Meet me at the house. I'll be there at noon in three days. I'm tired of this, Wolsha. I miss you.
She had thought that when she had found Wulfram that she would never be apart from him again. That her journey had ended, that she could mend and heal and create a life– an aliit for herself. So when the love of her life thoroughly threw a massive nuke into everything their life had been, it had broken her so very deeply. She had spent at least three days held up in some dumb hotel room in Estle, crying till the tears couldn’t come anymore, screaming mentally, wondering how she was going to continue.
Three days in she wanted to give up as the dark side swirled in her mind, carried on the winds of her father’s words to her. ‘You will always be alone, daughter. Always have been, always will be.’ It felt like there was nothing else, no hope. In those days she craved silence and the end. Didn’t sleep, didn’t eat, just existed.
But the clouds parted… eventually. And she could think again. She saw the lack of Wulfram in everything she did, missed the laughter of her daughters and Chris’s grumpy self. Suddenly she couldn’t stand the stupid hotel room and it’s gorgeous interior, couldn’t stand the silence of the room she had simmered in for days. She tried drinking, she tried fights, she tried training. The bed felt too empty, she felt too exposed knowing her childhood best friend was no longer there to have her back.
She missed him.
Reached out to him in her dreams the rare moments she dozed off for seconds at a time.
So she sucked it up, especially when he didn’t reach out to her. She didn’t blame him with the way she had torn him down. She had spent her time trying her best to understand– and she did, eventually. How Wulfram was pinned between wanting to protect his family and keep the wish of the woman who raised him when his own family parished in the rubble and flames.
She wished he would have told her. She hated that everything had changed even when she tried so very hard to stop it from changing.
Lillian waited on the hill outside the house, in a leather jacket and black jeans, with combat boots laced all the way up. Her hair was down and blowing in the breeze, dark red curls like a flag as she sat on a rock. The Mandalorian pulled her jacket around her tightly, wrapping her arms around her torso to keep the warmth in and try her best to calm her nerves. Emerald eyes, dull and surrounded by dark circles and bags watched the house.
She has tossed the armor in some distant corner of the cursed hotel room, feeling like it was a symbol of her dishonor and ruined life.
She could feel her mother in there, milling, living her life, not giving a single shit about her. It was enough to make her stomach turn and her feet itch to run away– but she wasn’t here for Vera, for Alexandyr or for any of the girls. She was here for Wulfram because her life without him was unbearable now that she had felt what life with him was like. She missed their fights, their conversations, their kisses, their intimate moments.
She had known since they had first met as small children, as neighbors, that Wulfram was it for her. This was only proof.
Salt-and-pepper hair bobbed up the path from the house towards the woman with an untrimmed beard grown a bit rough in the last week to match. The fifty-two year old Mandalorian marched up towards her in a nearly identical outfit. Wearing a grey, second-skin tight tee-shirt, a black leather coat, stitched from what was clearly a stabbing, and navy coloured jeans. His hands were in the pockets of the jacket and his head cocked slightly to the side.
“You know, you can just come inside, right Dove?” He shouted over the high winds, mind still awash in the events of the last week.
Unsure of himself, the family, or any of what had happened, he sent everyone else away to have the house to just himself and Lillian. The threat to Vera was gone and she had gone to find herself something closer to town. Asani was most likely training with the STC by this point, if not off on another mission, and Alex busy with the stars or his Chiss lover.
In truth, he had many things he wanted to show her. But was unsure of where to begin, and there was a question of her father still. While he wasn’t truly a pious or proper member of the Kyr'stad, Lillian had adhered to the old ways, and would likely wish her father’s body to be disposed over in a proper Kote Kyr'am. As such Wulfram had his body preserved that the last member of his clan could burn his body should she wish to return his spirit to the others.
“Though, I’m always willing to just walk with you, cyare.”
Her body relaxed as soon as she saw him, her hands dropping slightly down her body. He… he looked so worn. Has this time apart been hard for him too? He called her cyare and her eyes began to water.
She wanted to run to him, but instead she just looked back at the house.
“It.. it doesn’t feel right. Not yet,” she sighed, her shoulders slumping a bit in the revelation that she would need to go in eventually.
The redhead pushed herself up from the rock and moved over to Wulfram. She was exhausted, but she didn’t want to go in that godsforsaken house… so walk it was.
But first.
Lillian stopped in front of Wulfram, reaching out to straighten his coat.
“I… I need to say this, before I get stubborn and hard-headed like always. Because I know you need to hear it, I can see it wearing on you,” she finished fiddling but held on to the fabric for just a moment before dropping her hands. Control. She needed to remind herself— control your emotions, your actions, your face.
Easier said than done. When her eyes raised to meet Wulfram’s, there was a sadness and longing in them.
Her mind pulled memories of the hurt on his face as she pulled away from him, his thumb tracing so gently along her most painful scar.
“I forgive you, cyare. For… what happened. I didn’t understand then, but I do now. I’m sorry… for what I said, how I acted.”
“The doors are open to you, any time. The locks are gene-coded for you, I pulled the gene-codes from home when I ran away, so I could try and find our Vod and Buir. This home was meant to be ours, I scrounged and saved for a home for you, Alex and Buir have to punch a code to come inside. The girls can come and go, though.” He told her as he drew close enough they didn’t have to shout over the high winds and sea-spray.
“I understand. A lot happened and not at all what was supposed to happen. Buir wasn’t supposed to come home. You shouldn’t have come, the girls either. I was going to leave him beaten, stripped, and armorless back on Concordia after making him admit to what he did to all of us… I’m… I…”
When she stepped in front of him and adjusted his coat he froze, unsure if she was angry at him for bringing the matter up again, or simply trying to get his attention.
Her words punched through him, rending him to the core and his arms wrapped around her waist and snaked up behind the back of her neck to pull her closer to him.
“It used to be so simple, I always said when we were young you’d be my riduur, but now I feel like I’ve thrown that away. That you wouldn’t have me.” He said as he placed a kiss on her forehead.
Scarred hands reached moved to snake under Wulfram’s jacket so that Lillian’s arms could tightly wrap around his torso with minimal barriers. The redhead closed her eyes as Wulfram spoke about the past, forcing memories of them playing together as children and sparring happily as teenagers. He was right, things had grown so complicated since then. Since the time she silently promised to the universe as she tended his wounds after the Purge that she would give him another family.
She enjoyed the embrace for a moment longer before her hands moved to cup his dumb, stubborn, wonderful face in her fingers.
“I am your riduur. Even if I can’t commit to it yet, because I need to fix myself and come to peace with the death of the clan I fought decades for. My heart has always been yours, Wulfram Armis, and it always will be. No matter how much we wound each other, no matter how far apart we are. I suffered humiliation and many unspeakable things to find you again…”
A soft smile, a broken one, one that pulled loosely on the scar across her lips and brought a shot of pain across her face.
“There is never a time in which I would not have you, Wolsha. Not in any universe.”
Emerald eyes searched hers as she clutched his face. Lost for words he spoke the only truth he knew in that moment.
“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde.”
Lillian’s breath caught in her chest as Wulfram spoke vows she had only dreamed of hearing. He would still have her? After everything she had said and done? After she had taken two decades to find him? Her bottom limp trembled as she let out a shuttering breath.
“Mhi solus tome, mhi solus dar'tome, mhi me'dinui an, mhi ba'juri verde,” she repeated, her heart hammering in her chest.
Finally, no barriers between them, no miscommunications, no hard-headed refusals to understand.
“I’ll wait for you until the stars die and the moons collapse, riduur, when you are ready be Douve no more, then you will be ready. You are equal to me, and I would never seek to remove your clan of you, would you not remove it of yourself. No matter what traditions say. Likewise, we can hold on celebrations until you feel you are comfortable. I know you still feel unease in my arms and in our home, I would not expect you to share this with the world, just yet.” He whispered into her hair as she stroked the back of her head with his palm, kissing her forehead gently as he pulled her in closer to him.
“My life is yours, forever, my heart, soul, all of it.” He breathed into her.
She hadn’t realized she was crying till it wet the part of Wulfram’s shirt where she had decided to bury her face. This wasn’t a dream, was it? Another one of her sleep deprived hallucinations? A clever trick of the force? Hands gripped at his shirt, hoping that even if it was a dream, if she gripped hard enough it wouldn’t fade.
It was over. Her wait was over.
Lillian pulled away only far enough to reach up on her toes and press her scarred lips against Wulf’s. She broke the kiss only for a moment to respond.
“And all I am is yours. Bic ganar ratiin cuyir r’miit'gaanar,” she mumbled before pressing her lips to his again.
Wulfram held her tightly to him. Hands clasped tightly to her, unwilling to lose a moment more. Already they’d lost so much. Too long they’d spent wrapped up in their foolish pride and ambitions, ignoring or letting others dictate their lives for them.
Breaking away only to breathe he sighed.
“Tonight, I do not leave you, unless you choose.”
“Don’t you dare,” she smirked lightly, brushing her lips softly against his, “I’ll come hunt you down again.”
Opening her eyes, she looked into Wulfram’s, her hands running across his chest so that she could clasp them behind his neck.
“We do everything together from now on, understood?” Her tone and gaze were more serious now, “I would have fought beside you, Wulf. But that’s in the past and we’ll move forward— as long as you promise to loop me in, okay?”
The redhead brushed her lips against her riduur’s again. Suddenly that house didn’t seem so bad.
He returned her kiss forcefully, a smile on his lips that matched the one in his heart. His body vibrated in anxiety, desire, necessity to be with her. But. There was a Rancor in the room still.
“Then we begin with one bit of displeasure. Because as much as I hated the man, he was still your Buir, and deserves the option of a Kote Kyr'am, unless you believe he has dishonored himself enough to not receive one.” He intoned, knowing that it risked to sour the mood, but their collective life had to face it, sooner better than later.
Lillian was silent for a moment but only because she was surprised. Surprised that Wulfram had kept the body, that he had thought of her wanting to honor him, to return him. Wulfram had thought about her wishes even when his aliit was crumbling around him.
A scarred lower lip wobbled again, like her voice did when she spoke.
“You…” she choked on her words at first, but forced herself to continue, “you would do that with me…? Return him? Even after everything he has done?”
“Return him for the new Vizsla yearly gathering, or do the traditional, family and clan ceremony. Though that would only be the three of us. Alexandyr refuses to join.” Wulfram confirmed as he moved his thumb to her lip, calming her before he placed another kiss.
“You are my cyare, my riduur, my everything. I give you every consideration, even if I give him none. My intention was never for him to die. He was to be dishonored, shamed, armor stripped of him and left on his House’s doorstep after he spoke the truth of what he did. I chose to torture, to hurt, instead of ending it cleanly, to sully my hands, because his life had value to you when it had none to me. And so his death should be honored, for you, if you’d wish him some ceremony.”
The laugh that came from her was a weird mixture of sorrow and stark clarity. Maybe she had planned, once upon a time, to give her buir a kote ky’ram— once she had fought him and killed him for everything he had done to her and their clan and the people she loved.
After she shamed and bloodied him.
But the words Zerril had poisoned her with, his laughter at her dissolving mental state, the way he hand dismantled everything even as he drew his last breath…
“No, my love. No. Fuck’im. That auretii does not deserve a Kote. He did not die a glorious death… even as he faded from this world, he almost took you from me… again. No. Let him be forgotten.”
A scarred hand gripped at Wulfram’s hair lightly, her fingers trembling.
“You know what his dying words were? That I was alone. That I always have been, aways will be. As he was bleeding out he tried to push me over the edge… the last person who gave a damn about him.”
“Let me tell you something, riduur, I built a family for you. A home for you to come home to, and raised them to be strong, like you. I raised them in your image. I fought to find the family you lost and make their home safe, since their sanctity was stolen from them. What I learned disturbed me, but never made me distrust you. I only loved you more and when I found you did my best to separate you from him. You were never alone. You had a family waiting for you.” He told her, his voice firm and his grip tight, keeping their bodies together.
Her mind was a storm of thought and emotion. He had raised the girls after her? Eyebrows pushed together and eyes looked down as her brain connected dots that she had been to headstrong or unsure to connect before.
Asani with her loyalty, Sagitta with her strength, Erin with her ingenuity, and Arden with her drive for knowledge. The beskar spear through her father’s helmet, likely the same one he had scarred and nearly slit her throat with, the matching scars on Zerril.
“Oh,” she breathed, and then she was kissing him again. Deep and passionate, clinging to him— she finally understood. Understood everything.
Zerril could rot. She had won.
Her forcefulness knocked him to the ground this time and he chuckled as he placed his hands on her thighs.
“I was supposed to sweep you off of your feet… I think we got this backwards.” He chuckled over the roaring of the winds.
Lillian stared down at Wulfram, her lips pulled into a smirk, that glimmer in her eyes that meant something mischievous. She felt so damn free, like she could take on the world. Wulfram was hers, finally without any doubt. He was holding her and smiling for her and laughing for her. Even if this was a dream, it was a damn good one.
“I don’t know, Wolsha,” she purred, “I quite like the site of you under me. I say we got it right.” The redhead pushed herself up so that she was holding herself up off of him, comfortably straddling him in the grass.
Wulfram laughed, pinned to his back as he pushed to his elbows and brought himself up slightly, before rolling over to face away from her. In a quick twist of his body he wrapped his knees under hers and spun himself over again using his arm for leverage. As he whipped Lillian over a purr would meet her ear as his hand caught her shoulder and eased her to the ground.
“I think we forget ourselves.”
His fellow mandalorian shuttered, drawing her scarred lip between her teeth, emerald eyes glimmering. She hadn’t expected him to flip them, and while she had enjoyed being the one on top, this was arguably a better view.
A few seconds passed before she spoke again.
“Show me this house you made for us, Wolsha.”