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ghostwriterofthemachine · 4 years

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Purest Expression of Grief {haj dai}

Order 66 happens.

Cal goes quiet, Kanan thinks too much, and Ahsoka can never go back.

(Or; three children and a dying language, after they've seen their people die.) (AO3 link!)

Cal knows the Empire can track people when they use the Force. He hears it whispered about on street corners, broadcasted over the holoscreens in bars.

He doesn’t know how they do it, though. And, more terrifyingly, doesn’t know what else they can track.

There is a screaming, hysterical place inside him, irrational but un-ignorable, which is convinced that the Empire can reach into people’s minds and tear thoughts right out of them. That, if he thinks the wrong thing too loud or too often, he will bring the Empire down onto him.

This is impossible, he tells himself. But then again, he also thought it was impossible to see his friends gun down his Master.

So Cal forces himself to only think in Basic.

It isn’t hard to talk only in Basic, though he misses the curl of his lips over his other tongue more than he thought possible. But to think only in Basic is a constant, conscious choice.

Sometimes he slips up, and he clamps down on his shields and moves away from where he was standing. His heart races in his chest.

The last words his Master said to him echo in his dreams and they are not in Basic. He doesn’t want to think about those words, either. He has other things he needs to worry about.

There are very few kind people, here. And Cal is small and alone.

(He wonders if his Master would have done the same thing he did, had he known there was no one left to rescue Cal. The last thought in his Master’s mind had been of the council sending someone to scoop Cal up, safe and sound, bundle him away someplace warm — Cal can feel that from his lightsaber. But there is no one left to rescue him, and Cal’s Master had thrown him someplace cold and rainy and unsafe. There’s no one left to take care of him, not that Cal needs much taking care of, anymore.)

(Would he have made the same decision, if he knew Cal would be alone?)

His Master’s last words haunt him, in that language-which-is-not-Basic. He doesn’t think about those, either. Doesn’t think about at all.

The alone part makes him vulnerable on this planet, but the small part makes him useful. He’s not old enough to be a full member of any guild, but there’s always plenty of pickup work for the mice, as they’re called, in a scrapyard. Narrow heads and shoulders to fit up into places no one else could fit.

It keeps him fed, and Cal keeps his head down. Days start to creep by.

Today, there's a new worker on their rotation, and his Basic is thickly accented.

And he says Cal’s name differently, rounds out the vowel — “Khal,” he calls, “Little mouse, you are small, come here, get up into tiny spaces, come on, up-up—”

And it freezes Cal where he stands because— that’s almost right. That’s almost how you’d say his name in not-Basic, in that other thing he refuses to think about.

He hears those last words from Master Tepal’s mouth — “ Padawan kat fehl, netana, paikawaji uu dai” — and for a sudden, dizzying moment, that is all he can hear.

He must freeze in place for a second too long, because someone calls to him again.

“Hey, Cal, buddy,” and Cal hates how he jumps. It’s Prauf, with the kind eyes, who seems to have decided that Cal needs looking after. “Cal, you okay there?”

Cal shakes his head to clear it. He can still hear the words whispering, but ignores them.

“Haj dai, Jaieh,” he says, going for reassuring, already moving towards where the new worker pointed him.

Prauf says, “What?” and he sounds so baffled that Cal turns back to him.

“What do you mean, what?”

“What did you just say to me?”

“I said ‘Yes, Prauf.’”

“No you didn’t. You said haz —” Prauf twists his mouth around the words, and then gives up on saying the rest. “And, yeah, you called me something, what’s Jai—”

“I didn’t say anything like that,” Cal bites. He sounds strangled, even to his own ears. “I said ‘Yes, Prauf,’ that’s what I said.”

Prauf, to his credit, raises his hands in acquiescence. “Okay, okay kid, that’s what you said.”

The new worker, who Cal doubts understood much of the conversation, chimes in with a high voice and a wave of his arms. “Yes, yes, very good, we all talk Khal out, all friends now, so if little mouse pleases, could he climb up into tiny space?”

Cal turns away from Prauf and pretends his heart isn’t trying to escape his chest as he pulls himself up into the gap between a ship’s wall and what used to be part of the thrusters. He’s got pliers clutched in between his teeth, and is biting a little more than necessary.

He’s expecting troopers to grab his legs, yank him out, put a blaster to his head. He’s imagining the words floating up and dissolving into the Force, of his Jaieh tilting a disappointed eyebrow at him.

He bites down on his language, and schools his thoughts into Basic.

Kanan is working with a decent crew, right now. He signed on for a few milk run missions as general muscle and a gun, which should give him enough credits for basics and some wiggle room. They seem like a decent lot, and Kanan doesn’t mind working with them

Except.

Well, except the Pilot’s name is Caleb . And it is messing with Kanan’s head .

“Hey, pass this to Caleb up on the bridge?” says Maleek, their mechanic and general tech guy. They’re holding a holo chip of something, probably maps.

Kanan hates how much he falters, how his first instinct is to laugh and say, “I’m right here.”

“Sure thing.” He smiles and takes the chip, then starts making his way towards the front of the ship.

Honestly, he’s got no idea how this hasn’t happened sooner. “Caleb” isn’t an uncommon name. It’s one that’s used on so many planets that it doesn’t really have a planet of origin.

But it makes his body feel as if it’s peeling in two, future and past, twisting like soft dough, to hear it spoken in his presence like that.

“Agisti, ” says the laughing Padawan he has buried deep within him, “tumi mikah Caleb!”

“Kanan!” Pilot Caleb says, grinning as he spins around in his seat. “What can I do for you, buddy?”

“Take this off my hands.” He slumps himself into Kanan, gunslinger, wanderer, shit-talker. He flips the chip to the pilot whose name he didn’t want to think of, and ducks out of the cockpit as fast as possible.

The community on this ship is incredible. Or, maybe, it is average, and Kanan has been alone for long enough that it seems incredible.

And, even more surprising, they all seem to actually like him. Maleek fixes his blaster without being asked and Pilot Caleb keeps trying to get him into games of cards, the other guns and muscle jostle him in a friendly way when they pass him in the halls, and the captain says things about needing to help Kanan upgrade his armor, as if he’s going to stick around.

Kanan bites his tongue and pretends he doesn’t want to stick around. He can’t.

He can’t trust anyone. He can’t rely on anyone, can’t get comfortable anywhere. He needs to keep moving.

Trust is easily shattered. Nothing is certain.

He remembers his Master telling him about how important that was, how important it was to remember that nothing was certain, except the Force. That even their word for ‘yes,’ so concrete and decisive in Basic, gave room for ambiguity— “Force Wills,” the Jedi said.

He can hear the giggling of younglings in the creche — “Will you clean up the paint, little one?”

“Haj dai!” Force wills.

“So why aren’t you doing that now?” “Force says no!”

Then squealing laughter, as the child is picked up and hugged and tickled. For being clever enough to make that connection, but silly enough to not help.

Nothing is concrete, nothing is certain, except the Force. And now Kanan doesn’t even have that to believe in.

“Will I ever see you again?” he shouts to the woman in her dreams, who commands him to run, who saves him and condemns him and gives him his new name.

“Force wills,” she says, and it’s a lie and isn’t. Because she doesn’t say yes.

So Kanan cut his own braid and renamed himself and soldered ( ha ) on.

He needs to walk away from these people, he realizes. He can’t stay, no matter how much he wants to. He can’t bring danger on them. He can’t let them be killed because he is found.

In a ten-days time, the Pilot Caleb and Maleek and their caption will say, “Stay, Kanan.”

And he will want to say “ Yes .” Haj dai.

Force wills.

He will run away again.

(ibli kanan )

Ahsoka has gotten here too late.

There aren’t that many Jedi left to rescue, though that’s something Ahsoka tries not to think about too much. Most of the ones who escaped the initial purge were hunted down in the very, very early days of the Empire, before there was enough structure in the Rebellion to even think about helping them. Ahsoka survived it by not being a Jedi. Well. That and Rex.

They’re always too late, with Jedi, if they even know at all. The Empire and the Inquisitors, always a step ahead. Always.

As Fulcrum, Ahsoka’s jobs keep her away from the front lines. She works in intel. She works in running messages. She works with refugees.

She’d been closest, when they heard the distress call. And, though Ahsoka would never admit it, part of her jumped and stood upright at the idea of saving a Jedi. Seeing another Jedi. Speaking to them.

But she’s gotten here too late.

The crumpled form of a Duros is all that is left of the Inquisitors. A Duros with a hole through his chest, bleeding sluggishly, twitching the last bits of life out of himself.

The Force wraps around him and weeps. Ahsoka knows that feeling. That’s what the Force always does, when a Jedi dies.

Ahsoka falls to her knees next to the form. She cannot judge the age of this being, she thinks in a panic — she’s always been awful at judging age in Duros, Barriss used to tease her about it — but she’d guess a few years older or younger than herself. Ahsoka’s hands hover uselessly. There’s no healing this wound. She knows it.

Had she ever met him? In the Temple, all those years ago? Had they passed in the halls, handed each other food, shared friends?

Helpless to do anything else, Ahsoka gets the Doros’s head onto her lap. Off the ground. Some measure of comfort.

She nearly jumps out of her skin when his eyes slit themselves open. When he stares up at her, eyes hazy, barely coherent.

She nearly passes out when a rush of warmth and relief swells through the Force between them, and the Doros smiles at her.

“Jaieh Tabris ,” he breaths out. The name is spoken as if it is comfort given form. His voice is achingly soft. “Jesara, Jaiah. Henelru...foh keelak.”

Ahsoka goes cold, because she recognizes the name. It conjures an image so old she thought she’d forgotten it. A Togrutan Master, maybe 10 years older than Obi-Wan. A soft-spoken and gentle woman, who liked to help teach children how to read. A woman who now shared Ahsoka’s coloring and build almost exactly, from montreals to face markings.

She knows the tone of voice the Doros just spoke to her in. She used to use it every day. (Wishes, often, that she still could.)

She’s holding Master Tabris’s Padawan. He’s dying in her arms.

The relief in the Force twists a bit, and he repeats, “Jaieh?” with a little more uncertainty. The fear creeping back in. Of letting down your Master, letting down your people. Of dying alone.

What else is Ahsoka supposed to do?

(Because if it were her— if it were her and Anakin, she’d want— even if it were pretend, she’d want—)

“Haj dai, Padawan ,” she says. She keeps her voice soft and even. “ Tamah foh bika. ” The words fall off her tongue as if she never stopped speaking this.

His eyes focus a bit more on her face. He tries to smile. “Jaieh,” he says, actually to her this time. And Ahsoka—

Ahsoka—

Ahsoka remembers a time in her life when all she wanted was to hear someone call her that. Being 15 and imagining a future where she was doing the training, instead of being trained. Her head on Anakin’s knee and a campfire warm on her face, imagining a future in peacetime, Anakin cutting her silka beads off and her rising to her feet a Knight, embracing him while Obi-Wan embraced them both. She remembers the future she used to imagine for herself; solo missions, growing and improving, always returning home. Finally being taller than Anakin. Obi-Wan going easily, gracefully gray.

She remembers imagining bringing her own Padawan to their lineage dinners, Anakin teasing them both, Obi-Wan resting and smiling. Imagining being in a position, one day, when a little Light would be hers to teach, and look up at her and call her “Jaieh.”

But Ahsoka never got to grow into that title. She never even got to be a Knight. She left her home a Padawan, and never got to return enough to become anything more.

And now she never would.

But Ahsoka cups the face of the person on her lap, whose name she would never know, and lets them both pretend.

“ Rakaah foh wungak,” chokes the man on her lap. “Jaieh, sooah foh enoctak.”

“Leoah foh, Padawan. Leoah foh. Tamah foh bika, tamah foh bika.”

His hand, nearly vibrating in effort, moves up to grasp hers. Ahsoka covers it with her other hand. She can feel the pain coming off him in waves, but she can also feel the peace. The knowledge that he is safe, now.

And in some ways, Ahsoka thinks bitterly, she supposes he is. Even if he isn’t in the arms of his Jaieh . Perhaps he soon will be.

The fingers in hers tighten. The Padawan’s eyes close.

“Komlah foh keelak, Jaieh. Komlah foh…”

And he stops moving.

And Ahsoka doesn’t move for a long time.

TRANSLATION NOTES:

Padawan kat fehl, netana, paikawaji uu dai: My Padawan, remember, trust only in the Force. -"Kawaji" is "trust," in the future tense, and "pai" is our consequential prefix, which means that the action will have lasting consequences. This takes the place of the "only" for denouncing how important this piece of information is. -"Dai," the word for the Force, never has an article before it.

Haj dai, Jaieh: Yes, Master. -Haj dai literally translates to "Force Wills"

Agisti, tumi mikah Caleb!: Hello, I am called Caleb! -"Agisti" is a greeting you would give someone who has the same rank in the Order as you, who you are equals with-- Padawan to Padawan, for instance.

ibli kanan: Little runner

Jesara, Jaiah. Henelru...foh keelak: Hello, Master. I...missed you. -"Jersara" is a respectful greeting; Padawan to Master, Master to Council member, ect.

Tamah foh bika: I am here

Rakaah foh wungak. Jaieh, sooah foh enoctak: I feel pain. Master, I feel pain. -There are different words for feeling physically and feeling mentally, as well as different words for mental and physical pain. The first sentence is declaring he is physically feeling (raka, here in present tense) physical pain (wung, here in accusative case), and the second that he is mentally feeling (soo, here in present tense) mental pain (enoct, here in accusative case).

Leoah foh, Padawan. Leoah foh. Tamah foh bika, tamah foh bika: I know. I know, Padawan. I am here, I am here.

Komlah foh keelak, Jaieh. Komlah foh...: I love you, Master. I love... -"Koml" (komlah here, in present tense) refers specifically to familial/platonic love

#star wars #my fic #sw #conlang stuff #dai bendu #did you know that there are people who remember to put fic on tumblr right away?

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quipxotic · 4 years

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““I’m no saboteur,” Kanan said, still holding his weapon. “Heard a scream, sounded like trouble. What’s this about?”

“I am Count Vidian, here for the Emperor, and I am doing his work.” Vidian, seeming totally unconcerned by Kanan’s blaster, started to lift the writhing old man by the neck.

Kanan fingered the trigger of his weapon. He had no desire whatsoever to tangle with the Empire, much less the top Imperial in the area. He was thankful when another way occurred to him. “There’s something you should know.” He lowered his blaster as he trod cautiously onto the work floor. “You’re about to mangle the man who knows how to mine Thorilide better than anyone.”

Vidian paused. “Doubtful. He can’t have the strength to dig or haul much.”

“He teaches those who do. Moonglow’s the most effective producer for its size.”

Vidian shook Okadiah for a moment before abruptly dropping him to the cavern floor. “At last, someone who understands what’s important. You’re fortunate I’ve already beaten someone else to death today, gunslinger. I have a schedule to keep.” With that, the cyborg abruptly turned and exited with his guards.

Kanan holstered his blaster and turned back to check on Okadiah. Being tended to by his fellow miners, the old man rubbed his neck and looked at Kanan. “You always have to poke the Gundark.”

“Just following your lead,” Kanan said.

Yelkin, the miner he’d tangled with that morning, rolled his eyes at Kanan. “I don’t know why you didn’t shoot that creep. Someone said he killed the guild master.”

“I pick who I party with,” Kanan said. He walked back to the hovercart and activated it. “I don’t mess with the Empire and it doesn’t mess with me.””

- From A New Dawn: Star Wars by John Jackson Miller

#A New Dawn #books #quotes #Taken from the audiobook version so all punctuation/spelling/etc. weirdness is my fault #Star Wars Rebels #okadiah garson #kanan jarrus #denetrius vidian

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dukeaubergine · 3 years

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I posted 120 times in 2021

36 posts created (30%)

84 posts reblogged (70%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 2.3 posts.

I added 167 tags in 2021

#rebels series - 44 posts

#aubergine fic - 19 posts

#star wars series - 17 posts

#random - 15 posts

#aubergine posts - 15 posts

#ezra bridger - 13 posts

#kanezra - 13 posts

#gif - 12 posts

#star wars rebels - 10 posts

#kanan jarrus - 9 posts

Longest Tag: 108 characters

#i asked myself 'what if i wrote femslash today' and then maul was grabbing ezra by the hair and making rules

My Top Posts in 2021

See the full post

10 notes • Posted 2021-11-26 21:20:27 GMT

My brain took a running leap and elbow-dropped onto my gut earlier today with transgender man Kanan Jarrus. Caleb Dume on puberty blockers during the Clone Wars (one of the reasons he’s so tall now), either having them on him when he had to flee or trying to find under the table clinics on Kaller. Complicated feelings about his hair growing out on the run because the only style he knows for long hair was Depa’s. Janus Kasmir tells him to just slick it back in a nerftail and he never changes that style ever again.

Gunslinger Kanan getting his hands on T all over the galaxy, and sometimes that just means paying a doctor, and sometimes it means dealing with other smugglers, and at least once the damn dealer lies about the kind of near-human species its for and Hera’s ready to rip the sleemo to shreds when Kanan gets sick. The rebellion provides his first reliable access to gender affirming medical care since the Jedi Order fell, and wow does he have some complicated feelings about that.

I think this’d dovetail nicely into a verse with genderfluid, transfem Ezra Bridger; more inter-generational trans friendships and mentorships, please.

11 notes • Posted 2021-12-06 04:50:29 GMT

Next chapter of at the water’s edge in my dream is up, and I now have a succinct way to describe Maul’s feelings.

Image: Red-eyed edit of Ezra being held by Maul with bright red text reading “I’ve only had Ezra for a day and a half, but if anything happened to her I would kill everyone in this room and then in the galaxy.”

12 notes • Posted 2021-12-12 21:22:20 GMT

So this idea lends itself more to image-sets than fic, but need to share idea: Maul/Ezra Labyrinth AU.

Just. Please. Maul’s voice for “I ask for so little. Just fear me, love me, do as I say and I will be your slave.”

And our darling Ezra ‘the Force isn’t a weapon’ Bridger getting the “You have no power over me,” line.

13 notes • Posted 2021-11-14 16:08:54 GMT

AU: Order 66 Didn't Happen

Jedi Council critical / bashing

referenced Ghost Prison | The Prism

Prisoner abuse captors claim is necessary / refuse to admit is abuse.

Pre-Relationship / Pre-Slash / Pre-Kanezra

If Caleb Dume tells you he has impulse control you should laugh at him.

Ezra ‘if you stick your fingers in my enclosure i have the right to bite you AND I WILL’ Bridger

The Clone Wars didn’t end until Caleb Dume was knighted at nineteen. Four years later the Jedi who’s spent his whole life questioning the why’s and how’s of every edict is forced to question an edict itself— and in doing so decide the trajectory of the rest of his life.

Ezra would just like to not be locked up in an ancient Jedi prison meant to contain Sith Lords, thanks.

17 notes • Posted 2021-11-11 20:22:57 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#gif #aubergine posts

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bedlamsbard · 7 years

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Here is the switching places AU concept! This is pretty niche even for me, given that it’s a riff on last year’s runaway AU (Imperial cadet Hera, teenage gunslinger Kanan), which is itself a Devil’s Backbone AU (which is also an AU. This is too many AUs). The timing on this is roughly equivalent with Rebels S1.

Like the captured AU concept a few weeks ago, this is a longer concept sequence, which is kind of interesting to me on a technical level -- I’m not sure why I’m doing longer sequences rather than single scenes. Maybe I’m just trying to circle back around to doing plot, who knows. Please remember that this is concept writing and not a polished, titled fic.

About 8.6K below the break.

If they survived this, Hera thought, then Doriah was definitely going to kill her.

Her cousin was sitting in the opposite corner of the cell, his knees drawn up to his chest and his lekku drooping over his shoulders, his head bowed. Hera had tried to talk to him earlier and he had snapped at her; since then he hadn’t said anything at all. Hera couldn’t blame him for that, even if she didn’t think that his reaction was particularly productive.

Of course, locked in a cell like this one, there wasn’t much anyone could do that was even remotely productive. Ten years ago Hera had spent months in a cell not much different from this one; she knew there was no way out short of walking through the door. That hadn’t stopped the two other uninjured members of her team from examining the door anyway, along with the narrow vent – too narrow for anything larger than a tooka to fit through. While they had been doing that, Hera had stripped her jacket off to bandage Niale’s blaster wound, the other woman biting the inside of her mouth against crying out.

That had been a few hours ago now. Niale was curled up against Edelah’s side, draped in the other Twi’lek’s jacket, while Numa was still pacing restlessly back and forth. Hera just sat cross-legged on one end of the cell’s built-in bench, her head tipped back against the wall.

They all looked up as the cell door slid open, even Niale. Two stormtroopers descended the steps, their blasters raised; Hera could see the cell guards waiting outside. They’d be able to shut the door before Hera and the others could rush them.

“Which one of you is Hera Syndulla?”

Hera stood up. “I’m Hera Syndulla.”

“You’re coming with us. An officer wants to see you.”

Hera hesitated for a moment, but she knew that if she refused they would drag her out. She took a step towards the door just as Doriah shot to his feet and snapped, “She’s not going anywhere alone with you.”

“Doriah,” Hera hissed, at the same time that the stormtrooper who had spoken earlier said, “Oh, it’s not that kind of party.”

That got Edelah and Numa on their feet too – Niale tried but swayed dangerously and sat back down. Furiously, Numa said, “You don’t take her –”

“It’s fine,” Hera snapped, even though it was, to say the least, nothing of the sort. She had been an Imperial officer; she was under no illusions about what this was. “It’s fine,” she said again, and this time she couldn’t quite control the tremor in her voice. “Stay here.”

“Hera –” Doriah took a step forward, and one of the stormtroopers swung his blaster around to cover him. Doriah came up short, but there was fury on his face.

“I’ll be fine,” Hera said again, softly. She met his eyes, recognizing the bleak knowledge there, and gave him a short nod.

“Come on,” the stormtrooper said again, his voice rough. Hera set her jaw and climbed the steps into the corridor, where one of the guards pulled her arms behind her back and snapped a pair of binders on. She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see Doriah staring at her before the door slammed shut.

The two stormtroopers who had entered the cell led her down the corridor, leaving the guards behind. Most Imperial complexes were built along the same plans, so Hera realized after a few minutes that they were taking her towards the living quarters, not the interrogation rooms, as she had still been hoping.

“Who is he?” she asked. “The officer who wants to see me?”

The two stormtroopers glanced at each other. “Someone you don’t want to say no to,” said the one who had spoken earlier. “I’d be real nice to him if I were you.”

“Is he ISB?”

The other stormtrooper snorted, which was an odd sound through a helmet vocoder. “Not even close, sweetheart.”

So not Agent Beneke, then. Hera wasn’t certain whether to be grateful or disappointed. At least she knew that Agent Beneke wouldn’t try to rape her.

Try being the operative word. Hera was certain that she could take any Imperial officer in a hand to hand fight, and if she could get his code cylinder, then she might be able to make her way back to the holding cells and break her team out. The opportunity to beat someone up felt more appealing than having a conversation with Agent Beneke.

Not ISB meant that it also couldn’t be one of her classmates from the Academy back on Naboo, though it didn’t rule out someone from the Imperial Academy on Serenno. Hera couldn’t think of a single one of them who might want to see her again, though.

The stormtroopers showed her down a corridor into what Hera recognized as the visiting officers’ quarters, a realization that made her lekku twitch. They stopped outside a door at the far end, one of them touching the control pad while the other looked away. Distantly, Hera heard the door chime somewhere inside. A few moments later, the door slid open.

One of the stormtroopers shoved Hera inside with a hand between her shoulder blades. She stumbled into darkness as the door slid shut behind her, making her stand absolutely still, every muscle in her body tense and waiting for attack.

There was someone else in the room. She could hear them breathing.

“Who’s there?” she asked, trying to keep her voice calm.

“Hera?”

The voice was male, probably human, and – familiar, though Hera couldn’t put her finger on when she had heard it before. Whoever it was sounded a little hesitant.

“I’m Hera Syndulla,” she said, backing up until she hit the door. She groped behind her with her cuffed hands, knowing where the light controls would be but unable to get her fingers on them. “Who are you? Why do you want to talk to me?” She took a deep breath, then added, “Could you turn the lights on, please?”

There was a pause, then the lights flickered on. Hera blinked at the sudden adjustment, then again as the cuffs on her wrists dropped away. She rubbed at them, her gaze moving around the room – suite, really, this must have been a higher-ranking officer than she had thought.

He was there too, a tall human male on the opposite side of the room. Hera didn’t recognize his black uniform, not until she caught the glint of blackened metal on his hip and realized –

“You’re an Inquisitor.”

“Yeah.” He inclined his head a little. He was wearing something on his face, a matte black half-mask that covered the upper half of his face, including his eyes. His voice low and a little hesitant, he said, “Do you – do you know who I am?”

Hera shook her head. “Should I?”

He hesitated, then reached up to remove the mask, revealing scar tissue that slashed across white eyes.

They hadn’t been white the last time Hera had seen them.

“Kanan,” she whispered. The boy she had snuck out of the Imperial Complex to spend her nights with, the boy she had meant to run away with, the boy she had last seen bleeding to death in the street as her father dragged her away from the stormtroopers and the –

The Inquisitor. The one who had come for Kanan. Come for him, and gotten him, apparently. She had thought –

“You’re alive,” she breathed. “I thought you were dead.”

“Not quite.” He took a hesitant step towards her, mask still held in one hand. “Only a little.”

Hera took a step back from him, bumping against the door, and he stopped. “You’re an Inquisitor,” Hera said again. “They – he – the other Inquisitor, the Pau’an, he hurt you. He tried to kill you. Why would you join them?”

He glanced aside. “They were going to kill me,” he said. “And I didn’t – I didn’t know if they still had you, not then.”

“They didn’t,” Hera said. “My father got me out.” She saw his shoulders relax as he let his breath out and added, “Which isn’t much help now. Did you – did you come here for me?”

Kanan shook his head. “Something else. I heard – I heard them say your name after the regs brought your team in, and I had to know.” He looked as though he was going to say something else, then stopped, biting his lip.

“I thought you were dead,” Hera said again. “Or I would have gone back for you, I would have –”

“You wouldn’t have found me,” he said, his voice soft. “I was at the Crucible, at the Inquisition headquarters. Or on Coruscant.”

“I would have found you,” Hera said. “Did – did they do that to you?”

He touched one finger to the corner of his ruined right eye, then said, “No. It happened in the field. I was lucky; the other Inquisitors I was with were all killed.” He paused, then added, “I had to fly back on my own.”

Blind, Hera thought, and probably in a lot of pain. She hadn’t thought it was possible, but Kanan wasn’t – she didn’t know what the Force was capable of letting an Inquisitor do.

“Are you happy?” he asked her, sounding a little shy. “Being back with your family?”

Hera nodded, realized he couldn’t see it, and then said, “Yes. I’m happy, mostly. But – only two of my cousins ever came back. And my mother. It’s not like it was back on Ryloth, but I’m not the same person I was then, either. None of us are.” She flattened her palms against the door behind her and looked at him, really looked, before making herself ask, “Do you like it? Being an Inquisitor?”

His answer was reassuringly swift. “No.”

Hera hesitated, then said, “Will you help me? You know what the Empire will do to me, and my cousin, and my team.”

“I know the ISB is already on its way here.”

That meant Agent Beneke. “Kanan, will you help me?” Hera asked again.

He nodded. “Yeah. At the next shift change, in a few hours – it’ll be night then. We impounded your ship –”

“If you can get me to it, I can fly us out,” Hera said.

For an instant the corner of his mouth curled in something that might have been a smile, crooked and a little shy, as if he hadn’t smiled in a long time. Probably he hadn’t. “I can get you to it.”

“You could come.”

Kanan shook his head. “I shouldn’t really – I shouldn’t really be around people anymore.”

Hera pushed herself off the door and crossed the space between them, watching him track her movement with a slightly cocked head, presumably listening to her footsteps. Or something else, something of the Force. “So you would rather stay here?” she asked him. “Be the Emperor’s dog? Do his bidding? Hurt people – kill people – for him?”

“You don’t know what the Crucible is like,” Kanan said softly.

“I know what the Empire is like.” Hera laid her hand on his arm, watching him. Behind his beard and despite his blind eyes his handsome face was familiar, much-loved even after all this time. And Hera had loved him six years ago, had loved him desperately and hopelessly and in the end it hadn’t meant anything except leaving him behind. But she had a chance to change that now. “I used to think like that too. I didn’t think I could go home, not ever. When I was at the Academy –”

“The Crucible isn’t like the Academy, Hera,” Kanan said, his voice still very soft. “I’m glad you’re happy with your family. And I’ll help you now. But I can’t leave.”

“Why not?” Hera challenged. “Does it mean that much to you? Being – this?”

“No. It doesn’t mean anything to me. But I can’t – I can’t.” He turned his head away from her, his jaw working silently.

“What did they do to you?” Hera asked, swallowing.

For a long moment she didn’t think he would answer, then he said, “Everything you can think of and then some.”

He was shaking beneath Hera’s hand. She didn’t hesitate, just pulled him down into an embrace. He went stiff at first, then relaxed, putting his arms around her in turn.

Hera wasn’t certain which of them moved first, just that all of a sudden they were kissing, hungry and desperate in a way that Hera hadn’t thought she was capable of anymore. They stumbled backwards until Kanan’s shoulders hit a wall, then Hera drew back, gasping, and looked up at him.

Inquisitor or not, she still wanted him.

He was breathing hard. “I –” he said. “I should – we shouldn’t. I’ll have the stormtroopers take you back to your cell and –”

“No,” Hera said. “Not yet.”

He turned his head down towards her, a frown wrinkling his brows. Hera reached up and drew him down to her, curving her fingers around his jaw as she kissed him. “I missed you,” she said against his mouth. “Those stormtroopers think that you brought me here to have sex with me. We might as well prove them right.”

Kanan jerked back, startled. “What?”

Hera grinned despite herself, a little bemused at his innocence. “There aren’t many other reasons an Imperial officer will have a prisoner – especially a Twi’lek female – brought to his bedroom.”

Through his teeth, he said, “I haven’t exactly done this before. I – you didn’t think –”

“I was going to kill whoever it was and take his code cylinder, not sleep with them,” Hera said. She patted his cheek. “If you don’t want to – if you don’t want to run the risk of helping me, I can knock you out and take your code cylinder.”

“Believe me, another head injury is not what I need right now.” He touched the curve of her hip, then drew his hand back.

“Another? How many times have you been hit in the head?”

“Uh, a lot.” He flushed, then went on, “Hera, I’ll help you anyway. The regs here can’t discipline me and the Inquisition won’t care because you aren’t a Force-user. You don’t – you don’t need to sleep with me.”

“I know,” Hera said. “I want to.” As he frowned, she went on, “I haven’t seen you in six years. I thought you were dead. And I do love you.”

This time the tips of his ears went scarlet. Hera leaned up and kissed him again, opening her mouth to his as his hands settled more firmly on her waist. “I’m not the same person anymore,” he said when they broke apart a few moments later, breathing hard.

“That’s all right,” Hera said. “Neither am I.” She kissed him quickly on the mouth, a light brush of her lips across his, then drew him over to the bed.

Hera didn’t think that she had changed more than was normal between eighteen and twenty-four, but Kanan was all lean muscle and scar tissue, not so much as an extra ounce on him.

He had a lot of scars.

Everything you can think of and then some, he had said; Hera knew the marks of torture when she saw them. Most of his scars had clearly come from injuries sustained in the field – or maybe in training; the Empire never pulled its punches – but there were some whose origin was unmistakable. Scars – and the tattoos on the back of his neck, the Imperial seal and an alphanumeric code beneath it which had to be his operating number. Hera was aware of a cold anger that left her breathless even in the aftermath of their love-making, curled against Kanan’s side as he stroked her hip.

She didn’t care what he said. She wasn’t going to leave him here, even if she had to stun him and drag him onto a ship.

“If you hate it so much, why didn’t you ever desert?” Hera asked him quietly. “If they trust you to go on operations alone –”

“I ran away once,” Kanan said quietly. “Five years ago. I didn’t get very far, and I didn’t – I didn’t try it again. I wouldn’t.”

Despite the softness of his words, beneath her cheek Hera could hear his heart hammering, and she guessed that at least a few of his scars must have comes as punishment for that act of defiance.

“What’s the point of having an officer who hates what he’s doing?” Hera had to ask him. “I know – I know now, at least – that when I was at the Academy it was because they wanted leverage over my father, if it ever came to that, but you –”

“It’s different for us.” He touched the curve of her hip again, as though to reassure himself. “You know – what I am.”

“Jedi.”

“Yes. We are –” He bit his lip. “We are the Force made flesh. There’s power in that, in…in corrupting that. In…not corrupting that, even. My master…” He let the words trail off, turning his head aside, then swallowed and went on. “And there were miscalculations made fifteen years ago during the Purge. A gamble the Emperor made. There are – there are things in the Temple that can only be accessed by a Jedi. Nothing of the dark side, no matter how powerful, can touch them. He thought that the Jedi he corrupted would still be able to, but they couldn’t.”

“And then he got you.”

“And then he got me.” He was quiet for a moment. “I didn’t understand at first what they were making me do, or why. And then it was too late, I couldn’t…I couldn’t refuse. I should have, but I was afraid.”

“They hurt you,” Hera said simply.

“They killed everyone I ever knew,” Kanan said. “Pain isn’t much of an excuse.”

“Not everyone,” Hera said. She leaned up to kiss him again, cupping the curve of his cheek in her palm. “You don’t have to stay, love. The Empire hasn’t found the fleet yet. There’s no reason to think they’ll start now.”

“The Empire has always known exactly where the fleet is; they just haven’t had a reason to go after it,” Kanan said.

Hera jerked upright, staring at him. “What?”

He hesitated. “You didn’t know that.”

“No! There’s a spy in the fleet? Or –”

“I think there are a few,” he said. “But it isn’t – it’s not something I deal with. That’s ISB business, not Inquisition.”

Hera put her hands to her face. “We had no idea…I have to tell my father.”

Kanan pushed himself up on one elbow. “You’ll get to,” he said, then hesitated again before saying, “I’m sorry I don’t know who it is.”

“It isn’t your fault,” Hera said wearily. “There’s no reason for you to, not if you don’t deal with the fleet.”

Cautiously, he went on, “But it isn’t safe for me to go there, even if I could. My master would tear the galaxy apart looking for me; I won’t bring him down on you or your family.”

Hera looked back at him. “Your master – Darth Vader?”

He shook his head. “I don’t think Lord Vader cares if I live or die. He’s…you’ve seen him. On Naboo.”

“The Pau’an who took you.”

“The Hunter.” He sat up too, folding his legs in front of him. “He trained me. I’m still his –” He bit his lip. “He would come after me, and you don’t want that.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” Hera said.

“I am.” The words were more tired than anything else, six years of weariness in those two syllables.

“So let us deal with it together,” Hera said. She leaned forward, laying her hand alongside Kanan’s face. “Don’t let him hurt you any longer. Come with me, Kanan. Let me take you out of here.”

“I’m not a prisoner.”

“It doesn’t sound like it.” She kissed him on the mouth, soft. “Please let me help you, love.”

“No one can help me.” But he kissed her back. That went on for a while, until Kanan put his arms around her and pulled her down to the bed again.

Eventually they had to get up, reminding Hera painfully of all the too-early mornings on Naboo when she had dragged herself out of his bed to sneak back into the Imperial Complex before reveille. It seemed like a lifetime ago. It had been a lifetime ago.

Except now he was the one in an Imperial uniform, and she was the civilian.

She left the collar on her shirt open a little further than she normally would have, along with a few other sloppy touches to her clothes, knowing how the stormtroopers outside would take it. Kanan must have sensed it somehow, because he turned his head towards her, his eyebrows climbing.

“I want them to know we had sex,” Hera said. “It will make them sloppier. They’ll think less of me.”

Kanan’s mouth twisted. “More fool them,” he said. He was dressed already, except for his lightsaber and his mask. As he clipped the former to his belt, Hera found his mask on the floor where he had dropped it and brought it to him. Their fingers brushed as he took it from her.

“What happened?” she asked.

His mouth tightened. “Jedi and Inquisitors aren’t the only people out there who carry lightsabers,” he said. He dipped his head and kissed her, then slid his mask on. “The duty shift changes in an hour. I’ll come for you and your team then.”

And I’m not going to let you stay here, Hera thought, but didn’t say it. She just retrieved the binders she had been wearing earlier from where they had fallen and fit one cuff over her left wrist, grimacing. “Help me with this?”

Kanan came over to do so, his gloved fingers light against her skin. “I’m sorry about this,” he said softly.

No one’s holding a blaster to your head making you do it, Hera almost said, but held her tongue. From what he had told her that might not be so far wrong. “I know,” she said. “Come with me and I’ll forgive you for it.”

He smiled, but shook his head. Hera leaned up to kiss him again, lingering on it, then turned towards the door. Kanan put a hand on her shoulder, holding her in place as he hit the control for the door.

It slid open, revealing the two stormtroopers standing outside. They turned to face them; Hera watched their minute helmet movements as they took in her state of disarray and didn’t bother to resist her urge to glare at them, heat rising to her cheekbones. She had been in the Imperial service. She knew exactly what they were thinking now, what human men – most human men – always thought about Twi’lek females. The fact that in this case it was true didn’t make it any better.

“Take her back to her cell,” Kanan said. His voice had changed, his accent switching from his usual Outer Rim drawl to what sounded like an unaffected upper class Coruscant accent – maybe his real accent, Hera realized; you could usually tell when people were faking. The featureless black gaze of his mask tracked across the stormtroopers and they drew back as one, which might have been satisfying if Hera hadn’t felt a little bit of a chill herself. “I’ll know if you make any stops along the way.”

“Yes, sir,” one of the stormtroopers said, sounding uneasy. He reached out to take Hera by the arm, though he didn’t try to tug her away from Kanan’s grip.

“Captain Syndulla,” Kanan said, with light, dry amusement; Hera looked back at him, every muscle in her body tensing even though she knew, she knew, exactly who and what he was. Not this. “We’ll see each other again soon.”

“Yes,” Hera said. “I’m sure we will.”

Kanan released her, making the gesture look dismissive, and stepped back into his quarters. The door slid shut behind him even as the stormtrooper tugged Hera forward, casting a glance over his shoulder as though he wanted to get as far away as possible from Kanan as quickly as he could.

The other stormtrooper, the younger one, said, “Have a good time?” in a way that Hera thought meant to be mocking but ended up just sounding afraid.

“Better than you will if you try anything,” Hera told him viciously. She was fairly certain that they wouldn’t; another officer’s victim might have been sloppy seconds for them, but she didn’t think they’d lay hands on an Inquisitor’s. She thought. She hoped. The cuffs she was wearing were locked, but they were loose enough that she would be able to just slip her hands free without too much difficulty.

The two stormtroopers looked at each other, then apparently as one decided not to push the matter any further. They were both silent as they walked her back through the corridors of the Imperial Complex, nearly deserted at this hour except for a handful of droids and a guard patrol. When they reached her cell, one of them covered her with his blaster while the other uncuffed her hands, then they shoved her through the door even before it was open all the way. Hera stumbled on the steps and almost fell; Doriah, who had already been on his feet, caught her.

He said, “Hera, are you all right? What happened?”

“I’m fine –”

His gaze was traveling across her, taking in her open collar and the hickey it revealed, her slightly crooked headwrap, her half-laced left boot. His face went a mottled dark emerald and he said viciously, “I’ll kill him.”

Hera caught his face between her hands and said, “Doriah, listen to me. It isn’t what you think.”

“It isn’t what I – Hera, I can smell him on you!” His lekku twitched in agitation. Edelah and Numa hovered close by, both of their faces masks of concern; even Niale got to her feet, wincing.

“I am fine,” Hera said, enunciating the words clearly as she forced him to look at her. “It isn’t what you think. I know him. He’s going to help us.”

Doriah shook his head, furious. “Hera, you –”

“Doriah, I’ll explain later, once we’re out of here,” Hera promised. “And we are getting out of here, I promise you that. It wasn’t rape.”

“You can call it whatever you want. You can’t trust any of them.” He pulled free of her grip, his expression still horrified. “Did he hurt you?”

“No one hurt me,” Hera told him firmly. She reached up to fix her collar and straighten her headwrap, aware of Doriah’s gaze tracking each movement. “I promise I’ll explain later.” She hesitated, then added, “I’m sorry you were worried.”

“You’re not the only one here who knows the Empire, Hera.” After a moment, he stepped forward again.

Hera stepped into his arms and laid her cheek against his shoulder, suddenly unspeakably weary. She had no doubt whatsoever that Kanan would do as he had promised, but what had seemed concrete in his quarters – sweat-slick in his arms, in his bed – now seemed merely abstract against the hard reality of the prison cell. She suddenly felt tawdry and exhausted, aware of the ache in her thighs and the throbbing twinge of a bite on her breast. She loved Kanan. It hadn’t been rape, she was certain of that, and she was also certain that he would come for them, but in the face of Doriah’s horror it all felt – just a little – unreal.

“I’m fine,” she said again. “It will be all right, Doriah. We won’t be here much longer.”

She’s alive. Hera’s alive.

Kanan made his steps light by habit, his passage through the Imperial Complex nearly silent despite his height and bulk. It was well into the planet’s night cycle and the place was nearly deserted; the few beings he had passed had all turned hastily away from him, radiating fear and unease at his presence. It wasn’t an unusual sensation anymore, not after six years; very few beings in the Imperial service didn’t fear the Inquisition.

He descended the complex’s levels from the living quarters to the administration levels, then to the cells. Those were the same in every Imperial complex; Kanan had spent a lot of time in them in one capacity or another.

He was aware of each glowing spark of life within the complex, the vast bulk of them deep in dreaming, though there were administrators up working late, the diminished stormtrooper patrols of the late night, a few mechanics in the hangars who preferred the night time quiet. The guards outside the Twi’leks’ cell were half-asleep already, though they snapped to attention as Kanan came around the corner.

“Inquisitor –”

“Shouldn’t you be guarding the prisoners’ cell?” Kanan said, the words heavy with the Force as he lifted one hand slightly. “It’s on the next level.”

The two stormtroopers turned their attention to each other, confused but convinced. “It’s on the next level,” one of them said.

“You’d better get going.”

“We’d better get going.” They turned and hurried off towards the nearest turbolift, their boots clicking on the floor.

Kanan laid his hand over the keypad for the door, not bothering with his code cylinder; he didn’t want to leave a trail anyone could trace. The door slid open, and his awareness snapped outwards to include the four Twi’leks in the cell, two males and two females.

“Where’s Hera?” he asked.

One of the men stepped forward. “That ISB agent took her,” he said.

“Took her where?”

“I don’t know!”

Kanan swore silently. “I’ll find her,” he said, then – “She told you I was coming?”

“She didn’t say you were an Inquisitor,” the Twi’lek man said warily. From his tone, he hadn’t believed that anyone was coming, Inquisitor or otherwise.

Kanan felt, rather than heard, the rest of his unvoiced thoughts, not quite organized into words but something along the lines of so this is the bastard Hera fucked to get us out of here? His mouth twisted and he said, “Yes, that’s me. Come on, I’ll get you to your ship, and then I’ll find Hera.”

“Hera first,” said the Twi’lek man stubbornly. “I don’t trust you.”

“Smart of you,” Kanan said blandly. “Can your friend walk?”

“I’d run if it got me out of here,” said the injured Twi’lek female. She leaned heavily on her friends as the other woman and man got her up. Kanan cautiously extended a finger of the Force towards her, giving her a slight enough boost of strength that she would probably credit it to adrenaline, and felt her straighten a little.

“Numa, Edelah, and Niale can secure our ride,” said the Twi’lek man who seemed to be in charge. “You and I will go after Hera, Imperial.”

“It will be easier for me to do that on my own,” Kanan said.

“That’s not an option.”

Kanan shrugged. “Your funeral.”

Or his, possibly, if the Hunter found out about this, but Kanan didn’t intend to let that happen. He also couldn’t see that the Hunter would care particularly; after six years the Hunter was more than certain of his loyalties.

He pulled a spare comlink off his belt and transferred the complex’s plans to it, then passed it to the uninjured Twi’lek woman. “Your ship’s been impounded in this hangar,” he said. “Here are the codes for the doors.”

She took it warily and inspected the hologram, then asked practically, “Surveillance?”

“There aren’t any sentients watching internal security right now, and the droid programs will only catch life signs. Security’s old and out of date; the sensors don’t register the difference between Twi’leks and humans. Don’t do anything suspicious and you should be fine as long as you avoid patrols.”

“You’ve thought about this,” said the Twi’lek man.

“I had some time after Hera left,” Kanan said dryly, and realized after he felt the Twi’lek’s deep flash of anger that that might not have been the best thing to say. He had some kind of relationship to Hera; Kanan had no idea who he was or what that relationship was, though he remembered Hera had said – “You’re her cousin?”

“I’m Doriah Syndulla. That’s Numa, Edelah, and Niale.” He didn’t ask Kanan’s name, which was fine as far as Kanan was concerned. To the woman, he said, “Will you be all right?”

“We’ll be fine. These places are always pretty straightforward.” She nodded firmly to Doriah and added, “Go get Hera. We’ll wait for you.”

“Don’t wait too long. If it looks bad, bug out; Hera and I can find our own way out.”

Numa sounded unhappy, but said, “Understood.” She and Edelah helped the wounded Niale up the stairs; Kanan could sense that the woman was moving a little more easily now, the Force numbing her injuries slightly.

It left him alone in the cell with Doriah Syndulla. His voice low, Doriah said, “The only reason you’re still breathing right now, Imperial, is because Hera swore up and down it wasn’t rape.”

Suddenly tired, Kanan said, “It wasn’t. What ISB agent took her?” At this time of night? he wondered, but if it was someone who had just arrived from offworld they might not have cared what the local time was.

“I don’t know them all personally.”

Hopefully it was someone that Kanan could intimidate into handing Hera over, though that was harder to pull with the ISB than it was with the Stormtrooper Corps or the Navy. He shut his eyes briefly behind his mask, unnecessary though it was, and reached out into the Force, searching for the familiar spark of Hera’s presence.

He opened his eyes again to blackness. “She’s this way,” he said to Doriah. “Come on, if you’re coming.”

She was up in the administration levels, probably in someone’s office – there were always empty ones reserved for visiting officers; Kanan could have had one for the asking if he had wanted it. Kanan was uneasily aware of Doriah behind him as he found the nearest turbolift and keyed his code in for the secure levels, feeling the Twi’lek’s biting hatred of both humans and Imperials – and especially Imperial human men. It was probably a good thing he wasn’t carrying a blaster; Kanan was virtually certain that Doriah would have taken a shot at him if he had been.

They emerged onto the secure administrative levels, which Kanan had to key into again. He could tell from the lack of electricity in the air that the lights were off, just the faint low buzz of the emergency lighting illuminating them. Not a problem for him; probably not for Doriah either, with his sharp Twi’lek eyesight.

He could sense Hera nearby, along with someone else he didn’t know. Hera was agitated, unhappy. Kanan followed his sense of her until he found the right door, holding his hand out over the control pad when it didn’t open automatically.

The Force sketched the room out for him – Hera sitting stiffly in a chair with her hands in binders in front of her, a human man standing in front of her, no other guards. The human turned towards the door in outrage as it opened, saying, “This is a private – you?”

His moment of surprise was enough for Hera, who jerked a foot up to send him staggering backwards and then made a dash for the door. “Hera!” the ISB agent snapped, reaching for his blaster.

Kanan reacted on reflex, thrusting a hand out. The ISB agent went flying, hitting the back wall with a thump that splintered the plaster around the place he had struck.

Doriah caught Hera and pulled her against his side, saying, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” She pulled away from him and looked up at Kanan, lifting her cuffed hands. “A little help here, love?”

He lifted a hand and the cuffs fell away, the sound lost in the flare of Doriah’s outraged, “Love?”

“I told you I left someone behind on Naboo!” Hera snapped at him.

“Can you have this argument later?” Kanan said pointedly. “I’m pretty sure I just committed treason.”

“Well, good,” Hera said. She pulled free from Doriah and crossed the room to retrieve the ISB agent’s blaster, hesitating briefly before him, then came back to Doriah and Kanan. “Where are the others?”

“They went to get the ship.” Doriah tried to put an arm around her and she pulled away, turning her face up to Kanan.

“Will you come?” she asked him. “Agent Beneke’s still alive, he’ll talk –”

“I –” Kanan said. “Everything I said before is still true. But I’ll make sure you get to your ship.”

“Have you lost your gods-damned mind?” Doriah hissed, grabbing Hera by the arm and pulling her around to face him. Kanan was a little ahead of them; Doriah had lagged so that he could do this, apparently. “He’s an Inquisitor!”

“And I was an ISB cadet,” Hera hissed back.

“You’re you. He’s – whatever the hell he is!”

“Listening,” Kanan said over his shoulder. “I lost my eyesight, not my hearing.”

Doriah made an expansive gesture, as if to say, you see!

“Get over yourself,” Hera told him. “At least until we’re out of here and back at the fleet.” With Kanan, she added silently, because there was no way she was going to leave him here. Not again.

“If you two are done –” Kanan said.

“We’re done,” Hera said, and hurried to catch up with him as he stepped into the turbolift. He had one hand resting on the lightsaber hilt on his hip, but other than that seemed unworried.

Doriah joined them, scowling tremendously. Hera kept a tight grip on the blaster she had taken from Agent Beneke, glad that she had grabbed it before Doriah had thought to; she was certain that if he had, he would have tried to shoot Kanan by now. That probably wouldn’t have ended well for either of them.

The turbolift had descended, by Hera’s best estimate, about halfway to the ground level where the hangars were when the base alarm started to sound.

“Oh, wonderful,” Kanan said under his breath. “Your friend must have woken up.”

“Or someone caught Numa and Edelah,” Doriah muttered. “They’re good, but they’re not exactly intrusion specialists.”

“Why didn’t you go with them?” Hera hissed at him.

“What, like I was going to trust him to find you?” he hissed back.

“Oh, please –”

The doors hissed open, revealing a pair of stormtroopers who looked at Kanan, then at each other, then at Hera and Doriah. Kanan started to raise a hand before Doriah said, “To hell with this,” and punched the nearest stormtrooper in the face. As he went reeling backwards, Doriah snatched his blaster from his hands and shot the other at point blank range, then turned the blaster on the first stormtrooper and fired again.

“I had it handled,” Kanan said, his voice a little strangled.

“I don’t trust witchcraft,” Doriah said. “Hera, you want another blaster?” He passed her the second stormtrooper’s blaster before she had a chance to respond.

Hera shrugged and took it, shoving Agent Beneke’s pistol through her belt.

“I really do have it handled,” Kanan said through his teeth.

“I don’t trust you,” Doriah said, and went trotting off down the corridor, veering around the two dead stormtroopers.

Kanan swore tiredly and followed him. Hera brought up their rear, glancing warily over her shoulder for signs of pursuit. The alert was wailing in her ears, but there was no way to tell who had activated it, or where – if it had been Agent Beneke back in the administration levels, or if the other members of her team had gotten caught in the hangars up ahead. It could have been either. It could have been both.

Even though it would have been better to get out of here without having to fight, Hera was hoping, a little selfishly, that something would happen to make that impossible. She thought that Kanan would fight if he had to, and if he did, then he wouldn’t be able to stay. Even as hurt and brainwashed as he had been, he had to understand that.

Blasterfire sounded from up ahead and she and Kanan shared a startled glance – or at least he turned his head towards her as she looked up at him – and then they both started to run.

They burst into the hangar in the midst of a firefight. Doriah had taken cover behind the nearest TIE fighter, while from the parked hunter-killer Hera had flown here Numa and Edelah were exchanging fire with a group of stormtroopers and fighter pilots.

Kanan froze when he realized they were there, his whole body suddenly radiating tension. Hera had made a dash to join Doriah behind the TIE fighter, but Kanan stood still, framed in the door with his hands still open and empty; he hadn’t reached for his lightsaber.

For a horrifying instant Hera thought he wasn’t going to do anything.

Then he strode forward, his voice pitching to carry as he snapped, “Cease fire! These are the Emperor’s prisoners; it will be your heads if you damage them.” He flicked his lightsaber into his hand as he did so, as if prepared to execute that sentence then and there.

Confused, the stormtroopers stopped; Hera signaled Numa and Edelah to do so as well. The two Twi’leks drew back, looking at her for further orders, but Hera didn’t know what Kanan’s plan was and didn’t want to do something that would contradict it.

“But, Inquisitor –” one of the stormtroopers began.

“You!” a voice snapped from the doorway just behind Kanan. “The Jedi boy!”

Hera turned, startled, to see Agent Beneke with a few other officers and a squadron of stormtroopers. Oh, blast. She had been hoping he wouldn’t regain consciousness so quickly.

Kanan didn’t turn at all, just tilted his head slightly to one side, the suggestion of looking back over his shoulder without actually doing so. “Agent Beneke,” he said. “You are mistaken. I am on the Emperor’s business –”

A flash out of the corner of Hera’s eye made her whirl and yell, “Doriah, no!”

Kanan spun, his lightsaber igniting in a streak of red plasma that deflected Doriah’s blaster bolt into the floor. At the same instant, Agent Beneke shouted, “All forces, open fire on the Jedi!” and followed that up by taking a shot at Kanan himself. None of the stormtroopers so much as hesitated.

“Kanan!” Hera screamed, but Doriah grabbed her arm and dragged her around the side of the TIE towards their ship, yelling for Numa and Edelah to start the engines.

Kanan’s lightsaber was moving so fast that it was nothing but a blur, sending blaster bolts flying into ceiling, walls, and floor – none of them back at the stormtroopers. Agent Beneke pointed at the hunter-killer, his lips moving in an order that Hera couldn’t hear over the roar of blasterfire, but whose content she could guess as one of the stormtroopers produced a rocket launcher. Despite Doriah’s steel grip on her arm she spun and fired one-handed, hitting the stormtrooper in the shoulder and sending his shot wild.

Kanan slammed his free hand upwards, arresting the rocket in mid-air. At the same instant a blaster shot took him in the shoulder and he staggered, but the rocket didn’t fall, not until he shoved his hand outwards. The rocket shot past him into the closed hangar doors, blowing a hole in them that was more than large enough for Hera’s hunter-killer to pass through. He deflected another handful of blaster bolts, but more got through, scorching his black garments as Hera screamed and Doriah dragged her inexorably towards their ship.

His teeth gritted in pain, Kanan thrust his hand out again. Agent Beneke and the stormtroopers with him went flying backwards, out through the open bay doors and into the hallway beyond. Hera fired the instant she realized what he was doing, her blaster bolt slagging the control panel as the doors slammed shut. His lightsaber still blazing in his hand, Kanan grabbed at empty air and pulled, sending the remaining stormtroopers diving for cover as a parked Lambda crumpled over onto the place where they had been standing.

“Hera, go!” he yelled, turning his head back to her. “Get out of here!”

“Not without you!”

He shook his head, touching the fingers of his free hand to one of the wounds on his shoulders. “Hera, go!”

“Hera, come on!” Doriah snapped, dragging at her, but she ignored him.

The stormtroopers who hadn’t been crushed were starting to regroup. One of them fired and Kanan batted the blaster bolt aside, his attention briefly back on them instead of on her.

Hera thumbed her blaster from kill to stun, raised it, and fired.

Kanan woke in now-familiar pitch-blackness, his whole body awash with pain. That was familiar too.

He reached into the Force more from instinct than anything else, expecting to find the Hunter nearby but instead –

“Hera?” he whispered, his voice raw.

“It’s me.” She put a hand into his, lacing their fingers together. It took Kanan longer than it should have to realize he was lying with his head in her lap, her other arm protectively over his chest. His mind scrabbled vaguely for an explanation, a memory, and eventually dragged up the fight in the hangar.

“You stunned me,” he murmured, dreamlike. Everything had a vaguely unreal quality not helped by how badly he hurt; he had been shot before, but that didn’t mean it hurt any less every time. He reached for the Force techniques against pain, but couldn’t quite seem to grasp them.

He felt Hera bend her head over his, the tips of her lekku brushing his shoulders. “You wouldn’t come,” she told him. “I wasn’t going to leave you there. They would have killed you.”

Kanan was pretty sure neither the Hunter nor the Emperor would have allowed that to happen, though Lord Vader probably wouldn’t have minded. “You say that like it’s a bad thing,” he muttered, feeling unconsciousness threaten to rise up over him again.

“Don’t say that, love.” Her grip tightened on his. “We’re going back to the fleet. I patched up your wounds, but we have a doctor there, you can –”

“Tracker,” he whispered, and heard someone who wasn’t Hera swear and scramble over. “Implanted. Left shoulder.”

“We’re in hyperspace,” she told him quietly. “It can’t transmit until we’re out, can it?”

He shook his head a little, or tried to, sending another wave of agony through him.

“We’ll get it, love.” To someone else, Hera said, “Give me the medkit.”

Kanan heard someone push it over and then the sound of a latch opening. He reached for the Force again, but couldn’t concentrate long enough to get more than a sense of what was happening.

“Kanan,” Hera said quietly. “I’m going to put you under again. Do you understand?”

“Don’t,” he whispered, but felt as much as heard her negation.

“This is going to hurt, and I don’t want to hurt you anymore than you already are. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” But he still couldn’t stand the idea of it. He was struggling for the words to tell her as much when he felt the hypospray against his neck, and then the blinding red that was the last real sight he remembered rose up to carry him down.

He woke up again much later, mostly clear-headed this time. Shock sent him jerking upright, pain hissing distantly through him before something on his wrist dragged him to a stop, metal rattling against metal. He was handcuffed to a bed.

“Easy, Kanan. You’re safe.” The voice was female, half-familiar and Force-strong.

With an effort Kanan made himself concentrate, dragging the Force through him to shape the space around him. Hospital bed. Medbay – private room. Togruta female sitting in a chair beside him, lightsabers on her hips. Hera outside. Plenty of other beings around – all around. A ship.

“Do you know who I am?” the Togruta asked.

He nodded. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“They can look a little harder,” Ahsoka Tano said. “The tracker’s been removed, but you’re still a little doped up, even by our standards. You were shot five times.”

Kanan licked his lips. Force-users burned through drugs faster than other beings from their same species, but he could feel the painkillers keeping the agony from the blaster wounds at bay, at least for the moment. Now that he was conscious again, though, it was fading fast. “I’ve been hurt before.”

“I can tell that,” she said gravely. “Is there anything you want to tell me before Hera comes back in?”

“Is the woman who was hurt all right?” Kanan asked instead of answering her question. He had to search for her name, but eventually came up with it. “Niale?”

“She’s doing a lot better than you,” Ahsoka said. “But yes, she’ll be fine.” She put a hand on his uninjured shoulder, urging him back down.

“He’ll come for me,” Kanan muttered, woozy again. “My master.”

“I’ll deal with him if he comes before you’re back on your feet,” Ahsoka assured him. “Do you want me to get Hera? She’s been very worried for you.”

Kanan made himself nod and felt her stand up and go to the door. Just before she reached it, he said, “Ahsoka – in the Temple, the holocrons –”

She turned back towards him. “Yes?”

“I opened them for him,” he said. “I – I betrayed the Order.”

He felt the moment of her hesitation, then she said, “It’s all right, Kanan. The Order’s been dead and gone for a long time. I know you didn’t have a choice.”

Before he had a chance to respond, she opened the door, stepping aside so that Hera could come in. She took Ahsoka’s seat and put her hands around his, saying, “Kanan? It’s me.”

“I thought I told you to leave me there,” he said.

“I barely take orders from my father,” Hera said. “What makes you think I was going to take them from you?” She kissed the back of his hand, and then added, “How do you feel?”

“Terrible.”

“Well, that’s what happens when you get shot.”

“It isn’t the first time,” he muttered.

“I know that, love. I’ve seen you naked, remember? Blaster scars are very distinctive.”

He heard the door open again, steps – unfamiliar, male, probably a Twi’lek from the gait. Kanan was too tired to make the effort to determine anything more specific. “I’m Themarsa Pehshan Syndulla,” a new voice said. “I’m going to give you another dose of these painkillers – it will knock you out again, but you’ll wake up sooner than a regular human. You understand?”

“Yeah.”

Themarsa did something, and a moment later Kanan felt the pain start to recede again. Weary, he tried to reach for Hera, but the handcuff on his wrist jerked him short. A moment later he felt the bed dip slightly as Hera climbed onto it, curling up on his less-injured side and laying her head against his shoulder.

“It’s all right,” she told him as his eyelids began to droop, the world rising up around him in a wave of imagined red. “It’s all right, Kanan. I’m here. I’m not letting you go again.”

#cut scenes and concept writing #switching places au tag #as always comments are appreciated

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kanerallels · 2 years

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For the three sentence (or paragraph) fic challenge: Kanera but the AU is Hera was the jedi, not Kanan.

This, uh. This got longer than I expected, so it's going under a cut!

He’d thought the Jedi were gone, all killed when he was a teenager. He’d seen the wanted posters for the survivors, the warnings that they couldn’t be trusted, the propaganda— not that he’d ever really believed it.

And he’d watched them all dwindle, until there was no one left. It was just the Empire, ruling over them all.

But then, Kanan had come to Gorse. And he’d met the most incredible woman in the galaxy— beautiful, smart, an amazing pilot, and brave.

Finding out that Hera Syndulla was a Jedi wasn’t really a shock. He was certainly surprised, but it made so much more sense— the way she’d managed to pull off some of the tricks, flying and otherwise, that she had. The way she’d stared at him when he’d offered to help her, like she could see through him, before accepting his help. The fact that she was still traveling alone.

Even now, after dropping off Zaluna, she was getting ready to politely but firmly send him on his way. He could tell. Kanan still couldn’t tell why exactly she’d let him help in the first place, but he knew she was usually a solo act in her fight.

As they made it to the hangar where her ship was waiting behind closed doors, Hera turned to him, her expression more hesitant than he’d expected.

“Wait,” he blurted out, and she lifted a curious eyebrow at him.

Kanan could have said anything. He could have told her that, ever since he first met her in that alleyway, he’d known he would never meet someone who called to him like she did. He could say that when she’d saved his life on the Star Destroyer, she’d practically glowed. She’d looked at home in the pilot’s seat, and using the Force, she looked like she had a purpose.

He could have told her that, when he was very young, his parents had died, killed by the Black Sun when they tried to fight back against them. He and his younger sister had changed their names and fled, living in fear for years. The Black Sun had never come after them, but it had been a long time before they’d felt at ease again.

He could have told her that the Jedi had saved his planet as a kid, or that he’d never liked the Empire, especially once his sister Devorah had enlisted when she turned 18, or that he’d never been one for a cause until now.

But all he found himself saying was, “You don’t have to do this alone.”

Hera’s eyes widened in surprise for just a moment before she frowned. “And what makes you think I need help?” she asked, but Kanan could tell she was mostly teasing, with a hint of curiosity.

“Don’t get me wrong, you’re incredibly good at what you do,” Kanan told her, deciding honesty was the best policy. “I almost believe you could do it all on your own. But that’s the thing— none of us can. We all need someone to watch our backs and take care of us. To help pick us back up.”

“And you want to be that someone?” Hera asked. “You know, it’s not exactly a sought after position. Not with— with who I am.”

He didn’t miss the slight hitch in her voice, the loneliness. Kanan understood it. “I do. For you, at least. And I’m willing to take the risk if you’re willing to have me around for a little while longer.”

Hera nodded slowly, her expression thoughtful. Kanan could tell she was considering it, but not what she would choose. “It won’t be safe,” she said quietly. “I’m not safe to be around, not really.”

Lifting an eyebrow, Kanan said, “Considering the last few days, do you really think safety is my biggest priority?” Not my own, anyways.

That made her laugh, which had been his goal. “Okay,” she agreed. “But if things go wrong, I have the right to throw you out.”

“Absolutely. It’s your ship, after all, Captain.” But Kanan had a feeling things wouldn’t go wrong. He had a feeling he would stay with Hera for as long as he possibly could.

Call it a good guess, or fate, or maybe even the Force. Who knew? All Kanan was really sure of was that he wasn’t planning to leave Hera. Not if he could help it.

#thanks for the ask!!#kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #jedi!hera #kanera #kanera is love kanera is life #the thing is i cannot imagine anyone but hera being the pilot #so we have hera the incredible jedi pilot #and then we have kanan. who is just some guy. but he wants to take care of hera if he can #and he's also a gunslinger and amazing at making waffles and adopting kids #star wars rebels #swr #writing stories is a kind of magic too

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lastgenpodcast · 7 years

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Who is Benicio Del Toro playing in STAR WARS : THE LAST JEDI?

Vanity Fair has always done a fantastic job of getting Star Wars fans all gushy with their photo spreads by legend, Annie Leibovitz. This time around is no different and while hearts appropriately broke over seeing Carrie Fisher in Leia costume for what will be her final performance in the saga following her passing, a lot of swirl surrounds who exactly is it that Benicio Del Toro is portraying.

As usual, he looks fantastic and seems dressed for either a Star Wars film or as a Gunslinger in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. But who exactly is "DJ"? He is described in the VF article as being a "newcomer to the saga" and "shifty". So, another scoundrel. Great. We just lost THE scoundrel of scoundrels in Han Solo, at the hands of his own son (spoilers?) so maybe BDT is here to fill that gap.

Of course that won't suffice for the fan base. The now tradition of trying to work out every plot point months in advance of just sitting in a theater and enjoying the film as it unravels in front of you is not one I really enjoy, but let's play along for today.

Bottom line. What if Benicio Del Toro is none other than Ezra Bridger of Star Wars Rebels fame? A stretch yes, but the character is the appropriate age and these two gents seems to share a similar mark upon their left cheek.

Yes, they eyes don't match but I am not sure that Ezra's animated hue is really of much importance in the overall game. This is proven by the recent use of Saw Gerrera in Rogue One. Saw's eyes in the animated series were a distinct green as where Forest Whitakers' eyes are decidely not.

At this year's Star Wars Celebration, during the Star Wars Rebels panel, Executive Producer, Dave Filoni announced that the upcoming season of rebels will be its last. The story will have been told and it's better to leave on a stride then stumble to the finish. To assume that the entire crew will be put on the shelf for good though, seems unlikely. While Filoni did announce they were working on a new project, it may not include any of the Ghost crew at all. Personally, my money is on a visitor to the Rebels franchise but one that stands all on her own...

What of the rest of the cast though? We hear Hera's name said over a PA, this time as "General", in Rogue One as well as the Ghost itself, and even it's droid, Chopper, on the ground. What of Ezra, Kanan, Zeb, and Sabine though? Obviously a fair portion of that will be answered in the upcoming Rebels season but is it possible that just as that series wraps up, we move onto seeing one of these characters decades later? Additionally, Season 4 is set to debut Fall of 2017 but will it be completed by the release date of December 15th when The Last Jedi hits theaters?

That is really the biggest fly in the ointment of this theory, familiar scar or not. I don't believe that Rebels would want any tension over the fate of Ezra, the shows main character for a majority of its run, to be spoiled by the film. If Rebels is not yet complete and we then learn that Ezra is...whatever the character of DJ is...we lose all drama towards the close of the show. Ezra lives and we know what path he chooses. Seems anti-climatic.

So, rumors are as they are, more than likely DJ is just another swindler with an angle in the galaxy trying to survive. It is fun to imagine a larger stake in place though with such a noted talent playing the role.

#Star Wars #The Last Jedi #Benicio del Toro #Rebels #Ezra Bridger #Jedi #Disney #Rumor

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kuwaiti-kid · 4 years

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The Case for The Mandalorian Season 2 Casting Rumors

With Star Wars Day behind us and the looming threat of Star Wars Celebration being canceled due to COVID-19, a suspicious amount of potentially true rumors about the second season of The Mandalorian have been feeding the Sarlacc-like fandom.

If you do not like rumors which may prove to be major spoilers, turn back now.

The Rumors

In January, two tweets appeared on Twitter from an alleged fansite leaking the full cast slate for the second season of The Mandalorian. Most people brushed it off as wishful thinking, considering it included characters like Ahsoka Tano, Iden Versio, Sabine Wren, and an unnamed character played by Temuera Morrison.

The rumors were lent credence back in March when entertainment journalist Peter Sciertta with Slashfilm was the first to break the news that Rosario Dawson was allegedly joining the cast of The Mandalorian to portray the fan-favorite Ahsoka Tano. Again Sciertta provided the exclusive scoop that Katee Sackhoff, the voice of Bo-Katan in The Clone Wars, may bring her to life on screen.

Taking into consideration The Hollywood Reporter’s exclusive reporting about Temuera Morrison’s franchise-return as Boba Fett (or Rex), it sounds like audiences may be looking at a Clone Wars reunion in the second season of The Mandalorian, which certainly has undoubtedly helped in the days following its series finale. But, like with anything in the Star Wars fandom, not everyone is happy.

Shortly after the announcement of Morrison’s return, displeased fans jumped to the argument that Boba Fett should be dead at this point in the story. But is anyone ever really gone in the Star Wars universe?

Yes, we saw Boba Fett fall into the Sarlacc pit in Return of the Jedi. Still, if we’ve learned anything from watching The Mandalorian, we know that the Mandalorians are surprisingly resilient. It is certainly not outside of the realm of possibility that Boba Fett could have survived.

Especially considering that fans believed the character was already teased in the first season of the series. Remember when the mysterious figure approached the body of Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) in episode five, “The Gunslinger”? Audiences only saw the figure’s boots, but even then, fans were convinced it was a Boba Fett cameo.

Personally, I have a lot of theories about episode five, which was written and directed by Dave Filoni himself. During the first episode of Disney Gallery: The Mandalorian Filoni and Jon Favreau discuss the throwaway moment in the episode when the Mandalorian walks past Stormtrooper helmets on spikes.

It may be a moment that truly is a throwaway visual, but it also bore a striking resemblance to a poignant moment in the series finale of The Clone Wars. Now, this may just be Filoni putting in an easter egg for his other work, or it was an intentional decision to make audiences think about the two series. This episode also took place on Tatooine — the planet with the Sarlacc pit that Boba Fett “died” in.

It is easy to think that the introduction of characters like Ahsoka, Rex, Bo-Katan, and even Sabine Wren in the live-action series might fall under the idea of fanservice. Still, I am here to argue that it most certainly is not fanservice. Fanservice has been bandied about quite a bit in the wake of The Rise of Skywalker and the controversy surrounding the end of the Skywalker Saga.

Still, everything that involves fan favorites does not equate to fanservice. Especially not when the characters which are rumored to be appearing are already tied to existing plot points in the series.

Sabine Wren

When Moff Gideon ignited the Darksaber in the closing moments of the series finale of The Mandalorian fans went wild. While there is no confirmation about Sabine Wren’s appearance in The Mandalorian, many fans believe it is only a matter of time.

If you haven’t watched Star Wars: Rebels, you should rectify that immediately. Sabine is a Mandalorian and one of the wielders of the Darksaber. In fact, Sabine passed the Darksaber off to Bo-Katan, believing that she was the rightful person to lead the Mandalorians against the Empire. If the Darksaber has fallen into the wrong hands — looking at you, Gideon — this would be the perfect opportunity to introduce Sabine into the live-action canon.

Bo-Katan Kryze

The rumor of Bo-Katan’s arrival in The Mandalorian plot isn’t too much of a surprise. In The Clone Wars episode “Shattered,” Bo-Katan tells Ahsoka about the relic of a bygone era that they had trapped Darth Maul within.

It was a Mandalorian device that restricts Force users and allegedly the last of its kind. With only forty minutes left in The Clone Wars series, this dialogue certainly wasn’t frivolous. A lot of fans were quick to question whether this device would make a return in The Mandalorian. Especially with the internet’s favorite little Force user, The Child being a central part of the plot.

The Mandalorians have a long and complicated history in relation to Force users. In fact, the Mandalorian-Jedi war was what rendered their homeworld Mandalore inhospitable, changing the path of the Mandalorians forever. You can understand why there’s a lot of hard feelings when it comes to Force users. The Mandalorian-Jedi war also has implications for the darksaber. The darksaber was created by Tarre Vizsla, who was the first Mandalorian inducted into the Jedi Order.

In Rebels, Fenn Rau tells Kanan the legend of the darksaber. It was kept by the Jedi Temple after Vizsla’s passing, but was stolen by members of the House Vizsla during the Mandalorian-Jedi war. From that point forward, the darksaber was passed down through the generations, even after the pacifistic New Mandalorians shifted away from their warrior origins.

Needless to say, there’s a lot of mythos behind the darksaber which has been hinted at in both Rebels and the Clone Wars lending credence to why these characters should be the ones to carry that plot.

Darth Maul

Do you know who else has connections to the darksaber?

Darth Maul. That’s right—everyone’s favorite bad boy Sith Lord who survived being cut in half in The Phantom Menace. In 21 BBY, Pre Vizsla, the leader of Death Watch, was in possession of the darksaber.

During this period of time, a lot was going on with the Mandalorians. Duchess Satine Kryze (Bo-Katan’s sister) was trying to lead the pacifistic branch of the Mandalorians, Darth Maul was forming the Shadow Collective which the warrior Death Watch group eventually joined, and all of this took place while the Clone Wars were underway.

Needless to say, no one was surprised when Darth Maul took the opportunity to kill Vizsla, steal the darksaber, and try to take over Mandalore. If you’ve watched The Clone Wars, then you know that Maul becomes one of Ahsoka’s prime adversaries, which makes her yet another character connected to the darksaber.

Rex

Sabine, Bo-Katan, and Ahsoka all have connections to the darksaber, which is already a plot point in The Mandalorian. It makes sense to bring these three women into the plot, rather than to create new characters that audiences have no emotional attachment to. Boba Fett makes sense, given that he’s probably the most well known Mandalorian in Star Wars history.

Not to mention he had some pretty awesome storylines in the expanded universe that fleshed out his on-screen presence. Without Fett, we would never have a series like The Mandalorian. But what if Morrison isn’t just playing Boba Fett?

There is a strong possibility that he might also be portraying the former Clone Trooper Rex, who — like all the clone troopers — was a clone of Jango Fett, just like Boba.

Rex also appeared on Rebels, where he was reunited with Ahsoka and involved in the plot involving the Mandalorian group The Protectors, as well as the storyline around Grand Admiral Thrawn’s pursuit of the Arc Pulse Generator (which was a terrifying device which was able to disintegrate beskar wearers).

The Timeline

In case you’re not familiar with the Star Wars timeline, here is a quick explanation for how much time has passed between the end of the Clone Wars and The Mandalorian. The current timeline is based on the Battle of Yavin, which is depicted in A New Hope. BBY is “Before the Battle of Yavin,” and ABY is “After the Battle of Yavin.” Easy enough, right?

The final episode of Star Wars: The Clone Wars takes place in 19 BBY and Star Wars: Rebels takes place fourteen years later between 5 BBY and 1 BBY. The Battle of Yavin takes place, starting out as year 0. A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi take place over the next four years ending in 4 ABY. The Mandalorian then takes place five years later in 9 ABY.

Roughly thirty years have passed between the two series.

22 – 19 BBY — Star Wars: The Clone Wars 5 – 1 BBY — Star Wars: Rebels 4 ABY — Return of the Jedi 9 ABY — The Mandalorian

One of the other complaints surrounding certain characters appearing in The Mandalorian is their ages. But with the rumored casting choices and the timeline, it seems likely that the characters would appear accurate for their ages.

Ahsoka was in her 30s when she appeared in Rebels, meaning she would likely be in her late-40s. Bo-Katan’s age was never confirmed in The Clone Wars, but her older sister was a peer of Obi-Wan’s. She was likely in her mid-20s during the Siege of Mandalore, making her closer to 50.

Sabine was born in 21 BBY, so she would likely be in her late 30s. Rex is the only one who might not still be alive. While he was created in 32 BBY, clones were created to age faster. In Rebels, he appeared to physically resemble someone in their 60s, suggesting that he might be somewhere in his 70s if he appeared in The Mandalorian.

The Bottom Line

We likely won’t find out if the casting rumors are true until later in the summer. Still, there’s definitely a strong case for the fact that we will see some of our favorite animated characters in live-action this October.

Sam Witwer, the voice of Darth Maul in The Clone Wars, recently teased that the new season would be mind-blowing. Rosario Dawson tweeted about fans wanting her to play Ahsoka Tano. But with Deadline’s confirmation about Sackhoff joining the cast, it seems like theories may just become a reality.

The Mandalorian season two premieres in October only on Disney+.

The post The Case for The Mandalorian Season 2 Casting Rumors appeared first on Your Money Geek.

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kanerallels · 3 years

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Okay, no clue if I can send in multiple prompts, so no pressure, you don’t have to reply to this one.

But maybe Kanera with soulmates, rescue (maybe even fix-it 👀👀) As you can see I’m a sucker for soulmate AUs🧍‍♀️💀

Alrighty, this isn't EXACTLY a soulmate au, but it came to me and I have ZERO self control around domestic Kanera, so let's go!!!

Pairing: Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla

Word Count: 1,592

Tags/Warnings: Rated G (for me getting ridiculously sappy today)

“One more story?”

Kanan shook his head. “Not tonight, Jacen. I told your mom I'd have you in bed before she was home.”

“I don’t want to go to bed until she’s home, though,” Jacen said. “I want to say goodnight to her.”

Brushing a hand over his son’s hair affectionately, Kanan said, “I know, kiddo. But your mom will string me up if you’re still awake when she gets back. You’re up late enough as it is.”

Jacen let out a theatrical sigh, and Kanan heard him shifting his weight in bed as he clearly considered his next maneuver. He couldn’t help but repress a smile at it-- the kid’s tenacity came straight from his mom. Although Hera would claim he inherited it from Kanan.

“What time does Mom get home from the appointment again?” Jacen asked.

“She’ll be back around ten-thirty, as you already know,” Kanan reminded him. “That was a really bad stalling technique. Time for bed.”

“No! Tell me another story,” Jacen begged. “Tell me about when you first met Mom.”

Kriff. The kid knew his weak spot. “Jacen…”

“Just this story, then I’ll go to bed. Please?”

Letting out a sigh, Kanan said, “Okay. But only one more, and then you’re going to sleep. Got it?”

Jacen let out an excited yelp, bouncing up and down in bed. “Yes! I promise.”

“Good, now lay back down,” Kanan ordered. “You’ve got to at least pretend you’re going to try and fall asleep after this.”

Immediately squirming back down under the covers, Jacen lay still obediently, and Kanan felt himself smiling as he paused for a minute to collect his wits for the story. If he was being honest, he loved telling this story.

“The first time I met your mother, I was on a backwater planet called Gorse. Now, the planet wasn’t much to look at, but the moon was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”

“Until you met Mom,” Jacen jumped in, and Kanan nodded.

“Exactly. So, I was working as a pilot, flying explosives to the mine at that point. Wasn’t a safe job, wasn’t a smart job. But I didn’t really care back then. I didn’t care about much of anything. Until one night, when I was heading out of this old tapcafe where I’d been eating dinner, and I heard it.” Kanan tilted his head to the side, closing his eyes and imagining the moment with a soft smile.

“What was it?” Jacen asked, as he always did, his voice dramatically curious.

“The most incredibly beautiful voice,” Kanan said, his own voice equally dramatic. “It was soft and warm, so totally unlike Gorse and everything I’d ever come to expect about the galaxy. The minute I heard that voice, I knew there was something worth living for. And at the moment, it was finding out what kind of woman had a voice like that.”

“So you went after her,” Jacen supplied.

“I did-- after I paid my bill, of course,” Kanan said. “Side note, never run out on a bill from a Besalisk with anger management issues. Anyway, I went to find her, but she’d disappeared, like she was some kind of dream. For a while there, I almost thought she was one. Until--”

“You heard her again!”

“Hey, who’s telling the story?” Kanan gave Jacen a mock stern frown.

“Sorry,” Jacen said, his tone making it clear he was grinning. “I won’t interrupt again.”

“I should hope not,” Kanan said sternly. “But yeah, I heard her again. And, typical of your mother, she was about to get in a brawl with a gang.” As he spoke, he heard the door to the bedroom creak open, and stifled a smile as he kept talking. “So I rushed in to save the day.”

“Oh, did you?” Hera’s voice came from behind Kanan, and he could no longer hold back his smile as Jacen let out an excited yelp.

“Mom!!! You’re home!!”

Kanan ducked just in time to avoid Jacen as the boy launched himself out of bed and at his mother. Catching him, Hera hugged him, and gently set him to the ground. “What are you still doing up, sweetheart?” she asked, pressing a kiss against his forehead. “As if I didn’t know,” she added, directing a look at Kanan that he didn’t need eyesight to decode.

“You don’t know what he threatened me with,” he said, shooting a wink at Jacen. “It was brutal, Hera. You almost lost your husband tonight-- and how would you feel if you came home and your son had committed patricide?”

Hera let out a scoff that was very clearly hiding a laugh. “You’re full of it, dear.”

“Full of love for you,” Kanan said, grinning, and that pulled a laugh out of her.

Stepping forward, she set Jacen onto his bed. “Okay, get back in bed, Jacen. Your father will finish his story, and then it’s time to sleep. Got it?”

“Okay, Mom.” Jacen snuggled back under the covers, and Kanan began his story again.

“As I was saying, your mom was about to get in a fight with a gang of ten, fifteen beings. But little did I know as I started to charge forward to save the day, I was right next to one of the most competent and incredibly talented women I’d ever met. She started fighting right along with me-- handled more than half of the gang, I might add,” Kanan said with a grin.

Hera, who’d settled next to Kanan, chipped in, “Meanwhile, your dad got tackled through a window.”

“Who’s telling the story here?” Kanan demanded, and Hera let out a quiet laugh as she leaned into him, resting her cheek against his shoulder.

“Sorry, love. Keep going.”

Turning back to Jacen, Kanan said, “Anyway, once I finished my fight, I made my way back to where your mom had been-- and there was no one there. Just the cloak she’d dropped when the fight began.

“But when I picked it up and turned around, there she was. The most beautiful woman I’d ever met.” Kanan paused for a moment, a soft smile crossing his face. “I was spellbound immediately.”

“Meanwhile, I was wondering what this scruffy gunslinger was doing with my cloak, and why he was staring at me,” Hera said wryly. “I took off, despite his attempts to follow me or convince me to stay.”

“But then you met him again at that bar,” Jacen said.

“And from there, I found myself dragged into shenanigan after shenanigan with this woman,” Kanan said with a teasing grin. “Somehow, she convinced me to help her save Cynda and Gorse from that psychopath, Count Vidian. Long story short, we ended up on an exploding Star Destroyer together. And that’s when I actually saved your mother’s life.”

“True,” Hera said softly. “I still remember when I saw you use the Force for the first time. You were the last person I would have expected to be a Jedi back then.”

“Well, that was the point,” Kanan said.

“But he’s still a good Jedi,” Jacen said. His voice was growing steadily sleepier as he spoke.

“One of the best,” Hera said.

“I had my moments,” Kanan agreed. “But one of the best things I ever did was save you then. You know, kid, in some cultures, they say that when you save someone’s life, that means they’re your soulmate, that you’re meant to be together.”

“Is that true?” Jacen asked, letting out a huge yawn.

Kanan shrugged. “Who can say? I would have married your mom regardless. Now, time for you to go to sleep.”

As he and Hera rose to their feet, Hera dropping a quick kiss onto Jacen’s forehead, Jacen let out another yawn. “Night, mom. Night, dad.”

“Good night, sweetheart,” Hera said as she switched off the light, and the two of them slipped out of Jacen’s room.

Kanan gently closed the door behind them, then turned to Hera. “Hey. How’d your appointment go?”

“Pretty well,” Hera said, catching him by the hand and leading him away from Jacen’s room and into the living room. “The doctor said that I didn’t have a stomach bug, but there were a couple other tests she wanted to do on me.”

“Oh?” Kanan kept his voice calm, but he could feel his heart rate pick up. They hadn’t been sure when Hera had gone in, but he had a feeling… “What were the results?”

Giving his hand a quick squeeze, Hera said softly, “Why don’t you check for yourself?”

Kanan needed no further encouragement to reach out with the Force towards Hera, sensing her usual bright spark of warm life. And then, somehow within it and separate from it, there was another one. Another life form, tiny but insistent.

“Oh, wow,” Kanan breathed, awe sweeping over him. “Hera-- you’re--”

“Pregnant,” Hera finished, and Kanan could hear the vibrant joy in her voice. “You were right, love. We’re having another baby.”

Kanan felt a grin spreading across his face, and he pulled his wife into a fierce embrace. “This is amazing,” he whispered, pressing a kiss against her temple. “I can’t wait to meet her.”

“Or him,” Hera corrected. “Even you can’t tell this early, Master Jedi.”

“I have a feeling about it,” Kanan said with a smirk, and he felt rather than heard Hera’s laugh.

Pulling back from him slightly, she said, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Kanan murmured, and bent down to give her a kiss. “Both of you,” he added.

#kanan jarrus #hera syndulla #jacen syndulla #swr #star wars rebels #post star wars rebels #domestic kanera #i just happen to enjoy domestic kanera #of COURSE i already had that as a tag #kanera is love kanera is life #sw rebels fic #swr fan fic #111 followers celebration #it was dope. the end

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calebdumes · 3 years

Text

gather ye rosebuds - chapter six

fandom: star wars rebels

relationship: kanan jarrus/hera syndulla

word count: 7.3k

rating: T

summary: Kanan's sudden reappearance forces Hera to face some uncomfortable memories of her past that she'd rather forget. Old hurts are revisited and the mission to decrypt the stolen intel get a little more...complicated.

author’s note: happy rosebuds day! thank you to all who have read and left comments/kudos/likes/reblogs/bookmarks! I hope you are liking it so far!

as always a HUGE thank you to my amazing beta and wonderful friend, @eleni-syndulla! you are a superstar!

any and all likes, reblogs, and comments are greatly appreciated and don’t forget to…

Read on AO3

|| CHAPTER ONE || CHAPTER TWO || CHAPTER THREE || CHAPTER FOUR || CHAPTER FIVE || CHAPTER SIX || CHAPTER SEVEN || CHAPTER EIGHT || CHAPTER NINE || CHAPTER NINE || CHAPTER TEN || CHAPTER 11 || EPILOGUE

It was a warm morning, the sun casting its golden rays on the dewy grass that clung to the winding path leading to the hangar. It was a nice little planet, tucked away in the Mid Rim yet far enough away from an Imperial installation to keep Zaluna safe. Hera smiled to herself. It was nice.

So was the person walking along beside her. Hera might have only been a child when the Clone Wars came to Ryloth but she remembered the Jedi that came to save them. And Kanan Jarrus – try as he might to deny it – was a Jedi. A barrage of questions ran through her mind. Did he have a lightsaber? Had he fought in the war? Where had he been when the Purge happened? How had he survived? Would he be willing to put on the mantle of Jedi once more and serve the Rebellion?

She didn’t see that last question going over very well, given how hard he had fought to keep his true identity hidden. The rebel in her was dying to ask; a Jedi in the ranks of the rebellion could turn the tide in their favor, but she bit her tongue. Maybe if he accepted her other offer, a couple of years down the line he might be more receptive to the idea. Besides, there was more to Kanan than just his past. And despite everything, Hera was more infatuated with that.

When she set out for Gorse, her only concern had been meeting her informant and learning as much as she could about how the Empire spied on their citizens. Their first meeting at the Asteroid Belt had been extremely informative, but it was their second meeting that had left the biggest impression on her. That was when she'd met Kanan, the explosives pilot who was as charming as he was handsome. She'd been more than willing after a few drinks to take up his offer to spend the night in his room above the bar. After all, spying for the rebellion was hard work – she deserved to have a little fun.

But things had changed when Count Vidian arrived. Hera half expected Kanan to bolt the second the Star Destroyer dropped out of hyperspace. She got the feeling that when things got hard or was more trouble than it was worth, Kanan would move on – but to her surprise, the bar-brawling gunslinger stayed. More than that, he got involved. That should have been her first clue into his mysterious past, but Hera was too blinded by her budding feelings and the imminent destruction of Cynda to notice, which made things… Complicated.

She was just getting started, finally out on her own and ready to make a difference. She had a rebellion to build; an Empire to stop. Things like love and romance weren’t high on her list. But being around Kanan felt right, like he was always meant to fight right by her side. It had only been a few days but she couldn’t quite see herself doing all this without him.

Which made her ask, “So what’s next for you?”

The smile that had been playing on his face as they walked from Zaluna’s house to the small hanger that housed the Ghost had dimmed considerably. Hera felt her heart clench uncomfortably at the sight.

“Oh, you know me," he said without any of his usual flair. “A force always in motion.”

“I do know you.” She hummed as they continued up the path, a smile pulling at her lips as she remembered the feeling of his hands on her skin. “So what do you think about what Zaluna said?”

“What, going with you?” He arched a brow. “Well, you know what I’ve said. You’re great company.” Hera’s lekku curled, her heart doing a weird little flip at his words. “But I don’t think you’re looking for a traveling companion, are you?”

She wasn’t. Not with the state of the galaxy being what it was. But she also wasn’t ready to give Kanan up just yet.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Kanan,” she said. “I have a mission and I don’t plan on putting it aside. But goddess help me, I think you’re great company too. So, I’d like to hire you on – as crew.”

A flash of pain raced over Kanan’s face before those bright teal eyes grew cold and he took a step back, the gravel beneath his feet crunching loudly.

“Thanks, but no thanks," he said, the warmth evaporating from his relaxed Outer Rim drawl. “I work alone.”

“W– what?” The fluttering in her heart became a pounding beat against her breastbone.

“I work alone," he repeated, spitting the words out. “And I don’t plan on wasting my time working for some Twi’lek that’s just going to get herself killed fighting the Empire.” His harsh tone cut against her skin like acid.

“Some Twi’lek?“ Her eyes were stinging. She didn’t understand what was happening. She had been so sure, from the moment they met in Shaketown and every moment since. Kanan had seemed just as infatuated with her as she was with him. He had wanted to go with her, hadn’t he? She heard him say the words just a few hours ago. This about face was startling and left Hera feeling cold. “Is that all I am to you? I thought you wanted this!”

“You don’t know what I want," he hissed, low and deadly. “You don’t know a thing about me.” Kanan took another step back, the distance he was creating between them growing with each painful heartbeat. “This was fun or whatever but I’m not signing up for your war. I’m not dying for a lost cause.”

“Kanan, I’m not asking you to," she pleaded, hating how her voice wavered with desperation. “I’m asking you to be part of my crew! Not a traveling companion. Not a revolutionary. Crew.”

His chuckle was dark. “Yeah, that’s what you say now, but I know your type, Hera.” By now they were several feet apart. To Hera, it felt like light years. “You think that if I stay with you, eventually I’ll fight for your cause, but that ain’t gonna happen darlin’.”

Guilt burned Hera’s cheeks. “No, Kanan, that’s not why I asked–”

“Save it.” Kanan took another step back. “I don’t want your offer.” His ‘I don’t want you’ went unsaid, but it rang loud and clear in the space between them. With a face like stone he turned and walked away, down the winding path to the village.

Hera’s vision blurred as tears began to run down her face.

“So,” the Mandalorian at her side said, ripping Hera from the memory. “What do you think?”

Hera gave her head a little shake and brought the macrobinoculars to her dry eyes. It had been a while since she had thought about that day, but with Kanan now forced back into her life, it was hard to think of anything else. Especially since she didn’t want to think about it.

So much for focusing on the mission.

Hera studied the land before lowering the macrobinoculars and clipping them to a strap on her flight suit. The communications tower looked like a small little pinprick from this distance, hazy in the mid afternoon light.

“Two guards on the perimeter, most likely one more in the tower with an officer,” she reported. “Shouldn’t be too hard for you to get in with the right distraction.”

“What type of distraction are you looking for?” Sabine started reaching for a small pouch of explosives on her belt.

“Not that kind,” Hera said pointedly. “We don’t want to make a scene.” She turned to the speeder bike parked behind her. After leaving the Ghost and her unwanted mission partner behind, Hera had taken Sabine in the Phantom to Jhothal and borrowed a couple of speeders from her Ithoran friend. From there, the pair had trekked out to the distant communications tower.

Hera looked over the speeder. It was an Imperial Class 614-AvA bike that had seen better days, but for this mission it would do.

“I can disconnect the coolant line from here,” Hera explained, pointing to a connector joining two tubes just behind one of the pedals. “The line's supposed to be continuous, but that's a little-known defect that the Imps haven’t caught onto yet. And I’m guessing those bucketheads down there don’t know about it either. I can distract them with my engine trouble while you sneak into the tower and get the intel.”

“Sounds good to me. I’ll tap three times over the comlink to let you know when I’ve got it.” Sabine paused before taking off her painted helmet. “Hey, Hera,” she started. “I just wanted to apologize for… for the way Kanan acted. Before. I know you two have a past or whatever,” – she tossed a dismissive hand – “but Empire Day really isn’t a good day for him and he was only on that mission because of me. He’s not usually like that.”

Hera closed her eyes. She didn’t want to talk about Kanan; she didn’t even want to acknowledge his presence. What she really wanted to do was forget that she had ever met him.

“I appreciate it, Sabine, but Kanan is a grown man. He can apologize to me himself.”

“I know, I know. I just felt like the way he acted was my fault. I did sort of push him into this and all.”

Hera sighed. “Sabine, how Kanan chooses to act is solely on him. If he wants to act like a complete and total ass, that’s not on you. Got it?”

That was a lesson that she had had to learn the hard way. Those first few days after Kanan had left, Hera had kept going over the whole ordeal wondering what she had done wrong, what misstep she had taken to push him away. It wasn’t until her heartbreak melted into cold hard anger that she realized the fault didn’t lie with her. That pleasure fell entirely on Kanan’s shoulders.

Sabine nodded, looking down at the swaying grass at her feet before softly saying, “I know, but still.” She shrugged and climbed on her bike. “I’ll meet you at the rendezvous.”

Hera watched her speed past while tugging her flight goggles down. This mission was going to be her hardest yet and it wasn’t because of the actual job. Mounting her bike, she tried to shove the Kanan-shaped mess from her mind.

As she flew across the grasslands she watched Sabine peel off, snaking away from the tower to approach from behind. Hera used the heel of her boot to kick loose the coolant line causing her bike to shudder and, moments later, begin to smoke as the engine overheated. She pressed the now-failing bike forward a few more meters until she came skidding to a halt at the base of the tower.

The two stormtroopers on duty came marching over with blasters in hand as Hera jumped off the bike.

“Oh, thank the goddess you’re here!” she cried, waving to them. “I think something is wrong with my bike! You wouldn’t happen to know how to fix an old 614, would you?”

The troopers looked at one another, considering, before shrugging and setting their blasters on the ground.

“I’ll take a look at it for you," one said. Hera smiled and tapped discreetly on her comlink, just two light taps to let Sabine know the outside guards were occupied. It was only moments later, as the two troopers were looking over her bike in confusion, that she heard Sabine’s signal. Hera rolled her eyes at the useless stormtroopers.

“I think I found the problem!” she said in a false cheery tone. She reached forward and reattached the thin tube she had kicked loose. “The coolant tube came loose! Thank you so much for your help!”

Hera jumped back on her bike and took off the way she came before the troopers could say anything. A smile tugged at her lips as she zipped across the grasslands, relishing how the wind whipped around her lekku. It wasn’t anything like flying but it still made her heart soar in her chest, and just for a moment, she could forget about the mess her life had recently become. But as she drew closer to Jhothal, the pit in her stomach returned to gnaw at her insides.

She slowed her speed as she reached the city limits, coasting down the main stretch of road and pulling into the small hanger bay that housed Old Jho’s Pit Stop. Hera parked next to where Sabine’s bike sat and made her way into the cantina. Jho, Hera’s Ithorian contact, was busy with a customer but raised a leathery hand at her as she passed.

Sabine was already sitting in a booth, her helmet placed proudly on the table next to two untouched drinks. Hera slid next to her and reached for one of the glasses.

“Any problems?” she asked before taking a sip.

“Got everything we need,” Sabine responded with a smirk. “Scrubbed the security cams too – those Imps will have no idea we were even there.”

“Perfect. You know, if you ever wanted to give up bounty hunting, you’d make a pretty good rebel.”

There was a gleam of pride in the teenager’s eyes that quickly dimmed as she looked down at her paint splattered gloves. “Yeah, it’s a nice thought.”

Hera frowned at her reaction. “You don’t have to be a bounty hunter if you don’t want to, Sabine.” A slimy feeling started creeping down her spine. She didn’t think much of Kanan to begin with but she never took him to be that type.

As if catching onto her thoughts, a disgusted look crossed Sabine’s young face. “Ugh, gross, no, Hera. It’s not like that. I’m Kanan’s work partner and that’s it. He’s not, like, keeping me against my will or anything.”

Relief swept over her, but Sabine's assurance did nothing to quell the dozen or so questions that sprung to the forefront of her mind. She glanced over at the bar to see Jho still deep in conversation with his customers, so Hera took a chance and asked, “So when did you two meet?”

From the look on Sabine’s face it was evident that she knew this question was coming. She leaned back in the booth and crossed her arms thoughtfully. “Two years ago, on Garel. I got mixed up in a bad job and Kanan pulled me out of the fire. Literally.”

Two years. For someone who worked alone, that was an awfully long time to have a partner. Hera tried to ignore the sharp sting of jealousy.

“What’s it like working with him?” She attempted to cover up her hurt but had a feeling that she was failing miserably.

The teen sighed and pulled her glass close to her.

“It’s good," she said after a moment, a gloved finger tracing a design in the condensation that had pooled on the table. “He’s kind of weird sometimes, like he gets these feelings or whatever, but he’s never cruel. He tries to act like he doesn’t care but I know he does.” She paused, then said, “I think he’s just sad.”

Hera gripped her drink tightly in her hand. So Kanan Jarrus was still the gunslinger with a penchant for helping those in need. That thought made the flare of jealousy in her chest burn a little hotter. Clearly he hadn’t changed. Hera found herself drowning in questions she had asked herself too many times. Why did he leave? Why couldn’t he stay with her?

You know why, said a voice that sounded eerily like Kanan’s.

Pushing the voice aside Hera asked, “Sad? Why would you say that?”

Sabine shrugged. “He doesn’t talk much about his past. You probably know more than I do.”

Hera cleared her throat and looked pointedly out into the cantina. She didn’t know what she expected to gain from this conversation that didn’t end with reopening old wounds. Any information that Sabine had to offer wouldn’t be anything she would like. Thankfully Jho was making his way over to their table, putting a stop to Hera’s spiraling thoughts .

“Hera,” Jho said, his voice modified by the translators clipped to his mouths. “It’s good to see you.”

“Likewise, Jho,” she replied with a warm smile. “Do you have any news for me?”

The Ithorian shook his head. “Not much. The lockdown on Capital City has been lifted but security is still tight. I’d avoid it if you can.”

“Any word on the attackers?”

“Not that I know of.” He gave her a knowing look. “It seems like the Empire never got a good look at ‘em.”

“Well,” she said, sliding from the booth and flicking a credit chip onto the table. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

Sabine followed closely behind her as she made her way back to the Phantom parked on the very edges of Jhothal. At least they had one thing going for them: the Empire didn’t know about their involvement in the Complex break-in. Which meant Lothal was still, for the moment, a safe place for them. She sat down in the pilot’s chair and fired up the engines.

“Listen, Hera,” Sabine said suddenly. “I know it’s not really my place to say this, but if you want this mission to work, you’re gonna have to talk to Kanan. And I know he’s not going to be the one to start that conversation.”

Hera sighed as the Phantom lifted into the air. “Yeah,” she mumbled. “I know.” That didn’t mean that she liked it or was looking forward to it.

The Ghost was right where she left it – not that she expected it to go anywhere, but still a welcome sight. She slipped the Phantom into the pocket and began the shut down sequence, giving herself a moment to refocus her mind on the mission. It was a hard task to accomplish when the first thing she saw after she climbed down the ladder was Kanan’s stony face.

The bruises around his eyes had started to yellow but the shadows that hung beneath them had only gotten thicker. The cockiness he had oozed at the Imperial Complex was all but gone and replaced with a weariness that seemed out of place on his handsome face. She had only seen Kanan look like this once, when Gorse’s skyline lit up as Cynda exploded above them.

Hera tried not to care, forcing herself to remember the things he had said to her, then and now. Kanan didn’t care about her so she shouldn’t care about him.

So focused on her crew instead, already seated around the holotable, watching as Sabine ran the data tape she had taken from the tower through a device, ignoring how her lekku twitched discomfort.

“Alright, I’m in,” Sabine said after a moment, pulling Hera’s attention away from the shadow clinging to the corner. The young Mandalorian’s eyes tracked through the encrypted data before frowning. “And I have no idea what this means.” She hit a button on her device, sending the information to a data pad and handing it over to Hera. She then handed the data tape over to Chopper who inserted the tape deep within his chassis.

She took the offered data pad and began scanning the information. It was… A lot to take in, and none of it made much sense. There was file after file of technical jargon, reports on energy outputs and failed testing, but it seemed like half of the information was missing or coded so no outsider could get a full picture of what was being said. There was, however, one thing that stuck out to her.

“What’s Project Celestial Vengeance?”

“I’m not sure. I’m checking it against known Imperial projects on Lothal but so far, I’ve got nothing,” Sabine answered.

“So we’ve got intel we can’t read on a project that doesn’t exist?” Zeb grumbled, leaning back against the curve of the acceleration couch. “Fulcrum’s not going to like that.”

“No, they are not,” Hera agreed as she continued to read through the information. “It looks like Science Officer Tane is running an off the books operation, something he doesn’t want his superiors to know about. That could be good news for us.”

“Why’d you think that?” Zeb asked.

Ezra perked up from his seat next to the Lasat, his eyes brightening. “Do you think he’s a rebel?”

Hera hummed, deep in thought. “Maybe, or maybe not. Sabine, did you happen to find the location of where Tane is running this operation?”

“Give me a second,” the teen said, biting her lip. Hera took that moment to hand the pad over to Kanan, leveling him with what she hoped was a blank and professional look. He was part of this mission after all, even if the fact grated against her nerves. He took the pad without speaking and glanced at it. Hera watched him closely, crossing her arms over her chest, looking for something. Kanan’s sharp brows pulled together as he read, the color slowly draining from his face.

“I got it!” Sabine exclaimed with a snap of her fingers. “Tane has a black site in the northern hemisphere, near the planet’s pole.” She gestured to Chopper who projected a holomap of Lothal in the center of the room. There was a glowing red beacon near the top of the planet, far away from any known settlement or structure. Runa Tane’s black site was literally in the middle of nowhere.

“What’s he doing all the way up there?” Zeb questioned.

“I’ll go check it out,” Kanan said suddenly, handing the pad back to Hera. His voice was gravely and raw. She saw out of the corner of her eye, Ezra flinched.

“Not by yourself you’re not,” Hera fired back. His jaw worked as if he was fighting back a retort before nodding. Hera turned her attention back to Sabine who looked a little surprised by Kanan’s acceptance. “Do you have the coordinates?” she asked.

“I’m sending them to you now," she replied with wide eyes. They kept flicking from Kanan back to Hera like she was waiting for a repeat of their earlier fight. Everyone was looking at them expectantly, for that matter. Hera repressed a sigh. Instead of saying anything she looked down at her wrist comm at the coordinates Sabine had sent over before addressing Kanan.

“It’s going to be a long trip, even with the Phantom. If we leave now, we can make it there a little after nightfall.” Kanan nodded at her mutely before sweeping out of the common room. She glanced over at her crew. Four faces looked back at her. Waiting. “What?”

“You okay to go with him by yourself, boss?” Zeb asked. Beside him, Sabine bristled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped. “Kanan wouldn’t do anything! Hera’s the one that punched him!”

“I’ll be fine,” Hera bit off before Zeb could respond. “Besides, this isn’t my first time working with him.” She looked over at Chopper and said, “Make sure the Phantom’s ready to go. I want you to come along with us.”

Chopper grumbled back at her, but used his thruster to ascend up the hatch to the shuttle.

The rest of her crew looked on, unconvinced. With a roll of her eyes, Hera retreated to the cockpit for a moment to herself. As the door to the common room slid shut she could hear Sabine’s harsh retort.

“You know he’s not a complete asshole.”

Hera huffed. That fact remained to be seen.

In the cockpit she gave the Ghost a quick once over to make sure everything was in order, letting the comforting sounds of her ship wash over her. She didn’t know what she was thinking, volunteering to go off with Kanan on her own. It was bound to end in disaster. Or worse. But he saw something in the data they recovered, something that he understood and it scared him. And if something had Kanan scared, she was going to find out what it was.

Behind her the cockpit doors opened. Hera turned in her chair to find Ezra standing there pulling at the hem of his sleeve.

“Everything okay, Ezra?” she asked. The boy didn’t say anything, just took a step forward before settling in the co-pilot’s seat. “Ezra?”

“I’m fine," he said, spinning in the seat. “I just think… You should be careful around that guy. The bounty hunter.”

A chill ran down Hera’s spine. “Did something happen while I was gone?”

Ezra ran a hand through his hair. “No, not really,” he sidestepped.

“Ezra, if Kanan did something to make you uncomfortable, I need to know.”

“He didn’t do anything.” The boy looked down at his feet. “I might have snuck into his cabin.”

Hera groaned. “Ezra…”

“I know! I know. But I found this.” He dug something out of his pocket and handed it to Hera. It was a small, beautiful box decorated with fragile-looking gold filigree and clear gems, the corners twisted at odd angles. Hera turned it in the light, the clear glass casting rainbow prisms on the grey durasteel floor. “I don’t think he is who he says he is.”

Hera tucked the box away in a pocket of her flight suit to deal with later before standing. She placed a hand on Ezra’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I appreciate your concern, Ezra but I can handle Kanan. And don’t think you’re going to get away with sneaking into someone’s quarters," she admonished. “You need to apologize.”

Ezra deflated under her grip, following her out of the cockpit. The doors slid open to reveal Kanan standing in the hallway. His face was like carved stone, devoid of any emotion. He gave Hera and Ezra an unreadable look before saying, “I’m ready when you are.”

Another chill wrapped around Hera’s spine as she nodded. The three of them walked down the short hallway back into the common room. Kanan didn’t stop, just continued up the ladder to the Phantom. Hera caught Zeb’s eyes and held Ezra in front of her. “Keep an eye on this one while we’re gone. I’ll comm if we run into any trouble.”

Zeb pushed himself to his feet and mussed Ezra’s long hair. “You got it, boss.”

Kanan was sitting in one of the jump seats with his elbows resting on his knees when Hera climbed through the hatch into the belly of the Phantom. He didn’t look at her as she brushed past but she could feel the tension in the cabin growing. The angry words of their most recent argument seemed to hang in the air between them. As soon as she detached the Phantom and set the heading she turned in her seat, her jaw set.

“If we both want to survive this job, I want to make one thing abundantly clear,” she said. “You will not question my leadership. You will listen to me at all times. If I tell you to do something, you do it. Understand?” Kanan nodded, still not looking up. “You are only on this mission because of Sato but if I think for one second that you are putting my crew at risk, you’re done. No more job, no more money. Do I make myself clear?”

“Like crystal,” Kanan said to his knees. Chopper rolled forward from his spot by the back hatch, waving one of his manipulator arms threateningly. Hera waved him off with a stern look. Satisfied she turned back around to face the viewport, letting a tense silence fall over them as they headed north.

“I don’t plan on wasting my time working for some Twi’lek that’s just going to get herself killed fighting the Empire.”

“This is an organized rebellion is it not? It would be a shame for you to lose what little power you had just because you disobeyed a direct order.”

The words rolled around in her mind, making one thing abundantly clear: this wasn’t going to be like the last time. This wasn’t Gorse. They were going to do this job like adults, and the second it was over she would send him on his way. No offer to join her crew, no delusions of love, nothing.

Once this was over, she would be the one leaving him behind.

Outside, the Lothal wilderness flew by. The endless grasslands soon turned to marshes that gave way to a band of mountains. Having grown up on Ryloth, Lothal was very much a foreign place to her. She was used to the heat and dry desert winds, not the light breezes that came off the water and danced among the endless sea of grass that the planet boasted. It was beautiful, a welcome change in pace from the other, seedier planets that had made up her life with the rebellion. And as much as Ryloth was a part of her, Lothal was starting to feel a lot like home.

Shifting in her seat, Hera felt the pinch of a sharp corner digging into her thigh. She quickly reached for the object to stop the pain and held it up to the light. She had no idea what it was, but she knew it had something to do with the Jedi. Turning her seat around, she tossed the box at Kanan.

He caught it without looking up, curling the box against his chest. “You should teach your crew not to go through other people’s things.”

“I take it that wasn’t all Ezra found?” she asked, spying the new hardware clipped to his belt. Hera couldn’t be sure that the pieces hanging off Kanan’s waist were components of a lightsaber but it wouldn’t be that far of a stretch. On Gorse she had thought that he was too young to have one, but she was learning quickly that she couldn’t count on anything she thought she knew about him. “That doesn’t seem the safest thing to be carrying around.”

“Had a feeling,” he replied, still not looking up. His fingers blindly trailed over the twisted corners of the box.

“So Sabine said.”

He looked up at that, his teal eyes sharp behind his yellowing bruises. “What did she say?”

“Oh, just that you get these feelings sometimes.” She rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry; I don’t think she knows you’re a Jedi.”

“I’m not a Jedi,” he hissed, his voice like durasteel.

“Believe me, I know,” she spat back just as forcefully.

Kanan flinched and looked down at the cube in his hands.

“What else did Sabine say?” he asked in a quiet voice that was unlike him. He sounded meek, almost timid, as if he was afraid Sabine had shared his nastiest secrets to the world. As if he actually cared about what Hera thought of him.

Hera studied him, trying to figure out what angle he was working. A man like Kanan, someone who only looked out for himself, never did anything without one – but all she could see was resignation, a heavy shadow of weariness that didn’t sit right on someone so young.

“Nothing I didn’t already know.” Hera replied. “Although she did try to apologize for your behavior earlier. You seem to have a habit of making people think your actions are somehow their fault.”

He flinched again, the corners of his mouth turning down. “I am sorry for that.” His voice was even quieter than before. “I was out of line.”

“Damn right you were.”

“I’m sorry, Hera,” he repeated, looking up at her. The sincerity of his words was unmistakable. Those green-blue eyes of his bore into hers, genuine emotion reflected in their depths, making her flush. She looked away, unwilling to allow herself to fall down that slippery slope.

He didn’t care. He was just working an angle.

“Two years is a long time to work with someone.” She hastily changed the subject, not wanting that somber gaze on her any longer. “What happened to working alone?”

Just as she suspected, Kanan’s eyes left hers, glancing down at the dull metal of the floor. “It wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Hera scoffed. “I guess it helped that Sabine wasn’t some Twi’lek going to get herself killed fighting a hopeless battle against the Empire, right?”

Kanan set the cube down on the jump seat beside him and stood, taking a step towards her. “Hera…”

Chopper rolled forward, his elecroprod extended in warning.

“Save it.” She turned around in her chair. “I don’t want to hear it.”

Maybe if this was six years ago she would have listened, but it was too little, too late. Kanan had made his opinions about her known a long time ago. Anything he had to say on the matter now was moot. Of course, that didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt. She blinked her eyes in frustration, clearing the moisture that had unwillingly started to build in the corners.

Hera turned her attention to the sky outside, taking a steadying breath. Thick bands of pink and purple brushed across the skyline as the slowly setting sun dipped below the horizon. But her thoughts wouldn’t settle because Kanan was right there, standing behind her, a constant reminder of a past she so desperately wanted to forget.

And even now, as furious as she was, she couldn’t deny the truth, the real reason why she was so upset to see him again.

Hera was still in love with him.

“I’m sorry,” Kanan echoed once more. He was closer now, just inches from her chair.

“You’re going to have to be a tad bit more specific there, Kanan.” She laughed humorlessly, refusing to turn around. “There is a lot you should be apologizing for.” Her hands tightened on the control yoke.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

She screwed her eyes closed against the memory of his words. Her heart clenched painfully in her chest, the heartbreak she felt all those years ago ripping her apart all over again.

“What’s done is done,” she said, her voice wavering.

“I know, but that doesn’t make what I did right.” He exhaled sharply. “You didn’t deserve it.”

Hera spun around so fast that her lekku hit the back of the seat painfully. He took a step back, his eyes wide.

“Then why did you do it?” Her voice trembled. “If I didn’t deserve it, then why did you do it?”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.” He collapsed back down into his seat. His tone was strained. “You knew what I was and I couldn’t – I wouldn’t be that again.” Kanan looked at her with pleading eyes. “You think being a Jedi is some great thing, but it’s not, Hera. It’s a curse, and if I went with you… I didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“I did get hurt, Kanan!” she cried, heat searing across her cheeks. “You hurt me! What you said, what you did, it wasn’t to protect me! It was to protect yourself!”

Kanan swallowed thickly. “I know.”

Hera’s hands trembled, her heart lodged in her throat. “I never asked for a Jedi. I asked for you. I just wanted you.”

For years, she had wanted to know the reason behind why Kanan had left. Now that she had it, she wanted to scream in anger. She wanted to shake him senseless. He didn’t want her to get hurt? He couldn’t be what she wanted? She didn’t want anything from him. She just wanted him.

Hera turned away, unable to look at him any longer.

“This doesn’t change anything,” she said, just above a whisper.

“I know,” he repeated. “But I am sorry.”

No one but Chopper spoke for the rest of the journey. He warbled low threats at Kanan’s still form that made Hera twitch. She should have told him to stop, but she couldn’t find her voice. It was too tied up in Kanan’s confession.

The sun had fully set by the time the Phantom made it to the location that hid Runa Tane’s secret base. It was shaping up to be a cloudless night and this far north the stars glittered like millions of little gems in the deep indigo sky. The two moons were nearly full, their cool light illuminating the grassy sea that surrounded the small rocky outcroppings that dotted the landscape. Hera brought the Phantom down at the base of a rolling hill, well out of sight of any prying eyes from above. Shutting down the engines, she checked the charge on her blaster before opening the back hatch. Chopper rolled out first, his antenna extended, while Kanan followed behind him soundlessly.

“Focus, Syndulla,” she told herself, stepping away from the pilot’s chair. “Stay focused and all of this will be over soon.”

She hoped.

Kanan was standing stiffly at the bottom of the hill, his hand gripping his blaster so tightly she could hear the leather of his fingerless gloves creak. She looked around, her vision sharp in the deep cover of night, but didn’t see anything that would give them cause for alarm.

“Our objective is recon only,” Hera ordered. “Chop, I want you to take scans of the facility, see what you can get. Kanan–”

She paused, noticing that he wasn’t paying attention. His face was pointed towards the hill, the veins in his neck jutting out with strain.

“Kanan!” she hissed.

Slowly, he turned to face her. “Recon only,” he said in a distracted tone. “Got it.”

“Once Chopper has the scans, we'll rendezvous with the Ghost and go over what we find. Hopefully it will be something Fulcrum can handle.”

Kanan nodded before taking off up the hill. Hera followed close behind, keeping low to the ground. The chilly night air seeped through the layers of her flight suit making her shiver. Kanan pushed ahead with urgency, dropping to his knees as he crested the top of the hill. Hera crawled up next to him and pulled her macrobinoculars to her face, a sense of dread forming in the pit of her stomach.

She didn’t know why, but Kanan seemed tense, like he knew something horrible was going to happen. It made her lekku prickle uncomfortably.

Runa Tane’s secret facility wasn’t much to look at. There were three small prefabricated buildings huddled close together in the valley below. Their arched doorways faced one another, creating a small courtyard that was criss-crossed with snaking lines of cables and dirt paths. One path led north from the courtyard, to a small cave opening that was illuminated by tall floodlights. The entrance was partially obscured by crumbling rock, and the hitt it was set into was indistinguishable from the rest of the Lothal landscape. If the floodlights weren’t marking it, Hera would have no idea there was a cave there at all.

Four white-clad troopers walked the perimeter of the makeshift base at a leisurely pace, their blasters held limply in their hands. Aside from the general look of the facility, Hera couldn’t gather much. They’d have to get closer if they wanted to see what was happening inside.

She said as much to Kanan before sliding down the hill. Taking cover behind a rock, Hera waited until the trooper on patrol passed by before darting over to the nearest building. Kanan followed behind her like a stiff shadow, his boots soundless on the rock-covered ground. They traced around the perimeter of the building until she came upon a window. Taking a steadying breath, she looked in.

The space looked to be some sort of laboratory. A large computer terminal was installed on the back wall, the glass screen casting the room in an eerie bluish glow. The other walls were lined with work benches holding various sorts of equipment, stacks of data pads and a few old caf mugs. Tucked near the front of the room was a sleeping cot, the sheets rumpled and hanging halfway off the bed.

It was clearly a combined work and living space for someone. But what Hera found far more interesting was the table in the center of the lab, and the strange container that sat atop it.

It was a sleek glass box, rectangular in shape, with an odd-looking control pad on the top. Inside was a glittering rock, clear like crystal, that had several nodes attached to it. The wires twisted up into the control pad on top of the box and fed into a larger cord. Hera followed the line back to the computer terminal where data constantly flowed over the smooth glass surface.

“What do you think that is?” she whispered to Kanan, moving to the other side of the window so he could look in. In the moonlight, Kanan looked pale. He grew even paler as he looked into the building. Without warning, he dropped to the ground, his knees giving out on him.

Hera’s lekku went tight, a spike of fear racing across her skin.

“Kanan!” she hissed, noticing the sweat beading on his forehead and how his wide, green-blue eyes looked bright and feverish. He tried to respond, his lips moving, but no sound came out. Hera reached over and grabbed his wrist, feeling how hard he was shaking.

“Kanan, what's wrong?”

“It’s screaming.” he managed to scrape out. His voice was faint and laced with pain, his eyes still locked on the box inside the building. Hera glanced back through the window into the still-empty room but couldn't hear anything other than the hum of power generators.

“I don’t hear anything,” she said, her grip still tight on his trembling wrist.

He flinched away from her, wrenching his arms free, as if someone had hit him. Kanan covered his ears, his face contorted in an ugly grimace of pain.

Hera’s heart pounded in her chest. Any minute now the trooper patrol would be back. She needed him to get himself under control before they were discovered, but given the way he was shaking, Hera didn’t see that as a possibility. Frantically thinking of a way out of this situation, Hera reached for Kanan again, deciding that she would have to drag him back up the hill. But he flinched away from her as she got close.

Her blood froze in her veins as she heard the crunch of boots on gravel grow closer. The trooper patrol was back. Her eyes darted around their surroundings, looking for somewhere to hide, but found it lacking.

Next to her Kanan groaned, his whole body shuddering.

“It’s screaming.” he said again before his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed. Hera caught him before his head slapped against the ground, noticing a thin trail of blood leaking from his ears. She felt for a pulse, dragging him into the shadow of the building, hoping that it would be enough to conceal them from the trooper’s view.

Hera brought her wrist comm up to her mouth and hissed out a quick command to Chopper. “Chopper, we’ve been made. Get the Phantom back to the Ghost.”

She didn’t wait to hear his squawk of surprise. She ripped the device from her glove and crushed it beneath her boot heel just as one of the stormtroopers rounded the corner.

Their blasters were on her and Kanan in a flash.

“You there,” the trooper called out in his modulated voice. “Identify yourself.”

Hera pressed her lips into a firm line, holding Kanan’s prone body tightly in her arms.

“I said, identify yourself,” the trooper repeated, but Hera refused to speak. “TK-56957 to command, I’ve located two trespassers by the southwest building.”

“Copy that, TK-56957. Stand by for reinforcements,” came the staticy reply.

Hera tightened her fist in Kanan’s shirt. This mission was about to get a whole lot messier.

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