... She has literally never had anyone say anything of the sort to her in her life. It is not unpleasant. (She thinks she might be in trouble if he keeps talking, but she never wants him to stop.)

"I," she begins, and then her voice catches for some reason and she has to abort in favor of starting over. "I'm - talking to me is like flying the Dendarii Gorge with your eyes closed?"

"I—when I got really good at it—there's this feeling like... like everything I'm doing is the right thing, I don't need to think about it, I can just fly—I was reaching for a metaphor that expressed how easy it is to talk to you, how our conversations always seem to just flow effortlessly and we keep tossing jokes back and forth like we've already been married for twenty years, and that was what came to mind."

Her vision's blurring and she absently observes that it's been years since she's cried, and that by now the prospect is kind of strange and alien. Also infuriating. This? After everything else she's been through? This is what drives her to - to near tears? Because she hasn't actually started crying yet, it's just the beginning parts of it.

"Um." And suddenly she's embarrassed, and scrunches her eyes shut. "I, believe I might need a minute if you don't want to deal with me crying on you for reasons that really don't make much sense."

...he squeezes her hand. "I am perfectly willing to deal with your nonsensical crying, with or without explanations," he says. "Do you want a hug?"

His reaction is not a bad one, but it is also not one that's conducive to 'the Sith Lord does not cry.' She tilts her head back and blinks open her eyes, contemplating the ceiling. Oh look, tears, what a surprise.

"You know what," she murmurs, "yes, yes I believe I do."

So Miles hugs her.

She reminds herself that Miles is fragile and breakable, so she does not just fling herself at him to sob pathetically into his hair. Instead, she moves to cuddle him slowly, systematically. Like an expertly demolished building, collapsing majestically into the ground. Or, in this case, to an appropriate snuggling position with Miles. To cry on him. Because that's definitely what she's doing now.

"I don't even know where to, to begin to, attempt to explain why I am now crying out of nowhere," she mumbles.

"No rush," he says, wrapping his arms around her.

"Why are you so great," she thinks, but - wait, no, she said that out loud, didn't she? Oh, she is in trouble.

"It seemed obviously preferable to the alternative."

Giggle-sob.

"Funny, that probably would have been my answer, too."

"We are very much alike in a lot of ways. Being really great, for example."

Well, that has earned an extra, and slightly louder sob.

"Did you know," she begins, feeling inane, and then there's another sob and she has to pause and pick it up again, "that slavery's a thing in t-the Sith Empire?"

"...It's not the most surprising thing I've ever heard."

"Right, the society seems to have built itself on the premise of 'how absolutely terrible can we get, let's find out empirically,' it's insane. What probably is a bit more surprising is, the." She snuggles closer; her voice comes out kind of muffled. "Sith's not exactly a profession for the long-lived. And they decided they wanted more Sith, and didn't want to fix the turnover rate problem on account of the aforementioned premise upon which the society is built, and. So they checked various people for Force sensitivity and threw those that were into their academy to become Sith. No matter what they'd been before."

Does she need to say it? She kind of doesn't want to say it.

...he cuddles her.

She probably does not have to say it.

Excellent, she prefers that. It's easier if she doesn't have to say it out loud.

"S-so, there's that, which is - itself, but I think my problem right now is, is." Sniffle. "Some equivalency to travelling through an endless desert, and somehow surviving on account of a mix of luck and cleverness and eventually reaching the point where it's not - easy, perhaps, but surviving in it is manageable. And escape isn't really expected but the desert itself isn't so bad once you have the basics of not dying down and I think I've fleshed out the metaphor enough to continue on let's not linger longer here." Another sob, followed by a sniffle. "Then when you least expect it suddenly there's an, an oasis of some kind, and. And now I am crying, which is great, some Sith Lord I am."

"My favourite Sith Lord," he reminds her.

Did he want another extra sob, because he has earned one. Here it is, just for him.

"Also the only one you've met," she mumbles.

"True. But if I'd met any others I bet you would still be my favourite. Your teacher, when she arrives, will have to be content with second place."

She makes a noise that sounds like an unholy mixture of a sob and a laugh.

"I can't imagine she'd be jealous, she doesn't much care for others' opinions."

"Works out nicely, then."

Snuggle.

Snuggle. Sob.

And then, because she will not just leave well enough alone, she has to be very sure that the proverbial oasis is not a mirage and isn't going to disappear into desert sands: "I - I might end up having a, a jealousy problem, I've noticed that I've had some, obsessive, or perhaps a better term would be possessive tendencies. Which, is fun, it's great to know that I definitely have the capacity to become a crazy Sith."

"I'm confident we can figure it out," he says, hugging her.

"What, make a twelve step program for what to do if your girlfriend goes crazy and starts demonstrating why Imperial standard for what to do if a Sith becomes infatuated with you is 'quietly despair inside and say yes to everything they ask'?"