Itās taking a while, but I still intend to get all these done. To that end, here is the first of several prompts that hopefully will roll out over the next few days/weeks.
SWTOR 8 -Ā Happiest VS Saddest (part 1 - Happiest)
He didnāt know when it had happened. Ā
Once all heād known was duty and honour, which later twisted into necessity and survival thanks to his decision to work for the Empire. It had been difficult to find the honour in a duty which required the assassination of innocents and the usage of fellow sentients as tools; one of many sacrifices Taregāeraiānuruodo had to make in order to stay alive.
But now?
The familiar smell of hot engine grease filled the air as he regarded the legs sticking out from under the turbine. They shifted erratically, their owner grunting and swearing to himself as he tried to get into just the right position to reach the compressor - just as he had been for the last fifteen minutes or so.
Gerain was ostensibly there to assist the repairs, but had known ahead of time to bring a datapad with him. Kyr was never able to reach that particular spot without a lot of trial and error, and to judge by the fluent epithets in many languages flowing from the hunter, the choice to bring reading material had been a good one.
It was whilst he sat there that Gerain realised that he wasnāt reading. Instead, heād been watching the legs wriggle and strain with a rising sense of warmth beyond that of the engine room. With a start heād realised he was smiling, affection suffusing even his natural cool demeanour.
He was happy. When had that happened?
āGer, stop giggling and get me the hydrospanner!ā
Gerain started out as my usual sort of staid, noble character, hiding a lot of his emotions deep within his cool Chiss Agent exterior to the point even he wasnāt certain what he was feeling. His story arc became about loneliness, and so he might have easily ended up a depressed wreck had he realised what was going on in himself.
Yet he met Kyr, and long before they became lovers, he realised that here was a Chiss he wanted to befriend; who had the easy kind of friendliness - well, once the initial distrust of Gerain subsided, at least - that included and embraced all without expectation or reciprocation. Here was a life he wanted, far away from the careful politics of Imperial Intelligence, free from any responsibility except that you wished to take on.
Now that heās with Kyr, heās likely the happiest character I have.
I think Iāve got Gerainās new Manaan hideout decorated enough to show off at least a little of it. This is only 30% so itās nowhere near full, but itās starting to look like it should.
Office space
Bedroom. I tried so hard to find a place to put in a refresher cubicle, but the hooks didnāt want to cooperate.
The absence of light. A silhouette formed where light is blocked by an object.
I was trained to live within the shadows. I was supposed to be a shadow, to fade into darkness after carrying out my orders, to exist only awaiting my next assignment. My assignments were my life, brief forays into the light before being put back into storage.
I was never very good at stealth missions. I never learned to bow my head like the degenerate alien I was supposed to be. And it was hard to reconcile living in darkness when the light was far too tempting.
So I have drawn a shadow over all that I care for, pulling them into the darkness with me, causing them to be in shadow as well. Yet if I had my choice over again, it wouldnāt change. I wouldnāt change. After all, a shadow needs light to cast it, and I love his light.
Second lot - Begeren Colony. All of these Chiss are related, and are all part of the Tareg clan, whether by marriage or by blood (except Sigerin, who is one of Gerainās undercover roles).
OC question! What's the relationship between "Sigerin" and "Gerain"? Are they two different people, or just two names for the same person?
āSigerinā is Gerainās undercover role and name while heās on assignment to the Iskatel. He tends to create these roles with different quirks of character and backgrounds, but owing to Kyr having been informed he was an Agent before his assignment, he found that this role is actually more āhimselfā - the person heās secretly been/wanted to be all his life - than heās ever been.
I wrote a thing! Halle-freakinā-lujah, I wrote a thing!
I miss my OTP, Gerain and Kyr, so Iāve been wanting to write something for them for a while. So hereās a bit of fluff thatās set in the early days of their romantic relationship. I wanted to feature how their friendship has evolved into something so much more, and how even the small moments mean a lot.
Warnings: Same sex relationship.
Sigerin was a big reader, which suited Gerain just fine. In fact, the role had given the Agent the opportunity to indulge one of his favourite pastimes, and at every opportunity could be found in some quiet corner of the Iskatel with his nose deeply in a datapad. Todayās distraction was the new edition of the Corellian Science Journal, and the Chiss man had taken the opportunity provided by a docking queue at Port Nowhere to settle down on a crate and pore through the articles.
It was a total flight of fancy, but within the scholarly words and holographic diagrams Gerain could lose himself for a while, theorems about things greater than politics and research regarding anything other than machinations filtered into his mind and were placed in well ordered rows for later contemplation. Science made so much more sense than the world he lived in at times, and he revelled in the fact that he could learn about more than just how and when to shoot.
This was how he was when Kyr found him, unmoving and unaware even that heād been joined by company, with a small smile upon his usually impassive face as he drank in the knowledge he had never realised he thirsted for.
āI knew Iād find you here.ā The affectionate rumble was the thing which got his attention, but even so Gerain was a little dazed as he looked up at the sky blue man, his eyes still alight with interest. āWhat are you reading?ā
It was good to be able to indulge an interest, but even better to have someone to share it with, and Kyr was one of the best listeners heād encountered. It was with this in mind that he could launch into an explanation of the article heād been reading without preamble or introduction, trusting in the hunterās intelligence to be able to catch up.
āItās a fascinating study done into the affixation of hyperroutes as they age. Thereās a theory that they tend to narrow as time goes on, and itās thought that process eventually leads to a stable passage being created through space, but also if they catch one early enough they may be able to use it to travel in time as well, though where one might end up is currently debatable.ā
āNo way.ā Freckled blue wrinkled as Kyr waved away the possibility, perching himself alongside Gerain on the crate as he made his disputation. āTravelling through time is impossible, isnāt it? I mean, thatās what hyperlanes do, let us travel beyond the speed of light without getting sucked into Stars know when. And if you canāt control where you end up, well, thereās no point in going to the future if yours is immediately snuffed out by that star you wound up materialising in!ā
āI know, but itās quite fascinating to ponder on the ramifications if the time barrier could be safely broached. If a hyperroute could be as stable through time as they are through space, then theoretically it is possible. We just need to find a way to calculate what weād be jumping out into.ā The attractant of Kyr was almost as compelling as the draw of the datapad in his lap, but Gerain nonetheless found his eyes moving back to the text, hopeless between his desire to learn and the encouragement from the other.
āWhy donāt you read it to me, so I can get a better idea of what youāre saying?ā Kyr was all attention as he settled back on the crate, voice warm and inviting despite the note of skepticism to the words, and Gerain silently thanked him for the permission to begin reading once more.
His soft, intent voice filled the room with scientific minutiae, and unseen his audience smiled. Ger had no idea of how his enthusiasm enriched his tone, making even the most dry and boring scientific jargon flow like poetry, and Kyr was more than happy to indulge. It certainly helped that he truly did have an interest in what Ger was saying - that had been the beginning of their friendship, after all - but the manās voice touched places within him he had thought long abandoned, and he almost laughed at himself and his own small deception.
They were only newly together, moving from friendship to love in a way he had never expected nor anticipated, and the delight was still fresh when fear and suspicion allowed it to surface. There were still barriers between them, but there were moments like these where courage flashed and another would fall. Only a few days ago he would not have sat uninvited beside the oh-so-Chiss Sigerin, and the casual acceptance of it emboldened him.
He craved intimacy, and not the passion fuelled kind they had already shared so marvellously on prior nights. Well, not just that kind, he thought, a faint touch of colour warming his face as remembered sensation impinged on that certainty. But it was so difficult to judge what was appropriate - Chiss, Agent, Imperial; they combined in a quagmire that Kyr frankly was having trouble traversing.
It only takes a moment of bravery, however, to break new ground.
It was with a pang of fear that he turned away from the reader and lay back, his breath catching in his throat at the thought of rejection as he pillowed his head on Gerās thigh.
There was a pause where the their focus changed, where words faltered for just a millisecond and stumbled in surprise, or perhaps shock. Kyr stiffened in preparation for rebukeā¦
...And heaved a sigh of relief as a hand moved from the pad to his hair, its fingers contemplatively running through the strands as Ger continued to read his article. Kyr relaxed, settling in comfortably as his hair was lovingly stroked.
Above, Gerainās smile had softened. Yes, it was good to be able to indulge, and this cozy companionship was certainly indulgence. Kyrās hair felt like silk through his gentle fingers, and there was a warmth surrounding them in a small bubble of familiarity.
For a while at least, he was fully Sigerin, and he was happy.
