Last time: Things are getting more difficult for Sasha.

Now: Cien and Kyr have a conversation.

Chapter 5- What May Yet To Be

Cien sat in the jump seat looking forward with a troubled gaze. The cockpit only had room for two, and that had been Viran and Oppie, since they were the least recognizable of all of them in case they were challenged by a patrol. Everyone knew her face, and too many might recognize Kyr's helmet from the past, and he would not remove it. Kyr had spent time in the cockpit, spent time in the mid section where her three loyal troopers were. He had spent time anywhere but in this back section with her in the jump seats where everyone had left her alone, which she felt thankful for.

But he was coming in now. She followed him with her gaze, and she felt nothing but confusion and anger from him. He sat down across the bay from her, in one of the seats that was facing her, and looked off to the side with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Her eyes kept falling on him and she would look away. At the floor decking, at the ceiling, at the cargo ramp in the back. She wanted to try to broach a conversation with him, to try to talk to him about something. Anything. But that was not her, she had never been one to make small talk. Until this moment she had never felt the need to fill an awkward silence. To try to reach out to someone. To mend something that had broken so completely. Kyr had always been the one to start a conversation between them. With some bit of dry humor, some observation, some question. She wracked her mind, trying to figure out how to do that, but she couldn't.

"Why did you let Viran almost kill you?" Kyr finally asked, breaking the silence. She looked up at him with a blink of her eyes, surprised he was talking to her.

"What?" She asked quizzically.

"I've seen you grab your saber and cut people in half in less time than it took for him to telegraph that. You could have stopped him any number of ways. You could have dodged. Why didn't you?" Kyr asked. His tone flat as he sat in the jumpseat across from her.

"Because..." She halted and swallowed nervously. And she realized why she had, now that she actually had to face the question. "Because I deserved it, for all the terrible things I've done to Sasha and him." She said with a voice laced with guilt as she looked away, back towards the floor decking.

He looked away as well, his reaction inscrutable.

"Why did you stop him?" She asked him in return, looking across the bay at him.

He looked back at her. "Because you didn't deserve it." He stated after a moment.

She looked away in confusion.

He just looked at her across the bay. "Do you remember what I said about us being survivors? Back in the dining room before we went after Dracul?"

"Yes." She stated. She remembered that entire conversation so well, the conversation she visited, and had tried to push away, so often from her memory over the years.

"I look at the five of us and I still see survivors. People who have led awful lives, trying to keep them from getting worse." He kept looking at her. "But I feel you have led a life more awful than any of us. You deserved more than that. And you've already taken steps to atone for what you've done. You shouldn't be punished for doing that, too." He said, and then he looked away.

She stared at him across the bay, her features buried in an unhappy frown for a time. "I remember that conversation very well, Kyr." She said. "It was the first time I was with someone and I felt like they weren't plotting against me. The first time I realized how alone I was, and didn't feel alone." She said, her tone turning quiet. "The first time someone talked to me as a person, and not a Sith, an Acolyte, an enemy, a minion or a master. The first time someone reached out to me in friendship. The first time that someone offered me something purely out of kindness." She kept her gaze on him. "Thank you for that. Thank you for always being so kind to me, despite everything I've done."

He looked at her, and then off to the aft end of the bay. "I'm sorry for what I said before." He said, quietly, as he looked back towards her. "About what you did being unforgivable. That you owe me your life and…" He trailed off, clearing his throat as he felt ashamed for what he had said and done. So angry at himself for pointing his blaster at her, and what he had said. "Please forgive me." He asked.

She looked at him across the bay, stunned. "You don't need to apologize for that, I -"

He interrupted her. "Yes, I do." He stated.

She kept looking at him, still stunned, and she frowned. "I forgive you. But what you said is true. I do owe you my life." She said, remembering when he had jumped in front of Dracul's lightning. And the time he had spent on the Bloodstorm, protecting her by being at her side almost always, being such a kind presence to her, and such a forbidding presence to anyone who might have taken advantage of her convalescence. And afterwards when he had stayed, and become a presence she had come to rely on. A friend. And much more to her, even if she had not realized it at the time.

He just looked at her, and she couldn't tell what he was thinking. She could only feel the noise of the raw emotions. She couldn't tell if he was scowling at her under the helmet, or looking at her in pity, or even just reading a book. He just sat there, an angered presence now, inscrutable behind the beskar and transparisteel. This was something she had no idea how to deal with. Send her against an army, and she could cut her way through it, send her a prisoner to break, she could learn all their secrets. But nothing had prepared her for how to deal with… This.

She almost felt tears well up again, this time not of sadness and hurt, but a profound sense of frustration, of how much all of it meant to her. How impossible it would be to mend the rift between them, if it could even be mended, because of how deeply she had erred. Because of how badly she wanted to mend it. Because she didn't know how to form the words to say something to mend it. She still felt nothing but anger rolling off of him, despite his apology and how even his temper seemed now. She could only think it was directed at her. He still couldn't bring himself to see her as anything but an enemy, he still refused to take off his helmet, and she doubted she would ever see his face again. She wanted him to understand how important it had all been to her. How important he was to her. She wanted him to understand that she wasn't a monster, like Dracul. She wanted him to understand.

"You asked then," she started, haltingly. "If I had ever had any friends or family."

Her tone was so soft that he could barely hear her as she almost whispered above the din of an active ship. Her gaze was distant. She was staring at the floor decking, but so distantly it was like she was lost in herself. Kyr sat in his jump seat and watched her in his own quiet shock. He had seen sides of her he suspected no one else had seen. But he had never seen her so open, so vulnerable as she had with those words, while he was trying to figure out what to say to her.

"I have a memory, a distant one, a buried one." She continued slowly, as she wrapped her arms around herself. "One that I never bring to mind. I was a little girl, on whatever planet my parents lived on. It was a bright day, and we were at the shore of a lake, surrounded by green trees under a deep blue sky, with scattered clouds." She continued, as if in a trance, speaking slowly and still looking through the floor at some spot thousands of light years away. "I remember my mother laying on a blanket, laughing, watching my father chase me around. I remember laughing as I ran from him. I remember her hair being so golden it was like looking at the sun. And a basket of zherries. They were so delicious, so sweet, I still remember their taste." She paused, and looked like the steeled herself to continue, "that's probably why I like them so much." She halted again, "and I remember my name. My real name. Cienestra Swanseae." She stopped. She was shivering, but not from any cold in this warm space.

Kyr stared at her. He had no idea what to say. He felt heartbroken for her that she had led such an awful life that so warm a memory had to be buried from her lest it become a weakness. That she had spent her life so surrounded by enemies and people who wanted to hurt her. So abused by her life and the people in it that even something as simple as admitting that she liked zherries was revealed as though it was a mortal weakness that would be exploited by anyone who knew this of her. And it probably would have been. This was a memory she should have cherished, not locked away like it was her deepest, darkest secret.

But she had to, he realized, the grief that moment would have caused in such a life would have been unbearable. In that moment he understood her better than he ever had. And he understood how much it meant that she had chosen to share it with him despite how hard it was for her to open herself up like that, the physical toll he could see it took on her, let alone what was happening in her mind that he could only guess at. And he didn't know how he could possibly respond to such a gesture from her.

"You have a beautiful name, Cienestra." He said, quietly.

Hearing her name spoken seemed to shock her out of whatever trance she had fallen into as she looked back up at him, her face showing a hint of gallows humor. She was still shaking. "My training master at the temple thought the same thing." She paused and swallowed. "He said it was 'too soft, too pretty to survive the academy.' And he was right. He was the one who shortened it to Cien." She halted again. "He said in the language of the world I came from, it meant 'Shadow'." She looked up at Kyr, the dark humor still evident, trying to unsuccessfully hide a deep pain from a thought that had always haunted her. "I guess even my parents thought I would only ever be capable of darkness, of hurting those around me." She said with a weak, dark laugh before looking away with a troubled sniff and wiping her eyes.

Something jogged in Kyr's memory. Another place, another time, another job. Cien and Shadow.

He got up, and she watched him as he walked across the bay. He used both hands to lift off his buy'ce, and she looked at him with wide, shocked eyes that glistened with unfallen tears as she followed him with her gaze. He settled into the seat next to her, on her left, his helmet in his lap. The jump seats in this craft were so tightly packed that they almost touched.

And for once, when someone got close to her, she relaxed as tension bled away from her. He did notice that.

"That's from a language called Polinae." He said quietly. "I did a job on the borders of wildspace a long time ago, and that was the trade language in that area. I picked up quite a bit of it. I spent weeks out there, months, trying to track down some warlord that had gone too far. It was one of the jobs I decided to do for free." He sat there, continuing quietly, remembering the atrocities that monster had committed, and how satisfying it had been to see his burnt corpse at the end of the job. "Your master was right. 'Cienestra' is a name form of 'Cien', and it does mean shadow." He said quietly. "But it has another meaning, like ghost, or spirit. And 'Swanseae' means 'Sun'." He said. They were both looking into each other's eyes, and Cien seemed transfixed, though her expression was unreadable. "Your name means 'Spirit of the Sun' in the language of your family. That is the name your parents gave you."

They both stared into each other's eyes for a moment before they looked away at the same time.

Kyr continued softly. "But he was wrong. Your name, despite how horrible your life has been, despite the hardship you have been trapped in all your life, survived. As did you."

"You always know what to say." She said quietly, still looking away. "You always talk so much, and I never know what to say back. What to do." She said.

That brought him up short. He admitted he found some deep irony in not knowing how to respond to that.

They sat quietly for a time, and Kyr was glad to see her recover, she stopped shaking, and she regained some of her composure. She was still so different compared to the Cien that usually presented herself to the world, though.

"Where did your name 'Death Shadow' come from?" She asked quietly. Referring to his full callsign, Kyr'prudii.

He looked at her, now his turn to be confused. "You speak Mando'a?" He asked in surprise.

"It was… I needed to learn a little bit." She said, evading going into the details.

"Nothing very profound, it is not my given name." He admitted. "It's a call sign I chose when I was younger, because I thought it sounded good. It took on a new meaning after what happened." He finished with a hint of sadness to his tone. "My real name is Ke'vaan." He admitted. "It's my grandfather's name, only my family knows of it. Please don't ever call me that." He asked, sheepishly.

She looked over at him. She wondered what it meant, that he would admit something to her that he only let his family know. "It's a good name." She commented, distractedly.

"It is, it's just old." Kyr said, with a smile, "it's been in my family for a long time, and it's a little outdated." He said, trying to make light of it, and hoping that it didn't sound like a rebuke.

"It was probably new in my time. If it even existed." She commented quietly. "I know how important your family is to you." She said, swallowing nervously. "I'm sorry that I took your sister and her child from you. I'm sorry for all that I've done to your family. " She said quietly. "And I'm sorry for what I did to you to take her." She added even more quietly.

"I know," he said quietly, "I forgive you. We're on our way to bring her back, thanks to you. I wasn't sure we would find her, you gave us hope. And what happened between us in the meadow, I…" He trailed off, not sure what to say. Trying to think of something, and his mind was blank. "It was the best sleep I had in ages." He finished, and instantly felt like an idiot.

"I know how you lost your family. I never knew my family to mourn them, but..." She trailed off, thankfully ignoring his comment. "I hope that we can bring her back, for both our sakes." She said. "If we lose Sasha, I," she paused, and closed her eyes.

"We'll get her back." Kyr said, looking at her. Surprised by the depth of feeling he felt from her for Sasha. "You won't lose any more family this day, and neither will I." He said quietly.

She looked up at him in a bit of surprise at that sentiment. Only so recently had she fully realized Sasha as her friend, but something about the way he said that made her understand better how much she cared for Sasha. They had really spent so little time together, even less time than that not as enemies. But the time they had spent together or in their mindspace had solidified such a deep bond between them because of how much they had shared, impressions that she didn't even know had leaked between them. She remembered that Kyr had no relation to her at all, other than that she had been one of his brother's apprentices. It was easy to forget that when they spoke of each other, that they were survivors that had formed their own family bonds that were more than blood.

"No, we won't." She agreed. And he looked down at her when she said that. "I wish I had known my family." She said, quietly. Admitting another deep secret before she even realized she had done so.

"You have a beautiful memory of them, and that's what matters. Many people who knew their family don't have even that." Kyr said quietly. "I hope that's something you can keep with you and cherish so they can be with you. No matter how awful things have been or can be, it helps to think they are there." He said quietly, looking away.

She looked at him, not having any idea how to respond, again. She found herself letting her careful guard down around him without even realizing it. Sharing thoughts that she kept from even herself. This was so alien to her, to have someone she could admit such things to unguardedly. To feel safe doing so. To know she would not have them turned against her. To have someone who turned what she could only see as weaknesses within herself and rephrase them into strengths. Him and Sasha, but she had only begun to feel that level of comfort with Sasha, whereas with Kyr it was resuming what had been built between them all those years ago as though the intervening time was a momentary respite. It brought to mind how deeply she had missed him after he had left. And how difficult it had been to bury those thoughts and memories of him in the years after. And how resurgent those same thoughts had been over the last few weeks. Sasha's revelation about why he had left echoed in her mind. As did the resulting revelation of herself.

She looked away. After a time she started speaking haltingly. "I," she said, trying to figure out how to continue. "Us survivors, we have led awful lives." She said, using his words, "I wonder what our lives would have been like if things had been different."

He looked down at her, not sure what she was asking. "Like if you were still back there?" He asked. "If you had never gone to your temple?" He asked quietly.

"Yes, I suppose." She said, looking up at him. And he saw a strange nervousness etched across her face before she looked away, back towards the floor deck plates. "Or if we had done things differently. How things would have been different for us. What may have been."

He cocked his head to the side, still not sure what she was getting at, if she was talking about her family, or something different. And he felt like a fool for not understanding. "What may have been can never be, though." He said. His mind went in its own direction with the sentiment as he sat so close to her, and it ended up coming out with a tone of sadness as he looked away.

She glanced up at him, "that is true. You're right." She agreed, and she swallowed before continuing. "Why concern ourselves with what may have been for us, then." She looked away, the same nervousness still there, and she spoke in a voice so quiet, so soft it couldn't even be described as a whisper. "When all that matters is what may yet be."

He turned back and stared at her for a moment as it sunk in what she was trying to ask, but couldn't bring herself to put into words. He tried to form his own words, but he couldn't, as he sat in the seat next to her and she looked at the deck plates with her hands clasped together in her lap. He looked at her. Then away, and then back to her.

"When we were looking for the temples, to bring Op back." He started quietly. He had told her about the temples all those years ago. He hadn't mentioned this one to anyone, though. "There was a planet that I went to, it had no name, just a catalog number. Tac spent six days scanning the planet, and it was incredibly frustrating." He continued quietly. "We - Tac finally found it. There was a little island in a chain of islands along a volcanic ridge in the middle of a vast ocean." He said. "The temple was underwater, at the bottom of the cove just off the beach. The water was such a clear turquoise it was like looking through glass, and it was filled with fish of every color and coral reefs beyond imagining. The beaches were a beautiful white sand that stretched as far as the eye could see, and so soft. Such a fine powder it was like a warm snow. Beyond was a jungle of palm trees, and trees that had the most incredible fruit I've ever tasted, going up into mountains in the distance that rose so high there was an ice cap at the top." He said, wistfully, he smiled at the memory.

He couldn't help but notice she still stared through the deck at some distant place, her face studiously blank. He cleared his throat and continued. "And at night it -" He paused, trying to find the words to describe it. "It was the second most beautiful thing I've ever seen. It was high above the galactic plane, no pollution, no lights, and I was there with a new moon, so the starscape was perfect. Close enough to the core to see it in all its glory as you looked down upon the galaxy spreading before you. And there was a stellar nursery nearby that was like a beautiful painting across the night. And the planet, it had some oddity with its magnetic field, so the sky was filled with auroras of every color you can imagine that danced across the starscape, reflecting off the waves of the ocean and the snow of the mountains. I stayed there for two nights before moving on, because it was so incredible."

He looked down at her, and she was still looking blankly at the deck. He swallowed nervously. "When this is over, I would like to take you there so I can share it with you, so you can see it with me, if I may." He asked.

Very, very quietly, so quietly that Kyr could barely hear her, she responded. "I would like that very much." She said as a cautious smile played at her lips.

On a whim he reached over and gently took hold of her hand, where she had them clasped together on her lap. She was startled, but then relaxed instantly, all the tension she had since he had walked into the room, since their encounter in the alley, drained in a moment as their hands fell to the space between them and they both gently squeezed the others hand.

She closed her eyes, and she smiled faintly. Relieved and… Happy.

He smiled and closed his eyes as well, feeling the same. His only qualm was that he was still wearing the heavy gloves of his armor. But that passed as they sat there enjoying this perfect moment together.

"What was the first thing?" She asked quietly after a time, looking over at him quizzically.

"What?" He asked, shaken out of his happy feeling.

"You said it was the second most beautiful thing, what was the first?" She asked, with a curious look.

Kyr couldn't help but smile at her confusion. "If you can't figure it out, I'll tell you at some point." He said in a teasing voice. It briefly struck him how unfamiliar it was to use that tone with her before he brushed the stray thought aside.

She looked at him, annoyance played at her features as her bemused confusion remained.

Suddenly a look of understanding dawned across her face, and she looked away, quickly, with a small, embarrassed smile. And she blushed. And Kyr smiled.

*Ship horn sounds* ALL ABOARD THE CIENXKYR SHIP! REVIEW!