Chapter 22: Confession

There were a few practices which were common among all Jedi Masters. Giving your Padawan an important and meaningful gift on their thirteenth birthday, giving your Padawan tasks that would force them to learn more about themself and sending your Padawan to the archives to teach them to slow down a bit. Master Tassu had used all three of these practices and formed his Padawan into a Jedi almost ready for her trials.

Doryn had fallen so far from the Padawan she'd once been at Master Tassu's side. Instead of the calm that she knew the archives lesson was meant to teach, she came away even more antsy than she had been even as a youngling. When assigned the same lesson at 14, she had learnt it and left the data covered walls with a better understanding of quiet and peace. She supposed at 14 she hadn't considered that her Master was capable of dying and she hadn't had a battalion to worry about. No, Doryn was very aware that Master Plo could die. Just like Master Tassu had.

She stared at the geranium which was one of a handful of personal items Doryn had. It sat on top of a small set of draws. She hadn't been able to bring herself to complete Master Plo's lesson of connecting to the potted flower. Instead, the lesson had been abandoned and she cared for the plant as any non-Jedi would. She had worried when the petals started to lose some colour and eventually gave in to the urge to check on it with the Force. She knew that plants tended to be deciduous, but for some reason hadn't expected for her plant to do the same. Though, she couldn't remember a decorative flower that hadn't been in bloom at the temple.

It'd probably been a cool breeze on a venator that'd made the plant believe winter was coming. That had to be it. She could ask the plant. She could connect to it. The only issue being that Doryn Ror, Padawan to Plo Koon, was nervous. It seemed so stupid. She had faced serious injury and death since she'd become a Padawan. She'd first seen a corpse of a Jedi knight when she was just 8. Though the fear wasn't dying and death. The fear was of something much worse. Giving in to her wants and eventually the Dark Side.

Master Plo was an experienced Jedi Master and Master Yaddle had been centuries old. Maybe Doryn was just too young and inexperienced to understand. That would be admitting that Master Tassu had been wrong though. Something she'd come closer to each day she spent as Master Plo's Padawan. But the archives failing to fix her like they had when Master Tassu sent her? That just brought her closer to realising it. The other thing pushing her was her current worry and the associated attachment. Loving Wolffe couldn't be wrong. Oh. Love? She'd managed to surprise herself with that one, but she supposed it was the correct way to describe how she felt. Yes. She was in love with Wolffe. How could that ever be bad? How could her love for the human turn to evil without an active choice to shut out the light?

"Master Tassu was wrong." She whispered into her essentially empty room. She felt a link, in the chain holding her back, break at its welding point and wrench open. She let out a slow breath and closed her eyes. Master Tassu was wrong. Master Tassu's teachings were wrong. For the first time since she'd been a youngling on Ragoon-VI, Doryn opened herself fully in the Force to connect to the single red flower. She didn't demand the plant's health or forcefully probe it. She simply meditated with the life-form.

She asked the Force to return her Master and the wolfpack back to her safely. She was finally starting to understand it and the extent to which she needed them all. She needed the clones, her Cathar community, to become the Jedi that the Force intended. She needed Wolffe and her love for him. She needed him to know.

Doryn watched the skies with horror. Four venators had gone to Lola Sayu. The long spearhead-shaped ships which could house thousands each. The space above Coruscant only held three and one of them was trailing a thick line of smoke. Really, all of them had taken a decent amount of damage. She could just about feel Master Plo in the Force. She could feel him reaching out over the noise but she couldn't quite distinguish the clones. She'd never tried to memorise them in the Force and there were so many clones among the venators that she had no clue where to even begin. The regret that she could feel from Master Plo made her feel sick. She should've been hoping that none of the pack had died but her only plea was for it to not be Wolffe.

The coordination to bring down the damaged venators instead of using gunships as transport shuttles made her wait even longer. The venator that trailed smoke was the first to come down. No sign of the wolfpack or Master Plo. It was another 2 hours until the other venators could be brought down.

Wolffe never wanted to be on a landing venator again. He probably never would be again. It wasn't that common. It being so out of standard protocol meant that the landing was rather shit. Who the hell would even know how to land something that big? And on Coruscant of all places? Nope. Wolffe was not being subjected to that again. Plus it had made it even longer before they could land. Instead of being off the ship and getting in his own bed and maybe seeing Ryn, he was stuck on a venator that was aimlessly floating. He hadn't seen her since he'd asked if she was stupid. Something he'd asked before. Maker, why did he do that? She was a Jedi! She'd been raised with a massive library in her home and some of the best education in the entire Republic. She'd even managed to pick up a few words of mando'a that Wolffe didn't even realise she'd overheard.

He'd been relieved when she'd been sent off to the archives. He didn't want to face her after storming out of the medbay. Now the closer he got to seeing her again made him regret not sorting it out sooner. He was so sure that Ryn would be at the temple that it took him a minute to realise who the furry non-human in the hangar was. Then he was sure that she'd be there to see the General that it took him a bit to realise she was coming toward him.

Doryn didn't care that the entire wolfpack was there or that another Jedi might see. Wolffe was alive and standing a little ways from the ship with his helmet under his arm. Wolffe was right there and she did what she could to shorten the difference between 'here' and 'there'. Really she was lucky that the rest of the clones kept moving away from the venator. Less people to witness her running to him.

She somewhat pounced when she got close to Wolffe. She wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and pressed her face into the comfortingly cool plastoid. "You're alive." Was all she murmured as she spent a moment grounding herself. Though when out of her initial blinding worry, she realised what she'd done. She let go and took a couple of steps back. "Uh, sorry about that." She tensed a little with the awkwardness of the situation she'd caused. In an attempt to loosen up she brushed down the front of her loose brown robes. It helped a little by making her look away from Wolffe but the fizzing feeling along her scalp persisted. What would she feel if she reached out in the Force? His distain for her? His disappointment that she was the thing to greet him planet-side? She had a feeling that it wouldn't be that. So she pushed against her bubble and asked the Force. Something positive? Happy? No, not quite that. What was it?

Quickly, a warm hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled her toward Wolffe. It was Wolffe's hand. Comfort flittered through her arm to the rest of her. Her eyes came up to his face as he placed her arm around him. She couldn't work out if it was a smile or a smirk until she decided it was somewhere between the two. The tilt of his head just showed off the sharp edge of his jaw. Oh he was beautiful. And when he spoke. By the Force.

"You excited to see me, kitten?" Wolffe brought his hand to her jaw and let his fingers find their home in her soft fur. Most of the green of her iris was hidden by how large her pupils had become. It almost didn't matter that they'd lost a few men, Corvis and Wildfire among them. He'd come back to her and she was pleased with his survival. He'd wanted that for the past few months and now he had her gazing up at him with those eyes. She wasn't angry at him like she had every right to be. She didn't run to her Master like Wolffe had expected. She came straight to him. She was waiting there and it was for him. His smugness dissipated into general joy at the situation.

She thought about something for a second. Wolffe watched the little twitch. It'd probably been a bigger movement simply hidden by her fur. She looked away from Wolffe. Almost as if she was trying to build up courage. Then she turned to him with burning determination in her eyes.

"Wolffe, I.." Even after building up all her courage, she couldn't quite admit it. She went to try again but it didn't quite work. Wolffe's eyes had been watching her lips as she failed and it was only when he moved his head toward hers that she realised it was a signal he was trying to give. He was going to kiss her. Like he'd almost kissed her before. She wasn't letting it slip away this time. She moved toward him, like he did to her and met him somewhere in the middle.

His lips were warm and firm against hers. It was so weird. Her entire thorax fizzed. She didn't want it to stop. The tips of his fingers lifted and only his palm remained touching her face. Slowly his fingers came back and stroked through the fur, barely touching her. Her response was to just extend her neck for him. Making herself vulnerable to him. Then Wolffe pulled away. It was much too soon. Doryn tried to follow him, only to have his thumb come to her cheek and help him hold her where she was.

"Cyare. Ner cyare." Wolffe mumbled to himself as he looked down at her. Her eyes kept flicking from his eyes to his lips. She wanted more as much as he did. He would give it to her. How could he ever deny her what was already hers? But he needed her to know that first. She had to understand. His thumb slowly stroked back and fore. "Ryn, you are everything to me." He meant it. Every part of him was hers. His heart beat for her. He fought this war for her. He wasn't sure when it all became for her, but he was sure that now everything was for her and only her.

"Wolffe..." She could hear how weak her voice was. That was okay. She could be vulnerable with him. She was safe with him. She felt secure with the feel of his gaze and the plastoid armour. Secure enough to lay herself bare. "I want to be yours," Her words were quiet, only audible by the desperation in them, "And I want you to be mine."

"Everything I am is yours." He gazed adoringly down at her. "So, are you mine?"

Ryn pulled Wolffe down a little and drew him into another warm kiss. It was like a pen's ink seeping into paper at the bottom of a contract that neither ever intended on breaking.