#kira carsen

keldae:

Korin had, for the last several years, prided himself on being the type of person who couldn’t be tied down. He had at least one partner in just about every port he came into (even the ones in Imperial Space), and hadn’t had one single dedicated significant other in… he paused in thought. Literally forever. Sure, he’d been witness to a dedicated marriage once or twice in his life – look at his parents, where his father had all but worshipped the ground his mother had walked on. But that, he swore, wasn’t for him.

And it especially wasn’t for him where a Jedi was concerned. Never minding the little detail that Jedi typically didn’t go for such things as “marriage” and “dedication” and “family”. In some respects, one might have thought that the smuggler would have pursued a Jedi far earlier, with the shared lack of inclination to attachments and so forth – except they made up for that with their rules and preachy-ness, which was even less appealing to the spacer.

He definitely never expected to find himself here, in a field in the middle of nowhere on Dantooine (like the entire planet wasn’t the “middle of nowhere”), gazing up at the stars instead of flying through them. His companion murmured something about an old legend of ancient lovers being set among the stars as constellations, but Korin wasn’t paying close attention. Instead, his focus was directed to Kira’s bright hair, and gleaming blue eyes, and the smile on her pretty face. She was far from the only pretty girl he’d seen, or even the only pretty Jedi he’d met, and yet…

This is it, isn’t it, he finally realized. This was the feeling that had made his father abandon the Empire and swap his loyalties to the Republic, and to his Jedi mother. This was the feeling that had made a Green Jedi fall for a nominally-hostile offworlder, so long ago. This was… He was reluctant to put a name to it, but he knew the feeling, of butterflies in his chest and yet, something more intense and long-lasting than that. This was…

“Credit for your thoughts.” Kira nudged him, drawing his attention back to the present; the stars reflected off her eyes, a vivid blue that Korin could see whenever he closed his eyes and thought of his sister’s former Padawan.

“Nah,” he snorted. “My thoughts ain’t worth a credit, if you ask my asshole of a little brother.”

“Yeah, but he’s Sith.. even if he’s nice for a Sith.” Kira smirked. “I’m not known for taking advice from Imps, no matter how friendly. C’mon, open up.”

Any other Jedi asking that, even his sister, and Korin would have shut up faster than a vault in a Hutt palace. Instead, he shrugged. “It’s a nice night,” he finally said. “An’ the company’s good too.”

Kira snorted a laugh. “Nice to know I’m better company than the inside of your ship,” she said, amusement in her voice. “You get much of a chance to just admire the stars when you’re not flying around them?”

“No,” Korin finally admitted. “This is different, but… it’s nice.” It really was nice, to have a pretty girl (even if she was a Jedi, and his sister’s Padawan at that) snuggled up under his arm, with a clear view of the galaxy and Dantooine’s constellations over his head. But there was no way to put that into words without making this weird. And Kira was, among other things, a really good fuck buddy. Why ruin a good thing with words and feelings?

“This is nice,” Kira agreed. A moment later, Korin felt her head resting on his chest as she snuggled in closely to him. “This is really nice. I’m glad you could stay an extra night.”

“Me too,” the smuggler agreed as he ran his fingers through Kira’s hair and sighed in contentment. Even if he didn’t want to give a name to this feeling, it was still a really nice feeling, one that he wanted to hang onto forever.

Echoes of Oblivion