Notes: I'm going to kick things off with the 400 Word Cross Country (400 words about your couple with any theme).
For this ficlet, we're revisiting the events of Where the Waves Shatter, because I love me some moody ocean imagery. ;) As with WtWS, the title for this one comes from Pablo Neruda's Sonnet IX.
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I. "We Ratify the Silence" | 54 ABY | 400 Word Cross Country
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For one terrible instant, she thinks she's killed him.
Yes, it's only sand, and yes, he's a Sith Lord with a knack for survival; but it's still a long fall from the rocks, and he's only human. She doesn't dare stop to look, though, not until she's safely scaled the nearby cliff. As she pulls herself over the ledge and stands, she turns and finds him below, struggling to escape the violence of the crashing waves.
Relief hits her first, because she doesn't revel in suffering or death, and she never wants to be the cause of it. She's not sure she could take his life even if she wanted to.
She flees before he can recover, and as she races through the tall, swaying grasses that line the cliff, her next emotion is pure elation. She won. She beat him, knocked him flat on his back, watched him tumble about in the surf like a helpless child. After how thoroughly he dominated her before, she actually defeated him, and doesn't that feel pretty amazing? Still, she doesn't want to imagine what will happen if he catches up to her again – so she runs.
Wind beats furiously against her back as she sprints toward the open ramp of her small starship. She stops at the base of it and looks over her shoulder, searching; but all she can see is the wind raking through the grass in waves, and the dark line of the horizon that separates sky from sea. No sign of him.
She leaves Kordros before the storm hits, catching a glimpse of lightning from her viewport. It forks through the sky, distant but still brilliant. It isn't until she's entered the safety and silence of hyperspace that she allows herself to reflect more deeply.
He never said a word. Not one. And before he drew his lightsaber, there'd been a moment when he stared up at her, when she almost couldn't breathe, when she felt more curiosity than fear, and she wondered…
She pushes that thought aside and buries it deep, because he hates her, she knows he does. And she doesn't think of how he hesitated to kill her when she stupidly left him an opening, because that doesn't mean anything either.
When Ben asks how her mission went, she says it was great. She doesn't tell him about Festus. She doesn't want him to worry.