wreywrites

[wreywrites]

Friends, Romans, countrymen, and everybody else here not sitting on a cushion,

I have finished Sunrise on the Reaping, and, as is to be predicted, the Hunger Games bug is back. Which is great, because it's finally gotten me out of my horrendous writer's block of the last many months. To hold you over while I work on the next Hunger Games project, may I offer:

Tiger Shark, for those of you who would do anything for Annie Cresta. This is the story of how the Seventieth Hunger Games changed everyone, and how Annie Cresta changed everything else. Starts with Annie's Games and becomes an AU when Annie doesn't let Mags volunteer in the Quarter Quell. A canon compliant version exists here.

The Albatross, for those of you who want something a little darker and a lot earlier in the timeline. The story of Four's second victor, a girl lost to time and the fury of the Capitol.

PS- The next project is happening in, around, before, during, and maybe after Tiger Shark, for those of you who want to know why Gloss paces every night before he goes to bed, how Alvan got involved in the Mockingjay plot, and where Titus Vickers spends all that money he wins gambling on the Hunger Games.

PPS- Yes, Sunrise on the Reaping means that there are now a few (minor) inconsistencies with canon in my fanfics. I'm choosing not to deal with that at the moment, though there is one notable event in The Albatross that I will probably edit one of these days because it's noticeable enough that it will bother me. Brownie points and maybe, like, a character named after you if you figure out what it is before I fix it.

[wreywrites]

[wreywrites]

Aemond won’t take on Vermithor and Silverwing together, but also he’d have to think twice about taking on Vermithor at all. Which leads us to:

The classic "Rhaenyra’s oldest daughter" OC that everyone writes, and here she has been the rider of Vermithor since ever, and married to Aemond by choice because they hate each other but they ARE each other AND they love each other, but neither one will change sides. So they’re still fighting, the Dance goes on, the carnage is real, but in this even more complicated way because they will. not. fight. each. other. It’s the surest way to end the war, to take out the other side’s biggest dragon (and their rider, the heir to the throne), but they’re can’t do it because despite everything else that’s her husband who used to gossip in Valyrian with her and that’s his wife who took him out on dragonback when they were little before he had Vhagar. So if Daemon wants to try to fight Aemond and if Daeron wants to try to fight Rhaenyra’s daughter that’s FINE, but she will not help her father and he will not help his brother. You go to your own victory or death. So the whole strategy is now putting them where it’s dangerous, where they can protect the army just by being there because they can’t and won't attack each other and they can beat any other dragon who shows up, and they’re both politically savvy enough to not just burn whole armies.

The Dance becomes a real dance, with fighting on the fringes, the backdrop to this epic, graceful, violent dance between two lovers where no matter what happens their child will inherit the Iron Throne, but the question now is which of them will pass the Iron Throne to the child.

[wreywrites]

This is truly adorable 🥰

seeing new Mando crumbs on Monday means drawing a new Mando sketch to distract myself from everything else 🤸

[wreywrites]

Coin of the Gods

When Aegon dies at Rook's Rest, Aemond becomes king and must live with the consequences.

A/N: Y'all this was supposed to be funny (got to thinking more after I made this post) but I sat down and started typing and blacked out and was apparently possessed by the spirit of GRRM because... this is not funny. A version of Aemond lives in my mind that actually mellows with age but it is not this Aemond. Warnings: Non-graphic deaths, mention of suicide, depression

Aegon didn’t deserve to be king. Aegon didn’t deserve a lot of things.

Aegon is already dead.

That’s what he tells himself when he finds them. Sunfyre is dying—Vhagar could fly him back to the Dragonpit, but why? He��ll be dead in a month anyway.

Sunfyre is dying. Aegon is already dead.

They had been friends once, hadn’t they? If they had, he can’t remember.

He remembers a pig with wings, Aegon cackling with glee as he drags Aemond through the streets on his name day, the disgust in his eyes whenever someone showed Aemond any special attention, an egg that never hatched.

No, they had never been friends. Not even as children. Certainly not now.

Aegon is already dead.

“Dracarys,” he says.

Someone shouts behind him; he barely hears it over the roar of Vhagar’s breath as she incinerates Sunfyre and Aegon.

“Aegon was already dead,” he whispers over the screams of the dying dragon.

Cole is shouting, screaming. “What the hell happened?”

“Sunfyre would never have survived.”

“But the king—!”

“The king is dead.”

~~~

Daeron crowns him.

The crown sits heavy on his brow, heavy, they say, so he who wears it never forgets the weight of his responsibility.

Well.

His shoulders are strong.

~~~

King Aemond Targaryen is not beloved by the small folk. He is not the Realm’s Delight, not the Brave, not he Conciliator, not even the Queen Who Never Was.

He is the Kinslayer and the Kingkiller, but that will be enough.

No one laughs at him now.

~~~

Helaena falls farther into grief and madness and he can do nothing for her. He and Daeron and Cole lead the army and though they are outnumbered by Rhaenyra’s dragons, he has Vhagar, and one by one they fall.

It does not matter that he is winning. Not to those around him.

All the small council worries about is who will inherit the throne, what marriage will provide the best alliance.

All Alicent says is, “Aemond, you must take a wife, produce an heir—”

But he doesn’t want a wife, he doesn’t need a wife, he needs an heir.

He has an heir.

He has Jaehaera.

Jaehaera who walks to small council meetings with him, who clambers up the steps of the throne to sit on his knee while he hears petitions, who sings to Morghul and Helaena and the cats who replaced the ratcatchers after Aegon hanged them all.

~~~

“Jaehaera,” he says quietly, leaning forward as he sits cross-legged in front of her, playing with the little wooden dragons.

She tilts her head, beaming at him.

“Jaehaera, I am proud of you. You are a brave girl, and beloved by all, and you make your family proud. When I die, you will be queen.”

She frowns, like she can’t imagine a world in which he could die.

He could. He imagines that world every day.

“And until then, I will teach you everything I know.”

So he does. He teaches her to fly, to speak High Valyrian, to fight with a sword and a spear and her words, sharp as steel even as her heart is soft.

~~~

He looks to Helaena and she knows, she knows what he did. She knows the sounds of the screams he hears in the small hours of the night.

~~~

King Aemond Targaryen is not beloved by the small folk.

And if whispers of Maegor follow him around, what does he care? Maegor had been king, had he not?

And he is not cruel—he will never be cruel—but he does rule. He is the king, after all.

~~~

King Aemond is beloved by the army. They will follow where he leads, cheering Vhagar’s shadow and Blackfyre’s flash.

Cole, however, cannot be trusted. He watches too closely. He schemed without Aegon when he was king, he is like to scheme without Aemond now.

Cole dies in an ambush, and new generals rise up to take his place.

~~~

He looks to Alicent, to Otto, to Daeron. They incline their heads. “Your Grace,” they call him, even as they tell him what to do.

“Marry,” Otto tells him. “Forge an alliance.”

“Sire heirs,” Alicent tells him. “Strengthen your claim and your line.”

“Remember your betrothed,” Daeron winks. “I hear she yet draws breath.”

He doesn’t want Floris Baratheon. He doesn’t want any of them.

He wanted Lucerys alive and locked in a dungeon somewhere, he wanted Helaena to be safe and happy, he wanted Daemon to admit he was afraid of him.

He wants now to marry Daeron off to the daughter of the first lord that comes asking. Let him have Floris Baratheon, if she still draws breath. Let him forge an alliance and sire children, but let him also be gone.

~~~

They eye the throne, all of them.

They wait for the day Aemond falls in battle so they may put another puppet on the throne just as they did when Viserys died.

Aemond does not fall.

He watches Otto live out his years, many of them, before the old man simply does not wake one morning.

Daemon and Jacaerys die above Harrenhal and Vhagar roars her victory to the Riverlands.

Helaena’s grief eats at her, a cancerous growth born of Jaehaerys’s murder and fed by every deed since. She pitches herself from the window of her room. Dreamfyre is a formidable fighter, but she will not go to battle without a rider.

Aemond and Daeron fly alone.

Rhaena disappears; Baela betrays Rhaenyra; the wild dragons and the riderless dragons fall to the small folk, and when the people of King’s Landing storm the Dragonpit and kill every dragon there, Aemond is over Dragonstone, killing Syrax and Rhaenyra.

The war—his war—takes them all. There are no dragons left but Vhagar, no Targaryens left but him and the girl who watches him with such wide eyes.

The Last Dragon, they call him to his face. To his back he is the Mad Dragon, as the years wear on, but the Keep has ears, and the Dragon knows.

No one laughs at him. Not for a long time now.

~~~

Her mother is dead and his mother is dead and there is no one left and he cries as he sits on the Iron Throne in the small hours of the night.

Sometimes Jaehaera comes down barefoot from her room and sits at the foot of the throne and stares at him, a thousand years of heartbreak in her eyes, and he stares back.

Whose eye stares from the socket, he wonders. Can he even lay claim to it anymore? Is it Lucerys’s? Does his niece see Daemon looking back at her?

She looks like Helaena but sometimes Aegon and sometimes Viserys but mostly he sees Rhaenyra when he looks at her and someday he will die and all this will be done and he wonders what would have happened had he never been born, had his egg hatched, had Aegon lived, had he sided with the Blacks to spite Aegon, had he forgiven Lucerys.

He will always wonder, and so will they.

[wreywrites]

The part of my brain that's constantly AU-ing everything a million different ways: Ok so the House of the Dragon writers have the opportunity to put out an amazing Westeros What If next week featuring His Grace, King Aemond of House Targaryen, First of his Name, Kinslayer, Kingslayer, Speaker of Fluent High Valyrian Unlike *Some* People, Rider of Vhagar, etc., etc. Plot lines include increasing taxes to fund his haircare routine, telling Jaehaera that he's proud of her and she is loved, and taking Vhagar to get hearing aids.

[wreywrites]

Sharing

Summer of Bad Batch Week 5

Prompts: "You're a bad liar" & "Need a hand?"

A/N: Short one this week, but here we are. Warnings: None AO3

“Uhh, your… hand…?” The kid at the next stall stared at Crosshair.

Crosshair glared back. The kid finally took the hint and wandered off.

“You know you’ll have to start telling people a story about it.” Omega sat on the other end of the bench. “People kind of know you around here, and they know you haven’t always had one hand.”

“A story?” Crosshair raised an eyebrow.

“Yeah. It doesn’t have to be the truth. Just… an answer for their questions.”

“So… I lost a fight with a rancor.”

“Yeah.”

“I beat Wrecker at Fours and he bit me and it got infected.”

“Sure.”

“Echo actually lost both of his hands, so he took one of mine so now we both have one real hand and one stump.”

“You’re a bad liar.”

Crosshair held up a finger for silence. “I brought it on myself, though, because Echo was struggling with something so I said, ‘Need a hand?’ and he took me literally.”

“You mean he took your hand literally.”

“Yep.”

The silence that fell was soon interrupted by Crosshair’s snort, then Omega’s giggle, and soon they were both laughing, and for a moment it didn’t matter how many hands anyone had—or that Crosshair and Echo were, in fact, missing the same hand—only that they all had each other.

@summer-of-bad-batch

[wreywrites]

Little Lessons (Jedi June 2024)

Many people taught Kylen Ydarra on her journey to becoming a Jedi Master, and often those people learned from her as well.

Wolf Songs

Creche Mom Le'Kal encourages a questionable habit among her little ones, gets a new crecheling, and watches a pack of young Jedi grow up.

Strange Habits

A Mandalorian and a Jedi discuss a key cultural difference: what to do with emotions when you don't like them.

Opus

Master Dooku enjoys an evening of classical music and meditation while reflecting on the past ten years.

Kyber-Hearted

Jedi Master Le'Kal attends two funerals: one during the Clone Wars, and one eleven years ago.

Kira and Nika

Plo Koon has no attachments. But he does have a couple of tookas.

[wreywrites]

Kira and Nika

Jedi June Bonus Week

Prompt: Animal Friendship

A/N: I know Jedi June is over (not in my heart), so let's just call this a happy Jedi July gift. Warnings: The inevitable death of a pet AO3

Plo opened the door and gestured Ky inside. She felt nervous but excited, but he remembered how he had felt, moving from the creche to the apartments. He moved to the kitchen and started on the tea.

“You have tookas?”

He chuckled. “Yes. The gray one is Kira and the brown one is Nika. Kira is friendlier, but if Nika decides she likes you, she is quite the loyal little friend.”

Ky frowned. “I thought Jedi couldn’t have attachments.”

“You must simply remember that at any moment you may have to say goodbye, perhaps forever. But a Jedi should never be lonely. Nika and Kira are my companions, and while I enjoy their company, and I would even go so far as to say they enjoy mine, I will someday bid them farewell when they become one with the Force.”

“Oh.” She frowned some more as she pondered this, looking at the pair of tookas napping under the plant in the corner.

Plo chuckled again as he retrieved two mugs from a cupboard. “Do you like seed cakes?” At her nod, he got out a pair of plates and the container of seed cakes.

“May I…?” Ky gestured vaguely toward the balcony.

“Of course.”

As he finished preparing the tea, he watched Ky lay out one of the squishier meditation mats and settle herself on the balcony. Kira sprang into her lap and settled between the girl’s crossed legs. The Force was warm with simple contentment.

Plo carried the tea and snacks to the balcony, then settled himself on another mat and patted his knee. Nika jumped onto his lap and purred as he scratched her chin, carefully sipping his tea through his mask with his other hand.

“Tell me about yourself, Ky.”

He listened to her likes and dislikes, skills and shortcomings, her desire to visit Montella to see the moons and the galaxy-famous aurorae they caused, and all the while he kept half a thought to the Force and how it moved around her.

She reminded him a bit of his first tooka, Skadi, who had acted like a kitten for all of his years—always bouncing, pouncing, purring, and playing. She also reminded him of the time he had been on Naboo and seen a wild gualaar herd. The new colts bucked and played and they felt so alive. They were not passive, and he could tell that Ky Ydarra was not and would never be passive either.

When he returned from supper that night, Plo sat with the tookas. He couldn’t read their minds—no one could do that with animals—but he could feel their feelings, catch the drift of their intentions. He impressed upon them the idea of inviting their new acquaintance for tea again. Kira purred excitedly and even Nika perked up her ears.

Plo chuckled to himself, scratching the tookas’ chins. “Very well, I shall see if she is willing to come visit us again tomorrow.”

*****

The tookas felt almost excited that Ky would care for them while Plo was gone. They would miss him, but not perhaps as much as he would have liked. He could feel Kira waiting, pacing in front of the door, waiting for Ky to come see them—even though Plo wasn’t even at the end of the hallway to take the lift down to the entrance level yet.

He was glad they liked Ky; it made leaving them easier, knowing that they would be well cared for and not miserable during his absence. He also thought it would be good for Ky to have a responsibility that was hers and hers alone. It would be a way to put all that gualaar colt excitement to use.

*****

Kira and Nika were excited to see him.  They had nothing but good memories of Ky, coming to visit them three times a day, giving them many chin scratches, letting them nap on her lap or sometimes on her chest on the days Ky took a nap on the couch.

Animals spoke volumes, if only one knew how to listen.

*****

They were meditating, Plo so deep in the sluggish current of the Force that he could only vaguely feel the warm contentment of the tookas and the muted excitement that passed for peace when Ky was involved.

The current turned ice cold. Nika yowled. Ky crashed backward into the couch.

Plo did not know when she had stood up, but he did know she toppled backward, the brown tooka scrambling away from her, claws digging into her legs. “Ky?” He lurched to his feet in front of her. “Ky!”

Her eyes slid far out of focus and her presence retreated deep into the Force, beyond his reach, searching for something.

“Ky!” He knelt in front of her and grabbed her elbows, hoping to anchor her in any way he could.

“Help,” she whimpered, though he thought not to him. Then she sucked in a gasping breath and her eyes refocused, staring at him.

“Ky?” Plo asked gently.

Still breathing hard, she whispered, “Thanks.”

He frowned and tilted his head. “For what?”

“For…” Ky trailed off. He could sense a dawning realization that she had felt someone in the Force, an anchor that hadn’t been him. “For being my friend.”

Plo moved to sit on the couch next to her. “Ky, are you all right? Do you need to see a Healer?”

“No.” She pulled her knees to her chest, wincing, belying her answer even as she gave it. “No, I’m okay. I just hadn’t felt anything that strong before. I didn’t know what to do. My lessons didn’t really work, so I… did my best.”

He nodded and rose to his feet. Refilling her tea mug, he said, “That is all any of us can do.” He passed the mug back to her and cast a glance at her legs, a scattering of red droplets bleeding through the tan fabric showing the trail of Nika’s claws as she fled Ky’s… vision? Was that what it was? He wasn’t sure. It didn’t particularly matter. “I’ll get you a bacta patch for that.”

“Sorry I scared Nika.”

Halfway to his bedroom, Plo said, “She’ll be fine. She knows you didn’t mean it.” A quick foray into the tooka’s thoughts proved it true, and by the time Plo returned with bacta patches, Kira was curled on Ky’s lap and Nika sprawled against her leg.

They would forgive her a great many things in exchange for that warm sunny spot in the Force and the way it seeped into the physical world.

*****

This time it was Ky who was offworld. Plo missed their evening tea and meditations, and the tookas missed their chin scratches.

Still, he knew Ky was the right Jedi for this mission. She would do well, and hopefully she would be back sooner rather than later.

It was a selfish hope, perhaps, but also as selfless as it could be.

He stroked Nika’s back, her brown sides rising and falling more slowly these days, the tips of her ears turning gray. Kira rasped her tongue over the other tooka’s shoulder, offering what comfort she could. Plo took a deep breath, released it and with it his sadness for the inevitable.

*****

Nika’s breath rasped. Plo petted her gently and closed his eyes, feeling her presence in the Force, looking for something—anything—he could do to provide her some little comfort in these last moments. What he found was sunshine and a warm lap, human fingers scratching her chin, the smell of Ky’s favorite tea.

Plo took a deep breath, concentrating on the memory, pressing against Nika’s consciousness.

He could not bring Ky back to the Temple, as much as he might want to, but he could give his little friend one last memory of her.

Hello, pretty kitty, the memory of Ky said across his thoughts. You’re such a good girl, yes you are. Oh, do you need chin scratches? Yes, yes.

Plo opened his eyes to see Nika stretch, leaning into a hand that wasn’t there. She purred, and her eyes drifted shut.

From Nika he felt only peace, then the fluttering of a candle at its end. From Kira he felt profound sadness.

“Goodbye, Nika,” he said quietly. “You have been a most excellent friend. We will not forget you.”

[wreywrites]

The Ones We Carry

Summer of Bad Batch Week 4

Prompts: Cadets & “You really think you’re going without me? Not going to happen.”

A/N: Flashbacks for this and Jedi June? Apparently. Also I'm a day late. These prompts were a struggle for me (idk man) and I'm still not totally sold on this one but in the spirit of not getting bogged down, I'm posting it and moving on. Warnings: Not-so-fond memories of Kamino, Crosshair gets to swear a little, as a treat AO3

“How do you know him?” Omega asked as the recorded holo came to an end.

Zara, arms crossed, frown etched on her face, said, “I’ve known him for a long time.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s safe to go running when he asks nicely,” Hunter said with an equal frown.

“He’s not going to turn me—”

“I knew Cid for a long time, and look what she did,” Echo growled. “I vote no.”

“It’s not a kriffing vote.” Zara ground her teeth. She liked the guys, but she was an adult, and a trained Jedi, and didn’t need them to always be babying her and breathing down her neck in the name of keeping her safe. “I’m going, because my people asked me to.”

“Oh, he’s ‘your people’ now?”

“What about us?”

“Listen!” she snapped. “Last time I saw him was years ago on Kamino, telling the shinies stories about flying fighters in—” She stopped at the looks on their faces. “What?”

“Kamino?” Crosshair hissed.

Hunter worked his jaw. “So he was a bounty hunter.”

“No, he wasn’t then and I’d bet you the bounty I’m worth that he’s not now—”

“That is precisely the issue,” Tech said. “As a Jedi, you are worth a substantial bounty, one that would make almost any galactic citizen willing to turn you over to the Empire. What is to say this one won’t seize the opportunity?”

She shook her head. “I’m going.” She slammed a datachip on the table. “This will decode in two weeks. If I’m not back and you haven’t heard from me by then, you can go to the coordinates and start looking for me. Got it?”

Zara didn’t wait to hear their answers before stalking off to the ship, immensely glad they refueled when they got home from the last trip so she could just leave right now.

*****

“How did it go today?”

Crosshair shrugged as he finished reassembling his rifle after cleaning and polishing it.

“How about you, Wrecker?”

“Hungry,” Wrecker mumbled. “They made me train through lunch.”

“Here.” Tech held out a ration bar, one of the many 99 had smuggled to them over the last several months since their training had intensified.

Wrecker inhaled it, then started recounted his day, his eyes lighting up the way they always did when he got to talk about wiring explosives and timing detonators. “He actually said I did good today! Got to wire a domino string for blowin’ up walls and dams and long stuff like that. Said I was a natural.”

“Well… you are,” Tech tilted his head quizzically. It looked like he was wondering why the instructor had bothered pointing out such an obvious fact.

Crosshair elbowed him on his way to his bunk.

“Wh—”

“That’s good, Wrecker,” Hunter said quickly. “Really good.”

What none of them said, what they never mentioned, was how normal it was for Wrecker to train right through meal times, for Hunter to get back to their barracks at the end of the day with a splitting headache, for Tech to alternately babble without end all the words he wasn’t allowed to say during training or sit in silence with his datapad either ignoring or not even hearing conversation directed his way, for Crosshair’s eyes to burn from strain and his legs to twitch and bounce from pent-up nervous energy.

For the words they all heard, all day, from the bounty hunters the Kaminoans hired to train them.

Words that even the other cadets, who harbored mixed feelings about the enhanced cadets, wouldn’t repeat—not even to tease them. The other cadets didn’t hate them, but it kriffing felt like the instructors did.

Words sneered at eight-year-old children.

“Surely you can do better than that.”

“Faster—you can’t hesitate to pull the trigger.”

“You should know this.”

“If you can’t handle this, maybe we should decommission you right now and save ourselves the trouble.”

Crosshair’s eyes felt like the eye drops one of the medic trainee cadets had given him had been replaced with liquid tibanna. He couldn’t even remember how far he’d been shooting today—just that it seemed unnecessarily far—

“Hey.”

Wrecker’s weight settled onto Crosshair’s bunk.

“You okay?”

Crosshair rolled over to face the wall in response.

“Don’t let ’em get to ya,” Wrecker said quietly. “We know you’re the best, no matter what those bounty hunters say.” Then he stood up, and something small took his place.

Crosshair stayed there, curled on his side with his eyes squeezed shut toward the wall until the others had finished their nightly routines and one of them clicked off the lights. When it had been dark and quiet for several minutes, he rolled over.

There was Lula.

*****

It was her first time in hyperspace.

No, it wasn’t.

The first time she had been only one, and Master Depa had been bringing her from Mandalore to Coruscant. Zara didn’t really remember it. She remembered being sad, though with the benefits of age and hindsight and knowledge of the Force, she had later become sure that it wasn’t her sadness, but his.

This trip, though, this trip she would remember forever. The joy running rampant through the Force between her and her clanmates and the excitement that Padawan Swan felt at this great responsibility and honor that had been given to her.

Nahdar bounced in place next to her. On the other side of the room, Anakin and Aayla wrestled to burn off some energy.

Zara looked down at her datapad and its collection of sketches. Soon she would be building it, the lightsaber in her designs, and then she would be carrying it on her hip like the big Jedi did, and then she would be learning as someone’s padawan! Her eagerness was palpable, she was sure, but she didn’t care. She was surrounded by friends and today was the first big step on their way to becoming Jedi.

*****

“Force, you’re stressed.” Zara nudged the wall panel, opening the door to the supply closet and revealing Crosshair sitting in a nest of blankets. She dropped a couple of ration bars into his lap. “And you’re here, when I recall all of you saying you didn’t want me here, so go ahead and explain that.”

“You said you knew this guy on Kamino. But did you know what he was like on Kamino?” Crosshair shook his head. “They were awful. All of them. Acted like they’d rather be anywhere else and getting their toenails ripped out than teaching us. Made life hell for us in exchange.”

“I was there,” she said quietly, trying to be patient. “I was on Kamino several times during the war. I know what it was like—”

“No you don’t!” he snapped. “We grew up there! We only had each other and the mudscuffers training us, and they were—No.”

“No what?” Zara snapped back.

“You’re not—You insist on going to see this man? Fine, whatever. But you really think you’re going without me? Not going to happen.”

“Is that what you’ve got the whole entire Force churning about?”

He leveled a glare at her.

“No, I’m serious. You snuck on the ship with me and now you’re sitting here stewing because I’m going to visit my uncle, the Protector of Concord Dawn, who happened to train fighter pilots on Kamino, because you think he’s the same person as kriffing Bric Sykevi—”

*****

“Yes, Master Chief.”

“Sorry, Master Chief.”

“I’ll do better next time, Master Chief.”

It made him feel better that the regs were terrified of Master Chief too, but it didn’t make him any less scared of the man, or of the punishments he could dole out and the threats he could make that only took one misstep to turn into actions taken.

He couldn’t wait to graduate, to get promoted from cadet to private or whatever they wanted to call him, to leave Kamino and never see those instructors again.

*****

“Bric—!” He was on his feet, pile of blankets left behind as he towered over Zara. He dropped his voice and growled, “Bric Sykevi is the lowest piece of bantha shit in the galaxy. If he died right now, I would only mourn because I didn’t get to kill him myself.”

“Whoa…” Zara breathed, leaning away until she bumped the wall.

“And anyone who willingly worked for him—I just—I can’t—”

“Please take a deep breath.”

He hauled in a breath through gritted teeth. “I was raised by bounty hunters hired, first by the Kaminoans and then by Bric Sykevi, to turn us into cold-blooded killing machines. That is my experience with what you might call ‘parental figures.’”

*****

Ky and Master Obi-Wan were laughing so hard tears ran down their faces.

“So Quin—Quin—” Ky wheezed, completely unable to finish her embarrassing story about Master Quinlan, but Master Ob-Wan didn’t need her to. They had known Master Quinlan since they came to the Temple as children.

“Let me guess—he tried to sweet-talk—”

“He tried to sweet-talk the guard!”

Master Obi-Wan roared, leaning against Ky as she howled.

Zara smiled. Their quiet afternoon of meditation had turned into Anakin napping in the grass—Master Obi-Wan said he needed it after their morning spar—and Ky and Master Obi-Wan trading stories about their adventures in the wide galaxy while Zara sat and listened and basked in the sunshine of the Force.

In moments like this, she could remember more clearly. A blue-eyed boy, his tongue sticking out and his eyes crossed. A red-haired man picking her up and tossing her high over his head, then catching her and spinning her around and around as she laughed.

*****

“So you decided to stow away? To what? Protect me from my actual family member because you had horrible people paid to raise you?”

*****

Crosshair remembered pain and fear and exhaustion, learning to check corners not for enemy soldiers but for angry trainers looking to take out any and all frustration on him. The only real safety was to be found with his brothers, their little band with its four members, four sides in stable square, with no blind corners.

*****

“I came along because none of us had to be alone on Kamino. We had each other. I don’t want you to—”

*****

Zara remembered sunshine and laughter and safety, the knowledge that everyone in the Temple wanted what was best for her and for her to become the best Jedi she could be. She had her creche mom and her master and her master’s master and her master’s friends and her friends’ masters and all of them working to better each other and her and the galaxy around them and expecting nothing in return.

*****

“You don’t want me to trust someone I shouldn’t? Who gets to make that choice? Do you need him to fill out an application? Run a background check? If that’s the case, you might want to run one on me too—I’ve done some questionable shit, you know!”

“You just—trust—everyone!”

Zara clenched her fists and inhaled sharply. “Actually,” she growled, “I trust very few people, but I value the ones I do trust, and I work to maintain a mutual level of trust. Fenn Rau is the only person alive who I knew more than ten years ago. And the other two people I’ve known for even halfway close to that long are bounty hunters. Everyone from my old life is dead. I will not turn away from this last person. Not now.”

She took four steps back down the hallway before spinning on her heel and storming back. “And you, Crosshair—” she jammed a finger in his chest, “—you had better learn how to trust people, because it’s a big kriffing galaxy, and it’s a terrible place to be alone. Believe me, I’ve tried.”

*****

He remembered late nights in the barracks, talking and laughing with the other three, the worries and stresses of the day forgotten in those moments over games of dejarik and smuggled snacks from 99.

He was never quite sure if it was because of or in spite of their training that they were so inseparable, so united, so devoted to each other. Maybe both. No matter the pain it took, cadet-hood had forged their bond as brothers, and they would never be alone.

@summer-of-bad-batch

[wreywrites]

Kyber-Hearted

Jedi June Week 4

Prompt: Non-attachment/letting go

A/N: When I saw the prompt list for this back in mid-May-ish, I thought no way would I pick "letting go" over "cross lineage mentorship," which is one of my favorite dynamics. Yet here we are. I may still bust something out for the other prompt, but I stand by this little story. Warnings: Off-screen and pre-events-of-story deaths. Not graphic, just mentioned, and the driving force of this work. Dealing with loss and grief. AO3

Le’Kal watched the two young Jedi, pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in front of the pyre. The war had taken much, and now this.

Le’Kal was nearly a hundred years old, and her old master was still alive and thriving and causing unimaginable mischief as a semi-retired teacher of younglings.

Ky was thirty-six, and her old master was one with the Force.

The master she had worked so hard to connect with. The master who had taught her so much, shaped her into the Jedi she had become, raised her from a sometimes overly passionate crecheling to a strong, capable, and self-possessed Jedi Master.

Now he was gone. The war had taken him, like it had taken so many others.

*****

Not many humans could make Ky look short, but the one standing next to her nearly managed it. His dark hair had grayed a great deal since he had known her, and she had grown a surprising number of inches since she had known him.

Le’Kal glanced across the room. Obi-Wan stared blankly through the floor near Master Yoda’s feet. Twenty-five, and his master was one with the Force.

Sith.

Said like a dirty word, whispered the way younglings sometimes said kriff for the first time when they weren’t sure what it meant but they knew it was serious.

*****

Jedi were not meant to be alone, but how often was it that they stood at a funeral pyre, surrounded and yet adrift like a raft on the surface of Dac?

Let go, they were told, as soon as they could form attachments.

There is no death, there is the Force, they were taught, as soon as they could understand the concepts.

Le’Kal understood this, and she knew the two Jedi across from her understood this as well. She had raised them, taught them, helped them on their way to making the Order and the galaxy a better place.

But as Ky finally broke and let out a silent sob before turning to bury her head in Obi-Wan’s shoulder and his eyes filled with an eleven-year-old grief as he wrapped his arms around her in quiet comfort, Le’Kal was reminded that knowledge and practice were two very different things.

It was hard for her to let go of the little ones in each creche clan when they moved to the apartments and became padawans. How impossibly hard was it for young knights to stand at the funeral pyre of the Jedi who had taught them, raised them, shared jokes and snacks and the occasional speeding ticket with them?

*****

Ky shared a quick hug with the man next to her, then at his nod hurried to Obi-Wan and hugged him as well. His forehead leaned heavy on her shoulder and her arms wrapped tight around his torso.

Obi-Wan might be stoic for everyone else, but for Ky he had always been different. He laughed more easily, bent the rules a little more smoothly, let down his guard with less shame.

They were good for each other, just as Le’Kal had hoped they would be, when Ky joined Wolf Clan all those years ago. She wished they didn’t have to be. She wished very much that he didn’t need her support, that she didn’t need to be his anchor, that Qui-Gon was still alive.

But he was not, and now, somehow, Obi-Wan would have to let go, to accept the maxim that there is no death, there is the Force. It was something not everyone could do. More than one Jedi in recent memory—and not just young ones—had left the Order after finding themselves unable to do so.

She had to admire them. It was the height of self-awareness and showed a great deal of maturity. She hoped every day that none of her once-crechelings would become one of them, but she was not in a position to help them work through the grief of losing a master—hers was still alive. In fact, barring some freak accident, her master would outlive her by several decades. Most Jedi were not that lucky.

Obi-Wan was perhaps the unluckiest of all.

*****

As the fire burned itself to ash, Le’Kal approached Ky and Obi-Wan. She was almost within earshot when Obi-Wan turned his head a little and whispered something to Ky. She let out a choked laugh and finally looked at him.

Though there were tears in Ky’s eyes, Le’Kal felt none of the overwhelming undertows of uncontrolled and uncontrollable grief, just a cool current of sad acceptance. It was a shocking change from Ky’s usual presence in the Force—what more than one Jedi had compared to a frolicking and perhaps over-energetic gualaar colt.

Ky noticed her then and detached herself from Obi-Wan to approach her old creche mom. Le’Kal stood on her tiptoes as Ky leaned down and the two embraced.

It was customary to say something about how the deceased was now one with the Force, and how the Force was all around everything, but Le’Kal always thought those words must sound hollow to the ones closest to the deceased, so she said nothing.

Ky, though, whispered, “He’s one with the Force now, which means he can always see the bad decisions I’m making, and I’m not sure if that makes me want to make more or less of them.”

Le’Kal squeezed her tighter. “Never stop sneaking pretzels into the Archives, and his memory will live on through that alone.”

Ky chuckled. “That’s what Obi-Wan said too. We must not have been very good at smuggling snacks if everyone knew about it.”

*****

Jedi were not meant to be alone. They were not to have attachments, but that was different. They were part of a community. They had each other’s backs, in everything from team board games to—these days—armed combat.

Death was a part of life. A part they were coming to know with increasing frequency, but there was balance in all things.

There was still light in the galaxy, and there always would be.

*****

“I’m one with the Force, and the Force is with me.”

Le’Kal whispered the words to herself over and over that night, meditating in her bedroom, torn between wanting to remember all the friends who were now one with the Force and trying to forget the pain that came with their deaths.

There would always be pain and loss, she would have to be a fool to believe any of them could become immune to such feelings. But there was also joy in the knowledge that death was not the end, but merely a new step, a journey into greater communion with the Force.

Le’Kal felt all this, as she knew Ky did, as she knew Obi-Wan had eleven years ago, and she simply kept breathing. There was nothing else to do. No power—no emotion—in the galaxy, no matter how strong, could bring back the dead. Memories could be honored, stories told, kyber crystals given to the Keeper of the Arch, but those lives were gone.

So they did what they could.

They remembered, and they let go.

[wreywrites]

Yes! My dude, there are rules!*

I've written whole scenes about this!

There was blood on my boots. There wasn’t supposed to be blood in a war like this. We had blasters and lightsabers, weapons that burned as they killed. There wasn’t supposed to be blood.

It's not the death itself that's the problem, it's the not subtle deaths. They bother us, imagine how much they bother the Jedi.

So much. So much.

Seeing the Sith double impale people then behead them: hey that's not allowed, that's not how we do things here, subtle deaths-

Seeing the Sith stab someone three times: THATS- THATS NOT ALLOWED

Seeing the Sith fucking snap someone's neck: THATS NOT ALLOWED! ITS UNCOUTH! STOP IT! S T O P!

[wreywrites]

Four-Count

Summer of Bad Batch Week 3

Prompts: "It's just a scratch" & "Forget I asked"

A/N: Both prompts this week gave very angsty vibes, so I wrote this fluff ridiculousness. Warnings: None AO3

Omega’s eyes and her presence in the Force were bright, overflowing with joy even as the song ended.

Zara bowed to her with a flourish and a grin and Omega did a sort of half-curtsy back.

“See, not that hard once you practice,” Zara panted, thankful that the band had switched to something slower—something that made Tech pull Phee a little closer as they swayed back and forth.

Omega nodded. “Thanks for teaching me! How do you dance to this? I don’t think it’s bantha shuffle music either.”

“No,” she chuckled, “you want some heavy electro for that. This is…” She paused, tapping a toe, gaze sliding out of focus over the other dancers’ heads as she measured out gliding beats. “Could fasine, probably. Or just slow dance.” Zara tipped her head toward Phee and Tech, both of them smiling and lost in each other’s eyes. “Or practice oshk footwork. It’s the same count, just way slower.”

“Oshk is one-two-turn-one-two-back, right?”

Zara nodded. “Start on the…?”

“My left, his right.”

“I’ll make a dancer out of you yet.”

“Yeah,” Omega grinned. “Now I just need to get someone other than you to dance with me.”

“Ask Hunter—just because he’s said no to the rest of Pabu doesn’t mean he’ll be able to turn you down.”

With another grin, Omega turned and hurried back to the table on the far side of the square where Hunter, Crosshair, Wrecker, and Echo were eating and drinking various items from the food stalls set up along the outsides of the square.

Zara smiled to herself and shook her head as Hunter tried in vain to resist Omega’s puppy-eyed pleas.

“Care to dance?” said a voice next to her.

She turned back toward the three-quarters of the square dedicated to dancers and the band to see one of the middle-aged fishermen—Carrick, she thought his name was.

“Sure.”

He was a surprisingly good dancer. His fasine was a little different than the way she had learned it, but it was a big galaxy, and his way made as much sense as hers, so she followed along, and when the song ended, they parted with a firm handshake and a positive answer to her query as to whether rock crabs would be in stock soon.

Zara was on her way back to the table when the low strings janked in her favorite way. She spun around, looking for Omega to square skip again, when a hand brushed her waist.

“I’m curious if I remember how to do this,” Echo grinned as she turned to face him.

“Bet you do,” she grinned back. “Fives picked it up in ten minutes—while hammered—though he may have only been so attentive to impress me.”

“He was.” Echo twirled her around until they faced each other.

Zara shook her head, still smiling. “Oh well. It was fun either way. One, t—go!” She locked her elbows and pushed him back, nearly missing the first step but hurrying them back onto the beat. Too late she remembered his prosthetic legs, but despite the years and the wear and tear, Echo was still an ARC trooper. He recovered marvelously, and he remembered most of the steps, and as the tempo of the music increased so did the speed of their passes and spins until Zara was drawing on the Force to keep her bearings and finally their feet tangled together on a pass and they crashed to the ground, laughing before they were even all the way down and drawing concerned looks and more laughter from the pairs of dancers around them.

Nursing what would no doubt be a bruised elbow but still laughing, Zara followed Echo back to the table.

“Sorry,” he chuckled, sounding wildly insincere, but she knew what he meant and how he felt.

“All good. You’re a solid square skipper, even after all these years.”

“Tell you a secret?”

“Please do.”

Echo wrapped a conspiratorial arm around her shoulders and leaned close. “Fives and Jesse and Kix and I used to practice during those long hyperspace flights—a lot—both because we were bored and because we thought knowing how to do it well would be a great way to pick up girls.”

Zara wheezed. “Which one of you was the man?”

His ears were turning pinker by the second. “We took turns.”

“Kriff, is there security footage of this?”

“That’s the only reason I’m glad about the fall of the Republic. No more incriminating security footage from med bay after hours.”

“You practiced in the med bay?”

“Not when there were people there!”

Flustered, but still grinning a little sheepishly, Echo slapped some credits down at the cantina’s outdoor bar. “Something with some kick, please.”

“Me too.”

Whatever the bartender returned with was violently fuchsia and fizzed and tickled and burned all the way down and made the hair on Zara’s arms stand on end and Echo shudder.

“Not sure if I love that or hate it,” he rasped.

“Yep.”

When they got back to the table, Hunter was still off dancing with Omega—to something much slower now—with a look of utmost concentration, and Tech and Phee were headed back to the dance floor after a quick drink.

Zara dropped into a chair.

Wrecker leaned forward, eyes full of awe. “You’re so good! And you too!” He turned his attention to Echo. “Where did ya learn to dance?”

Echo shifted in his seat. “Actually… Zara taught me. A long time ago.”

Crosshair looked like he very much wanted to say something, but Wrecker was louder as he returned his attention to Zara. “Can ya teach me?”

Slightly embarrassed at how out of breath and hot she still was, Zara pulled in a deep breath and looked a little longingly at a pitcher of water being carried by, then opened her mouth to answer.

Wrecker, though, was suddenly looking at the table. “It’s okay. Forget I asked.”

“Oh, Wrecker, no—That’s not—” Zara took another deep breath. “I wasn’t sighing because of you, just still kind of trying to catch my breath, between dancing and whatever that pink stuff was. Tell you what—go ask if they’ll play some skip, and I’ll teach you. And while you do that, I’m going to find a glass of water.”

His eyes lit up and he hurried off toward the band and the boy next to them taking music requests.

Zara got a glass of water at the ice cream stand, then got a refill. When she had finished the second cup, she returned to the table to see Echo and Crosshair with their heads together, Echo laughing as he talked and Crosshair’s eyes twinkling in the way that, for Zara, always meant trouble and sometimes mortifying embarrassment.

“—So he hops up on the bar with her and they get going, and thank the Force one of her guys was recording a vid of something else for unrelated reasons but there’s a video—”

“How do you have that?”

Echo jumped, nearly falling off his chair, spinning around at Zara’s sudden appearance right behind him.

Crosshair barked out a laugh as Echo’s ears started to turn pink again and he stammered, “I—You know—Everyone—” His voice dropped and he said in a rush, “Skully sent it around the ARC trooper group chat.”

Zara wanted to be angry—at least annoyed—but all she could manage was a snort and an eye roll. “Of course he did. That mudscuffer.”

“Isn’t it rude to speak ill of the dead?” Crosshair asked, with minimal-but-present sarcasm.

“Yes. But Skully’s not dead. Before we got involved, there was someone else running ‘retired’ clones. He’s been on Montella for a couple of years now. And if he was dead and I was speaking ill of him, it’s because sometimes he deserved it, the punk.”

Crosshair rolled his eyes.

Zara sat down again, nibbling on some leftover fries whose owner she hoped was Omega, since she was the least likely to care.

She had only eaten three when Wrecker returned.

“They said one more slow song, and then they’ll play a skip.”

“Great.” Zara stood and offered a hand to Wrecker. “We’ll practice the footwork during the slow song. Makes it easier.” She led him to an empty patch of dance floor. “Okay, stand like this, facing me, hands out palm-up, and my hands go on top. We start apart like this, then on one, you pull your arms out to the sides like this and step in with your left foot and I go in with my right, so we kind of end up side-by-side. Then on two we step in with the other foot and turn. Then step back and back. Left on one, right on two, then step right and step right.”

It took the whole slow song to get Wrecker through the steps. Zara wouldn’t have turned down another one to get more practice in, but there was nothing to be done.

“We’ll do it half-time,” she said, with an encouraging smile. “It’s a four-count, so I’ll just slow it down.”

Wrecker nodded, looking a little nervous.

“Okay. Ready? One, two, three, four. Left, right-and-turn, back, back. Good. Left, turn, slide, slide, spin—perfect!”

After a few rounds—he was really pretty good, all things considered—Zara grinned. “This time I’ll duck under your arm when we go in on one, and you let go and we’ll each slide one step away from each other and then you catch my other hand and spin me back. Okay, left, turn, back, back, left, turn, slide, slide, spin out, left, under—no no, let go!” She dissolved into laughter as Wrecker tried, too late, to let go and jerked her into the spin early and backwards.

“Sorry! Sorry!”

“No, it’s fine!” Zara untangled them and started again. “We’ll do it slow to start. You’re just overthinking it.”

“I’m tryin’ to do it right.”

“I know, and I appreciate that.”

He brightened a little.

“But dancing isn’t always about trying really really hard to do it right, you have to remember to have fun too.”

“Okay. Have fun. Got it.” Wrecker’s eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

Zara laughed again and walked them through the move three times, picking up speed with each round.

About then, the song was over, but the band launched into another fast four-count jig, so Zara and Wrecker kept going, faster and faster, their turns and slides and spins smoother and smoother.

Zara was still laughing and counting when she could and Wrecker’s grin spread wider with each pass. He was gaining confidence, she could tell. He caught her later on the slide-unders and pulled her back farther, sometimes letting her twirl all the way to his far hand, then twirling her back to the standard hold.

“This is fun!” he laughed after one particularly flamboyant spin.

“Yeah it is!” Zara grinned back, ducking under his arm. He spun her back and across with the most velocity yet, and—

Her shoulder slammed into something and she went down hard.

Wrecker yelped, then picked her up off the ground, revealing Phee and Tech in a pile underneath her.

“Sorry!”

“Kriff, guys, sorry, I didn’t think we were that close to anyone—”

Phee picked herself up and dusted herself off with a laugh. “No worries! We’re all dancing and having fun, and no harm done. Right?” She glanced down at Tech, sitting on the ground wiping his glasses on the hem of his shirt.

He returned the glasses to his face, frowned, and pulled them off, squinting at them.

Wrecker let out a horrified gasp. “Oh no! Tech—’M sorry! Can ya fix ’em?”

Zara felt her stomach drop. No harm done—except for Tech’s glasses.

She crouched in front of him. “Tech, I’m so sorry—”

“No need to apologize.” Tech gave the glasses one last once-over, then glanced between Zara and Wrecker. “It is only a scratch.”

“Honey, how can you tell? You’re blind as a Spintiri glowbat without those.”

Wordlessly, Tech held the glasses out to Phee.

She paused, scrutinized them, then said with an impressed shrug, “Yeah, it’s just a scratch.”

“Of course. I would have no reason to lie about such a thing.” Tech bounced to his feet and extended a hand to Phee. “Perhaps a slower dance now.”

They were off, swaying their way back toward the crowd, before Zara could say anything.

“Huh,” she said.

“Yeah, Tech’s kinda that way.”

“At least we’re all okay.”

Wrecker hung his head. “I still feel bad. He needs those glasses—blind as a glowbat without ’em.”

“They’re fixable. I’m sure he’s got a dozen spare lenses for things like this.”

“Yeah. Well… not specifically for dancin’ accidents, but yeah, he’s got a whole drawer of ’em.”

Zara nodded and they stood watching the dancers for a little while before a teasing voice spoke from her other side.

“Falling down must be a legitimate step in that dance.”

Crosshair was chewing a toothpick, arms folded loose across his chest, all his weight on one hip, not looking at her.

She turned to glare at him and he shot her a side-eye, wicked glint and all.

“You know,” he drawled, “because Echo showed me the old holo of the bar incident. And then you and Echo. And now you and Wrecker…”

Zara smiled her sweetest smile and offered a hand. “I could teach you too.”

“No tha—huhhhh.” He doubled up as her fist sank into his stomach.

She pushed a foot against his shoulder, toppling him easily. “Oh look, now you know my super-secret dance step.”

Wrecker gasped, and she was about to tell him she was joking when he said, “It was a four-count! Just like the music! One: hand out. Two: punch. Three: foot on shoulder. Four: push foot.”

Crosshair groaned and Zara grinned.

“Wrecker, you might just be my new favorite dance partner.”

He beamed. “In that case, wanna go again?”

@summer-of-bad-batch

[wreywrites]

Opus

Jedi June Week 3

Prompt: Art/Music

A/N: I very much love Dooku and will probably continue to be a Dooku apologist for the rest of my days. Like, yeah, he fell to the Dark Side and committed war crimes and that's not really forgivable, but I definitely understand his frustrations. Warnings: None AO3

“Am I dressed up enough for this?” Kylen asked quietly as she leaned toward him. She was nearly as tall as he was, and for a reason Dooku was as yet unwilling to admit, that made him feel rather sad.

“No,” he murmured back, offering his arm. As she took it, he subtly turned her to face a pair of Pantorans several steps ahead and to their right. “But neither are they, and frankly, that doorman’s jacket is in appallingly bad taste—”

“Are you just trying to make me feel better?”

“No. You are certainly not terribly underdressed, and you are as well-dressed as many of these people, and we will be in a box anyway.”

Kylen shot him a mischievous grin. It was the same one she had ten years ago, when Dooku first brought her to the Temple, and the fact that it had not changed a bit in all these years made him feel rather less sad. “So you’re saying that a lot of people are underdressed—including me—but it’s okay that I’m underdressed because I’ll be hidden away in your private box?”

“Always you put words in my mouth.”

“Not always. Tonight though, yeah.”

They were at the door. The Rhodian taking tickets recognized Dooku at first glance, gave him a quick bow, and gestured him through the door. Dooku nodded in return, guiding Kylen along beside him.

“Why are we here again? I can listen to concerts on the holonet.”

“Because trips to the zoo are well and good, but there is more culture to be learned than the mating habits of rontos.”

Kylen laughed. “I’ve never once learned about the mating habits of rontos at the zoo—No, wait, that was how I got the talk—”

“Kylen, please, this is high society—”

“That’s why I said the talk and not—”

Because the Force was kind to him, they reached the entrance to the wing of private boxes at that moment and the doorman bowed as he asked, “I assume this is your guest, sir?”

“Indeed,” Dooku said. “Pemmi Kalanh, my great niece.”

The doorman’s face registered surprise briefly, then he nodded. “Of—of course, sir.”

As they walked through the door, Kylen leaned close to him again and muttered, “You know I’m wanted in all of Black Sun space under that name, right? If that guy knows anyone—”

“You may defend yourself against all attacks this evening, but I doubt there will be any.” He scrutinized her. “I did not realize Miss Kalanh was wanted by such powerful people, or I would have used a different name.”

“And Pemmi Kalanh is Dac Enab’s niece too,” she said, as though she already knew she was allowed to defend herself against all attacks and did not much care either way. “Does that make him your son? Or are you on different sides of the family?”

Dooku sighed. Force give him patience. “Are you familiar with the classical workings of Zykos Lpirna?”

“I know how to square skip,” she said, unhelpfully.

“This is not music for square skipping.”

Kylen laughed as he held the door to the private box open for her. She stopped, and he could feel her surprise in the Force.

“You were not expecting this, I take it.”

“No.” She was smiling again, strolling forward, picking her way between the meditation mats and the small tea table. “No, Master, I was not expecting an exact replica of a meditation chamber in this concert hall.” She leaned on the railing, looking out over the orchestra and the sea of people trickling into their seats.

Dooku moved rather more serenely to stand next to her and watch the last few musicians take their seats and begin to tune their instruments.

“Now what?”

“Now we listen.” He walked back to the tea table. The water was already hot, so he poured each of them a cup, knowing the answer even as he asked: “Would you like tea?”

“Please. Montellan Blue, if you…” Kylen trailed off as she turned to see him already holding her preferred tea leaves. “Of course you have it.”

“Of course.”

They each took a cup and settled on a meditation mat.

“So you just drink your tea and listen?” Kylen asked as the shuffle of the audience seating themselves began to die down.

Dooku nodded, sipping his tea and deepening his breathing.

“Okay.”

He perhaps ought to have warned her that they would be meditating on mats and not sitting in the stuffy seats of the wealthy, he thought as she repositioned her formal tunic to better tuck her feet under her knees as she sat cross-legged on her mat. She was nothing if not resourceful though—he had learned that the hard way and then some in the ten years since he had met the little girl on Vriis—and soon she had finished her tea with a contented sigh and a smile, and then the music started and she closed her eyes.

Dooku allowed himself a smile as the music swelled until it felt like his heart would simply burst from the overwhelming beauty of it all. He felt a thousand little lights in the Force as the orchestra fed those same emotions to every being in the audience. The brightest one, the warmest by far, was the one next to him.

The Jedi Temple was a brighter place because of her; the Order itself seemed more hopeful, less complacent. Kylen was not one to sit back and let the galaxy take care of itself.

No, she was like him.

And now, as the orchestra rose to something faster, brighter, he felt her riotous joy through the Force.

It was not a trip to the zoo—her favorite pastime—but she was learning nonetheless. She heard the music.

He could have taught her. He had considered it many times, not least when Djarro Ghresh—Djarro Ghresh of all people—had asked her, but there was always that little tug in the Force telling him that someone else needed her more.

If only he had known just how much of a sense of humor the Force had. If only he had known from whom she would learn, which of the Jedi would sharpen her and be sharpened by her as beskar sharpens beskar.

But he had not, and even if he had known, would he have interfered? More than he did, anyway. He smiled to himself at the admission.

It was for the best that she had not become his padawan. There would have been a wonderful symmetry to it—like the earlier music of Lpirna—Dooku had found her, brought her to the Temple, given her occasional saber lessons as a youngling when so many others regarded her fierce determination (and propensity to tackle Kenobi after losing to him) with trepidation. Yes, it would have been beautifully symmetrical if, after all that, he became her master and she his padawan.

The Force had other ideas though, and looking back, he conceded, as usual, that it was for the best. Because she had a different master, he could fill a different role in her life, not a stern and strait-laced teacher, but a rather an indulgent mentor, one who could bring her to concerts, take her to five-star restaurants for wine tasting and hors d’oeuvres, teach her advanced saber moves with which to surprise Kenobi, and simply to be friends.

Their friendship was like the later works of Lpirna, the more mature ones. The music twisted; it went up when the audience expected it to go down, it softened when it could have rattled the bones. Those works were his favorites anyway. They never ceased to surprise him, to bring a smile to his face with their unexpectedness, to make him consider what he thought would happen and realize that the quirks made the music better.

He was almost startled to hear the final notes of the final movement fading away already. Dooku took another deep breath and opened his eyes.

Kylen was sitting on her mat, legs crossed underneath her, a faint smile on her face. If the lethargy of the rise and fall of her shoulders was anything by which to judge, she had been deep in meditation, perhaps to the point of visions.

She opened her eyes, the familiar spark dancing in them.

Or perhaps she had simply relaxed and enjoyed the music. That was why they had come, after all.

[wreywrites]

Love this! Dooku is definitely underused comedically.

Six Sentence Sunday

Every Jedi June I write must include a Jedi Master teaches a bunch of little ones one shot. For week 3: Art/Music

“Your usual art teacher has caught a mild illness, I’m afraid.”  “Oh.” The class deflates as one. Dooku contains his sigh. It’s one finger painting class, he can handle this. “Is she okay?” Another child sniffles. “Is she dying?” “She will be fine.” He said mild illness, didn't he?

[wreywrites]

Strange Habits

Jedi June Week 2

Prompt: Balance

A/N: To throw one more OC at you (I have *many*), this story features a legit Mandalorian, who has a little brother who will go on to be fairly famous in some circles. Warnings: None AO3

She slept with a rock. She tucked herself under a tree, back against the trunk, and pulled the rock out of her pocket. Then she folded her hands over her stomach, the rock nestled between. It was strange, but who was he to judge?

It was a smallish rock, no bigger than his mythosaur pendant, but from what he could see, it wasn’t carved or painted or etched, it was just a plain gray ellipse-shaped rock. But she didn’t seem to want to explain it, and he wasn’t intrusive enough to ask.

So Kylen Ydarra slept with a rock, and Zann Rau accepted that Jedi were strange.

*****

He noticed, sometimes, when she was overwhelmed or scared or confused or exhausted, she would take the rock out of her pocket and let it rest in her open palm while she just… looked at it. She would take a few deep breaths, and then she would put it back in her pocket. He didn’t think the rock did anything, but Jedi were strange.

At least, Ydarra was a little strange.

*****

“I’m curious,” Zann said as they made camp for the night, “what’s with the rock?”

“My master gave it to me.”

“Something to remind you of home? I thought Jedi weren’t supposed to have attachments like that?”

“We aren’t. I don’t.” Ky shook her head almost to herself as she sat back against a tree and pulled the rock from her pocket. She laid it in her open palm, then slid it to the end of her middle finger, the smooth surface sitting on the pad of the finger. “No, the rock is…” She took a deep breath and tilted her head. The rock stood on end, a perfect ellipse with one vertex on her finger and the other sticking up in the air. Slowly, it began to spin in place, never losing its perfect balance, never faltering.

“It helps me stay balanced.”

“Balanced?” He spoke quietly, almost afraid that he could topple the rock with any loud noises or sudden movements.

“Yeah.” Ky smiled at him. Still the rock revolved on its axis. “I have been told I’m excitable.”

He had to laugh. “Oh?”

“By more than one person.” She grinned again. “Anyway, my master gave me this rock before I left. He meditated with it so much that it holds a kind of… resonance with him. When I hold it, I can feel what he was feeling when he meditated. Calm strength waiting to be called into action.” She answered his question before he could voice it. Then she went on. “And it reminds me to trust in the Force, to not let my emotions—good or bad—get the better of me. I can feel them—I should feel them—but I must keep them in balance and not let them rule me.”

Zann nodded, but he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t understand well enough to nod along like he did.

“When I am tired, the rock reminds me to persevere. When I am scared, the rock reminds me to have courage. When I am frustrated, the rock reminds me to be patient.”

“Must be hard being a Jedi and remembering all that stuff.”

“Not usually. Most of the time we’re in the Temple surrounded by other Jedi, and we can encourage and help each other. But here—” a teasing smile flashed across her face, “—here I’m surrounded by Mandalorians, whose idea of ‘balance’ is a blaster on both hips. Your people don’t exactly help me keep an even emotional keel.”

“Hence the rock.”

“Hence the rock. In fairness, I had the rock before I knew just how annoying you would be.”

“Wow,” Zann snorted. “Thanks.”

*****

The days were long and they fell asleep every night exhausted. As the weeks wore on, Ky pulled the rock from her pocket more and more often.

When Hardeen finally left, it was with one less spare bootlace. Zann doubted he would notice.

The days were long, but now there was something to do with his hands during the restless watches of the night.

*****

“Here.” He passed her the leather cord, a careful harness on a loop.

Ky frowned as she took it.

“For your rock,” Zann added.

She smiled and reached into her pocket, then slid the rock into the little harness and tightened it. “Thank you.” She put the loop around her neck and let the rock slip inside her shirt, pressed against her chest next to the mythosaur.

Suddenly, Zann felt very self-conscious. He cleared his throat, uncrossed and recrossed his legs, and said, “I just thought—it might be easier—this way you can always feel it, you know, instead of having to dig it out of your pocket—it’s always—”

“Zann.” Ky’s voice was so soft, not like her usual commanding tone. He thought he might melt under the force of her smile, the light in her eyes. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”

He nodded awkwardly.

“And,” she went on, her smile growing, “I can feel the care you put into it. It holds your respect and friendship and gratitude. Not only is it perfect for my rock, but the necklace itself will help me find balance.”

He knew he was blushing. He cleared his throat again and said hurriedly, “Just promise you won’t tell any of my Mandalorian friends I’m helping you ‘find balance’ and ‘trust in the Force.’ They’d lose all respect for me.”

Ky laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep your secret. Not every day you meet a Mandalorian who values an even emotional keel.”

[wreywrites]

Sorrows and Squeaky Toys

Summer of Bad Batch Week 2

Prompts: Injured & Comfort Zone

Warnings: Vague references to torture, nightmares (nothing graphic) AO3

“Crosshair?” Zara asked quietly.

She got a wordless growl in response.

“Crosshair, can I see your hand?”

“Kriff you—”

“Later,” she said, without any of the usual venom, snatching his wrist anyway, and scrutinizing his hand.

He jerked away, glaring at her.

“Crosshair—”

“It’s not that hand, idiot.” He held up the other hand.

That one definitely looked shaky.

With a resigned sigh, he held it out to her.

“Look all you like, I guess. Since I can’t stop you.”

Zara took his hand, working her fingers gently over his. “Master Brallo could have had you fixed up in no time. He was an excellent Force healer—kriff, he didn’t even need the Force, he could do it the medic way too. Ky had him teach me some—enough to get by. I wasn’t ever as good as the Healers though.”

“Are you trying to be comforting?”

She let out a short huff. “Wasn’t a very good way to phrase it, was it?”

“No. We need to work on your bedside manner.” He looked like he was going to say something more, but he stopped short with a hiss. “Ouch!”

“Sorry.” She paused, holding his palm like it was made of starfeather eggshells. “What happened? You know, why—?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he growled.

“Okay, but it would be easier to help if I knew what the injury was.”

Another growl.

Zara sighed. “Crosshair…”

He glared off over her shoulder.

“Crosshair, can I please help you? I know you don’t like it, but I really think I can at least make it better if you would just step out of your comfort zone—”

His face was an inch away, eyes burning into hers, fingers closed around her wrist like a vice. “We are so far beyond my comfort zone,” he snarled.

Zara wasn’t really afraid of Crosshair—not usually—but at that moment she didn’t exactly feel safe. Shaky hand or no, if there was going to be a murder, he had the advantage and the motivation. She flinched only a little, but she knew her eyes were wide and her nostrils flaring with every breath.

Crosshair’s voice dropped to a horrifying hoarse whisper. “We have sprinted past my comfort zone. And yet we are always in yours.”

“You’re right.” The words came out higher than she would have liked, but not a squeak—not yet. She swallowed and tried again. “You’re right. I—I know what sets me off and I avoid it like a plague. And it’s not fair that I get to do that and you don’t. So…” Zara took a deep breath.

After several seconds of silence, Crosshair said, “So what?”

“So I’m meditating. I don’t think I can actually heal your hand with the Force. I was never that good and I don’t want to mess it up. But I think I can help. I just have to meditate and focus on it and—”

“And that won’t set you off?”

“No, it will, it definitely will.” She finally felt brave enough to look him in the eye again. She was surprised to see how much his gaze had softened from murderous rage to something nearing legitimate concern. “I will absolutely have nightmares tonight, so I’ll need to borrow Batcher.”

He didn’t quite smile as he shook his head. “She likes you best anyway.”

“Companion animal breeds can sense trauma and are very emotionally intelligent. So it’s not exactly a good thing that I’m her favorite. Just means I have the most baggage. Now,” Zara smiled, “can I see your hand?”

*****

AZI told him once—more than once, probably, but when the droid got to blabbering Crosshair tended to tune him out—that the tremor might be psychosomatic.

Crosshair knew it was. But knowing the problem and fixing it were two separate issues.

More annoyingly, Zara was probably right—he needed to talk about it.

But not tonight. And besides, if he told anyone, it was going to be Batcher, because she’d never share his secrets.

Either way, his hand wasn’t shaking. Whatever Zara had done—he never knew—Omega told him once he had all the Force sensitivity of a meiloorun, and Zara had heard and laughed and agreed, and that hurt a little, even though it was true—whatever she had done when she closed her eyes and wrapped his hand in hers and just sat quietly for half an hour, it had worked. He’d gone all day with no shakes. When they ran into each other in the market, Zara headed one way with Echo and Crosshair headed the other way with a pack full of the little clay boats that made such good targets, she noticed him carrying the rifle and gave him a grin and a nod, and he nodded back, and that was it.

He hadn’t missed a single shot.

Crosshair sighed and knocked.

An excited bark came from inside the house.

“Batcher, it’s okay! Hey, get—get down, silly girl! Go find Squeaky Moon-yo and we’ll play.”

Another bark and the scrabbling of hound toes on hard floors.

The door opened.

“Hey.” Zara gave him a lopsided smile. “You’re out late.”

“You’re up late.”

“Yeah, well…” She shrugged and stepped back, gesturing him in. “Not like I’ll sleep well anyway—wasn’t in a rush to get to the nightmares. Batcher and I were watching Corrie Cops.”

Batcher came skidding back through the house, her squeaky toy dangling from her jaws. She dropped it at Zara’s feet.

“Good girl!” Zara picked up the toy and tossed it out the open back door. Batcher bounded joyfully after it.

“You don’t leave the door open at night, do you?”

“No, I close it before I go to bed. But when I’m up I usually leave it open so Batcher can come in and out.”

Batcher barked and Squeaky Moon-yo squeaked.

“I swear that thing was the best twelve credits I’ve ever spent.”

Crosshair nodded. Then, without waiting for an invitation, he walked into the living area and sat on the couch facing the holo screen. It was an old episode of Corrie Cops… Commander Thorn old. “What are you, eight seasons behind?”

“I’ve seen them all—well, not the last few episodes of the new season, but I’m not sure I’ll keep watching. It’s not as good as it used to be. Makes me…” She trailed off, arms crossed, not looking at him.

He nodded again and patted the couch next to him. “Sit.”

Zara frowned. “Serious?”

“Serious.”

“You wanna talk about things being outside your comfort zone.”

“Yeah, well…” He shrugged. “Hand hasn’t been shaking all day. You deserve a good night’s sleep.”

She wrapped herself in a blanket off the armchair, then sat beside him. “I’ll still have nightmares.”

“I’ll wake you up.” Tentative, he wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

She started to lean in, then sat back up. “Oh, the door—”

Crosshair whistled. “Batcher!”

The lurca trotted back in and dropped Squeaky Moon-yo next to her bed.

“Bring it here.” Crosshair held his open palm toward her.

Batcher tilted her head, then picked Squeaky Moon-yo up again and carried it to Crosshair. He took the toy, sizing it up for a moment. With a flick of the wrist, he whipped the squeaky toy across the room where it thumped into the door switch and slid the door shut.

“Nice.” Zara leaned against him again.

Having retrieved Squeaky Moon-yo, Batcher returned to the couch, dropping heavily to the floor in front of it.

Crosshair reached down and rubbed the top of her head. “Good girl.”

Batcher sighed, then sprawled out and fell instantly asleep.

The kitchen light was still on, but there was nothing to be done for that, and Zara didn’t seem terribly concerned as she snuggled closer.

“This is the episode where they catch that guy smuggling spice by—” She stopped.

Crosshair was already reaching for the remote. He remembered this episode too. Not that he would ever admit how much he enjoyed Corrie Cops or the fact that he had seen every episode at least four times. Unfortunately, he didn’t get the holo screen shut off before they showed the Jedi Temple as the backdrop for their undercover operation.

Wordlessly, Zara waved a hand toward the kitchen. The lights flicked off. Then she sniffed. “Might as well be lazy—already going to have nightmares.”

“Zara—”

“Good night, Crosshair.”

“Thank you. For—my hand.”

“You’re welcome,” she whispered.

“Now, go to sleep.”

She nodded against his shoulder, and soon he had a snoring lurca at his feet and the slow rise and fall of Zara’s chest at his side.

*****

Squirming next to him woke him up.

Crosshair shook his head, blinking, confused for a moment about where he was—not his bunk, not his bedroom, not Kamino—

Zara squirmed again and he remembered.

“Hey.” He put a hand on her shoulder, shaking her just a little. “Zara, wake up.”

Nothing.

“Zara.”

She sat up with a strangled yelp. To her credit, she didn’t pull her lightsaber on him. She sat ramrod straight, staring through the far wall, sides heaving with shallow and much too quick breaths.

He wasn’t sure if he always rubbed circles on her back when she had nightmares, but he was now, hand still on her shoulder, thumb tracing little circles by her shoulder blade. “It’s just us,” he said quietly. “Just you and me and Batcher.”

Slowly, he felt her calm down. Her shoulders rose and fell less frantically, her breaths were less raspy and audible. Finally, she leaned back against him, staring up at the ceiling. He could see tears in her eyes and chose not to comment.

“Your nightmares—they’re about the Purge, aren’t they?”

Zara took a shaky breath and nodded. “They didn’t do anything to your hand on Tantiss, did they?”

He shook his head. “It’s psychosomatic.”

Her fingers laced between his. “Must be why you’re Batcher’s second favorite.”

*****

“Omega, you know you need to knock before you barge into people’s houses—”

“Shh!” she hissed. “I messaged Zara and she didn’t answer, which means she’s sleeping, and she told me I’m welcome to let myself in—especially if she has Batcher overnight—so I did, and—” She stopped, pushed Echo into the living area, and gestured at the couch.

Crosshair was on his back, fast asleep on the end of the couch that reclined, one arm hanging off the armrest, the other draped across Zara’s stomach and ending in their fingers tangled together. Echo couldn’t tell which one of them was snoring a little.

Echo smiled and shook his head. “Batcher,” he whispered. When she looked up at him, he jerked his head at the front door and she trotted out, tongue lolling. He followed the lurca, steering Omega in front of him by the shoulders, then closed the door behind them.

“Didn’t know they were having a sleepover.” Omega sounded impish. “She just said she was going to see if she could do something for his hand.”

Echo resisted about eighteen different jokes and simply said, “She did—yesterday morning—and then I’ll bet you a hundred credits he felt bad last night because he knew she’d have nightmares, so he came over to keep an eye on her.”

Omega looked thoughtful, then nodded. “It’s nice that they can help each other. Even if they don’t always like it.”

Echo laughed. “Yeah, the inherent bitterness of being a portable comfort zone for someone you aren’t sure if you hate or—” He caught himself and shot Omega a look out of the corner of his eye. “Hey, don’t tell anyone about this.”

The girl snorted. “I won’t. I like Zara, but I don’t want to have to cuddle her after her nightmares because Wrecker teased Crosshair into quitting.”

“The inherent bitterness strikes again!”

“Hey! Besides, if I’m bitter about anything, it’s that I can’t do what she does, and she can’t teach me because—because it hurts.”

Echo pulled in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “The thing about injuries like that—they go deep. They take a long time to heal.”

“But they do, right? She says she’s better than she was.”

“Yeah. You just have to feel safe enough to let yourself heal. And now she does. They both do.”