#storyknitter

[valkblue]

— YCH commissions, Classical Edition

Joel and Arrow, for @joels6string [ The Last of Us ]

Captain Zallia Thane and Master Morff Praxis, for @starknstarwars [ Star Wars: The Old Republic ]

Theron and Vassanna, for @storyknitter [ Star Wars: The Old Republic ]

[skullinacowboyhat]

Half-body commission for @storyknitter of Theron and Sanna. Absolutely loved getting to draw these two again! <3 click for better quality.

[greyias]

The way you said, "I love you": In a letter

Inspired by the toys you can find in the cockpit of Satele’s ship during Chapter 12 of KotFE, and a possible explanation for their origin.

At nearly six years old, Theron Shan was an exemplary student, despite not yet being able to successfully reach out to the Force. Ngani Zho was sure that would come eventually. Everyone blossomed in their own time, and perhaps Theron would just come into his own a little later than others.

Even without a firm grasp on the Force, Theron was extraordinarily talented in other ways. Within just six months he’d mastered the concentration techniques of the Order of the Sacred Circle — at five years old no less. It took some a lifetime to master that. In many ways, he was lightyears ahead the younglings back on the temple at Coruscant. Indeed, Theron was destined for great things — all he had to do was put his mind to whatever he wanted to accomplish.

And yet, destiny or no, he was still a child. And sometimes that meant making time for the smaller things.

“This is for me?” The boy blinked at the box.

“Yes, it’s a gift.”

A gift missing the letter that had been addressed to Zho: A vendor was selling these at a market, and I couldn’t help but think that Theron might enjoy them. I think he’s the right age for them. You may let him think its from you. I am sure he would appreciate that. — Satele

Not for the first time in reading one of her letters, Zho let out a long sigh. He understood his former student’s reluctance to reach out personally. After all, he had witnessed firsthand the unfortunate events with Tasiele, and knew that part of her reasoning was self-preservation — and perhaps in her own way, trying to spare his young charge of having to go through a similar trial. Still, from the way they both asked about each other, in their own indirect ways, it was clear that both mother and son wanted something of each other in their lives.

However, for now, Zho would focus on the present. In both senses of the word, as Theron seemed to reach his end of patience with the box and tore through the flimsy wrapping job to pull out a pair toy droids. Zho couldn’t help but quirk a brow at the choice in toys, as he wasn’t sure he would have picked out a HK-model nor a destroyer droid for a little boy to play with. But Zho had not been that age for a long time, as Theron’s eyes lit up as he pulled them both from the small box.

“These are the latest models, they’re so expensive—how did you get these?”

“Why, in the mail of course,” Zho said simply, trying to thread the line between answering the question honestly, and respecting Satele’s wishes. He tried not to think about the fact that she must have spent quite a portion of her living stipend on extravagant gifts on the same day each year.

“But shouldn’t I be meditating? Its sunrise on Corsucant—”

“I believe the sun will still rise tomorrow. Besides, my boy, its your birthday.”

“Oh, right.” Theron’s brow furrowed. “I kind of forgot.”

“Go on and play,” Zho nudged the boy. “I have some correspondence to catch up on. We’ll pick back up on your lessons after lunch.”

Needing no more encouragement, Theron grabbed his latest treasures and leapt away with them. As Zho pulled out a datapad to begin writing out a reply to Satele, he could hear the excited noises of a child at play. Apparently according to the six year old, HK droids now roared like a reptiloid. He paused in his typing, watching the energetic youngling bounce about with a smile.

It was a good day.

[queen-scribbles]

Micro story prompts: how dare [you]

The quiet squeak from her office door was all the warning Janine got, but it was enough she didn’t flinch when a voice broke through her concentration. “Hey, babe.”

Her brow arched as she looked up. “Felix? Not that I’m complaining, but to what do I owe this surprise? I thought you had patrol.”

He pushed away from the doorframe , making a half-hearted attempt to look serious as he sauntered toward her desk. “Oh, I do. Which is why, unfortunately, this is gonna be a quick visit.”

Janine’s eyebrow went higher in silent inquiry of the purpose behind said visit.

Felix pulled a mock-somber expression and dropped into the chair on the other side of the desk. “I didn’t kiss you goodbye this morning.”

She gave an exaggerated gasp and pressed one hand to her chest in faux-dismay. “That’s right. How dare you forget something so crucial to the day, Agent Hauville.” She leaned forward, arms folded on the desk as she fought a smile. “Such a grievous oversight should be corrected immediately before there are... consequences.”

He grinned mischievously and planted his elbows on the desk to lean in as well, eyes sparkling despite his supposed ‘crime’ as he stopped with their noses just shy of touching. “Like what?”

Janine laughed at the playful challenge in his voice. “Or I may just have to subject you to my romcom marathon this weekend,” she retorted.

“Hm.” Felix pursed his lips in thought a moment, then grinned. “Can I kiss you and be subjected to your movie marathon?”

She laughed again, fingers creeping forward to brush his arm. “A glutton for punishment, are you?”

He leaned in a little more. “Only when it means spending more time with you, babe.”

Janine matched his grin, her face warming as she murmured, “I think that can be arranged, then.”

She barely got the words out before his fingers slid into her hair and his lips captured hers.

[rannadylin]

🌄❄️🌧️

🌄 Mornings or evenings? After all these years of waking up super early to get ready for school I am an early to bed early to rise teacher even on my days off! And the older I get, the more I am just wilting the later the evening gets so I might as well be sleeping.

❄️Winter or summer? Winter’s easier on my allergies....but then again, summer is time off school...the allergies win this one though.

🌧️ Rain or wind? Rain = frizzy hair so we’ll go with the wind, as long as I have a hat that will stay put XD

Thanks for asking!

Make Me Choose asks

[km-fullmoon]

For the expression meme, 4C for Renilia!

[kunoichi-ume]

For the WIP sampler: while I'm curious about Noara's death, I'd much rather hear about her adventures!

Send me an ask with the title that most intrigues you and interests you and I’ll post a little snippet of it or tell you something about it!

Sure you don’t wanna hear about Noara dying? About Torian getting there just in time to be too late to save her, but early enough to get to say goodbye? To say an edited version of the Mandalorian wedding vows because even if she doesnt know it he won’t make her lie to him (about raising children together I mean)? About Noara asking if now she can sleep, just for a moment, and Torian knows it will be longer? 

No? Okay. 

Actually writing her dying at all was a writing exersize that @cinlat sort of dared me to do, sort of a “you never know your character until you put them through ALLLLLL the hell” thing cause I don’t really plan to kill Noara. (Sith Noara however... her days are numbered.)

Noara’s adventure log started when I felt I didn’t really know Noara well enough to keep writing I’ve Got You and was kicking myself for starting the fic so far into the canon story so she wouldn’t be able to grow through her experiences as I worked on her (instead she had to be a finished product and that was bugging me so much!) so I started on Tython and getting into her head from the start.

Have a couple snippets, cause the start of this post was rude I know. They are a bit on the long side, but other than @cinlat who I am pretty sure I shared this doc with, odds are no one else will see this fic if and when I pick it up again because it was more character study than anything but damn if I didnt have fun with it.

Noara’s thoughts as she arrives on Tython to start her trials:

This was the farthest from home she had ever been, not counting wherever she had been before the Jedi brought her to the enclave she’d been raised in. Now she’d left the only home she’d ever known to prove her worth and, hopefully, pass her trials. If she didn’t her dreams of traveling the galaxy and helping people would be gone. She’d be stuck in a research position or raising crops or something else equally unfulfilling even if she understood the necessity of it.

Failure wasn’t an option, not for Noara.

If all the times she had snuck out of her academic classes were any indication, she wouldn’t enjoy life as a scholar.

And the first time she takes a life, even if it’s a Flesh Raider determined to kill her is a big moment for her too:

Noara followed the rock formations, giving her on side where an ambush was less likely, and rounded a corner to see exactly what she had worried she might when she heard their name. Three of the reddish-pink rough skinned creatures crouched on the ground feasting on dead bodies. To make it worse two of the bodies were Jedi and one was their own kind. Flesh eaters and cannibals. That image was going to stick with.her. 

Adjusting her grip on her sabers, wishing she had weapons as real as this fight was going to be, she stepped around the rocks and crouched slightly. Pulling the Force around her, she leapt, propelling herself the considerable distance between her and the Flesh Raiders. They reared up as she landed, one coming at her with a training saber it probably stole off one of the dead Padawans, while the other two drew blasters. 

Reacting quickly, she blocked the first Flesh Raiders first strike before Force pushing it away to buy her time to deal with the other two. As it stumbled away, she slashed her blades at the two firing at her. They knew how to use the blasters, but their aim was horrendous. They hadn’t had these weapons long and she was easily able to sidestep their shots and cut each across the chest with the electrified edges of her blades. 

The creatures cried out, horribly gargled sounds by their misshapen mouths, as they fell. An angry cry behind her reminded Noara of the third Flesh Raider and she turned just in time to block a strike aimed at her skull. Before the beast could react to her quick movement, she stabbed it through the gut with her other weapon. 

It fell, dead, at her feet and Noara had to yank her training saber out of it’s ribcage where it had gotten lodged. She turned her sabers off and frowned at the blood, a sickly brown color, that clung to them. She wanted to clean them but had a feeling this wouldn't be her last fight and that it would be a wasted effort. 

It wasn’t until the smell hit her that what she had just done really sank in. She’d killed them, hadn’t even hesitated. Noara waited for the regret, the sickening guilt her masters had told her would accompany every life she took, but it didn’t come. Just relief that it was them lying on the ground and not her and the familiar thrill she always felt when sparring. She’d assumed that it would be different in a real fight, that it would be less exciting to win when it meant something else died but it wasn’t.

That thought scared her, because she knew how it sounded. It went against everything Jedi stood for and were taught. Taking a deep breath, she pushed all of that away to meditate on later. She was in a dangerous situation and there were other Padawans depending on her. 

And younger Noara might just have an attitude problem, but ya gotta admit the Flesh Raider problem on Tython was seriously mismanaged...

When Noara answered her com a small image of Knight Weller, bending down to brace a wound on his leg, appeared. He looked her image over in relief. “You’re unharmed, good. A Flesh Raider shot me in the leg while I was rescuing some Padawans. No idea where they got blasters, but they know how to use them. I’ve been evacuated to a medcenter but the fighting isn’t over.”

Noara sighed but bit back the comment she wanted to make. For a planet that should be full of some of the galaxy's best warriors they were pretty bad at crisis management. “Will there be reinforcements coming? I’m up to my neck in monsters here.”

Weller nodded. “Some are already there, but they keep pouring in. We need to stop them at the source. Padawan Unaw Aharo found a cave the Flesh Raiders tunneled through to get into the valley. I need you to go and make sure they don’t get more reinforcements through it.”

Noara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Her patience was wearing thin, the handling of this situation left much to be desired and her understanding was that all Jedi on Tython were meant to be taking their trials. How any could be at that point and defenseless was beyond her. As far as she had seen, she was the only competent warrior on the whole planet but she wasn’t near arrogant enough to think she could take on every Flesh Raider out there on her own. “I don’t know how much I can do on my own, but I’ll do whatever I can to push them back and see if there is a way to seal the tunnel.”

“You won’t be alone for long,” Weller reassured her. “Master Orgus Din is on his way as well. We need to end this conflict before anyone else gets hurt. Find the cave along the east mountain ridge. May the Force be with you.”

His image winked out of sight and she huffed in annoyance. It had been a few hours since she had been sent into the field to fight the invaders and they were finally sending a member of the council to come help? What were the Jedi Masters doing while Padawans were being captured and killed? So far all she had learned on Tython was that she was lucky to have finished her combat training on Naboo before making the journey, being sent here without it could have been akin to a death sentence.

Master Doran had warned her the trials would be difficult when he tried to talk her into putting them off until she was a little older, but somehow Noara didn’t think this was what he meant.

And then her day just gets worse and worse when she gets to the cave and has to face the rogue Jedi commanding the Flesh Raiders:

The rogue Jedi lunged at her, swinging his lightsaber toward her neck. 

Noara just managed to dodge the blow, stepping quickly back. The second swing she caught with one of her training sabers, the blue energy blade crackling against the metal. 

“You think to defeat me with those toys?” He laughed, pushing her back with his superior strength and leaving marks in the ground where Noara tried to keep her footing. When most of his weight was committed to pushing her, she dropped to the ground, ducking under his arm and slipping behind him as he stumbled past her.

Using a move Master Doran always called reckless, she leapt into the air. Using the Force she propelled herself across the cavern to where his Flesh Raider backup was. Noara knew that if she wanted a glimmer of a chance to get out of here alive, she couldn’t face all three of them at once. Landing between them, Noara pushed the Force in a ring out from her body and knocked both away from her and to the ground. Stunned, neither stirred. She turned just in time to block the rogue Jedi’s attack with her training sabers crossed in front of her. He pressed forward, forcing Noara to step back again.

Obviously he had an advantage in both size and strength over her. She was going to need to be faster and cleverer. Before he could make her step back again, Noara kicked him in the gut. Not letting up when he stepped back, she followed him, pushing his lightsaber away from her with one of her blades and hitting his sword arm as hard as she could with the other. He dropped the saber with a sharp cry. 

Noara turned, releasing one of her training sabers to call his weapon to her. Before she caught it he tackled her, his shoulder digging into her gut. As they tumbled to the ground she lost her grip on her other weapon. She was never much of a grappler, her creche mates had often wiped the floor with her in unarmed spars but she had learned enough to know she couldn’t let him pin her. They landed hard on the ground, rolling a few times before he had straddled her waist and punched her in the face.

Lifting her hips off the ground, Noara tried to throw him off  but he was too high on her torso for that to work. Leaning forward he pinned her with his weight and wrapped his hands around her throat. Clawing at his fingers, she turned her head back and forth, trying to find a way out of this before remembering she was still armed. Pulling her leg up as close as she could, Noara blindly reached for her boot. Each of her boots had a dagger hidden in a discrete sheath inside the boot. 

Noara’s chest was on fire as she gasped for air and her vision was starting to dim. Reaching out to the Force for strength, she managed to grab the dagger’s hilt and pull it out of her boot. Without hesitation she stabbed him, driving the dagger into his side. He cried out in pain, releasing her neck and she was able to breath again. She ripped the dagger out of his flesh as he fell off of her. Running on pure adrenaline she followed him, burying the bloodied dagger hilt deep into his chest. 

Blood gushed around her hand and when he coughed it left bloody spots all over his face. “Killing me changes nothing,” he gasped wetly, “long live the new order.” The rogue Jedi took another gurgling breath before going limp under her and she felt his life force fading. 

Pushing herself away from his corpse, Noara tried to breathe through the pain in her chest and throat. 

“Look out!” Aharo cried, making Noara turn her head just in time to see the two forgotten Flesh Raiders approaching her. 

The dagger was still in the dead man’s chest but she spotted the lightsaber lying on the ground. She pulled it to her hand, activated it and threw it at them. With the Force she controlled it’s trajectory to strike them both. The Flesh Raiders fell to the floor, making similar death rattles to the ones she had heard all day. 

For a moment Noara didn’t move, leaning on her hand to keep herself upright while she waited for the next attack. When it didn’t come she slumped on the ground let out a shaky breath. Aharo, holding his gut, limped over to her. 

“That was amazing, I thought we were dead for sure,” he said, dropping to his knees next to her. “Are you alright?”

Noara nodded where she lay. “Yeah, I think so.”

[confettininjabean]

#9. falling for the microstory prompts

So a little bit of context for this fic before I get to the ANSWER/FIC. lol Elav, pictured above, is Jaydzia’s and Darius’s Jedi Master... There’s quite a bit to the backstory and why he takes in the twins at a young age. He was like BFFS with their mom but... there was some love there that neither Elav nor the Twin’s mother, Tiriza, acted on cuz no attachment and... they didn’t really know it at that time. That being said, the below fic is after some years apart in which Tiriza has been deep undercover within the Sith Empire. Thanks for the ask, lovely! This was so good to get back into swtor and fanfic with!

The fic is under the cut!

#9. falling for the microstory prompts (Elav x Tiriza/Otp: Will Of The Force)

Falling forever, off a steep cliff, much too high, yet it wasn’t gravity that caused the fall. Gravity would pull the body down… No, this was like falling up… into the ice-cold depths of space, to be lost, frozen. It was agonizing, sweeping him up suddenly in the midst of a deep meditative trance. The Twi’Lek Jedi’s eyes remained closed, brow furrowed slightly even as he gasped aloud from the abrupt onslaught of phantom pain that coursed through him. Confusion rose briefly and he would have opened his eyes, wrenched himself from the grip that held him in the Force if only to gain an understanding of what was happening to him. Except, he couldn’t. The grasp that held him in these few fleeting moments of time was that of the Force. It wasn’t that the Force refused to release him, it was more an urging, holding him to help him understand… Rather than resist or flinch from it, Elav’Nilim headed the direction of the Force and fell deeper into it. Time fell away, holding no boundaries or limits as the Force fully enveloped the Twi’Lek Jedi. The darkness of his eye-lids faded from his vision as images were shown to him. Images of a fellow Jedi, one he knew well, too well some would say. She was his closest friend. She looked different than when he’d last seen her, years ago. The images shimmered, hazy like they belonged to a distant dream, fading and clinging to the edges of one’s consciousness. Elav felt along an old connection, a vibrant thread, the bond he had held with this woman, the pain he felt was…hers. As he used the force to feel along their bond, stretched as it was across the great expanse of the galaxy, he could see the vibrant thread, shining golden and tethering him, lighting the way through the endless stars that surrounded him.

Until his vision was abruptly changed, as if he was witness this painful event through someone else’s eyes. Her eyes.

The hazy features of a Pure Blood Sith filled his sight, sharpening into focus to give him a clear picture of rage and… insanity in the glowing orange eyes. The hiss of a lightsaber could be heard… agony ghosted over him when suddenly… It was gone. He felt the bond snap…severed and he felt more grief, deeper than he’d ever believed it could be, pull at him. His heart ached anew as he fell…and continued falling into the endless stars as if he was suddenly cast adrift. Violet eyes snapped open, the familiar surroundings of his ship came into sharp focus around him. “Tiriza…” Elav breathed. She was… gone. Or so he thought.

MIcrostory Prompts