{{ urbania's void - epilogue
...it ends (day forty / +49)
They had spent the past few days questioning Raynar and piecing together all the things that had happened on the Urbania. They were putting together new teams to go back for a cleanup mission, figuring the Galactic Alliance would take possession of the floating city, seeing as how its owner was dead and most likely still lying on top of the Urbania’s tallest tower.
Jacen Solo wasn’t thinking of any of that now though, he had his mind on one thing.
Sitting cross-legged on a flat rock in the middle of the grove near the lake, eyes closed, a small pool of water at his back, Jacen was reaching his arms above him, his fingers drifting through groups of dravells. They would fly in circles around his hands and make rings around his fingers, they would land on his cheeks and twitter across his forehead. Some ruffled strands of shaggy hair as they floated around him, pulsing with that faint golden light that Jacen had fallen in love with so many years ago.
He had touched Tenel Ka in the Force mere minutes before, he had called to her. He had invited her outside and left himself open so she could follow his signature. He didn’t tell her where he was.
Clad in a simple pair of black pants and a white short-sleeved undershirt, Jacen looked upwards. The canopy of trees was thinning and he could see the moons peeking through the outstretched fingers of the branches that reached out to one another. It was the middle of the night, a time Jacen was much too comfortable with now, and he was wide awake. He had felt the same from her.
And now he felt her approaching.
Opening his eyes, he could see a rustling in the leaves ahead of him. He shifted gently, bringing his arms to rest on his legs, a wrist set on each knee.
“Good evening, General.”
“Your Majesty…”
It was their first time alone together in Force knows how long, no teammates, no companions, no Mindmaps. Just Jacen Solo and Tenel Ka.
He stood, a sudden burst of flaxen dust sliding from his skin and floating upwards, away from him. Tenel Ka felt her breath hitch in her throat for a moment as she watched him move towards her, his feet shifting effortlessly over the dirt and patches of grass. A single dravell had stayed settled on his left cheek, its soft glow feeding into the dark sepia of his eyes. He stopped less than a foot from her, resisting the urge to wrap her up in his arms that second – instead, he just clasped his hands behind his back, wringing them together.
“When we were younger and you brought me here, I instantly fell in love with these,” he tilted his head back towards the golden clouds drifting around the grove.
“I know, I could tell.”
“That night I…” He didn’t know how to continue, but he forced himself. “I told myself that one day each one of them would represent a memory that you and I shared.” He turned to look back at them, the random dravell still perched on his cheekbone.
Tenel Ka could feel herself shiver slightly under her black robe, her barefeet carrying her a bit closer to Jacen. “Really?”
Jacen nodded, shifting towards her and taking her right hand in his left, the sleeve of her oversized robe sliding over their joined fingers. His eyes moved up the black silk that covered her arm to the brilliant white nightgown she wore under it. It shimmered gold from the surrounding light source and her skin took on a deep bronze tone. Brandy-brown eyes finally stopped on a pair of granite grays, the owner of them trying to keep a small smile from creeping onto her face.
She motioned with a tilt of her head to the spark perched on his cheekbone. “Alright, then what is he for?”
He was waiting for her to ask about that one. He had coaxed the little guy to stay curled up on his cheek until she asked about him, and once she did, he nudged the dravell with his finger causing the shimmer to hop onto his thumb.
“This one?” He brought him up between their faces, the tiny dravell shaking and rubbing his front feet together. “He’s for the time I asked you to marry me.”
The smile that threatened her lips slipped away as her jaw fell slightly. Jacen could feel it in her mind, she was repeating yes over and over again and her hand had tightened in his.
“Jacen, I… how would we be able to pull that off? With me as the Queen Mother of the Consortium and you as an acting-- ”
The dravell that had been shuffling along his thumb drifted upwards when Jacen shifted his hand towards the Queen Mother, placing a pointer finger gently to her lips. “We can worry about all that later. One word answer, Your Worship.”
“Yes.”
She answered instantly, after he insisted on one word, the breath escaping her lips and hitting his finger. His hand moved to her cheek and back around her neck, while the other arm wrapped around her side. She responded by pressing herself into his grasp and burying her head in his shoulder.
“I’m sorry for everything,” Jacen whispered over the quiet sound of the nearby lake and the low humming of the dravell’s wings.
“It is over now. And none of it was your fault. No need to apologize.”
They felt at ease with other for the first time in a long while. They seemed to drop everything that had happened in the past months at that moment, both of their minds racing towards the future. There wasn’t anything left to say at that moment, Jacen knew. Except for one thing and it was something he had wanted to say to her peacefully, something he wanted to say to her without being rushed away after the fact. So he let the words escape him, breathing them through a curtain of red into her ear.
“I love you, Tenel Ka.”
“I love you too.”
They continued to embrace, a mess of white and black, copper and auburn and stone and brandy, all while a cloud of gold gathered around them.
And the universe continued its endless motion.
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