Welcome to the next installment of the Handmaiden series! Before we get started, I don't own anything Star Wars, no movies, shows, books, or comics, only my story and my original characters. This story will mostly center around Karena, but Kelin will still be heavily involved so don't worry about that.

For faceclaims we have Nicola Peltz as Karena and Sebastian Stan as Kelin.

A decent portion of this story will have retconned sequel trilogy aspects, so if it's not going according to the movies, that's the point.

Enjoy!

28 ABY

The air reeked of blood, burning flesh, and ash as droids and sentients sifted through the rubble of the Jedi Praxeum on Yavin IV. Spirits were low with each uncovered corpse. Students and masters alike had been killed due to the explosions, fires, and falling debris. So many lives had been taken, and for what? Because a pupil had been manipulated? Even with the hopelessness permeating the air, not all was lost.

The two Skywalker children were still alive.

The pieced-together seeker droid Gray watched over them as their dutiful guard as they slept, bacta patches and synthskin covering their wounds to help with the healing process. A medical droid replaced Kelin's missing hand with a cybernetic while he was still unconscious as the process would be painful if he had been awake. The gash across Karena's stomach was deep enough to leave a scar despite the bacta and kolto treatments, but at least she had survived it.

The twins woke up in pain, both physical and mental. But where Kelin began immediately asking questions and trying to get up, Karena stayed on her infirmary bed, staring up at the plain white ceiling of the medical bay, devoid of any emotion and thinking over the events that landed them wounded.

The medical droid began going over the cybernetic with Kelin and informing him of his injuries when it was obvious that was the only way Kelin was going to relax on his bed.

The human doctor had tried to talk to Karena while applying a new layer of synthskin over her abdomen, but once it became clear that Karena wasn't paying attention to a word she said, the doctor gave up, finished laying down the synthskin, and went to get the person who brought in the twins.

When Hobbie walked in, Karena perked up, feeling his Force signature before she even saw him. She tried to push herself up into a seated position, but Hobbie placed a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. "No, don't," he told her gently. "You'll worsen your injuries."

"I don't care," she replied, her voice gravelly and strained. She hadn't spoken since she woke up and hadn't touched the cup of water on the table beside her. "I want to know what happened after we-" She cut herself off, unable to finish her sentence. After we were beaten.

Hobbie looked at the young woman with his sad blue eyes, trying not to tear up. He wanted to stay strong for them. "Leia is on her way here and should be here shortly. You should rest up." He then began taking a few steps back and turned around.

"No, Uncle Hobbie," Karena tried, but Hobbie left the room.

He couldn't do it. He thought he could, but he couldn't. He couldn't be in a room with the twins who looked so much like their parents and not break down. Leia had asked him not to tell them what happened to Kal and Luke, but how could he look at their faces and not tell them?

Karena and Kelin could feel Hobbie's anguish from inside the room as the older pilot leaned against the wall outside. The twins turned to each other. They knew something was wrong, seriously wrong. They had a feeling about what it was, but they prayed to the Force they were wrong, too. They feared they were right when they couldn't feel the Force signatures belonging to their parents anywhere near them.

Leia arrived fifteen minutes later. Han and Wedge had stayed with the excavation team being joined by a few other friends, and Boba continued to look after Kal's body. The group had decided it best for the twins to see their Aunt Leia to receive the news as she was the only one not on the verge of breaking down. Even Boba couldn't do it. He couldn't go into the room and see their heartbroken faces and tell them their mother had died and their father was missing. So, the men stayed on Yavin IV to continue overseeing the excavation of the ruins, staying with Kal's body.

The door slid shut behind Leia, and she walked over between the beds to look at both of them. The twins leaned back on their respective beds looking up at their aunt expectantly. She hated seeing them injured. And she hated knowing it was her son who did it.

"How are you two doing?" Leia asked. Neither Kelin nor Karena made an effort to answer the question, their expressions not budging. They're the ones who needed an answer. Leia sighed and shifted her footing before raising her chin. It would be better if she left emotion out of the news. "We didn't find your father's body amongst the rubble, but your mother. . . she was stabbed through her stomach by Ben and didn't make it. I'm sorry."

Karena's jaw tightened, and she looked away, tears threatening to spill from her eyes. She had assumed, but now she had confirmation. Master Kaleena Kenobi-Skywalker had died. Karena's mother had died. She had died because of Ben. She wanted nothing more than to curl up in a ball and cry, but that went against everything she had learned.

Emotion is natural, but don't let it consume you. Ben had let it consume him.

Kelin, on the other hand, was more angry than saddened. Karena was angry, so incredibly angry, but the anger wasn't a part of her mourning. It was a part of Kelin's, though.

"He abandoned us. That's what you're not saying, right?" Kelin asked, sitting up fully on his bed, not focusing on their dead mother. "He abandoned us. Go ahead and say it. I mean, who else would've clued you in to what had happened?" He threw his hands up and slammed back onto the pillow behind him, shaking his head and shaking. "Dad's not dead, but he is gone." Kelin scoffed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "He couldn't even bother to see if we were alright?"

"Kel, I'm sure Luke-" Leia started to say, but Karena cut her off. Leia had expected Kelin to, but it was Karena instead.

"Don't, Auntie," Karena said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Whatever our dad was thinking is not yours to excuse."

"Damn right, it's not," Kelin agreed. "Self-imposed exile because he's taking all the blame for himself: that's what he was thinking. We all know it. But that doesn't excuse leaving us behind." He sighed, taking in a deep breath. "We were all to blame. We should've seen it coming, and now Mom's dead."

Leia took a few steps forward, intending to take her nephew's hand in hers. "Kelin-"

"He's right, Auntie," Karena interrupted again. "We've always known Ben was angry, but we were too focused on our own lives to do anything about it. We could've helped him more. We could've reached out to him when he pulled away. We could've done something."

Leia used the Force to call a chair over to her. Sitting between her niece and nephew, she took their hands. "Now, listen to me, both of you. None of this is your fault. None of it. And I won't listen to you blame yourselves." A fond smile spread across her face as she thought to the past. "You three were inseparable. I used to watch you play as children. I would just sit there and smile at the three of you running around with sticks or the droids. Ben always had the biggest smile. He loved having his cousins around. Han would disappear in the Falcon with Chewie sometimes, and I'd be busy with the Senate, but you two always made him feel included and loved. You did all you could. I regret not being around as much as I should've been, and that's why he was angry. He was angry at me and Han. It was nothing you could've fixed, so don't you dare think it. Understood?"

The twins nodded in sync and said, "Yes, Auntie."

A few hours later, with the blessing of the doctor, Kelin and Karena were allowed to return to Yavin IV on the condition they wouldn't be doing any heavy lifting or any strenuous activity and would return to the medical station when they were done. Neither Skywalker particularly liked the orders, but they agreed.

The moment Kelin and Karena disembarked planetside, they buried themselves in Boba's arms under the moonlight. The bounty hunter held them close, like a lifeline. Holding them, he finally had the urge to cry. And he did beneath the helmet, a few tears sliding down his cheeks. They were safe. Kal's kids were safe.

When they pulled out of the embrace, Karena asked, "Where is she?"

"On my ship," Boba answered. The medical frigate had left to take the few survivors to a medical station about an hour prior, and he hadn't wanted Kal to be taken with, so he moved her to her old bunk aboard his ship to wait for Kelin and Karena to arrive. "I made a pyre for when you're ready."

"Can you take us to her?" Kelin requested. Boba nodded and led them to the Slave 1.

Kal's cold hands were folded over the wound in her abdomen. Her hair laid behind her like a crown. Not a speck of dirt or grime was on her skin.

Kelin and Karena knelt beside their dead mother, and Kelin finally broke. Tears spilled carelessly from his eyes as he draped himself over Kal's legs. "Mom, no, no," he whimpered as he cried.

Karena ran a hand through her brother's hair as she stared at her mom's serene face. She couldn't remember the last time she had seen her mom peaceful. It almost didn't suit her, but she deserved to be at peace. Finally seeing Kal's body, Karena's anger overcame her sadness, like the sadness had won out over Kelin's anger. Kal had died too early, too young.

"Kel, we should. . ." Karena trailed off, still staring at Kal's face. She couldn't make herself say it. How could she? She wasn't ready to let her mom go. They were too young. All of them. They weren't ready for a life without Kal and Luke. They were only twenty-four. What were they going to do without their parents?

Kelin pried himself away, nodding and wiping the tears away. "Yeah, we should." He knew what his sister meant. They had to burn the body. A Jedi wasn't buried. They received a funeral pyre. They both stood and backed away.

Boba, who had been standing in the doorway, moved through them and gathered Kal in his arms again, for the last time. He led the way to the pyre, Kelin and Karena following close behind.

The others, upon seeing the three exit the ship, went into the jungle with them.

Boba set Kal on top of the wooden pyre, laying her body out straight, refolding her hands, and fixing her hair. Wedge and Snap readied two torches for the twins, wrapping old rags around the end of two sticks and lighting them on fire.

Before the twins moved to take the torches, Boba stopped in front of them. He unclipped Kal's lightsaber from his belt and took her mother's necklace from a pouch then held them out to Kelin and Karena. "She'd want you to have these," he told them quietly. He placed the lightsaber in Karena's hand and the necklace in Kelin's, knowing who Kal would've passed them on to: the weapon to the martial Karena, and the Force crystal to the introspective Kelin.

They gave their Grandpa Boba sad but grateful smiles and held on tight to the last of Kal's personal effects. They would cherish the items forever. Boba took a step back to join the line around the pyre. Wedge and Snap handed Kelin and Karena the torches.

The Skywalker twins stepped up to the pyre on either end of it, glancing back at the memorial crowd.

Han had wrapped his arm around Leia, holding her tight in his arms. They weren't just mourning the death of a friend or sister or a missing brother, they were mourning the fall of their son to the Dark Side. They were in a world of hurt and agony.

Wedge's wife, Nora Wexley, who had made the trip the moment she found out from her son Snap, held his hand to provide as much comfort as she could, but it helped very little. She knew Wedge had seen Kal as his best friend, almost like a sister, and for Kal to be taken away as she had, it wasn't the same as losing a colleague in a firefight. Snap stood on the other side of Nora, her arm wrapped around him. He hadn't known Kal all too well, but she had always been kind to him.

On Wedge's other side was Hobbie so close to delving into tears again. He kept replaying memories of Kal in his head: particularly her saving him. It left him hollow and alone.

Lando and Chewie stood beside each other. Lando knew Kal very little aside from a professional standpoint, but Luke was missing, too. He couldn't believe it. It seemed as though everything was going to shit around them. Chewie had already howled his grief when he had arrived on Yavin IV, but he wanted to do it again and again and again until it stopped hurting no matter how much he knew it wouldn't help.

Sabine wanted to blast something. Ezra had barely survived whatever had happened to the temple thanks to Kal, and he had been taken away on the medical frigate. Ezra surviving was the only reason Sabine wasn't blasting everything she could. That and Hera's presence.

Hera and Jacen had made the trip, too. Jacen had felt the disturbance in the Force when it happened. He had felt the deaths of his mentor and peers. But Kal had been more than a mentor. She had practically been his mother when he was away from Hera. He remembered listening to her stories about his father and would cherish those memories always. Hera kept thinking about how much death she had seen and been around. She couldn't take it. She thought it was over. She was angry, too.

Which left Boba, who had seen Kal go from an impatient teenager who had much to learn into a strong woman who went on to make a difference in the universe. He thought of her as his own daughter, and no parent should ever outlive their child. He swore to the heavens that he would look after the children she had left behind.

Kelin and Karena turned back to face the pyre, and their eyes caught glimpse of a shimmering blue deep in the jungle in front of them. Their eyes locked onto the translucent figure, someone they recognized from holorecordings: Obi-Wan Kenobi, their grandfather. He nodded solemnly at the twins, and they knew it was time.

Together, they lowered the torches, setting them next to Kal. They stepped back as the wood caught fire, sparks and flames raising towards the night sky. Kal's body disappeared before it could be caught ablaze like her Jedi clothing. She had become one with the Force.

"She must've had some unfinished business," Han said quietly to Leia, rubbing her arm.

"I think I know what it was," she replied. Leia looked at the twins who were holding each other as they watched the pyre burn.

Kal wanted to make sure her kids were safe and in good hands. And they were. They were surrounded by people who loved and cared for them, even with their mom dead and their dad missing. They were going to be okay. That's what Kal had wanted to know. Even dead, Kal wasn't going to do her best to look after her children. She wanted only the best for them.

Beyond the fire, Kelin and Karena watched as another figure emerged next to Obi-Wan. The new figure, tall and slender, smiled at them and took Obi-Wan's hand. Kal had been reunited with her dad. After the long years without him to guide her due to her personal issues, she greeted him as an old friend, happy to finally be with him once more.

As the Force ghosts disappeared, Kelin and Karena looked at each other then at the lightsaber and necklace in their hands. They were thinking the same thing: vengeance.

Even if it was the last thing they did, the Skywalker twins were going to find their cousin. They were going to find Ben Solo and bring him to justice. They were going to right the wrongs he had done to their family. They didn't care what it took. They didn't care what he said or tried to do. They were going to avenge everyone who had died. They were going to avenge their mother.

As if the destruction of the Jedi Temple on Yavin IV wasn't enough, Leia left the Senate.

Leia's parentage had been outed prior to the fall of the New Jedi Order. The entire galaxy knew she was the daughter of Darth Vader. She had been nominated for First Senator when Ransolm Casterfo, Leia's friend, revealed her parentage in a Senate hearing. Leia had no choice but to confirm it when Casterfo presented Leia's old keepsake chest and music box from her childhood as evidence.

Before she resigned as Senator, Leia organized a private meeting in the Senatorial complex hangar bay on Hosnian Prime, inviting some of the people in the New Republic military who were still on her side. It was attended by Joph Seastriker, Greer Sonnel, Nien Nunb, Caluan Ematt, retired admiral Gial Ackbar, Harter Kalonia, Snap Wexley, and Zari Bangel.

The Galactic Senate was too preoccupied with petty squabbles to defend the New Republic, so Princess Leia became General Organa as she announced the formation of a new paramilitary organization. The Resistance was born.

And Kelin and Karena Skywalker were going to be damned if they weren't a part of it. They had business to take care of. Once they were done healing, that is.

So there you have it: the first chapter of Revival. Sorry for it not being very long. I hope you enjoy following Kelin and Karena through the Resistance and their fight with the First Order.