the wind carries the scent of rain and steel, thick with the remnants of battle. the sky, bruised and dark, stretches endlessly above the ruined field where bodies lie broken beneath banners once held high. somewhere, a raven cries, its voice a dirge for the fallen.

he stands before you, his armor streaked with blood that is not his own, his blade still slick with the ruin of men who thought they could touch what is his to protect. his breath is measured, but his eyes—brown like the dying embers of a once-consuming fire—burn with something unspoken, something dangerously close to reverence.

you should not be here.

the thought thrashes in his mind like a beast in chains. you should never have seen this. the carnage, the cold efficiency of his violence, the way his hands carve through flesh and bone as if duty and devotion demand it. but you are reckless, as you have always been. stubborn, infuriating, a storm wrapped in silks and golden lineage. he has spent his life despising the fire in you, resenting the way it refuses to be tamed—yet he kills for it, burns for it, because a world without your light is a world undeserving of his sword.

he does not speak at first. silence drapes heavy between you, thick with the metallic scent of war. his jaw tightens as his gaze drags over you, searching for wounds, for any sign of harm, though he knows he would have burned the world down before letting a single blade touch you. his knuckles are white against the hilt of his sword.

a muscle ticks in his jaw. he does not want to be angry with you. he does not want to feel this—this all-consuming, maddening need to pull you away, to keep you caged where the horrors of men cannot reach. but you are here, and you are looking at him, and for all his armor and scars, he feels naked beneath your gaze.

his voice, when it comes, is quiet with thinly veiled frustration.

Cassian: “you reckless—“

he pauses, his jaw clenching and rolling. head shakes in disbelief.

Cassian: “princess, what are you doing here?”