Cinta and Vel stay connected by a window motif throughout the second half of the season. More meta thoughts on the symbolism under the cut.
Starting with Gorn’s description of the Eye, Vel and Cinta’s story is always connected by the motif of windows. Cinta watches from the ground as Vel and the others escape through the Eye, aka “the window to the galaxy.” They reunite on Ferrix but soon after have to separate again – Vel takes the shuttle to leave, staring out the window down at the city; Cinta watches the Andor place through the window in the nearby room. We get a blurry view of Vel and her cousin through Mon’s window on Coruscant. And of course in the finale, Vel returns to Ferrix and pleads with Cinta to “come away from the window” and relax for a moment. Cinta does, even if slowly.
From what I can tell, there are two main things symbolized by windows in stories – freedom and escape, and a portal between one’s inner and outer worlds. I’d say sometimes these blur together within the symbol as well. In this case the first mostly pertains to Cinta, even though Vel was the one to escape Aldhani through the window of the Eye. She longs for an escape from the pain she has suffered at the hands of the Empire, for freedom from its oppression. It is her singular focus, underlined by the intense stare out the window in episode 8 and later 12. She cannot take her eyes away from the window, from the chance to get closer to freedom.
The barrier between the inner and outer worlds applies more to Vel, the character with the most stark contrast between the self they present to the world (or at least the world that once knew them) and who they really are or want to be. Even in the scene with Mon – which starts with that blurry, rainy window – Vel cannot be fully herself and tell Mon what she’s done on Aldhani. And all the rest of her family knows her only as some spoiled rich kid who just likes to go off traveling.
So what does this symbolism and connection mean for their arcs? I find it interesting that when we first meet them it’s out in the wild on Aldhani, where there really are no windows. Out there in the highlands they have work to do of course, but compared to the rest of their lives this is a place where they can be free and escape, where their inner and outer lives don’t have such a barrier between them. Then the Eye comes, closing the window between them rather literally. Vel escapes, leaving behind the most important part of her inner life. And Cinta is left watching, trapped there on the planet and literally wrapped in the uniform of her oppressors.
In episode 8 during their reunion in the cafe, they’re on a bit more even ground with Cinta having also escaped Aldhani, but now the windows are there and they are still on opposite sides of them. The escape Vel craves is not the same one Cinta does, and Cinta points this out to her with the iconic mirror line: “I’m a mirror, Vel. You love me because I show you what you need to see.” And the thing is, they BOTH reflect what the other needs – Vel to look outwardly toward the fight, Cinta to look inwardly to a connection that will keep her from losing herself to that fight.
When they part again they are very beautifully shown looking through the windows between them, seemingly at each other – like reflections in a mirror – but not really. Because this is about windows, not mirrors. Again, they’re each looking toward the thing they want, the thing the window is either a portal to or a barrier in the way of: freedom from the Empire for Cinta, who is surrounded by the Empire and longing to take the fight to them; and the comfort of her inner life for Vel, who knows she has to go back to Chandrila and pretend to be the spoiled rich girl.
This all culminates in the final big scene for them, when in the finale Vel asks Cinta to come away from the window. She has gone back to Coruscant and used Cinta’s words to help keep Mon’s focus on the fight, and she’s returned to help finish this job now. She even tells Cinta that she was right to miss picking her up in favor of keeping an eye on the ISB. She’s now looking outward at the fight and what needs to be done, but Cinta still needs to turn around and look inside, look at her inner life and how dark it’s become. Vel gently orders Cinta to turn around, turn away from that window she’s kept her eyes on all this time. And she does, and finally they are looking at each other but also in the directions they’ve avoided until now – Vel facing the window, Cinta facing inside. They both still have some work to do, but at least now they're looking and moving in the right direction.
The window both separates them and connects them the whole time, and finally they are on the same side of it, even if only for a while.
Get ready!! VelCinta Sapphic September is taking a new form this year: we have prompts for each weekend! Write a long fic with each prompt, find quotes for a prompt and make a graphics, hone in on a single prompt all month...however you want to write, do it! The only rule is to create for VelCinta and post here and/or on our AO3 collection.
“Cinta’s better at this than you. I ought to put you in the infantry and be done with it.”
But he doesn’t.
The expansion of the Rebellion means things are more official. There’s much more paperwork to sift through, fill out. Mon did this and Vel tries not to hate her for it. Her hands ache from the spycraft classes, the day and night training she has to take in spite of being on many missions like the ones they talk about in class.
Cinta’s in the field already.
Vel studies in the night, tries to ignore what Cinta might be doing. Such terrible things they might do to save the universe.
“No conscience,” Draven reminds them in class.
Vel scratches in her own notes: we do what we have to do, to save the ones we love.
She studies each night. She wants back in the field. Wants back with Cinta.
Draven doesn’t think she has what it takes. But she’s already done more than him for the Rebellion. She’ll show him.
She dreams of Cinta, both of their hair in braids down their back. Toes in the water, and peace around them.
“Clem”. The complete unknown. Not only had Luthen managed to humiliate Vel by making her take on this mercenary (how terrifying, really, that his only commitment was to the money…), but he had also turned out to be really dislikeable. Asking pointed questions on the walk, expressing real disapproval about the job he was apparently being paid to do. And then, when he got to camp, he had shown her up as a weak leader about the Rono freighter and had then had the cheek to flirt with Cinta. He wasn’t remotely attractive to Vel but she could see that he would be if one were that way inclined, and she had thought that she had seen some … reaction from Cinta. More than just the little smile. A sense perhaps that there was… a connection there, of some kind. Something unspoken and instinctive. Alone in their hut, Vel nursed a cup of black caf and brooded on what exactly it might be, and whether she should bring it up with Cinta. Try to put her mind at rest, in some way.
Vel knew that Cinta would be unlikely to bring up the subject of Clem without a little prompting. It was her job, her role, to be under Vel’s command and to accept whatever decisions Vel made. It’s what being the leader of this mission was all about. Supposedly.
(“LOOK AT ME! You wanted to lead, this is what it takes..”…
“We can say it’s your idea if you like, I don’t care…”)
Below that surface, however, Vel had realised fairly quickly that Cinta had ways of making her feelings about her lover’s decisions clear without having to say a word. A slight sense of disapproval perhaps, or a slightly longer-than -would-normally-be-expected pause before answering. Sometimes just a quick look was enough. Cinta had a clear and steady gaze - it was one of the things Vel had first fallen for. Not only was it naturally beautiful, visually, it was also a way of seeing the woman within, in some sense; a window on the key characteristics of Cinta: her determination, her loyalty and her self-control. For while you might sometimes get a sense of the vulnerability beneath the steel, more often than not this vulnerability was itself in some way tightly controlled. In short, Cinta only ever revealed what she wanted you to see. At least, when it came to these long gazes. It was, ironically, in the sideways glances and the words left unspoken that you might find more of the haunted girl who had lost absolutely everything to the Empire one death-drenched day three years ago.
It wasn’t a question of not trusting her. Vel knew that there was absolutely no chance that Cinta would cheat on her. No. It was something quite different, but no less disturbing in its own way. This wasn’t, Vel sensed, anything really to do with her feelings towards Cinta, but much more about Cinta’s feelings towards her.
It came down to this blunt fact: Vel still wasn’t completely sure if Cinta trusted her. Sure, trust was there on the surface level: she had always gone along with Vel’s decisions at Drill, had even supported her choices quite fiercely when necessary (usually against Skeen). But on a deeper level… Vel wasn’t so sure. Or maybe it wasn’t so much about trust as about faith. Having faith in Vel. She couldn’t say with any degree of confidence that Cinta had faith in her.
Not quite sure, at this moment, what the exact difference between trust and faith might be, Vel concentrated on the appearance of drinking her caf as Cinta returned from feeding the Drays. Cinta gave one of her long gazes as she spoke and as was often the case in that situation Vel missed the meaning of the first sentence as she was too distracted by the simple, breathtaking clarity of her lover’s beautiful eyes.
“…We will have to let the rest go, obviously. But it might be nice to have some meat for this last night here?”
Vel could guess the first sentence easily enough now. “No, let them all live. They’ve done us well. We’ll open the corral before we leave.” She was going to add that they were trying to avoid unnecessary killing on this mission and might as well extend that to the animals they had genuinely learned to care for (in both senses), but she found the words fading before they could reach her mouth.
In short, she didn’t really like talking about death with Cinta.
It was, she decided - in a sudden epiphany - part of the problem. The realisation made her bold. Her fears and insecurities… she knew they were ridiculous, unfair and childish but she just couldn’t help them and couldn’t rest unless they were addressed. Staring into her cup, she said with feigned casualness: “What do you think of Clem?”
Cinta knew her too well. Knew the question would not be answered with a “He’s got brass, you can feel it” (so typically Taramyn, that!) type of response. No. She knew immediately when Vel meant. What she wanted.
“Nothing, much.” Vel tremulously raised her gaze to find Cinta looking down at her with a slightly amused expression. “You do know that, Vel. You don’t need to protect me. Or whatever that was you were doing out there, telling him he could dress himself. He was only flirting. It was harmless.”
Vel found she couldn’t think of what to say and the silence seemed to prompt Cinta to go on. “So if this is about that, frankly it’s a little insulting that you think it could possibly threaten us in some way. I thought we were way beyond that.”
Vel felt the familiar almost-embarrassment. It wasn’t the full emotion. Wryly, she thought to herself that if it were she might learn not to do or say stupid things again. But she always did, and ultimately still felt justified in so doing. Every time.
She took a sip of caf, cold now (food and drink never stayed hot for long in this wretched climate) and brooded on how she might respond. She didn’t want to rush into this one. She had done that before, and things had escalated. Quite nastily. That had been back when Skeen was trying his luck. What was it with these men?! Did they think that the forced intimacy of being in a team like this in the middle of nowhere justified hitting on someone who they knew was off-limits because…. Well, because of any number of reasons. Boredom. Frustration. Arrogance. Sexism. Because Vel was pretty sure that if she were a male they wouldn’t be openly hitting on Cinta. In fact, forget ‘pretty sure’. She felt certain of this. She knew it.
It was just another way in which she was being made to doubt herself. As a leader and as a lover. As a person, even.
The words came to her then, and she knew Cinta would know they were the truth.
“I know. And I’m sorry. I can’t say I won’t do it again, because I know myself too well. I will. I will screw up and I will be a jealous idiot and I will embarrass myself in front of the team and in front of you. And I can’t say I can’t help it either, because I probably could if I … I don’t know. If I tried loving you just a little less… a little less intensely.”
Cinta sat down next to Vel on the dray wool blankets. As if knowing it was now undrinkable and just a kind of prop, she gently took the cup of caf and set it aside, then took Vel’s now-empty right hand in both of her own, enclosing it. Warming it.
“Whatever am I to do with you?” Cinta’s voice was a low murmur. Similar on the surface to the volume and tone she used when being seductive, but this was something different. Vel realised, after a couple of seconds, what it was. Cinta sounded like a parent. Or a big sister. Or an older friend. Or… Or something that just implied a kind of ‘I know best and I’m wiser than you and feel a bit sorry for you because you don’t really understand yet’ kind of way, and Vel felt herself seething, suddenly, with frustration. This was, at heart, the main theme of all of their fights. Their disagreements. Cinta would always, eventually, pull this particular card. It was a winning one. They both knew it.
Because it was, ultimately, true. Cinta was a little younger than Vel. But she had lived so much more. She had lost so much more. She already had a lifetime of sorrows weighing down her soul.
And this, in turn, made Vel feel that there was some key way in which their connection would always be insecure. They were so fundamentally different in terms of the lives they had had. Vel’s life had been fraught with her own troubles, as was to be expected for a woman growing up gay in such a conservative society as Chandrila. But she had money. Privilege. Safety. She fought because she was driven to fight against injustice, but it was a philosophical cause for her, something powerful but in the abstract. For Cinta, however, there was a much more visceral need. Vel’s parents had expressed studied disappointment, on her last visit home, that she was still without a husband. But it had all been kind of … polite. In stark contrast, Cinta’s parents had been shot at point blank range and dumped in a ditch along with the rest of her family. A regiment of Troopers had arrived in her small village one day and the population had been summoned out of their homes to hear the commanding officer announce that someone there had been sheltering two rebels who had killed a local prefect. Then the shooting had started. Apparently, the Imperials couldn’t be bothered to investigate so they simply slaughtered everyone they could find and then blamed said rebels, hoping this would drive their prey out into the open. The irony was that Cinta’s family had indeed been sheltering the rebels. Who were out with Cinta in the forest, hunting, when the attack had happened.
This was the full extent of what Vel knew. Cinta had only told her the once. She would never forget it. And alongside the simple horror of it all came the cold knowledge that she had yet to share with Cinta anything that remotely approached this incomprehensible level of trauma and loss. It had made her feel something new and disturbing in a less obvious way. Vel had wondered, when they had gone past the stage of simple attraction and were starting to develop feelings that ran a lot deeper, whether this instinct might itself have something to do with the intensity of her love. It wasn’t pity, she knew that. Or at least, it wasn’t just pity.
It was a kind of awe. Admiration but also fear.
A fear of losing Cinta. And perhaps, on some level, a fear of Cinta herself.
Vel knew the truth that lay behind Cinta’s often repeated words: “The Struggle comes first, we take what’s left”. She had made Vel try to understand this, even after their very first night together. The truth was that Cinta was quite different to anyone Vel had ever met. And not just as a lover, or as a member of this team - she was simply unlike anybody else in Vel’s experience.
“I’m sorry,” Vel said now, almost automatically, for she ended up saying this a lot in these fights. But she recognised it as an inadequate response. Cinta sighed and Vel sensed that she might try to steer the conversation to less troubled waters, but this time Vel wanted to take back control. Get back to what she had earlier identified as the key issue.
She spoke slowly and steadily. “I know it’s not about Clem. It’s not about not trusting you. It’s wondering if I’m… enough for you. Can you see me as anything other than someone who needs to grow and mature and learn? - because I know I’m so far behind you. We’re so different. You’ve been through so much. I just wonder… if we have enough, sometimes. Enough of… a connection. Whether it’s strong enough to keep us together when this is over.”
Even as she said the words she knew something of the truth in them. There was no end in sight to this struggle. If the heist succeeded, what then? An escalation, surely. More oppression. More suffering. Open war, even.
More death.
Perhaps that was what the possible connection had been with Clem the mercenary. The simple fact that they had both known death before, first hand. Vel knew nothing of his background but what Luthen had told her: “He’s not afraid to kill”.
Neither was Cinta. She knew that. Perhaps death was the connection. The dealing out of it and the suffering because of it. Horrible. Nothing to envy, if that were really the case. Nothing to be jealous of.
But still. It was a connection that she could not share with Cinta.
To her surprise, Cinta raised Vel’s hand and kissed it, letting her lips rest against the skin, saying nothing but letting Vel feel the steady warm puffs of gentle, living air. Vel was about to speak but a quiet ‘shh’ stopped her, and for several more long seconds she was able to relax, just a little, feeling this warm concentration of her lover’s living essence on her hand: the warmth of skin and soft lips and moist breath.
Cinta spoke at last. “We have this connection, Vel. It’s what we can have. It’s enough. It has to be. It is, for me - it’s enough. I don’t need you to have suffered. I don’t need you to have known loss. I just need you to know… all love is precious because it’s finite. You don’t know how long you or I will live. Or anyone. That’s why it’s so important to love well, while we can. This might not last long, but this… is what we do have, for now. Let’s not waste it by mourning it already. We have this.” And she pressed her lips anew to Vel’s hand.
Vel felt the tears prick her eyes but there was a growing warmth within now too. Cinta gently guided Vel’s hand now, up to her own neck, allowing the fingers to rest against the steady pulse there. “And we have this. This is enough too.” Recognising it as the invitation it was, Vel met her lover’s gaze fully at last before leaning towards her. And as they kissed, tentatively at first, she felt their breaths connect too, and lips and tongues soon followed.
It wasn’t their usual language of seduction, but Vel bathed in Cinta’s words nonetheless, allowed them to lap over her, taking both the warmth and the harsh cold in them for it was all Cinta, and Cinta was the woman she loved and that was really all the connection she could ever want or hope for. At least, for now.
As Cinta undressed her, warm hands insistent now in connecting with breasts, neck, arms, thighs… “And we have this,” she would say with each new contact of skin on skin. “And we have this. And this. And we might not always have it. But we have it now. And now is what matters. Now is always what matters, when it comes to love. Don’t look for something more, in the past or the future. This is ‘what’s left’. And it’s enough. It’s beautiful. This is beautiful. You are beautiful. This is why we are fighting. For moments like these. While we can… let’s simply… love.”
Then the words ceased and the kisses started and with each carress of mouths and hands upon and within each other Vel started to understand, fully, something of the intensity of her love and why it could so often feel imbalanced.
She didn’t want to lose Cinta. She had not yet reconciled herself to that horrible possibility. Whereas Cinta… had accepted that she might lose Vel. Because she had already lost so much. And there, in summary, was their relationship. Vel was mourning for a loss she thought might be coming. Cinta was already in a later stage of grief and therefore in some way… accepting that loss would probably come her way again.
But that didn’t stop her love from being real, and intense.
It was enough.
For both of them, now under the blanket they shared, it was enough.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
Cinta walked off the ship at her drop point on Aldhani knowing she’d probably have to be a hardass.
“This is the mission’s leader,” Kleya pulled up her picture, “Vel Sartha.”
A pristine photo of a blonde woman stared back at her, the smile obviously rehearsed and the photo’s quality, the makeup, and clothing indicated wealth that almost made Cinta roll her eyes. “A rich girl running away from her family?” she asked.
“Her cousin is our chief benefactor, but Vel volunteered to lead this one,” Kleya replied.
Cinta laughed, really just a short huff of air through her nose, “Great,” was all she believed she could say about it in Kleya’s company.
“Luthen thinks she’s ready,” there was a look in her eye that told Cinta she might actually agree with her, but her tone implied this would have to be the end of the conversation. Cinta just nodded.
She continued off the ship, through the valley as instructed, until she saw her — a hooded figure coming down from the mountain pass.
“You must be Cinta?” Vel’s voice lilted from meters away.
Cinta found her respect for the leader increased, seeing her in native Dhani clothing, expertly navigating the mountainside with a huge pack on her back, no makeup or flashy clothes in sight.
“That’s me,” Cinta looked up at Vel, shielding her eyes from the bright sun that just came up over the mountain.
“Come on,” Vel waved her up, “We have a long trek back and we need to make it before sunrise.”
And despite her hesitance on Coruscant, Cinta found herself following the rich girl running away from her family.
