The music box felt delicate and unreal under her gloved hands as Koroleva turned it over and over. The metal surfaces were scratched and dull with age, and really there was no way it was the same one; as familiar as they looked, the sheer odds of that were-

She opened the lid, and the breath caught in her throat at the sight of the familiar scavenger figurine there.

Jedi weren't supposed to have possessions, but there was no doubt this had been hers.

She took off her helmet; she wanted to see this through her own eyes.

The paint on the figurine was as chapped and faded as ever, but the colour was as she remembered it. She ran her fingers along the edges, felt the ridges and marks there that Mal had inscribed. As Tatooine had its japor snippets, so Jakku had its music boxes, and the symbols traditionally carved on both of them were sacred, loved. Secrets to all but the givers and the receivers. Mal's message to her was told in the familiar lines of a language she hadn't spoken in so long, Mal's familiar handwriting causing her throat to dry up.

Mal, whom she had failed.

Mal, who was dead.

Mal, Mal, Mal-

This was impossible.

It was impossible that she should rediscover her old music box almost the items salvaged from the base at Hoth, left to lie in the snow of the hangar like someone had thrown it aside in a fit of rage.

And they had, she realised, wrapping her right hand around it. Psychometry had never been her strong suit, but she could sense Zenik's presence on this, and before that, stronger than that, if only by a greater length of ownership-

Genya.

Genya, whom she'd known was alive. Genya, whom she'd chosen not to look for anyway. Her friend deserved her peaceful life.

Alina huffed. Of course Genya had kept her music box for her.

But she couldn't keep it, Koroleva was beginning to understand. The Emperor was already suspicious enough of her as it was; keeping memorabilia from her life as a scavenger and a Jedi would only exacerbate that. She would have to destroy it. She would destroy it.

She reached out and snapped the figurine off its pedestal. The rest of the music box, rusted and scrappy as it was, was crushed by the fall of her fist.

But even as it fell, she tucked the figurine away into her pocket. She wasn't ready to part with it quite yet.


They made it back to the homestead in more or less one piece each - Nina didn't want to admit to being surprised, but she was.

That had been terrifying.

Now, though, they'd taken the rest of the day in the homestead to just relax. Inej's strangulation of Pekka would no doubt leave a power vacuum for other ambitious lowlifes to fill, but they weren't going to worry about that right now. Besides, that would only lead to chaos - and in a war like this, where order was the Empire's weapon, chaos was exactly what the Alliance needed.

That didn't mean Nina's eyes weren't glued to the holos, though. And, oddly enough, it wasn't news of Pekka's death that had everyone up in arms.

Instead, it was footage from inside the throne room - footage that had only been broadcast at the end, Inej had briefly explained before rushing off to get some much needed medical treatment for her wound.

The footage from all three cameras had been sent straight to the holonet. The mercenary hadn't achieved her aim - Inej wasn't in any of the footage, as far as Nina could see - but the fight in which Nina, Jesper and Kaz took on half of Pekka's entourage and lived had become famous. The Empire had plastered their faces all over wanted posters (Nina knew she should be worried about that, but she couldn't help but be smugly pleased) and the images of Pekka's corpse sparked a lot of controversy. It was evident that he'd been strangled by a slave girl's chain, but who that slave girl was, and whether or not she'd been involved in the attack remained unclear.

At least, it had been unclear. Wylan Van Eck, the orchestrator of such an awful, amazing plan, had already let it slip that it was the Wraith who'd strangled him, and the Wraith who'd stayed behind to personally free every one of Pekka's slaves in the palace (while she was bleeding out, barely conscious, Wylan hadn't said but Kaz and Nina certainly had at the time). In the brief (but scary) conversation Nina had had with Tamar over the comms, the general had admitted it was a good publicity stunt for the Rebellion - then promptly returned to berating them for it.

But that wasn't the part of the chaos that held Nina's attention. It was the footage from the rancor pit that did that.

The footage of Matthias with the darksaber.

Inej and Matthias's publicity stunt had been a long time in the making - no, ever since Hoth, which felt like eons ago, rather than a few weeks - and its early stages hadn't achieved much. At least, not compared to this.

Because the rumours of a blond Mandalorian fighting for the Rebellion - with the darksaber - had been just that: rumours.

Actual live footage of said Mandalorian defeating a live rancor in battle?

That was a little more concrete.

"Oh, would you stop playing that," Matthias grumbled as she started it again, his ears turning pink. She ignored him. From watching the way he fought, despite his (fairly obvious) inexperience with fighting with a lightsaber, she could certainly see why Mandalorians were famed as warriors. He moved with a grace that should've looked unnatural on such a large man, but instead only looked unnatural because of the gracelessness of the creature he was fighting. The fight barely lasted two minutes, the darksaber slicing through the rancor's armoured skin like butter, and the beast falling quickly.

Nina almost felt sorry for it.

Nevertheless, she glanced up at Matthias with a grin playing around the corners of her mouth. "You're famous now."

"Be quiet."

"Or what?" She wiggled her fingers at me. "You'll bust out your extreme lightsaber skills on me?"

Matthias scowled. "Shut up. It's not like anyone's taught me how to use it." A pause. "Could- could you, maybe-"

She sighed. "Why does everyone want me to teach them?"

"Because you're the only one who knows what they're doing, Nina," Inej said, coming out of the refresher of the homestead, Kaz in tow. She looked a lot more at home in her usual Rebel fatigues than she had in that stupid metal bikini, even with the heavy bandage wrapped around her torso making her look bulkier than she was. Her hair had been done differently as well: instead of being in its simple, pragmatic plait down her back, she'd braided it in a ball at the nape of her neck, in a style similar to the one Nina had seen the Princess of Alderaan - she forgot her name - wear when serving in the Senate that one time.

"So. . ." Matthias drew the word out. "Will you?"

Nina turned her attention back to him. "Of course I will," she said, almost scornfully. He looked far too happy at the prospect, so she added quickly, "Force knows you need it." She raised her voice. "And Jesper may need a role model in how not to lose a weapon!"

Jesper, from the other side of the room, glanced up sheepishly. "I didn't mean to!"

"I know you didn't." Strangely enough, Nina wasn't that he'd lost Zoya's lightsaber amongst the melee. It wasn't like it was her master's sole legacy - Zoya's ghost turned up too often for that - and Kuwei had never used it enough to truly make it his own. It was a Jedi's weapon.

Nina was not a Jedi.

Nor was Jesper.

"But I got the lecture about constantly losing or damaging my lightsaber enough when I was younger," she said. "There's no way I'm sparing you it now. And now you'll have to build your own," she added, "and you'll need a kyber crystal for that."

And Nina didn't miss the slight glance Jesper sent Wylan before he reached under his shirt and pulled out the necklace he wore. His mother's kyber crystal glinted in the violet light filtering in from the twin suns setting outside.

It was with a wry twist to his mouth that Jesper said, "I already have one."


"Ow," Inej said. "Be careful with that."

Kaz snorted, but she did notice the way his hands stilled, his motions more gentle as he wrapped the bandage round her torso again. She'd felt much better once she'd changed out of that metal bikini into her usual fatigues, the information chip safely in her pocket, but the wound remained painful. "You're the one who went and got yourself shot."

"Saving you!"

"After I explicitly told you not to," he chided, but there was no heat in it. None of the venom that made Kaz so cruel. "I work alone."

"Not anymore. You haven't worked alone since I worked with you." His hands stilled briefly, before continuing their motions. "And I guess I don't work alone anymore either." She didn't know when she'd become so used to working solo that being in a group like this still struck her as odd.

But she'd never worked alone either, had she? The last time she was alone was in Pekka's palace, before she'd met Kaz, ripped away from her parents. Since then, she'd had Kaz, then Nina, and now all of them.

Perhaps that was what terrified her so much about the memory of the experience: the hopelessness of knowing no one who heard her scream cared, and no one was coming to save her.

Until Kaz, in a gesture that was the polar opposite of the veneer he showed the rest of the world, had.

Her mouth twisted to the side in a half-smile. "I guess that's another one you owe me."

"Why don't we just stop keeping count?" Kaz proposed as he tied the bandage and snipped off the ends.

"Agreed." Inej twisted round on the counter so she could look him in the eye. "So long as we keep freely giving favours."

Kaz scoffed. "Sounds out of character for me."

Inej snorted. "People change."

"You know, you were in the footage transmitted from that holocam," Kaz said. "Briefly, and it's from during the fight, so you can't really get a clear picture of you, but your blaster shot didn't manage to fry the cam's memory. Even now, there are Imperials combing through the data that made its way to the holonet, trying to find the identity of the Wraith."

She just shrugged, feeling the fluid motion flow through her shoulders. "Let them comb through it. They'll never be certain, and as long as they're unsure I'll be in no more danger than I am already." She glanced in the mirror and reached up to undo her plait, folds of dark hair falling loose around her shoulders. They spent so much time tied up that she rarely got a good look at them; she studied them now, her head cocked to the side. Her hair seemed to be permanently wavy, from the constant pressure of being in the plait, even though she knew it was actually abnormally straight.

The feeling of warm, heavy hair on her back was unusual and intimate, but as much as Inej enjoyed the novelty of it, the impracticality of walking around with hair as long as hers demanded she tie it up, especially on Tatooine, especially when part of the Rebellion - she just never knew when she'd have to fight next. So she gathered in all in one hand, methodically divided it into sections, and started to braid it again.

She could feel Kaz's eyes on her, but it was a good few moments before he asked, "That's an Alderaanian hairstyle, isn't it?"

"Most braids are," she said with a small smile, "the planet was kind of famous for it. And I need to change my hairstyle - those holocams may not have ever caught a picture of me, but enough people survived who saw me, and now it's out that the slave girl who killed Pekka was the Wraith, the description of a dark-skinned young woman with her hair in a single plait will be circling everywhere. Changing hairstyles can stall recognition for just long enough that I can get away, if I ever get spotted again off my description alone."

"That's. . . logical." A tense moment passed, then Kaz said, as she swept another lock of hair round, "You're very good at this."

She met his eyes in the mirror briefly. "My mother was Alderaanian. I'm Alderaanian. Of course I know how to do Alderaanian braids."

"So that was why you were upset when Alderaan was destroyed."

"Anyone with a heart was upset when Alderaan was destroyed. But. . . That did have something to do with my breakdown."

Kaz was silent for a few moments again, and Inej had the peculiar idea that he was still being careful. Cautious. Treading lightly.

Being mindful of other people's feelings? Didn't sound like Kaz Brekker at all.

"What was Alderaan like?" he asked. "What was your Alderaanian family like?"

Her fingers faltered at that, and she actually twisted around to lock gazes with him. His face was as impassive as ever.

Eyes narrowed, wondering what his intentions were, she said, "Alderaan was beautiful. The only cities were built up in the mountains, where no plants would grow, so they didn't destroy any wildlife. The atmosphere was warmer than space, but still cool, and their summer storms were without a doubt something to behold. I saw one once when I was visiting my cousins - all were under the age of ten, and little menaces, each and every one of them - and it just took my breath away."

"Anything like sandstorms?"

It was Inej's turn to scoff this time, the scorn in her voice tangible. "No. Storms on Alderaan were pretty: the most that would happen to you is you'd get a little bit wet. Sandstorms on Tatooine could suffocate you, get you lost, dry up all your water. They're menaces."

"You hate Tatooine."

It was an observation, not a challenge, but Inej's lips curled into a bitter smile anyway. "With every fibre of my being."

Kaz was silent after that.

It was Inej who broke said silence. "What is this place, Kaz?" She swept her hand around the refresher, the homestead. "Why make this an informal base of operations?"

There was a moment's hesitation. Kaz didn't look at her as he said in a hard voice, "I was a moisture farmer. This was my moisture farm. Or," he added bitterly, the edge coming back into his voice and making him sound like Kaz again, "rather, my father's. Until, that is, Pekka's goons started extracting 'water taxes' from us until we didn't have enough water for ourselves, let alone to sell."

Inej opened her mouth, but no words came to mind. It didn't matter: Kaz continued anyway, with his blunt, harsh language and blunt, harsh retelling. "My father gave most of the water to me and my brother. He died first, and when it was just Jordie and me. . . he soon went as well." He looked up, his face purposefully unaffected. I'm fine, said the sour twist to his mouth. It's all in the past now, isn't it? "I ran away, became a smuggler, got so in debt I was forced to work for the person who killed my family. The end."

There was nothing to say to that. Nothing to say except: "I should've let you kill him."

Kaz actually laughed at that. "No, I'm glad you're the one who killed him. It's ironic, really. He was killed by the chains he put other people in."

Inej nodded, slowly at first, then more quickly. Then, softly, "What happened to your mother?"

He looked away. "Speeder crash. I was eleven, and allowed to fly it for the first time. I crashed it. She died." There was a muscle twitching in his jaw. "Since then, I can't fly a ship, without feeling like- like I'm going to. . ."

"I know."

He looked back at her, and pressed his lips together. There was nothing left to say.

She kept tying her hair. It was a while before she found there was one complicated loop she simply couldn't do one herself, with or without the mirror.

"Can you help me with this?"

Kaz froze at the suggestion, but obliged, and moved forward to take the lock of hair and tuck it into place. He didn't stop there, though, and she didn't ask him to. Instead, he copied the motions he'd already seen her do, continuing the braid for her.

Inej found that there was a tension in her shoulders and let herself relax. There were a lot of Alderaanian traditions surrounding braids and they - had - varied from continent to continent. But one remained constant: it was an immensely intimate act to allow someone outside of your immediate family to braid your hair. It implied they were family - and indeed, Nina, whom she considered a sister of sorts, had helped her with them on occasion - or soon would be.

Kaz no doubt knew of the tradition, but he didn't comment as he finished off the last loop, even if his hands did tremble. They still hadn't spoken about the fact that, delirious and dizzy, she'd kissed him.

She couldn't bring herself to regret it.

Finally, Kaz's hands dropped from her hair and he took a step back. She shook her head a little, testing their durability, and when they didn't so much as shift, she jumped up from her cross-legged position on the counter and scooted round to flash a smile at him. He didn't smile back.

Her smile dropped. Not that there was much to smile about to begin with, the information she'd found on the chip still lurking in the back of her mind, making her heart constrict whenever she thought of it. . .

"Let's go greet the others," she said.