Kyradia sat quietly while Ashara boiled water over the fire. Night had fallen and they had taken refuge in a nearby cave, it'd been pretty quiet since their previous conversation in the forest Kyradia was trying not to overstep and make herself look bad which was proving tricky. It was unclear how long a night cycle was on Yavin IV Kyradia thought it was likely to be irregular due to the fact it's a moon, point being they could be here for a while.

Ashara picked up the pot carefully and began to pour out two cups of tea, Kyradia had no idea what leaves were being used but hoped it was just normal; there had been too many occasions where Kavaraa had offered tea and given her some weird concoction of flavours. Ashara passed her the cup and sat down opposite, Kyradia took a sip and to her delight it was just regular tea she smiled at Ashara "thanks this is good"

"you're welcome thought it would help us warm up a bit" always so resourceful Kyradia would've just sat close to the fire and end up nearly burning herself. "hey you never finished your story?"

"story?" Kyradia cocked her head confused, story what story? she wasn't telling a story.

"about how you became friends with Kavaraa, i wanna know what changed" friends seemed like a strong word but clearly there was no getting around telling this story without looking weird. She didn't really want to think about it right now given everything but it would show she'd changed so why not.

"well i wouldn't exactly call us friends but sure i'll explain" Ashara looked pleased with that Kyradia was never sure but she thought Ashara may have looked up to Kavaraa before the eternal empire. Kyradia remembered being incredibly jealous at the time but she had never had time to address it.

"After me and Marr got captured by the eternal empire Kavaraa formed a team with people from alliance formed to fight Revan. They made a plan to break me out and also maybe take the fight to Arcann" Kyradia remembered being told about this many of her old rivals and friends tried to save her it still didn't feel right, she never understood why they didn't just go for Arcann what did she offer that was so special?

"oh i wish i'd known about that i would've been there in a heartbeat we all would've" Ashara was sweet but Kyradia was glad she hadn't been there in the long run

"it's ok this is not a success story" Kyradia sighed "apparently they got an excellent republic smuggler to smuggle them onto Zakuul, Kavaraa and the smuggler went to save me while everyone else tried to take the throne". Kyradia definitely understood she wasn't the top priority but that being said if she was in charge she would've saved herself first and then attacked the eternal throne with everyone together but hey what did she know she's only the alliance commander.

"let me guess those trying to take the throne got beaten" Ashara was always so smart she probably agreed that the idea was badly executed. Beaten was an understatement but that's because an idiot range monster and a giant buffoon were leading them.

"yeah Arcann easily beat them all with the help of Vailyn and the knights" Kyradia remembered how strong Vailyn had been honestly there was little chance they could've won without knowing how to disable her. "Kavaraa however did pretty good; she had nearly gotten to my cell when Vailyn caught up to them apparently one of the team had talked about the plan" Kyradia was pretty sure she knew who it was and it was really no surprise idiot rage monster "Kavaraa put up a pretty good fight but was eventually beaten like the rest of them"

"they completely lost? how are they still alive" Kyradia always thought that was one of Arcanns key mistakes but at least it showed some level of compassion.

"Arcann didn't kill them as he thought they'd turn into martyrs for the republic and empire whereas if they just failed then it showed" Kyradia mimed air quotes "the strength of the eternal empire" pompous arse "so he had them imprisoned instead"

"so how does this relate to you and Kavaraa becoming friends" Ashara asked there's that word again friends nope not friends. She did realise however she had gotten completely distracted from the point of the story

"i'm getting there patience" Kyradia was pretty tired of storytelling for now "i'll tell you the rest in the morning i'm gonna turn in" She hoped she was telling it right she didn't remember how Theron explained himself in the moment.

"ok night Kyradia sleep well" yeah not likely Kyradia thought as she turned over sleep was never easy

The next morning Kyradia awoke with a jolt to see Ashara crouching over her looking concerned "ma-master are you alright? yo-you were tossing, turning and talking about something in your sleep" oh phew just the normal sleep stuff Kyradia was worried there for a second

"yeah no i'm ok just a bad dream it's not that uncommon don't worry about it" Kyradia knew why she got them she didn't really want to explain it to Ashara.

"i'm going to worry about it it doesn't seem healthy" damn Ashara wasn't going to drop it she could always just be vague

"i know it's not healthy but i'm dealing with it, i'm sorry but i doubt you can do anything to help… it's not a physical thing" that hopefully was detail enough

Ashara looked unhappy but content "ok but you tell me if there's a problem alright"

"sure no problem" Kyradia realised she hadn't slept in the same "room" as Ashara since she started getting these, well a lot had changed in five years.

A few hours later and they were back in the jungle, they had perched themselves on the top of a ridge and Kyradia was using Macrobinoculars to scout the area. She scanned the dense green forest for a while before spotting the tip on a rather large and over the top temple she recognised, she pointed to it "there we're not far now". The mission had been going well so far, she had managed to catch up with Ashara and Ashara was starting to trust her more and more, after the incident this morning Kyradia had been trying to take things a bit slow to not freak her out.

"so what happened with Kavaraa then?" not slow oh god that's not slow Kyradia was surprised she had completely forgot about the story she was hoping that was enough but to be fair she hadn't actually touched on them being "friends".

"oh um well for a few years i believe she stayed in the prison reaching some form of higher force knowledge" Kyradia had no idea what that meant to be honest "or something i dunno meditation related, but during that time Theron was trying to find out where she was"

"who?" Ashara looked puzzled

"oh right Theron is that guy I was always complaining about the fact i had to work with back when we were investigating the Revanites" that should jog her memory

"oh right yes of course" Ashara had a smug look Kyradia definitely took a while to warm up to the idea of working with the republic

"anyway eventually he managed to find where she was and break her out, from there she secretly helped run the alliance through Theron" Kyradia still didn't like the fact Theron had been lying to her but in hindsight Kyradia was pretty angry at the time so another thing may have put her over the edge, Ashara didn't have to know that

"so eventually he introduced her to you and you forgave her?" Ashara interrupted was that the way it should've gone oh dear if only it had been that simple

"uhhhhhhhh no she introduced herself while i was comatose on the eternal throne fighting the emperor" Kyradia mumbled, the circumstances did not reflect well on her given that the only time she accepted it was when she literally defended Kyradia from death

"oh well that's still good right she helped you beat the eternal empire and you made up" Ashara interrupted again why was she making this so much worse just let me finish oh god she was gonna look so bad in this story

"welll not exactly what ended up happening was my old rival Zoyin turned up obsessed with pleasing the emperor fought her and stabbed her" Kyradia may be telling this story far more casual than it was at the time, Ashara looked like she was about to speak but Kyradia quickly made sure she could finish before she looked even worse. "I killed the emperor which scarred Zoyin off" serves her right the callous bitch "and then saw the situation and…" Kyradia sighed deeply, Ashara looked troubled clearly this wasn't reflecting so well on Kyradia, this is why she didn't want to tell the story. "and after Theron and Lana convinced me we took her to Voss to be healed" Kyradia hung her head "sorry i know i come off like a bitch in that story that i only could bury the hatchet in the most extreme circu-"

Ashara wrapped her arms back around Kyradia and squeezed tight "you did fine i remember what you two had been through that was still very big of you to do and hey given what you'd been through i hardly expected it to be clean cut." Kyradia was bewildered she was sure this story was going to prove that she was just what she'd been back on Voss but Ashara didn't care "One way or the other you saved her life and that showed you care, is that the full story?"

Kyradia looked away for a second "mostly yeah, lets get going we have a temple to save" also this hug was making her very uncomfortable…