

Never take it for granted.

"For a long time, I...grew a habit of sleeping on my side," Lana mused as she drew the cloth of her collar back over her shoulder, refastening the closures at her neck. A touch of familiar grey humor drew a faint smile to her lips as she turned herself back to Theron. "I was unable to lie on my back during the time the wound required to heal." Tentatively raising her eyes, she peered over at him, his worn countenance seizing her immediate observance. Her own expression diminished upon the realization that her discourse had erroneously only kept him from his much needed sleep. She quickly spoke to correct this, "As I've said, Theron. If you would like to rest—"

"—Why don't you sleep first, Lana?" he gently offered. For all of her concern, it was quite clear to him that she'd lost any and all awareness of just how naked the pall of her own weariness had become. He thought her quite the fool if she'd entertained any idea that she was any better than him at hiding such things. Or...perhaps, he'd simply become that much more adept at reading her. It'd been difficult to tell, especially in the delirium of his exhaustion.

Her thoughts ached to resist his offer, deeply set in her unease, feeling suddenly bare and exposed to have been so effortlessly deciphered. She'd always held an unshakable trust in her own perseverance staring down the face of insurmountable stress. Her breaking point, as it seemed, had not yet been discovered. Though, she feared it may not have been far off from where she now stood, barely balancing on her own feet. It was upon the resounding echoes of her memories within that she'd been promptly reminded that such anxieties were not matters of pertinence at the moment. She'd known that deep down on the most rudimentary level, Theron had only meant the best of intentions by his invitation.

Seeing her hesitation, he gave a brief but assuring nod. "Just lie down. I'll keep watch a little longer."

While her mind urged her to decline, her heavy eyes and aching limbs outcried any lingering doubt adrift in her waning vigilance. As she acquiesced in reluctance, she reached for her shawl on the dusty ground beside her. Shaking it free of the sediment, she wrapped it into a sparse form of cushion before setting it back down. With no bedding or any sort of comfort remotely to be found, she intended to harness what little relief the cloth could offer, laying her head gently against it as she lowered herself to the ground. Lana had lain in worse spaces, reminded once again of the frigid stone floors of Tulak Hord's tomb.

Before she could close her eyes, they once again drifted toward her peripheral through the darkness, finding Theron's stagnant form still seated against the great wall, blanketed by the chilled radiance of the cosmos far beyond the enclave. She observed how his ethereal gaze drew in the sight of the heavens, straining to find focus on each twinkling light above in a bid to keep himself alert and awake, as though beckoning the stellar forces themselves to sustain him. In this moment, she would almost swear that the limits of his sight had expansively broadened. By what factor, to what degree, she could not ascertain, but there had been a discernible clarity in his dark eyes she was certain she hadn't noted before. Though, she recognized, she did not put it past herself to have simply overlooked what could very well have always been there. Such things were beginning to grow difficult to tell anymore, she observed.

"Theron."

Her voice was always the single strand of thread that seemed to be unbreakably wound around another of his own. Even as others snapped and broke under the strain of knotted entanglement, this one always remained flawlessly intact. A single tug was all it ever took to draw his gaze.

"I..." she whispered in her quiet hesitation. Her eyes meandered before returning to salvage her poise. "...I understand if...you still hold reservations... Toward me." Lana's expression was softly lit by her earnest bid to speak forthrightly. "Any misgivings on your part will have been entirely my own doing. I understand that," she gently voiced, revisiting the old matter that had drawn such a rift between them so long ago, one that she knew had never fully mended even following their subsequent cycle of repeated encounters and departures. As her gaze lowered once again, she willed herself to proceed and articulate the sincerest, most difficult assurances from within her heart. "I want you to know that regardless...nothing will displace my faith and trust in you. And if—"

"—Lana," he stopped her. It'd become apparent that Theron, too, held a similar thread of his own entwined with hers. He turned his idle attention to her, finding her bare, plainspoken gaze in all its serene patience, coinciding with his own. "Don't worry about it."

For the first time, she could hear that the forgiveness offered had indeed been sincere, however modest the sparse words were. No comfort of any bedding or luxury seemed able to compare with that which she felt now from the simplicity of Theron's affirmation, heralding a faint smile from her as she gently nodded in acknowledgment. With the heavy, enduring weight lifted from her heart, she finally allowed her eyes to shut.

In the brief minutes following, it'd become Theron's turn to tarry his time in the quiet hum of his most pensive thoughts. In contemplation. In reflection. On what had been spoken of. On the peculiar discoveries shared between them. On her. Amid his own wandering concourse of the mind, he found himself drawn by the inward trail back to Lana once again—his eyes following its natural strides only to see, to his surprise, that she'd already fallen asleep. It'd been clear she was far more exhausted than she'd let on. With a spark of humor, he noted with fondness how she remained asleep lain on her side. Apparently, the particular habit of hers had never quite been outgrown.

He proceeded to remove his outermost layer. With discreet care, he draped his open jacket over her for warmth. As slumber provided Lana with relative peace and soundness, Theron found the same in watching her as she was. Quite akin to the same sort of peace and soundness one felt watching a child at rest, he mused.

Or a lover.

Theron's eased countenance quickly paled at the foreign whisper in the far recesses of his consciousness. How his debilitating fatigue had intoxicated his senses. He owed these stirrings to the haze that had been cast over him, impairing him both physically and mentally.

How long has it been?

The last time he'd watched a woman sleep?

He banished away the thought once again. He was drifting. It was becoming dangerous. He could only draw his lot with fortune at this point, hoping that their refuge remain undiscovered through just this stretch of night. There would be no way for them to survive a fight. Not like this.

Clearing his mind with a calming breath, he would decide for the first time in years, to bring himself to meditate. This had been a Jedi practice he'd let go of upon the outbreak of the war following the Treaty's collapse. What had been a routine habit in his daily life since his master's teachings in childhood quickly became another tedium that pulled him away from the insufficiently limited time he already lacked—time needed to undertake assignments and fulfill his missions in service of the Republic. He'd even come to wonder on occasion how the Jedi could possibly find opportune moments for solitary repose amidst war. But again, he would also remember quickly that he was not a Jedi for all of the talents, all the virtues he seemingly lacked. Perhaps that had been one of the many.

In this strange space he found himself cloistered within, in the company of the most improbable companion, Theron embraced the silence and freed his mind. Meditation called for catharsis. He willed it of himself. However, as he soon discovered, too deeply had he become woven into the thick layers of the tapestry. Try as he might, he attempted to loosen and release its weave, but to no avail. The pious followers of the Jedi Order submitted to this compulsory practice to liberate the self from all worldly bonds. Though he had never been a true follower, he'd understood the idea—the purpose behind its presumed necessity. Only by releasing the bonds, by severing each and every last thread, could one fully realize all the permissible possibilities the spirit could envision.

Upon reflection, Theron also came to realize that in a sense, while the Sith embraced a strikingly disparate ideology, they inherently engaged in similar practices. He wondered, then, what permissible things had Lana come to discover in her pursuits? As a Force sensitive, her sight was intrinsically more intuitive than his could ever be. This, he did not deny. He wondered if she herself had long foreseen the threads spun between them that he had only now begun to notice.

'Notice'? More like tripping all over.

With the looming clouds of doubt forming above him, sparked by an unexplainable onset of lament, he began recounting the course of the path that had led him to this very space and time. Theron was no Jedi. He had no way of foreseeing what permissible futures lied beyond his line of sight—always, as ever, so infuriatingly finite. He pondered where next the other crossings might be found. When the other interlocked threads might come into focus. He pondered when the next encounter may be—the next moment's reprieve where he and Lana may again, in earnest, meet and discover.

Turning his awakened gaze back to her as she lied unstirring in her total, absent slumber, he wondered what profound, wayfaring thoughts must have been roaming her dreams that very moment. Surely, anything could be permissible within our dreams.

Author's Notes:

Yay, a second part! I hope you guys enjoyed the read. And yes! I referenced some of the material in The Final Trial, the developer's blog that was released earlier this month about Lana. (If there is anyone who hasn't read it, I highly suggest you do—it's really good!) What drove me nuts for a while was the fact that there had been so little backstory created for her despite being such a great and fascinating character. The silly thing though, is that my whole idea behind the huge, other Theron/Lana story in the works came out of playing around with ideas on fun backstories for her, haha! So...that'll deviate a bit from what BioWare's written up now, I suppose. But hey, the fun of fanfiction, right? Middle finger to canon...'cause we can! (I say this with love. :)

So, after more ideas percolated and such, it looks like this little collection project thing is taking a slightly less vague form than any original intention I had in mind. Which is...a good thing...? Lol, I don't know. It might end up being a little more coherent. Or it might totally be a completely disjointed, fantastical screw-up. I guess we'll see...? But yeah, after keeping a whole thingie of writing/story notes, it sort of just...ended up taking a form of its own in a way. I think this will start following a very loose suggestion of some sort of chronological/developmental structure, but...I might also be lying—this really is on-the-fly experimental junk, so I honestly can't say for sure.

Anyway, I hope this comes along in a good way! Yay for creative accidents! Those are always fun. And I kind of foresee slower updates in the next coming parts, which I apologize in advance for. Of course, between day job, sporadic odd jobs, dance practice...stuff... (and I'm still working on pulling together that other huge Theron/Lana story I mentioned before, I totally am!), things might just slow a tad. :( Sorrie.

As always, please feel free to leave comments/reviews of any manner! I appreciate any and all feedback! Thank you!

3/19/15