omnia mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
In the heat of high summer the breeze is a mercy.
It flutters at the panels of the canvas tent, carrying the scents of camp along with it, and when she inhales she breathes them in- caf and kolto, gun oil and the ozone tang of blaster fire- and thinks of Jace.
She's supposed to be meditating. They move on the Imperial encampment tomorrow and she needs to calm herself, to gather her thoughts, to focus on the battle at hand. But as happens too often in these last few months she finds herself distracted; the wind grazes the nape of her neck where with her head bowed her robe gaps away from her sweat-beaded skin and she remembers the brush of his mouth there, tracing the lines of her collar as it falls open and-
(Not much armor, he says later, and hands her her belt. I wish you'd wear more. If-
The Force protects me. She fastens it around her waist, smooths her tunic down over her hips. I've no need of heavier armor than this.
Jace frowns. It didn't protect your master back on Korriban. Or Malgus, for that matter.
No. But that's not how the Force works.
A convenient excuse. But you don't need it, anyway. He brushes one of her braids back from her face, the silver beads rolling between his fingers like a worry token. You've got me.)
When she opens her eyes Master Dar'Nala's looking at her, and when she dismisses the padawans to fetch their dinner she gestures for her to stay behind.
"Satele, are you well? You're very-" Dar'Nala considers, brow furrowed, though her eyes are kind- "unfocused today. If your injury from last week is still painful, you should visit the medical tent after we eat."
She's thankful for the question. It means she doesn't have to lie. "That won't be necessary. My wounds are healed."
"What's on your mind, then? Worrying about tomorrow?"
"Yes, master." That wasn't what she meant to say; it slips from her mouth, thoughtless, easy. Untrue. The breeze prickles her skin again and she shivers. "Only worrying. It will pass."
They say the little things are how the dark gets in.
She knows it, in theory, but she doesn't understand how they could possibly mean this. Alone, she is expected to endure- they both are, she and Jace, both flung into battle after battle after battle because they are soldiers and there is nothing left in the world any more but war. (The Sith call peace a lie. Sometimes she wonders if they're right.) The chaos is wearing her down like water running over stone, carrying little pieces away bit by bit until one day she'll wake, she thinks, and be nothing more than a robe and a blade, a mindless violent thing good for nothing but killing in the name of the Republic-
She needs this.
She needs him.
If this is how the dark gets in then everything she's ever been told is wrong, because he is the only bright light in the entire galaxy.
(She tells herself it isn't about the sex.
That is a lie, and honesty is important. It's a little bit about the sex.
She doesn't have much of a frame of reference, adolescent fumbling in a dark corner of the library and the night after Bothawui- the hangover wasn't the only thing she regretted when she woke up- notwithstanding. But they've known each other so many years now, half a lifetime almost; she's pretty sure Jace knew that about her and she's more than sure he didn't care. If he has complaints, at least, he certainly doesn't voice them.
And blessed Force, there's power in it-)
"You don't have to be so serious," he says. "Not with me."
She smiles back over her shoulder as they keep moving through the trees. "I'm always serious. Haven't you realized that by now?"
Jace grins and his scar tugs at the corner of his eye, pulling it into a near-wink. It still hurts him at times- she catches him rubbing at it when he doesn't think anyone's watching- but he won't hear of having it removed. He wears it like a blazon of honor, like the medals pinned to all their chests after Alderaan, and only she knows what it really means: not just for the Republic like everyone thinks but also for you, Satele, for you there is nothing I wouldn't do-
(He is not the type to say "I love you" but neither is she. That would complicate things too much.)
"When the war's over, you should meet my mother." The sunlight breaks through the clouds overhead, throwing the shadows of leaves across their faces; he pauses, looking up. "You two'd get along like a house on fire- not a single sense of humor between you."
"Says the war hero. I've seen that recruitment poster."
He wrinkles his nose, though it might have been the sun in his eyes. "Don't remind me. Really, though, I think you'd like her."
"I'm sure I would. But you know we can't-"
"Can't what?" There's no one to see when he steals the words from her mouth with his. "We already are. We've been fighting their battles for them since we were children. Don't you think they owe us this?"
Believing that, even for a moment, was not her first mistake.
But it might have been the biggest.
(They say the little things are how the dark gets in.)
When she clears the crest of the hill she stops short, seeing the bodies. Five Imperial soldiers lie dead at the foot of the hill, face down in the tall grass, and Jace and his men stand over them with blasters still cooling in their hands.
"I heard shooting." She quiets her saber. "I came as quickly as I could."
"Damn Imps wouldn't surrender. We went to disarm them and they drew on us. Isn't that right, men?" He turns to the rest of his squad as they nod agreement, looking everywhere but at her, and her belly curls into a tight little knot- but then again it's been doing that a lot lately. Too much caf and not enough sleep, probably. "I guess we won't need to take them back to camp after all."
Five bodies in a neat line. Five spots of blood in the grass, five char marks half-hidden in close-cropped hair at the backs of heads.
She doesn't look at their hands. She doesn't want to.
She probably won't see anything.
That is what she is afraid of.
"Satele," Master Dar'Nala says that night, "you look troubled. Is something on your mind?"
She looks up from her reading, another endless treatise on the nature of the Dark Side- she ought to have brought her mother's journals, might have actually found something there to guide her through this mess, but she doesn't think the masters would approve- and frowns. "I-"
She bites it back.
Havoc Squad aren't Jedi. The rules of the Order don't apply to them, and she isn't certain of what she saw. She wasn't there. She might be wrong.
But if she's right-
"I'm so tired-" she closes her eyes- "of this Force-damned war."
For the first time in a month they're bunkered in an actual building instead of tents in a forest and if no one realized that some of the rooms are paired, well. They're all allies, aren't they?
The privileges of rank extend to private quarters tonight. Ten minutes after she makes her excuses to the Masters he knocks at the door between their rooms and she's barely got the latch undone before he's on her like a shot. They've had so little time to themselves lately; she's missed him, and tells him so.
"Did you really?" They stumble across the room together- they've got a proper bed for once, too, actually meant for two people, and if they're lucky they'll have time to take proper advantage of it. "Say it again."
"I've missed you?" She raises an eyebrow. "Is that so strange to hear?"
He grins. "That sounds like attachment to me. Thought that wasn't allowed."
"Jace?"
"Yeah?
"Shut up."
He hits the edge of the low bed and he falls backward, laughing, down onto the soft blankets; his arms are still around her, and she lets him drag her down too.
She tucks a sliver of ginger root into her cheek and even that doesn't fend off the nausea; she spends half an hour retching into an empty water pitcher before she can focus enough to calm her roiling stomach.
When she finally feels well enough to stand she rummages through her pack, pulls out a scrap of clean rag to wipe her mouth. She's running a little low on them, which is odd- she hasn't needed them in-
Oh.
Oh, no.
I'd destroy their cities, Jace says, and burn their worlds.
There was a time when she believed that he was her light.
It was an easy mistake to make in retrospect. To closed eyes, light and fire look much the same.
She needed to believe it so badly, needed something bright in all this clinging darkness so much that she stopped trying to control it and let it run wild. She tried too hard to hold onto the light that she thought he was, to grasp it in both hands and press it tight against her heart because that was the only way to keep it safe-
(She knew long before Gell Mattar. She's just become so good at lying that she didn't realize she was lying to herself, too.)
-and now her eyes are open and she is holding fire in her bare hands, holding fire in her belly, and Force help her she is burning-
It's too quiet in the cave. She paces back and forth, back and forth, singing under her breath to fill the silence.
Her mother used to sing this song to her, she thinks, when she was very small. She doesn't remember. She was so young when they sent Tasiele away.
Her son will not remember her either. She has come to terms with that, even if with every kick and flutter her resolve wavers for a moment. But she keeps walking, the swell of her stomach cradled in her arms, and she sings.
He can hear her, she knows; she can feel him through the Force, the way his heartbeat changes when she talks to him. She sings and he is content. He is at peace.
Perhaps some part of him will remember this.
That probably isn't how the Force works. But she hopes so.