Star War: Quinlan Vos --x for Xanadu
Title: Secret Garden
author: helgaleena
Fandom: Star Wars: Quinlan Vos
Characters: Quinlan Vos
Prompt: (Xanadu)
Word Count: 1246
Rating: R
Author's Notes: prequel to Star Wars: Republic--"Catspaw". Quinlan was sent to infiltrate the Separatists on Brentaal IV, to render the base permeable to the Republic assault, but instead was captured and imprisoned. The Republic was lured into continuing the attack by messages using his personal codes. Later Master Shaak Ti freed him, and with other former prisoners they managed to turn the operation, resulting in the Republic's victory after all.
Disclaimer: Lucas, Ostrander and Duursema own them, not me.
for the challenge community alphabetasoup: X for Xanadu, at Livejournal.com
The main thing he remembered about his time on Brentaal IV as a prisoner of war was the darkness, close and stifling. The cell he was in had no windows, no visible door. Weaponless, he would never have managed to get through the cast reinforced duracrete, at least half a meter thick in every direction, with the door made of duracrete set in steel. Enough ventilation reached him that he could exist on the air, but not if he exerted himself overmuch. A blast of fresh air accompanied the thrusting of the food pellets through their hatch, and he took to waiting there to inhale it, brainlessly as a laboratory animal.
Towards the end, Shogar Tok himself had been in on the beatings; they really couldn't be called interrogations at that point. Mainly he made certain that some overzealous thug on the Separatist payroll didn't actually kill him-- he still had hostage value, being a Jedi. They didn't really bother him, deep down; they tended to blur in his memory into a painful sameness.
But after a time, his ability to Force-heal himself afterwards began to diminish, whether from the multiple forms of deprivation or simply from reaching the endurance limits of the body he occupied. Quin had always been athletic; confinement in the cramped space, unable to straighten fully or exercise, was yet another form of starvation.
In the enforced stillness, he spent the time dreaming of all the things he was missing. With the help of the inner light of the Force he created a garden for himself, full of green plants with edible fruits, full of fragrant blooms, twittering avians, tiny jewel-like insects, and his friends. And fullest of all of bright sunlight. These dreams of light were more vivd in memory than the actual experiences he had undergone in the meantime. That was how he'd needed them.
Now and then he would imagine cleanliness, swimming as a padawan again in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Coruscant's daylight would come sparkling through the skylights to create rainbows in the spray. Soon his black locks would be sopping, whether he went swimming or not, each with its own crystal droplet at the end, and he'd shake them off to make them fly in every direction, grinning at Bant and Garen and the others. He would splash moisture into his nose then, from the tiny fresher spigot in the dark, and pretend he'd just snorted water out of his nose after a deep dive. And tears would come to his eyes, for him to blink with.
Other times he would simply dream of eating fruit. Crisp flesh would give way to his teeth, crackling rinds, juices running down his chin to his fingers to be licked away, satisfying his mouth with its give and its ethereally perfect flavor, that didn't correspond to any actual fruits he'd had the experience of eating. They were fruits of perfect satisfaction, blended expressly for him by his imagination, and growing in abundance here. His dream body was nourished , even as his physical body starved for trace elements the food pellets lacked. Somehow, it helped.
And he would remember the flavor of love. He remembered the nectar of Shylar, on a spread of green grass, how she'd joke, "I'll be your beard, Quin," when they both wanted her to be so much more, and he'd look down at her, worshiping with his eyes, and then plunge his tongue deep between her lower lips ringed with that mustache of golden curls. The little hairs wove together with the sunlight upon them in his memories, with how gulping down her flavor had been such a satisfying taste, even better than Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan-- so many memories of him in stereo now, as his dear friend had let him share his recollections, to compensate for the ones he'd lost on Ryloth. At the same time he'd feel the brush of that reddish padawan braid on his thigh, and that talented mouth around him, and that big-headed dick hitting the back of his throat, the sensation would come of a tongue running up his own shaft, a dizzying view of his own ass in the air. If he thought of Obi-Wan too much here, he'd find himself wanking fruitlessly in the dark, from the sheer press of horniness from both views. But there were times he couldn't help but be thankful.
It wasn't all sex. He thought of Tra'a Saa, with her arm around Tholme, and Tholme's arm around him, when he'd been still small enough to fit there. Crag-faced Master Tholme, and his ageless Neti lover, were as much a part of the furnishings of his garden as all the other trees. LIke a tree his master was there to lean on, utterly dependable, giving him form upon which to build his untimely shattered life. And of course sunlight was a tree's food. Their love was naturally a part of the Force, and it spilled over to him, promised him never to cease, even here. It seeped inexorably into his dreaming body from their quiet touch. He could spend hours at a time with his dream master this way.
One night-- or was it one day, he wasn't sure-- Qui-Gon visited his garden, the silver threads in his hair shining impossibly bright, a smile on his bearded face, his eyes as blue as an oxygen-rich sky, as blue as the Force aura surrounding him, proclaiming that the body he was manifesting was pure energy projection, with no physical counterpart. And yet there he was, solid in this place of dream. Quin could smile back here, with his mouth ready for dream kissing, could tear the clothes off his lover with a mere thought, because he was equally real and unreal. With an embellishment from Obi-Wan's memory, he could even conjure up the distinctive woodsy aroma of a magnificent man, long dead. But the love they made was so real-- so real that tears were streaming down his cheeks when the Force spit him back out again into his black cubbyhole, with wetness in his lap. Some purpose was to be served by remaining alive. But living hurt...
Yet another time, from the cool shadows slipped his Padawan Aayla, a young girl again with her bright smile, dancing and dallying around his garden. He had saved those blue limbs from slavery, from the jaws of the rampaging wampa, and let her grow in the shelter of the Temple. Being her Master was surely the finest thing he'd accomplished for the good of the galaxy, to date. Even if he died here in the dark, Aayla's light would go on. His chest felt warm, from his heart swelling at the thought of her.
In his dream garden he would increasingly turn his face directly into the light, letting it permeate and fill him, chasing out any uncertainty about his service to the will of the Force, alive or dead. He hoped he would dissolve in that light, but it kept ejecting him again after his resting in it, back into that close and fetid darkness.
Until one happy hour when his eyes saw actual, physical light, streaming around Shaak Ti's shoulders, and Shaak Ti's arms were around him, healing him. With his inner eyes he could feel as well as see the light streaming from her bright red Togruta fingers, replenishing his own light.
Until he could speak, and stand, and fight again.
end
author: helgaleena
Fandom: Star Wars: Quinlan Vos
Characters: Quinlan Vos
Prompt: (Xanadu)
Word Count: 1246
Rating: R
Author's Notes: prequel to Star Wars: Republic--"Catspaw". Quinlan was sent to infiltrate the Separatists on Brentaal IV, to render the base permeable to the Republic assault, but instead was captured and imprisoned. The Republic was lured into continuing the attack by messages using his personal codes. Later Master Shaak Ti freed him, and with other former prisoners they managed to turn the operation, resulting in the Republic's victory after all.
Disclaimer: Lucas, Ostrander and Duursema own them, not me.
for the challenge community alphabetasoup: X for Xanadu, at Livejournal.com
The main thing he remembered about his time on Brentaal IV as a prisoner of war was the darkness, close and stifling. The cell he was in had no windows, no visible door. Weaponless, he would never have managed to get through the cast reinforced duracrete, at least half a meter thick in every direction, with the door made of duracrete set in steel. Enough ventilation reached him that he could exist on the air, but not if he exerted himself overmuch. A blast of fresh air accompanied the thrusting of the food pellets through their hatch, and he took to waiting there to inhale it, brainlessly as a laboratory animal.
Towards the end, Shogar Tok himself had been in on the beatings; they really couldn't be called interrogations at that point. Mainly he made certain that some overzealous thug on the Separatist payroll didn't actually kill him-- he still had hostage value, being a Jedi. They didn't really bother him, deep down; they tended to blur in his memory into a painful sameness.
But after a time, his ability to Force-heal himself afterwards began to diminish, whether from the multiple forms of deprivation or simply from reaching the endurance limits of the body he occupied. Quin had always been athletic; confinement in the cramped space, unable to straighten fully or exercise, was yet another form of starvation.
In the enforced stillness, he spent the time dreaming of all the things he was missing. With the help of the inner light of the Force he created a garden for himself, full of green plants with edible fruits, full of fragrant blooms, twittering avians, tiny jewel-like insects, and his friends. And fullest of all of bright sunlight. These dreams of light were more vivd in memory than the actual experiences he had undergone in the meantime. That was how he'd needed them.
Now and then he would imagine cleanliness, swimming as a padawan again in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Coruscant's daylight would come sparkling through the skylights to create rainbows in the spray. Soon his black locks would be sopping, whether he went swimming or not, each with its own crystal droplet at the end, and he'd shake them off to make them fly in every direction, grinning at Bant and Garen and the others. He would splash moisture into his nose then, from the tiny fresher spigot in the dark, and pretend he'd just snorted water out of his nose after a deep dive. And tears would come to his eyes, for him to blink with.
Other times he would simply dream of eating fruit. Crisp flesh would give way to his teeth, crackling rinds, juices running down his chin to his fingers to be licked away, satisfying his mouth with its give and its ethereally perfect flavor, that didn't correspond to any actual fruits he'd had the experience of eating. They were fruits of perfect satisfaction, blended expressly for him by his imagination, and growing in abundance here. His dream body was nourished , even as his physical body starved for trace elements the food pellets lacked. Somehow, it helped.
And he would remember the flavor of love. He remembered the nectar of Shylar, on a spread of green grass, how she'd joke, "I'll be your beard, Quin," when they both wanted her to be so much more, and he'd look down at her, worshiping with his eyes, and then plunge his tongue deep between her lower lips ringed with that mustache of golden curls. The little hairs wove together with the sunlight upon them in his memories, with how gulping down her flavor had been such a satisfying taste, even better than Obi-Wan.
Obi-Wan-- so many memories of him in stereo now, as his dear friend had let him share his recollections, to compensate for the ones he'd lost on Ryloth. At the same time he'd feel the brush of that reddish padawan braid on his thigh, and that talented mouth around him, and that big-headed dick hitting the back of his throat, the sensation would come of a tongue running up his own shaft, a dizzying view of his own ass in the air. If he thought of Obi-Wan too much here, he'd find himself wanking fruitlessly in the dark, from the sheer press of horniness from both views. But there were times he couldn't help but be thankful.
It wasn't all sex. He thought of Tra'a Saa, with her arm around Tholme, and Tholme's arm around him, when he'd been still small enough to fit there. Crag-faced Master Tholme, and his ageless Neti lover, were as much a part of the furnishings of his garden as all the other trees. LIke a tree his master was there to lean on, utterly dependable, giving him form upon which to build his untimely shattered life. And of course sunlight was a tree's food. Their love was naturally a part of the Force, and it spilled over to him, promised him never to cease, even here. It seeped inexorably into his dreaming body from their quiet touch. He could spend hours at a time with his dream master this way.
One night-- or was it one day, he wasn't sure-- Qui-Gon visited his garden, the silver threads in his hair shining impossibly bright, a smile on his bearded face, his eyes as blue as an oxygen-rich sky, as blue as the Force aura surrounding him, proclaiming that the body he was manifesting was pure energy projection, with no physical counterpart. And yet there he was, solid in this place of dream. Quin could smile back here, with his mouth ready for dream kissing, could tear the clothes off his lover with a mere thought, because he was equally real and unreal. With an embellishment from Obi-Wan's memory, he could even conjure up the distinctive woodsy aroma of a magnificent man, long dead. But the love they made was so real-- so real that tears were streaming down his cheeks when the Force spit him back out again into his black cubbyhole, with wetness in his lap. Some purpose was to be served by remaining alive. But living hurt...
Yet another time, from the cool shadows slipped his Padawan Aayla, a young girl again with her bright smile, dancing and dallying around his garden. He had saved those blue limbs from slavery, from the jaws of the rampaging wampa, and let her grow in the shelter of the Temple. Being her Master was surely the finest thing he'd accomplished for the good of the galaxy, to date. Even if he died here in the dark, Aayla's light would go on. His chest felt warm, from his heart swelling at the thought of her.
In his dream garden he would increasingly turn his face directly into the light, letting it permeate and fill him, chasing out any uncertainty about his service to the will of the Force, alive or dead. He hoped he would dissolve in that light, but it kept ejecting him again after his resting in it, back into that close and fetid darkness.
Until one happy hour when his eyes saw actual, physical light, streaming around Shaak Ti's shoulders, and Shaak Ti's arms were around him, healing him. With his inner eyes he could feel as well as see the light streaming from her bright red Togruta fingers, replenishing his own light.
Until he could speak, and stand, and fight again.
end