Our time has come.
17: I didn't want to say goodbye either. Hence why we have a ~10k word epilogue. (Also, I'm truly sorry for making you cry. I started out excited to write an epic tragedy and ended up feeling very remorseful.)
Let us travel through the galaxy together one last time and watch our beautiful hero(es) grow. There is a whole unwritten novel in here, so forgive my relative brevity - this is what I can bring to you as I farewell my writing years.
It was strange, how one could travel farther and farther from home and find themselves coming somehow closer to it. Korkie saw the gold and silver of his mother's hair in every watching star.
He knew of his surviving allies but he was not ready to go to them yet. Korkie had never yet travelled alone; he had never truly been alone. He thought of his father and of Melida-Daan.
"I was completely lost, Korkie," his father had told him. "From the Order, from Qui Gon, from all of my friends. The ash in the sky was so great that I lost day and night too. But I never lost the Force and I don't regret it. I think that sometimes we have to be lost to find our right path again."
Korkie liked being lost. He liked going a whole day, once in a while, without saying a word to anyone. He wagered he could feel himself growing and relished the pain in his shins.
On Mon Gazza, Korkie leaned over the shoddy fencing to feel the rush of the pod-racers in the dust-choked air as they crossed the finish line. He'd backed the winner.
"I believe the deal was your ship and ten thousand."
His gambling opponent looked like he might be bursting an aneurysm.
"Bantha shit!" he spluttered. "You rigged this!"
"How could I, sir?"
Korkie fingered their wagering slip and gave a pointed look the nearby enforcer who had issued it.
"Let's not get him involved," Korkie offered generously. "Tell you what. You can have my old ship for free. Consider it a trade."
"A trade?"
The man barked out disbelieving laughter.
"Your ship's worth shit-all, kid."
Korkie shrugged off-handedly.
"It's not so bad."
"In what galaxy? That pile of junk looks like it's been eaten by-"
"-flying leaf-tails, I'm told," Korkie interrupted calmly. "The previous owner explained it to me. Apparently they like the texture of the wires."
The man shook his head in wonder.
"You're some salesman."
"Don't need to be," Korkie reminded him pertly. "I won the bet. Now you can take my ship, or I can sell it for a hundred in scrap parts and add to my winnings. What would you like to do?"
The man grumbled but offered his keys. Korkie completed the exchange, gathered his credits, and went to inspect his new ship. It was a beauty.
"Why do all of your stories about Qui Gon Jinn involve cheating and gambling?" his mother had bemoaned of his father, so long ago. "You'll give him ideas, Obi Wan."
But Korkie had ideas of his own. On the morning he was due to fly out of Mon Gazza, the Empire came knocking and, in a rare gesture of concern for public safety, banned pod-racing in the treacherous abandoned mining tunnels. Korkie borrowed – stole – a uniform and used his new authority to have the racetrack slaves freed and paid an allowance to begin their new lives.
How about that, Qui Gon Jinn?
He made a quick exit afterwards. Word got out of the inconsistency in the orders and besides, there was nothing left for Korkie on Mon Gazza. His revenue had dried up.
The giant moon of Kalarba was a place of many firsts.
Korkie rigged his first set of detonators and thought of his Ba'vodu and of his mother and all of the fights they'd had. He didn't think his mum would mind, really. The detonators were in aid of the local rebels' "deconstruction project", sabotaging the construction of an Imperial space station that would encase the moon circumferentially and rob the native inhabitants of their view of the sky. For his mother – and for the safety of his allies – he planted the detonators at the foundation points of an uninhabited section of the space station.
"All clear?"
"All clear."
"Detonation in three, two…"
And what a magnificent spectacle it was. To unearth the brilliant night sky again, to blow away the debris and watch the moonlight illuminate his skin.
"I'm not rich enough to be buying Starry Night vodka but I've got a case of Sunrisers," a companion announced cheerfully. "They'll be appropriate for the occasion once the sun comes up."
The imperial construction workers had retired for the night and Korkie had already deactivated their security droids. They were gifted that night to bask, undetected, in the patch of starlight they had built for themselves. There was Korkie's first kiss, that night – revolting, orange and ethanol flavoured – and his first night of too many Sunrisers. He was vomiting fluorescent orange on his knees when his companions stood around him and toasted their cheap drinks to the coming dawn.
He couldn't complain. Anakin had warned him, after all.
Weeks passed and the magic was never quite the same again. Every hole they blew out was soon covered over and the members were slowly lost, one by one, from their crew. Korkie's first failure came on the day that the abandoned warehouse they had turned into their home was raided by stormtroopers, a pompous officer in the lead.
"I hope you all like it underground because you've got a lifetime of work for the Empire ahead of you, making amends for the damage you've caused our station."
Korkie could have beat them all with 'sabers in hand. But he was not yet ready to be known as Jedi, nor as the leader of the Mando'ade. He held his identity tight and secretive against his chest and fired the useless blaster bolts of an ordinary rebel. Three escaped, five were captured. Korkie grew a lot older that day, and it didn't feel so good anymore.
The good thing about being a famous prince was that no one could ever imagine you covered in grime with holes in your clothes. Equipped with this low-budget disguise, Korkie gathered his courage and used Siri Tachi's lightsabre on Ryndellia. No one called him Jedi – they assumed he'd stolen it. He had that look about him. Korkie grew his hair long and neglected his new stubble and was caught out, sometimes, by his appearance in the mirror. He thought of his mother and how she'd have pretended to disapprove.
"I've seen the footage of Dad in the revolution," he retorted. "His hair was just as bad. And you still fell in love with him anyway."
He was surely going crazy, muttering to himself in the mirror of a grimy toilet on Kabal. But he didn't care.
I did, he made his mother's voice say, in his mind. I couldn't help it.
And his father's voice, now. His best imitation.
You know us too well, Korkie'ad.
Korkie didn't realise how long he'd been from Tatooine until an Imperial officer – bewildered after being vanquished at 'saber-point by a barely-stubbled teenager – how old he was. He frowned and tried to do the sums.
"How long's a seasonal year on Vondarc?"
He calculated, with assistance from his captive, that his fifteenth lifeday had passed him by nearly half a year ago.
"Kriffing hell," he muttered.
He waved his 'saber illustratively and directed his captive to the supercomputer he intended on hacking. The Empire had been keeping tabs on the Jedi and it would be of value to know how much they knew.
"Once you get me that information," he grumbled. "I'm sending it onto Mace and going home for a holiday."
He watched Tatooine loom ahead. Sand and stone and thousands of lifeforms scrapping for life.
Home?
Not quite. But somewhere to rest his weary head.
"You've got even better looking!" Anakin grumbled, without malice, beholding his vod as he vaulted from his ship and landed on the sandy soil. "What happened to your nose?"
Korkie eyed the approaching Shmi with caution.
"I ran out of money on Corellia," he explained, voice low. "Had a brief cage-fighting career."
Anakin scoffed.
"You did not."
"I did."
He truly had. He'd retired – escaped – with what he hoped was a respectable record of 4-2.
"You did what?"
Shmi had reached them now. The brothers eyed each other.
"Nothing," they answered.
Shmi shook her head, lips upturned.
"The kids are excited to see you."
Korkie couldn't help it; when the two tiny babies he had known toddled out across the sand towards him he laughed aloud with sheer joy. Anakin grinned by his side.
"This is Ba'vodu Korkie," Shmi explained. "Now, dear ones, you won't remember him because it was such a long time ago, but he looked after you when you were very young."
Luke had golden hair like an angel and a generous spilling of dust-stained drool running down his chin. He beheld the visitor with a pensive frown.
"I remember him," he informed his grandmother.
Leia's hair was dark like Padme's, a nest of messy curls that someone had tried to tame by tying a tuft of it on top of her head, like a sprouting grass. She judged Korkie with an impressive squint whilst chewing contemplatively on her fist.
"Me too," she announced, eventually.
Korkie laughed as he knelt to greet them.
"That's very kind of you both. What's this, Luke?"
The boy's chubby fingers were tightly gripping a piece of metal that might have been a droid-screw.
"Are you allowed to be playing with this?"
Luke deflected the question.
"I do remember you," he insisted.
"I'm sure you do," Anakin reassured him, joining them at toddler-level, deftly collecting the choking hazard from his son's protective fist and pocketing it.
"Ve'vut'galaar," Luke announced.
Korkie gaped, his felt flooding with an unfamiliar warmth.
Home.
"That's right, Luke," he breathed. "That was me. I told you that story. You were only a tiny, tiny baby."
"Luke is a tiny, tiny baby," Leia contributed smugly.
Anakin chuckled.
"We did their health check last week," he explained. "Leia is one centimetre taller and four hundred grams heavier than her brother and she's quite pleased with herself."
Luke employed what seemed to be a well-rehearsed move for irritating his sister, plucking the hair-tie from his sister's hair so that her fringe fell down into her eyes.
"Luuuuuuke!"
"Time for lunch," Anakin announced authoritatively, bundling his flailing daughter under his arm before she could hit her brother and carrying her inside.
"Ve'vut'galaar," Luke repeated, in his tiny voice, dreamy and pensive.
He held onto Korkie's pant leg as they followed Anakin and Leia into the kitchen.
As he and Owen cleaned the dishes, Korkie listened to Anakin tell bedtime stories to his children.
"Tell the story about the racer!"
"Luke, you always want the story about the racer! I want the story about the planet made of water."
"How about I tell you a story about both?"
The toddlers nodded in unison. Anakin sat back and adopted a dreamy tone.
"A long time ago, a girl named Leia and her brother Luke found a broken speeder in a spare parts yard. It was broken and it was so ugly no one even wanted to buy it for scrap metal. But Leia and Luke were clever twins and they knew better. Together, they gathered the pieces that they needed from rubbish piles and they put the speeder back together. They sat down and buckled in-"
"-and didn't forget their goggles!"
"Very good, Luke, they didn't forget their goggles. They buckled in and put on their wind goggles-"
"-and their helmets!"
"That's right, Leia. How did I raise two such clever kids?"
"Tell about the ocean!"
"Ah, yes. The children set out on their speeder, wearing their wind goggles and helmets, out over the golden sand and up into the enormous sky. Then they pressed the magic button and a roof rolled out over their heads and sealed them into the cockpit, which meant it was safe to go to outer space."
"Because there is no air in outer space," the children contributed, in unison.
Anakin chuckled and continued.
"They flew through space and they saw planets that were yellow and orange and brown. Big planets and small planets. Planets with many moons and planets with rings. Leia liked the planet that was blue the best…"
Owen elbowed Korkie to hand him the plate that he held in his frozen hands.
"Sorry."
Owen snorted at his vacancy.
"You can go listen, if you want. They won't mind. I can tidy up by myself."
Korkie flushed.
"In a minute, maybe."
When the kitchen was cleaned and Anakin closed the door softly upon his dozing children, Korkie padded across the dimly lit hallway and enveloped his brother in a hug.
"I'm so sorry I ever asked you to leave them," he whispered. "You're a beautiful dad."
Korkie had resolved to stalk the infamous Count Vidian on his journey to the Gorse System and stop him from blowing anything any up but sometimes the Force presented a different way. He was eating the cheapest meal on Cynda in the Asteroid Field Cantina when the stormtroopers rolled in.
"We're looking for the fugitive responsible for the sabotage of Zone Forty-Two."
Korkie had noticed the said fugitive already; he had been shuffled by his companions into a cupboard.
"You don't want to go in there," a young man told the stormtroopers. "We've got a very drunk, semi-conscious Wookiee having a nap who won't like his peace and quiet being disturbed."
Korkie snickered at the outrageousness of the excuse. But the troopers complied, easily persuaded. He watched the group now with new interest. They'd started moving almost before the troopers were visible. Someone, someone like him, had sensed it.
He'd stay out of their way. Inviting any talk of the past, talk of the Jedi…
Korkie didn't have time for that, he told himself. It was easier just to get the job done.
The Force, naturally, had different ideas.
Deep in the Moonglow Polychemical factory, Korkie watched the movements of familiar silhouettes. The same female Twi'lek and young man who had sat at the table across the Asteroid Field Cantina. They were all on the same kriffing mission, for star's sakes.
And by the stars, was that lot messy at their job. Two arrests, a daring rescue, a generous dose of explosives and a frantic chase through the city. They were going to make Korkie lose his target.
In fact, they did make Korkie lose his target. He trailed them back to the cantina, freezing, his muscles aching and his newly designed stun-sniper unused.
"I want to speak to the rebels you're hiding," he announced to the bar-keeper.
He watched the horror on the man's face with faint amusement.
"We're doing the same job. They keep getting in my way."
He grinned.
"I don't want to hurt them. Just talk."
And he'd meant to tell them to stay out of his way, leave the job to him. But how could he argue with Hera Syndulla? There was no unified rebellion in those days, only scattered efforts throughout the galaxy. Syndulla was the first to do enough to make a name for herself. Korkie had heard of her before.
"Fine, I'll work with you," Korkie conceded. "But I swear, if you blow anything up again just because you feel like it-"
He eyed the Corellian male, who was of course not a Wookiee, in warning.
"Are you experienced in this business?" Hera asked, amused. "Forgive me, you look young."
"Not that young," Korkie muttered.
"What's your name?" the younger of the men asked, inspecting him closely.
Korkie looked at him levelly and sighed. This one was the Force-sensitive one.
"Ben," he told him plainly. "Ben Tanner."
The name by which his mother had called his father, in their years on the run.
"I'm Kanan Jarrus."
Korkie saw that the young man had more questions and shut them off with a tight smile.
"Nice to meet you all. Now, are we going to save that moon?"
He'd not wanted to use the lightsaber in Kanan's company. But it was always going to come out, wasn't it? Another prod in the Force.
Stand up, Korkie. Don't hide.
The Count, to quote Obi Wan, was cheating with his prostheses and had Kanan by the neck. If it meant saving his allies, Korkie would cheat back, albeit reluctantly. He removed the Count's cyberkinetic arms in one clean swipe and threw him backwards with the Force to allow their escape.
"Where did you-"
They were running too fast for Kanan to get the words out.
"How did you-"
They vaulted into an escape pod and abandoned the Forager. There was nowhere to hide now. Hera and Kanan's eyes were both wide and fixed upon him.
"You're not a Jedi," Kanan managed eventually. "Where did you get that?"
Korkie sighed, looking to the hilt of the lightsaber in his palm.
"It was given to me," he muttered.
Kanan was sceptical.
"That sounds a lot like you-"
"It was given to me," Korkie repeated more firmly. "By a friend of the Jedi who lost it."
Kanan faltered.
"You know whose it is?"
"It belonged to Siri Tachi," Korkie confessed. "She was a friend of my family. I honour her memory whenever I use it."
Kanan nodded, mind racing. Korkie looked at him and knew that he must have been a Jedi once. That he had known her.
"I'm sorry," he offered. "It must be upsetting to see it again."
Chewing at his lip, Kanan eventually shook his head.
"It's okay. I'm just glad you didn't steal it, or something."
"Of course."
They drifted in silence.
"Where to next, Ben?" Hera asked. "I think we'd all do well to travel together, from now on."
Korkie gave a strained smile.
"I follow my own path. Thank you, though."
On Raada, Ahsoka held the hand of her friend Miara as she recounted the painful story.
"This terrible… thing… this horrible grey creature… he came, and he took Kaeden away. I think he wanted you to come save us, I think he's setting a trap. But then someone else came…"
Miara shook her head in wonderment.
"I reckon he was younger than me! But he said he would get Kaedan, that he's been hunting the Sixth Brother…"
"Hunting the Sixth Brother?" Ahsoka repeated. "Karking hell, Miara. Who would have the nerve to…"
She rose to her feet, and shrugged.
"Well, hopefully he's a useful ally. It's been a long time since I've worked with a partner."
The Sixth Brother dead at her feet and his kyber crystals on her belt, Ahsoka fought her way into the Imperial compound.
"I'm nearly at our prisoner, Bail," she reported into her comms. "If you have the fleet ready for the attack on the base and the town's evacuation in the next ten minutes…"
"On it, Ahsoka."
She found Kaeden wounded but alive, curled on her side in a dingy cell.
"I could kiss you, Ahsoka," she managed, through a groan of pain, as Ahsoka helped her to her feet. "Not now, I mean. Just…"
She grinned sheepishly as she propped herself upright against the wall.
"…as an expression of my gratitude, you know."
Ahsoka rolled her eyes and grinned.
"No time for kissing, sorry. We've got to get out of here. Except…"
She felt something, faintly, in the Force. Some light.
"Miara told me someone else was trying to rescue you?"
"Oh, him," Kaedan gritted out, wincing with the movement. "They put him straight in the high-tech cell for interrogation. Worth a lot more than me, it looked like. The Inquisitor was thrilled."
Ahsoka's eyes widened.
"Do you think he was a Jedi?"
Kaeden shrugged.
"Maybe. Don't know. That's what the Inquisitor's all about, right?"
"Kriff."
Ahsoka draped Kaeden's arm over her shoulders and hurried her out of the cell.
"Rebel ships are on their way," she assured Kaeden hurriedly. "I'm leaving you with them and then I'm going back in there."
Korkie hadn't stuffed up this badly since Corellia, where he'd backed himself into a corner and had to spend his every last credit bribing a smuggler to hide him. He lay on his back in his cell with his weary feet propped up against the wall. Kriffing Sixth Brother and his double-blade. Korkie would rest a few minutes more, then lure one of the idiot stormtroopers over and get himself out. There were more recruits than clones inside that armour these days and if anyone was asking Korkie, the Empire should probably be looking at improving their recruitment process.
There was a warm presence in the Force somewhere. Korkie allowed himself to focus upon it as he drifted into meditation. He'd bitten off more than he could chew, recently, he conceded. He'd followed the Sixth Brother from Mon Cala to Thebaska and now to Raada and he'd never stopped to let his rib fractures heal properly. He would rest until nighttime, perhaps. There was no real rush to escape. The Sixth Brother wouldn't get anything useful from him.
His impending nap was disrupted by the thunking of combat bots.
"Holy stars! Korkie Kryze!"
Korkie knew that voice. He scrambled to his feet so quickly that his head spun and his vision dimmed.
"Ahsoka?"
"Don't go fainting now."
With a quick swipe of a stolen security card, Ahsoka was in his cell, propping him upright.
"What the kriff did you do to yourself, vod'ika?"
"Nothing much," Korkie mumbled. "You know me. The odd mission here and there, nothing outrageous…"
Ahsoka dragged him from the cell.
"Firstly, I haven't known you for three years. Secondly, I'd call this outrageous."
There was the sound of blaster fire as they rounded the corner and Korkie deigned, wearily, to ignite his lightsaber and help out. Ahsoka was firing back with blaster bolts of her own.
"What happened to your lightsaber?" he asked.
"I buried it when I was feeling miserable and lost a few years back," she admitted, not faltering for a moment in her perfect shots. "Got some new kyber crystals from the Sixth Brother, though. I might make some new blades."
"You should," Korkie agreed, slicing his 'saber through an access port to halt the movement of the approaching troops in the elevator above them. "Blasters are uncivilised."
"I notice you have two on your belt."
"For emergencies."
"I see."
Ahsoka, her strength augmented by the Force, kicked through a window and they charged out.
"Hold on," Korkie yelled, as they ran across the exposed tarmac before the prison. "Did you say you got the kyber crystals off the Sixth Brother?"
"Yeah."
"You beat him?"
Ahsoka smirked.
"I did indeed. You didn't, I take it?"
Korkie grumbled but had no real protest to give.
"Good on you," he conceded.
"Thanks."
A-wings were swooping overhead now, dropping detonators onto the Imperial compound.
"What's this, Ahsoka?" Korkie asked, in wonderment. "Real, organised rebellion?"
"You bet."
Ahsoka waved down a ship. It landed beside them with an almighty clunk. The descending ramp revealed Bail Organa. Korkie gaped as he looked at him. A figure from another time. A figure from the time of Padme, and Satine, and debates in the Senate, and normal life.
"I've found us a friend," Ahsoka informed Bail pertly. "Come on, Korkie."
Korkie stood stock still and looked at the ship. Organised rebellion. A family. A home. One mission, one purpose.
"I've got my own ship over there, I…"
His protest died in his mouth. Ahsoka looked at him imploringly and Korkie could feel that she understood.
"Okay. I guess."
She laid a comforting hand between his shoulders and they boarded side by side.
"You have become, my dear vod'ika, entirely like the Jedi of old."
He sat, knees tucked to his chest, with Ahsoka upon the sill of an enormous porthole, watching the endlessness of space unfold before them. Bail Organa and all of his crew had gone to sleep while Ahsoka and Korkie filled each other in on the bizarre years that had passed.
"Hilarious," Korkie scoffed. "Where's my inner peace, then?"
Ahsoka smiled wryly at him and clarified.
"You've spent three years avoiding being close to anyone because you're scared of losing them like you lost everyone else."
Korkie groaned and rubbed at his eyes.
"Kriffing hell, Ahsoka. I mean, you're not wrong, but…"
He cracked his eyes open, grimaced at her.
"Did you really have to go and say it out loud?"
"Yeah," she told him. "I did."
Korkie conceded the point with a sigh.
"It's easier being on the move," he muttered. "I make my own rules. I don't hurt anyone and I don't let anyone down."
Ahsoka nodded in understanding.
"I've been the same. Bail's been after me for a whole year. I only caved a few days ago."
She extended her hand towards him, rested it upon his ankle.
"You could never let me down, you know."
Korkie snorted.
"I certainly could."
"I don't believe you," she told him, with a faint smirk. "I know that you'd always do your best for me just as I'd always do my best for you. And if anything went wrong it'd be alright. I'd still be honoured to have fought with you in the galaxy's greatest revolution."
Korkie closed his eyes, let his head rest against the cool glass.
"This is what I wanted," he admitted. "I wanted to make a true difference. Bring down the Emperor."
"You can't do it by yourself," Ahsoka affirmed.
Korkie sighed.
"Don't I know it," he murmured.
He breathed out his agitation in the way that he had been taught by his father so long ago.
"You're right, Ori'vod. About everything. And I… I'll stick around. Fight with you all."
He opened his eyes to watch her smile. She was as radiant as the dawn.
"I'll have to get sparring with you again," she told him. "Sounds like you've got some room for improvement after Raada."
"You'll have to make your lightsabers first," Korkie reminded her.
He sat up straighter, ran a hand through his tangled hair.
"Tell you what. While you work on the 'sabers, I need a break. If I can get there undetected I'll go to Tatooine. See Anakin and the kids again. Then I'll be back, I promise."
Ahsoka gave a crooked smile.
"That sounds like a good plan."
He took his hand in her own, then. Stars. He had grown so much and yet he still loved her like a child.
"I was too dizzy to tell you when you first found me in that cell, Ahsoka. But seeing you again…"
His mouth was dry and his voice hoarse.
"It was the best thing that's happened to me in a really long time."
She nodded and leaned forward to embrace him.
"Me too, Korkie."
They sat, locked in each other's arms, until they stood and parted ways, finally ready to sleep.
"They want Ba'vodu Korkie to read them their story tonight," Anakin informed Korkie, with a wry grin. "Congratulations. You've become the fun uncle."
Korkie lifted his brows and laid down the plate in his hands.
"They want me?"
"They do."
Who was he to refuse them?
He padded into the bedroom to find the twins busy at the bookshelf Owen had made them for their third life-day. Luke and Leia had sprouted into long-limbed children who had commenced their first year of school. They balanced something precariously between their hands, a rare show of collaboration, bringing it towards him as though a ceremonial gift.
It was the Family Book.
"Dad says that he can't tell us these stories because he doesn't know them all," Leia informed Korkie. "But he said you can tell them to us."
Korkie took the photo album delicately in his hands. It was the last thing his mother had ever given him.
"You've taken such good care of it," he murmured.
"We're not allowed to touch it unless you're here looking after us," Luke recited.
Korkie cracked a smile.
"Well, I suppose we could all have a look at it together."
Korkie sat on Leia's bed, a child tucked under each arm, leaning back against the warm stone wall. The children snuggled against him like strill-cubs, grown so phenomenally from when he had seen them last. Leia's hair was long enough for a braid now. Luke's fringe sagged over his eyes. Korkie could offer to cut it for him, tomorrow. He'd become well-practiced at cutting his own.
"Now you must remember not to tell your friends or anyone else on Tatooine the names of the people in the Family Book," Korkie counselled. "It's not a good idea to speak about Mandalore to anyone outside the family either, remember?"
He was given a chorus of diligent assents.
"Alright. Well. This is a photograph taken on the planet Mandalore, in the city Sundari. The royal family of the Clan Kryze brought their second daughter, Bo-Katan, from the lakes of Kalevala where she was born over to the snowy city for the first time."
The children watched in wonder. The rich furs, the snow, the enormous pillars of stone behind them, must have all looked straight out of a fairy-tale.
"Bo-Katan is my Ba'vodu. Her sister, here, was my Buir. Her name was Satine. Her parents here are my Ba'buir Adonai and Martise."
"Why did they come to the snow?" Leia asked.
"Because that was where the palace was."
"The palace?" Luke asked, reverent.
"The Clan Kryze lived in a palace in the city of Sundari," Korkie affirmed.
It sounded a fairy-tale to his own ears. Had he truly lived that life, so long ago? On a land that was now no more than rock and sand?
"And here…"
Korkie found his voice wobbling already with emotion.
"Here is my father, Obi Wan. With his Master Qui Gon Jinn. Not a slave master," Korkie added hurriedly, noting the look of concern upon the children's faces. "A Jedi Master. A teacher of great knowledge and skill. Obi Wan and Qui Gon were Jedi Knights who protected the galaxy from evil."
"That's a lot of trees," Luke observed.
"Yes," Korkie acknowledged. "They went for a walk in the forest."
"Is it hot in the forest?" Leia asked.
Korkie could not remember when we had last been in a forest; the Empire had a habit of turning forests to factories. The last time would have been a holiday to Kalevala in the first year of the war. Before there was no time for holidays anymore.
"Depends on the season," Korkie answered. "And on the next page…"
Korkie was affronted by two shrill cries.
"Dad!"
"That is indeed your father," Korkie chuckled. "And Ba'buir Shmi."
"Her hair is brown."
"Yes."
"But now her hair is grey because she's old."
Korkie eyed the observant child with a twitching smile.
"Indeed, Luke. Anyhow, this is before your father went on a big journey to a planet full of cities. To learn about being a Jedi with my father, Obi Wan."
"Dad isn't a Jedi," Leia informed Korkie sharply, almost an admonishment.
"He was, a long time ago," Korkie murmured. "But he chose a different path. He chose you."
He flipped the page again.
"Here are my Buir together on Mandalore with their friends. There was a great revolution on Mandalore led by Satine with some help from Obi Wan. They fell in love."
The children made noises of disgust but watched on keenly.
"Here is my Buir Satine being brave, defeating the soldiers with her voice and her reason."
He noted the look of admiration in Leia's eyes with alarm.
"You should certainly not be defeating any soldiers with your voice just yet, you know that, young ones?"
The twins nodded, Leia reluctantly.
Korkie turned the page and grimaced. He had forgotten that this photograph was in there. It was surely too graphic for the children. But they had latched the page down so that he could not turn it and gazed at it with intense curiosity.
On the fourth day of spring, 3621 ATC, Korkaran is born. Photographs taken by T9, medical assistant droid – courtesy of the automated 'adverse outcome documentation' feature.
A blood-stained baby in a blood-stained towel lying on his mother's unconscious chest. Over the page, Satine and Bo-Katan were joined by a blood-red transfuser circuit.
"This is a bit of a scary page, sorry Luke and Leia. It's from a big emergency when I was born."
"Did she die?" Leia asked sharply, pointing to Satine.
Luke looked at Korkie forlornly.
"Our mum died when we were born," he supplied, in explanation.
Korkie extricated the book from their grasp and closed it forcefully.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have let you see that, I don't want to frighten you…"
"Did she die?" Leia repeated.
Korkie sighed.
"No. Satine was very sick but the doctor saved her. What you need to know, young ones, is that your birth didn't look like that. I promise."
Leia looked at Korkie with a sceptical squint.
"How do you know?"
"Because I was there."
Two sets of eyes, clear sky and rich earth, widened.
"You were there?" Luke whispered. "You were there when we were born?"
"I was," Korkie affirmed. "I brought your mother to Tatooine when the Empire began. Your mother had to hide because she was such a wonderful politician, so wise and so strong and so loved by all the people, that the Emperor was frightened of what she might do. He was worried that the people might like her more than they liked him. So we ran away together here to Tatooine and Shmi and Beru helped deliver you two babies."
"Was there lots of blood when we were born?" Luke asked.
"No. Not like the other picture," Korkie assured him. "You were born without surgery."
Leia was chewing at her lip pensively.
"But why did Mum die?"
Korkie sighed, squeezed those two young bodies comfortingly.
"I'm afraid we don't really know. She became unwell."
It was a shitty and uncomforting explanation – the kids would probably think they were due to drop any minute too. But what else was he to tell them? It was enough to talk of death with two five-year-olds. How could he talk of the Sith?
"It was a very sad day," Korkie went on. "But I can tell you that your mother loved you both very much."
The children's eyes were captivated, watching him.
"Even though she was so sick and so tired…"
Korkie traced his thumb along Luke's golden hair, along Leia's reaching hand.
"She opened her eyes to look at you both," he told them. "She spoke to give you your names. And she felt such enormous love for you. I could feel it. The feeling filled the whole room."
The children did not ask him how he felt it; they knew of the Force, perhaps without a name for it.
"You got to have a little cuddle with her on her chest after you were born," Korkie told them. "It was a very sad day but I know that she was happy as well. Because she loved you so much and she was happy that she met you."
He sniffled.
"You're crying," Leia observed sharply.
"It was a very sad day," Korkie repeated. "It's alright to cry about things that are sad."
Leia scratched at a scab on her knee as she contemplated this. Luke snuggled his face into Korkie's shirt, crying himself.
"I'm sorry I made the bedside story so sad," Korkie offered, in apology.
"It's good," Leia muttered, wiping now at her own tears. "We've been waiting for someone to tell us."
They breathed together for a few minutes in silence.
"Are there any photos of Mum in the Family Book?" Luke asked eventually.
Korkie hadn't thought of that. He flicked through tentatively, lest they encounter any more blood.
"There might be. Buir Satine didn't always have time to update it but perhaps we can find…"
As he had hoped: a photograph from the wedding.
"Here you go. Here's your Mum and Dad."
The children brought their faces close to the photograph, cheeks touching, as they beheld their mother.
"She's so beautiful!"
"Look what she's wearing!"
"Look at the water!"
"Look at all the flowers!"
"She's so rich!"
Korkie chuckled.
"She did a very important job so they paid her well. But she was always beautiful, your mother, even without all the beads and lace and flowers. She was beautiful in the type of person that she was."
"What type of person was she?" Luke asked, hushed.
"She was a caring person," Korkie told them. "And she was strong and passionate. She always stood up for the people who needed her."
The children nodded, transfixed, their gazes still upon their mothers' face.
"The rest of your family," Korkie probed, "they didn't tell you this?"
Leia finally looked up.
"Talking about Mum makes Dad sad so no one does it," she reported solemnly. "Sometimes Ba'buir Shmi talks about her a little bit. But not very much."
She dropped her gaze to the photograph once more. Korkie nodded sadly, embracing the children a little tighter.
"These things are hard, I'm afraid. Your dad will talk when he's ready. You can take this photo to him another day, if you'd like. He might not want to talk about it but it might be nice just to show him and let him choose what he'd like to do."
Luke nodded.
"Do you think he might cry?"
"He might."
"It's alright to cry about things that are sad," Leia recalled knowledgeably.
Korkie smiled.
"It is."
He was crying still. On the page opposite Anakin and Padme's wedding photo, there was a picture of Obi Wan and Anakin after the young man's knighting ceremony. Korkie made out the greasy benchtops and chatty service droid of Dex's Diner. Obi Wan ruffled Anakin's newly-braidless hair, Anakin feigned punching him.
"Your mum and dad are both dead," Luke observed timidly.
"They are."
"You're very brave," he added.
Korkie bent to kiss Luke atop his golden head.
"I'm not so brave, Luke. But we all do our best."
It was on the ocean moon of Trask, hunting down a mysterious coded message, that Korkie found himself ambushed more comprehensively than a squad of stormtroopers could ever have managed. He stood motionless within the ray shield trap and wondered who would come to fetch him.
There was the synchronised marching of heavy boots. A squad of armoured warriors came to surround him.
Their armour was of beskar. He was seeing Mando'ade for the first time in four years.
"We'd heard stories of the young lightsaber-wielding menace to the Empire."
The voice was heavily modulated by the helmet.
"I didn't want to get my hopes up. But I couldn't help being curious."
Korkie gaped. He knew that armour.
"Ba'vodu?" he croaked.
The helmet came off and it was her. The ray shields extinguished and he ran to her, enveloping her in a crushing hug. He'd grown taller, since he last held her.
"I didn't know you survived!" he breathed. "I thought everyone had died, I thought there were no more Mando'ade-"
"Because you were too busy on your kamikaze exploits across the galaxy to find any," Bo-Katan observed.
She was not cold towards him, exactly. She had returned his embrace and stood before him now with a hand upon his shoulder. But she perhaps wasn't quite so thrilled as he was.
"Have you forgotten the weapon at your belt, Korkie'ad?" she asked.
Korkie fidgeted at his belt. The surrounding soldiers had not removed their helmets.
"Can we go for a walk, Ba'vodu?" he asked.
She acquiesced with a gracious nod. They strode away and out of earshot.
"Don't get me wrong, Korkie, when I saw you land on this planet and climb out of your ship and I finally knew that you had survived… I cried with relief," she confessed. "Which I don't do very often, obviously."
"No," Korkie agreed.
"But you have to understand I've spent the past four years finding the Mando'ade scattered throughout the galaxy, trying to bring them together…"
She grimaced.
"Without much success, I must admit."
She looked up at him. Her expression was apologetic but there was no denying her disappointment, heavy in the Force.
"I'd hoped you'd do the same, Korkie. I'd hoped that if you were alive we'd find each other, be drawn onto the same path."
Korkie nodded reluctantly.
"I'm sorry, Ba'vodu."
"Actions matter, Korkie, not words," she muttered.
Stars. She'd been a soldier before but she'd hardened stronger than beskar in the years gone past.
"That's the task of the soldier who holds the Darksaber, remember?" she prompted. "To unite and lead the Mando'ade?"
Korkie shrugged uneasily.
"It still feels so heavy," he confessed. "I prefer to fight with the lightsaber."
"And you prefer your chaotic missions to the task of reuniting the Mando'ade," she remarked.
Korkie nearly said sorry again but caught himself in time. He had hardened too. He looked back at Bo-Katan's small troop of soldiers. They were half the size that the original Nite Owls had been.
"The enemy that took Mandalore from us was the Sith Emperor, Ba'vodu," Korkie reminded her. "And he'll never let Mandalore return to any strength so long as this Empire exists. The only task that matters right now is defeating him."
Bo-Katan folded her arms.
"The only task?"
"We can't make any real change while he's still in power," Korkie reiterated. "You said it yourself, you've had challenges so far, right? I bet there are Mando'ade who don't want to be known by that name anymore. I bet they're much happier hunting bounty than returning to the desolate home where their parents were killed. We can't unite them until we can promise them that things will be different, this time."
Bo-Katan sighed and kicked at a stone. Korkie took this to mean that she couldn't argue with him.
"Look, when we take the Emperor down, I'll be everything that you want," he pressed. "I'll wield the Darksaber and call for my people and we'll take back that land again. But not now, Ba'vodu."
"And how's your rebellion going at taking down the Emperor so far?" Bo-Katan challenged.
Korkie shrugged defensively.
"Not as well as we'd be going if we had the Mando'ade fighting for us," he admitted. "We can work together, Ba'vodu. Tell everyone that if we want to win back our home, we have to defeat our enemy first."
Bo-Katan chuckled.
"If we're going to do that, Korkie, then your days of being the rebellion's errand boy have to end," she told him. "The Mand'alor doesn't go chasing mysterious coded messages on meaningless moons. The Mand'alor gives orders and fights battles."
Korkie sighed. He was eighteen-standard and couldn't pull the kid card anymore.
"I guess you're right," he muttered.
"Your mother never would have deigned to do such jobs," Bo-Katan reminded him.
Korkie snickered.
"She'd have made Dad do them."
Bo-Katan couldn't hide her smile as she rolled her eyes.
"Well. If you can convince someone to fall in love with you and take up the common soldier's jobs then good for you. But it's time to be your mother's son. You're royalty, Korkie. By blood and, more importantly, by deed."
Korkie unlatched the Darksaber from his belt and ignited it for the first time since a scrappy, desperate two-bladed fight on Shili last year. They watched its flickering darkness in reverent silence for a few minutes until he extinguished it once more.
"Thanks for finding me, Ba'vodu," he sighed. "And thanks for the advice."
She hooked an arm around his shoulders as they walked back to the waiting soldiers.
"You know what Satine said to me, when she was dying?" she asked.
Korkie shook his head, in numb silence.
"She wanted me to tell you…"
Bo-Katan considered a moment, as though trying to remember. When it came to her, she looked Korkie directly in the eyes.
"She wanted me to tell you," she repeated, with certainty, "that you were the best thing she ever did. And that she knows you'll get it right in the end."
"You, General Kryze," Ahsoka announced, arriving at the breakfast table with a bowl of Yavin 4's finest oats and shitty reconstituted milk. "Need to stop telling everyone that I'm the love of your life. It's getting ridiculous."
Korkie, halfway through his own budget rebel breakfast, grinned.
"But you are the love of my life!"
"Please," Ahsoka snorted, sitting opposite him. "I know you hooked up with Shan last night."
At this, Korkie nearly choked on his oats.
"What would make you-"
He coughed and spluttered.
"-say a thing like that?"
Ahsoka raised a brow, amused.
"Asides from the fact that you just inhaled your breakfast," she listed. "Shan's singing as he cleans the kitchen and you have a hickey."
Korkie shrunk down into his collar, flushing.
"Oh kriff."
"Yeah," Ahsoka snickered.
"You are such a bully, Ahsoka," Korkie muttered, good-naturedly.
"I am not," Ahsoka countered serenely. "Someone's got to tease you about it! And everyone else respects their heroic general too much."
"Kark off," Korkie grumbled, returning to his breakfast.
"Is this what Mon Mothma was referring to when she commended your way with words yesterday?"
"No," Korkie deadpanned. "She was complimenting my Huttese profanity, actually."
"Of course."
Korkie took another mouthful of breakfast and tried not to feel to pleased about the fact that Shan was singing.
"You know," Ahsoka went on, smugly. "Anakin had this story that he used to tell about your dad, after his mission to Fondor, when he came back with something akin to that-"
She pointed illustratively at Korkie's neck, without regard for the nearby spectators in the mess hall.
"-on his neck and he nearly walked into a Council meeting without noticing. Anakin took mercy on him and told him before he went in. The punchline was always that he literally saved Obi Wan's neck."
Korkie gave a reluctant chuckle.
"What a punchline."
"Anakin thought it was very clever."
"I bet he did."
Korkie scraped the last of his breakfast from his bowl and rose to stand.
"You're still the love of my life, Ahsoka, by the way."
She rolled her eyes extravagantly.
"And you're still full of shit, General Kryze."
"Is that why I'm invited to all the planning meetings these days?" he challenged.
"If you're going to a planning meeting," Ahsoka called after his retreating back. "You should go find a scarf!"
There was celebration of Yavin 4 as there had never been before. Celebration unlike anything Korkie had seen in the seventeen years since the galaxy had fallen to shit. He strained his voice over the yelling to speak to his niece and nephew.
"Luke, I'm telling you, I had it all wrapped up! And you snuck in and stole my glorious shot!"
Leia rolled her eyes.
"Although you have many talents, Ba'vodu-"
"-and talking shit is number one," Luke contributed.
"There was zero chance of you landing that," Leia concluded authoritatively.
"There was!" Korkie protested. "And unlike your brother, I would have done it quietly and unceremoniously. None of this dramatic business turning off the targeting computer."
Luke faltered, confused.
"Korkie, you told me to do that."
"Told you to do what?"
"You told me to turn off the targeting computer," Luke repeated, frowning. "You told me to use the Force."
Korkie shook his head abjectly.
"I told you no such thing. If I'd been using our bond to tell you anything, Luke, I'd have told you to piss off and let me take all the glory."
Luke chuckled and shook his head, returning to solemnity.
"I heard a voice, Ba'vodu, I really did. I thought it was you."
Korkie thought, inexplicably then, of his father.
Use the Force.
The advice that an impatient four-year-old Korkie with a training 'saber had heard so many times before, when he'd wanted to use his eyes instead. Maybe…
Korkie shook his head. He was far from any scholar in the ways of the Force, but it probably wasn't possible.
Korkie sensed Luke's tangled sadness as they travelled back to Tatooine. The home he felt obliged to return to, the home of the people he loved. The home that had seemed like a prison for so much of his childhood and early adolescence before finally joining the Rebellion.
"You okay, Ve'vut'galaar?" Korkie asked quietly.
Luke snickered at the nickname. The Kryze emblem was painted on both Korkie and Luke's starfighters. Korkie had taken royal blue and Luke the gold of his beloved childhood story.
"You know how it is," Luke sighed. "I just… wish he'd been there with us."
Korkie nodded his understanding.
"Your dad's been pretty busy on that small task of dismantling slavery on Tatooine, let's not forget."
Luke gave a gracious smile.
"Yeah. I know."
He drummed his fingers pensively on the dashboard.
"Those stories you told me about him, about Qui Gon Jinn choosing him and how strong he was…"
Luke shook his head in wonderment.
"Shouldn't he be a part of this?"
Korkie shrugged.
"He should, I agree. But that doesn't mean he has to be a part of it now," he reasoned. "Anakin will help us when he's ready. I know he wants to make this right. But the Emperor was after him as his apprentice nearly his whole life, Luke, from when he was a child, and he nearly succeeded."
He blew out a pensive sigh.
"I can't even imagine how scary that must have been for him, Luke. I was a young teenager at the time. I didn't get it. I didn't know how powerful the Dark Side was, how someone could be manipulated…"
He threw up his hands.
"We've all got things we're afraid of in this galaxy, Luke, rightly or wrongly."
Luke looked at him with heavy scepticism. Korkie laughed.
"I'm as afraid of going home as your father is of leaving it, Luke."
The teenager frowned.
"Are you?"
"I've not been within fifteen parsecs of the Mandalore system since I was thirteen-standard," he declared solemnly.
Luke contemplated this, chin on his hand.
"Maybe you and I could go sometime," he suggested.
Korkie smiled.
"Maybe."
"Leia doesn't get to come, though," Luke grumbled. "That's what she gets for staying back with Han."
Korkie laughed aloud.
"You truly think so poorly of him?"
"I mean, I know he saved our necks and all when those TIE fighters nearly caught us, but…"
Luke made a sceptical expression.
"I still think he's in it for the money. And for Leia, probably."
"That might be true," Korkie conceded. "But I think we have to trust Leia's judgement."
"Leia can't even trust her own judgement!" Luke pointed out. "She still thinks she hates him."
Korkie leaned back in his chair and smiled.
"My parents were like that."
"They thought they hated each other?"
"For a very long time," Korkie affirmed. "My mother used to spit out Jetii like a curse word."
Luke gazed at Korkie, perhaps longing for that reminiscence.
"Were my parents like that?"
Korkie shook his head.
"Your parents, Luke, were uncanny. They loved each other completely and always. Anakin fell in love with your mother when he was nine-standard, I'm told."
Korkie appraised the young man sitting beside him.
"Be patient, Luke," he advised sagely. "I have a feeling you'll find someone and be just like your parents."
It wasn't hard to get onto Mandalore without detection. There was no beskar to guard and no sentients to keep in line. There was stone and sand and the shadows of civilisation.
"This is worse than Tatooine," Luke lamented.
Korkie did not respond to his nephew. He walked through the rubble, calling upon the Force, allowing the land to speak to him.
"How did this happen?" he murmured.
He heard faint echoes of detonator blasts and saw where the flames had eaten away at the bodies of the dead. He saw, in the distance, a pile of rubble larger than all the rest.
"This is where the palace was," Korkie remarked, waving a hand to show Luke. "You can see that this wall nearly stayed up. This was the wall that stood behind my mother's throne."
Luke looked on in blank disbelief.
How could Korkie prove that his childhood had not all been some bizarre dream? How could he make him understand that there had been life here once? That there had been art and grandeur and culture. That there had been schools and hospitals and children playing in the streets. The sun emerged from behind thick cloud and Korkie followed a faint glimmer of blue.
"Here we are."
He picked up a thick fragment of glass, coated with dirt. He rubbed it against his robe.
"We had stained glass windows, see?"
He held it to the light, inspected it closely. There had been so many shades of blue in his childhood. Rich swathes of fabric and polished metals and precious stones and stained leather and pale blue ice cream in the summer.
"I think this probably showed a part of my mother's dress," he decided, eventually.
"There was a stained glass window of your mother?" Luke repeated, in disbelief. "Here?"
"A few hundred metres that way," Korkie conceded, pointing to the distant wall again. "The bombs must have blown it a long way."
Had bombs like that torn apart his mother's body? They couldn't have, Korkie consoled himself. They couldn't have or otherwise she wouldn't have had the time to give those precious last words to Bo-Katan.
You were the best thing she ever did. She knows you'll get it right in the end.
"Are you going to bring them back here?" Luke asked, startling Korkie from his reverie. "The Mando'ade?"
Korkie surveyed the bleak landscape around him.
"I don't know."
"What would your mum say?" Luke prompted.
Korkie pondered.
"When my mum sent me away from Mandalore before the Empire attacked, she told me to never to forget my home. She didn't say what she meant by that, exactly."
He bent as he found another chip of glass in the rubble. Emerald green. The under-layer of his mother's skirt, or her sleeves. He wondered whether how long it might take, whether there were enough years left in his life, to stay here and collect all the pieces and put her back together again.
"When we get rid of the Emperor, Luke," Korkie eventually resolved. "Then I'll bring the Mando'ade back. I'll rebuild the city. It won't be all exactly the same. But parts of it will be. So that the life we had before the Empire is never forgotten."
"If you want to defeat the Emperor, you have to nag Dad," Luke reminded him.
"I will."
Korkie had been deliberately patient with Anakin, avoiding the conversation ever since the outburst that had seen him leave home on Tatooine before he turned fourteen-standard. Over half a lifetime ago. He'd been right to do so. Anakin had needed that time with his children and his children had needed that time with him. Never mind what Korkie had ever had or wanted. Anakin had destabilised the Hutts and freed thousands of slaves and had overall crafted a political legacy his wife would have admired.
I'm not good like him! I'm not strong like him!
Korkie heard Anakin's cry from so long ago.
I never was and I don't think I ever will be.
He was, now. Korkie knew it with a quiet certainty.
"I really will speak to him this time, Luke," Korkie vowed. "I'm sorry. I know you've been asking me for a long time."
Luke waved a dismissive hand to show him that he understood. Korkie and his nephew parted ways, slowly, as the Force led them along different paths through the rubble. Luke followed a trail of starfighter debris. Korkie continued to collect the shards of glass that had made his mother. Tears rolled down his face as he found the rosy tint of her skin. He wondered whether he was too old for crying.
"Our grief is a gift, Korkie. It is an echo of our love."
Korkie froze.
A voice. A real voice. The voice that he had been imitating, replaying, reaching for deep in his memory…
He was almost afraid to turn around.
"Dad?"
His father stood before him, a wavering image of light, dressed neatly in his Kryze-blue tunic and Jedi cloak.
"Forgive me for intruding."
Korkie shook his head, astonished.
"How-"
"Master Qui Gon discovered the path to life in the Force," his father told him. "It is love, Korkie. Compassion."
Korkie swiped at a tear.
"I never thought I'd see you again."
"Nor did I."
His father came to walk beside him.
"I'm sorry that I never truly said goodbye, Korkie. I'm sorry for all of it. I know that I never did get it all right."
Tears streaming still, Korkie shook his head determinedly.
"Everything's going to be okay because of what you did, Dad," he vowed. "I can feel it."
"I can too."
Korkie opened his clenched fists to reveal his precious shards of glass.
"Was Mum okay? Do you know?"
Obi Wan smiled knowingly.
"She is so proud of you, Korkie."
He crouched and returned the glass, gently, to the soil. He did not need to carry it with him.
"I love you, Dad. I love you both."
"We love you too, Korkaran. And we always, always will."
"Love was the best thing you ever taught me."
His father chuckled and shook his head.
"Love is the best thing, Korkie," he corrected him. "That you and your mother ever taught me."
In the distance, Luke knelt to inspect something in the sand.
"I will leave you to your day, Korkie," his father bade him. "But know that I am never far."
"You never have been," Korkie managed.
And he made his way back over to his nephew. The tears were wiped from his cheeks in a gust of wind, by the violent love of the planet that had raised him.
Of course he would bring them home. There was no uncertainty anymore. He would rebuild the cities from the ash and one day they would crumble again. Love would echo, never lost, across the galaxy.
"You okay, Ba'vodu?" Luke asked as he approached, eyeing the tearstains on his cheeks.
"I'm alright, thank you Luke," Korkie answered.
They strode together towards their ship.
"In fact," he went on. "I'm feeling hopeful."
"About Dad?" Luke asked.
Korkie looked out at his homeland once more before climbing back up the ramp.
"About everything, Luke. About all of it."
As I said earlier, there's a whole unwritten novel in here to be elaborated upon. Given I don't envision myself ever having time to write it, go wild, everyone. The story is yours.
To my stoic readers: thank you, thank you, a million times thank you. If you have read this whole story then you have read well over 200k words and 684 pages on Microsoft Word. That's absurd to me. I never planned to write something quite this big and I am beyond grateful that you have come on this journey with me.
I look forward very much to hearing your final thoughts on the story. I tried to give something for everyone in this chapter - I hope we've all laughed and cried and seen our favourite characters.
Much, much, much, much, much, much love,
-S.