Lux had always loved the Inland Sea.

As a child, his tutors had always hastened to inform him that it wasn't technically a sea, since the water was potable rather than saline. But the 'Inland Lake' just didn't have the same poetic ring to it, and it bordered on stating the obvious. Besides, it was such a magnificent expanse of water ­– crystal-blue and fed by so many underground rivers it had its own system of currents and eddies – Lux thought it was entirely deserving of a grand name.

He could stand on his balcony gazing out into the seemingly endless expanse for hours, even if the bluster from the Arrowhead Mountains beyond made him shiver. It was especially magical when the sun was setting and the sky turned golden at its edges. His mother had assigned him rooms angled to the northwest for both the breeze and the view, and even when at her busiest, she'd always found time to come and enjoy them with him.

Lux curled his hands into fists on the railing and squeezed his eyes shut, willing away memories of tracing the beautiful twists and curls of her tattoos – tattoos he would've gotten, too, if he'd lasted more than a year representing Onderon – as they stood watching the sun slip beneath the horizon. He couldn't start missing her. Not now, when it hurt most to remember.

Alynna's voice floated from the room behind him, and the sound of it jarred him back to the present. "You'll get sick, standing out there in the cold like that."

Calmness returned. It was such a simple thing to say, and not even something she'd given her full attention – but its caring intent touched him.

He glanced back to find her still sitting in the chair she'd appropriated before he'd stepped out onto the balcony, engrossed in a news report. He'd offered her full access to the villa's library, but since their arrival two days before she'd asked only for a datapad with a good HoloNet connection to check the newsfeeds.

"That's a superstition best limited to over-worried grandparents," Lux said at last in a gentle retort, walking back into the room.

Alynna shrugged. She didn't acknowledge him by looking up, but he could tell from her voice her focus was more on him now than her broadcasts. "Hey, some viruses thrive in cooler, drier temperatures – and it's nothing like Kyzeron here. How should I know what a Human immune system is able to screen?"

"Next you'll be telling me to put on a sweater."

"Will not. I'm not your mother, nor do I want to be. You're not... oh."

Lux forced himself to smile and meet her gaze, and found a strange blend of pity and empathy in her eyes.

"Forgive me, Master," she said, scrambling to her feet and bowing low. The holographic displays on the discarded datapad morphed into strange shapes as they struck the velvet upholstery. "I meant no offence."

"None of that. There's nothing to forgive. But don't begrudge me the balcony if you can help it, all right? It's... a place of memories." Focus on the good parts, Lux thought, tucking his arms behind his back and standing straight. "I often wish I had a balcony in Kyzeron, but Father insists it's a security risk."

"Does he think you're in any danger from a balcony?" Alynna asked in a tone that bordered on sarcastic. Things between the fight against the repurposed commando droids and the bacta tank were still hazy, he remembered her scathing tirade about his training conditions as she'd hauled him to the medical bay quite well. Clearly she didn't think very highly of his father's definition of a security risk – and with the sleemos in the corridor and the uprising at the auction, the last few days couldn't have changed her mind.

The auction. Lux smiled despite a curl of unease in the pit of his stomach as he remembered the incident – keep calm, Lux, you can't fight grief and panic both – and said, "I'm sure he has his reasons."

A strong gust of wind at his back made him wince. Alynna raised a brow, and, hoping to forestall further argument, he pulled the double doors shut behind him. The hinges were a wondrous construction that swung noiselessly, unlike the grating swish of standard doors; the only sound that reached him was the click of the lock.

"Well, I guess the balcony makes for a charming novelty," Alynna said, motioning behind him, "but what I really can't get over are the doors."

"Interesting, aren't they? This villa was built fifty years ago or so in the thick of a movement to reconnect with very early history. According to the few records still left to us, thousands of years ago, before the discovery of hyperdrives or even trans-planetary travel, people lived in rooms much like these. My mother was never big on trends," Lux said, feeling his excited ramble slow, weighed down by another wave of memories, "but she believed to be forward-thinking you need a good sense of where you've come from; what needs to change about it and what doesn't."

"Do you..." Alynna swallowed, looking vaguely like an animal that wanted to flee. "Do you want to talk about it? I'm not good with politics, but I had a... friend once who really valued Mina Bonteri's insight. She seemed like a good person."

"She was. One of the best, but I think I'm biased." It was too close to the time of year he'd grown to hate – the weeks when everything he'd ever known had fallen apart. Hoping to change the subject before Alynna latched onto it, he added, "What about your family? You seem to know so much about my life, but I don't know really know anything about yours. What are they like?"

Alynna froze, and Lux cursed his indelicacy. If her relatives were still living, she'd almost certainly been separated from them ages ago. That was just like him, stumbling over himself and everyone else as he tried to get his emotions to rights–

"I don't know where to begin," she said, resuming her seat.

Lux took one beside her, squeezing her hand reassuringly where it lay limp on her armrest. "You don't need to. I'm sorry, that was too forward of me. A person's past is theirs to share or keep to themself as they wish."

"No. No, it's only fair. We're kinda stuck with each other, aren't we? You've said you prefer the company of equals. We might as well try to be friends."

Lux beamed. Friends. It had been a long time since he'd had one of those. There were many fine young people who were appropriately connected for him to socialize with as he chose – or rather as his father chose –, but everyone he'd ever felt he could really trust was dead or lost to him now.

She lied to your father at the auction. She abandoned you to him, and then she disappeared, a voice whispered inside him. Lux shook it away. Alynna had seen someone suffering in the arena and tried to help. People with intentions as noble as those deserved second chances, and Lux had to keep an open mind.

"I told you I was born on Shili, right? Well, I was raised in a society a bit like a big family, where everyone plays a part in raising the young," she continued. "When I was of age to learn my... trade, I was given a teacher a few years older than me. He was skilled, but young and impulsive. From what I've heard, the elders thought we'd eventually temper each other out. I'm not sure it worked." A hint of a wistful smile broke through the unreadable look on her face. "I spent years with him and the man who'd taught him, and they became like my brother and my uncle."

Lux opened his mouth to speak then closed it. He wanted to ask their names, but he had a feeling she was trying to avoid giving them. It wouldn't do to press her.

"My family grew with the Clone Wars. We lost many of our elders and young in the conflict, and we grieved for them, but it was in our nature to help others. So many came to us as comrades, or to rally behind us. We were a symbol of hope for a new life when the war was over. My brother and I did our best to be that for them."

Lux nodded. Many charitable families had taken in orphans and refugees displaced by the fighting, and Togruta had a notorious tendency to pack-bond. "What happened to them?" he asked tentatively. "Your brother and your uncle?"

"The war ended. Then everything changed. The Empire rose, and like a lot of vocal Republic supporters, my family was hunted down. I don't know how many survived." Alynna crossed her arms, her fingers digging into the sleeves of the loose tunic she'd borrowed from one of the serving girls. Her gaze dropped to her lap. "A few months in, my uncle got separated from our traveling group. Then, a year ago, my brother was lost trying to cover my escape. I didn't make it out, either, but I haven't seen him since. I... I try to keep my hopes up that he's still alive, but it's hard, sometimes. It feels like the galaxy is against me."

"I know what you mean," Lux murmured.

Alynna looked up, her white brows furrowed. "What?"

"That feeling like the galaxy is against you. I've felt the same way."

Steela. Saw. Dono. Peyden. Kati. General Tandin. All his other comrades in arms. The galaxy had been against them, too – and in the critical moment, Lux had failed them. In his weaker moments, he wondered if he was doomed to live on even after every person he'd ever loved had fallen dead at his feet.

"Because of your mother?" Alynna asked softly. Her expressionless mask was lifting, now, and beneath it her blue eyes were warm. She understood. She thought him entitled and cowardly – she'd said as much outside his family's private box at the auction – and they'd been on different sides of the war, but she understood.

No, he wanted to say. But his friends were a private grief, fresher still than even his feelings about his mother's murder. He couldn't mourn them all at once and stay sane; he could barely think of his mother as it was without shrinking in on himself. But Alynna's calmness and empathy made it a little easier to remember, and, after a moment, he found the strength to speak.

"My mother, yes," he said. "And also my father. In his stint in the Separatist Armada, he was given a mission to set up an outpost on Aargonar. It was attacked, and though they never found a body, my mother and I were sure he was dead."

"I heard about that." Alynna made a face. "There are some real loudmouths on the palace kitchen staff, you know."

"Let me guess. There was also a lot of talk about my relationship status."

Alynna's montrals and lekku reddened to the point that some of her blue stripes looked vaguely mauve. "Well..."

Lux smiled faintly. "I did a lot of eavesdropping of my own in my early days in Noreino House. I was a novelty to the servants – I still am, I suppose, with how bad I am at fitting in – and novelty makes fantastic fuel for gossip."

"Wonder what they're saying about me, then."

Dozens of salacious rumors the gossip mill could spin at Alynna's expense sprang to mind, and images of what they entailed soon followed. "Don't dwell on it," Lux said quickly, mortified. She gave him a curious look, and he cleared his throat, embarrassed he was so transparent. "It's not worth thinking about."

Alynna's flush hadn't completely abated, and Lux wondered if that was a coincidence or not. "Anyways," she said, "I interrupted you. I'm sorry."

Lux blinked. "Oh. Yes. Well, I found out later that a specialized strike team had been sent in to rescue him before Republic forces he could capture him. His injuries were extensive, but to thank him for his loyalty, Count Dooku brought my father into his counsel. The nature of what he learned there was so sensitive, and his role in it so critical, that he wasn't allowed to return home to my mother and me, or even send word to us that he was alive."

"But he came back for you."

"He did. I was in some trouble–" which was the understatement of the century, but technically the truth, and Lux didn't want to go over the rest of it just now, "–and he broke every mandate Dooku had ever given him just to get back to Onderon and rescue me."

In that moment, with his cape flowing behind him and a vibroblade clenched in his hand, Zakhan Noreino had seemed a knight from one of the great classics – a beloved savior returned from the dead to set his son free. His father had been a hero to Onderon even then, and King Rash and his executioner droids hadn't dared to stand in his way.

In that moment, Lux had felt perfectly safe. It hadn't lasted.

"Is that why you follow him?"

"Pardon?"

Alynna raised a shoulder in half a shrug. "I might've been bluffing a little when I said a week was enough time to get to know you well, but with what you said at the auction, I know the two of you couldn't be more different. The Lord Imperator would've left me for dead in a heartbeat back there, but you..."

Lux opened his mouth to reply, to tell her his father was the only real family he had left and that Lux had to stand by him, but something about the way she'd said it rankled him. He'd expressed fears of his father's retribution to her in the privacy of the alcove outside, but nothing to fully convince someone that he disagreed with his father's views.

Lux already knew she was a good actress, able to adapt to whatever roles were required of her and move quickly between them. What were faking tears and smearing a little blood on a skirt to someone with abilities like those? Was it possible that this open, empathetic Alynna was just another façade?

Half of him bristled at the accusation, but he held firm. He had to know that he could trust her, and there was only one way to find out. They'd been dancing around each other since they first met, second-guessing and feinting away the minute things started to look grim. Lux had had enough of it.

"You were listening at the door when I was repairing the shield," he said, hardly above a whisper. Alynna blanched, and he knew she'd heard him.

"What? I–" She broke off when she caught the look in his eyes, and instantly averted her gaze. A long silence stretched between them before she finally replied. "Yes, I was. For a minute or two. Before that I was... with the others."

That was also an issue, but one for another time. "Can I trust you, Alynna?"

Another pause. Lux held his breath.

"No," she said.

Lux reached for the tiny blaster tucked into the back of his belt.

"You're kind when you don't have to be, and you have an open heart – and you understand. I haven't met anyone like that in a long time." Alynna's expression hardened a little, resolute and unapologetic, and Lux felt the truth in it – the same truth he'd always felt from Steela. Every shade of herself Alynna had shown him up until now was a part of the whole, magnified or downplayed as needed. But this, at last, was the sum of her. "But let's get to what's really been bothering you, okay? How I tried to save that Mirialan Jedi at the auction."

Lux nodded. Second chances, he repeated like a mantra. Second chances.

"You're torn between trust and fear for your life. I get that, and it's not fair to you, but you should know something about me. I swore I wouldn't let harm come to you. It's why I came back at the auction instead of letting things play out another way, and added to the cycle of violence. But the Jedi were kind to me, once. If I find an opportunity to help them beyond mourning that woman's death, I'll take it."

Lux could still hear the distant crash of the waves through the durasteel and glass double doors out onto the balcony, and Alynna's words were so seditious he checked they were closed on reflex. She'd essentially confirmed sympathy for the Rebellion and the few Jedi in the galaxy who still walked free, but she'd gambled well. She'd spoken them to someone she knew would understand – at least in part.

Lux's thoughts whirled, colliding and scattering and colliding again – the Jedi abandoned us the Republic's hands were tied the Separatists said they'd help but they were worse. He said the first thing he could pin down in its entirety, washed up to shore like a bedraggled shell from the Inland Sea: "Teach me."

"What?"

"Teach me to fight like you can." Now is not the time to be thinking about Naboo Senators and Jedi and plots – unless they're my own, he thought, and a plan came to him. "We'll call it insurance. Teach me everything you know. If you break your oath not to hurt me, I'll be able to defend myself against you. If you keep your word, I'll owe you one for the means to defend myself against other threats."

Alynna looked unsure. He managed a smile for her, though it was more wry than encouraging. "I won't lie," he continued. "What happened at the auction house scared me, and I'm learning kriff-all from the blockheaded trainer my father scraped up. With only a few words of advice from you, I won a fight against people who might've killed me. As far as I'm concerned, that means we could make a good team."

Slowly, as though aware his blaster was still well within his reach, she rose to her feet and extended a hand to him. Lux did the same, and she clasped his forearm.

He had no way of knowing she'd pass on everything she'd been taught in turn by her mysterious brother and uncle. But from the sharp, self-assured look in her blue eyes, he had a feeling she'd keep her promise.

"Agreed, with the soul of Barriss Offee as my witness. We start tomorrow."

Ahsoka appears to have made peace with Barriss' death now that she has a new objective in mind – and Lux has heard a partial disclosure of her past and her motivations. But while their interests align for the moment, the whole truth is still far beyond his grasp. What secrets will come to light as they train together? Now that she's from the Noreino family's resources in Kyzeron, how will Ahsoka continue her mission to find Anakin? And, more pressingly still, how will the coming of Darth Vader affect her plans? Only time will tell...

One of the concepts I really cherished from the original draft of SOTE was Ahsoka telling Lux veiled stories about her past with a lot of metaphor and misdirection. But of course, not so much that she can't simply tell him

Ahsoka's little story this chapter is an example of that. She begins it it with Shili so Lux correlates whatever she says next with a Togruta society, but nowhere does she tell him she was actually raised there. Working within loose, almost fairytale-esque terms will give her a measure of anonymity, which Lux comments on, but still allow Lux to get to know her better.

I heard some requests for fluff, and I promise, that's coming (we've seen with Anidala, Haneia AND Obitine that some time away in a beautiful place is a fertile soil for love to bloom) but before I got to that, they had to discuss some things as a team. Ahsoka went a little crazy at the auction house, and Lux got a sense of that. He's been betrayed before, so he has to know if he can trust her, and this was her way of clearing it up. For the sake of her mission to find Anakin, of course, and absolutely no other reason...

It was also a convenient place to clear up what her stance was on Barriss' death. After this point, there will often be skips of a few days or even a week between chapters, and Ahsoka will have a lot more to fill her time than simply dwelling on the past. A moment of reckoning is approaching, and she'll need all her faculties to face it.

See you guys in the next chapter!