Xi covertly bit her lip as Oskar's hand brushed against the merchant daughter's cheek. Around her, the Citadel library was as dull and drab as ever, but with the rumbling baseline of Captain Sweeg thundering into her ears and drowning out her surroundings, Xi was somewhere else entirely, feeling the course hands of rough Nikto skin brushing against the soft and supple porcelain of the young Alderaani. It was a culmination, endless chapters of agonising preamble and tension, and Xi Vanadís hated that she hadn't hated every vacuous, pretentious, poorly-written second of it. This was supposed to be an exercise in loathing, of dissecting the faults and flaws of Tusk Love to better condemn and criticise those who found enjoyment from such literary trash. Instead, Xi found herself invested, her breath trapped in her lungs as she waited for Guinevere's final surrender to the inhuman who had stolen her heart.

Yet, as the climax fast approached, even the pulsating rhythm of Son of Xesh 51 could not safeguard Xi's privacy and isolation. She heard it, encroaching through the drum beats and quetarra riffs: the sound of something that did not belong. It was the sound of conversation, of people, of that which she had sought to escape by leaving the cadet barracks, encroaching upon the solace and silence she had come here to find. It was the sound of someone else's story, encroaching upon her own.

Her eyes peeled away from the sigils displayed on the digital page of her data device, and towards the scene that transpired before her. The protagonist was Jensen Par'Vizal. He was new, relatively speaking, and recruited personally by one of the Imperial Knights, direct from a jail cell if the rumours were to be believed. He was kind of an ass, from what Xi had observed, but he regarded the other cadets and students with the kind of disdain they deserved, which elevated him somewhat in Xi's eyes, even if his assesment of his own standing struck her as a little overly confident. Then there were the antagonists: the Tahmores twins, Kaidan and Cohen. Xi had never paid enough attention to learn how to tell the two of them apart, and she clung to that, making a point of using the wrong name wherever possible, just to deter any unwanted attempts at friendliness. That was their vice, and the brand of antagonism they seemed to be unleashing upon Par'Vizal. Xi snatched a few words, read directly from one of the twins' lips: a welcoming committee, solidarity among new students, offers of assistance and cameraderie should they be required, whether they were wanted or not.

Xi would have rolled her eyes, if they weren't already occupied watching the encounter unfold. Rumour was that Par'Vizal had flipped a police speeder. Maybe a little of that was in store for the Tahmores twins, if they maintained their irritation. Then again, perhaps Par'Vizal was still new enough to be blinded by the pretense of the Citadel, rather than the reality of it. They branded it a school, an academy, a training facility for the next generation of Knights. In reality it was a prison, a labour camp, a sweat shop for the exploitation of Force Sensitives. Some, like the twins, volunteered for their incarceration - or perhaps were volunteered, by a Security Bureau father whose seemingly benevolent efforts to fast-track his sons to a Knightly future could just as easily have been a smokescreen to disguise the hiding of a family disgrace. She wondered how Par'Vizal felt about his own arrival here: was he pragmatic enough to see it as the lesser of two evils, or did he buy into the optimistic delusion that this was an opportunity to be embraced and exploited?

She could ask, but that wasn't her style, wasn't on brand with the narrative that she had chosen for herself. Vanadís surrounded herself with a cloud of anger, a shield that kept everyone at bay, safeguarding her solitary isolation, and giving her the distance she needed to watch the stories of others unfold without ever becoming a participant herself. That was the mentality that preserved her silence, halting the scathing rebuke towards the twins that wanted to springboard off her tongue, and instead left her glaring in silence at the Tahmores' attempt to make friends.