The Warrior Goddess' Prologue:

Sabine Wren was raised to be a Mandalorian warrior - one of the best the clan had ever seen – and was educated in all possible subjects; all in preparation for her to take over as the leader of Clan Wren one day.

She was born to Countess Ursa Wren and her husband, Alrich Wren (formerly of clan Kryze) on 190/21 BBY, more than a year after the Clone Wars had begun. The Wren clan had allied themselves with Death Watch (a traditionalist group that followed the old ways) when Duchess Satine Kryze (Alrich's cousin) had finally succeeded in turning the majority of the war-like people of Mandalore into pacifists some twelve years past.

Sabine didn't see her mother much during the last year of the Clone Wars because Ursa had chosen to follow Bo-Katan Kryze (sister to the now deceased Duchess Satine) when she defected from the increasingly murderous Death Watch who had sided with the Sith Lord, Maul, who had taken over Mandalore, and formed the Night Owls instead. Still traditionalists, they sought to bring down Maul and his supporters, and eventually succeeded with the help of the former Jedi Padawan, Ahsoka Tano, and a battalion of Republic clones that were loyal to her.

Unfortunately for Ursa, the Empire took over very shortly after that, occupying Mandalore and demanding obedience before the now mostly pacifist people could relearn the old ways and defend themselves properly. Outnumbered and determined that her clan would survive to fight another day, Ursa gave the Clan's (reluctant) loyalty to the Empire, but kept secret the real wealth of her their winter planet of Krownest; the diamond mines buried deep inside the earth.

Being only a toddler for most of this, Sabine was oblivious to the drama of the times, only knowing that her father loved her to pieces and that her mother was almost never home. She would learn why eventually, of course, but the lack of consistent affection from an already stressed and not-particularly-prone-to-showing-her-softer-side-anyway mother had left a bit of a rift in their relationship that would only grow with time.

That didn't affect her loyalty to her mother, though. In fact, all it did was drive the young girl towards pleasing her mother as much as possible in a bid to win her love, only wanting to know the same adoration from her mother that her father showed her.

And so she became a prodigy in multiple ways.

By the time she was three years old she could read and write both Mando'a and Basic and hit moving targets with a blaster while running laps around the massive training facility in the basement of her clan's massive glass and durasteel stronghold.

By the time she was five, she'd added Huttese and Rodian to her vocabulary and had showed a clear aptitude towards all things mathematic and mechanical. By now, Ursa had boasted to all that her daughter was a certified genius and encouraged her daughter's inquisitive mind to continue to soak up knowledge, all while continuing her athletic training. Sabine was now a better than capable gymnast and was excelling in her hand-to-hand lessons. She was also a patient sibling to her two year old brother, Tristan, allowing the boy to follow her around and teaching him to read or play fight. Ursa was incredibly proud of her beloved daughter. (She just had a hard time showing it towards the actual girl in question, having been raised in the traditional fashion that said females had better be tougher than the males if they wanted to earn respect.)

When she was seven, Sabine went through a rebellious stage - in Ursa's mind, at least – declaring that it was only fair that she learn her father's skill set as well. With her beloved cyar'ika backing up his daughter's choice and giving Ursa those puppy eyes that she never could resist, she reluctantly allowed Sabine to take two hours of each day to learn how to paint. The only one surprised that she had a talent for it was Sabine herself. And thus, Sabine was allowed to accompany Alrich to Mandalore and his thriving art gallery in the capital city of Sundari to learn how the business end of being a galaxy-wide famous artist worked. His customers loved her, of course.

When she turned ten, the Imperial Academy of Sundari (which was originally the Royal Academy of Government) invited Sabine to take classes in any subjects of her choice, after giving multiple tests to the heiress rumoured to be decidedly smarter and more talented than average. Sabine, still trying to impress her mother, joined the Academy full-time and pursued every subject she could squeeze into her schedule, but was really the most interested in the science and engineering programs, having an inclination towards inventing things, and the TIE fighter piloting course, loving the freedom of flight.

The fact that she was six years younger than the average First Year cadet didn't bother her… much. It just made her work harder to prove that she deserved to be there, almost always producing the best marks in each of her classes.

At eleven years old, and now starting her second year at the Academy, Sabine finally made a friend when some of the new crop of fifteen year old First Year boys tried to bully the small girl into giving up the prime corner table she'd claimed for herself in the library nearly from day one. The group of bullies had their shebs handed to them handily when Sabine stood up for herself, hurting them faster than they could retaliate. It wasn't until all but one of the eight boys were on the ground, whimpering, that Sabine noticed the purple eyed older girl (but still younger looking than a normal First Year) taking out the last one with a skilled kick to the back of his knee. She'd smiled at the darker-skinned girl and thanked her for her help. Ketsu Onyo, admitted three years early for being a gifted pilot, became her best friend from that moment on.

When she was thirteen years old, Sabine invented something that she never should have.

What had started out as a project on experimental Beskar iron had evolved into a weapon that could disintegrate it (and anything that happened to be wearing it at the time). When her superiors discovered what she had made, they encouraged her to design a proper prototype that could be used in the field of battle against multiple targets at once. Always eager to prove herself, she did just that, and named it the Duchess, just because she liked the irony of it. It never occurred to her that her project would be anything more than one of thousands of academic science experiments across the galaxy that quickly became forgotten as the next year's crop of experiments came in.

But her superiors had other ideas, immediately seeing the advantage to the weapon she had built. When she went home for the summer holiday between terms, they tested it on real people without her consent, which she didn't find out about until the next day when the news spread like wildfire across Mandalorian space that the Empire had a new weapon to keep them in line; one that disintegrated anyone wearing beskar armour. It was also quickly made known by an anonymous informant that one Sabine Wren had been the inventor of said weapon.

Infuriated and appalled, not to mention heartbroken at the look of betrayal in her family's eyes, Sabine fled the stronghold and stole a ship, flying back to Mandalore, picking up Ketsu from Shukut on the way. In the dark of night, she wiped her research from the school's computer database and then they blew up the hangar where the Duchess was being kept as well as the science lab that held all of the previous incarnations of the final weapon. Then the two girls made a run for it with hordes of Imperials on their tails.

And they couldn't go home.

For that would endanger their families, and neither girl was willing to do that. So the girls – who'd both been declared Dar'manda by their clans, after being left with no choice to save clan honour and avoid retaliation by the Empire – skipped across the galaxy, dumping and stealing ships frequently, until Ketsu came across one that she just couldn't bear to part with, loving it so much, she actually traded her distinctive (and currently very dangerous to be seen in) purple, gold, and brown, Clan Onyo coloured beskar armour for it in an honourable deal, since she intended to keep the ship indefinitely. She called the sleek, Lancer-class ship the Shadow Caster, since it represented their new life that had been cast full of shadows and lies, and they took it as a sign to stop running and start making some credits before they starved.

Following a time-honoured Mandalorian tradition, they became bounty hunters.

One of the first things the girls had done during their many hyperspace jumps away from Mandalore was change their appearance. Sabine's long, rich brown hair - that was so dark a shade it was often mistaken for black until you saw it shimmer with red undertones in the light – was chopped off into a bob and coloured a vibrant pink and orange. (She even did her eyebrows.) And then she painted over the Clan Wren colours of gold, silver, and black on her armour with whatever vibrant colours struck her fancy, secretly thrilling in finally being able to express her artistic nature to the fullest. Ketsu shaved off almost all of her waist length hair and then tattooed a bullseye on the back of her head in bright red, because she was contrary like that. Sabine donated a few pieces of her own armour to supplement Ketsu's new look, reforging them to whatever her friend wanted, and they got a new paint job as well.

When they were done with their makeovers, Ketsu looked like an older-than-she-actually-was badass, and Sabine looked like someone's kid sister playing at being a Mando with her dolls. But that worked for them, because no one expected the smaller girl to be the more lethal one.

Over the next two years, the girls did well for themselves, bringing in bounties that most would never have thought they were capable of and living a fairly comfortable life, all while decorating the walls of various buildings all over the Outer and Middle Rims with their graffiti art.

But then, one day when Sabine was nearing her sixteenth birthday, a job went wrong. Really, really wrong.

Instead of the escaped Duros that they thought they'd been tracking for a hefty reward, they'd been lured into a trap by the Empire who had finally figured out who they were.

It was one of the many seedy market cities of Garel where they thought they'd tracked their prey to, but instead of finding a blue skinned criminal, Sabine found a squadron of stormtroopers waiting for her. Ketsu, who had been circling around to cut off the 'Duros' from the other side so they could pin their prey, ended up behind the squad instead. In any normal situation, a squadron of inept troopers would have been easily dealt with by the two Mando girls, but in the next few seconds, Sabine was suddenly surrounded on all sides by three more squadrons and even a handful of snipers on the roofs.

Realizing that even if they were all terrible shots, that many blasters were bound to find their target eventually, Sabine raised her hands in surrender, hoping to escape when there were less troopers attached to her.

Ketsu made a run for it. The snipers shot at the older girl, but somehow all missed as far as Sabine could tell. The cocky bullseye painted on the back of her red helmet should have given them something to aim for, but it didn't seem to help.

As she left, Ketsu yelled that she'd come back for Sabine, but she never did.

When Sabine made her escape attempt some fifteen minutes later while being escorted into the spaceport, she was still looking for Ketsu to show up and help her out. Which was the only excuse she had for getting herself shot in the back by one of the troopers.

Fortunately for Sabine, the blaster was set on stun.

Also fortunately for Sabine, there happened to be an ex Jedi nearby who sensed her distress and anger before it suddenly cut off. Kanan Jarrus, never a friend to the Imperials, decided to interfere, bringing his Lasat friend along with him (who also had a hate-on for the Empire.) They took care of Sabine's escort handily; Garazeb Orrelios going through the troopers like a rampaging gundark, and Kanan picking off troopers with his blaster like they were all standing still and presenting themselves for shooting. (They weren't.)

When Sabine woke up, she was being carried effortlessly up the ramp of a Corellian freighter by a handsome man who looked like he was in his early twenties, had very pretty teal eyes, and a really cute goatee. "Hi," she'd breathed.

"Hi," he'd grinned back, showing off perfect teeth and a hundred watt sparkle in his ocean coloured eyes.

"I'm Sabine."

"Kanan."

"Nice to meet you." And for about ten more seconds, she'd really thought so.

And then a drop-dead gorgeous light green Twi'lek had climbed down the ladder into the cargo hold and said to Kanan in an amused tone, "What have you brought home this time, love?"

Kanan chuckled as he put Sabine down on her feet. "A Mando. I think."

Sabine's very temporary crush on the hot-as-hell man fled as the Twi'lek looked her up and down and Kanan moved to wrap a possessive arm around the woman's waist and she his in return. "Maybe. Or maybe just a wannabee."

Annoyed, Sabine had reached for her blasters to show the woman just how much of a Mando she was and then gasped in dismay when she realized her precious WESTAR-35s were not in their holsters. And her helmet wasn't on her head. it only took her another second to remember that one of the stormtroopers had been carrying her things. "Osik! My pistols!" she'd gasped, and run right back off the ship to retrieve them before someone could steal the nearly irreplaceable items.

Behind her, the Lasat had laughed long and loud as Kanan said, "Definitely a Mando."

And that's how Sabine met her new crew that would become her second family.

A family that was soon joined not even two weeks later by a dark-blue haired boy who turned her world upside-down.

He was a hell of a belated sixteenth birthday present.

A/N: I know I said that you could revote on whichever couple you wanted me to write a chapter for next, but I'm going to amend that to; but not the same couple two chapters in a row so that this doesn't turn into the Sabezra show, lol. (I know how much you all heart yourselves some Sabezra fluff.) I say this so that my other couples get a chance to have their stories told as well. That being said, I would honestly be surprised if Sabezra didn't get their chapter every second one like clockwork based on your votes. :P

To anyone who hasn't got a clue what I'm talking about, there is a poll on my FFN bio page that lets you vote on which couple I should write for next in my Flame of Hope universe. I will reset it every time I post a new chapter.