Lesami didn't know how long she'd been here.
It had to be daytime, again. She was too far underground to actually see the sky, of course, but some small fraction of light penetrated the snows and ice all the way down to the caves, the microscopic bits of ilusite in the walls scintillating in the near-complete darkness, stars in the night. Those lights were all she could see, enough to sketch out the general shape of the space around her, if not the details.
She had had a torch, when she'd been sent into the caves, but it'd run out of power some time ago. She hadn't been carrying any water — other initiates had, but it was a simple matter for her to just melt some of the ice around her, she hadn't bothered bringing any — but she had run out of food, what felt like days ago now. It had been days, judging by the cyclical lightening and darkening of the caves around her. For a while there she'd felt dreadfully hungry, worse than she'd ever been before, it'd hurt, but after a time, she didn't know how long, it'd gradually faded away. Instead she only felt weak, and tired.
She'd been sitting here, leaning against a random wall, where she'd finally allowed herself to sleep. She'd woken up some hours ago, but she hadn't moved. She sat, and waited.
Waited...
She hadn't felt it.
They'd been brought to Ilum, she and a crop of other initiates — most significantly younger than her, to her continued embarrassment — pointed at the caves. It wouldn't be easy, they were told, they would be confronted with visions and challenges of some kind, but one of the crystals would call to them, in time. One they were to build their own lightsabers around. It was a rite of passage, one of the oldest in the Jedi tradition, continually maintained for nearly twenty millennia now. Whenever circumstances allowed it, every Jedi made the pilgrimage to Ilum, went into the caves, waited for the call. It was their turn.
She hadn't felt it. She could feel the Force, of course, lensing from the bits of crystal all around concentrating it, the air thick with it, crackling just at the edge of hearing. But she'd been down here for days now, had to be a week at least, waiting, reaching for guidance, giving herself dozens of headaches in the process — one particularly intense vision had made her vomit up the last of her food — waiting and waiting and waiting, but...nothing.
Nothing. She could feel everything around her, the whispers and echoes reverberating throughout crystals kilometres all around, she could taste the universe flowing through her veins, but none of it spoke to her, none of them meant for her.
And she waited...
Lesami didn't know how long she'd been sitting here. She wasn't sure she wanted to get up. She didn't much see the point.
All the other initiates must be back by now — if for no other reason, she doubted any of them would have been able to survive down here this long on their own. Lestin must be wondering what was taking her so long. Alek must be worrying. But she couldn't, she couldn't go back, with nothing to show for it. With all the little kids returning successfully — most of them had, at least, she'd felt the resonance as each found the crystal meant for them, sympathetic echoes shivering through her surroundings, she hadn't been counting but there couldn't be many who hadn't done it — she couldn't go back. She knew what they would say, or pointedly not say, she knew how they would look at her, she couldn't, not again, she was just...
...waiting...
They all expected her to fail, she knew that. Perhaps not at this specific point along the way, but she could see it in their eyes, she heard them whisper when they thought she couldn't, she knew.
She didn't belong here. She never had, not from the first day she'd arrived on Coruscant. She just... Maybe there was something wrong with her, she didn't know, but she just couldn't make it work. The whole Jedi thing. She couldn't believe in it all like they did, she couldn't get it to make sense in her head, she couldn't, she didn't think it would ever happen. Sometimes, she couldn't even convince herself that was a bad thing, but other times...
(She hated failing, always had, as long as she could remember, she couldn't even remember why, she just hated it.)
If she couldn't be a Jedi, what was she supposed to do?
She had nowhere else to go.
She couldn't go back.
She was supposed to belong with the Jedi. That was the whole reason her family had sent her here in the first place, after all. People who were like her, who could understand, who could teach her how to...be, like this. But, if anything, it was worse here, there was no escaping it, there was no place for her here, and there was no avoiding that fact, she...
That blackness, that constant weight she couldn't escape, it settled over her, harder and heavier than normal, manifesting within her as a hot tightness, her breaths thin through a throat that didn't want to let it pass, a chest that didn't want to move just now, thanks, and outside her as skeletal fingers, shadows thrown against the twinkling lights of the caves, she planted her forehead against her knees, wrapped her arms around her ankles, she didn't want to see them, she couldn't...
She couldn't go back home. Even if they would take her back — and she wasn't certain they would, they might just send her off to Coruscant all over again — she didn't think she could bear it. She didn't know if she'd even be able to look at her parents without...
They'd sent her away.
She'd begged them not to, and they'd done it anyway.
(They didn't want her.)
She was supposed to belong here, but she didn't, it would never work. She would never be a Jedi.
(Nobody wanted her.)
But she couldn't go back.
She couldn't.
This was it, the critical moment, and she was stuck. There was nowhere for her to go.
She wondered, had wondered for hours now, if it wouldn't be better if...
...she just...
...stayed.
Here.
If she just laid down...
...and never got up.
So she waited...
The thought had been rather terrifying, when it'd first occurred to her, wandering about fruitlessly in these stupid endless caves. Though it wasn't an entirely foreign thought — she had considered killing herself before. Just, random thoughts in idle moments, it'd never really been serious, just...
Well, one time, she guessed. A year or so ago, she'd been in an exterior corridor of one of the sub-plaza levels, making her way back to her room from a theory lecture, about the Dark Side and the Order's place in relation to it, and she must have been feeling more...more than usual, because she'd noticed the window panels could be unlatched, and she'd stood there, looking down into the depths of the Coruscanti undercity, and...
It'd been terrifying, maybe the most scared she'd ever felt, before. She'd stared out the window, down down down, and she'd thought, she could...just...
It would only take a second. Just one step, and...
She didn't have to do this any more.
She was so tired.
The thought had been scary, so scary her fingers had been shaking, but at the same time...
It'd come back, after she'd been down here a day or so, and at first it'd been terrifying. And she couldn't get away from it, not like she had last time, surprise and shame chasing her away from the windows when a couple Knights turned the corner, no, it was everywhere. No part of the caves was any different than any other, really. Last time, the thought had been focused on a single place, a single thing, but here it was diffuse, she carried it with her no matter how far she walked, the thought growing heavier and heavier with every step.
Until when, after lying down, it was so heavy she simply couldn't convince herself to get up.
It wasn't even that scary, anymore. She'd almost gotten used to it, she thought, the idea of just...
...stopping.
She didn't have to do this anymore. The whole...everything.
She didn't have to go back.
She was so tired. She could, just, stay here...
...and wait...
...to die.
She had felt a bit guilty about it, for a little while. There were people who would miss her, if she were gone. Alek and Nisotsa. Cariaga, Talvon, Sesai, Ac̳ika. Probably even Arren, though she'd never admit it. Shite, if Lesami just never came back Lestin would get in a lot of trouble — she somehow doubted the Council would be happy with Masters just losing kids down here. Even if it was just her. And, well, her family would definitely throw a fit (assuming the Jedi bothered telling them).
But just for a little while.
They'd be fine without her. Alek and Nisotsa, well, they'd already been... She was a terrible influence, she knew that, both their masters had been trying to get them to distance themselves from her. (Nobody had said anything, but they didn't have to, she just knew.) They hadn't had a lot of success so far, but...
It would be easier, for them, if she weren't around.
Cariaga and Talvon, they'd be fine. Sesai and Ac̳ika...would get over it. Arren and Lestin, well, they'd been doing this Jedi thing for decades, they weren't meant to care, they'd definitely get over it.
And her family, honestly, if they made some political difficulty for the Order, maybe made other families more wary of handing their kids over, that just sounded like a benefit to her. It might hurt them but, when she thought about it, she didn't care.
In fact, if it did, good, they deserved it.
They'd sent her away. She'd begged them not to, and they'd done it anyway.
(This was all their fault, really, when it came down to it.)
She'd felt guilty at first, but it'd faded before too long.
And now she just lay here, hungry and cold, and so tired...
...and she waited.
"—not like this, you don't—"
Face pulling into a grimace, Lesami covered her ears with her hands. She could feel the Force swirling about her, pushing into her, a dull ache already starting in her temple, bile just starting to crawl up her throat. She guessed if she had to pick a place to wait to die, this was a shite one — she hated Force visions, they always made her feel awful.
"You're not allowed to just die like this, Revan, not if I have anything to say about it, I swear, I'll—"
"Go away." Lesami pressed harder, not that it would accomplish anything — the voices were inside her head, not sound she could keep out. She felt tears prick at her eyes, was momentarily embarrassed before realising she was alone, obviously, it wasn't like anyone was going to see her anyway. "Just leave me alone."
"I guess I owe you one, Sami."
"Fuck, that was close..."
"Next time maybe I'll—"
"—I didn't even see—"
"Nice work, Commander."
"—wouldn't have made that call, but—"
"—more than enough—"
The voices grew louder and louder, more and more, that point in her head throbbing with each syllable, and even with her eyes closed she could see the twinkling of the crystals now—
"I thought we were done for."
"—made it in time."
"—do a lot of good for—"
"—more complicated, but it'll be worth it."
"Thank you—"
"—can't even—"
"—owe our lives—"
"—can to repay—"
—but it wasn't the crystals in the walls, with each voice crowding into her head flared a point of light, tiny and ephemeral, but distinct and brilliant, as the words echoed through her they came with a thread, a tiny glowing line of fate, connecting the little light to her, warm and secure, and...
The voices were growing so many, so loud, she couldn't keep them apart, it took her a long moment to realise what was happening.
People. Each light was a person, a person she would help. Who would die, if not for her.
As the seconds dragged by, the voices filling her head until she thought it would burst, too many, she grit her teeth against the pain, but it wouldn't stop...
There were so many. Hundreds...
...millions...
The threads connecting them to her engulfed her entirely, and she just curled more tightly into herself, tried to pull away. There were too many, it was too much, she couldn't carry all that, it was too heavy, and she was so tired, she just—
"BUIKA!"
All the other voices cut off just in time to leave the shrill scream alone, sudden and intense enough Lesami started. She looked up, glanced around, saw only the sheer darkness of the caves, broken only with those tiny twinkles of ilusite. (And the not-lights of this damn vision, seen-but-not-seen, quiet and watching.) That was a child's voice, though far from the only one, but this feeling somehow closer and...more urgent? Or perhaps it was simply the tone of it. Lesami wasn't certain what language that was, but...
The sound of a child shouting for their mother was rather universal.
"Ne buika 's usenye!"
Part of her wanted to cry, tight enough she could barely breathe, but what was she supposed to do, she couldn't just...
It was harder than it should be, her legs weak and shaky, sore from sitting on the hard ground too long, but Lesami pushed herself up to her feet. She stood for a moment with a hand against the rough stone of the wall, breathing, gathering herself, staring at that spot on the ground, featureless in the darkness, no different than any other, where she'd almost—
"Buika!"
She pushed herself forward, stumbling the first few steps, following the voice echoing around her, the thread connecting her to it lighting the way. As black as her surroundings were, she hardly seemed to notice, the path she had to take was blinding clear.
"Ru ne susul."
"Ad'ika dikutla, gar kyramuche."
"A nu."
"Sasha..."
Eventually, she didn't know how long she was walking, she came around a corner, and—
Purple.
She knew it was herself, somehow, that she was looking at herself. She couldn't say how, it was too dark to really see, she was moving too fast, she just knew. She'd come around the corner to appear somewhere else, a forest it looked like, dark and murky, and she was fighting, so fast, darting around almost faster than she could follow, lightsabers swirling beacons in the dark, purple and blue clashing against a bloody red...
(Which was a Sith thing, she knew, but the Sith were supposed to be gone...)
And she had a blue one, yes, she could have gotten that from anywhere, but purple...
She was remembering something, something she'd read once, about biochemistry and the genetic engineering of microbes to create physical materials — plastics, usually, but an Alderaanian firm a long time ago had discovered a way to...
Ilusite could be synthesised.
Which everybody knew, of course — that was where the famous Sith red came from, the impurities particular to an industrial synthetic process. But, this biological one she was remembering just now, it was different. The Jedi didn't approve of the method, they preferred their spiritualist mumbo-jumbo, but...
She was doing the math in her head right now, so she could be wrong, but she was pretty sure the impurities from this biological synthesis of ilusite would result in a purple lightsaber blade.
She didn't need a crystal meant for her.
She could make her own.
She didn't need to—
The vision dissolving around her, the headache and nausea that always came with such things lifting away, Lesami wiped at her face, smearing sweat and tears and snot across her glove.
Fuck the Masters. She hadn't asked to be the way she was, she didn't want any of this, but she didn't need their... She didn't need any of them. She didn't like the Masters either, why should she expect them to like her back? And the other Jedi kids, just, fuck them all, she wasn't going to do things their way, she couldn't do things their way.
She'd just make her own.
Her family might not have wanted her, the Jedi might not want her, but that, that was just too bloody bad, wasn't it? Because she, she didn't... Nobody asked her to...
She didn't need their fucking permission.
Ah, she didn't even know what she was talking about anymore. (And it was starting to feel scary again, she was so tired, and she'd almost stopped...) She should just...get out of here. Yes.
She had work to do.
Standing before the assembled Council of the Dantooine Enclave once again, Cina tapped the activation stud, the internal mechanisms of her new lightsaber flaring so brightly in the Force she could taste it, the brilliant blade a sharp, vibrant violet snapping into existence.
The reaction from the Council from something so simple was rather baffling.
It was part of their whole...graduation, basically, she had to construct her own lightsaber and present it to the Council. As volatile as the technology could be if one wasn't careful, it wasn't particularly complicated, she couldn't imagine any of them had expected her to fail. (Especially since she had done this before, at least once.) True, they'd probably expected a green, blue, or yellow blade, emitted by one of the crystals Lestin had offered her. But, well, none of them had quite... They just hadn't felt right.
So, Cina had made her own. It wasn't complicated — she'd placed an order for a sizeable specimen of a certain engineered bacteria from the University campus at Generis, the longest part had been waiting for the damn thing to come in. She'd accelerated the process of growing the crystal by...not meditating, exactly. The meditating Jedi normally did was a broadening of focus, opening themselves up to everything all at once — which doubled as a great way to give herself a migraine — but this had been more a narrowing of focus, all of her awareness down to that little tank, the microscopic organisms wafting within. She'd allowed power from the Force to flow through herself and into them, accelerating all the various biological processes far beyond what anything could sustain naturally, guiding them into particular arrangements, a prism slowly growing at the centre as they gradually converted sugars and phosphates and trace metals into crystal.
When it was finished, all told developing over roughly two days, the resulting crystal was flawless, edges flat and smooth and perfectly symmetrical, a cloudy greyish-white to the naked eye. She hadn't needed to cut it or polish it or anything, it'd come out ready. Putting together the hilt, with all the finicky electronics involved, was tedious as all hell, but not truly difficult, certainly a far more mundane, technical process.
The point was, she didn't see that this was anything to be getting at all worked up over. Though, worked up probably wasn't quite the way to say it — Jedi Masters such as they couldn't possibly allow themselves such indignity. But they were definitely reacting somehow, a peculiar sharpness entering the air, something hard and wary and...not quite fearful, but neither anything entirely removed from it. While Tokare and Dorak at least managed to keep their reaction from their faces, the latter only showing a hint of exasperation, Lamar was plain glaring at the gentle purple light, seeming somehow personally offended by its existence.
(Though, honestly, Lamar often seemed personally offended by her existence, this wasn't news.)
Lestin, on the other hand, was smiling at her. Not an uncomplicated smile, amused and nostalgic and...rueful leaning into bitter, almost. Which was odd, but not exactly a new reaction either. (The Masters always had peculiar reactions to reminders of her old self, but Lestin's were the most confusing.) Taking another step toward her, he held out a hand. "May I?"
The blade winked out, and Cina flipped the hilt around in her hand, held it out for him to take. He did — gently, with both hands, a sense of humble reverence about the motion that reminded Cina of Bastila, storming Kang's estate back on Taris — turning it over in his hands a moment, looking at it from one angle then another, not just with his eyes but with the Force as well, slight pricks and sparks twitching in the air. "It's decent work. Longer than normal, though," he said, pale violet eyes flicking up to meet hers.
She shrugged. "I thought it'd be more comfortable that way." It hadn't taken her long to figure out she'd guessed right — the few times she'd played around with it so far, she needn't be quite so careful with the placement of her fingers whenever she shifted her grip a little, the extra couple decimetres giving her plenty of room to work with. She hadn't actually used it much yet, but, well, she'd burned her own fingers on the practice sabers more than once, she certainly didn't want to repeat that mistake with a real one.
"Mm, I suppose that might be so." Lestin flicked the blade on; in the moment it activated, Cina could feel electricity rush into the crystal, like a drink of cool water on a hot day. This was one of those consequences of creating it as she had — it was bound to her far more closely than a natural crystal would be, carrying an echo of herself inscribed into its very core. Which had interesting implications, there were probably all kinds of sorcery that could exploit that, but she hadn't had the opportunity to experiment yet. Regardless, she did know, intuitively, that she could prevent the lightsaber from functioning, if she wanted to, quench it with a single thought. It would only work for someone else by her leave.
Of course, she did nothing to stop it, there wasn't even the slightest delay. But by the glance Lestin shot her, he knew it as well as she did, another peculiar smile twitching at his lips.
Another moment fiddling around, and he switched it off again, flipping it around in his hand to offer it back to her. She didn't bother with the...overly-humble thing she'd seen Bastila and Lestin do now — besides, she was pretty sure that was only to be done while handling someone else's lightsaber. As she clipped it back to her belt, Lestin said, "Your work is more than passable. I suspect it should hold together for years to come. If I may ask, where did you get the crystal?"
Cina shrugged. "I made it. Chunisia rhotensis, used guided meditation to direct the formation of the crystal. It's not complicated."
"And you are aware," Lamar grumbled, a scowl forcing his face even harsher and craggier than usual, "that the Council on Coruscant takes a dim view on the use of synthesized lightsaber crystals. Their creation has been anathema for millennia now, in fact."
"No, the industrial synthesis of lightsaber crystals is anathema. This was a biological process which, while perhaps something of a grey area, has not itself been banned."
"Some would argue such direct exploitation of living things is worse than the industrial method."
Cina shot Lamar a doubtful look. "Gonna have to disagree with you there. If I were somehow forcing beings to make things for me, sure, but they're bloody bacteria. That's hardly on the same moral level. Besides, considering how much energy I put into the whole thing, they got just as much out of it as I did. I really don't see what the problem is." She suspected that was a significant aspect of the problem the Council had with her, that she just didn't understand their objections to her behaviour much of the time, but there wasn't a whole lot she could do about that.
"Besides," she said, a teasing smirk pulling at her lips, "I like purple. It's pretty."
The Council seemed even more annoyed with that than the actual synthetic crystal thing. Tee hee.
After a tedious lecture that went on much too long — sometimes she had to wonder whether prodding at them was really worth it — they finally got to the bloody point. Though, Lamar might have kept berating her if Tokare didn't cut him off, sounding peculiarly exasperated for a Master. (Apparently he was getting just as fed up with Lamar's animosity as she was.) "We have one final trial for you, Apprentice, before your training is complete."
Cina waited for Tokare to go on but, of course, he didn't, the eyes of the Masters heavy but blank, unblinking. Holding in a sigh, she said, "I'm listening, Master."
"One of the Masters of this Enclave, a respected elder Jedi, was nearly killed during a training exercise with her padawan."
Once again, they paused, inexplicably waiting for a response. "Okay? I hope you're not expecting me to heal her, you have Jedi available who are far better at that than I am."
"No, that is not our task for you. In the aftermath, the child fled the Enclave, disappearing into the uninhabited wilderness." The rolling steppes of Dantooine were hardly uninhabited, but she guessed they weren't counting the Dantari. "We have had no contact with her since, but local hunters report signs she is holed up in an old grove along a river some kilometres east of the city."
Cina had to bite the inside her lip to stop herself from smiling at Tokare's characterisation of this tiny little frontier settlement as a city. "Right, so...you want me to drag her back here, is that it?" She somehow doubted bloody Jedi Masters were asking her to kill the poor kid for them, she couldn't figure what else they wanted.
There were a few less-than-pleased looks at her wording, but Lestin was faintly smiling again. "We are leaving what is to be done with this wayward apprentice in your hands."
...Was this their silly little test? Shoving her at a semi-acceptable target, seeing what she did with it? She wasn't sure whether she should be insulted or not. She meant, did they really think she would just... Okay, whoever this was had managed to get the drop on her master, and might be comparatively dangerous, and might not react well to Cina showing up and trying to bring her back — she might give Cina an easy enough excuse to off her and claim it was self defence.
But did they really think Cina would, just, kill some kid, if she thought she could get away with it? That was just...
(Just how awful had she been, when she'd been a Sith?)
Okay, no, she should be offended, but showing it would be counterproductive, so.
"Right, where exactly is this grove, then?"
"Hey, ad'ika, you busy?"
Mission glanced up from her datapad, scowled at Canderous, looming over her looking very...Mandalorian. Not as much of a scowl as she'd usually try for, someone calling her that, but couldn't help that — Canderous was way more intimidating than that assface Onasi. "You know Cina has been teaching me Mandalorian, I know what that means now." She didn't have a whole lot of time to practice, Cina was very busy with Jedi stuff all the time, but she was picking it up faster than Sasha was learning Basic. But she was already, like...whatever the word like bilingual would be, but for five, so, she had more experience with the learning new languages thing.
"Gonna do something about it?" he asked, his scarred, too-blocky face pulling into a crooked, teasing smirk.
She felt her lips quirk into a pout — entirely without her input, she hadn't meant to do that.
He just grinned at her. Patronizing bastard. "Come on, we're going for a ride."
"A ride?"
"Sure. I'm sick of being cooped up on this damn ship, I figured we'd go out for a bit."
"Well..." That wouldn't be a horrible thing, she guessed. She knew a lot of people thought the places she and Zee decided to live were pretty...claustrophobic, but they never stayed in one spot for very long, they moved along as they felt like. Really, their 'home' had been dotted across thirty levels over six city blocks — Taris city blocks, which were huge. The Ebon Hawk, as nice as it was, really was cramped by comparison. "Okay, I guess. Just lemme ask Zee if he wants to come."
"Already did. There's some work he wants to do on the interchange before Cina's done here. He said you should go without him."
That wasn't impossible — Zee had been tinkering with the ship's systems practically since they'd set foot on the thing, and Cina supposedly was going to be done with this Jedi training stuff soon. (Which was weird, Mission had gotten the impression it was supposed to take way longer than this, but it was Cina, she guessed, she was awesome at pretty much everything.) "Well...okay, I guess. Just give me a minute."
Canderous hadn't said where they were going or what they were doing, so Mission really had no idea what she should be bringing with. But then, she hadn't asked either, couldn't really blame him for that. She patted herself, making sure had her 'pad and her projector and her com and her splits on her — not that she figured she could possibly need them, this planet was in the karking stone age. She ran about the ship for a little bit, cramming protein bars and water bottles in a bag, stopped by the tiny little medbay to grab a kit. Plus a few Twi'lek-friendly anti-allergen shots while she was at it, the kit had probably been stocked with humans in mind. She wasn't actually allergic to anything, not that she knew of, but who knew what might be on a foreign frontier planet. Better overprepared than dead.
She dropped in on Zee quick, to make sure Canderous actually had asked him if he wanted to come. Zee told her to go ahead without him, but to make sure she had her blaster on her, and to not wander too far from Canderous. There were local predators, apparently.
Mission rolled her eyes at his mothering, but didn't say anything.
When she stepped off the ship — the odd, sweet, tingly wind of the planet tickling distractingly at her lekku — she was somewhat surprised to see two speeder bikes sitting out waiting. She'd known Canderous had found one in storage on the ship... Had he gone out and bought another one? Probably not a bad idea, they had too many people on the ship for one speeder to be enough. Canderous was leaning against the saddle of one, muttering something to Sasha, who was perched on the other one.
The little orphan girl was sitting like a damn bird or something, her feet on the seat and squatting down, her legs folded up. That wasn't so weird, she never used furniture the way it was meant to be. What was rather more unnerving was the blaster she was holding, the thing awkwardly large in her tiny hands, turning it around and poking at it, occasionally asking Canderous something — Mission knew they were questions, but her Mandalorian was still a little too sketch to pick up exactly what.
Part of her wanted to run up and snatch the blaster out of Sasha's hands — she was a tiny little kid, she shouldn't be playing with those — but she'd hardly gotten two steps before she hesitated. She was a tiny little kid, but she was a Mandalorian tiny little kid. Canderous was...sort of responsible, she guessed, he probably knew what he was doing.
She noticed as she got closer the battery pack was missing. Canderous must have made sure the blaster was harmless before handing it over. Right. Never mind.
"Hello, Sasha." Mission forced her lips into a smirk, leaning against the bike. "Playing with blasters now? Aren't you scary enough already?"
That had been in Mandalorian, and it'd seemed mostly right to her, but by the confusion on Sasha's face she must have messed something up. "Oh, scary, okay. I'm not playing, I'm learning. Playing with weapons is bad."
Well, at least she was getting that much. Mission had thought before, maybe Cina and Canderous weren't the best people to be looking after little kids. Don't get her wrong, they were great, but they were both rather... "Violent" wasn't quite the word she was looking for, but she was having trouble thinking of a better one. They were both quite scary people when she thought about it, they were just also capable of being nice — which wasn't a new concept, really, a lot of the Beks were like that too. But they shouldn't really be taking care of kids either.
Mission forcibly stopped herself from dwelling on the fact that they were all probably dead now.
"I'm assuming you know how to ride."
Resisting the urge to bite Canderous's head off, Mission said, "Yeah, sure. Best way to get around on Taris." She'd actually almost volunteered to enter that swoop race for Cina, but had decided against it before she could say something stupid — she was a damn good pilot, if she said so herself, but those underground races were just brutal. Probably would have gotten herself killed. Besides, she might be good, but that Bothan lady was something else.
Canderous nodded, casually accepting her claim that she knew what she was doing. As weird and scary as Canderous could be at times, at least he didn't treat her like a little kid. (Though he did usually call her one in Mandalorian, still.) "Let's get gone, then." Switching to Mandalorian, "Sasha, you ride with kebin'ika."
Mission huffed at the nickname — she hadn't known what it meant when Cina had started calling her that, so she hadn't protested at first. Of course, now that she knew it meant "little blue" it was kind of annoying, but Canderous and even Sasha had picked it up before she realized that, it was sort of too late to do anything about it now. She meant, it wasn't that bad, people have called her way worse things than that before, so it also just wasn't worth it to kick up a fuss about it. It was still a little irritating anyway.
Though, when she thought about it, why was Cina coming up with random Mandalorian nicknames for people now? She meant, she knew now Cina wasn't really some brainiac from Alderaan — that had been sort of sketch to begin with, she'd never met one but she was pretty sure fancy-pants professors at rich people schools didn't learn to fight like that — but it wasn't like she was Mandalorian either. Cina didn't know who she'd been before the Jedi had messed with her head (which was fucking scary), but she'd said she thought she was from the Core somewhere, Alsakan or Shawken or Denon or whatever, one of those super-old super-rich Republic worlds. Definitely not Mandalorian.
Just because of Sasha and Canderous, maybe? But that didn't seem quite right, when she'd first come up with the kebin'ika thing she'd just been whipping it out, probably hadn't had time to stop and think about all that. And she did seem to know way more about Mandalorians than anyone but other Mandalorians did — not just the language but, like, cultural stuff too. Enough that, no matter how many times she insisted she wasn't Mandalorian, Mission knew Canderous was still convinced she was.
She'd apparently been in the war, so...maybe she'd just studied the Mandalorians a lot while fighting them? That was possible, Mission guessed, it just still seemed like a lot...
But anyway, that wasn't really important right now.
Quick making sure everything attached to the speeder she'd be using was strapped down well enough — and scowling when she noticed a familiar long metal case fixed to the frame, apparently Canderous had packed her rifle — she hopped on, firing the thing up, the repulsors sending little vibrations rattling through her head to toe. (They were small enough it wasn't painful or anything, just impossible to not notice.) A brief moment later, she felt Sasha slip into the saddle behind her, though as far away as possible, they weren't actually touching at all.
Mision rolled her eyes — this kid sometimes, honestly. After a bit of fumbling around, she managed to catch both of Sasha's wrists, gently pulled her forward a little bit, dragging her hands to sit low around her waist. She didn't actually know how to say hold on in Mandalorian, scrambled a moment to find something she could say that would work. "Don't fall." There, that should do.
There was a moment of tense silence, but Sasha eventually let out a little grumble, slid a bit closer, leaned against her back. Just a little, light enough Mission barely noticed, but she was leaning forward enough she wouldn't just fly off the back...hopefully. "Yes, I know. Sorry."
"It's okay." She did think she got why the kid was so...shy. Well, Mission didn't know the details, but she could guess the general idea well enough. She'd met a lot of fucked up kids back home. It was a bit exasperating, sometimes, getting Sasha to do anything — or just not lurk silent and invisible — but she did get it, so she tried to not be mean about it.
Anyway, when they got to the edge of the primitive spaceport, she and Canderous kicking their speeders up to a less boring speed in the blink of an eye, the bike lurching under her and the wind clawing at her face, Sasha's arms clenched around her, a high squeal followed by ecstatic giggling muffled against Mission's back, her shyness apparently forgotten.
Mission felt a smile twitching at her lips.
፠
When Canderous said they were going for a "ride", he'd apparently meant they were going to camp out in the middle of nowhere. Which...okay, fine? Mission didn't think she'd ever slept outside before, but there also hadn't really been an outside on Taris — she'd lived far enough down that even the concourses had been enclosed, the who knew how many levels above their heads blocking off the sun, the air stale and still and filled with industrial fumes and decay and who knew what else.
Sleeping out on the concourse was also a damn good way to get yourself murdered or raped or something, so obviously she hadn't done that either. Still, no "outside" around, not really.
And she supposed it was nice enough out here. She didn't think she'd ever seen so many plants before, grass almost up to her shoulders stretching out as far as she could see, rolling over little hills, gently waving in the breeze. And there was a breeze, which was slightly odd. Mission hadn't been anywhere that had had wind before — except on a speeder, obviously, that didn't count — she hadn't realized air could move around so much. It was distracting, constantly tickling at her lekku, the grasses hissing against each other, she couldn't not notice it.
Canderous found a spot on a hill topped by a handful of trees, the grasses pushed back enough there was some mostly empty ground. He unloaded a few bags from their speeders, and also Sasha, pointing at the bags while muttering at the girl. (Mission wasn't good enough with Mandalorian yet, she couldn't pick out the words over the constant low noise of the wind.) And then he was leading her off again, zipping down the hill, leaving Sasha behind them.
It took a little bit for Mission to shove off her nervousness about that. Sasha could take care of herself — shit, if someone else showed up they'd probably never even know she was there. It was fine.
Canderous led her over the peak of one hill, rocketing down the trough after it, the wind yanking at her lekku just this side of painfully, up another, down again, before slowing a bit going up the next, shortly drifting to a silent halt, half-hidden in the grass. He hopped off, nodding down to the ground next to him.
Baffled, she jumped down next to him. And nearly fell over — she couldn't see the ground through the grass, it was rather lower down than she'd thought. She tried to ignore the grass scratching at her arms and her lekku, turned back to Canderous, trying to act cool, like she hadn't just almost crashed to the ground like an idiot. "Okay, what are we doing out here?"
"Get your rifle out."
Mission pouted at him for a second but, with a sigh, obeyed. She snapped the case out of its spot fixed to the side of her speeder, laid it over the saddle. (Setting it down on the ground would probably be impossible.) While clicking the pieces back together, she glared over at Canderous. "What am I supposed to be shooting?" She could hear the unease on her own voice.
If anyone would have asked before Cina had come sashaying into her life, and everything had quickly become very dramatic and confusing, Mission would have said she was such a total badass, you have no idea how awesome she is. Maybe the Beks had been something of a bad influence, boasting and swaggering around like too many people she'd known growing up, but it wasn't just boasting, really. She'd done some pretty awesome slicing over the years, if she did say so herself, she and Zee had helped in several runs up to the surface, breaking into rich people shops and homes and making away with the valuables, a few times even raids against other gangs. She always stayed toward the back, of course — her job was to deal with security, slicing into computer systems and cracking locks and safes, she never usually did any of the fighting — but she had killed people before. Mostly in self-defense, true, but that was just a part of life in the lower city.
Zee had always been more of a fighter than her, but that didn't make her less of a badass. If anything, it made her more one — the two of them were a team, their own forms of awesome being awesome together made them both more awesome, it was the way they worked. And he didn't just hard carry her either, she'd saved his life a few times too. (Big furry idiot had a bad habit of not watching his back, most of the times she'd shot anyone had been picking off people trying to hurt Zee.) And Cina and Canderous and Asyr, and even the grumpy old asshole and the stuck-up Jedi, they were all completely awesome in their own ways, but they couldn't beat her at hers. Mission knew they would never have gotten off Taris alive without her, they would never have found Bastila in the first place (ungrateful bitch), Cina and Canderous had both said as much to her face. Cina gratefully, and slightly guiltily, but Canderous as though he were just stating a simple fact. Because she was a badass, they knew it too.
But she hated this fracking rifle.
She couldn't even say why, exactly. She was much better with it than she was a normal blaster, that was true — her aim with a pistol had always been kinda shit, but carefully holding the thing and with something to prop it up against she was a far steadier shot. And the scope helped too, obviously. And she always got too shaky to be very useful, all the noise of blasterfire, flashes of painful burning death going all over the place, with a little bit of distance she could keep her head.
She didn't know how many people she'd killed, during their rescue mission. She hadn't counted. She'd watched Cina and Zee, picked off anyone who was paying too much attention to them, flicking by one after another with very little thought. It had been easy. And there was nothing they could do about it, they didn't know she was there. And they probably never had either — from the angle she'd been shooting at, it'd been easiest to hit their heads, they'd probably all been dead before they realized they'd been hit.
She should feel like a bit of a badass, covering everyone like that. She'd saved Cina's and Zee's and Onasi's ass more than once. They probably wouldn't have made it out without her, she should be glad she could help.
But, she didn't. She couldn't say exactly why. It just felt kind of...skeezy? She didn't know.
But she did know she hated this damn rifle.
Mission was somewhat relieved Canderous didn't want her to shoot people. (Which, it would be kinda weird if he did, who else would be out here?) Plodding slowly along a stream at the base of the next hill over were...some kind of animal, she guessed. They were sort of creepy-looking things. Taking them in through the scope, they were four-legged, their limbs thin and spindly, their hairless skin almost gleaming in the sunlight, green speckled with orange, would probably fade into the grasses...somewhat okay, if they weren't standing out in the open. They had these big thick horns sticking out of the back of their heads, and their feet did look to be clawed, but they were kinda...harmless-looking? She meant, they moved all slow and gentle, nibbling at the grass along the stream, obviously some kind of herd herbivore. The horns and the claws were probably just to defend themselves from kath hounds, she guessed.
Staring at the things, Mission got a rather odd feeling. She just... She didn't think she'd ever actually seen real animals before. Bugs, and the little lizard things that got all over the place in the lower city, but... It was weird.
And she didn't see them for very long. The second she fired — the shot took one in the eye, lancing through its skull, it died instantly — the rest fled, bounding away over the hills with surprising speed, a few blinks and they were all gone.
Canderous said something about that being a nice shot or whatever (which, nice of him, she guessed, fine, but it wasn't like it was hard), said to pack up again. She pouted at him for a second, but he was already zipping off. By the time she had the rifle put away, ready to get going again, he was back, the creepy-looking thingy she'd shot slumped over the back of his speeder. It looked rather larger than it had through the scope, bigger than she was, the horns were as thick as her arm.
Belatedly, Mission realized they were going to be eating the thing. That...seemed obvious now, people did do that sort of thing, she'd just...
Well, Mission wasn't certain she'd ever eaten anything protein-based that wasn't reprocessed who even knew how many times. Honestly, she hadn't even known these things were supposed to be imitating animal parts until she'd been...probably ten or so. It was still a surreal thought, looking at the creepy animal-thing and thinking Canderous was going to make food out of it. It didn't look like food, it looked like...
She didn't know what the fuck it looked like, honestly. Animals were kinda weird-looking in person.
But anyway, creepy animal-thing successfully killed, Canderous led her back to the hill they'd left Sasha and their junk at, floating off rather slower this time, trying to keep the thing balanced on his speeder. When they did get back, he kinda drifted a little before coming to a sudden halt, the thing just flopping right off onto the dirt. Easier than shoving it off, she guessed.
Apparently, Sasha had been busy while they were gone — she'd already gotten a tent up, a couple bits of equipment scattered about, crouching over some boxy metal thing, no idea what that was. "How does this shikasii'm go?" Mandalorian again, one word in there Mission didn't catch, but it was probably a swear of some kind. She'd gotten the feeling by now Sasha had a filthy mouth for a little kid.
Though maybe Canderous was just that bad of an influence, come to think of it.
Not that Mission had absolutely any right at all to judge. She'd be lying if she said she hadn't gone out of her way to teach Sasha as many bad words in Basic (or Huttese or whatever) as she could figure out how to explain what they meant. It was almost funnier if she couldn't explain, Sasha throwing out swears randomly was both hilarious and just fracking cute.
After Canderous showed Sasha how to get the grill working — at least...Mission thought that's what the word in Basic was? They were still talking Mando... — he set into tearing the creepy animal-thing apart with a big scary knife, which was really just very gross, Mission firmly put her back to the whole thing, sitting talking to Sasha instead. (Though she could still hear the hacking and squicking noises it was making, yech.) Their awkward conversation, in a stilted mix of Basic and Mandalorian was mostly about how completely awesome chocolate was. Which, Mission was with Sasha on that one a hundred percent — she'd never had the stuff before stealing the Hawk, but apparently Kang liked a drink made with the stuff, there was a whole bunch of it, she and Sasha had been steadily drinking their way through his supply. She'd brought some with, actually, she had a little pot of it over the grill warming up.
Which, warm drink, not a bad idea, it was sort of chilly with the wind, Mission was used to it being much wetter and warmer. She kinda hoped they weren't actually spending the night out here, it would probably get really cold when the sun went down...
Apparently, Sasha had been having chocolate a lot longer than Mission had, it was one of the things she'd stolen whenever she could get her hands on it while living hidden on the ship. (It was kinda depressing, Sasha's life, Mission avoided thinking about it.) She couldn't get at it in drink form, obviously, but she'd sneak the bars of the stuff, whenever she could. Which, Mission didn't entirely get that — she'd tried it in candy form, and it got smeared all over her teeth, and it took forever to get it out of her mouth, she wasn't a fan. Tasted awesome, of course, but too sticky. But the drink form was great, she could sip at this stuff constantly for the rest of her life and she'd be cool with that.
Eventually, Canderous took over the grill thingy, which was fine, they'd already finished their stuff off by then. He quickly had this whole complicated process going, water boiling in a rather bigger pot, strips of bloody meat sizzling alongside unfamiliar plant bits he'd pulled out of a bag, peeled and sliced with smooth quickness that said he'd done this a billion times before. And eventually everything was getting cut up into smaller pieces and thrown into the pot, and those were probably spices of some kind, the steam was getting all flavorful and almost stinging at her eyes a little bit, had to be getting close to finished at this point.
Turned out Canderous could cook, apparently. Like, real cooking, with bits pulled from plants and animals and stuff, not just preparing reprocessed junk. Which, hadn't seen that coming, but okay.
She still thought the idea of eating plant and animal parts was just fracking weird.
፠
Mission was totally right: it was damn cold out here.
Apparently they were staying out here, not going back to the ship. They'd just sat out talking a long while, about whatever came to mind, indirectly helping Mission out with her Mandalorian and Sasha with her Basic. As the sun started getting down to the horizon, it got really windy, but Canderous had planned for that, because Mandos planned for everything — he must have known what direction the wind would be coming from, because the trees blocked the worst of it, creaking and hissing like crazy, they had to nearly shout to be heard over it. Most of the wind went around them, yeah, but it was still enough it was cold, Canderous had cranked up the grill thingy a bit, flames dancing under the little bars. (She wondered how much power that thing carried, certainly it couldn't do that very long.) Sasha had also made hot chocolate again, because of course she did.
Though, the little girl had conked out a little while ago now, curled up on the ground a little bit away from the grill, her short yellow hair fluttering in the wind and that knife she always carried everywhere glinting in the firelight. When she'd fallen asleep, Canderous had let out a low guffaw, said something about why the hell had she put the tent up in the first place. He hadn't moved her, though, just tucked one of the blankets around her and left her there.
Watching him, Mission wondered if he had kids out there somewhere. As odd as it might seem, being the hard Mando badass and all, he did kinda seem the type. And he was sure old enough, he looked like he could be Cina's dad. But she didn't actually ask. Wasn't really her business.
(Besides, if he did, but he was out here with them instead, it was probably a sad story, and she wasn't in the mood for that.)
As night got thicker and thicker around them, Mission poked at her datapad, continuing her research into places to go. She and Zee had always been planning on leaving Taris, moving out to live somewhere else, they'd always looked into places off and on, trying to find a nice backwater world they could go disappear on. Though...maybe not quite as primitive as they'd been thinking, at first. Mission hadn't realized until coming out here, but there was something about...
She was used to being surrounded by huge kriffing buildings all the time, okay. It wasn't so bad she couldn't ignore it, most of the time, but there was something about sitting out here that was just... It was just big, okay, the open fields all around her, the sky fucking everywhere, it was just big, who knew the sky was so damn big, it was unsettling.
She knew Zee preferred more undeveloped worlds, more like his homeworld, but there had to be ones that still had nature-y stuff but wasn't just so...big? Like, they could have both his kind of thing but cities and stuff too, right? That didn't seem like too much to ask...
It hadn't ever quite felt real, the idea of running away. It was something they wanted to do obviously, for pretty much forever, they'd been (stealing and) saving up money to do it for ages now. Now that they were actually off Taris it just felt...closer. More real, like. They could go right now, if they wanted, just walk off and take a shuttle and go wherever they liked.
The thought was kind of scary, but...it was just kind of great, too. Life had suddenly gotten way more open and interesting in the last couple months, no doubt.
Not that she had any idea where they would go. The problem with the galaxy is there was just so damn much of it, she didn't know enough, and with the war going on and everything it was complicated and...
And she wasn't really sure she wanted to go.
But she also kind of doubted she'd be allowed to stay. She knew Cina had her own stuff, she'd be off doing Jedi things every day now, and Mission didn't know if she was allowed to go with. She did kind of want to stick around, because Cina was awesome, and interesting stuff would definitely be going on around her, and Mission could help, because she was a badass too, okay, but...
It wasn't really her business. Cina (or Canderous) would probably tell her and Zee to leave eventually, or the Jedi would make Cina get rid of them, she didn't know. And they had to have somewhere to go in mind for when that happened.
Because it wasn't like they could go home anymore. Taris had never really been home home in the first place, but there was nowhere to back to, it was all gone.
(She preferred to avoid thinking about that.)
Mission pulled the jacket Canderous had thrown over her tighter, trying to stop the shivering. Because it was cold, for sure, stupid nature.
"You good over there, kebin'ika?"
She shot a narrow glare over the grill. Canderous had taken one of the horns off the thing, was scraping at it with a knife. Apparently meant to carve something out of it, which...okay? "I'd worry about yourself, more. I hear people get cold easier in their old age."
Canderous just chuckled a little, seemingly unbothered by the taunt (as he always was). "What are you working on over there? Slicing into the Jedi network? I bet they have all kinds of secrets hiding away in there."
Oh, she was sure they did — they just also had seriously good security. She'd poked at it a little bit, and...well, she probably could break it if she wanted to, she just doubted it'd be worth it. It was just their library in there, she thought, and that was probably all just...boring Jedi rambling boringly about boring Jedi stuff. Hard pass. "Nothing, really."
"Mm." Somehow, Canderous managed to make just a grunt sound very, very dubious.
She scowled. "It's not your business, old man."
"I'm just making conversation." He stopped hacking at whatever he was making for a moment, turning it in his hand, before going back at it again from a different angle. "We are going to be holed up together for a while, you know. Things will go more smoothly if we all know each other a little better."
"What are you talking about?"
"Cina has suggested the Jedi are likely to have some project or another for her once she's done here. It's a very long, complicated story, and much of it went right over my head, but I did get that much. Small teams like ours operate much more effectively if we have a clear understanding of each other's skills, interests, personal hang-ups, all of it." Canderous paused his carving again, shot her a level look across the grill. "You might think you're hiding it, but something is bothering you. You're part of my crew now, so it is part of my business."
"It's not your ship, shkrelask." Mission didn't even know what language that was in — Nikto, maybe? — she'd only ever heard it used as an insult.
Canderous gave her a flat, exasperated glare. "I meant in the sense that I'm in it, not that it's mine. Basic doesn't have a good word for that. Like ner against nisa." That was obviously Mando he was talking about, but Mission didn't know enough to get the point he was making. Well, no, okay, the point was sort of obvious in context — my versus, what, with me or something — it was just new information.
"It doesn't matter. Me and Zee aren't going to be around that long anyway."
"Oh? I got the feeling you were planning on sticking around. The Hawk being more yours than mine, and all that."
Despite herself, she couldn't help smirking a little at that — she still thought that was great, she loved Cina sometimes. "Well, yeah, but I didn't... Cina might have some super special mission or whatever coming up, and she's paying you, so you'll be staying, but...it sort of doesn't have anything to do with us, does it? I kinda assumed Cina would be dropping us off somewhere."
Canderous almost smiled, looking somewhere between annoyed and amused. "I don't know about that, kebin'ika. I think Cina means to keep you two around."
"Why?" She meant, she might be a badass, she'd say so to almost anyone, but they were all...well, super badass. Cina was even getting ridiculous Jedi powers and shit now too. She was good at her own thing, yeah, but it wasn't... It was very situational, was what she guessed she meant. Unless whatever this thing Cina had to be doing involved slicing or data mining, chances were they didn't need her.
Or assassination, she guessed, but she kinda thought Jedi weren't cool with that. Not that she was, if they wanted her along to assassinate people she thought she'd rather be left behind.
(Even if she wouldn't know what to do with herself.)
Not to mention, she'd kind of always gotten the feeling Cina saw Mission as... Okay, she didn't say it, not like that assface Onasi had, and she still treated Mission and Zee like anyone else, but she wasn't as good at hiding what she really thought as she thought she was. Cina really did think Mission was a little kid who had to protected from things. If Cina could afford to abandon Mission somewhere 'safe' and get on with her life, Mission wasn't sure she wouldn't.
Cina liked her, of course, and she was nice about it, but she was still trying to be a responsible adult. She was just really, really bad at it.
"Three reasons, I think. The first one, well..." Canderous smirked a little, the look almost scary, with all the scars, and the fire throwing shadows dark shadows across his face. "She does just like you. Thinks you're funny. If you're going to have people around, they might as well be entertaining people. Can't say I blame her."
Mission pouted a little — that wasn't a bad reason to keep her around, the way he said it just made it sound like Cina thought she was an interesting pet, or something. Which, she didn't, Canderous was just very blunt and very Mandalorian like that. "If she's being all serious Jedi and having a job to do and stuff, that's not really a very good reason."
"You'd be surprised. And then...let's get the one you're going to hate out of the way next: you and Zaalbar are alone."
"What?"
"Both of you lost your home and everyone you knew — in an incident her Republic friends are indirectly responsible for, that just makes it worse. Even if she did want to get rid of you, where is she supposed to put you? You have nowhere to go back to. She hasn't said as much in so many words, but I'm certain she feels responsible for you. Hell, I'd bet she'll drop by an Alderaanian consulate to officially claim custody of you, once we get off this little dustball."
That... Seriously? "Oh, there's no way that's happening!"
Canderous shrugged. "You might want to think about it. It would more or less make you an Alderaanian citizen, and there are benefits that come with that. But, suit yourself."
... That was so not the point. He wasn't entirely wrong about that part, Mission knew that — hell, she wasn't a citizen of anywhere right now, she didn't think she even legally existed, technically, and that came with all kinds of complications. (One example off the top of her head, she hadn't been able to get food and housing benefits from the government, back when she'd been younger and could have actually used it. Just stealing things was easier than someone who'd been born off the grid getting help.) If it were just that, that would be one thing, that would be fine, but he was saying... It sounded like Cina wanted to, like, go out and make herself Mission's mom or something. Legally speaking.
Mission didn't need that, okay. She could take care of herself. She always had, ever since her real mom had died and Griff had run off like a stupid asshole. She didn't need it.
"Told you you would hate it."
"Shut up."
Canderous just chuckled again.
"Don't give me that, you condescending old sleemo, I don't need anybody looking after me."
"I didn't say you did. If nothing else, you've proven that very well."
Mission had had more of a rant to come after that, but Canderous, just, acknowledging her point before she could really get to it had her hanging for a second. "Uh... Well, yeah, but... Then, why do..."
Canderous snorted. "The thing about Cina is, as deadly a warrior and as practical a commander as she may be, she's also shockingly soft-hearted. She'll kill people without a blink if she feels she has to, or if she just thinks they need killing, by the most brutally effective way she can think of. She's damn good at it too. But she's more idealistic than it might seem at first glance. She's the sort of warrior who fights because she must, while at once looking forward to a world where she doesn't have to. What this means for you, she does know that you can take care of yourself, and that you always have. But she thinks you shouldn't have had to. And since, in her mind, adults take care of children, she'll do what she can for you and Zaalbar and Sasha here, simply because she can, and she wants to.
"It's not really even about you being young — I'm sure she'd do the same for anyone in her crew. Doing what she can just looks a little different when you're still a child under Republic law."
Well... Okay, Mission had sort of known that already. She wouldn't have put it the same way Canderous did — he was very Mandalorian, after all — but that was basically what she'd just thought to herself a minute ago. That Cina thought about her and Zee like they were just kids, but didn't act like it. Really, she was more surprised Canderous had noticed the same thing...and kinda seemed to agree. "How do you know that?"
"I pay attention, ad'ika. Cina's part of my crew too."
Which, that was fair. It was obvious by now that Canderous wasn't the stereotypical Mando, the empty-headed honor-crazy blood-thirsty idiot. She just kinda sorta forgot that sometimes. "Well, still, okay, she needed our help on Taris, but not really anymore. It just seems more likely she'd do the, you know, responsible adult thing, since she can now."
"Here you're assuming you two have the same definition of responsible adult." Canderous paused a moment, turning his carving around in his hand again. By this point, it was obvious he was making a little statue of the weird animal thing he'd took it off of, which was...strange, but Mandalorians were often sort of strange, whatever. "Notice I didn't object to you two sticking around."
That just meant Canderous was also terrible at the responsible adult thing, probably even worse than Cina, but okay. "Yeah, why not though? I thought you'd be looking to get rid of us way more than Cina would."
He shrugged. "You're an important part of the team. That's the third reason. Even if I were the one in charge of this outfit, I wouldn't get rid of you."
For a few long seconds, Mission could only blink at him like an idiot. "Huh?"
If anything, he just seemed to think that was funny, chuckling to himself like the condescending old geezer he was. "You did notice we would all be dead now if not for you? You found Shan for them. The way Cina tells it, she probably wouldn't have been able to fight herself off the platform without you laying covering fire. You got the recognition codes. You cracked the security on Davik's hangar, and on the ship itself. You were critical to that whole operation and everyone knows it."
"Yeah, well, you could find someone else for that. None of what I did was special, or anything."
"Wasn't it?"
"Anyone could have told them about Shan, Brejik announced he had her like a kriffing idiot."
Canderous shrugged again. "All right, I'll give you that one."
"And, anyone could have sliced the hangar door and—"
"I don't know about that. Davik was a paranoid bastard — he had his own team of programmers handling security, but you cut right through it like it was nothing. My original plan included a detour to pick up the passcodes for the ship, but when I saw how good you were I decided we didn't need them. If we had needed to make that detour, if our substitute slicer took even a minute longer on the door, we would have been too late, the ship would be gone already."
...Okay, she guessed that might be fair. There were other slicers who could have done it — she was a badass at this stuff, but she wasn't the only person in the whole fracking galaxy who could do what she could — but it was true Kang's security had been pretty good. Better than the planetary government's, actually. (Not better than the Sith military, though, that shit was fun to play with.) There were other slicers she could use, that was sort of the point. "You can't give me all the credit for the recognition codes, if you hadn't just walked into the Sith base like a badass—"
"I just arranged a meeting with a contact. That's not exactly hard. I couldn't bribe enough to get those codes, and none of us could have skipped across my com to slice them out either."
"Using coms as a bridge is a pretty basic trick, really."
"Yes, but registering clean recognition codes with the Sith military database without anyone noticing isn't."
"Someone did notice, they started firing on us before we got away—"
"Shan said Malak could feel them through that Jedi shit — we did get out of atmo before they noticed, if the codes hadn't worked they would have blasted us before we got that high."
"All right, fine, but anyone else could have done the slicing work. I mean, I cracked Republic military encrypts when I was, like, eight, the Imperial ones aren't really that different."
Canderous smirked. "Did you mean to make my point for me? How many eight-year-old kids do you know who went playing around with military-grade security, when they were eight?"
"Including myself? Three."
"How many actually cracked it?"
... That was so not the point. But, no matter how much that was so not the point, Mission was having trouble finding something to say, just left glaring at him.
"Also, I notice you had nothing to say about covering us during the battle at the race."
Mission shuffled in place a little, trying to ignore her sudden discomfort. "There are plenty of snipers out there. Probably better than me, that's the first time I've done it."
He let out another low chuckle. "And you keep proving me point for me. From what the others have told me, you did a fucking good job for your first go at it. Hell, Asyr was pretty sure you managed to nail that asshole doing strafing runs in that speeder — I did wonder why the thing suddenly crashed into the stands. That was you, right?"
"Well, yes." It had taken multiple tries, snapping off a shot whenever she saw him coming by again between covering Cina and Zee, but she had gotten him eventually. And sent the speeder careening into the crowd, probably killed, like, twenty people...
She thought she'd been hiding how skeezy she was feeling, but apparently not well enough — Canderous gave her an odd, narrow-eyed look, couldn't say what that was. "You okay over there, kebin'ika? You don't seem so pleased about your work."
"Well, it's just kinda... I don't know." It was hard to articulate what she meant, even to herself. "I mean, the rest of you, charging in like big fucking heroes, and I'm just...in the back, doing my sneaky thing. It just doesn't seem... I don't know. It's just kinda gross, isn't it?"
"Gross?"
"I don't know! The slicing and the stealing, that was always kinda sketch, you know, but I didn't think about it too hard, we did what we had to to survive, you know? But that damn rifle, I don't know, it just seems kinda skeezy. Those people I killed, they didn't even know I was there, I just... I don't know."
Canderous was staring at her, flat and hard, looking very intimidatingly Mandalorian. And she was certain he was about to say something very Mandalorian, about warriors and honor and some such. Because he was Mandalorian, and that's what they did. And it probably wasn't gonna be very nice, because doing the slicer/sniper thing was...very non-Mandalorian, it was just kinda...sneaky and back-stabby and so not with their big noble warrior...thing. She wrapped the jacket tighter around her, settling in for the lecture.
She hadn't guessed entirely wrong, but she turned out to have it kind of backward.
With a casual air, as though changing the subject to something completely unrelated, Canderous said, "You know, we're not all warriors, we Mandoade. Any society needs more than just fighters to function. There's all sorts — craftsmen, merchants, servers, bureaucrats, teachers, artists, everything you have out here. In every group, no matter its size, everyone has a role they play. And, even among the warrior caste, people perform different roles. We're not all front-line soldiers, wars on an interstellar scale require far more than that. And, just as the Republic and the Empire do, we have spies and slicers and snipers and so forth, almost anything you have we have a version of.
"I think the problem you're having, ad'ika," he said, a smile twitching at his scarred and lined face, "is you feel you have done something dishonorable. You don't put it in those terms, most aruetii don't, but that's what it is. Those people you killed, you didn't look them in the eye when you did it, they didn't have a chance to shoot back. You steal and you sneak around, not offering a straight fight. And you feel this is dishonorable.
"We Mandoade, we do not think so. We feel, what is right and what is not is often individual — to live with honor is to perform your role with skill and integrity. For direct warriors, like myself and Cina and your big friend, this means one thing. For people who do what you do, it means another. Back on Taris, you did exactly what was expected of you in battle without protest, but then did quite a bit more on top of that, providing creative solutions to problems the rest of us couldn't solve. That is your role, and you performed it admirably. There is no dishonor in that."
It took Mission a few seconds to find her voice again. She was just completely blindsided. Like, she'd expected Canderous would think she was...well, some dirty evil outsider, doing dirty evil outsider things. It hadn't occurred to her the kriffing Mandalorian would actually approve of her sneaky skeevy shit. "Are you fucking with me right now?"
"No, of course not. You're a critical part of the team, kebin'ika, and I'm sure Cina thinks the same. Hell..." He let out a low chuckle, shaking his head and smiling to himself. "...if you were Mandoade, raised in a warrior clan, I'm sure you'd be a young woman in quite good standing by now."
She scowled. "Then why do you keep calling me ad'ika so much?"
"Because you're also tiny."
"Screw you, old man."
"Now, really, young lady, that's just indecent. I'm old enough to be your grandfather, you know."
A guffaw wrenched itself out of her throat before she could stop it. "Eewww, dirty old geezer, in your dreams."
Canderous smirked at her for a moment. "Feeling better now?"
She tried to summon the feeling to glare at him, but it was hard, a traitorous smile pulling at her lips. Because, well, she did feel a little better. Not completely — the city getting levelled was still really sad when she thought about it, and she still thought the sniping was, just, kinda not so good. It's not like she was Mandalorian, she didn't really care about their ridiculous honor stuff. But she still...
It wasn't about that, really, when it came down to it. Either of them, even. It was sad all those people were dead, but...Taris had never been home home. She'd liked some of the Beks, but...
It didn't really matter if the things she did were kinda gross. Because they were kinda gross, but she still...
She'd never really had a, a team or a crew or whatever, like Canderous was talking about. She'd been...kinda sorta with the Beks, kinda. (It was complicated.) She had a few friends here and there, sure, and Zaerdra was a meddling old biddy, but she'd really only had Zee, it'd been the two of them versus the world, really. And she'd been okay with that. She didn't really need a family or a home or anything, Zee was all of both just fine. She did know her 'name' in Zee's language, what he always called her (because he couldn't pronounce her real one), really meant sister, and that was cool, because that's what they were, in every way that counted. Certainly more than she and Griff had ever been.
But, what Canderous was really saying, she thought, now it was the five of them — she and Zee and Cina and Canderous and Sasha — versus the world. And that sounded even better.
Almost like a real family, but extremely dysfunctional and with more stealing things and shooting people.
Mission didn't say anything, she just stuck her tongue out at him. But she did close out her search for places to run away to, setting the project aside for now. She still planned to find a place to go eventually, she and Zee, they would make a new life for themselves somewhere, that still was and had always been the plan.
But she thought it could maybe wait for a little while.
In the end, their runaway Jedi wasn't particularly difficult to find.
The grove in question was less than twenty kilometres away, along a bend in the twisting, rapids-churned stream threading across the steppe shortly south of the town. The locals called it a river but it hardly rated as one, Cina could probably jump across it if she had to. (Of course, pulling from the Force was cheating, but still.) It was hardly a ten minute trip by speeder to get to the treeline.
Honestly, getting a speeder had taken much longer than just getting there. She'd gone back to the ship to find Kandosa and the girls and the speeders were gone, still off on that little camping trip of theirs. Zaalbar offered to call them back for her — Mission had brought all her tech, despite being in the middle of nowhere, because of course she had — but Cina had waved him off. If those three were still having their...bonding time, or whatever, that was fine, those weren't the only speeders around. She could just walk if she really had to, though it would take a while. In the end, trying to borrow a speeder from the Jedi was so bloody tedious she almost did decide to just walk, took a half hour just to convince the officious little shite watching the garage she really did have a legitimate reason to use one, fucking pain.
(She suspected her former identity had been getting around the Enclave, among the Masters and older Jedi. Which was irritating, how cold and suspicious they all got — especially given that she still didn't know herself, and wasn't this all rather un-Jedi-like behaviour? — but there wasn't anything she could do about that.)
The grove had sprung up around a natural spring, draining into the nearby stream, the soil apparently rather thicker here, the granite shelf of the steppe a little bit further underground. Like the few other trees she'd seen on Dantooine spotted here and there, these were short and thick, the bark so dark it was almost black, the leaves a murky greenish-brown. They were packed so close together, in the little available space the softer earth around provided, there was absolutely no way she was getting the speeder through that mess.
Stepping through the threshold into the miniature forest she felt... Well, she wasn't sure what it was, but certainly nothing natural. There was something slightly off about the grove itself. She meant, the trees seemed perfectly ordinary, if not quite the shape and colour she was more familiar with, leaves rustling in the constant winds that scoured the steppe, the air crisp and fresh and sweet. But, despite that, it seemed oddly...quiet.
Birds, that was it. There weren't any birds. Dantooine had a ridiculously diverse avian population, the place was known for it in certain circles. The bloody things were everywhere. But not here, for some reason. Probably driven away by the subtle sense of danger on the air. That wasn't natural at all, and she was certain she wasn't imagining it — rather like Rhysam's projections, though not quite the same thing, a moodily simmering undercurrent of bitterness and despair and blood carried on the Force, infecting the whole area with its echo, the sounds of her footsteps strangely muffled, the shadows seeming deeper.
Juhani was here. And the girl was in pain, Cina could taste it.
So, when dark shapes leapt out at her from between the trees, she was hardly even surprised.
She ducked out of the way of the first, stepped just aside of the second, her lightsaber springing to life neatly bisecting it as it passed. The solid purple light shoved the shadows back, allowing her to make out what her attackers were: kath hounds. The largest predator native to Dantooine she knew of off the top of her head, they struck her as holding a peculiar middle ground between canines and cervids — shaggy-furred pack hunters with long snouts split by toothy jaws, but also thick curving horns and limbs long and thin but powerful, built as much for leaping as running.
They might be rather awkward-looking, but that didn't make them any less deadly: their mouths were a mess of razors, and they could gore her just as easy. Also, there had to be a dozen of them surrounding her.
If she didn't have sodding magical powers, she'd probably be fucked.
She dodged a few more leaping hounds, lopping off the head of the one she had a good angle on, instinctively reaching out for that presence in the Force, that agony lingering over the entire grove. Because these animals weren't acting on their own, she knew that (somehow). And she could feel it, how that dark presence fed into them, subsuming their primitive wills, coercing them to strike. Cina couldn't say exactly how she knew what to do — not that that was a new feeling, most of this Force stuff was like this, discovering things she already knew — she simply reached out to that compulsion crushing down on the animals and, even as she dodged another leap, tore into it, ripping it into a million pieces with a single overwhelming assault.
She immediately turned around, forcing her own compulsion on the kath hounds, one much more simple, but all the more powerful for it: she made them fear.
All at once, with a chorus of ear-piercing cries, the animals fled.
Once again there was only the rustle of the leaves, the burbling of the spring just at the edge of hearing, nearly covered by the steady thrum of her lightsaber.
Cina switched it off, but didn't put it away, leaving the hilt held loosely at her hip. "There's no need for that, Juhani. I didn't come here to fight."
"Then you will die."
She felt the approaching mind before she heard or saw anything — besides the hissed warning, anyway, which hadn't seemed to come from any particular direction — a tight storm of pain and despair rapidly closing on her. With hardly a thought, Cina caught a lightsaber falling from behind, purple meeting blue. A snarling face, pale yellow-ish fur, eyes red and strained, robes torn and filthy, the girl's momentum carried her on, turning around Cina, her feet meeting the ground for only an instant, and she was gone.
And the grove was still again.
Cina held in a sigh — she just knew this was going to be a pain. Why did she keep getting thrown in with traumatised children? This was not her area of expertise, okay, it was only a matter of time before she fucked something up very badly.
After a moment of hesitation, Cina closed down her lightsaber again. She had broken the girl's compulsions on the hounds, and fended off her surprise attack just as easily. Juhani had to realise she was outmatched. Unless she got a lucky break, anyway, but... Well, she wasn't an expert, but she was pretty sure waving around a lasersword while trying to talk down a traumatised child was counterproductive. "I'm not going anywhere. You may as well come out and talk."
"You shouldn't have come here, Master." The girl's voice was lower than Cina had expected, slow and awkwardly stilted, probably covering an accent. There was a bit of a hissing lisp to it, but that wasn't surprising — it could be difficult to clearly articulate Basic around prominent fangs, Juhani did look like she probably had them.
Despite the situation, Cina couldn't quite hold in a snort at the assumption. "Do I honestly look like a Jedi Master to you?"
With absolutely no warning, Juhani was attacking her again, this time falling at her back from almost directly overhead. Cina stepped slightly to the side, batted away the girl's follow-up slash with her bare hand, used the energy she pulled from it to weigh Juhani down, lock her to the earth tightly enough she couldn't just disappear again. Her blood-shot eyes widening with panic, a pulse of wild power broke apart Cina's sorcery, and in another instant she was gone.
And the grove was silent again, but there was something slightly different about the feel of it. Almost...pointed, as though the girl were saying, Yes, obviously you're a Jedi Master, what else would you call that?
Which, okay, she did sort of have a point — exploiting tutaminis to catch a lightsaber blade bare-handed was rather absurd, but Cina had realised by now that she had been, and still was, rather absurd. It did take her a moment to summon the focus necessary, so it was still very possible to cut her down, but if she saw it coming in time she was pretty much invincible. (Though she could only absorb so much energy at once, hence slapping it aside and not holding onto it.) It was already obvious she had enough of an edge on Juhani she would always see it coming in time.
Honestly, she could probably take this girl unarmed and with both hands tied behind her back. By the sick tension in the air, Juhani knew she was hopelessly outclassed too.
Cina chewed on her lip for a moment, trying to decide what the fuck she was supposed to be doing with herself. She really was quite terrible at this sort of thing. "So... How about you come out of those trees and we have a chat?"
"Go away." Her voice was quieter than before, the harsh anger faded away, the heavy cloud carried through the Force turning all the heavier. "Just leave me alone."
With unexpected intensity, Cina felt her chest clench with pity. "I'm not going to leave you here to die, Juhani."
"What are you talking about?"
"That's why you're holed up here alone, isn't it? You came here to disappear, where nobody would find you and nobody would stop you." Pointless, since the Masters had known where she was the whole time, but still. "I know what giving up looks like, I'm not just gonna leave you to it."
That feeling on the air, Juhani's presence in the Force somehow diffused enough Cina couldn't pinpoint her, turned cold and sharp, claws pressed against her throat. "You're wrong, I didn't come here to— This place is mine, this is where I embraced the Dark Side, it's mine and you're not welcome here!"
Cina scoffed. "You call this the Dark Side, really? Are you joking?"
"Shut up, Jedi, you don't know my dark power—"
She failed to hold in a laugh. Dark power, honestly...
In a perfectly predictable reaction to Cina's mockery, Juhani darted in from the trees again, this time leading not with her lightsaber but with the Force, a wave of power rising to crash down on her, hot and vicious and deadly. It was sort of impressive in the volume — Juhani certainly wasn't a weak Jedi, no doubt about that — but not really in the character. This power Juhani had summoned in an effort to silence her, it wasn't anger or hatred, it wasn't any sort of will to inflict suffering or death, no, it was agony, it was despair, it was desperation and self-hatred.
This wasn't the Dark Side — this was a child in pain throwing a tantrum.
Cina dove into the Force, surfaced with a hard push, the incoming wave turned aside and dispersed, Juhani plucked off her feet and tossed to slam into a tree a couple metres behind her. Frustration, petulant anger frothing through her and out, a thick gout of fire sprung from her hand, searing through the air between them, blue and purple and snapping cold, splashing against the tree, the ground around it, eerily silent, the only sound the crackling and popping of boiling sap. She pushed for a few seconds before releasing them, the unnatural flames quickly wisping away, leaving wood and grass and dirt scorched in its wake, a ring of frost condensed at the edges.
Juhani sat in the middle of the ring of devastation, completely unharmed. Which, obviously she was — she wasn't trying to hurt the girl, just make a point. Now that she was actually sitting still for two seconds, Cina could make out she was a juvenile Cathar, the fur thinly covering her face silverish-white, a few lines of a pale yellow on her cheeks and across her forehead leading into her hair (well, mane, technically), pulled back into a light golden plait. The Cathar face looked vaguely feline, very obviously not human, though not quite as extreme as Bothans — eyes and ears large and angled, a similar sort of wet nose, but the face in general rather flatter, the jaws far less dominant.
She stared up at Cina, yellow-orange eyes wide, sparks of fear flung from her mind sharp and nauseating.
Flailing, panicky power grasped at Cina, trying to push her back, hold her in place, iron bands threatening to tighten about her throat, but Juhani was too afraid, too unfocused, her hold on it far too loose. It was easy to tear the power out of her grasp, turning it right back at her. This time, it came as lightning — not quite proper Sith lightning, but something in the same family, not the will to cause suffering made manifest but instead disdain and frustration, real Darkness pulsing from it in frigid waves — a cage of blue and white light surrounding Juhani, this time far more noisy, the booming and rattling of displaced air, the snapping of wood and the breaking of stone, too bright for Cina to see through it, almost too loud for her to make out the girl yelling in fright.
But, when the lightning was done, there the girl still sat, breaths high and thin and body struck with involuntary shivers, but completely unharmed.
Cina approached her, casually stepping over the scorched and broken forest floor, Juhani staring up at her all the while, too hopeless, too terrified to actually do anything. Soon she was standing over her — close enough Juhani could reach out and touch her, but she didn't do anything, just watched. "This isn't the Dark Side you found here, foolish girl." She crouched down, bringing herself to Juhani's level. Reaching out, slowly, "This isn't Darkness. This," she said, poking Juhani over her heart (or where her heart would be on a human, anyway, wasn't familiar with Cathar anatomy), "this is pain. They aren't the same thing. Pain left to fester can lead you to the Dark Side, in time, but you're not there yet.
"So, Juhani..." Cina leaned back a bit, sat on the ground, her legs more sprawling before her than properly folded, forced her lips into something approximating a smile. "How about you try talking to me about it first?"
The look of dumbfounded disbelief on Juhani's face was just bloody hilarious, but laughing at her right now would probably be taken badly.
ilusite — General term for lightsaber crystals, named after the planet they're often found on. In canon, the name for the crystals used in lightsabers is Adega, after the planet Adega, where they were first discovered...but there are serious problems with this. The Jedi mostly get their crystals on Ilum, and have since the early centuries of the Republic. However, the Adega system is in space that shouldn't even have been explored by the time of KotOR — it's in the same region of space as many of the original trilogy locations (Endor, Dagobah, etc), which was a comparatively newly-opened frontier at the time. True, Ilum is technically in the Unknown Regions, but it's only a short shot from Coruscant, the Jedi just keep it off official maps to protect the resource. Adega, on the other hand, is clear on the opposite side of the core from Coruscant, which makes the suggestion that the Order knew about it before Ilum, for the name to have stuck, quite improbable. Hence my substitute name. (The name for the crystals isn't capitalised because we don't do the same thing in English, ex. andalusite from Andalusia.)
[she was already, like...whatever the word like bilingual would be, but for five] — Americans might think this sounds absurd, but it isn't it all unusual for people in more diverse societies to be at least passable in several different languages. It was very common in the ancient world, actually, even a large proportion of ordinary people were at least bilingual. Being perfectly fluent in more than two or three is a bit unusual, but being able to at least hold a conversation in five by Mission's age isn't really that hard to believe at all.
Denon — Cina wouldn't actually consider this an option, Mission just threw out another "super-old super-rich Republic" world.
Juhani's age — Most fanfic I've read (and even canon, arguably), tend to depict Juhani as an adult, perhaps late teens at the absolute youngest, but this doesn't quite seem to fit the facts of her background. We know Juhani was young during the Liberation of Taris, when the Revanchists beat back the Mandalorians and freed the slaves. It's not stated for certain how young, but with how it's spoken of I'd guess six to twelve, maybe. That would have happened right near the end of the war, around 3960 BBY. The events of KotOR happen in 3956, only four years later; using the same estimate of her age, that should make her ten to sixteen. Given her particular brand of naïveté, I think mid-teens actually makes a whole hell of a lot of sense. (Of course, Cina doesn't actually know how old Juhani is when she's given the assignment, she's reacting based on the assumption that most of the apprentices are children.) Now, I did actually expand the timeline somewhat, to give events more time to develop properly, but even after that Juhani is still falling somewhere in her mid-teens, right around Mission's age.
Because, apparently Cina just going around collecting children is a thing now. I didn't plan that, it just turned out that way. This might have gotten kinda squicky if I'd actually planned on pairing Mission or Juhani on anyone xD
Canderous is a gruff Mandalorian papa bear. This is fact, and I can't be convinced otherwise. Fight me.
Also, I think Mission teaching Sasha how to swear (im)properly as soon as possible is both 100% in character and 100% adorable.
I was originally going to write through Cina talking Juhani down, but we did just have a...somewhat similar conversation with Candi and Mission, and it would just be a bit tedious, didn't seem necessary. First scene next chapter will be Juhani pov, which will get across what exactly they talked about in a less annoying to write way. Bleh.
And, yes, update delay, I know. Depression is a thing, also distracted with other projects. Probably shouldn't take quite as long this time, but we'll see.