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I'm super curious about Cele as a character... Always love to see her in the sketches/illustrations/mini-rants!! :D

I'd love to hear any random fact you have about her, but I've been curious for a while, how did her romance with Arcann develop?

omg … you like her? Twirling my hair and kicking my feet … my blorbo <3

I did see your other ask and I’m chugging away on it because it’s taking a little extra thought than I thought it would, so please bear with me while I set the kitchen on fire with that AU.

But! Cele and Arcann, my beloved actual enemies to lovers arc. I briefly talked about them a while ago (I thought it was more recently and that I’d surely said something since then but no, apparently not), but then realized that not only is it a little outdated as of finishing up the most recent content, I hadn’t exactly made much of an effort to explain the A-to-B very clearly either. After all, how does a Jedi and the sister of the Outlander come around to eventually being courted by the ex-Emperor of Zakuul? Fair question to ask without the most obvious answer.

This starts off about as rough as you can probably imagine.

Cele’s first encounter with Arcann directly was actually on Asylum. Yes, she knew of him beforehand obviously, but had never faced him down prior to their daring escape from the station. And it goes pretty poorly, as one might expect. They don’t even talk that time because Cele watches him stab his brother through and then she throws a bulkhead at him, hoping it’d kill him. Ouch. Talk about a crazy meetcute. I’m not sure Arcann even bothered remembering what she looked like afterwards, but the new scars on him certainly kept score. I’m inclined to believe that Cele hadn’t publicly been part of the Council in quite a few years and Arcann had no reference for whatever a Barsen’thor might be, so they start off with just sheer animosity on both sides.

A small aside, Cele does have phantom pains for a while afterwards. It’s a side effect of an acute reignition of her force bond with her brother, so while not as severe, she certainly did feel that stab for quite a while afterwards.

This is pretty par for the course with them actually. The Alliance fights against the Eternal Empire, Cele and Arcann inevitably end up encountering each other, they probably fight, and then they both run off to lick their wounds before the next one. Again, and again, and again. Cele is not at all sympathetic to him considering just how many times him and his Empire land her brother in the medbay, no matter what Senya tells her. Given, she and Senya have their own issues (that aren’t really Senya’s fault) so it all just kind of compounds into hate for him. I think over time Arcann logs in the back of his mind that the Alliance is harboring an incredibly strong force user among their ranks, maybe even eventually puts a name to the face, but it doesn’t go beyond that when his main focus is Zanya. He doesn’t really have any reason to … yet.

Of course, that’s until their final fight at the end of chapter sixteen. Cele refuses to let Zanya 1v1 him because the very idea is ridiculous when she’s right there to help him. He can’t get rid of her this time. So the pair of them make not-all-that-short work of Arcann together, and canon proceeds as it does in the game. Zanya doesn’t shoot the pair of them down when they try to escape, but Cele fails to understand that decision. There isn’t long enough during that fight for either of them to realize much of anything, just for Arcann to nearly take her arm off and for Cele to nearly shatter his mask. Amazing work, truly, on both sides.

Time passes, and Arcann gets taken in by the Alliance as he does in canon after Vaylin’s party. Not that Cele is happy about it. She believes in redemption for a lot of people, it’s part of her character, but for Arcann she doesn’t extend this sympathy at first. Or really at all during those first few months. She’s at least a mostly quiet stewer, but she doesn’t approve of him being there on Odessen. She doesn’t want him around and makes a very clear effort to never be somewhere he is unless strictly necessary. Considering she keeps a decent lid on her force signature most of the time, the only thing he can glean from her is a serene sort of calm that feels distinctly fake. Like it just isn’t quite right. A curtain pulled over a transparisteel screen that he isn’t able to exactly pull aside and understand what streams out from underneath. Not that he makes much effort by then to reach out to her. He has bigger problems (Vaylin) and also knows where he isn’t wanted. They steer clear of each other until the end of that expansion, and for things calm down a little before they face each other properly.

Attraction is minimal at best immediately afterwards. Trust is in very short supply, and Cele is … indirectly hostile a good portion of the time about Vaylin (who does survive Eternal Throne in my canon), Senya and Arcann himself. The former and latter are more because of their external actions than what they represent, but it is hard to make any headway there. Cele may be forgiving, but she can hold a hell of a grudge when she wants to. Arcann is under zero impression he deserves much forgiveness from anyone, and has resigned to the fact that he may not make any progress with most people on the inner council when Zanya takes him on as an advisor for what to do with Zakuul in the aftermath. But, the Force Enclave continues to grow, and Cele can’t ignore everyone that comes in anymore. Arcann makes himself scarce usually for everyone else’s comfort and tends to come and go after peak hours — which is also what Cele does on days that overstimulate and exhaust her. When they realize their schedules overlap, they try to reorganize them to avoid the other but end up unsuccessful. They think far too alike for that to work, so they end up sharing the common spaces, just on opposite sides of the hall.

What does act as a kick off point is when Arcann actually seeks her out privately. Less so to spend time with Cele specifically, and moreso because he has an inkling she may be the only person besides his mother to a) entertain sparring with him and b) be able to keep up with him at his full capabilities. They’ve both had quite a lot of time to be able to analyze the other and their skills, and they know that they really can only step up to each other. Arcann is far better at lightsaber combat than Cele is, but she can give anyone a run for their money with her command of the Force and the abilities it lends her.

Lot of yammering to basically say that they acknowledge they’re both very strong people and could use the challenge. Not that Cele asks. Cele will never take the first step unless she wants to, and she doesn’t.

So, he shows up to her combat training hours one slow day, and after some convincing (which I am attempting to write about) they end up sparring together for a few hours. It’s quiet, it’s tense, they’re suspicious of each other and are clearly holding back. Cele can’t get a read on Arcann because she’s expecting him to be a lot more forward than he is. Arcann can’t get a read on Cele because she won’t actually put her full capabilities on display. It ends in a stalemate — both of them know the other could’ve put them into the dirt if they wanted to, and they didn’t. That opens up a whole lot of questions that neither of them can really answer, and it makes them curious. Both of them are still discovering who exactly they are (Arcann after having been under Valkorian for so long and Cele figuring out who she is independent of the Jedi and her family after Valkorian’s death almost fully severed her bond with Zanya), so it puts them on even footing of just being unsure of their place in the galaxy.

Curiosity is the killer of most cats, and they aren’t safe from it either. Cele is a bit perturbed by his interest in her, but that ends up dragging her back to him after the Enclave has cleared out another night. Cele is a bit cagey about her reasons, she still wants to know what exactly made him turn a new leaf and want to work with the Alliance. It doesn’t make sense to her, and against her better judgement, she wants to understand. Mostly so she can feel him out for any lingering influence from Valkorian, but also just because she doesn’t trust him. I think Arcann realizes this slightly (Cele can be very good at being subtle when she wants to be), but not fully and explains to her as much about his desire for atonement. For doing better than the hand he was dealt and becoming someone else, someone that he now has the chance to be. He doesn’t expect anyone’s forgiveness for what he’s done, but at least with the Alliance he can work towards putting his home and the galaxy right.

He asks what she’s fighting for, if she’s been with the Alliance this long. Not to pass judgement, but to understand. She’s a founding member and fought harder than anyone else did during the war. Now that it was over, didn’t she have somewhere else to be? Something else to do? Cele gets a little defensive about it, saying that she’d be remiss to leave her brothers on their own and that as the Barsen’thor, she had a responsibility to do so. There was no other place for her. She’s fighting for a better tomorrow, just like anyone else. But truth of the matter that she leaves out — she’s going a bit stir-crazy. There’s so much to do, but also so little that she can be hands on with. The galaxy is gearing up for war with little skirmishes, but the Council isn’t just going to forgive and forget her literal desertion from them just because of Zakuul. She does admit aloud that she has nowhere else to be, and the choices that got made were the necessary ones to land her here, even if they stung. They had to be right.

Specifically, not that they were, but that they had to be.

Arcann only says that it sounds more like she’s trying to prove that she is to him than actually believing it, which only serves to annoy her and remind him that he was the one she was defending everyone from for quite a few years there. Not like he denies it, but they do end up arguing a little about self-perception. He’s changed, yes, but he can’t force her to see him differently. Just as much as she can’t force him to see her any particular way. I don’t think Cele likes the idea of him having an image of her in his mind that she can’t control — but he’s not from the main galaxy. Wild Space doesn’t have the same understanding of Jedi, Sith and the responsibilities most of them carry. Not to even mention that they have incredibly different understandings of the Force itself, which Cele holds incredibly tightly with zero deviation from.

Which kind of boils down to why their shared stories and eventual friendship works. They’re at a similar crossroads with their identities, and they’re in the middle of working on themselves. That’s where they find each other at this moment in time, and while it does cause tempers to flare, they have a lot of these philosophical discussions as time goes on. What makes someone who they are, and is this a static facet of their person or can it be changed? Cele ends up grappling a lot with her ideas of what it means to be someone outside of the rigid idea of a protector. Arcann ends up spending a lot of time figuring out who he is outside of the fate that he was assigned his whole life. And these ideals come out in these little sparring excursions they have.

Sometimes they’re lighter, where they’re willing to talk about the going ons of the Alliance between bouts or even during them. Ones where their focus isn’t on really taking the other person down, but instead to learn them and their habits, their choices, their defenses and weaknesses. Other times they don’t want to say much, and really just need an outlet to take their veiled frustrations out on something else. Cele can be pushed to frustration, and she is during the traitor arc. It’s a byproduct of her brother’s emotions but also she feels the Alliance slipping in the new era they’ve entered, and is terrified for what that means for a nebulous future. Arcann is as much at a loss as many others are, and is met at every turn with a level of suspicion that he understandably can’t shake off. There is no easy way forward, and everyone has their terrible days where nothing feels like the right decision, especially regarding his family. Other days where it feels like that anger has nowhere to go (partially because he’s not sure if he’s allowed to have it after everything that’s happened), and he’s obviously not allowed to show that around most others without them getting ideas about him.

Sometimes they’re sounding boards for each other. Other times they just need the other person to not feel so alone. Over time they start to realize that bit by bit, they aren’t actually all that different from each other. Similar experiences of expectations thrust upon them from a young age and the feeling of failing them, becoming someone they never wanted to be and trying to recover from all the damage done to them. Neither of them has to be perfect around the other, even if they very much still harbor their prejudices and judgements towards each other, because there’s nothing they can say they haven’t heard or told themselves before. All the messy and jagged edges they have can be shown in that forest clearing Cele discovers one afternoon, and they can leave all those maligned feelings there.

I don’t think they think they can actually fix each other but they do think that they can be honest. And really, that’s all either of them have ever needed. Not that they’ll say they needed it, to admit to that weaknesses would be like taking a pike to the skull, but at some point it becomes less about the spars and blowing off steam than it becomes about being people rather than titles and assumptions.

Cele shares about Ekta as Arcann supplements stories about Senya. Arcann relives tales of himself and his siblings as Cele adds in ones about her brothers. They get quiet about their fathers, the mistakes they made with their families, the hard times that befell them. Whispers of how much they wish things were different. Had been different.

Arcann is the person Cele goes to when she’s terrified Zanya is becoming someone that she can’t save during the traitor arc. Someone that she recognizes and doesn’t want to. Expresses that she’s seen what love like that does to people, and struggles to understand how to help or whether it’s worth getting that deeply involved with anyone. He has no idea.

He comes to her when he’s concerned about Vaylin. About her readjusting to life outside the Empire, outside of who she was before. About how deep Valkorian’s influence runs, how deep the consequences of his actions and inaction run. How much guilt manifests when he thinks about what he could’ve and should’ve done. She equally has no idea.

That evening they come to the conclusion that it does matter that the love exists. It might not change anything, probably can serve to make it worse, but it matters that it was there and that’s the only thing they can really hold onto.

And that’s how they get closer to each other. Vulnerability is weird and it sucks and it’s really hard to deal with sometimes, but it’s nice to be able to develop that with someone else. The resolution of the traitor arc comes and goes, and Arcann and Cele become tentative friends. They let each other into their lives, and start to find they have a lot of other, non-pressing commonalities.

Cele is also just someone that likes to learn about other cultures, which Arcann is happy to inform her about. They end up sharing a lot of their respective backgrounds and swapping notes. It’s not a full 180 at first, Cele still prickles and Arcann can manage to get annoyed by her, but it’s comfortable. It’s the beginning of something, and I think most people can tell there aren’t really any active hostilities between them anymore. If anything, they bring a level of peace to each other that it seems no one else has managed to. This is where that inseperability seems to come from for others — where one goes, the other usually follows. I’m not sure they realize how this comes off to other people, but being able to trust someone else like that is invaluable.

Echoes of Oblivion comes and goes. Cele isn’t involved on that mission, actually, solely because if something went sideways, Zanya needed her not to be anywhere near Valkorian (he was depending on her to pull him out through their bond if need be). I’d argue almost that Arcann didn’t want her there either, which opens into a little bit of an argument. Zanya had a reason, Arcann doesn’t really besides a request for her to be out of harm’s way. Valkorian had never touched her beforehand, not even on Ziost, but if he knew how important she was to Zanya, he’d come after her and he didn’t want that to happen.

(There’s an unspoken fact that she’s also important to him — and he doesn’t want her hurt by his father if he uses her against him. Not that he says that, but he hesitates long enough that Cele starts to suspect something’s up with him.)

To that end, there’s no clear consensus I’ve come to on who fell first and who fell harder here. They evolve pretty neatly from good friends to something in a weird grey area of being rather devoted to each other that they can’t put a name on. Between all those quiet moments stolen away from everyone else and the way that no matter where they get sent, they have each other’s back — Cele realizes it feels … unfortunately inevitable to have her heart start acting up whenever he’s around.

Arcann has no presumption of her besides the version of her he knows now. The Force Enclave leader and a woman with an interest in textiles. He doesn’t know her as the perfect Barsen’thor that could do no wrong, he’s seen her scars and her worse moments and decided that it was still worth being around her. Similarly, while Cele certainly had her (very correct) biases about him after the war, she’s afforded him a level of humanity that others tend not to, or have been slower to do so. She sees him for his faults, but there are also new memories that eclipse them. And she tells him as much, that he’s more than the shadows in his mind convince him he is.

Unshakable loyalty and devotion is what colors their relationship I think. They’re both people who feel very deeply, and once they’re friends, they aren’t leaving the other one behind. They like being around each other, they act as a calming force and also someone that makes them feel full. Makes them feel like more than they are, and gives them the confidence to look forward. And they push each other a lot. Make each other think, make each other confront the things they hide behind.

Allow me the cliche that messes everything up to hell though.

I’ve been saying that Dueling Hearts doesn’t slot as neatly as I need it to in Arcann and Cele’s relationship timeline, so I fit it actually at the very beginning of their romantic one. They end up wanting to see how far they can take the other, and have their fun one evening sometime shortly before the beginning of Onslaught. They’ve certainly changed over the years, and try to one up the other a few times. Whether Arcann misses a step or Cele ends up losing her footing is sort of unclear, but they end tripping over each other to land in your very tropey position on the ground — Arcann braced above her while neither of them are breathing.

Nerds.

This is far less about them sizing each other up and a lot more about realizing things that they perhaps had never noticed before but also things they were very much denying themselves.

Cele is terrified of loving someone and then being too much for them, so she simply never thought to ask anyone to be a partner to her. Arcann has always acknowledged who he is, but still fear some of it may be just too big an ask to give to someone else.

The only person that’s accepted either of them wholeheartedly is now staring at them with wide eyes. The Force feels wildly charged, and neither of them know what to do until Cele sits up too fast and they knock heads together. Which then turns into her rapid fire apologizing and making sure she hasn’t hurt Arcann, warm hands cupping his face to check that there isn’t a bruise or anything while he tries not to think about how close she is or how gently she handles him.

Cele realizes his eyes are very, very blue and shine ever so slightly in the moonlight.

They call it quits for the night a little while later, mostly embarrassed and trying not to linger on that encounter. That’s where the real possibility for romantic love starts, and they both grapple with that separately. Given, they also realize the other is keeping something from them, and aren’t sure what it is. Their interactions change some, and while their friendship remains intact, they start wondering about what an additional relationship would do to them. Could they? Should they? The stories that they’ve been harboring for years are all on display now, there’s no hiding the ugly parts of themself from the other person because they’ve already shared them. The other person stayed, but would they stay if they knew their feelings had changed in relation to them?

That not knowing is what kills them. What also doesn’t help is that half the base already thinks they’re together. Zanya assumed as much and Cele couldn’t stop thinking about it. I’m sure Senya implied as much that she didn’t know what they were to each other, but encouraged her son nonetheless. Much to Arcann’s awkward thanks, but that there was nothing to worry about at least.

There was quite a lot to worry about.

So they do what anyone would do. Dance around it for months until it becomes unbearable enough that all their feelings came spilling out like a faucet.

And to that end, they gift each other those explanations.

Arcann, I think, is far more honest with himself than Cele is, even years later. So, he takes what he knows about metalworking and crafts Cele a pair of butterfly wings to wear as gold earrings. A melodic little bell comes with them, obviously meant as a novelty gift, but also meant to represent the change and growth they’ve both gone through over time. Their journeys together meant a lot to him, and while they haven’t ended, he’s glad to have been there for her — while she did the same for him.

Cele ends up crafting a scarf for him. Also in gold, because how cheesy can one be? Really it’s more of a soft yellow, but she makes it because she wanted to give him something soft. Useful, but something kind as well. He’s far more than what he’s capable of, even if he’s continually trying to be to make up for what happened beforehand. She likes to think it’s a good reminder of the side she’s seen, the Arcann that has been there for her and the one that has laughed, cried and been by her side without even asking. It’s her saying that she wants to be his soft place to land, and that she’ll be by side no matter what.

(Both of them have worn these objects in previous doodles of mine hehehe)

So this conversation comes towards the end of Onslaught, mostly because while the galaxy is pulling the Alliance in too many different directions, they realize that even if it is a shot in the dark, it’s worth taking when there’s so much left unknown. When the galaxy is unsure of itself, they want to let the other know they can depend on them.

Arcann ends up surprising her with a picnic, out near a waterfall in the wilds. Not unlike the first time they met after the war ended, and they spend ages talking back and forth until there’s nothing more to say. Or, there is, but they’ve exhausted all their usual topics. Silence is not atypical between them, it’s usually rather comfortable, but today it’s different and it feels weird. Off.

He starts, she starts, they both almost cut each other and pause. Gifts her the earrings, settling in to explain why these and why now. It’s hard to leave out that they’re meant to be affectionate, that all of this is meant to be something far more than just a regular outing. And he doesn’t leave that out. He says it honestly and fully that he’s fallen for her, and she has his heart, if she wants it. If she doesn’t, it won’t change their friendship, but that’s how he feels.

And Cele is just. Bewildered. Befuddled. Stunned, perhaps is the best word because while this is the best case scenario, she just didn’t think it’d happen. That Arcann would feel the same for her, that he’d feel as strongly about her as she does for him. It’s rather clear in the way she can’t get a word out, trying and failing to say what she really means. That she does feel the same. That she wants this — him, as much as he does her. Cele’s never been good with words like that, and she struggles for a while until she does say yes. Yes, that she does want to be his. That her heart has long belonged to him, and that she wants to see what and who they become together.

They’re adorable, just trust me. The way they smile at each other like they’ve just given each other the world, the relief that settles now that all they wanted to say is out in the open and the fact that they don’t have to hide what they mean anymore is so gratifying neither of them moves for a minute.

Of course, not to be left empty-handed, she does gift him the scarf. He dips his head to let her don it around his neck, and yes, another lovely cliche, she gently tugs him in by the ends and asks if she can kiss him.

He answers he would like nothing more.

Cele certainly gets quite a few more than just one. She steals plenty, he does the same, but they’re just happy enough that they were of the same feelings. To dip so deeply into someone else as much as they have you, it makes them feel like they’ve added something so beautifully satisfying to their lives after everything they’ve been through.

And that settles them into how they are now. Two years into their relationship, and facing the unknown. I have more to say about how their now-romantic relationships colors their interactions with both each other and their loved ones, but I’ve yammered on enough with this post LMAO.

Thanks for asking!!

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more time travel. always more time travel.