#as well as all the suffering of the previous Jedi order because of that no attachment obsession

[gch1995]

The Luke training Grogu sequence started off so well. For a second, I thought the writers were actually going to do his character justice by staying true to the roots of OT and Legends Luke Skywalker, he’d let Mando pick up his baby after school every day, and then bring him back every morning. At the very least, I hoped he’d give Grogu the opportunity to join the new Jedi Order as a normal boarding school student. Yeah, he wouldn’t get to see Mando every day anymore in that scenario, but they could still keep in touch with each other, see each other on weekends and holidays, and send and receive gifts from each other.

Instead, they decided to make him Obi-Wan/Yoda 2.0 because they needed to still justify the fact that they lazily copied and pasted Anakin’s and Luke’s arcs, character development, and stories in the OT and PT sagas onto MaRey Sue and Crylo Ren in the ST films by bringing back Palpatine and having the Skywalker and Jedi Order fail again.

The Din Djarin and Grogu scenes are all really adorable. What they’ve done to the Jedi and Skywalker legacy in the current canon really disappoints me, though. It’s not staying true to their previously established storyline of the Skywalkers bringing balance to the force at all.

If nothing else, at the very least Luke is much more honest, fair, and kind than his predecessors as a teacher. He offers a much more honest choice to Grogu between being a Jedi or going back to Mando. He gives him the resources to safely travel back home with food, that space ship filled with R4, communication devices, and other technology when he choose Mando instead.

He’s far less cold, critical, deceitful, dismissive, and manipulative of a teacher to Grogu than Obi-Wan was to either him or his father. Anakin was a slave child who Qui Gonn freed without his or his mother’s consent, he read his Midichlorian level without Anakin’s knowledge, and he deliberately neglected to tell Anakin the fact that he could very likely never have any close relationships again by becoming a Jedi. Obi-Wan and Yoda disowned Luke as a student, told him he was doomed to fail for not listening to them about “letting go of attachments” to focus on training when he had a force vision of his friends potentially being in life-threatening danger, and refused to offer him any sort of resources that would have allowed this to this innocent and inexperienced young Luke to feel safe going off on his own without their guidance or support. Not to mention the fact that Obi-Wan and Yoda deceived and manipulated him in their recruitment of him to destroy Vader for their own ends until Luke found out the truth from Vaderkin himself, and they didn’t even seem to feel that bad about it when he called them out on their shit.

I still expected a Luke who realized that “no attachments” creed was dysfunctionally obsessive bullshit that led to his predecessors downfall, so he wasn’t going to be like them with it in his new Order. That was the Luke we got in the OT films and Legends. This Luke is still better than Obi-Wan and Yoda, but he’s still missing what was supposed to make him such a game changer for the Jedi Order in the OT films by instead obsessing over that “no attachments” garbage.

Grogu with Din Djarin & Luke Skywalker

[bolithesenate]

Blorbo timetravel and/or Dooku takes over the agricorps 👀

hehehehe

yeah, blorbo timetravel is exactly what it says on the can

all the blorbos randomly wake up in their padawan bodies (theres some attempted murder on Jo's side and some snarkyness on Sy's -- as well as genral mopyness from dooku)

“On a scale of one to ten,” Jocasta was visibly struggling to hold the – much too big and heavy for her current form – saber aloft, “How murderous towards Jedi are you feeling right now?” Yan blinked. “Uh,” he squeaked out, “Three?” “Wrong answer!” She lifted the saber even higher, ready to strike him down. “What even is the right answer?!,” the Jedi-turned-Sith-turned-Initiate wailed as he stumbled back out of range of her rather uncoordinated slashes. “Not karking three!” Her young voice was full of age-inappropriate vitriol as she immediately took chase, slashing up several mattresses and a goodly portion of the wooden tiles on the floor in the process. Yan was busy evading her, though not busy enough to shut the kark up. “What do you want from me, woman?! Should I have said more? Is that what you want?!?”

Jocasta let out an incoherent scream of outrage. “Actually,” Sifo from his bean bag in the farthest corner from their little two-man guerilla war said, “I think the correct amount she was looking for would be zero. If you truly were wondering.” “That’s not even on the scale!,” the immediate protest came – because of course it did. Far be it from Yan to just accept something. Sifo sighed.

they then decide that the only valid way to deal with all those feelings is to take over serenno (for plot reasons, you know how it is) and because they need more people they also kidnap Arath and Lorian with them

it then becomes a wonderful story about how the ideal count of serenno is five jedi padawans in a coat.

and also about how Arath's innate head-exploding powers (that are legends canon) (at least to me) can and will save the galaxy

and dooku takes over the agricorps is...

well, also what it says on the tin. i really like to give straight-forward wip titles. most of the time.

the thing that gets dooku to leave the order is not a message about how bad serenno is doing, but a message on how bad the agricorps is doing

and that simply cannot be permitted to continue

cue him using his resting bitch face powers and also all the embezzled tax money he's stealing from Ramil for good :3

featuring, how else could it be, a dear OC of mine: Sisviker Ninedi, the most harrowed spokesperoson of the agricorps

Dooku observed Corpsmember Ninedi with rapt attention.

So far he had realized three major things about the young theelin.

One, they were absolutely overworked and were lucky to be able to rely on the Force to supplement where sleep and nerves lacked - otherwise they would probably be nothing more than a wandling stress-ulcer. Her for her species unusually dull skin and pale hair hinted on a chronic lack of sleep and essential nutrients. That wouldn't do. Definitely something he'd have to monitor. Two, they were, even with all the stones life tossed onto her path, an incredibly efficient worker. From what he'd seen from her previous track record, Ninedi had always managed, through a very balanced combination between licking the right boots and firmly defending her point when needed, to ensure that the AgriCorps at least didn't suffer any losses with the deals she cut. With the right guidance and a proper sleep schedule Dooku was sure they'd make a formidable spokesperson for the Corps. And three, that she and Rael were never, under any circumstances, to be allowed to meet, lest they wanted to seal the destruction of the Republic in a giant glittery trash fire.

[bookatans]

We all know that Star Wars is a carousel of bad decisions, but it still never fails to amaze me that Yoda decided to give newly-Knighted certified functional disaster Anakin Skywalker a padawan. And that nobody in the Council said, "You know, a war maybe isn't the best time to give this guy who already suffers from attachment issues someone else to attach himself to?"

They're supposed to be the mentors, the leaders. They're supposed to pay attention to how the Jedi work and their struggles. They're not supposed to go oh, well, hopefully this turns out well and not a complete disaster.

And yes, the Jedi were placed in a position they never should have been. They were stretched thin, a part of something the Jedi were never meant to be. But. Fuck. Even before the war, things were going badly. We call this singular branch of Jedi the Disaster Lineage, but that's because we know more about their history than we do anyone else's.

How many more Araths and Braylons were there? How many times did other Padawans, Jedi, Masters hide their failures from the Order? Canonically, you have Kit and Aayla in a relationship, though they put the Order first and called it off. How many didn't have that dedication? How many wavered?

Arguably, there is no perfect Jedi. Even the Council wasn't infallible. But. Just. Why didn’t they maybe take a moment to think about what giving Anakin Skywalker a Padawan would do?

Anakin Skywalker, who months previous was still so naive and conflicted? Who already had the galaxy on his shoulders as the Chosen One? How could you turn around and place a baby in this child's hands, in the middle of a war, and wave off any consequences?

[voidendron]

thanks to a game of CAH with the guild

I can't stop thinking of Synnda and his relationship with the Force - specifically with his dark side corruption brought on by the shielding technique

and since all of my previous ramblings about it are either old, or Tumblr's dumb search issues are burying them so I can't find them again, I'm writing a new one dang it

and like. he hides his emotions well! intentionally or not, people have a hard time reading him!

and yet he was Very Obviously Distressed when he noticed orange creeping into his irises, and the way the skin around his eyes just looked. sickly, almost. more purple-y/gray than it should have been, prominent veins?? he looked Sith!! it was distressing!!

but he swallowed his panic and just. kept protecting the affected Masters. even as it made the corruption look worse. even as it... well. we'll get into it shortly.

he didn't want anyone to worry. he knew Lina, and Nadia, and the rest of his crew were concerned for his health, with the way he was So Obviously Weak and Sick from the shielding

he started wearing masks to soften his face. he noticed that, hey, hiding his "resting bitch face" really helped soften his eyes, people weren't as intimidated when it was Just His Eyes they were seeing, rather than the frown and sharp teeth. even the Council was. unsure, what to think, as his eyes seemed brighter, more predatory; as the veins around them stood out as if the corruption was in his very blood

Synnda tried, harder than most, to follow the light. because he knew - he knew - that if he was to fall... well. taking that dark side plague into himself to protect so many others really opened him up to the dark side itself.

it whispers where he can just barely hear it over the buzz of conversation

it coaxes, when it thinks he's not paying attention

but he's a stubborn one, he is.

he meditates, visits places pure in the Force, doesn't let his emotions, nor the impulses they may try to cause, get the better of him

Yavin was the first time he really, truly, had to fight against the corruption. it was too dark there. too loud. too manipulative. it was so hard not to reach out to the spirits that wandered that moon, to request their presence, to speak with them. he knew it could only end poorly, but...

the temptation was there. and it was strong. and he had to do everything in his power not to rend Revan limb-from-limb when they finally came face-to-face.

he was still the one to break her nose. to fracture ribs. to throw her against the nearest wall and come within inches of crushing her lungs with the very air within them. as the whispers of the moon grew overwhelming and he needed to leave dammit

no one confronted him for it. thought the injuries Revan sustained before her death were merely...self-defense. right? no one knew of the internal conflict that the Barsen'thor faced, that one of the most softspoken Jedi in the Order, one of the most gentle, was constantly at war with his own virtues

and then came the Alliance. the Star Fortress... "incident," we'll call it.

for the first time in his life, through constantly shoving away the unwanted urge to touch on the dark side,

he finally used it willingly. it wasn't just. a little more violence than he'd normally use like what happened with Revan. it genuinely reached into the darkest depths of the Force that he could grab in an unsteady chokehold

he would feel guilt for it the rest of his life, even as he reasoned that it was a necessary evil to end Zar Draya then and there before she could cause any more suffering to Alderaan.

the only witness: his own conscious, the soon-to-be-destroyed cameras of the Fortress, Exarch Draya... and Darth Nox. his partner in the mission. a rival for so long, but now an ally

and Nox won't talk about what happened that day. not to anyone. not Synnda, who couldn't even look him in the eyes as they fled the Fortress that tore itself apart

Synnda gave in to the urge to touch on the dark side that day. he crushed Draya with her own armor, crumpled the very platform she stood on around her even as she choked on her own blood, before dropping her into the unstable sun reactor as her heart still beat in her chest. Nox felt as though he were suffocating, the air around the pair thick with... well. he was used to the dark side. so why did it feel so frightening when this Jedi used it? why did it feel as though, had he followed a different path, had he chosen to willingly use the dark side of the Force... why did it feel that it would have been a terrible thing for the galaxy?

because, well. let's keep in mind that he's Still Holding Onto The Plague. it's still very much there! he's just keeping a Really Stubborn Hold On It! and it's why he needed to teach his students the shielding technique! because he has No Idea if it'll just be re-released when he dies, so someone needs to be ready to hold onto it again when he's gone! but he's Not gonna make a single person Ever go through what he's living most of his life holding onto. it's terrible! it's stressful! it's probably why his hearts fail to kill him eventually! so five holding onto it is far better than one!

and maybe, he hopes, they won't have to deal with the dark side whispering to them all their lives if they can share the burden

[ofcoming4th]

This was a deep and thoughtful critique of episode 3. I hope I'm not being obnoxious by adding my little rant and beg the previous writer's patience.

I've watched this episode twice trying to be fair, but I'm deeply afraid that The Mandalorian is turning its storyline to fit in with the future seen in the three sequels. You know, the ones where everyone we loved in the original trio dies in pain and misery even if those deaths are portrayed as somehow heoric?

Pershing's supposed reformation and betrayal are the opening salvo and the New Republic failures are pointed up in a heavy handed and quietly disturbing manner. That even when "rehabilitated" the ex-Imperial followers are denied a name in almost all circumstances, cause being denied an identity works out so well for intelligent lives and increases the chance of happy integration into non Empire society.

When we do get a name for the mole who betrays (and presumably destroys) Pershing to advance themselves it is Kaine of all things! Very subtle boys, lets use the name of the Biblical first murderer who betrays his brother! And there's a little touch of Eve as well, tempting Pershing to grasp the forbidden fruit of more cloning research. Bleh

The upper class sentients who snigger that THEY never had trouble under the Empire are certainly a call back to the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s; the underground Russia oligarchy that existed pre-collapse was able to mine their wealth and connections back into power while trying their best to recreate the Soviet system and deny as many freedoms as possible. And we know that the "First Order" rises once more in the sequels to do the same thing.

Yet Pershing should have never been in the position that destroys him in episode 3 because he never should have been free in the first place. There has been some talk of his circumstances being comparable to "Operation Paperclip" where caputured German scientists where pressed into work for Allied goverments. But Josef Mengele was NOT on that list!

Pershing's crimes were not minor - he was involved in the creation of numerous possibly sentient beings who were condemned to miserable brief existence. The beings in tubes seen at the facility on Nevarro were roughly adult sized, if terribly deformed. Who is to say what those bodies may have held? We know the gene farms on Kamino were completely capable of creating intelligent, independent beings who were condemned to war and early death - are we to believe that knowledge disappeared? Saying that you were only seeking knowledge and giving a sentimental apology does not forgive crime and pain. (Let's not get into the Jedi complicity in the Kamino cloning and the deaths of so many innocents in a false and pointless war. I hate the prequels too.)

Pershing was by no means an innocent or even a sympathetic character in my own opinion. Being too squeamish to dirty your hands with blood does not mean you are not a murderer and criminal. The only compassion I could feel towards his character was that he apparently suffered terrbly at the end(Did he die? How was that explained or will it be just another disappeared plot point?).

The Mandalorian has struck me as a story about how love can still affect the worldview of the most unlikely souls. The brutal, lonely bounty hunter becomes a loving guardian of a child incredibly different from himself and thereby is allowed to show the caring and decent soul beneath his armor. Enemies can find commonality and work together, sometimes becoming friends and discarding prejudices. Yeah!

The turn towards the darkness of the three sequels is a sad choice. Yes as Filoni has said, Grogu's future is unknown - that there is a big universe out there. But they are making that universe smaller and smaller in season 3. And have become so wound up in a Marvel style insistence that all stories must connect that I am losing my interest in the Star Wars Universe as I and many others have lost interest in Marvel movies and shows.

I will lean on the skills of the amazing creative individuals here and on A03 for my Mandalorian fix. Let Din date whoever you please of any gender or species. Let Grogu end up with both a tiny helmet and tiny lightsaber( he doesn't need Yoda's old sabre, Luke - he is a proud, independent being and can get his own crystal should he want one!)

Let them both have time to express their commitment and care for each other. I look forward to Grogu's first intelligible word - may it be "Buir".

The New Republic subplot in ep3 was explicitly anti-statist. That was the point. As @gffa pointed out, we didn’t see a single friendly or trustworthy face representing the New Republic, and that was the point, because this subplot is saying: the state is not your friend, nor is it trustworthy.

The only person who seemed to be a sympathetic ally turned out to be the O’Brien to Pershing’s Winston Smith. But more than that, the New Republic officers who place so much trust in her were unable to tell the difference between a fascist and one of their own.

At every turn, the idea that “the New Republic isn’t the Empire” is subverted. Pershing is encouraged to touch the mountaintop because “this isn’t the Empire, live a little” - but in fact, touching the mountaintop IS prohibited. At surface level it’s presented as a harmless prank to make Pershing jump, but in fact, his tentative faith that they live in a free world is misplaced. Pershing does not touch the mountaintop.

Pershing acts to continue his research illegally because he has made the error of actually believing in the principles the New Republic promotes for itself. His chatbot therapist social worker says: yes, we should do everything we can to help the New Republic. Pershing is punished for engaging directly with the ethics. Will his research do good? Will the citizens of the New Republic benefit? Will people live better lives as a result? It’s irrelevant for these purposes what the actual answers are; only that asking the question at all is prohibited.

Pershing fails to realize that the New Republic is not its own propaganda, something that the more socially sophisticated people around him all understand. The wealthy man in the opera house says: that’s why I should just keep my mouth shut, like it’s a joke. But it’s not a joke. These people clearly did not recently come into their status. They went to the opera house under the Old Senate, and under the Emperor, and they’ll continue to do so under the New Senate. Pershing attempts to engage with morality on first principles. The New Republic does not, but uses the impression that it does to legitimize itself anyway.

The mind flayer scene is saying this: the state machine is always the same, the only difference is the intensity at which it’s applied. This was so on-the-nose explicit that they depicted a LITERAL machine with a LITERAL Intensity Knob. The mind flayer is a metaphor for the exercise of state power itself. Pershing experiences horror at the sight of the machine. Don’t you know what this is? Don’t you know what it’s done? What it always does? The New Republic officer says: don’t worry, we know how to use it. It’s beneficial in small doses. We’ll exercise restraint. And of course, once the machine is in use and you’re strapped in, there’s nothing you can do if someone stops exercising restraint. The function of the machine is the same.

“Beneficial in small doses” is the mantra of the complacent statist. In a show called THE MANDALORIAN are you that surprised that it’s taking the side of the Mandalorians? We’re on to our third season of Din refusing to cooperate with the police, refusing to do police enforcer’s work, refusing to trust institutions of power to save him, and people still expect the New Republic to come out of this as the good guys? The Jewish subtext of the Mandalorians (hunted to extermination by a state power, breaking all rules to save a life multiple times, orthoprax, lost homeland) is now literally just text (Din bathed in a mikveh and was witnessed by another Jew Mandalorian) and you STILL expect the state to come out of this as the good guys?? Do you think the Nazis were the only government to ever mistreat Jews?

What I loved about Andor - and what I love about the direction mando s3 is moving - is the exploration of regime change. The brutal reality of it, the sense of plus ça change plus c’est la même chose, beyond the propaganda and the things people long for: relief, security, peace. Yeah the delivery is janky as fuck but I’m not delusional enough to expect Quiet Flows The Don here. Regardless of artistic technique, the story being told is about as antifascist as it gets.

So like sorry but if you perceive this subplot to be “Nazi apologism” because it validates the armed and insular pogrom survivors while criticizing the concept of state machinery beyond its branding, you may want to examine your priors. The cure for Nazism is not FDA-approved.

[smhalltheurlsaretaken]

In continuation to this post about Dooku’s stupid sad face, let’s wallow some more! This man is the worst and I wish he’d quit breaking my heart. 

Much like being ordered to use his connection to Yoda to try and destroy him visibly broke Dooku’s heart (no, I’m not kidding, I promise there’s evidence for that, please check it out, oh my gosh Dooku why are you like this), being told to get rid of Ventress clearly hurt him so much. 

There is just so much to talk about here. There are several key things in this episode (s3ep12 - Nightsisters). For one thing, after Dooku kneels to Sidious in the first scene, we never see him standing up again - except to kneel again, or when we see him through a com. So ‘Lord Tyranus’ is, in fact, nothing more than a beaten dog, whose only power is an image - that is, a mirage. It’s a nice touch, and a good reminder that those who follow the Dark Side are, in fact, nothing but slaves - and most notably, they are slaves to themselves, which is what happens here. 

Dooku does not want to give up Ventress. He readily admits that she is important to him - and isn’t that foolish? Why would you ever tell a Sith Lord that there is something in the Galaxy beside yourself that you value? What’s more, he immediately interjects when Sidious says that she is ‘too important.’ 

To question his Sith Master like that is reckless and dangerous. Dooku is cunning, calculating, and most of all, self-serving - so for him to speak out like this means he couldn’t help himself. That’s how much he valued her. Unfortunately, the Dark will always make you value yourself more. Indeed, when Sidious questions his loyalty - loyalty that is nothing but a sham, which they both know, because the way of the Sith is to stab each other in the back - Dooku is quick to say that he’d never train his own apprentice. (Which, you know, he does next episode when he gets Savage.)

But anyway, this is Dooku’s face right before he agrees to kill Ventress - and right before he bows - practically kowtows - to Sidious. It’s pure anger. 

But he agrees nonetheless. None of his anger, none of his hatred, none of his rage give him any power at all. And so, to preserve himself - because again, that’s what the Dark Side makes you do - he bows like an animal. When Anakin holds on to people because he can’t bear not to have them in his life, Dooku cuts people off because he is endangered by his connections, because of the position he put himself into in his quest for power. (Which is again quite ironic - a man called ‘Lord’ greets the man calling him that with complete subservience.) They go about it differently, but they are both undone by selfishness (and it’s not me saying it, it’s Lucas).

The most heartbreaking part about all of this though? When Dooku casts Ventress off, he’s not angry, he’s sad and defeated. 

Just look at his face when he calls her ‘child.’

He is framed as off-balanced and cracked, ffs! And just look at his eyes.

Listen to his voice in that scene! How slowly he talks, how regretful he sounds! He looks away when he tells her he’s ordered the troops to abandon her. And when he looks at her again, listen to how stiff and impersonal his words are, in direct contrast to his previous... well, gentleness.

To save himself, he destroys a part of himself. That’s Anakin’s story. That’s Maul’s story, that’s the story of the Dark - in trying to gain something for themselves, they give up what matters. Maul tries to gain power and loses his body, then tries to gain revenge and loses the remainder of his life to a pointless endeavor that will never fulfill him. Anakin tries to preserve himself from the pain of loss and ends up losing everything he holds dear to his own actions. Dooku tries to protect his own life, and in the end has nothing to live for, and eventually dies. They all hurt themselves through their self-centeredness. 

Just go and watch how defeated Dooku is when he says “I have done as you’ve asked, Asajj Ventress is dead.” Just look at his eyes right here:

And the worst thing is: this is the second time this has happened. Because Dooku did not fall because of Qui-Gon’s death - he was already a Sith when Naboo happened (as per s6ep10, The Lost One + the AotC timeline that was already too tight for him to have fallen, become Sidious’ apprentice and killed Syfo-Dias after Naboo rather than before). 

Dooku has been subjecting himself to the Dark - to his own base need for self-preservation - for over ten years at this point, and he keeps doing it. He keeps repeating the same mistakes, because no matter how much he loved Qui-Gon, or Ventress, or Yoda, when faced with the question ‘what do I choose between my own interest and the interest of someone I love’ the answer of the Dark is always: “I choose ME.” 

And the consequence is always suffering, for all the parties involved. 

It’s not a coincidence that this very ep shows us Ventress’ first Master - her real Master, in the ways that mattered - Ky Narec.

One looks at her with pride and love - the other with bitterness, and regret, when he can look at her.

One she looks up to with joy, absolute trust and equal love - the other leaves her terrified, betrayed and alone. 

Just compare Dooku to Obi-Wan - who always tries his hardest to save the ones he loves instead of preemptively cutting them off (Qui-Gon in TPM, Satine in s5, Ahsoka on Mortis, Cody in s7, Anakin because the Mustafar duel was choreographed to show that he was trying to let Anakin tire himself out and cool down, Luke in ANH) - and more often than not fails, but still tries no matter the cost to himself - and who lets go of what he has lost instead of holding onto bitterness and anger. Compare Dooku to Yoda, who is ready to give up his own safety and happiness, who is ready to die to protect Anakin (again, not kidding, here’s when it happens) rather than to pursue the outcome he wants. Yoda and Obi-Wan die with smiles on their faces, at peace, because the key to it all - the difference between love and attachment, and between love and self-preservation, and between letting go and cutting off, and between true power and the lies of the Sith - is always selflessness.

Whereas the Sith are slaves to their selfish impulses, the Jedi have the freedom to say no, I’m not going to save myself, I’m going to do what’s right, and I will be happier for it no matter how much it cost me. 

The whole point of this angstfest was to say: dammit, Dooku! He used to be wise enough and strong enough to know better, and he still did this to himself, and then dragged the entire Galaxy into chaos and darkness. And I love him so much, and this self destruction that is characteristic of the Sith breaks my heart.

[dracowars]

sacrifice | anakin skywalker

pairing: anakin x jedi!reader

word count: 4,1k

summary: where y/n has to sacrifice everything in order to save anakin

a/n: i'm so proud of this, i hope you enjoy reading it <3 also i really want to write more for anakin (& other male sw characters), so feel free to send in requests!! ♡

warnings: angst, torture, violence, mentions of severe injuries

universe: star wars

Exhausted and plagued by a painful sting pulling through your whole body, you slowly flutter your eyes open which turns out to be difficult at first due to the bright light. Your limbs feel sore and incredibly weak, you can hardly feel your arms anymore and an uncomfortable tingling sensation runs through your legs. Your head is extremely heavy and the world around you rotates, getting faster in each second that passes and thus disenables your ability to think clearly.

Still blinded by the light, you narrow your eyes to at least be able to see something and as you do, your breath gets stuck in your lungs right away. Your gaze is directed at a black steel door with red and white switches and lights flashing on the right and on the left. A steel door which most likely allows no escape.

"Sir. The Jedi is conscious again", you hear the mechanical voice of a droid and you turn your head in its direction to your right. You see two Battle Droids next to you, one of them now aiming his weapon at you alarmed, the other standing at a control field.

Only now do you notice that you are much taller than these droids and you quickly discover why. Surround by a bluish light, you float in the air, your wrists and ankles chained in stuncuffs, making you unable to move even a tiny bit. You helplessly hang in the air, the tight handcuffs already painfully straining your skin.

"Do not let her out of your sight until I get there", you suddenly hear another voice through the comlink one of the droids is holding. A voice that unmistakably belongs to none other than the Supreme Commander of the Separatist Droid Army General Grievous himself.

However, there was something else in the background. Something that made your breath get stuck in your throat again.

Screams. Full of pain and suffer that can only be produced by incredible agony.

"Where should she even go?", one of the droids asks annoyed and gets hit on the back of his head by the other after his statement immediately.

"Don't ask, work."

Not saying a word, you try to shake your hands to maybe loosen the handcuffs a little, but to no avail.

"No chance, lady. You will not get out of here that easily", the Battle Droid laughs while the other joins in. Throwing them an angry look, they quickly stop and get back to their work, ignoring you.

Using the moment of silence to your advantage, you close your eyes and try to feel the Force that surrounds you so that it can guide you the way. Because of your severe headache you do not succeed, but you also do not give up instantly and at least try to concentrate enough to remember what exactly happened.

The terrifying image of a battlefield on Ryloth appears in your head, droids and clones brutally fighting each other. With your ignited lightsaber you run between them, giving the clones cover while taking down several Battle Droids and Droidekas with one slash of your elegant weapon.

"General Y/L/N! General Skywalker has just informed us that he has advanced further at the front and has almost reached Grievous", you hear Fives tell you in your blurred memories when you hide behind a tree to seek protection for the split of a second.

"Anakin", you softly breathe, not noticing that you said his name out loud, and your eyes shoot open when your memory cuts off all of a sudden.

All you remember is that you followed him after Fives' words, but you do not remember what happened after that and you do not know where Anakin is now or if he was even captured as well.

In any case, you are not allowed to think about it any further when the door in front of you opens and you are greeted with the shadow of a large robotic figure, two Magna Guards on either side of him.

"Grievous", you hiss disapprovingly when he comes up to you with slow, heavy steps, his face - if you can even call it that - at eye level with you. "I sould have guessed that only you would be able to carry out such primitive captures."

His smoky laugh sounds at your words, which is quickly interrupted by a subsequent cough. In the next second, however, he tightly grabs your neck with his mechanical hand all of a sudden and forces you to look into his fleshy eyes. The pressure on your throat causes tears to well up in your eyes.

"You have a very important piece of information that Count Dooku would love to have, General Y/L/N", he mentions and you try to hide that he is currently blocking your windpipe. "All methods are fine with me as long as I get what I want."

"And I suppose you will only let me go if I tell you this very important piece of information?", you state ironically and take a quick breath in as he releases his strong grip from you.

"That would make things much easier for both of us", Grievous agrees and looks at you intensely, almost expectantly. "Where do the Jedi keep the holocrons?"

"What do you want to do with it? Even if I told you, which I will definitely not do by the way, you could not open it anyway", you mockingly point out and raise an eyebrow.

A second later, you have to fight for air again.

"That is something you should not worry about", he aggressively snaps at you and squeezes his hand harder, making you gasp for air even more. "Tell me where they are kept."

"You could kill me and I would not tell you", you choke out and his creepy-looking eyes sparkle with anger.

"I will let it depend on that", Grievous states and lets go of you again, but with a subtle gesture he gives his Magna Guards a sign and they suddenly approach you, their dangerous electrostaffs now activated.

Shortly afterwards you already feel an incredibly terrible pain that makes you cry out loud. A painful electricity shoots through your entire body that would force you onto your knees if you were not currently chained to stuncuffs in the air. It only takes a few seconds, but it feels much longer until they stop their torture, staying in their position.

"Where. Are. The. Holocrons?", Grievous asks you again, this time more angry and somehow stressed, putting strong emphasis on each word.

"You would like to know, huh", you slightly grin and although you know that such a cheeky answer will cause you to suffer again, it rolls of your tongue anyway.

Again, several electric shocks run through you at the same time and an increasingly unbearable pain forms in your body, but your head remains unwavering when they stop again.

"Tell me where they are, Jedi scum! Now!", the merciless General shouts at you and you can sense how he is getting more and more impatient by each second. He will not stop torturing you until you tell him what he wants to know and until you stop holding it back, but you have sworn a vow to the Jedi Order that you can't and will not break, no matter how much pain you have to endure.

"I guess you have to kill me then, because I will never tell you, Grievous", you respond breathless and you can already smell how your skin, your flesh, has slightly charred because of the burns.

Giving his Magna Guards another command with a simple hand gesture, they continue to torture you, but this time they only shock you briefly with their bright purple electrostaffs before stopping abruptly. Your muscles still tremble from the impact and the unbearable ache persists.

"Uhm, Sir. I hate to interrupt you, but the other Jedi just managed to take down one of the droids", one of the droids next to you reports and you, although you only understood half of what he just said, too weak to focus, you immediately know who he must be talking about.

General Grievous must have already tried to squeeze something out of him, that is why you heard screams earlier.

"Anakin", you groan in pain as the Magna Guards go back to their task of torturing you out of nowhere and put you into a state of absolute pain.

"Interesting", you hear Grievous utter through your own screams as your body writhes in pain in the air, the handcuffs pressing deep into your skin. Until the pain suddenly fades and you fall to the hard ground in front of his feet the next moment when the droid freed you with the push of a button.

"Sir, is that not too risky?", one of the droids ask, but you can't even get up from the floor by yourself because you have been weakened so much by the electric shocks. You are not even sure anymore whether you might even have passed out at this point.

However, you quickly realize that you, in fact, are still conscious when you are roughly pulled to your feet, a firm grip on both your upper arms as the Magna Guards pull you up.

"She is so weak, she can hardly walk. And without her lightsaber she can't do much anyway. It was a fine addition to my collection", Grievous laughs in your ear devilishly, and a lateral push in your ribs makes you realize that you should move forward. Having no other choice, you obey and stumble forward on shaky legs, losing your balance with almost every step due to the fact that your hands are still tied together with stuncuffs.

Losing any sense of orientation, you get pushed forward right behind General Grievous, your vision blurred and your head continuing to spin until you finally come to a stop in a corridor that is no different from the previous one.

The door to another cell opens, at least you recognize the same sound as your cell door did before, and you are suddenly rudely pushed inside after Grievous has entered, meeting the hard and cold surface of the floor.

Trying your best to get up again, you notice that their dangerous weapons are no longer close to your body. Yet, you are prevented from doing anything at the sight in front of you after you managed to lift yourself up from the ground a little bit with your hands and looked up.

"Anakin!", you exhale in shock when you see your almost lifeless husband floating in front of you, the same handcuffs on him as on you, stunning him.

He immediately stirs when he hears your voice and lifts his head up, only to discover your trembling figure lying on the ground in front of him.

"What did you do to him?", you shout at Grievous with all your might and manage to fully get up due to the sudden adrenaline rush, but soon are shoved back onto the ground by Grievous and the Magna Guards pull you into a kneeling position by your arms.

"The same I did to you", General Grievous explains with a laugh and trudges back and forth between you and Anakin. "Verily, the will of a Jedi is strong, but I have already cracked the toughest will."

Admiring himself, his gaze slides on you and you immediately avoid the contact, looking at the ground.

"If you touch her even once, I swear you are already dead", Anakin angrily snaps at him, but Grievous does not even react to it, not even when Anakin manages to throw one of the Battle Droids against the wall in his anger with the tiniest movement. Grievous just stops in front of you and roughly lifts your chin up, indeed touching you.

"How many more electric shocks will she endure before her will breaks, what do you think?", Grievous asks into the room and you remove your chin from his grasp with all your leftover strength.

"J-Just leave her alone", Anakin mutters weakly and briefly looks at Grievous with a hateful expression before his muscles give up again and his head sinks down again in exhaustion.

"Tell me where the holocrons are and I will let her go", Grievous declares and turns to your husband, who is about to pass out.

"No! Don't listen to him, Anakin!", you interrupt him right away and try to, although you know that it will not be possible, to loosen your bonds, but the Magna Guards are quick to hold their electrostaffs threathingly close to your body again. "N-No matter what he does to me, you must not tell him- ouch!"

Feeling the burning imprint of the metal back of Grievous hand on your now throbbing cheek, the impact throws you to the ground and tears shoot into your eyes because of the sting, but you suppress them quickly.

"Well, if you do not want to talk, I know who will", Grievous threatens and you press your eyes shut in defeat to mentally prepare yourself for the torturing pain.

A pain that does not come.

At least not in the way you expected, because all of a sudden you hear something that is probably much worse for you than thousands of electrical particles shooting through your body.

They are shooting through Anakin right now.

Excruciating screams escape his throat and you have to watch how he is tortured, how his body winds in pain, how he slowly breaks apart.

You both expected that he would attack you.

"NO! Stop!", you yell at them and desperately shake at your bonds, tears flowing down your cheeks at the sight of the love of your life being hurt in front of your own eyes.

"Y/N-"

"Please stop! You will kill him!", you screech over his screams, but Grievous does not let his Magna Guards stop, rather he induces them to continue.

"Don't, Y/N. Do not tell- argh!", Anakin tries to tell you, but is interrupted by his pain and you can clearly feel how he is getting weaker by every second and how his strength and will are leaving him more and more.

With every further shock that electrifies his body and puts his muscles out of action, he groans in unbearable pain while thin billows of smoke are already emanating from his upper body. The skin on his neck and hands is reddish, a sign of an already severe burn. Yet the worst are still his inevitable screams that are fully soaked in suffer.

"The Jedi Archives!", you shout out loud while your tears keep streaming down your face, a feeling of guilt building up inside of you for just having betrayed the whole Jedi Order.

But you have no other choice.

"T-They are in the Jedi Archives!", you stutter out and General Grievous finally brings the torture to an end, but Anakin's body is now just lifelessly floating in the air.

"Well, that was not that hard, was it?", Grievous says, amused, and turns around to step out of the cell, his Magna Guards close behind him, leaving you alone. Before the door closes, however, one of the droids presses a button on the outside of the door, causing Anakin to fall to the ground with a loud thud.

"Anakin!", you cry out and quickly crawl over to him, his body still trembling as a result of the numerous shocks when you turn him on his back to get a better view of him and as soon as you touched him, you shortly get electrocuted as well.

"Do you hear me, Anakin? Please, please don't do this to me. Open your eyes!", you basically yell at him in his passed out condition and very carefully place your hands on each of his cheekbones, caressing them tenderly.

Lowering your head after he shows no reaction, your heavy sobs rock through your body and you whimper quietly, gasping for breath over and over again.

"I am so sorry", you sniff sadly and wipe your tears away with your hands, which are still tied together, before gently placing them back on his burning hot upper body.

"Y-You should not have- Should not have t-told him", Anakin utters all of a sudden and his eyes flutter open a tiny bit, weakness and pain covering his handsome face.

"W-What should I have done instead?", you desperately ask and can't help but feel a little bit relieved that he is able to talk to you despite his bad condition and despite the terrible torture method he just went through.

Seeking support and security, you grab his hands and he gently squeezes yours, trying to reassure you that he will be fine.

"That is- That is w-why it is forbidden- ugh forbidden for us to love and- and-", he groans as he tries to sit up, but he is too weak and even with your help, you do not manage to get him up so you gently lay him down again, his head in your lap.

"A-And to make us dependent on some- argh, damn! Someone", Anakin finishes his sentence anyway and if you did not know better, you could have sworn to see a small smirk scurry over his chapped lips.

"Ani, I betrayed the Council", you supress your crying and brush his brown locks out of his face while looking down at him with affection. "They are going to exclude me from the Jedi Order.."

"What are y-you even talking about? You s-saved me, babe. I will not let that happen", he hisses in pain, the last words nearly inaudible as his eyes slowly close again, his body becoming limp.

"We will not let that happen either", another voice suddenly speaks up and you look up startled, only to see Ahsoka standing in the hallway in front of your now opened cell.

"Ahsoka?", you mutter under your breath in disbelief and widen your eyes as she steps into the cell, not sure how much of your conversation she was able to hear. After all, nobody knows that you and Anakin are a thing, let alone married.

"Master!", Ahsoka breathes in shock and falls onto her knees next to you as she speechlessly takes in Anakin's fragile figure.

"I- They have-"

"It's okay, Y/N. Take it easy, slow breaths, in and out. We will get you out of here in no time", she affirms and gives you a gentle, encouraging smile before she quickly severes your and Anakin's cuffs with her green lightsaber. "Obi-Wan is chasing after Grievous and Captain Rex-"

"Master Tano, I found the lightsabers and am now on my way to the prison wing", Rex's voice interrupts Ahsoka through the comlink.

"Can you walk on your own?", she asks you concerned and helps you on your shaky legs, even though you nodded.

"I knew- I knew you would come, Snips", Anakin coughs out of nowhere, and you are not sure whether he is conscious or if the Force just allows him to feel what is happening around him right now.

"You always have to be bailed out, Skyguy", Ahsoka chuckles and at this moment Rex enters the cell with more clones, immediately handing you back your lightsaber, which you attach to your belt.

"Rex, please help me out over here", Ahsoka asks him and together they lift Anakin up from the ground and carry him out. Following them into the corridor in front of the cell, Fives quickly meets you and puts your arm around his shoulder to help you walk until you arrive in the hangar and get onto the Twilight.

They place Anakin in one of the small cabins and you let Fives guide you there as well. You sit down in front of your husband and do not let him out of your sight.

Holding back the sad and re-emerging tears that come up while looking at his distorted, unconsicous body, you bite down on your lower lip to prevent you from crying and take his rough flesh hand in your own. You gently stroke over the back of his hand with your thumb while the clone trooper medic puts an oxygen mask over his face.

It does not take long for Obi-Wan to join you in boarding the ship and as he does, he straightly goes to you when they start the Twilight and fly out of the hangar and into the vastness of space. When you feel his hand on your shoulder, you flinch.

"Sorry. How is he?", Obi-Wan asks you with great concern in his voice and face. After all, Anakin is like a son to him.

"The clone trooper medic said that he suffered severe burns and bruises, but apparently no permanent serious or consequential damage. Nevertheless, he urgently needs professional treatment when we arrive on the Negotiator", you sob and inconspicuously remove your hand from Anakin's to not let Obi-Wan see. "I have to- uhm I have to tell you something, Obi-Wan."

"I know. But better keep it to yourself a little bit longer for now until we report to the Council together, alright? Then you only have to tell it once", Obi-Wan calms you down and gives you warm smile.

"Thank you, master", you lower your head and turn your gaze back to Anakin, whose chest moves up and down regularly and whose breath is sounding through the room.

"Don't worry, Y/N. You did what everyone would have done and I am very grateful that you did so. We all have to make sacrifices at some point", he assures you before carefully patting your shoulder one more time and leaving the room, leaving you alone with Anakin again.

After you have finally arrived on the Negotiator, you do not leave Anakin's side when a few clones bring him to the medical bay, where the meddroids take professional care of him right away. While they are treating him, you wait outside, your body full of tension while nervously tapping the floor with your foot and playing with your fingers. They checked up on you as well, but because you were only briefly subjected to torture it only took them a few minutes to treat your wounds.

When the door finally opens automatically, you look up with hope in your eyes and stare at the medical droid expectantly.

"He is stable. You can see him now", the droid announces and guides you inside. At the sight that greets you, your heart stops beating for a moment.

There your husband lies, with cables connected to all the beeping machines, his eyes closed and his breathing light and regular. You unconsciously quicken your pace in order to get to his side faster. As soon as you stand next to him and neither say anything nor touch him, Anakin immediately opens his eyes as he senses you through the Force.

"Hi, beautiful", he weakly smiles at you and grabs your hand, causing you to directly surround his with your own, looking at him with worry, the load suddenly falling off your shoulders all at once.

"I was so worried about you. How are you?", you openly admit and gently run one of your hands through his messy but soft hair.

"You should not have done that, you know?", he clears his throat, ignoring your question as he feels the conflict within you, a serious expression while staring in your eyes. "I mean saving me. You have put yourself in danger. If something had happened to you.."

Tears well up in your eyes as you unintentionally review the recent events in your head, taking Anakin's words to heart, but you quickly catch yourself again.

"Anak-", you want to answer, but abruptly get interrupted when he pulls you into his strong arms out of nowhere, hugging you tightly like his life depends on it.

"Thank you for saving me, love", he softly whispers into your ear and you smile into the crook of his neck before he guides your face with his hand on your jaw right in front of his own. His blue eyes scan your face and then switch between your eyes and lips until he gently places his hand on the back of your head and leads you into a tender kiss.

Feeling his lips against yours suddenly feels so surreal to you. After everything that happened, you almost did not believe that it could still end, well, like this.

Leaning more into the kiss, he eventually breaks the kiss, just to place one gently between your eyebrows. His thumb softly runs over your cheek as he gives you a warm smile.

"I love you."

"I love you more. And I would always sacrifice everything for you", you return his smile and connect your lips again, feeling like nobody can harm you anymore.

[vanishedangels]

Clan of Warriors

Summary: While rebuilding Mandalore, Mand'alor Din Djarin is questioned by his people because of his beliefs and origins. In the dawn of a civil war, the council resolves that The Mand'alor must join in marriage with someone close to Bo-Katan Kryze. He's forced to marry Koska Reeves and accept a loveless union. In the meantime, Din is having a secret relationship with his son's Master, Jedi Luke Skywalker, his dream of having his own clan of warriors is about to fade away.

I wrote this fic a year ago, that's why the TBOBF events are not considered.

Pairing: Din Djarin/Luke Skywalker

Characters: Din Djarin, Luke Skywalker, Grogu, Leia Organa, Cara Dune, Koska Reeves, Bo-Katan Kryze, Axe Woves.

Rating: Mature (Rating will change)

Warnings: None.

Tags: Canon compliant, Post Season 2 Finale, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Friends To Lovers, Fluff, Angst, Demisexual Din Djarin, Top Luke Skywalker, Bottom Din Djarin, Top Din Djarin, Bottom Luke Skywalker, Protective Din Djarin, BAMF Luke Skywalker, Adorable Baby Yoda, Sassy Leia Organa, More Tags To Be Added.

Chapters: 4/?

Navigation: <- Previous Chapter • Next Chapter ->

Chapter 4: Infatuation

Din felt like his stomach was turning into a rock, Grogu's suffering was the worst thing in the world to him.

"Oh, but the time he spent with you... Oh boy, that's very detailed." Luke tried to change Din's humour.

Din chuckled "Oh... He showed you. What did he show you?"

"Something about a krayt dragon, maybe." The little Jedi was a total tease right now, pulling faces and closing his eyes. He even jostled Din in the process, and Din was delighted. "Something about a mudhorn's egg... And Jawas disappearing like in a magic trick." And he rested his hand on Din's thigh plate.

Grogu was sitting on the table as Din carefully fixed the baby's robes, they were white and purple and the colours suited Grogu so well. Din smiled, his heart was full of joy "Look at you, little womp rat, you look like a Coruscant brat." Grogu cooed merrily.

A knock on the door.

Din answered the door. The little Jedi was in front of them "Mand'alor! Grogu!" He smiled "Are you ready for a little walk?

No, Din wasn't. He hated the idea, but it meant spending some time with the Jedi and he really liked the idea. "Yes" Naturally, he lied.

When they were walking down the street, Din was getting really anxious, the three of them were surrounded by people, he was desperate to secure Grogu into his arms, thinking of all the moves he needed to make in order to draw his blaster and shoot the kriff out of anyone who tried something against the child.

Luke didn't notice, or so it seemed, he was happily telling them about the different street levels, the artificial light, the stores and the food, the attractions, like some weird calamari ballet with fluids, Din didn't understand that part.

Then Luke looked at a bookstore and there it was, an old propaganda pin-up, a young Luke Skywalker in his orange jumpsuit. "Oh, for force's sake. I can't believe it." He said under his breath as he covered his face with one hand.

Din stared at the picture. It was Luke, of course, a different Luke, but still. But he looked so young, and tiny, his hair was lighter and he was so gorgeous. Orange was his colour, Din thought as a smile appeared on his face. But then he realized that there was a huge difference between that boy and the man standing beside him, his eyes looked sad now. "You were a fly boy?"

Luke snorted "Hey! I was a pilot! I'm still are. Thank you for selling me so short!" He laughed.

"Sorry, mandalorian things." He was a little embarrassed. "How old were you there?" He asked pointing at the picture.

"I was nineteen."

And now Din felt like a creep. He was finding a nineteen years old boy attractive? "How old are you?"

Luke smiled "Twenty-nine". Good, Din thought in relief.

Then people were pushing against them and Din couldn't help it anymore "I hate it here!"

"I must confess that I hate Coruscant too." Luke said, then he looked at Grogu "Mand'alor, what if we ordered some food and went back to the apartment, I bet Grogu is starving."

Din agreed.

So the Jedi went to eat with his sister, and Din appreciated that so he could spend some time with his kid. But he asked the Jedi to come by later, the Jedi accepted.

"Mand'alor!" He exclaimed when Din opened the apartment's door.

"Grogu's sleeping." He said.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Luke whispered, then.

They talked about the force, balance, the dark side, attachments and Din's brain was asking for a break.

They were sitting on a couch, few inches apart. Din found that very comfortable.

"Grogu's special, unique. I should thank you for bringing him to me, for protecting him the way you did." Luke said looking at Din's visor.

Din was melting, he shook his head. "I would do it again... That little womp rat."

"Oh, that! You can't call him that, he asked me to call him womp rat so many times! It's ridiculous! I mean, he's so cute. And those rats are as ugly as Tatooine, they belong together." Luke closed his eyes and waved both hands in the air.

"You've been on Tatooine?"

"I grew up there." What? Din thought. "I lived there till I was nineteen." What?! Din couldn't believe it. This refined man grew up on that ashtray? Impossible. "Then the imps killed my family, my aunt and my uncle. They raised me."

"You were a foundling." Din said surprised. "I'm sorry about your family." And then he understood the reason of the sadness in Luke's eyes. Or at least he thought he did.

"Thank you. Well, my family lived here on Coruscant before I was born. The Jedi temple was on Coruscant too. I hate this place though. That's why I located my temple on a quiet planet." Luke told him.

"Where?"

"Yavin IV. It kind of reminds me of Dagobah. And of Yoda." Luke smiled with sad eyes.

Yoda? A girlfriend? Din asked to himself "Who's Yoda?"

"My late Master, he taught me about philosophy and balance, I want to give Grogu what he gave me." Then he looked into Din's visor again "He was the same species as Grogu."

Oh, THAT Yoda. The one that Ahsoka Tano told him about. "Do you think... This Yoda could be related to Grogu?" Din asked genuinely.

Luke sighed and frowned "I really don't know."

"Can you... you know, use the force to know about that?" Din insisted.

"I've already tried. But Grogu's memories are blurred, he remembers Yoda, but they're only images, he doesn't remember his time at the Jedi temple quite well, and I think it's because of what happened, you know, the Great Jedi Purge. He's a survivor, Mand'alor."

Din felt like his stomach was turning into a rock, Grogu's suffering was the worst thing in the world to him.

"Oh, but the time he spent with you... Oh boy, that's very detailed." Luke tried to change Din's humour.

Din chuckled "Oh... He showed you. What did he show you?"

"Something about a krayt dragon, maybe." The little Jedi was a total tease right now, pulling faces and closing his eyes. He even jostled Din in the process, and Din was delighted. "Something about a mudhorn's egg... And Jawas disappearing like in a magic trick." And he rested his hand on Din's thigh plate.

Din looked down, but he didn't react, then he looked back at Luke's face, not making a move to remove his hand.

"That kid is happy because of you. You're a good man, Mand'alor." Luke's eyes were so soft and bright. And the moment so intimate that Din felt how wrong that name sounded coming from Luke's lips.

"Please, don't call me that."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I offended you." Luke said in confusion as he removed his hand from Din.

"No, it's not that. I mean, you can call me Mando, my friends call me Mando. Call me Mando."

"Oh..." Luke was smiling so bright that Din was urged to touch those lips but he repressed himself. "I'd love to." He said and looked around "Well, it's too late, I promised Leia to rescue her from some thirsty politicians, she'd kill me if I didn't show up." And he stood up. Din did the same.

They were standing in front of each other, not making a move. Luke was looking up at Din's visor, Din was looking down at Luke's face. Luke sighed and closed his eyes. "Goodnight Mando." He opened his eyes but looked into Din's chest, avoiding his eyes behind the visor.

"Goodnight Jedi." He opened the door.

"Oh, that's not fair. I called you Mando a second ago, you should call me by my name." He was pouting and Din thought that it was kriffing adorable.

"Goodnight Luke." And the sound of Luke's name through his modulated voice made him feel like a teenager carving his crush's name on a tree.

Luke smiled "That's nice." He said as he walked away.

Din didn't close the door and kept staring at Luke's back while he was walking down the corridor for a few seconds. Then he came back to the apartment. He leaned against the door, arms crossed over his chest.

He was out of control. Now he knew that. He knew this Jedi was getting under his skin. But he couldn't be so selfish, so foolish, this was Grogu's Master, he wouldn't do anything that could put Grogu in danger. Besides, this little Jedi wouldn't be interested in someone like Din.

You are dreaming, Din. He said to himself, Luke Skywalker is out of your league.

[meantforinfinitesadness]

Some Sort of AU

I actually wrote this snippet a while ago and just never posted it here, but have this little thing that came to me one day. I talked about it in the codywanweek discord chat, but basically Obi-Wan got seriously hurt during a battle at some point and Cody rushes to take him to Coruscant to the Jedi Temple. Obi-Wan looses all memory of who he is, who the Jedi are, what happened to him, etc. I think maybe the Force was protecting him because what he went through was insanely traumatic or something. 

So, the Council pretty much says to Cody that they’ll fake his and Obi-Wan’s deaths so they can leave the war. They know Cody loves Obi-Wan and that Obi-Wan loves Cody. So, Cody takes Obi-Wan to some far off planet and they live their lives in a small home, kind of like a cottage, never seeing or hearing anything about the war. 

Obi-Wan suffers headaches and migraines a lot. Cody is always there to take care of him. He also suffers from lingering pains from the torture. When Order 66 happens (because it does), Obi-Wan ends up having a seizure. He used to have them earlier on as well when his injuries were still pretty bad. So, Cody takes care of him and that’s where this snippet starts. 

Tag list: @tjfinnigan @ewanmcgregorismyhomeboy12 @yellowisharo

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Cody’s fingers run one more time through the soft, red hair belonging to his husband.

It had been two days since Obi-Wan’s seizure, and his head still ached terribly. It wasn’t anything new (the headache, at least). Cody knew how horrible Obi-Wan’s headaches could get, so he wasn’t too worried. 

It had only been about five minutes since Obi-Wan dropped off to sleep, but Cody had remained by his side for those five minutes, softly humming and running his fingers through Obi-Wan’s hair. 

He pressed a kiss to Obi-Wan’s forehead before exiting their bedroom and heading to the front room, knowing there was nothing else he could do except let Obi-Wan rest.

So, Cody picked up his soft humming once more as he made his way through the front room, cleaning along the way. 

(There weren’t any huge messes, but Cody found some small comfort in the actions.)

He didn’t know how much time had passed when a knock sounded through the room. Cody paused, waiting to see if it had been his imagination or not. Sure enough, the knock came again. This time, though, it was hurried and louder than the previous knocks. 

Cody quickly made his way to the door, hoping the knocks hadn’t been too loud (too loud to wake Obi-Wan, that is). Cody pulled open the door once he reached it, not quite knowing who would be on the other side. 

When his eyes landed on the two beings intruding on Cody’s cleaning, his mind went blank. His eyes widened and multiple emotions went flooding through him. 

One figure - with a sheepish smile on a face that looked just like Cody’s - awkwardly waved.

“Hey, Cody,” Rex greeted. 

Cody’s eyes flicked to the other being - a Togruta - standing slightly behind Rex with wide eyes and an expression radiating confusion. 

Cody looked back at Rex who still looked a bit sheepish. 

“Long time, no see,” Rex said.

Cody shook his head. “No,” he replied, then promptly when about shutting (not slamming, never slamming) the door in their faces. 

Or, rather, he tried to. 

Rex had placed his foot in the way of the door. Cody hadn’t noticed him do so, and was slightly confused when the door didn’t shut. 

He blinked at Rex, furrowing his brow, then lowered his gaze to see Rex’s foot acting as a door stopper. Cody sighed, feeling his shoulders droop with the weight of it. He looked back up at Rex and raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

Rex simply quirked his lips into a small smile and shrugged. 

“You’re alive,” Ahsoka’s surprised statement reminded Cody of her presence. He let his gaze slowly slide from Rex’s face and over to Ahsoka’s confused look. 

Cody felt his heart ache at the expression. He didn’t think she really...remembered him all that well.

“Uh,” Cody began eloquently. “Yeah, kid. I am.”

“How? I--”

“It’s...a long story,” Cody said, interrupting the girl. “One that I’m sure Rex would love to tell you on your trip back to wherever you came from,” Cody said this with a pointed look at Rex.

Rex had lost his smile. Cody noticed Ahsoka seemed a bit sadder as well. 

Now, it was Cody’s turn to be confused. 

“What?” Cody asked, feeling slight dread well up in his stomach. 

Rex and Ahsoka exchanged looks, then Rex sighed (one reminiscent of Cody’s). When Rex looked back at Cody, he was startled to see the haunted look in Rex’s eyes. 

“Rex?” Cody asked, not liking the feeling in his stomach.

“You…” Rex swallowed and shook his head. “There’s a lot that’s happened. Things that you missed. Big, important things. It’s...why we’re here.” Rex licked his lips. “We have a lot to talk about.”

[imabeautifulbutterfly]

The Reunion - Part 2

Summary: We meet up with our crew after they have left Barab and after Friday’s episode of the Bad Batch getting their chips removed. Hunter x Reader. Echo x Reader.

A/N: Italics - Past conversations

The quotes Crosshair says during his nightmares are directly from the Bad Batch episodes.  All rights for those quotes, belong directly to the geniuses working on the Bad Batch TV show at Disney.  

Warnings: Slight mention of a beating, nothing described.  Medical procedures.

If I miss a warning, just let me know.

Words: 4,608

AO3 Link

Drop some love, a comment or a reblog, it’s all appreciated.  If you want to be tagged, let me know.

Previous -> Masterlist -> Next

“We don’t usually work with regs”

“Grow up, Wrecker”

“If your plans are so good, why did Commander Cody have to call us in?”

“An order is an order”

“Since when?”

“Good soldiers follow orders”

“He had us disobeying orders”

“I never thought you disobeying orders was a problem”

“Disobeying orders again over a kid?”

“You’re becoming a liability”

“You disobeyed orders”

“I did what I thought was right”

“You should have killed that Jedi, you disobeyed orders.”

“You never could see the bigger picture.  Now surrender.”

“Best stand down sergeant, make it easier on yourself.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

“Your move”

“Bad play, Hunter”

“You want to know why they put me in charge? It’s because I’m willing to do what needs to be done.”

“What seems to be the problem with CT-9904?” Lama Su asked Nala Se

The two Kaminoans looked on behind the one way mirror, “medic, what seems to be the problem with CT-9904?” asked Nala Se.

I looked towards the mirrored glass, “he’s having a nightmare”, I glanced from the mirror to Crosshair that laid on the med bed before me.  The Kaminoans wanted his inhibitor chip to be constantly activated and operating at peak efficiency; if they lost him, they would lose the backing of Admiral Tarkin, something they couldn’t have.  

How I wished Hunter was here?  How I wished I got to the ship in time?  I wished for a lot of things, mostly I wished that Crosshair’s chip hadn’t been activated, and that as the medic for Clone Force 99, I wasn’t the one in charge of keeping his chip activated.  Every time he laid down on that med bed, a little bit of me died.  I had to do this to my friend, my family, Hunter’s brother.  I tried at first to say that the chip was damaged, it wouldn’t activate, but they quickly dealt with my deception, in the form of a beating from two of the Clones who had taken me under their wing.  The beating from the two had knocked me out, when I came to Bad Batch was gone, Omega, my little helper, was gone, and Crosshair had tried to kill his own brothers.  

What’s worse is that Crosshair looked for every opportunity to wound me with his words, he wasn’t my Crosshair, he wasn’t the man I had grown to know and love as a brother.

‘Must be miserable to know you fell in love with a traitor.’

‘How does it feel knowing they left you?’

‘Only the Empire can provide what you need’

‘Join them and die’

“He seems to be having a particularly disturbing dream, he keeps thrashing” that voice, oh I hated that voice, it was responsible for the so called War Mantle project, Vice Admiral Rampart.  How I wish he could be the one on this bed before me, so I could make him suffer, the way he’s making Crosshair suffer.

“Indeed” oh there’s that other voice, Admiral Tarkin.  I loathed both men, and would be happy to see both die a very slow painful death.

“I do not believe we should continue for much longer, the procedure could cause irreparable damage”, I suggested.  I’m sorry Crosshair, I hope you can hear me.  I’m so sorry.  

“Very well” Admiral Tarkin’s voice filled the room, I could almost feel his breath on my skin.  It was revolting.  

“End the procedure, medic Kambe”

“Yes, Prime Minister”

I turned off the machine and watched as Crosshair's tortured face relaxed.  I moved beside him, and disconnected him from the machine, he was still unconscious, at this moment and I could pretend he was still my family, he was still the same Crosshair.  The one who taught me to shoot a target five klicks out.  The one who would tease Hunter and me, when we would go out on a date.  The one who said he always wanted a sister, and was happy I was his.  I discreetly held his hand, rubbing circles with my thumb on the back of his hand.  I’m sorry Crosshair.  I’m so sorry Cross.  

- - - - - - - -

“That medic seems very attached to CT-9904” Admiral Tarkin noticed

“Yes, she was the medic for Clone Force 99.  She got to know them very well and went on several missions with them.”

“Interesting.  She may prove useful.”

“How do you mean Admiral?” Asked Vice Admiral Rampart

“She may know something the clone doesn’t, or she could be used as bait, to bring in the others”

“Admiral, I must protest” Nala Se interjected, “she, unlike the clones, is not Empire property, she is hired by the Kaminoan facility, and works directly for us.”

“And yet, she gets paid via the Empire, does she not?  Or do you pay her directly, Prime Minister?”

“Uh … I would have to check our records, Admiral Tarkin”

“Don’t bother, I have checked already.  She gets paid by the Empire.  She used to receive funds from the Republic, and has subsequently received funds from the Empire, therefore she is a servant and employed by the Empire.  As such, we have the right to do as we wish with our workers.”

“Admiral, I would be more than happy to take over … keeping an eye on the medic” offered Vice Admiral Rampart.

“That is not necessary, it seems we have the best thing to keep an eye on her already” he motioned towards the unconscious clone.  

- - - - - - - - -

Although, I couldn’t hear what was being said behind the glass, I could sense eyes on me.  I grabbed a data pad and pretended to check Crosshair's vitals. If they were going to stay there watching me, then they wouldn’t get anything except a medic doing her job.   There had to be a way to get the chip out of his head, someway to go under the radar.  If Cross was back to normal then he and I would be able to get off of Kamino and find the boys.

I heard the door slide open behind me, “Medic Kambe”, I turned to face Nala Se, she was the only Kaminoan that I could somewhat tolerate, although in the end she was the biggest problem of all, as the Chief Medical Scientist, if it wasn’t for her, so many soldiers wouldn’t have been killed and treated less than they deserved.

“Yes, Nala Se?”

“You can move clone CT-9904 to the recovery room”

“Yes, Nala Se”

She stepped closer to me, it was odd and threw me off.  She disliked me more than anyone else, simply for making the clones feel like people and not property, it was one of the reasons I was assigned to an actual team, rather than the Kaminoan facility in general.  “You need to be careful,” she said in a lowered voice.

I kept busy preparing Cross for transport, “what do you mean?” I asked in a similar whisper, “they’re watching you, they want to use you to bring back Clone Force 99 and Omega.  We can’t have her land in the hands of the Empire.”

“I understand”

“Please be quick about transporting the clone, Admiral Tarkin wishes to see what effect the new enhancement has on CT-9904” she said in a louder voice.

“He has a name”

“He is a clone.  Clone CT-9904.”

“His name is Crosshair!”

“Medic Kambe! One more outburst and I’ll have you restricted to your quarters and brought up on charges of treason. Do you understand?”

“Yes”

“Good” without further word she stepped out of the room, maker I hated her.  I really did.

I looked at Cross one more time, he had a slight scarring from where the machine had performed it’s procedure. My only hope would be to perform surgery at night, or maybe if I was able to go on a mission with Cross again, distract him, get him isolated, and perform the surgery.   We both needed to get out of here, and soon.

- - - - - - -

“I don’t know if the plan will work” Fives offered

“Oh I’m sorry, do you have something better, vod?”

“Listen Phoenix Ghost, we are not judging you, it just seems risky” offered Hunter

“Well, what do you want to do?”  I asked, Rex had just left after we were able to get the chips out of the remaining Bad Batch, the idea was to take the med pod with us, or at the very least take it and hide it on a planet that we could bring Crosshair to.

“Why can’t we just use the method you did before, with the other clones?”

“That would require us going to a safe clone planet, the nearest one has over 500 of your brothers, inhabiting it.  I would gladly take you there, if the Empire thought you were dead.  However, as of right now, the risk is too great that someone would follow you, or someone spot your ship and decide to report you to the Empire simply for credits.  I’m sorry but I’m not putting your brothers at risk.  Either we find a way to bring Crosshair here, or find a way to bring the med pod to Crosshair.”

“Cyar’ika, it’s okay.  We trust you”

“Really, cause if you trusted me, you wouldn’t be questioning the plan right now”

“It’s just dangerous” Tech tried to reassure me.

I couldn’t help the glare that had appeared on my face, “seriously Tech? That’s your pathetic platitude, that it’s just dangerous.  Everything we’ve ever done, from the moment we either joined or were sold to the GAR has been a life filled with danger.  I personally have a scar on almost every quadrant of my body from one injury or another.”

They all looked to Echo, who simply nodded.  Oh that was it, “WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT HIM? DO YOU HONESTLY THINK I WOULD LIE ABOUT THAT?!!!”

“No, of course not” Hunter tried to calm me down, but the anger within was growing from their… I guess lack of trust.  

“Cyar’ika”

“Don’t Echo! Don’t Cyar’ika me!”

Echo let out a frustrated breath, being back with Echo was amazing, it’s like we hadn’t missed a beat, all those years being apart had evaporated within a matter of minutes.  

“Fine, ner riduur”

Ugh! Why did he have to tug that cord? All the anger I had a second ago washed away at remembering that we had indeed gotten married, I  dropped my shoulders and my head to my chest.  As soon as we were off Barab, we had found a place to lay low for a few weeks.  Echo didn’t want to waste anymore time and proposed, I didn’t want to waste any time either and said yes.  We both had wasted too many years apart, to waste another second not being with each other, was downright idiotic.

Fives had been his best man, Omega was my flower girl, Hunter walked me down the aisle, Tech officiated and Wrecker stood in as my man of honour.  Rex had come to wish us well, after the ceremony, he pulled me aside and gave me a big bear hug, “I’m happy for you ad’ika.  I wish you nothing but happiness.”

The words were there, but the warmth in the eyes weren’t, “I’m sorry Rex.  I’m sorry I couldn’t…”

He didn’t let me finish, “nothin’ to be sorry about, little one.  You followed your heart to the man you love.  It’s the heart I fell in love with, so how can I be upset about that” his warmth finally reached his eyes, we hugged one more time, “thank you, Rex.  I love you, vod”

“Love you too, vod’ika”

“Alright, let’s come up with another plan than” I offered calmer, I looked over at Echo, and smirked.

“How do you do that?” Whispered Wrecker

“It’s my gift” Echo chuckled, I simply shook my head, “what if we make a medical droid?” Asked Omega

“It is possible” Tech advised

“We are at the scrap yard so we could find the parts we need, it won’t be pretty, but it’ll get the job done” I added, Tech and I sat down to work out a plan and design for the medical droid.

“While we are doing this, maybe the five of you could try to find an actual droid, maybe if there is an actual medical droid, we won’t have to make one” suggested Tech.

“Fine, we know when we’re not wanted,” Fives teased.

“Hey Omega”, I called, she turned towards me, “good suggestion” I winked at her.  She ran over and hugged me, “thanks mo…I mean, thank you Phoenix Ghost”, I returned the hug and looked at Hunter, he had a smirk on his face, “hun, I think your dad’s waiting for you”.  Hunter shot me a look, I couldn’t help but smile back, at the end of the day we were all co-parenting, so what was one or two more parents, uncles, or aunts.  Whatever way she looked at us, we were family.

- - - - - - - - -

“How does it feel, vod?” Fives asked Echo

“How does what, feel?”

“Being married to the love of your life?” He elbowed Echo

Echo couldn’t help the blush that appeared on his face, “like I’m living a dream that I never want to wake up from”.

“Awww, that’s so sweet” shouted Wrecker

“Alright you guys focus, Omega and I will go done here" Hunter motioned to the corridor to his left, "Wrecker, go with Fives and Echo” as Hunter motioned to the corridor on his right.

“Copy that” Fives answered.

Hunter and Omega headed down what looked like a medical hallway, there were all kinds of beds, against the wall, “Hunter?”

“Yes, Omega”

“Are you married?”

“What?”

“Like Phoenix and Echo?”

Hunter didn’t answer for a minute, Omega could see something was bothering him, “I”m sorry, should I not have asked?”

“It’s okay, kid.  No, I’m not married.”

“But there was someone?”

“Yes”

“Medic Kambe?”

Hunter stopped and looked at Omega, “how do you know that?”

“I trained under her as a medical assistant, she always used to mention Clone Force 99”

“That’s how you learned all about us”

Omega nodded, “she treated me like I was …”

“Like you were a person”

Omega nodded, “that’s how she treated us too.”  Hunter continued examining the rooms, and realized more than likely his love had seen what was happening to Omega and how she was treated.  He could see his tiny love stepping up to protect Omega.  Knowing her, she probably even had to fight to be Omega’s trainer.

“Do you think we’ll see her again?”

“I don’t know, kid.  I hope so, I really do.”

“Why didn’t she come with us?”

Hunter let out a sigh, “I don’t know, but something must have happened, otherwise she would have been waiting for us in the hangar.”

“I hope if we do find her, you two get married”

“Really?”

“Yes, she makes you happy.  You clearly make her happy.  She always had a smile on her face when she spoke of you, she kept her biggest smile when she mentioned you specifically.”

Hunter smiled at that, hopefully soon enough, he’ll have his brother back, and his love in his arms.  

- - - - - - -

“Any luck?”

“There’s no such thing as luck” chuckled Fives

“What are you? Obi-wan?” I asked

“Hey how do you think I got so good with the ladies?  I learned from the best” he laughed.

“Fives, you were good with the ladies, because they took pity on you.  Not because you had any of the charm, Obi-wan had.”

“How do you know about Obi-wan’s charms?” Asked Echo.

“Hmm… what, my love?”

“We will discuss this later”

“Whatever you say, ner cyare”

“Oh don’t try and placate me with sweet sayings”

“As fun as it is to be in the middle of what’s probably your first argument” Tech interrupted, “did you find a medical droid?”

“I did!” Shouted Wrecker

“Good.  By the way", Tech directed towards Echo and I, "I would like to see how an argument between married couples proceeds, it would be interesting to learn and see first hand” inquired Tech.

“Yeah, not gonna happen” I said, “let’s get this droid adjusted. Faster we get this thing on the ship, the faster we get out of here, and the faster we can get to Crosshair.”

“I think I have an idea about how to get Crosshair out in the open,” Hunter offered.

“How?” Asked Wrecker

“I’ll tell you guys when we’re back on the ship”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“That’s a bold plan” Fives commented

“But it has the potential for working” I appeased

“How do we know we can trust her?” Tech questioned, “how do we know she didn’t wilfully not show up? Had a change of heart?”

“Come on Tech, you know her.  She loves us.” Hunter looked to the ground before continuing, “she loves me, she would never … She was detained.  I know it.  Something prevented her from meeting us in that hangar.”

“Okay, so you want to send a message that will undoubtedly put her in danger, either on the mission, or before the mission, and definitely after the mission.  Basically, you are okay painting a giant target on her back, Hunter?  Cause that’s what you’re doing by sending that message.”

“I know Phoenix, but it’s the only thing I can think of to do.”

“Then I’ll help to try and limit the damage.  First things first, we are going to need to split up, find a planet to draw their attention to, hopefully one that’s uninhabitable.”

“With lots of ground coverage” offered Wrecker

“No high ground” suggested Tech

“With lots of animals” said Fives, we all turned to look at him, “what? If he can get distracted that gives us an advantage, I’m not crazy”, we all nodded along.  “He does have a point” chimed in Echo.

“What about Felucia?” Hunter suggested

“It’s not inhabitable.  I actually think I have a place.” I offered

“Where?” They all asked at once.

“I can’t say.”

“Well if you can’t say, how can we use it then?” Fives asked

“Because I have to ask permission to go there, it could put someone in danger, and that could be worse then …”

“Then having the Empire after us right now?” Wrecker inquired.

“Yes, actually.  They’re very dear and special to me, I need to …sorry guys, I’m gonna have to take over the bunk for now.”

“Oh” said Echo

“Oh” I nodded.

“Oh what?” Hunter asked

“Ohhh!” Clued in Fives adding, “I thought he was dead.

“About as dead as you and I are”

“What are we talking about?” Wrecker asked Tech

“I don’t know” Tech answered shrugging his shoulders.

“Sorry guys, I can’t say more, or talk more about it.  Like I said, I need the bunk, no one come in until I emerge.  It could be several hours, I suggest we stay in hyperspace as much as possible.”

“What’s going on?” Omega asked as she stepped out of her room.

“Sorry guys, but we can’t talk about it” Fives answered, “just trust us, when we say she needs to do this, and you really can’t disturb her, she needs the quiet.”

- - - - - - - - -

It had been a while since I sat here meditating, trying to connect with my older teacher.  I had been a force-sensitive child, and was about to take the Jedi trials, to be ordained as a Jedi Knight, but the anger within me had proved to be too volatile, with the war in effect.  It was important to not let those who could be in situations where the constant fighting, the constant bloodshed and the insurmountable injustice would be present all the time.  It could lead one to use the force in an unnatural way, causing one to take actions into your own hands.

I closed my eyes, and focused on the force, being one with the force was always easy for me, which was why the Council was concerned when they felt my anger.

“Little one, hmmm? Yes, hmmm”

“Hello Master Yoda”

“Why reach out through the force did you, hmm? Alright are you, hmmm?”

“I seek advice, Master, the advice is not for me, I’m alright, but it is to save two innocents.”

“To save a clone called Crosshair you wish, and medic called Kambe.  Innocent, Kambe is.  However, shed innocent blood, Crosshair has.”

“It’s not his fault, Master, it’s his chip.  If we remove the chip, he’ll be back to his old self.”

“Possible, removing stone from a puddle is, damage the stone caused when thrown in is permanent.  Back, what makes you think the Crosshair you once knew would come, hmm? Hmmmm.”

“Because it happened to one of the clones I am travelling with.  His chip activated, and he tried to kill Omega, the little clone girl, once his chip was removed he went back to normal, although he remembered the incident.”

“Wrecker activated for, how long was, hmm?”

“Not long, maybe about 20 to 30 minutes.”

“Crosshair been activated, how long has, hmm?”

“Since the start of the Empire”

“Over time weeds grow over stone, in the puddle, that is.  When you pull out stone, pull out weeds too.  The damage caused, irreversible, could be.  Prepared to face that consequence are you, hmm? Hmmm?”

“At least he would be free.”

“Of clone life free from, hmm? No.  Free from the Empire, hmm? No.  His other self free from, hmm? Possibly.  Plague his mind constantly, the nightmares of what he has done will.  Carry, can you soothe the pain his soul will, hmm?  If this chip you free him from, have to help carry his burden, you will.  Ready for that are you, hmm?”

“Yes”

“Then I offer, what advice can hmm? Yes, hmmm”

“We need a planet that is shrouded in darkness, with no major high ground, lots of foliage and animals”

“You use Dagobah to draw him out want to, hmm?”

“With your permission, Master, yes.  But if you feel it is too big of a threat, maybe you can recommend another planet, one that can wreak havoc on a sniper.”

“My permission, you have.  I will give you coordinates that will put any in danger not, and your purposes that will serve.”

“Thank you, Master.”

“Your anger and your fear I no longer sense.  Changed, what has, young one, hmm?”

“Ever since my ‘death’, I no longer lived for myself but for others.  With the help of others and my skills we were able to save 2500 soldiers.  Brave men, each one.”

“That is all not. Herh herh herh”.

“No, Master.  Ha, never could hide anything from you.  I married the love of my life, Echo”

“Happy for you little one I am.  Continue learning from the force.  Serve you in the future, it will.  To the dark side within you I no longer sense the temptation.  However, to say goodbye to the man you love, be prepared, when the time comes, or to the dark side again find yourself on the path.

“Yes, Master.  Thank you.”

“With you may the force be.  Hmmmm”

“And with you, Master.”

- - - - - - - - -

“How long does this usually take?” Hunter asked Echo

“Once it took her - - - what was it? Fives, 12 hours?”

“I thought it was longer, closer to 15 or 16”

“It depends”

“On what?” Asked Tech

“On how easily I can connect to the force”, I answered.  They all turned to see me emerge from the bunk room, “how long was I in there for?”

“About 8 hours,” Echo answered.

“Do we have a plan?”

“We do, Hunter” I smiled, not only did we have a plan, but I had the privilege to continue learning about the Force, who knows what will happen in the future, but as of right now I was very hopeful.

“So where are we going?” Asked Omega

“Dagobah, we’re going to Dagobah, but first I need to eat, secondly there are a few things we need to discuss and thirdly, only three or four of us should go, the others should keep Omega safe.”

“I feel like there’s going to be a whole Jedi sort feel to this story” Fives laughed

“Well not completely, but you’re not wrong either” I laughed along with him.

“Does that mean, you’re going to tell me how you know about Obi-wan’s charms?” Asked Echo

“You’re never going to leave that alone, are you?” Hunter and Tech got up and headed for the cockpit, Omega headed for her room, Fives and Wrecker headed for the bunk room, leaving Echo and I alone.

“Why won’t you just tell me?”

“Why do I need to tell you about something that is so trifling, and doesn’t matter in our current predicament?”

“Because I need to know”

“You don’t need to know, what you want to know is if I personally experienced his charms, isn’t that true?”

“I … how … that’s …” Echo rubbed the back of his neck after his failure to start his sentence, “that’s not what I want to know.”

“Then why do you keep asking that question”

“I just didn’t think that Jedis, you know”

I just looked at him, “Echo, I married you.  I was learning to become a Jedi, remember?”

“Yeah, but I just didn’t think you were with anyone before me, I thought we had that in common”, that’s what he wanted to know! Man, why was he beating around the bush?

“Echo, my love” I kneeled before, cradling his face with one hand, holding his right hand with my left, “I love you.  Obi-wan is just a horrible flirt.  I was never interested in him.  I wasn’t interested in anyone other than you.  You have been and always will be the love of my life.  No one can compare to you.  They can’t hold a candle to your bravery, your courage, your kindness, your sweetness, the way you care for me, the way you look after your brothers, the way you look after Omega.  You are the best man I have ever known.  No one will ever change my opinion about that.  I love you and only you, and I have never been with anyone other than you.”

Echo looked into my eyes, leaned forward and kissed me, with all the passion he could muster.  “I really wish we had our own room, and our own ship, right now.”

I laughed out loud, “well let’s get to a safe haven where we can pick up another ship, and you and I take an hour for ourselves.”

“I think maybe four hours is needed”

“Ha, if only we had that kind of time my love, an hour and a half?”

“Two”

“Done, but then we have to get this plan under way as soon as we land.”

“I know”, I pressed my forehead against his, soaking in his scent; Master Yoda was right, I would have to prepare myself for the eventuality of losing him for real, one day.  When I had thought I had lost him the first time, it nearly destroyed me, and it was because I wasn’t able to have a future with him.  Wasn’t able to live freely with him.  Now, I could.  If I were to lose him tomorrow, I can be comforted in knowing that I had married, and had been able to love him without reservation.  I would have no regrets with how I loved him.

“I love you, Echo”

“I love you, Phoenix”

TAG LIST:

@lady-ren​

[beskarhearts]

Mourn (Din Djarin x reader)

Connection series Pt. 9

Pairing: Din Djarin x f!reader (no use of Y/N)

Warnings: cursing, mention of family members passing away, drinking, smallest mention of prostitution, death/killing, angst (let me know if I missed any)

Word count: over 12.0K

Summary: Din mourns his newest loss and you learn that you might not be able to run away this time.

Notes: Woof! This was a big one but it’s one of my favorite chapters so far. I have a few more chapters planned before we start getting into the events from season 2! 

Previous Part ____ Next Part

__________________________________________________

Din sat in the seat of his Crest, his hand tightly clutching onto the necklace in his hand. He couldn’t bear to look at it, just the feeling of the cool metal against his bare skin serving as a reminder of his lost. 

He knew where she would of gone. He had mentioned the bounty had a ship that was not too far from where the Crest had landed, probably only a matter of a few hundred feet away. He had realized relatively quickly what had happened and he could probably get to her before she left, and that was assuming the ship the bounty stole even worked anymore. If she had to fix something really quick, he could definitely get to her. 

Din listened as the kid let out a little mewl, sat in the passenger seat beside him. In the seat she usually sat in. The child looked over at Din with big eyes and he knew the kid understood she had left. Probably had watched her do it.

She left him. Din let in a deep breath, trying his best not to let tears fall. Because even though he would have the helmet on to cover them, he couldn’t allow himself to do it. If he did, he didn’t know how he would stop. 

Din had two options. He could either find her and try to find out what happened or he could turn in his bounty and let her leave. Let her leave him like she wanted to. Like she chose to.

The Mandalorian had always been a loner. He never had anyone beside him. No friends, no family, certainly never a woman he loved. He had been accustomed to that lifestyle for many years.  She had changed that though. She made him feel whole, filling in a hole in his life he hadn’t even truly understood he had. She made him feel worthy of more and made him feel like he mattered to someone. Was more than a piece of metal that took down bounties for men richer than him. She made him realize he didn’t want to be alone anymore and he wanted to spend life with someone who made his days far happier than they ever had before.

And he fell in love with her because of it. He fell in love with her personality, her warmth, and the way she opened his eyes to what life could be like, even for a man like him. She expanded his clan, his family, by one and had made life so much sweeter. 

But now she was gone. Not because she had to leave or he had wanted her to. Out of her own volition. She chose to. And while Din loved her and his heart was aching, he wasn’t going to force himself on her. She didn’t want him. 

Din had lost before. He would just endure another one and move on. Like he always did. 

He took the necklace in his hands and placed it on the dashboard of the Crest. Din would try to ignore the pain, try to move on and find a Jedi for the kid, but he could keep this little token. Just as a small reminder of what maybe could of been. 

Din cleared his throat and punched in his next location, preparing the ship for a jump into hyperspace. “Let’s turn this bounty in, kid.”

The child let out another small noise but Din didn’t bother to look. He’d just see the confusion and pain in his eyes, the same he had in his but were hidden away. He simply shook his head and heard the ship hum as it prepared to leave. Leave the planet where she could still possibly be. 

“She’s gone. We’ve got to move on.”

___________________

You felt sick to your stomach. 

The ship was easy to find. Din was right, it had only been a few hundred feet away, easy to run to. It was a small x-wing, probably stolen, but it wasn’t too old or damaged. Certainly in better shape than the Crest had been when you first saw it. You just had to fix the control panel, which you did with hands that shook and your heart slamming in your chest. You had worried Din might of tried to find you, knowing you were going to the bounty’s aircraft, but he must of not realized what was happening because he never came. 

Once the ship was finally in order, you hauled your body into it, placing your bag at your feet, and closing the hatch of it. The x-wing smelled, probably from the Klantooinian who had stolen it. You were surprised he could even fly it and hadn’t crashed into the planet, but was thankful it was there. It was your ticket out.

But once you were in the pilot’s seat, hands ready to punch in your next location into the navigation system, you were suddenly lost. Where would you go? You couldn’t go back to Yungbrii. You had been there for so long and hated it. You couldn’t bring yourself to go back, even though your small mechanic shop may still be there. You also couldn’t risk going back there. If Din did decide to try to find you, that would probably be one of the first places he would think to stop at. 

Where else would you go? You thought of the planet you had stopped at with Din that had the marketplace. There were lots of people there, meaning there would be work. You could blend in, hide away. Probably wouldn’t garner a lot of attention from anybody. But you weren’t even exactly sure where that was and that would hurt. Going to a place you had gone with Din, your family, would be pouring salt into a fresh wound. And you weren’t sure you could go there and relive those memories and not try to find your way back to Din. 

You could technically go anywhere. You could punch in any location and try to start anew. You could hide away everything that had happened, like you always did, and become a new person. 

But instead of just going to a random planet, you went to the one place you had ever find yourself yearning to go to. The one place, besides the Crest with Din, that had been your home. Where you had grown up and loved. It was risky and it might be the worst decision, but you punched in the coordinates.

And then you were off. To Jakku. 

___________________

“He’s dead.”

Din stood across from the client who ordered the bounty. The man’s arms were crossed, his face twisted into a firm grimace.  “I did the job.”

The man let out a snarl, his jaw jutting out as he tried to temper the rage consuming him. “I wanted him alive. I wanted him to suffer under my hand, not yours.”

“There were... complications.” Din tried his best to not think of her, of the sobs she had let out with the body laid out on the floor in front of her. He couldn’t let himself crack right now. 

“I thought you were supposed to be best.” 

“It couldn’t be avoided.”

“What? Did he try to kill that pet of yours?” The man snarled as one of his crooked fingers pointed to the carrier on his hip. Din turned to look down at his side. The kid looked right up at him, his face covered by the fabric of the bag but his big eyes and ears popping out. Din couldn’t help but to think of what her reaction would be right now. She’d probably make some sarcastic comment to the client and then given Din a look that said something along the lines of ‘what a joke’. Din shook his head, trying to shake away the thought from his mind.

“I did what I had to do. I did the job.” 

“Well, I’m not paying you the full price. I’ll give you half.”

Din huffed. Half of this bounty was supposed to go to fuel alone. He needed the other half. The whole reason he did this job was because he needed the credits. If he hadn’t, then he wouldn’t have landed on that damn planet and maybe, just maybe, she’d still be around. “That wasn’t the agreement.”

“The agreement was to bring him to me.”

“I did.” Din could probably be described as an abnormally calm man. Part of it was being a Mandalorian. You get used to dealing with shady people. You get used to the looks, to being swindled, to being treated like a droid who was just meant to work away for the rest of his days. Eventually, it just became part of the scenery for Din and he never got bothered by it. But today was a bad day and Din was feeling all the emotions he was bottling up turn into annoyance with this man. 

“I wanted him alive!” The man yelled, his fists clenching tightly. 

Din let out a loud sigh, his hands grazing the blaster on his side which the man took notice of. “Give me my credits.” He said plainly, but he knew there was a danger to his words. He saw the way the mans hand shook slightly and his anger expression dropped for a split second. Din was aware of the effect he could have on people, the fear he could instill in them even when he had no plans of actually doing anything. 

“Fine. But you are never getting hired by me ever again.”

Thank the Maker for that. Din wanted to call him a damn asshole (something she probably would of done with that dangerous mouth of hers) but instead he nodded his head and reached a hand out. The client dropped the credits in his hand with a dramatic huff, turning around without another word and storming off. 

Din turned around, heading back in the direction of his ship. The town he had landed on could best be described as grimy. It was dark and dingy: a stale smell filled the air and every wall was covered in what looked like grease. There were a few buildings, including a hotel and cantina, both of which looked run down and run by folk who probably weren’t the most pleasant. Din continued strolling away until he heard a loud laugh fill the air. It was bubbly and feminine, and Din couldn’t help the pit that filled his stomach at the sound of it. It came from the cantina and it didn’t even sound like her that much but he couldn’t help it. He knew she wasn’t here. She had no reason to stop on a planet this horrid but his feel still turned in the direction of the cantina. He froze before entering. He needed to see if it was her, even though he knew deep down it wasn’t. He let out a huff before he entered the building. His eyes scanned the dimly lit cantina. It wasn’t too busy, just a few people at the bar and a couple in the corner who were practically attached to each other. The smell of liquor was overwhelmingly strong in the room and the air in it was stale. The establishment felt like a bad hangover that left you sick. 

The couple in the corner finally detached themselves from each other and the woman let out another laugh. Din nodded his head. It wasn’t her. Of course not. Din went to turn towards the exit when the bartender spoke, “You want a drink or you just come to stare?”

Din was going to walk off, ignore the man like he did with most people. Din wasn’t a drinker, never really had been. He didn’t like the feeling it gave him. The numbness and the fogginess. But right now, that didn’t sound like the worst feeling. In fact, it sounded like it would be better to forget and drown his sorrows tonight rather than sit in the Crest and wallow in his pain. Din turned his head and walked towards the bar, dropping a couple credits onto the counter. “A bottle of whatever you have.”

The man nodded, his slimy fingers reaching out for the credits as he gave The Mandalorian a crazed look. He grabbed a bottle from behind the counter, one Din wasn’t too familiar with, and placed it down for him to grab. Din reached out for it, ready to leave, when the man spoke again. “You want any company, pal?” 

The man leaned his head to the right and Din looked to find a woman sat at the bar, scantily clad and giving him a sickening smile. Her fingers waved at him slowly. 

“No.” Din turned without another word, storming out of the cantina with the bottle grasped tightly in his hand.

___________________

Even though it was nighttime by the time you landed on Jakku, the air was still warm. The sky was dark but filled with what appeared to be a million little stars, a scene that was so juxtaposed to the environment it was in.  You looked up to the sky and felt a peace in your heart, looking at the very stars you had stared into during your childhood here. You recognized certain constellations, ones your mother had taught you. 

You were fatigued but your body was also cramping from being inside such a tiny ship for so long. By now, the x-wing was done for. They were meant for fighting and battle, not traveling through hyperspace for extended amounts of time, and you had sufficiently pushed the ship to its breaking point. You stepped onto the sand, feeling it give under the boots you wore. You looked around, trying to see if there was anyone nearby, but you found it was just you. You had parked not too far from Niima Trading Post, a place where you had worked and knew like the back of your hand. Part of you wanted to venture to it now, maybe find some food and a place to stay. But you had left most of your credits with Din, only a small handful in your pocket. Certainly not enough for a bed for the night. You also weren’t sure what would greet you once you traveled into the post. You had changed plenty since you lived here last and weren’t worried a lot about people recognizing you. Most people on Jakku came and went. There weren’t a lot of people who lived there permanently besides the scavengers and criminals, who didn’t bother to get to know people,  and people who ran the few booths that were there. But you still felt a bit of fear in your heart at the prospect of entering the post and decided it would be better to save that for the morning, when you were more alert.

You were absolutely exhausted. You were still worn out from what had happened the day before and the long day of traveling hadn’t done you any favors. You sat down on the sand, your back leaning against a part of the x-wing. You closed your eyes, bring your hands to rub at your face. Today had been so long and you had spent most of it trying not to think of Din or the child. You couldn’t bear to do so. It would only lead to heartache. But even despite your desperate attempts to keep thoughts of your Mandalorian at bay, your chest still felt heavy and you had felt like you were on the verge of tears all day.

All you wished right now was that Din was with you. That you were in the Crest, laying in bed with him again. You could show him your home, the town where you had grown up. You knew it wasn’t much but you still think Din would of appreciated seeing it. Getting to learn more about your origin, how you had become the person you were now. 

You opened your eyes, shaking your head. You had to stop thinking like that. Din was gone. You had left him and the child behind. You had left that clan. And even though that left a gaping hole in your chest, it was for the right reasons.  You weren’t the type of person who could have a family. It just wasn’t part of you. That was for normal people with normal lives.

You rested your head against the hot metal of the ship and let your eyes slip close.

___________________

Din brought the bottle to his lips again. The Crest was back in hyperspace, heading to some planet on the Outer Rim. The child was asleep, in his hammock with the door closed so he couldn’t see Dins face. The ship was completely silent, except for the soft whirl of it traveling. This was normally when Din would sit in the cockpit for a while before going to bed, staring off into the galaxy. That was what he did before she came along and joined him. But now he couldn’t bring himself to sit in that seat, with the passenger one empty and without her sweet voice filling the small confines of the space. Instead he sat on the  cot on the floor, the one she had slept on. His helmet had been taken off and he had rested it on her pillow. His legs were splayed out, reaching past the small cot and laying heavily on the cool floor below him. He was still adorned in all his armor, the only helmet being the only piece of metal he was bare of. 

Din brought the bottle up to his lips, letting the warm liquor run over his tongue and down his throat. It was a large bottle but was now half empty at this point. It tasted like shit, definitely not worth what he paid, but he hadn’t expected much from a place like that. And in the end, it was partially doing its job. Din felt his eyes droop, his senses dull. His body fell limp against the bed that still smelled of her, like honey and fresh laundry. At this point, Din was sufficiently drunk, teetering on the edge of hammered. 

He probably should stop, but he couldn’t refrain from guzzling down the drink. He had hoped it would ease his pain, make the tear in his heart mend a little. He wanted to stop thinking, to let all his emotions slip away. But all it seemed to do was make it even worse. Everything felt rawer and drinking was just pouring salt in the wound. Din’s only hope now was that he could get black out drunk and forget. At least forget tonight and the weakness he felt in this moment. The way his hands shook and his eyes glossed over. Forget the pit in his stomach and the necklace that he had put in his pocket before he left earlier.  

But the problem was that he’d never forget her. Din felt something wet against his cheeks, bringing a hand up to his skin and wiping at it. He looked down at his fingers and saw that he had started crying without even realizing it. The warm tears continued to slip down his cheeks. traveling down to his chin so small drops landed on the metal of his chest plate. 

“Why... why did you leave me?” Din knew she wasn’t there and he was alone, but he still spoke the words that rung through his head over and over. He would of done anything for her. Didn’t she know that? He didn’t care what was wrong or what was happening. Nothing would change the way he cared for her and loved her. 

He couldn’t stop imagining the night before. The way he had held her and how her skin had felt. It had been so soft and sweet. She had filled every single one of his senses. All he could think of was her and how he wanted her, no, needed her. He should of tried to find her. He should of followed her to the ship, begged her not to go. Told her he loved her and she was his anchor.

Din wiped away the tears, putting down the bottle. He needed to sober up.

He needed to find her.

___________________

Walking into Niima Trading Post was like walking into the past. Not much had changed. The same booths were there, full of scavengers selling their parts and towns people selling their goods to the people who came and went. It was different faces but the same place and same environment. The sand still covered almost everything, almost like a blanket of snow. The post was relatively quiet this early in the morning, just the usual bustle of scavengers heading out for the day. So far you hadn’t seen anyone who you recognized, which didn’t particularly surprise you.

You continued your stroll through town, not even really considering where you were heading until you were face to face with it. You stopped completely, staring at the small garage-like building in front of you, and felt your chest squeeze. It was what had used to be your father’s mechanic shop and it looked exactly the same as it used to. Run down, but obviously well taken care of. It was pretty empty, only one small carrier in the corner that was being worked on. You stepped closer to it, letting your hand reach out and touch one of the walls. You had spent so much of your life here. This is where your father had taught you to be a mechanic and to work hard. This is the place you spent the most time with your dad.

“Do you need some help, ma’am?” You turned to the right, looking over to see a man ducking out from under the carrier that was being worked on. He was an extremely tall, large man with a long, wispy red beard and no other hair. Several grease stains were on his overalls, which were tied around his waist, a white tank top covering his upper half that was just as dirty. A sheen of sweat covered his skin and he held a tool in his right hand. He wasn’t a particularly attractive man but he had a big smile on his face that was welcoming. 

“Oh... umm... no. I just,” You paused and bit your lip. “I knew the person who used to run this shop.”

The man’s smile dropped slightly and his broad shoulders sagged. “Oh, he... no longer works here. He passed away right before I started working here.”

You gave him a sad smile. “Oh. Do you run this now?”

He let out a small chuckle at your question. “Oh Maker, no. Just a mechanic. The lady runs it here.”

Your eyebrows lift up. “Who is she?”

“She was a friend of the family. Knew them before they were all killed.” He must of noticed the way you winced at the casual mention of your parents murder. “Oh, you must not know. I wasn’t at Jakku yet but I heard the rumors. Horrible, horrible thing. Whole family was killed. The only one who may of  survived was the killer.”

Your eyebrows shot up at his words and you stared at him incredulously. Did the Empire make it look like you had died and left behind a killer to take the blame for the attack? “Who was the killer?”

“Believe it or not, their daughter. Rumor has it she went nuts.” The man gestured to his head, indicating the ‘killer’ had lost their mind. “No one knows for sure but she was the only one who wasn’t found so people just made their assumptions.”

You clenched your fists tightly. The Empire must of covered their tracks and gotten rid of any evidence they had come and slaughtered your family, letting the towns people of Niima gossip about what could of happened. You felt shame and anger pour into you. The very people you had known your whole life had pointed the finger at you. Jakku wasn’t the kindest place but it had been your home and you couldn’t believe that they’d label you as a killer. 

“Zeke, are you bothering a potential customer with useless rumors?” You turn around at the sound of the voice you knew all too well. Your heart stopped at the sight of the woman behind you, who immediately made eye contact with you and froze. 

“Oh, no ma’am. She used to know the family.” He looked back and forth between you and the woman, lowering his voice and whispering to her, “I don’t think she knew what happened.”

“Mai.” You calmly said and the woman gave you a small smile. Mai had been a long-time family friend, extraordinarily close to your grandmother. People had said they were practically sisters and you couldn’t help but to see so many similarities in her. They were both loud-mouthed and bossy, but also exceptionally kind. When your grandmother had first landed on Jakku with a daughter and no father for the child, Mai had been a helping hand, allowing your grandmother to settle down and learning about her past. She had been there at your birth and had watched you grow up. If there was one person at Jakku you ever truly wanted to see again, it would be Mai.

“Zeke, I am going to take my friend over here. You continue working on that carrier.” The man nodded and turned around, getting one last look at you before crawling back under the carrier to resume his work. Mai strode towards you, her arms immediately reaching out and hugging you tightly. “Maker. I thought you were dead.”

You clutched onto Mai and felt a wave of relief wash over you for the first time in days. She let go of you, placing her hands on your shoulders and giving you a good once-over before grabbing an arm and dragging you over to the small office attached to the garage. She pushed you into the room, locking the door behind you before once again looking you up and down like she was surveying you. “You look older.”

You let out a small chuckle. “That’s what happens when six years passes by.”

Mai rolled her eyes playfully and grinned, her arms crossing over her chest as she leaned against the door. “Still a smart ass like your grandmother?”

You nodded. “Yeah. That part didn’t go away.”

She pushed her body off the door, strolling over to the desk in the room and sitting on it, gesturing for you to sit in the chair in front of her. You dropped your bag next to it before plopping down, looking up at her as she continued to study you intently. “As happy as I am to see you, kid, what the kriff are you doing here?”

Your smile dropped and you rested your elbow against the arm of the chair, bringing your hand up to your face. “I... don’t know.”

“You can’t be here. They think-”

“That I am a killer.” You interrupted and Mai gave you a pitiful look.

“You know how people are here. Nothing else to do but scavenge and gossip.”

“So they just label me as a murderer?”

“Nobody knew anything. All they found was your house burnt down and your parents and grandmother laid out on the ground.” Mai paused as she watched your expression shift from anger to sadness. Realization washed over her features. “Fuck. You were there?”

“Of course.”

“I was hoping you had escaped before whatever happened... well happened. I thought that or you had died.” She let out a small sigh, brushing one of her gray hairs behind her ears. “What happened?”

You could sense the sadness in her voice. She had loved your family, pretty much been a member of it. Your family was a tight circle with a lot of secrets and Mai had accepted the responsibility that came with that. She knew everything about your grandmother and mother. The Force and how they had fled where they had lived in order to escape the threat of death. You had often wondered what she was thinking in the days following your family’s death, wishing you could console her and explain everything, but feared returning to Jakku. “The Empire happened.”

Mais face went slack, her dark skin seeming to pale at what you said. “Shit. How did they find out where you were?”

You had often wondered the same thing. How did they know you were Jedis and how the hell did they know where you were? Jakku was low-profile, not the kind of place people worried about. Once people came here, they usually never went back to where they were from. It was just the way it went. So why had the Empire searched Jakku for your family, just to wipe you all out even though you posed no direct threat? You shrugged and let out a sigh. “No clue. But they knew about my grandmother being a Jedi, as well as my mom having a connection with the Force. Didn’t know she wasn’t trained though.” 

“So they just... killed them?”

“Yep. Mom and Dad first. Gram wasn’t there so they... umm... used some tactics to try to get me to talk.” You pulled the jacket you were wearing against your body even more, not wanting her to see what exactly they had done exactly. It would send her into a frenzy, because much like yourself, she was overly protective. 

“Gram showed up and they killed her...” You voice drifts off. You were leaving out some details, things you couldn’t bear to talk about, but Mai nodded understandingly. 

“I’m so sorry, kid.” She leaned over and reached a wrinkled hand out to your knee, patting it. She sat back up and shook her head, allowing herself a minute to process everything. “What did you do?”

“Took one of their ships and got the hell out of dodge.” 

“Where did you go?”

“Yungbrii for a long time. Haven’t been there in months though. I was with-” You almost feel yourself say his name and stop yourself short. You didn’t want to cover that.

“Why did you go to Yungbrii?” Mai’s eyebrows wrinkled together.

“I just landed anywhere small. Lived somewhere that makes Niima look like a bustling city.” Mai frowned at your description. She knew you when you were the type of person who liked to be around others. You used to thrive off human contact. But that had changed very quickly.

“What are you doing now?”

You let out a huff. “I don’t know.”

Mai shook her head and stood from the spot on her desk. “I love you, kid, and you can stay at my place for a few days. But you can’t stay here.”

“People won’t be fond of the murderer hanging around?” You said, feeling your face pinch up into a scowl.

Mai uncomfortably nodded. “You know the people here aren’t the kindest, especially if they sense any potential threat.”

“Great.” You closed your eyes and leaned your head back. You didn’t know where to go next. You had no ship, no family or friends, almost no credits. 

“I have a ship at my house. A complete piece of garbage but if anyone can fix it, it’s you. You can have it and work on it there.”

You give her a grateful smile. “Thank you.”

“But you need to find out where to go.”

“Yeah. That’s the problem.”

Mai frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “Where were you after Yungbrii?”

“What?”

“You said you haven’t been there in months. So where were you?”

Your shoulders sag and you try to not let your emotions overwhelm you. You give yourself a moment, letting out a deep breath. “Doesn’t matter. It’s not an option.”

The woman gave you a knowing look. “What happened?”

You stand from your seat, grabbing your bag. “You know, I am absolutely exhausted and should start working on the ship.” You change the topic to which Mai huffs. “You still live in the same place?”

“Of course.”

“I am going to head over there then. If it’s okay.”

Mai gave you a soft look, understanding there was something more under the surface, something you weren’t telling her. “It’s fine. But we are talking later.”

You give her a quick nod before opening the door to the office. You give her one last smile before you begin to walk towards your next destination.

___________________

Din’s head was absolutely pounding. It felt like a drill was slamming through it with every step he took and every movement. The kid had woken up with bustles of energy but every-time he made a noise, Din winced. He swore to himself he would never, ever drink again. 

Luckily the kid seemed to take notice of Din’s change in behavior, calming himself and keeping his attention occupied on the metal sphere in his hand. Normally Din would take it from him, explaining it wasn’t a toy, but he didn’t have the energy to do so today and anything that kept the kid quiet was fine by him. He also had too much to think about already.

Din was sat in the pilots seat with the child buckled in beside him. His hands lightly grasped the navigator but he was frozen. Where would she have gone?

Certainly not Yungbrii. She hated that place with a passion, never haven spoken one good word about the place. Also, if she was trying to make it so Din couldn’t find her, she wouldn’t return. She would know he would think of that. Din considered the planet with the marketplace they had stopped at. It had been busy, somewhere she could blend it. But she usually didn’t run to people - she ran away from them. That would be too much for her and Din wasn’t even sure if she knew the coordinates for it. Din considered the planet they had stayed at with the flowers. But there was absolutely nothing there - no place to get food or anywhere to even live. If she took the x-wing, she probably only had one long-distance trip she could get out of it. She wouldn’t waste it on a place she couldn’t even stay. 

Din felt hopeless. She could of stopped anywhere. Hell, she could of punched in some random coordinates and ran off. But that didn’t seem likely to Din. She wasn’t the type to not think before she acted. She had purpose behind every decision she made. This would certainly be no different. So Din just had to think of one planet, out of the millions out there, that she would of stopped at. 

Nowhere cold. She hated the cold, having told Din once how much she detested the snow. It would be somewhere warm, where she could work in the sun. It would also not be somewhere with a lot of people but enough that she could work. She was an incredibly talented mechanic and Din knew she loved the work. It would have to be a place where maybe a lot of people didn’t live  but stopped by on their way somewhere else. Somewhere where they quickly got their ship freshened up and then were on their way. She would have to find somewhere where she could either get hired or start her own place.  Din then considered how she had left most of her minimal credits behind, meaning she only had a little on her, if any. She wouldn’t go to anywhere too expensive. She didn’t have the money for that. It would have to be somewhere with a mechanic shop already established, so she could get a job and make some money. Maybe somewhere where she could also sell parts from the x-wing, put some credits in her pocket before she was on her way. 

But, Din also thought she would want to go somewhere familiar. She had spent so long on Yungbrii, which was the polar opposite of everything she had once known. And once she was with Din, she had gotten used to the environment. It had become a sort of home where she knew her surroundings. Knew the dynamics of the place she was at. Din imagined she wouldn’t want to throw herself into a place that had no sense of familiarity. 

Then it hit him. She had nothing: no ship, barely any credits, and no family now. She was a lone wolf once again but she no longer enjoyed being on her own. She needed a sense of belonging or home or something of that nature . She also had nothing left to risk. “Dank farrik!”

Din punched in the coordinates and clasped his hands onto the ships steering controls. He had to get out of here and go, now. The kid cooed behind him and Din turned to see him eagerly looking up at him. 

“We need to go get your mom, kid.” Din didn’t even consider how he had referred to her as the kid’s mom, his body and mind too busy in hyperdrive and worrying. She could be in danger.  “We’re going to Jakku.”

___________________

“Well, you really went to work.” 

You turned at the sound of Mai’s voice, seeing her walking towards you with two mugs in her hands. You hopped down from your spot on the ship and she handed a cup of caf to you, which you welcomed happily. It was now nearing sunset and you had spent most of the day in the sun, working on the ship. “You weren’t kidding about this being a piece of junk.”

Mai let out a hearty chuckle. “It is in bad shape. One of the worst I’ve seen.”

“Eh, I’ve seen worse.” You smiled slightly at the thought of the Crest and how you constantly teased Din about his shop being a flying death trap. The ship you were working on now was small and not even operable, but at least it wasn’t pre-empire. Just abused and in need of a little love.

“What’s with that smile?”

You dropped the grin from your face and feel your stomach twist. You had to stop thinking about Din or the kid or the Crest. It would only hurt more and more. “Nothing.”

Mai scoffed at that, taking a sip of her caff and then giving you a sly smile. “You are a bad liar.”

“Shut up.”

“Does that smile have anything to do with where you’ve been the past few months?”

You hated how much Mai knew you, how she could piece things together like this. Your grandmother was the same way, always able to know what you were thinking. You were never able to keep a secret from the two of them. “It doesn’t matter.”

Mai rolled her eyes. “I thought you were supposed to leave your angsty, secretive phase in your teens.”

“Guess I am just special.” 

“Or holding too much in. You need to talk to me, kid.”

“I’m fine.” You insisted. 

Mai shook her head. She looked over at your box of tools you had laid out next to your bag. “Still have your dad’s tools?”

“Oh, yeah.”

The woman bent down at the knees, reaching out to touch the box when something caught her eyes. She tugged at the wool pooling out of your bag and pulled out the blanket you had gotten at the marketplace. “This looks just like the blanket your grandmother gave you.”

You smiled as you saw her eyes brighten up. “Yeah. Found it at this booth on some random planet.” She gave you a quizzical look. “I was, umm... traveling for a while.”

“With who?”

Your smile dropped and you put down your cup, grabbing a tool and turning back to the ship. “Like I said: doesn’t matter.”

“Kid-”

“It doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have been there.”

“Well, surely that’s not the case.”

Mai was persistent, just like you. Now you were realizing how annoying it was for Din when you wouldn’t stop bothering him. “He... they are better without me.”

You cleared your throat, trying to seem unbothered but the older woman saw right through you. The corner of her lip quirked into a smile and she let out a chuckle. You huffed at her and frowned. “What in the Maker is so funny?”

“I just thought I’d never live to see the day.” she said teasingly.

“What?”

“This man you traveled with... why did you leave?” 

You shook your head. “Stop.”

“I just never thought I’d see the day you were in love.” 

The tool in your hand dropped, causing you to jump and you looked at her with bewilderment. You had forgotten how she could read you like a book. It was flustering you. You were trying to move away from everything, not talk about it and dwell on it. “I’m not.” you defiantly said, but even you could hear your voice waiver.

“I’ve seen that look before. Your heart is hurting.” Mai’s gaze on you softened and you felt your head drop as you realized you weren’t going to get away with not telling her what had happened. “So tell me what happened with this man you love.”

“I’m just not the kind of person who can be with someone. He deserves better.” You plainly said, even though your heart was pounding and your vision was blurring with the tears that threatened to spill.

“Bullshit.” Mai rolled her eyes and put her cup of caf down on the ground, grabbing both of your shoulders after and looking you dead in the eye. “You are incredible and deserve the best.”

You rolled your eyes and pulled away. “I am a mess. A dangerous mess.”

“What in the kriff are you talking about?”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “I can’t control... it anymore.” 

Mia nodded knowingly. She wasn’t a Jedi herself, but she was the only person outside of your family who knew of your family and their secret. Your grandmother had explained the Force to her extensively and she knew how you struggled and trained with her. “What happened?”

“There was a man and he was trying to hurt the kid-”

“The kid?!”

You shook your head, waving away her dramatic response. “Not my kid.” You clarified. “He was a foundling. Anyways, this man attacked me when the kid and I were alone and I... killed him. Without even thinking about it. It’s like my body went into auto-pilot and I couldn’t stop it.”

“So that is why you left.”

“Yes. What if I hurt the kid or-” You found his name almost slip from your lips and you pause.

Mai nodded knowingly. “You stopped using the Force?”

“Yes. After everybody died, I couldn’t anymore. That night they attacked... I used it to kill for the first time and I never, ever wanted to do it again.”

“Can I ask you a question?” You nod slowly and Mai let’s out a long sigh. “To clarify, every time you’ve used the Force in this way, it has been to protect people you care about?”

“Yes. I supposed that is true but-”

“And never have you ever hurt anybody who was innocent or you loved?”

“No. But-”

“And you’ve never wanted to hurt anybody who wasn’t posing a direct threat to you or your family?”

You let out a grunt as she continues interrupting. “Yes. But it doesn’t matter. Gram taught me not to use the Force to harm people. And I have multiple times now.”

Mai paused for a moment before letting out an exasperated, tired laugh. “You are so much like her.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your grandmother. You are just like her. She let unnecessary guilt eat away at her.”

“What?”

“You know how your grandmother came here, escaping?”

You sighed, feeling annoyance bubble with your chest. You had heard this story so many times and didn’t know why it mattered. “Yes, but-”

“Your grandmother had done everything she could to protect your mother. Including kill a man.”

Your jaw slacked and you raised your eyebrows at her. “No. She said she never used the Force to hurt anyone.”

“That’s true. Except for once.” Mai grabbed her mug and leaned against the ship you had been working on, taking a long sip of caf as you stood there dumbfounded. “Your grandmother was attacked by her husband - your grandfather - before she left. He hadn’t know your grandmother was a Jedi and once he did, and he realized his daughter was probably one as well, he wanted your grandmother to abandon your mother and told her to never use the Force.

She wasn’t willing to do that. But he was a violent man with a bad temper. And he brutally attacked her. She didn’t lift a finger - until he started approaching your mother. Then, she did what any mother in that situation should do: she protected her child, even if it meant killing someone.”

You let out the deep breath you were holding in, bringing your hands up to rub at your temples. Your system felt like it was in overdrive. The last couple days had just been too much and this was so much information. You didn’t know whether you wanted to cry or yell. “Why didn’t she tell me?”

“She was ashamed of it. Let the guilt get to her too much. Never told you or your mother.” Mai shook her head solemnly. “I am not going to say what you did felt great because it didn’t. But what I will say is that what you did was what you had to do.”

“It doesn’t feel like that.”

“That’s okay. But the very fact that you feel guilty shows you are a good person. And you only ever used the Force to protect your family when they were being threatened. There is no reason to assume you are just going to hurt people.” 

You stood in silence, allowing your brain to process everything. You had spent so much time hating yourself and laying yourself in blankets of guilt that you hadn’t even considered anything else. You knew deep down you would never hurt Din or the kid. Never lay a finger on them. And there was no reason to think you would, but the fear had clouded your brain. And even with hearing Mai’s story, learning about the secret your grandmother had kept, a small part of your brain still tugged at you. If you couldn’t even protect your family, what made you think you could do it with your new family? “I’m still afraid.”

“And that is okay. But you can’t just run from it because it scares you.”

“It’s too late though. I left. I have no clue where he is and he probably hates me now.” You couldn’t even begin to imagine how Din was feeling right now. You were sure he hated you now. How could he not after you just left him like that? You had abandoned him and the kid, even though he told you he didn’t want you to leave. Even if you were somehow able to find him, he could probably never trust you again, nonetheless want you to join him and the kid. 

“I’m sure that isn’t true. He is probably confused like you. So is the kid.” That could be true. Din knew something was up yesterday, but you never confided in him what exactly was wrong. You didn’t leave anything behind to indicate what you had left, only the necklace. For all you knew, he could think you left for a myriad reasons. Your heart froze at the thought of him possibly thinking you left because of him. You felt like a damn idiot. “Tell me about them. What’s the kids name?”

You paused and awkwardly chuckled. “The kid doesn’t really have a name...”

“What?” Mai furrowed her eyebrows and stared at you with confusion.

“Well, he isn’t exactly a normal child. He is a creature... I don’t really know how to explain it but we just call him the kid. Or womp rat.”  You laughed as you remembered all the times you jokingly called the kid a womp rat and he would smile up at you, having no clue what you were even calling him but just glad you were around.

“Okay... that makes no sense. What is the mans name?”

“I can’t tell you that either...” You murmured quietly.

Mai tilted her head at you. “Are these two even real?”

“Yes. I just can’t tell you his name. It’s kind of against the rules.”

“The rules?”

“Um, yeah. You see, he is a... well, you know,” You stumbled on your words, worried what her reaction would be if you told her what Din was. She knew of your grandmother’s opinions about Mandalorians and weren’t sure if she shared them.

“Is he a creature too?”

You laughed at the edge in her voice. “No, he is a Mandalorian.” You watched as Mai’s jaw dropped slightly and you nervously rushed to his defense. “But he is a good man and kind and smells nice and-”

“Smells nice?”

“I am going to be completely honest: I have no clue what I am saying.” Mai let out a loud laugh at that and her eyes crinkled from the grin on her face.

“You’ve got it rough.”

You let out your own laugh and shook your head. “Yeah, I do.”

“Your grandmother is probably rolling in her grave somewhere.”

“She would of killed me.” You let out a chuckle at the though. You knew she would be livid if she found out but you also couldn’t help to think she would like Din if she got to meet him and actually get to know him. She would of appreciated his strength and admired his dedication and loyalty. She would of had to look at the man behind all the armor, but once she did, you think they would of gotten along pretty well. 

“You know you have to use this ship to find him now, right?”

You let out a sigh. “He could be anywhere.”

“Can’t you use some Force voo-doo to find him?”

You rolled your eyes at her statement. “The Force isn’t a GPS.”

“If it’s so great, it should be able to do that.” She jokingly teased, throwing a wink your way before walking off to leave you be. 

You sighed and looked at the ship. If you worked all night, you could probably have it fixed and ready by tomorrow afternoon. It wouldn’t be in the greatest shape, but it would be enough to fly it and find Din. You already wasted two days on this and he truly could be anywhere. But you were willing the travel the whole galaxy to find him, so you could at least explain yourself, let him know it wasn’t his fault.

You grabbed one of your tools and walked towards the ship, beginning your work again.

___________________

“How can I help you?”

“I’m looking for a woman.”

“No offense, sir, but that is extremely vague.”

The large man looked back at Din, his red beard covered in grease, along with his clothing. He had his arms crossed over his chest and his eyebrows were furrowed together in confusion, but he still had a small smile on his face. 

Din had landed on Jakku this morning, just a little bit of a way out from the Niima Trading Post. She had mentioned her family had lived close by here, which meant her father would of worked as a mechanic here. As soon as he entered town, he and the child asked the first person they saw where there was a mechanic shop. Din couldn’t imagine it wouldn’t be the first place she would stop at, whether it be to ask for a job or to simply see it.

The shop was small, definitely older and a little run down, but it was taken care of. Din couldn’t help but to imagine her as a child or teenager working here with her dad like she had told Din about. Seeing it gave Din a new perspective on her past. “She would of stopped by in the last day or so. She always wears this brown jacket and-”

“Oh, the family friend.” The man gave him a knowing nod and Din felt relief flood all his senses. He had been so worried he would of come here and she would of been nowhere to be found. That he had been wrong and she could’ve been on any planet, anywhere. But hearing him confirm she had been here made Din’s heart feel lighter than it had in hours and hours now.

“Yes. Where is she?”

“I don’t know. She talked to Mai and then left.” The man paused, his smile dropping slightly. “You’re one of those Mandalorians, right? If she is a bounty of yours, I’m afraid I can’t-”

“She isn’t. She is a...,” Din drifted off. Friend felt like a foolish word. She was so much more than a friend to him but that was still what he settled on. “friend.”

“Oh!” The man smiled once again. The child, who was sat in his carrier on Din’s waist let out a little peep and the man looked over at him. He gave the child a huge grin, waving a couple of his fingers at him. Afterwards, he glanced back over at Din with a shrug. “Like I said, she left and hasn’t come back. But Mai should be in soon and she might know something.”

Din nodded and let the man turn away to resume his work. He hoped desperately she was still here. He didn’t think she would of left, but it was possible she came to the shop to get a new ship and leave - though it didn’t appear any ships were for sale here.

He studied the trading post. It was early morning and was rather quiet, not much excitement happening. A few people were starting to open their booths while some headed out into the sand, presumably scavengers. Most of the people kept to themselves, the kindest individual so far being the man who worked at the shop. Din found it hard to imagine his cyar’ika having lived here. She was so exuberant and full of life. A place like this seemed so dull for her sprawling personality - though he supposed it was exponentially more exciting compared to Yungbrii. 

Din kept a look out all around, hoping he’d see her. Hoping she’d walk by and he could stop her, tell her to come back. Din knew that if he found out she was gone and no longer here, it would crush him completely. He was already low on hope and he needed some. Even if she didn’t want to come back, Din just wanted to know she was safe and happy. That would be enough for him. 

“Oh, Mai, someone is here to see you.” Din turned as he heard the man’s voice bellow out and watched as a woman looked over at him. She was older but still had a youthful aura to her. Her gray hair was pulled into a braid and her hands were wrapped around a mug of what Din assumed to be caf. She gave him a big smile, an action that shocked Din. He wasn’t usually greeted with a smile.

“I’m looking for someone.” Din said as she walked over to him.

She let out a chuckle, shaking her head. “Yeah, yeah. I know you are.” Her gaze drifted over to the bag on his side where the child was held and he watched her eyes widen slightly. “He must be the womp rat?”

Din looked down to the child who looked at the woman with a little frown. He loved when his mother called him a womp rat, but not so much with other people. Din looked back up at the woman who was still smiling, a sly little smirk that reminded him of his sweet one. “Where is she?”

The woman, Mai, looked up at him and nodded her head. “She is still here. Don’t worry. Good thing you came now though. She was planning on leaving this afternoon.”

Din thanked the galaxy she hadn’t left yet and he hadn’t waited to come. “I need to see her.”

“I’ll take you to her. She is at my place.” 

“Thank you.”

She smiled again at him and before she turned to lead him, she quirked her head at him. “I’m glad you came.” Din tilted his helmet at her. “She mentioned you and the kid to me.”

Din wondered what he had said about him, wanting to ask but not wanting to seem invasive or waste time. He just gave Mai a small nod and she turned around, starting to walk, and Din followed her.

___________________

“Hey, kid.”

You heard Mai’s voice ring out behind you but you didn’t bother to look away. You were so close to being done on the ship when you found some big issue with the engine. You were now covered in oil, intently working away at it with a tool in each hand. “This ship is a total bitch.”

“Kid-”

“I was so close to being done and it just crapped out on me, spitting oil all over.” You huffed as you brushed a piece of hair behind your ear, knowing you got oil on your face but not really caring. “I take back what I said: this is the worst ship I’ve ever seen. I swear it’s doing it on purpose. I ought to-”

“Kid!” 

You let out a grunt as she yelled out, putting your tools down and turning to see her standing in the doorway of the small garage she had. You jumped down from your spot on the ship and strolled towards her, wiping your hands on the overalls she had let you borrow. “Yes, madam?” you sarcastically responded.

“You have a friend here to see you.” 

You froze and felt your heart start to pound in your chest. It had to be Din. There was no one else it could be. Who else would be here to see you? You brought your shaky hands together and took a deep breath. “Is it...” 

You couldn’t bear to bring yourself to ask the question, afraid your heart would crumble if it wasn’t. “It’s either your Mandalorian or a man with a very odd taste in clothing.”

Your breath hitched in your throat. You wanted to run out, see if it was him, and hold him your arms. But you were so afraid, for reasons unknown to you. Din had come to you. He had found you and that was a good sign, right? He wouldn’t have come all this way if he didn’t want to see you. But you still nervously chewed at your lip. Mai sensed your nerves and gave you a pat on the shoulder. “He is waiting for you outside.”

You nodded your head and slowly walked out of the garage. As soon as you exited, you saw him standing there, with his back to you, and you nearly cried. It was Din, your Din. He stood upright, his arms crossed in front of him, and the child on his side sitting in his carrier. He was the first one to say anything, turning his head and letting out a coo as he saw you. His big ears that hung out of the bag twitched and his eyes brightened. 

You gave him a small smile but felt it drop once Din turned around, being alerted of your presence by the child’s noises. His arms dropped but he didn’t step closer to you, his helmet steadily aimed at you. Part of you felt so incredibly happy seeing him. The sight of him standing in front of you was something you were worried would never happen again. And though it had only been a couple days, it felt like a damn year. Seeing him made you realized just how much you had missed him. You open your mouth, not knowing exactly what to say but wanting to say something, anything, just so you could hear him speak. But he was the first one to.

“You left me.”

You felt your heart instantly shatter at his words. You wanted to crawl into yourself and disappear. It wasn’t that you weren’t aware that your leaving would hurt Din, but you didn’t truly consider how much of an impact it would have on him. Maybe you did so selfishly because you know you’d stay if you did, or maybe you truly didn’t understand just how much the man cared for you until you heard the pain in his voice, the way his breath hitched in the modulator when he saw you. Hearing the inflection of his tone was what sent you over the edge. All the emotions of the last few days washed over you and you felt exhausted. “Mando-”

“Why would you leave me?”

Where did you start? There were so many things you wanted to say, but you didn’t know where to start and the pounding of your heart in your chest distracted you. You were scared. Scared to tell Din what was really going on and to watch him walk away. Or scared to find out he didn’t want you back anyways. “It is hard to explain and understand...”

“So you just leave?”

You feel yourself wince at the harsh words. Isn’t that what you always did though? Run away? You supposed it had become a habit of yours, but that wasn’t fair to yourself. Nonetheless to the man in front of you. “I’m sorry.”

Din finally tore his gaze away from you, placing his hand on his hip that the kid wasn’t at, staring into the sky. “I’m not here to force you back.”

You tried to feverishly blink back the tears threatening to spill. He didn’t want you. You had messed up this time. Din allowed one person into his life finally and then they turn around and leave. Of course he doesn’t want you. “Oh, okay.”

“If you don’t want to be with us, you don’t have to be.” You wanted to scream at yourself, tell him all you want is to be with him and the kid. 

“Mando-”

“I know there isn’t something your telling me. And I assume it’s why you left.” Din looked back towards you, the sun reflecting off his helmet and making the beskar even brighter than normal.  “Or maybe it is me-”

“No!” You interrupted, stepping towards him. “It isn’t you. At all.”

“Then what is going on? Because I’m lost.” You bring a hand to rub at your face, no longer caring about the grease and oil on them. You needed to just tell him, because you couldn’t handle the thought of him blaming himself for anything. “I don’t know why you can’t tell me.”

You pause and take a breath in, looking away. “Din.” You whispered.

“Please.” You heard the slight crack in his voice, the way his words wavered, and looked at him to find him stepping closer, his helmet tilted down to look right at you. 

“I lied to you.”

Din tilted his helmet slightly. “What?”

“When you asked about my family. If there were Jedis... I lied.” You froze, looking up to him to try to gage his reaction but he remained frozen, still just looking down at you. You wished desperately he didn’t have the helmet, so you could see his expression and try to know what he was thinking, because right now it was like looking at a blank wall. “You need to say something.”

“I don’t... understand.”

“My grandmother was one. My mother was one. And I’m one, kind of.” You waited for his to step away from you or tell you he couldn’t do this but he stayed in the same position so you continued. “I was always taught not to tell anyone and my grandmother told me Mandalorians hate Jedis. I didn’t want to tell you and have you leave me.”

Din finally turned away from you, looking into the distance, as the child on his hip still looked up at you while cooing softly, one little hand reaching out. “I wouldn’t leave you. I told you that.”

“That was before you knew this.”

“I don’t care.”

“But-”

“I don’t care.” He repeated softly. You couldn’t see the truth in his face, but you could hear it. But you still felt your mind eating away at you.

“I’m not a good one. I didn’t even really finish training and haven’t used it regularly in years. I can’t train the kid. He will need another Jedi.”

“I don’t care.”

“I killed that man with the Force. I killed a man.”

“I don��t care.”

You let out an exasperated laugh and huffed at him, throwing a hand up. “How do you not care?”

“You do realize what my job is?”

You guess you had never really considered Din’s job. He hadn’t had to do any bounty hunting with you, the first body he had brought in being the bounty you had killed. You knew what he did, knew he had probably killed plenty of people, if not hundreds. But it never really crossed your mind or made you hesitant. He was a good man and he was only doing his job, one he had been saddled with at a young age. “Yes, but that’s different.”

“You’re right. You did it to protect the kid. ”

“But what if I can’t control it? That’s not the first time I’ve killed someone with the Force.”

“Was the last time to protect your family?”

“I mean, I tried to... yes.” 

“Then I don’t care.” 

“Din-”

“I don’t care about you being a Jedi or whatever you are exactly. You’re my cyar’ika, okay? This... magic stuff you have doesn’t change how I think of you.”

You almost chuckled at the way Din spoke about ‘magic stuff’, knowing he was completely clueless, but you settled on a soft smile, still tainted with sadness and regret. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You won’t hurt me. Or the kid. You are a good person. The best person I’ve ever met.”

You felt a weight lift off your chest at his words, that little part of your mind that had been gnawing away at you fading away. You suddenly felt stupid for not telling him all this time. How had even the smallest part of you thought he had cared? You always took what you family taught you seriously, but maybe you had taken it too far. Din was different than everyone else and you should of known that he would be okay with it. And maybe you did know. Deep down,  a little part of yourself always knew that in the end, Din wouldn’t care or really understand it. Maybe it was you who couldn’t accept what you were, what you had done. But you had to move on from that.

You looked up at Din and rested a hand on his chest plate, watching how it rose and fell with each breath he took. It was warm on your hand, but a welcome sensation. “I’m sorry.” you whispered out, your voice trembling.

“It’s okay.” He insisted, bringing a hand to rest over the one on his chest. 

“No, it’s not. I left you and the kid.”

“And I found you.” One of his hands reached out to grab onto your wrist, the warm leather of his glove rubbing circles into the skin. “You can’t do that again though. I need you.”

You nodded up at him. “I need you, too.” 

Din let out a sigh of relief and leaned his helmet against your forehead quickly. The metal of his helmet was warm, but it was a welcome feeling against your skin. You felt your heart stop racing, your hand begin to calm and shake less. You hadn’t realized just quite how much you needed Din, but you did. He was your home now. You pulled away and felt a small smile creep on your face. “You’ve got oil on your helmet now.”

You grabbed a rag out of your back pocket, handing it to him so he could wipe it away. Din did so, and handed it back to you. “Thank you.”

“No problem.” You stepped back from him, with a small smile.

“Sweet one?”

“Yeah?”

You watched as Din froze up, looking down at the ground and back up at you. His fist tightened a little and you swore you saw his hand shake for the first time. “I want you to know that I...” He trailed off and you felt your breath hitch in your throat. Please say it. “I’m glad you are back.”

You felt silly for a second at his response but just nodded in response, giving him a grin. “Me too.”

“You want to clean up and we can go?”

“Can we actually do one thing before we go?”

“Of course.”

___________________

Din watched as she stepped forwards, her gaze stuck on the sight before them. The child looked up at Din, seeming to understand the significance of the moment. He had a sad little expression on his face and stayed completely silent, sitting in the carrier solemnly. Din stood back, standing upright as he watched her kneel down on the sand and reach a hand out to graze the three stones in front of her.

It was completely silent. They had traveled a bit outside of town, to a spot where only three gravestones stood and nothing else. No names were marked on them but they stood on their own, nothing around them except for sand. Din assumed a place like Jakku didn’t have a graveyard, making this a rare sight to see.

She took a minute before standing back up and stepping back. She stood next to Din again, her gaze drifting into the distance. “Our house was somewhere right there.”

It was the first thing she had said since she told him what she wanted to do before they left. Din looked over to where she was looking. There was nothing to see, the parts of the house that had remained probably having been taken by scavengers and the rest had been ash. Din looked over at her. She was standing upright, her shoulders stood back, and her stare was intense. She looked strong. Din was shocked to see a small smile on her face. “My father once tried to plant a fruit tree here. Said somebody at the Post had given him seeds to plant. He waited months and months to see if anything would grow and when it didn’t, he dug up the seeds only for my grandmother to tell him they were teeth from some animal.” A laugh escaped her lips and Din found himself smiling. He had grown accustomed to that laugh and it had become one of his favorite sounds. He had missed it desperately.

“My mother couldn’t cook. It was actually rather pathetic how bad she was at it. But one time, for my birthday, she tried to make a cake. She got all the ingredients for it - even though they were almost impossible to find here - and worked on it for hours. And when we cut into it, it was just goo inside. I don’t even know how she did it.” She let out a louder laugh, a bigger grin on her face as she relived the memories. Din was relieved to see her like this. So often when she spoke of her family, her words always held a tint of sadness. Like she was always mourning and couldn’t accept what had been taken from her. This was the first time Din had ever heard her tell stories of her family without that sadness. She wasn’t mourning anymore. She was celebrating their lives.

“Oooh!” He heard her voice rise, clapping her hands together as she excitedly recalled another story.  “One time, my grandmother tried to set me on a blind date which confused me because she always told me relationships were a waste of time. But, I went because she wouldn’t stop nagging me about it and the damn woman had me go on a date with a Crolute! He didn’t wear shoes and had flipper feet. It was awful and she thought it was the funniest prank she had ever pulled.”

Din let out a chuckle at that one, watching as she threw her head back in laughter. Even the child joined in, letting out a small noise that could be discerned as a giggle. She looked over at Din with a bright smile, the sun blazing behind her, and it took his breath away. Without thinking, he reached a hand out and grabs hers.

She looked down at their hands and intertwined her fingers. “Thank you for coming with me.”

“I’m glad you wanted me to come.”

“You can’t meet them but I don’t know.” She shrugged with a sheepish smile. “I think maybe they are somewhere. Seeing this.” Din didn’t say anything but she looked over at him. “They would of liked you.”

Din felt a warmth fill his chest. He imagined he would of liked them as well, especially if they were anything like the woman he loved. “Thank you.”

She smiled at him and leaned closer to him, their shoulders now brushing together. “Din?”

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go home.”

She began to tug his arm away from the gravestones, her hand still intertwined with him, and started marching towards the Crest that she now called home. Din couldn’t help to think though that his home was being held in his hand in this very moment. 

Tag List: @ilikethoseodds @dindaddy @poguesvixen @starspangledwidow @fangirlalexia @the-scandalorian @ka-x-in @keepcalmandblogstuff @the-lady-of-stars @orneryscandalousevil @spaghetti-666​ @afootnoteinyourhappiness​

[metataxy]

Darth Maul post Order 66 fanfic, #17

After Order 66, Darth Maul accidentally acquires a child.  Spoiler alert, it’s Seventh Sister.

This isn’t going on AO3 until I finish and edit the shit out of it, but you can read what I’ve done so far here:

Maul 1, Maul 2, Dathomir 1, Maul 3, Dathomir 2, Maul 4, Dathomir 3 , Dathomir 4, Maul 5, Maul 6, Maul 7, Metane 1, Maul 8, Maul 9, Maul 10, Maul 11, Lothal 1, Seventh as a Nightsister

This is set after Maul 11.  

Warnings for this segment: MORE fighting between Maul and Ventress, amputation, people die.

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<i>The Seeker</i> emerged from hyperspace a mere klic from a Venator.

Metane, propped atop the copilot’s chair, nearly dropped the blaster she’d been reassembling as a message came out of the staticky comm.

“Unidentified spacecraft, this is Imperial Star Destroyer <i>Peacemaker</i>.  Please state your vessel’s name and clearance codes.”

Maul blinked, thought fast, and prepared to lie as well as he ever had in this particular situation.  

“<i>Peacemaker</i>,” he affected a mid-Rim accent, softening his consonants, “this is Zeke Menuel of the trade vessel <i>Centennial</i>.  We’ve been on the Far Rim past few months.  We were raided by pirates and took some damage.” He tweaked the dial on the receptor—not enough to lose radio signal, but enough to introduce some static to his transmission.  “We need to set down, make repairs, maybe get some supplies.”

“Rough luck,” the officer sympathized, but Maul heard some murmuring in the background.  No doubt a supervisor providing instructions.  How unhelpful.  “<i>Centennial</i>” the communications officer repeated, more assertive now, “Identify your port of call?”

“Black Spire Outpost on Batuu,” Maul offered easily.  <i>Centennial</i> was a real vessel, one of several whose specs and records Maul had memorized in the two years since he’d regained his sanity.  The real <i>Centennial</i> belonged to a respectable trader in the Outer Rim who dealt mostly in exotics sourced from pre-industrial worlds in the Far Rim and Unknown Regions.  It wasn’t unlikely that the real Captain Menuel wouldn’t know about the regime change, given that his previous trade missions tended to last a year minimum.

More murmuring in the background.  Maul caught a few words—“ask him”—and scowled at the tedium.  Was he suffering this scrutiny because of a <i>training exercise</i>?

“<i>Centennial</i>, please state how many persons are aboard your vessel.”

“Just myself and my copilot,” he told them, glancing down at Metane.

A moment.  The Venator drifted closer.  “<i>Centennial</i>, our scans indicate another lifeform aboard your ship.”

He’d forgotten the trooper.

“Live cargo,” he demurred.  “An interesting zoological specimen I’m hoping to sell in the Core.”

Were the hangar bay doors opening on the underside of the Venator?  It was impossible to tell from this angle.

A flare of the magnetic field on his console screen was all the warning he had.  He juked the ship upwards, out of range of the tractor beam.

“<i>Unknown ship</i>,” came a familiar voice over the comm.  A clone.  “Imperial records indicate the <i>Centennial</i> was apprehended five days ago and its captain held for questioning.  This is your final chance to identify yourself.  Compliance will allow us greater leniency—”

Maul juked the ship out of the way of an ion beam that would have fried their circuits.  Somewhere in the ship, something clanged loose.  Metane gripped the armrests.  A flight of headhunters sped out from the ship like a cloud of hornets.  He hit the shields and, for not the first time, cursed the size of the Seeker.  A laser aimed to disable deflected off the rear shield as he made a run for the planet and the whole ship shook, the lights flickering widely.

He concentrated on the field outside.  He didn’t have strong enough premonitions to outfly most Jedi, but he could outfly most any non-Sensitives, even at these numbers, as long as he focused on the task at hand.  He wove and darted even as the faster snubfighters gained on them.  He pressed harder on the accelerator, even when his foot had it tight to the floor, as though he could Force the ship faster through sheer will.

“—we will presume guilt and open fire—”

The hit came, but not from where he’d expected.  

A blaster bolt took him in the shoulder.  He reeled back in his seat, the pilot’s yoke twisting with him.  A second laser hit the ship, sent it spinning so fast the gravity couldn’t hardly keep up, and that was the only reason the next bolts missed him.  Instead, they slammed into the console.  

For a moment, he didn’t know what had happened.  Then—

“JEDI!  THERE’S JEDI ON THIS SHIP, THEY KILLED EVERYONE, HELP—”

A surge of <i>agony</i> and <i>disbelief</i>.  Then, a blaster bolt in the cabin, and the trooper went quiet, just before they impacted a satellite too large for the shields to deflect.  The lights flickered, the hull screamed but held, and the blinding light as they burned through atmosphere lit up the cabin.  

The trooper lay prone against the wall, eye smoking.  His apprentice, shaking, dropped her gun.

“Crash restraints,” he ordered, hitting buttons, trying to bring some shields online.  The frontside shield was still active.  He pulled harder, harder, on the unresponsive yoke and finally closed his eyes and felt for the steering system and <i>pulled</i> it into alignment and barely soon enough.  The ship crashed front-first into a hill and the whole front hull finally buckled down and he blacked out of all of a second.

He opened his eyes to the red glow of the emergency lights and the smell of smoke.  He <i>felt</i> for the girl wildly.

She was fine.  She was fine and unbuckling her restraints and climbing over the back of her seat.  He unbuckled his restraints with hands trembling with adrenaline and tried to get up and couldn’t move, and why couldn’t he move?  

He couldn’t think why.  Black spots filled his vision.  Why couldn’t he think… 

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Aboard the <i>Peacemaker</i>, the shiny natborn did his best to look unperturbed as the staticky transmission came through.  

“… THERE… SHIP!  … KILLED EVERYONE…!...”

More sounds of blasterfire, and then the transmission cut out.  The natborn’s white skin paled further.  “Pirates, sir?” the man asked him, swallowing.

Attachment, clone communications officer of the 234th Battalion and reluctant trainer to the shinies who’d been sent to replace brothers killed in the Jedi uprising, nodded.  “More than likely.  The brothers on the bridge will snag it with the tractor beam before it gets loose.”

They watched on screen as the cruiser clumsily dodged the tractor beams.

Attachment took out his holocomm and texted a message to his batchmate on the bridge.

<i> Vod, you drunk or something, a CADET could catch this ship </i>

The ship put on an impressive burst of speed, then careened out of control, hitting a few civilian vessels on the way down.  The explosion lit up the screens.

A moment later, his comm beeped.

<i> A cadet is better than these fucking shiny natborns.  </i>

And wasn’t that the truth, Attachment thought.  His comm officers weren’t bad, but they took forever to learn even the basics.  He supposed it was a necessary cost-cutting measure, since you could get requisition 20 natborns for the price of a vod.  If it had been up to him though, he’d have chosen quality over quantity.  

A second message.  <i> Not getting any readings from the surface.  Ground security and the planetary defence forces will check for survivors, but doesn’t seem likely.</i>

And that was the result of replacing professional soldiers with natborn civilians.  Three shiploads of innocent civilians and any hostages on the pirated vessel, all dead now.  He almost hoped they decommissioned whatever useless shinies on the bridge had fucked this up.  They weren’t his problem though.  He turned back to his own natborns.

“Now, at what point should Officer Kol here have realized something was wrong…?”

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He started awake at the jab of something sharp.  He thrust out reflexively with fists and the Force.  An autoinjector slammed against the far wall and shattered.  His apprentice dodged his physical blows but the Force wave flung her aside, along with anything else in a two metre radius that hadn’t been secured. She <i>shrieked</i>, shoving her irritation down their bond, and Maul snarled at her return.  Sidious would have beat him for taking such liberties with their connection.

He wasn’t Sidious.

His heart raced and his thigh stung from the jab of the epi autoinjector, and the bruised little girl now glaring from across the cabin had just delivered on so many of his expectations.  

He glanced down at the bar of steel protruding from his upper chest and tore it free.  The bacta the girl had smeared around it itched as it tried to knit the wound.

The alarms in the ship blared louder.  He smelt fuel and burning plastic.  He didn’t need the Force to tell him of the danger.  If the fire caught the leaking fuel-lines, the whole ship would go up in fire.  He rushed to get up but didn’t.

The front console had caved in, pinning his legs.

No.  

He tried to move them, to twitch them just a little.  They didn’t even respond.  He reached out with the Force and his fury and shifted the console.  It buckled outwards, exposing the ruin of his prosthetics, unresponsive and broken beyond any use.  He breathed in his fury and desperation and tasted the acrid scent of Metane’s fear; turned, and saw her still there, staring at him in horror.

“Get OUT,” he snapped, flooding their open link with a fear channeled from the last moments of a hundred of his victims.  To his rage and pride, she held out long enough to throw him an absolutely disgusted look before bolting from the cabin.  

Good.  His apprentice could indulge rescuing him (or who or whatever else she wanted) if she survived to be canny or strong enough to overcome his attempts to dissuade her.  He threw the medkit over his shoulder and looked at his legs.

The limbs Mother Talzin had gifted him felt and functioned like extensions of his own body.  Their sensitivity to pressure and simulated sensation baffled the most advanced engineers.  For all that, they lacked certain features basic to mundane prosthetics, like a simple means of detachment.  Talzin, in her infinite wisdom, had somehow managed to graft the steel right into the stubs of his femurs.

Which meant there was only one way the damned things were coming off.

He tugged his saber loose from his belt and ignited it, hesitated, cursed Kenobi for his hesitation.  

He swung down midthigh.  

It burned just as badly as it had the first time, with his real limbs, when Kenobi had cut him. Curse him.  His vision blacked from the pain, before he channeled that energy into his flesh.  He stowed the lightsaber in his belt and clambered awkwardly from the chair on his hands and the stumps of his legs.

The Force blared in warning.  Smoke filtered up into the cabin.

Coughing on the fumes, he shuffled on his knuckles like an ape towards the side of the cabin and carved a hole through it with his lightsaber.  He knocked the side out with the Force, and abruptly, the fires came racing up behind him.

He leapt through the open hatch.

The ship exploded.

He shielded himself against the shrapnel and the fire and hit the ground rolling.  He tumbled down the burning slope of the hill.  He tried to pull himself up onto his knuckles and faltered. It hurt to breathe.

Sight darkening, he felt for his chest.

The bacta hadn’t completely closed the wound from the front.  It had to be worse from the back, where Metane wouldn’t have reached his shoulders flush to the pilot’s chair.  

He couldn’t feel his fingers.

He raged.  He could not die now.  Not here, in this backwater, at the guns of some faceless Imperial shooter.  Not when he had survived Kenobi and Lotho Minor, had survived Sidious again and again and again.  He would not die this way.  He would not.

But his vision darkened, darkened, until the last light left to him was the ungentle glow of Metane, burning with a rage that equalled his own.

And then, he saw and felt nothing at all.

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Notes: 

1. Oh my goodness, I wrote the scene with Maul getting shot down MONTHS ago and it’s only now that I managed to write up to the point where the scene would make sense.  AND WE’RE FINALLY AT LOTHAL.  THANK GOD.

2. Thanks to all of you who have liked these crazy posts and left comments on a story that’s still very rough and incomplete <3  You’re the best.  

[wanderinginksplot]

Just for Kix

Previous | Next | Masterlist 

Displaced

(Concept art by Eric Jones for a comic book - Ashcan)

Gone.

They were all gone.

Everyone was gone.

Every person, place, or way of life Kix had once known were lost now, tucked away where he could not reach them. They were all memories, relics of almost half a century of time. Time in which the galaxy had moved on, uncaring of the sacrifices that had been made for sake of a war that turned out to be ultimately pointless.

Because that's what it all had been.

That was one of the first things Kix had done when he learned where he was - when he was. He was a clone trooper of the Republic, trained to take in information and use it to formulate a new understanding. He had researched the clone wars. Thousands of his brothers had died to take down the Jedi, and it was only on dark corners of the Holonet that he read the truth about the implants. Fives's truth. But it had never been told, even after the Empire had fallen.

His brothers had been recorded - branded - in the public's mind as traitors, notable only for their willingness to turn on their generals with one single order. Palpatine had turned them into the very droids he had forced them to fight, and the bitter irony was not lost on Kix.

Such heavy thoughts were what had driven Kix to sit in the small hangar bay of the Meson Martinet, watching hyperspace flash past in a hail of stretched starlight. It was one of the few things that hadn't changed while he was in stasis - interstellar hyperspace transport was apparently as good as it would ever be.

It was only a small amount of time before one of the Martinet's crew members would come searching for him. Since they had pulled his cryo-shocked body from the remains of the Separatist ship, none of the crew had really trusted Kix. He supposed that he couldn't blame them. They had been expecting to find a treasure and instead, they had only gotten the galaxy's last clone trooper, carrying information that had become irrelevant long ago.

The last clone trooper.

The weight of loneliness was too heavy on his mind and Kix returned his attention to the viewport he was sitting in front of. For a few stolen minutes at a time, he could stare out into rapidly passing space and pretend he was aboard the Resolute, hiding from his brothers for a moment's peace before the next crisis hit.

If he closed his eyes and quieted his mind carefully enough, Kix could almost believe that Jesse would be coming by to tease him, or Rex would comm him about Hardcase, who was too stubborn to get an injury treated. Or even further back - that Fives and Echo would be wandering around, looking for rules to break or shinies to lead astray.

He didn't notice the soft smile on his own face until a tear trickled over his cheek and down the path of his curved lips.

With a sigh, Kix opened his eyes and swiped the tear from his face. There was no point in looking back. Clone troopers had been made expendable by nature, created for the sole purpose of fighting wars and losing people. True, no other clone trooper had experienced this hollow isolation. Even if they hadn't known it, there was one other vod in the galaxy.

If the burden of being the last fell on him, so be it. Kix would rather face eternal suffering than think of one of his brothers doing the same.

The sound of the hanger door opening broke Kix from his reverie. That would probably be a member of the Martinet's crew. It had been over an hour since he had slipped from the small barracks, unable to sleep with such a noisy mind.

To his surprise, Kix didn't find himself summoned by an impatient voice, or peered at with suspicious eyes. Instead, the newcomer began shuffling crates around, giving a huff every now and then. It was fine with Kix - the hanger bay on the Resolute had held many such noises, but amplified a thousand times.

The steady sound of shifting crates paused for a moment too long, then Kix heard muttering, followed by a grunt, and finally a scuffling slam. The huff of air that was expelled by the unseen person would have been easy to ignore if the hanger wasn't so quiet, but the sharp curse was enough to make him jump.

Someone had just gotten hurt, and it was enough to snap Kix back to himself.

He rose to his feet and rounded the wall of crates he had been leaning against, taking a quick look at the scene to figure out the situation. A crate tipped over on its side was a hint that something had fallen, and the Ishi Tib male holding his hand said that the crate hadn't fallen on its own.

"Is everything all right?" Kix asked, standing a polite distance away from the Ishi Tib.

"Smashed my hand," he grunted.

"Let me take a look," Kix ordered, before remembering that he didn't belong to this crew and that no one actually had to obey him. "I mean, may I take a look? I was a medic, before..."

"Yeah, I've seen the symbol," the male's uninjured hand gestured vaguely in the direction of Kix's shoulder, where the medic symbol was prominently displayed on the armor he had donned out of habit. "I guess you can see it."

He held his arm out to Kix, who gently maneuvered it where he needed it to be. "What is your name? I haven't met anyone yet, not really."

"Pendewqell."

Kix hummed at that. "Can you make a fist for me, Pendewqell?"

"Call me Pen," the male offered gruffly, not moving his fingers.

"Okay, can you make a fist for me, Pen?" Kix pressed, undeterred.

Slowly, Pen complied, squeezing his thumb and two fingers together. Kix was satisfied with the range he saw, fairly certain that none of the bones in Pen's hand were broken. "Good, now open your hand."

Pen complied and Kix nodded, pleased. "Well, it's difficult to tell if there's any subtle damage without the use of a medscanner, but it's safe to say that nothing is broken. Still, I'd like to do some checks by pressing on your fingers. Is that all right with you?"

"Go ahead," Pen agreed, shaking his head and muttering, "Medics."

"Yeah, we're the worst," Kix agreed lightly. "Tell me if there are any sharp pains that feel a little too intense given the pressure."

"I'm surprised you're still sticking around," Pen said. "Figured you would have run off the first chance you got."

"Where am I supposed to go?" Kix countered. "Everyone I know is dead."

The silence that fell was a bit uncomfortable, but Pen didn't seem to look down on Kix for his moment of self-pity.

Eventually, he said, "Most medics I know can't rest if they know there are people out there who need their help. But you just finished fighting a war. I'm sure you're not rushing to get into another one."

"Another one?" Kix asked as Pen hissed.

"That hurt!"

"Sorry," the medic apologized. He had gotten a bit carried away with applying pressure to Pen's fingers. "What war are you talking about?"

"The one between the First Order and the Resistance, of course," Pen snapped.

And so the two stood in the hanger bay, Pen's hand thoroughly forgotten, and discussed the current state of affairs in the galaxy.

Kix learned that the First Order was trying to take over the galaxy much as the Empire had, opposed by the aptly-named Resistance and most free systems who opposed the idea of a tyrannical rule. The whole thing was uncomfortably close to the information Kix had just gathered about the Empire and the Rebellion, and he had made up his mind before clearing Pen to go back to work.

He was going to do what he had been made to do. Kix was going to fight.

---

A/N - Have I ever mentioned how strongly I despise Kix's fate? Because it hurts me every time I think about it, and yet I've written a chapter about the aftermath of that fate. It's fine, everything is fine. I'm just sad. I also don't think Kix would hear about a war going on and still stay with the Meson Martinet to be a pirate. (Not saying I'm any kind of authority on Kix, of course, but I just disagree.)

Head’s up: the next chapter is going to be rough. I’ll put a warning on the chapter itself, but I want everyone to know ahead of time.

[robininthelabyrinth]

continuation of Star Wars Wangxian AU - on ao3 or tumblr

-

The way of the Sith is the dyad, the rule of two: always two, no more, no less.

A master and an apprentice – one to represent the allure of the Dark Side of the Force, the other to serve as the baited, walking willingly into a trap. A pair of magnets, the moth and the flame; without each other, they were incomplete, unstable, and only together could they be considered complete.

Perhaps, Lan Wangji reflects, he should have considered this fundamental precept more thoroughly.

Certainly earlier.

If he had thought about it earlier, he could have taken steps, measures, something. Anything, really, as long as it wasn’t…

“Hey, Master! You’re back! Did you have a nice trip? Kill lots of people?”

…this.

“No,” Lan Wangji said, in the tones of one who knew suffering. The Dark Side rippled around him, thickening as he poured his frustration and annoyance into it – a complaint shared with the abyss, in a world where rage and despair only made the abyss stronger. “No deaths.”

The Sarlacc didn’t count.

Anyway, Wei Wuxian had been the one to kill it in the end, in order to enable them to escape. He’d almost looked like he’d felt bad about it, too.

Silly fool, Lan Wangji thought with far too much affection.

Though, speaking of silly fools...

Xue Yang grinned at him, his little tiger tooth making the otherwise vicious expression significantly less intimidating. 

Lan Wangji had observed that fact early in their acquaintance, and had resolved never to tell Xue Yang so as to let him continue to be frustrated by the apparently inexplicable fact that people never seemed to take him seriously at first glance. If Xue Yang ever figured it out and confronted him about it, he could even theoretically, at a stretch, justify it as additional Dark Side training.

“Sounds like a wasted trip, then,” he said. “I killed five.”

Lan Wangji met his gaze with a steady one of his own. “I do not recall instructing you to go on a mission.”

“Aww, but Master –”

Lan Wangji was newer to the Dark Side of the Force than Xue Yang, but he had the rigorous training of the Cloud Recesses behind him: he did not even need to reach out deliberately through the Force to oppress Xue Yang, driving him to his knees.

“It was a continuation of an earlier mission, Master! I wouldn’t disobey you intentionally –”

Lan Wangji released him. “Of course you would.”

Xue Yang looked up at him, grin back on his face. “Well, yeah. But not that obviously. I wouldn’t admit it to your face.”

He would, if he thought he could get away with it, and Lan Wangji permitted a look of skepticism to cross his face, though he did not comment aloud. 

“What mission?” he asked instead. Knowing Xue Yang as he did, there were very few missions that he had given in which murder was permissible, much less multiple murders. They were trying to keep a low profile, after all.

Xue Yang bounced to his feet. “I invaded another Hutt palace!” he announced gleefully, his eyes shining like stars. “Dressed up as a bounty hunter and everything!”

Xue Yang had once been a slave on a planet controlled by the Hutts, a dirty sandy place with little compassion for the young and none for the weak – and Xue Yang had been both. He had been bartered from one master to another until one careless owner had crushed his hand and his spirit at the same time, rendering him even more useless and condemning him to a terrible fate. No one wanted damaged goods, no one but those who wanted to break them further.

How Xue Yang went from that to being the apprentice of a self-styled Sith Lord, Lan Wangji was unsure beyond a basic understanding that Xue Yang had somehow risen up from his dire circumstances to massacre the entire clan of that particular owner. They had met only when Xue Yang was already in the midst of his training, a slightly gawky teenage delinquent who’d long ago learned that murder was the first, best, and only answer to all of his problems.

He’d tried to kill Lan Wangji, of course.

The circumstances had been admittedly been rather unusual. The Sith tradition called for dyads, a master and an apprentice in each set (though of course there could be more than one set of Sith, though rarely if ever on a level or in an area where they could challenge each other); the typical way of things for the Sith was that the apprentice struck down the master, rising to take on an apprentice of his own, or that the master tired of the apprentice and lured another promising would-be apprentice into Falling, with the typical test of a new apprentice being the slaughter of the old one.

Lan Wangji was strikingly idiosyncratic in that he had Fallen entirely on his own, without a master to guide him to the Dark Side. 

This did not mean he was without knowledge: the Lan sect, which prized learning, of course had a rich collection of treatises on what the Dark Side entailed, although they were meant to be read as warnings rather than guides. After he had had the Force vision of that terrible future, the future he would Fall to the Dark Side, had Fallen, rather than permit to take place, Lan Wangji had stolen several before departing the Cloud Recesses.

It was little surprise, then, that Xue Yang’s old master had put such effort into recruiting Lan Wangji as his own apprentice once he had discovered him.

Lan Wangji had had no patience for such nonsense. Rather than slaughter Xue Yang, who had clearly been incited against him, he had followed the traces back to their origin and killed the Sith master that Xue Yang followed instead.

Unfortunately, per the rule of two, that left Xue Yang without a master and Lan Wangji with the horrible realization that would-be Sith masters would be crawling out of the woodwork to attack him on a regular basis if he didn’t put himself in a dyad at once to prevent it. In the interest of not being harassed, and thereby distracted from his plans, he had recruited Xue Yang as his own apprentice, skipping the apprentice step entirely and becoming a master.

Perhaps that was why Wei Wuxian had called him a Sith lord, he mused. Wei Wuxian was sensitive to the Force, talented in it almost to extremes; maybe he could tell that Lan Wangji was in a position of dominance, rather than growth.

“ – it was great. Even with all the warnings from previous incidents, they were so arrogant, thinking it would never happen to them. Rotten slugs! The leader had a rancor in the dungeon under his throne, too; the thing was kept half-starved so that it’d turn on anyone that got dropped into its nest – wretched little space, I could barely move, much less a rancor –”

“I take it from your explanation that we now own a rancor,” Lan Wangji said, feeling somewhat pained.

Pained, but also gratified: he had been working on teaching Xue Yang the concept of empathy, reasoning that the truly psychopathic would never truly be able to connect with the rage, suffering, and pain that powered the Dark Side of the Force.

Only once Xue Yang understood love, understood it and lost it, could he truly understand the Dark Side as Lan Wangji did.

A pet was a good start.

“Uh, maybe? I mean, rancors are from Dathomir, which is pretty steeped in the Dark Side, so it’s almost like they’re a natural ally of the Sith –”

Rancors were semi-sentient five-meter tall reptiles that resembled boulders, with armored hides that could resist blasters and even light sabers at times, and while it was true that their home planet was rich in the Dark Side, home of assassins and Nightkin and murderers of all sorts, rancors themselves were actually quite friendly and non-combative as a general rule.

Not that Xue Yang knew that. 

“You will care for it yourself, without disturbing me,” Lan Wangji instructed, not wanting Xue Yang to dwell too long on whether or not what he had done was appropriate. Some people could only be coaxed, not coerced; Xue Yang’s former master had very nearly ruined him, teaching him all the wrong lessons about divesting oneself of emotions (the Sith way, of course: no emotions but hate) without any of the necessary context, and any future education needed to done cautiously to avoid Xue Yang becoming utterly consumed by the abyss, capable of nothing but lashing out, a rabid dog in need of being put down.

Lan Wangji was not in the market for another Sith apprentice.

Xue Yang, at least, was easy to manage: as long as he was permitted to vent his more murderous inclinations in the way he liked the most, pursuing the vile Hutt clan wherever they had set up their gangster dens full of corruption and rot, his attempts to overthrow Lan Wangji were half-hearted and disinterested, and the worst Lan Wangji would need to put up with was a bit of back talk.

“Of course,” Xue Yang said, grinning with teeth. “Wouldn’t want to keep you from your boy, would we?”

…not that the back talk wasn’t annoying.

“You are not permitted to speak of him,” Lan Wangji said coldly, but that never worked for very long. Xue Yang was an extremely disrespectful apprentice, although Lan Wangji supposed it was his own fault for rejecting the rigid hierarchy of the traditional master-apprentice relationship – of the entire concept of the Sith lord and the classist structure generally associated with it – and encouraging Xue Yang to similarly reject such things in favor of the anarchy of self-determination. “He is not yours to even think of.”

Perhaps a wiser man might refuse to let Xue Yang even know of such a weakness, but Lan Wangji was moderately sure that in an even fight – or even an uneven one – Wei Wuxian would have no difficulty putting Lan Wangji’s unruly, unwanted apprentice in his place.

“Yeah, yeah,” Xue Yang laughed. “I know: hands off, no touching. I still don’t get it. What’s so great about this one guy? The universe is full of people, even force-sensitives; if you’re so hung up on having a Jedi, why not go find one that’s a little more compromising?”

Because there is no one else like Wei Ying. There will never be anyone else for me, not ever – only him.

“One day you will meet someone who moves you,” Lan Wangji said placidly, a touch of his old talent for Force visions shimmering in his soul in confirmation of the dimly uncertain future. “And we will have this conversation again, when at last you understand.”

“Sure,” Xue Yang said, clearly disbelieving. “Whatever. Let me tell you about these two bounty hunters I met on my trip – a matched set, one in white and one in black - fuck, they were so annoying, you wouldn’t even believe –”

[cloudyskywars]

Back to December is about Anakin and Obi-Wan and here’s 2,000 words why

So there I was, listening to Back to December, you know, as one does. And then I nearly started crying because this is without a doubt an Anakin and Obi-Wan song. I roped my friend @renegadeontherunn into doing a full song analysis with me. The whole analysis is based from Anakin singing this to Obi-Wan immediately after the events of Return of the Jedi. So everyone’s a Force Ghost, and feelings ensue. Enjoy the angst! 

The analysis will be below the cut, because as I said, it’s approximately 2,000 words. 

I'm so glad you made time to see me/ How's life? Tell me, how's your family?/ I haven't seen them in a while - Obi-Wan’s family was the Jedi. And Anakin has spent the past twenty five years hunting down the Jedi, eliminating them one by one. And now that he’s one with the Force, he’s gotta be wondering, “Are the other Jedi here too?” because he may not have realized it, but they were his family as well. I’m just imagining Anakin asking Obi-Wan where everyone else is, and Obi-Wan having to tell him that not everyone stayed with the Force the way that he and Yoda did.  

Your guard is up and I know why- Obi-Wan’s guard probably wasn’t up, but Anakin would expect it to be. He rightfully feels guilty, and probably expects Obi-Wan to hate him and not trust him anymore. 

Because the last time you saw me/ Is still burned in the back of your mind - on Mustafar, Anakin literally burning, the image no doubt haunting Obi-Wan ever since. In Obi-Wan’s 20 years on Tatooine, how many times do you think he replayed that memory in his mind? You were my brother Anakin, I loved you/I hate you. (grouped with previous two lines)

So this is me swallowin' my pride- Anakin as a Force Ghost, standing in front of Obi-Wan. He’s asking, begging for forgiveness, even though he knows he doesn’t deserve it. Anakin was always prideful for a Jedi, and this is him humbling himself and asking for Obi-Wan’s forgiveness (for so many things; Order 66, turning to the dark side, killing the Jedi, killing him)

Standin' in front of you sayin' I'm sorry for that night - the night Anakin fell to the Dark Side, their fight on Mustafar, and also probably the last 20+ years of him as a Sith and causing so much death and destruction. He’s sorry for so much, but especially that night when everything went wrong. 

And I go back to December all the time - he revisits that battle in his mind constantly, still hating Obi-Wan as Vader, but feeling deep (deep deep) down, an enormous sense of regret and guilt, and especially at the end when he reunites with Obi-Wan

It turns out freedom ain't nothin' but missin' you - We see in Episode 2 that Anakin feels that Obi-Wan is constantly holding him back, preventing him from reaching his full potential (feelings no doubt put there by Palpatine) Once he turns to the Dark Side, he believes he is stronger than ever, (“I’m stronger than the Emperor, I can overthrow him.”)and so most likely feels “free” from Obi-Wan and the duty of being a Jedi. But we know that he learned, eventually, that all the Dark Side brings is loneliness and despair. “It is in this blazing moment that you finally understand the trap of the dark side, the final cruelty of the Sith — because now yourself is all you will ever have.” 

Wishin' I'd realized what I had when you were mine - Anakin spent much of his time as Obi-Wan’s Padawan feeling less than and like he was never good enough for Obi-Wan. Then, when he finally became a Knight, he still felt held back by the Jedi. In reality, he had a substantial support system there waiting for him, ready to help him, that he never realized existed. He had the tools and the people he needed to be a successful Jedi and to have a happy life and to stay in the Light, but he didn’t use them. And now he’s wishing he had. That he’d recognized his and Obi-Wan’s friendship when he’d had it.

I'd go back to December, turn around and make it alright- Can you IMAGINE the regret Anakin is feeling right now? After 25 years of being the terror of the galaxy, Darth Vader, he has finally returned from the dark and knows all the bad things he’s done, and now recognizes that they were bad things. He slaughtered younglings, helped strike down the remaining Jedi, even took away the clones’ free will. Just imagining the pure regret that he must be feeling at this moment. 

These days, I haven't been sleepin' - REVENGE OF THE SITH ANYONE??? We know for a fact due to the Matthew Stover novelization of ROTS that Anakin was getting almost no sleep during the events of the movie. I believe when he Fell he had been without sleep for,,,, at least three days? (I think it was five but I’m not sure)  Anakin please take a nap. Nightmares!!! But also, as Vader, I’m pretty sure Anakin doesn’t actually need to sleep or at least doesn’t need a ton of it, so again he’s literally not sleeping and only sustaining himself on the Dark Side.

Stayin' up playin' back myself leavin'- Do you think- do you ever think that during his time as Darth Vader, he would constantly replay those days when everything fell apart in his head? I’m specifically thinking about the scene where he marches on the Jedi Temple. Granted, in that scene, he isn’t leaving, per say. He’s returning home, but it is no longer the place he calls home. I imagine that scene playing on repeat in his mind, because that’s the moment that he passed the point of no return. Before that, yes, he had already screwed up, big time. But he hadn’t crossed the line yet, I don't think. 

Then I think about summer, all the beautiful times- At this moment I’m sure he’s feeling loads and loads of guilt and regret, as discussed above. But I can’t help but think he’s also thinking about the good times he shared with Obi-Wan and Padme. (Padme specifically because of summer and Naboo for that one good week, where they fell in love and it was beautiful.) And although his relationship with Obi-Wan was strained near the end (and eventually fell apart) there were good times, times that they both cherished. During his time as Darth Vader, he probably looked back on those memories with hate. But now that he’s Anakin again, he is probably remembering those times fondly.

I watched you laughin' from the passenger's side- [insert gif of Obi-Wan smiling in the speeder] 

And realized I loved you in the fall - in the Fall. This could be for either Anakin or Obi-Wan. There must’ve been a part of Anakin that knew he was lying when he shouted “I hate you!” and felt happy when Obi-Wan said he loved him. And for Obi-Wan, he knew he loved Anakin, he had just never said it to him before. The only time he did was when Anakin had Fallen and was dying. And he probably regretted that with every piece of himself during his exile on Tatooine. 

And then the cold came, the dark days - There are so many instances where Palpatine is connected with the cold, with darkness, with everything that is the opposite of the Jedi and, more importantly, of Obi-Wan. The darkness referred to here is the Dark Side, when it became overwhelming and Anakin fell.

When fear crept into my mind - Anakin’s already-intense fears of never being good enough or Obi-Wan not reciprocating Anakin’s love were intensified and heightened by Palpatine’s influence and him planting even more fear and doubt into Anakin’s head. This fear and this doubt in his friendship with Obi-Wan was ultimately one of the reasons he fell. Yes, it was his fear for Padme’s life that really did him in. Anakin was known as “The Hero With No Fear.” But there at the end, he became a person full of fear, and as we know: “Fear is the path to the dark side … fear leads to anger … anger leads to hate … hate leads to suffering.”

You gave me all your love and all I gave you was goodbye -Again, this is Anakin finally realizing that Obi-Wan did love him, that he was a good Master for him, and it was Anakin who hadn’t seen it, who had betrayed him. There is a quote from the book Lords of the Sith in which Vader acknowledges his betrayal of everyone he loved. Palpatine: “‘You were a traitor, were you not, Lord Vader?... To the Jedi. To Padme. To Obi-Wan. To all those you loved.’ Vader: Vader did not know the answer his Master wanted to hear, so he simply answered with the truth. ‘Yes.”’

I'd go back to December, turn around and change my own mind- Talking about guilt, again. Without a doubt, Anakin would go back to where it all went wrong if he could. He wouldn’t turn, he’d save Padme, he’d do everything differently if he could.

I miss your tan skin, your sweet smile/ So good to me, so right- Obi-Wan was so good to him. Obviously in a platonic sense. But Obi-Wan was the best Master for Anakin, and you can’t change my mind. Even if they had a rough start and maybe Obi-Wan should have had some time to recover from his Master dying before he took on his Padawan of his own, but I digress. He did the best he could with Anakin, and was most likely far more patient and understanding than other Jedi Masters would have been. Of course at the time, Anakin did realize this and only resented Obi-Wan. Hindsight is 2020, and Anakin would have only realized after everything went down how good Obi-Wan was to him. 

And how you held me in your arms that September night/ The first time you ever saw me cry - This one doesn’t exactly fit because apparently Anakin and Obi-Wan never hug in canon and that is a crime (Filoni and Lucas I’m coming for you). But I am pointedly ignoring canon and choosing to believe that when things got really hard or bad, (after Satine died, maybe even after Ahsoka left the Order) they hugged. Maybe it was a sad hug, the kind where one of them breaks down in tears and the other just holds them as they cry. But I am confident that they have hugged, so this line applies to them. Fight me on it, I dare you. (I’m kidding but only partially) 

But if we loved again, I swear I'd love you right - After realizing how wrong he was in becoming Vader and how his relationship with Obi-Wan wasn’t one-sided, and especially after seeing the pure, selfless love of Luke, which ultimately brings him back to the Light, Anakin is no doubt thinking of the millions of ways he could’ve done better. He wants Obi-Wan to know how sorry he is and that, yes it took him all these years, but he’s learned his lesson. If he could do it all again, which he probably wants to, he would do it right this time. He swears to himself (and to Obi-Wan) that if he just gets this second chance, he’ll do everything right. 

I'd go back in time and change it, but I can't- Anakin knows he can’t go back and fix everything, no matter how much he may want to. All he can do is ask, beg, even, for Obi-Wan’s forgiveness

So if the chain is on your door, I understand - the metaphorical chain isn’t on Obi-Wan’s door, of course, he’d always welcome Anakin back. He wanted nothing more than to see Anakin succeed as a Jedi and be happy, and so of course he’s ready to see Anakin again, to forgive him. But still, Anakin doubts Obi-Wan’s love and his own worth and braces himself to be rejected, even though Obi-Wan’s arms are open. (this might be niche but think: doctor who, “You betrayed my trust, you betrayed our friendship, you betrayed everything I ever stood for. Do you think I care for you so little that betraying me would make a difference?”)

And, that’s it! If you read this entire thing, Fiona and I love you from the bottom of our hearts. As you can tell, we feel a lot of things about this song, and hope you enjoyed our analysis! 

[lilhawkeye3]

Find Your Way Back Home- Ch 3

Riyo Chuchi x Commander Wolffe, Riyo Chuchi x Commander Fox

Rating: T |||| Word Count: 1.9k |||| Set Post Order 66 |||| AO3 Link

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Riyo gripped the kitchen countertop tighter than anything in her whole life. The loud pounding of her heartbeat in her ears threatened to drown out the pounding of her heart as she sought a tether point in her whirlwind of emotions.

She couldn’t do this.

How could she do this? The ghosts she’d left on Coruscant were now seeking shelter in her bedroom.

She’d looked at Wolffe laid out on her bed, and some sick part of her expected him to be Fox. She used to bandage her lover’s wounds on their bed in her old apartment. What had she done to deserve this cosmic taunt?

“Riyo?”

Riyo’s hands flew to her mouth to hold in her startled shriek at Ahsoka’s appearance just to her left. Her friend’s lips twisted into an apologetic smile, and she patiently waited for Riyo to come down from her sudden rush of adrenaline. Her rusty hand cupped Riyo’s elbow to help ground her.

“I’m so sorry,” Riyo murmured, blinking rapidly to hide her brimming tears before she met Ahsoka’s gaze.

The Togruta’s eyes were sad as she searched for the right words, despite them both knowing nothing would ease Riyo’s pain. “You see him.”

Riyo tried to laugh, but it came out as more of a gasp for air after so long underwater. “How can I not?” Her tears stubbornly refused to fall now, despite clamoring at the floodgates only moments ago. “I can’t… I can’t focus on this right now.”

“You can’t go back in there right now either,” Ahsoka calmly pointed out. “Wolffe needs to heal.”

And so grew her guilt. “I know.” She needed to do something to keep her hands and mind busy. “I’ll get some more juvan ready so I can make a cold pack and show Rex what to do. You’ll both need to know how for when you go back.” She tried to ignore the predatory way Ahsoka’s eyes followed her around the kitchen as she gathered supplies.

“I find that talking helps sometimes,” Ahsoka quietly suggested, once Riyo stood back at the sink with her items gathered around.

“I’m not sure I remember how to do that after so long on my own,” Riyo muttered, grabbing a bundle of leaves from a jar more harshly than they deserved.

“No time better than the present.”

Riyo paused to stare calculatingly at her friend. She wasn’t lying about not knowing if she’d be able to speak of her nightmares after so long bottling it all in. “I propose a trade.”

One of Ahsoka’s painted brows rose in interest. “A trade.”

“I will tell you if you update me on your… situation.” She’d tiptoed around the circumstances of her guests’ arrival– and unlikely survival– for the past few days.

“Alright, deal.”

Riyo’s hands hovered uncertainly as she tries to steady her breathing before she begins. Where to even start? She’d tried so hard to forget that night six months ago. Now she had to relive it in full.

“I… I was home for the night.” Riyo doesn’t even recognize her voice with how vacant it sounds. “Everything was normal, even when I got a call from Co– Thire.” She didn’t want to relegate them to their titles. Those men– her friends– were worth much more than that. “He’d call sometimes if Fox was too busy to come home.”

Breathe in, one, two, three, breathe out.

“There’s– there was a code phrase Fox had me agree to. Dusk is falling soon. If one of us used it in a communication, we knew it was from the other.” Her hands began to shake as she ground the juvan up. “Thire said it to me that night. He said I had to flee Coruscant while I still could, before I was marked as a traitor by the Chancellor. That Fox needed to know I was safe, because… because he didn’t think he was coming home.”

“Oh, Riyo…”

Riyo tried to laugh but she choked on her voice. “No, no it’s fine. Please don’t feel sorry for me, not after–”

Not after what you’ve lost. It hangs in the air like a shadow, chilling the two women to the bone.

She could feel Ahsoka’s eyes on her for a long moment before she conceded. “Alright. So you fled Coruscant?”

Riyo nodded. “Yes. I waited for him, but… then I gathered those I could and had a trusted pilot shuttle us off. It wasn’t just those from my office, though. There were several other members from Pantora’s allies that we also safely evacuated. It was beneficial in the long run, since the number of hyperspace jumps we needed to make ensured that we weren’t followed.”

“That was wise of you,” Ahsoka confirmed. “You most likely had been tailed. The Empire has been interrogating anyone they view even as having a potential to be rebellious.”

Riyo dipped her head in a gentle nod. “And I never was one of the Cha– Emperor’s greedy followers,” she added.

Her friend’s lips quirked up in a humorless smile. “No, you weren’t.”

“Anyways, I timed my resignation to autosend sometime during our flight, and I contacted Bail, who gave us directions to follow. That’s all there really is to tell,” Riyo sheepishly shrugged, relieved to be finished and able to turn her attention back to the juvan leaves she’d laid out. They needed to be diced and then ground with water into a paste that could be either frozen and saved, or wrapped in a damp cloth and held to the wound.

“So, my turn then?” Ahsoka asked, faux-cheer evident in her voice but appreciated.

Riyo nodded, thankful for something else to focus on. She beckoned her over though, waiting until the Togruta was looking over her shoulder. “Just make sure to watch how I do it, so you’ll be able to on your own. The leaves have to be separated carefully, or you’ll negate the medicinal qualities.”

Ahsoka observed quietly as Riyo worked, nodding along to each specific task that Riyo pointed out. It was quite simple, but an untrained eye would still mess it up. It was nice to have someone at her side. She’d been so used to being alone.

“We agreed on a trade?” Ahsoka prompted, once Riyo stepped aside and handed the knife over for her to try. “Would you still like to hear what we’ve seen?”

Riyo bit the inside of her cheek to try and keep herself afloat in the surge of stress that threatens to sweep her away. “Yes, please.”

Ahsoka nodded sharply, and then the knife made its first clean slice. “We were on our way back from Mandalore after apprehending Darth Maul– the Sith Zabrak,” she elaborated for Riyo’s sake. “And an order went out to all the clone troopers, everywhere in the galaxy: execute Order 66, to kill the Jedi.” Her fingers clenched around the knife handle to the point that Riyo thought it’d snap. “Somehow Rex… he fought it long enough to warn me to find a file about Fives, an ARC trooper that–”

Riyo could feel the blood drain from her face at the mention of that name, one she’d long forgotten. “I remember. Fox… he shot him, to protect the Emperor.” It felt like lifetimes ago.

In a twisted sense, it was. It’d been during Fox’s lifetime, when he still came home to her every night.

Ahsoka hummed in agreement. “Right. Well, Fives had told Rex that the clones all had control chips in their heads, and that a damaged chip had caused another trooper to shoot a Jedi. No one believed him.” Her shoulders drooped. “I was able to capture Rex and take the chip out of his head, and he was back to normal. I… I let Maul out of his cell though as a distraction, and he damaged the ship so it crashed into a moon. We lost the whole battalion,” she finished in a whisper, head bowed.

“Oh, Ahsoka,” Riyo gasped. She wasn’t sure how a hug would be received, so she placed a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”

Ahsoka’s eyes were teary when she looked up. “Thank you, but please don’t be for me. I took a risk, and it was Rex’s brothers that paid the consequences.” She shrugged half-heartedly. “I’m glad we found Wolffe. There have been other clones that escaped, but Wolffe was always one of his closest brothers.”

A small smile slipped onto her face unbidden. “I’m glad for the both of them as well. How did you find Com– Wolffe, though? You all barely made it here,” she pointed out.

The Togruta sighed. “You know Bail’s been coordinating a lot recently. We were sent out on a mission to try and contact a defector from the Empire. They’re a medic, and they’ve been treating several troopers sent to them for abnormal behavior. We arrived to get them out, and Wolffe was their latest patient, but they were being watched.” She stopped talking to peer at her work cautiously. “Is this correct?”

She stepped out of the way so Riyo could observe her work. “This is very good for anyone’s first try,” Riyo praised her. “Now we just need to grind it with some water to get a thick enough paste.”

Ahsoka waited for Riyo to set up the next step before continuing. “We had the freed men escort the medic onto our waiting ship, but we couldn’t take Wolffe back to base because of his chip. I followed their instructions to try and deactivate it, but we had to leave in a hurry. It took us a few days and several firefights before we lost them well enough to get here.”

“Had no idea you’d gotten that good with a blaster, either.”

Riyo bit back a shriek as Rex’s voice piped up from behind them. Good thing she’d been using the mortar and not a knife, otherwise she might’ve cut herself. At least he had the decency to send her an apologetic smile once she whirled around to face him.

“Gee thanks, Rex,” Ahsoka huffed, reaching out to playfully slap his chest. The two of them shared a grin, and Riyo decided to study the wooden floor beneath her feet until they snapped out of it. She wouldn’t dare disrupt their small moment of joy.

“I came out to let you know Wolffe is asleep again,” Rex finally explained his presence after he shook himself free of their little bubble. “We spoke some, but he tired quickly.”

That was good. He clearly was suffering from some form of head injury, so any amount of time Wolffe was able to be awake and coherent was a step in the right direction.

“Alright, that’s wonderful news. We should be able to apply this compress despite that.” Riyo picked up the bowl of ground javun and gestured at a clean cloth folded on the counter top. “Would you grab that and come with me? I’ll show you what to do, so you know how in the future.”

A quiet grief crept up her spine with each step she took back towards Wolffe’s room. He needed her help. She could pull herself together for him.

Riyo entered the room alone and took the seat beside Wolffe’s still form. Rex would be along in a minute.

Until then, she studied the still man’s face, finding and cataloguing each unique feature of him and hoping it wouldn’t come back to haunt her like before.