"All your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise."
- The Beatles, "Blackbird"
Sabine rattled a can of spray paint, sticking her tongue out slightly as she concentrated. She took a minute to think about the work before she started. She could almost see it, at least she knew what it was supposed to look like, even though 'it' didn't exist yet. She let the image fully form within her mind, then took a long, careful breath. Then let it out. Okay. No time like the present.
She depressed the trigger on the can, sweeping it out in front of her in a gentle arc. The white paint covered the target wall with startling efficiency, and Sabine grinned. She almost let out a laugh, but somehow she feared that letting loose any audible sound might break the spell.
A hard slash downward created an angle, bisecting the arc and beginning to add a noticeable form to the image she was creating. She built it up slowly, with short lines and shadows created and defined by the absence of white. A good start. A good base from which to begin.
She dropped to one knee next to her scattered cans of paint, feeling out with one hand for the one she needed. Color. Pinks and purples and oranges. She swiped them over the white in overlapping layers. It got easier as time went on. She fell into a rhythm, an almost meditative hum that reminded her, oddly, of the one-track mind of battle. Inspiration struck then. She fumbled to switch the can of paint in her left hand. Her trainers at the Academy had always appreciated her ability to handle weapons easily with either hand. The same skill made it simpler to do big pieces of art like this one. While she picked up a can of darker red paint, her right hand kept working. Short sweeping waves of black, adding dark accents that would only serve to highlight the colors she wanted everyone to see. She let the black can fall to the ground and got to work with the red.
And then, as abruptly as she'd started, she's done. Everything she'd needed to say, to show, is up there, on this once blank brick wall on the back side of the armory. Few enough people travel this way that she was confident enough that she could finish her work without being interrupted or discovered. She hadn't been. Yet she's equally confident that the evening patrol can't possibly miss the message she's leaving them. The red paint can is still in her hand. She thinks, for just a few seconds. And then, with a flourish, she signs her name.
Her military instructors know she's gone by the time she doesn't check into the dorms that night.
In the morning, as the dawn light breaks over the mural she's left behind, they may have some idea of why she's left.
The white and black of stormtrooper armor. The red of blood. The orange highlights of frag grenade explosions, blaster bolts brighter, in green and blue. A panorama of destruction and death.
And rising from it all, the swooping curve of a bird of prey, flying up, away from and above the devastation. A phoenix rising from the ashes. A rebel. A Mandalorian.
This has always been the symbol of Clan Wren. This has always been who she is.
She just forgot, for a little while. But she remembers now. And the Empire, for however long they exist, she will not let them forget her.