Life, by and large, is not peaceful. It churns and twists and makes a mess of everything. Somehow though, it can find moments of peace too. Islands of serenity where calm can flow in, and  the all the strife and turmoil can be seen for what they are; just moments as well, pieces of experience that challenge and teach as much as they hurt and destroy.

Nix’s reflections on that weren’t where her mind usually wandered as she sat by the small reflecting pool outside the cabin she shared with Ayli.

Normally she found the most relaxing things to think about were the schematics for the various ships she still hoped to have a chance to work on. She’d always known that the galaxy wasn’t a clockwork or a mechanism of any sort. There were too many moving parts to it and too many different purposes and goals each little one was pursuing. With the Force, she was tuned in to all of that, which was probably what had pushed her to becoming a mechanic, she knew.

Being able to understand each component of a greater machine and know what that machine needed was such a relief when even the Force often had no idea what the solution to a planet, or a city, or even a single person’s problems might be.

In moments of calm though, she thought she could see the answer, or maybe just an answer. All the tumult which surrounded her? However overwhelming it might feel, it would never be the whole of her life. The moments of reprieve, the moments of connection and joy and wonder? They were going to be there too. She could let the Force guide her to them, but so to she could guide the Force and show it the things that only she could bring to the galaxy. Her unique perspective, her choices, and her dreams.

In the pre-dawn light, the world around her was golden, the silence of the fading night broken by the call of morning birds and the crash on the incoming tide. In a sense that made it like any other day, and in sense, it was.

The day which lay before her would like be loud. It might have a fight or two even. There was almost certainly going to be laughter, and it wasn’t impossible that there would be a few tears. Nothing was really going to change or be different by the end of the day though. 

The ring on her finger wouldn’t be any heavier for the vows she was going to lay on it.

The ceremony they were going to undertake wasn’t going to change them or make what was between them ‘real’. It couldn’t since what they shared had been real the moment they woke up together and decided to make it real.

But it wasn’t going to be meaningless either.

Standing together before all of their friends and declaring their love was a step neither one of them had imagined taking before they’d met the other. 

The weeks of planning had also been something neither had expected to do, and had led on not a few occasions to the suggestion that they could simply elope to somewhere more official than Canto Bight this time.

But they hadn’t.

Because they did want to share the moment with the people in their lives.

Of which there were also far more than either had expected there to be.

Beyond Sali and Zin, who they were less-than-secretly trying to upstage with the reception they had planned, there was Rassi and Solna, their official new apprentices. 

Kelda had explained that young Jedi learners were properly referred to a padawans.

Which made it clear that Rassi and Solna should be apprentices and none of them had interests in being mistaken for Jedi.

Attending with Sali and Zin there were going to be a sizable contingent of underworld sorts, pirates and ne’er-do-wells who’d been on the periphery of Nix and Ayli’s antics since they’d met. If Nix had a family to speak of, they were probably the closest thing she had to cousins and aunt and uncles or weird grandparents that could be found.

On Ayli’s side, there were her parents and Archivist Bopo as well as a contingent of academics who were, if anything, rowdier than the pirates were, given how the rehearsal dinner had gone.

And then there were the people who were there for both of them.

People like Tovos and his crew. People who they’d helped either directly or indirectly, who were all to happy to have some warmth to celebrate in what could sometimes be a pretty cold galaxy.

“You’re pretty quiet today,” Ayli said, sitting down on the mat beside Nix and gazing out at the dawn bright horizon.

“But not silent,” Nix said, relaxing from her meditation posture and leaning over to plant a kiss on Ayli’s cheek.

It was a fairly chaste gesture, but not a chaste invitation.

Ayli responded by running her left hand gently up Nix’s spine, which offered promises for things to come without disturbing the calm of the moment they were sharing.

“Just so long as you’re there for the vows, you can be as quiet or silent as you like,” Ayli said.

“Do you think it will be different? Saying them in front of everyone?” Nix asked, enjoying the warmth of Ayli’s hand on her back.

“That one’s tough isn’t it? I mean, in theory, I think we took our first vows in front of, what, an entire casino?”

“That sounds right? I think?”

“Yeah, I mean, I know I said something, but I can’t really recall what our vows even were.”

“Probably whatever boilerplate the Canto Bight crooks have cooked up.”

“Well, whatever they were, they worked,” Ayli said and learned over to return Nix’s kiss.

“I don’t think it was the vows,” Nix said, shifting to look Ayli in the eyes. “It was you. Each day. You were there, and you chose me and you made it worth it. That means so much more than those vows do.”

“You make it so hard to wait sometimes, do you know that? I swear, even after all the prep we did, I kind of still want to just steal you away and elope right this instant.”

“Your parents would hunt us down.”

“And Sali and Zin would help, I know.”

“I mean, we still could,” Nix said, mischief and mayhem sparkling up inside her.

“Oh. Oh that would be fun. Could you imagine having the entire wedding reception chasing us from star to star?”

“You would have one problem,” Kelda said, appearing on the other side of the reflecting pool.

“They’d catch you before you left,” Ravas said.

“We’d make sure of it,” Kelda said.

“Aww, but why!” Nix said, comfortable letting her inner child out in front of the thousand year old Force ghosts.

“Do you know how many times we got to go to a wedding?” Kelda asked.

“A Jedi and a Sith? Who were either forbidden from marrying or who noone in the right mind would marry?” Ravas asked.

“So, you’re living vicariously through us?” Ayli asked.

“Has that not been apparent for a while now?” Kelda asked.

“You know, we could have you two up there with us,” Nix said. “A double wedding is as easy to put on as a single one.”

“I believe there is commonly a term in the vows about death dissolving the marriage,” Ravas said. “That would likely present a problem for us.”

“So don’t say them,” Nix said.

“Don’t say what?” Kelda asked.

“The part of the vows about death parting you. I mean, it clearly didn’t.”

“Yeah, if anything it brought you back together,” Ayli said.

“Well that’s true but…” Ravas stammered.

“We’ve never…” Kelda stammered as well.

Nix and Ayli shared an eye roll and a sigh.

“You’ve never actually told each other that you love each other enough that you want to be together? Seriously?” Ayli asked.

“Well, it was clear now wasn’t it,” Kelda said.

“Was it?” Nix asked.

“Yes, of course,” Ravas said, with only a hint in her voice that she was lying.

“Then you should make it clear to the people who love you,” Ayli said.

“Yeah, you were both cheated out of what your lives should have been. It’s time to make up for lost time and make the lives you wanted to have back then,” Nix said.

“There’s the slight problem that we’re not alive,” Kelda said.

“And that we weren’t cheated,” Ravas said. “This is very much the consequence of my actions.”

“Sure. Right. Except none of that is correct,” Nix said.

“She’s right. It’s good to take responsibility for what we do, but you’ve got to remember that you don’t get to take all the responsibility for everything,” Ayli said. “You didn’t actually do this to yourself. Not alone anyways.”

“And, rather more importantly, you’re not dead,” Nix said and held out her hand.

Kelda waved her hand through Nix’s as a refutation of her statement.

“Yep. That’s a neat trick,” Nix said and then reached out to catch hold of Kelda’s wrist.

“That’s…you’re just using the Force,” Kelda said.

Nix glanced over at Ayli and sighed.

“Yes. And where does the Force come from?” Ayli asked.

“You. The living,” Ravas said and paused. 

Or stopped really.

“You’re really just figuring this out?” Nix asked. “I mean, to be fair, it took me a long time too. If Monfi hadn’t mentioned something to Ayli, I don’t think either of us would have put it together.”

“What did the Horizon Knight say?” Kelda asked, still confused.

“I said you were a Force Ghost and he almost immediately said that you were something else,” Ayli said. “We talked about it later and he didn’t know what you were but her pointed out that Force Ghosts can usually only be seen by those they had a connection to in life.”

“The only exceptions he knew of were in places where the Force was in an exceptionally heightened state,” Nix said.

“Like a Dark Side Nexus, where we met you,” Ayli said, looking at Ravas.

“Except I met Kelda in one of Sali’s gardens,” Nix said. “Not exactly much of a Force nexus there, but the plants were nice.”

“True,” Ayli said. “Neither of us knew enough to question that though.”

“They can’t be right, can they?” Ravas asked.

“More like, we can’t be wrong,” Nix said. “Not on this at least. You, both of you, have appeared to plenty of people, none of whom you knew in life. Even if we’re your anchors because of what happened on Praxis Mar, you still have lives outside of us.”

“And they are lives,” Ayli said. “Leaving aside the fact that you are embodiments of the Force, which, is LIFE, you’ve both been changing, which, as an academic I have to point out, is one of the things that living things do. Sort of an essential quality for them to have.”

“But…” Kelda said.

“But that would mean…” Ravas said.

“That it’s not too late for you,” Nix said. “And that you will definitely be joining us up there on the altar.”

“We’re carrying on what you began,” Ayli said. “And we still have a lot to learn from you.”

“Just like Rassi and Solna have a lot that we can teach them,” Nix said.

“But that doesn’t mean you’re done,” Ayli said.

“Just because you’ll live on in us, doesn’t mean you don’t get to live for yourselves too.” Nix said.

“What can we say?” Kelda asked, looking a bit more overwhelmed than she ever had before.

“To us?” Nix asked. “You don’t have to say anything to us. What matters is what you’re going to say to each other.”

“What matters if what you’re going to be to each other.”

“The reason I held on,” Kelda said.

“The reason I came back,” Ravas said.

Nix took Ayli’s hands.

“The reason we made it this far,” Ayli said.

“And the reason we’ll keep going.”

[Chronicles Complete]

[…for now]