Chapter Summary: An intimate night comes to a premature end.

[Pre-RotHC, pre-relationship/Force bond.]


Vestra's appetite for luxury was one Lana did not share, but freely indulged while in her company – if not for a taste of the finer things in life, then just a break from her preference for the practical. So it was with the hotel bed with a mattress that moulded into every curve of her body, sheets so soft they slid across her skin like silk, the covers draped over her waist so fluffy and warm that she wished to draw it up to her shoulders like a cocoon. That last urge was the most dangerous trap because, at this moment, Lana was working up the will to leave.

It was not necessary, as far as she knew. Vestra had started asking her to stay after their trysts. And that first time, with breakfast made by Vestra's own hands, taking Lana by surprise when she'd emerged from the bedroom dressed and refreshed… Lana still wasn't quite sure what to make of it. She had chalked it up to Vestra's whims, nothing more, and remained torn, alternating between staying and leaving. At times, she wished Vestra had never asked her to stay, making it difficult to turn away from the enticing prospect of intimate attention in the morning.

Closing her eyes, Lana mustered a sliver of strength from the very depths of her unwilling soul, and pushed herself up from the bed that seemed to sing her name the moment she rose. Her fingers dug into the covers held in hand, readying herself for the chilly touch of reality, when a small, throaty noise gave her pause.

She'd made no sound, she knew for certain, and so looked towards the other woman in bed – lying on her back, dark hair fanned out on a plush pillow. Under her stare, Vestra remained utterly still; a lifelike sculpture borne of an artisan's hands. Lana had started to brush off the innocuous sound as imagination, when she heard it again – accompanied by a twitch in Vestra's lips, her fingers half-curling on the pillow, head jerking a tiny millimetre aside.

Troubled sleep, then. Vestra had looked well put together when they'd met earlier, but even Lana could see the exhaustion beneath her smooth composure. The Dark Council had been putting out fires all over the galaxy, fighting back a revitalised Republic offensive against the Empire. No doubt Darth Avriss had little chance to rest in the day; now Vestra couldn't even find respite in slumber.

Sympathy pangs in Lana, beside a growing obligation to leave. Vestra never appreciated attempts to pry beneath her mask. To watch her in all her naked, unknowing honesty, felt like a transgression. Reason urged Lana to run, now, knowing Dark Lords had ruined lives for mistakes much more trivial. Emotion, however, anchored her limbs with a heaviness when she realised those were whimpers in Vestra's throat.

Rapid movement under her eyelids threatened wakefulness at any minute, yet Vestra still squirmed, as if trapped in her mind's cage. Lana hesitated, then shifted close, reaching out to run the back of her fingers over Vestra's cheek. A slight twitch in the head was the only response, where her eyes should've flown open in alarm.

Pushing down taut wariness, Lana leaned over her, and cupped Vestra's cheek in one palm. Gently, she shook Vestra's head.

"No!"

Vestra jerked up from the bed, one bare forearm colliding across Lana's clavicles and shoulders, holding her back on instinct. Lana stood her ground, and when electric purple sparked around Vestra's free hand, her own shot out to clamp around that wrist, pinning it firmly against the mattress.

"Stop!" Lana commanded, hoping to cut through Vestra's haze before she met an untimely end. "It's me, Lana!"

Lightning coiled and flared around Vestra's hand…then dissipated. Without its sharp crackling, silence fell over them, and Lana grew painfully aware of the stuttering, uneven breaths as Vestra struggled to make sense of the situation. Yellow eyes darted about the room, before staring up at Lana – who watched panic and stark vulnerability swim in that frightened gaze, then dive beneath the surface, hiding behind a hardening gleam that dropped a stone in Lana's gut.

But she didn't have to look into that glare for long. Vestra surged up from the mattress, roughly shoving Lana back, forcing her to fall onto her side. Indignation shot through her, and Lana straightened herself while Vestra ripped the covers from her body, pulling her legs over the edge of the bed, sitting with her back presented as an impenetrable wall. Lana's lips parted, a sharp demand for explanation lodged in her throat, where it died at the sight of Vestra lowering her head into both hands, fingers visibly gripping her hair.

Swallowing tightly, Lana waited for her own flimsi-thin anger to fade. "Vestra?"

Her voice came out smaller than intended, but Vestra flew to her feet abruptly, as if it were a lash across her back. Lana sat rooted to the bed, watching as Vestra stalked the room with jagged steps, picking up her clothes that had been thrown to the floor by Lana's careless, hungry hands just hours before. She retreated to a corner farthest from the bed and Lana's sight, pulling on her underwear with less grace than her usual, confident self.

"Vestra," Lana spoke again, noting how Vestra's hands shook as she fumbled with her dress. "Are you alright?"

Vestra remained focused on her simple task, slipping the dress on, but barely checking its fit over her body as her vanity always demanded. Striding to the couch, she picked up her purse, straightening its fine silver chain between her hands.

"I…" She faltered. "Need to go."

Running a hand through her hair in a half-hearted attempt to tame it, Vestra slung her purse over a shoulder, and marched out of the room without a backward glance. The sharp clicks of her heels against the floor grew fainter, until the door finally slid shut, enclosing Lana within the ringing silence of the empty room.

Where she had been fighting through a sleepy haze, gathering the will to leave, now she just felt…tired. An exhaustion compounded inexplicably by confusion, which left her falling back onto the bed, head cushioned by her soft pillow.

She replayed in her head what had just transpired, and couldn't help but feel she should've done something. Anything, other than sitting quietly while secret troubles had driven Vestra away. But did she wish so, only for her own benefit, or Vestra's? The former would be simpler – she was no stranger to prioritising the self, as was the unspoken standard among Sith. The second only brought…complications, and Lana wondered why her thudding heart did not fear it more. Vestra was of the Dark Council now. Not the troublemaking apprentice she'd first met years ago, unapologetically seeking fulfilment at Lana's hands, free of consequences as they went unnoticed beneath the eyes of their betters.

And yet, she found herself laden with regret, for not catching Vestra by the arm before she could leave.

Lana sucked in a sudden breath, gathering her vexation, and released it in a forceful huff. A glance at the bedside chronometer told her it was just past two in the morning. Knowing well she would not find rest in this state, Lana rose from the bed, seeking a cure for her tense muscles in a warm bath.


[From: Lana Beniko]
[Subject: no subject]

[Are you alright?]

Vestra stared at the message, trying and failing to harden her heart enough to bring her finger down, deleting the holomail forever.

It had arrived shortly after Vestra returned to her ship in the spaceport's private hangars. The unfortunate datapad on which she'd read the message still lay on the floor in broken pieces, victim of an outburst that saw it flung hard against the wall. Even a simple reminder of her lapse, of her weakness, laid out raw for another to see, was unbearable.

And over what? A spectre risen from the grave where she had personally sent it, haunting her after a night of basking in her own pleasure? A mockery of sweet nothings whispered into her ear, hands gripping where flesh grew warm under a touch it detested; a prison of false, violent affection dogging her dreams long after she had broken its bars, with a dagger lodged in her freshly bleeding gut.

It was nothing. It was history. She was beyond its reach, and yet

She brought a white-knuckled fist down on the desk where she was hunched, avoiding the spare datapad to prevent more collateral damage. Her anger was not as caustic as it'd been the night before, when it had driven her to pummel the training dummy with bare fists, scraping her knuckles bloody before a simple application of kolto hid the damage from view.

Forming a nest with her arms, Vestra let her head fall into it, a silent whistle of breath passing through her lips. It was now evening, a day after her rendezvous with Lana on this black market haven of a planet. She would've had the ship leave port first thing in the morning, but Andronikos had purchased an engine upgrade, and installation kept the ship grounded for two days. He got his head bitten clean off for his efforts, and was probably scowling in the cockpit, or complaining to Ashara about their resident Sith Lord's temper.

Vestra didn't know, and didn't care. She hadn't left her quarters for the entire day, ignoring the meals Talos had left outside her door, pretending a flood wasn't drowning Darth Avriss' inbox while she stewed endlessly on the bed, on the floor, on the couch.

She would've stewed endlessly on the desk as well, if not for the chirps from her holocom. She knew the caller's identity right away – the crew knew not to disturb her during her moods, and…Lana had called a few times throughout the day, only to be ignored.

She was to be ignored now, as well. But Vestra found her hand inching towards the holocom and its blinking signal light, despite her silent decree.

Like her crew, Lana was not…duplicitous. At least, as far as Vestra could tell. So many opportunities to strike, yet Lana had let every single one pass. Worse still, after what happened last night, she had only shown…concern?

Vestra snorted. Delusion. She was now indulging in delusions. And she would tolerate it no longer.

She accepted the call with a button press, audio only, willing Lana to cut accursed hope to shreds.

"Vestra?" Lana said tentatively, after a long moment of silence.

"Lana," Vestra replied, flat.

"I just…wanted to check in. You didn't reply to my message this morning." Lana waited, and forged on when she received no reply. "You left rather abruptly last night. Are you alright?"

"Yes."

"That's good." Lana's reply was slow, as if she was testing the waters, looking for safe ground to tread. "You seemed distressed, if I may say so. I don't want to presume, but if you need anything–"

"I'm fine," Vestra replied curtly, ignoring the pang of guilt in her chest.

They fell into heavy silence, which dragged each second into excruciating eternity, before Vestra put an end to their misery.

"Look, I was in the middle of something. I have to go." She didn't care that it sounded like an obvious lie; she had cast a thread, which Lana thankfully grasped, thin as it might be.

"Of course. Do not let me keep you. I–" A pause, and Vestra wondered what had fallen in the gap between. "May the Force serve you well."

Another short pause, and she imagined Lana bending at the waist in a prim bow, before the call was ended. Left alone once more, Vestra's head fell back into the crook of one elbow, while her hand drifted to the holocom, fingers wrapping the device in a grip slowly turning tight.

It was a mistake, she'd realised the moment Lana spoke. False hope, wanting Lana to act in a manner that was antithesis and insult to her very character. She was Sith, and yet…so much more. A scholar; calm, rational, with an earnest thirst for knowledge that made Vestra's own heart sing. A warrior; ruthless, methodical, power wielded in her fist as a weapon for self-determination. Above all, a mystery; an agent of her master that had never encroached on Avriss' boundaries, a companion who had only shown gentleness between her calloused hands, a woman whose subtle smiles within Sith halls were warm and sincere.

Lana was an island that gave solace from the storm-tossed seas in which Vestra drowned, and she couldn't help but find herself fighting against the tides, to drift back into Lana's embrace again and again.

Is this why you hate it? That she makes you want to live?

The realisation drove a dagger into her chest, and Vestra twisted it with sickening fervour, willing her heart to die while it marched on with a steady, uncaring beat.

Oblivion.

I wish for oblivion.


[Deleted Drafts]

[From: Vestra Lenshe]
[Subject: no subject]

[What happened that night. Do not speak a word of it to anyone. I trust]

[From: Vestra Lenshe]
[Subject: no subject]

[It goes without saying that what happens between us remains secret. Do not reveal what you saw to]

[From: Vestra Lenshe]
[Subject: no subject]

[I have always appreciated your company during our liaisons. But I think it is in our best interests to put an end to our]

[From: Vestra Lenshe]
[Subject: no subject]

[We should not see each other again]

[From: Vestra Lenshe]
[Subject: no subject]

[You vex me. You vex me so much. But you will never know. You cannot know. It is a weapon in your hands, and I do not know how to take it from you without rending myself asunder.]


[From: Vestra Lenshe]
[Subject: Again?]

[Our last rendezvous did not end as I'd planned. I wish to make it up to you. How does your schedule look next month?]

[From: Lana Beniko]
[Subject: Re: Again?]

[You have nothing to make up for. I'm only glad you are well.

Third week next month looks clear. Do you have a place in mind?]

[From: Vestra Lenshe]
[Subject: Re: Again?]

[Patience. I will let you know soon.]

[From: Lana Beniko]
[Subject: Re: Again?]

[You don't, do you?]

[From: Vestra Lenshe]
[Subject: Re: Again?]

[Be careful, Beniko. Or I will bring you someplace easy to stage a fatal accident.]

[From: Lana Beniko]
[Subject: Re: Again?]

[How terrifying. I look forward to it.]