Lorash picked her way to the cockpit as Eso brought the ship in for an early dawn landing on the quiet oceanic planet that their pilot had chosen as their hideaway while Seia recovered. The sith was already looking better, but she'd also spent the better part of the three days since their encounter with Zul asleep. The jedi padawan's breath caught in her throat as she looked out over the crystal clear waters surrounding the tropical island just as Eso brought them down for a landing.
Eso chuckled. "Seia said a beach."
The waters were so clear that brilliantly colored coral reefs were visible further out, all teeming with life that surrounded her in her sense of the Force. The trees waving in the wind had deep roots and were filled with delicate little flying things industriously weaving their nests from shoreline grasses and eating little sweet fruits from the branches. Twin suns rose in a delicate dance, gradually chasing the three moons from the sky. She gave Eso's shoulder a squeeze of gratitude. "It's gorgeous. I'm not sure I'll ever want to leave."
The miralian grinned. "Best part? It's, uh, uncharted. Nobody's going to bother us here unless that spy ship of Zul's breaks its cover."
"Good," Seia rasped from behind them.
Both of them turned to look. The sith was in the under-layers of her armored robes, the heaviest reinforcing shed with her outer robe. Scars decorated the muscles of her bare arms, fabric clinging to her form without restricting. Seia's golden eyes almost looked calm. Lorash knew better, of course. The tempest in the Force that was the sith still raged as fiercely as ever, more powerful now than it had ever been before.
"Still thinking about the agreement?" Lorash asked softly.
"I was already transmitted a dossier before the jump to hyperspace," Seia said bluntly. She tapped the holo in the cockpit as Eso finished setting the ship down, displaying the image of a pale, bearded man. "An arms dealer with rebel sympathies has been identified on Cantonica. Zul would like an example made."
Eso made a face. "Fancy tastes."
"I know nothing of him or that world." Seia eased herself down into the navigator's seat and kicked her feet up on the holo. "You do, I take it?"
"It's a pleasure world for the glam," Eso said. "I, uh, hear all kinds of nasty people like to play there, in their fanciest clothes and, uh, most expensive drinks. Not even just Hutts."
Lorash studied their potential target. He looked the part of a grizzled arms dealer, wearing a patch over one eye. Part of an ear was missing too, clearly clipped off by blaster fire. "I don't want to hurt him if he has rebel sympathies."
"Better dead than cultivated as a double agent." Seia crossed her arms, tipping her head back to regard the man's face. "He would do significantly more damage to your rebellious friends if that were the case, which is the only way I see sparing his life as feasible. Besides, the moment he gets a whiff of me, he will be ready to fight to the death if he is the man Zul claims."
Sickness welled in Lorash's stomach at a new thought, tangenting off the idea of killing this arms dealer. "What about Master Vori, Seia?"
They hadn't discussed the conversation with Zul yet, but now it felt inescapable. In six months, she was going to have to find her master and either deliver him to Zul or strike down the inquisitor and his apprentice. Seia was quiet for a long moment, only making the thoughts twist more and more anxiously in Lorash's head.
"I do not know."
Eso shot Seia a hard look. "That's not real reassuring, Seia."
"But it is not a lie." Seia turned in her seat. "If your master does not understand what you have done, Lorash, he will undoubtedly seek to end us both and force my hand. In that case, the matter with Zul is resolved to the inquisitor's satisfaction."
"He will understand," Lorash said fiercely. "I've never met anyone wiser."
"Then perhaps we can fight alongside him to be rid of Zul." Seia didn't sound as though she considered that a likely outcome, but clearly she didn't have it in her to entirely crush Lorash's hopes. "Though afterwards, things will not be as they once were."
Lorash turned to face the sith, noting a hint of apprehensive expectation in Seia's eyes. "I meant what I said in the ruin. I won't leave you."
Seia rose from her seat. "Perhaps," she said, the harshness of the rasp in her voice worse on that single word. She strode out of the cockpit and down the stairs, headed for the cargo bay door that led to outside.
Eso sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, watching her go. "What, uh, happened in that ruin?"
"It's complicated."
"So are, uh, most things between you two."
The jedi padawan raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Eso shrugged and spread his hands expressively. "Remember that whole, uh, sith and jedi thing?"
Lorash sank down into the seat Seia had abandoned. "Sometimes it feels like I forget," she admitted. "Like…like there's not as much distance between us as Master Vori or Merga would like."
"No offense, but what that bothan likes don't concern me none," Eso muttered darkly.
The young woman pulled in a deep breath to center herself, counseling herself back to calm. "I should go talk to her."
The look Eso gave her seemed a mixture of encouragement and promise that she hadn't escaped from this conversation completely either. "I'll pop my head into, uh, Engineering and see how Yyrfh's doing with repairs," the pilot said diplomatically. "Give you both some privacy."
Lorash nodded. Her hand traveled to the new weight at her hip almost involuntarily. The two-headed lightsaber seemed awfully light compared to her staff, but also monumentally heavy for a mere padawan, with all its history and power at her fingertips. She hadn't spoken with Nabeila about it yet, still not quite confident enough to reach out to the jedi master through the Force. Typically claiming such a weapon would mean the end of a jedi's training, but Lorash was nowhere near ready for that.
She wasn't even certain she was ready for Seia. All the same, she followed the sith out of the ship, tracking the single set of footprints through the sand. Cool morning breezes rustled the ferns and low growth on the island as well as the branches above. Seia's trail wound out into the shallows, around a big outcropping of rocks. The sith had left her boots on a smooth boulder that rose above the water's edge.
It was an idea that felt positively genius to Lorash. Even with everything going on, the weight on her shoulders lifted as she pulled off her boots and rolled up her pant legs. The sensation of sand between her toes and soon warm tropical waters rolling across her feet was practically divine. She wiggled her feet slightly before following the echoes of Seia's presence through the shallows.
She rounded the corner just in time to see Seia strip away most of her shirt, the second-to last of her inner layers removed. Now there was only enough cloth to cover Seia's breasts, revealing lines of Sith script following the lines of the muscles that played under her skin as the sith straightened up. Lorash felt a blush building even watching Seia's back.
It only took her a split second to remember who she was dealing with, when the sith's low, rasping laugh answered her. Seia turned before Lorash could backpedal or babble out an apology. The tattoos ran just beneath her collar bones on either side and in parallel lines down her abdomen, vanishing behind her belt. In the golden sunlight, the marks were as striking and exotic as they were intimidating. Suddenly the sith was so much closer than Lorash had expected.
The jedi padawan took a step back only to bump into the rock wall. "Seia, I didn't mean to—"
"What if I want you to look?" Seia said, hands catching hold of Lorash's wrists before the young woman could flee. The pin was casual, probably easily broken, but the jedi padawan couldn't find it in herself to try and break away.
Lorash knew her blush went incandescent. It was hard to think straight, let alone talk, at that answer. It didn't help that the darkness that was Seia, suddenly intoxicating and enthralling, surrounded her on every side in her sense of the Force. Even her gaze was caught in that golden trap as Seia regarded her with something on her mind. Never before had Lorash felt quite so captivated. There was an enticing sort of interplay between trust and the reality of the danger the sith still posed, even with them working together.
"Lorash." Seia's voice had that purring, self-satisfied quality from their sparring matches and the moments where the sith knew she'd won. A wave crested against the sith's back, water swirling between their bodies. "I think you want to look too."
What was it Seia had said, holding that holocron out before her? Temptation is a beautiful thing…
Lorash let her gaze fall from Seia's, tracing with rapt attention along the tattoos just below her collarbones. Surely that was safe, that and no more. She forced herself to look back up at Seia, whose expression left her heart racing. There was smugness there, but also a kind of hunger Lorash had no word for.
"Your clothes are soaking," the sith observed casually, taking the half step forward that brought their bodies into almost perfect alignment. There was just a slight bit of distance, a gap that was clearly very intentionally left.
"I should—"
Do you really want to run, Lorash? Seia's voice was somehow inside her mind, that same low purr as before. It raised goosebumps on the padawan's skin. Or, perhaps, are you more interested in seeing where your passions might take you if you let them? I can feel them inside you, begging to be freed.
The part of Lorash's mind that had been trained to jedi discipline told her immediately that she was in over her head and that this was intemperate at best. The rest of her was burning up with a fire that defied description, that same connection that had once been broken flaring to life everywhere they touched. It seemed so much stronger than before, grounded and unbearable at the same time. She closed her eyes, trying to bring together thoughts of serenity and cold and the Jedi Code. She moved to push Seia back slightly with one hand and immediately regretted it, her fingers meeting the heat of the sith's sea-touched skin. "I can't."
You know you want to. Seia's hand brushed across her cheek, fingers catching a curl of Lorash's hair and brushing it back behind her ear. You can trust me. I will do nothing you do not ask for.
"So if I say stop…?"
This stops, Seia promised. The flash of sincerity, like lightning amidst the thunder, was clear as day to Lorash. Whatever the sith's plans on the next few minutes, respect for Lorash's choice was obviously on the forefront of her mind.
Lorash opened her eyes, losing herself in that golden gaze and the beskar certainty of want living in it. Please, she breathed back in the flow of the Force between them, a plea from her heart as much as her body.
Seia closed the distance between them, releasing her hold on Lorash's wrist so she could bring both hands up to catch Lorash's jaw and pull her into a burning kiss. Lorash slid her hands down the sith's tattooed back until she could catch Seia's hips, pulling her in tighter. The desire seemed to burn hotter and hotter as it unfolded in the connection between them, each catching sensations from the other person. Lorash felt like she was going to spontaneously combust when Seia's teeth tugged at her lower lip, going weak at the knees. The sith pressed her closer into the stone, dominating the kiss that almost felt biting in the best possible way.
The jedi padawan never wanted it to end, almost whining in disappointment when they had to part to breathe. She tried to chase Seia's lips with her own, but the sith taunted her with a ghost of a kiss, lips pressing almost chastely at the corner of Lorash's mouth before she turned her attention to working down the padawan's throat, experimenting with a combination of kisses and bites. A nip against her neck sent a shudder and gasp through Lorash that made the blush even worse.
"You're teasing me," Lorash panted when Seia marked the spot of the nip with the same light, barely there kind of kiss.
I have not even begun to, Seia whispered wickedly through her thoughts even as she recaptured Lorash's lips, fingers delicately spiraling up the jedi's midriff under the fabric of her soaked shirt.
The distant sound of another ship landing brought them both crashing back to reality before things could go any further. "Eso can handle that, right?" Lorash pleaded even though her mind already shifted back into preparing for the next conflict.
"They had better hope the wookie has ripped them apart by the time I arrive," Seia growled, a sudden flaring of rage burning apart the connection between them. "I wanted you all to myself."
The possessiveness in Seia's voice sent another shiver through Lorash. "Later," the jedi padawan promised. She sighed, reluctantly untangling herself from the sith and trying not to think about how much of her own Code she'd just compromised. "Maybe it's nothing, but if it's not, saving the day comes first."
"If it must."