When the Shadow Chaser landed with a thud Kiara waited for a while before she left her cabin where she'd stayed for the duration of the trip to whatever rebel base that the others had founded after the defeat of the Death Star and the evacuation of the base on Yavin IV. She heard as various crates were off-loaded as well as the chatter of the men and droids as they went about their work. Eventually, though, the ship went silent, and she knew that she had to leave her cabin to do what needed to be done. She had to go find Kanan. Her brother, Caleb, and talk to him.

She headed toward the common area and wasn't surprised to see him sitting there waiting for her. He got up, likely enough he could sense how unsteady she still was thanks to the drugs in her system, but she stopped him before he left the couch.

"Don't bother. I'm alright. Enough to get to the couch, at least." Kiara didn't like that she had to depend on the wall for support but at least she had made it to the common area on her own. Something that she wouldn't have been able to do the day before when she first came to.

"The Imperials really did a number on you, didn't they?"

Kiara got to the couch, sat on it, and turned to face the man she knew as her brother. "Don't you mean that my father did?"

"I wasn't going to jump straight in like that, but now that you mention it..."

"Is it what you stuck around to ask me about when the others left, though." Kiara sighed as she brought her hand up to her throbbing head. "You have questions. So, ask them."

Kanan tilted his head. He knew that she likely could guess each and every one of his questions, but he decided to go ahead and ask the one at the forefront of his mind.

"Why didn't you tell me who you were? I know you figured it out the morning after the collapse of the Jedi temple. When the Loth-wolf was there, and I said what my name was before the Empire. When I said that the reason the wolf kept saying Dume was because my name once was Caleb Dume. Why didn't you say anything then?"

Kiara bit her lip as she tried to gather her thoughts so that she could answer the question the best that she could. "To what end? You were taken from the family when you were young for a reason. The Jedi didn't want you to have attachments to a family. Because families can be a complication. They can help but they can also harm. Telling you that you had a family, my family, would have fallen into the latter. And you didn't need it. You have created a new family for yourself. A brother in Garazeb. A sister in Sabine. You have Hera. And you had Ezra." Kiara paused because she knew that mentioning the teen would be a sore spot. Still, she had to continue. "There was nothing to gain by telling you."

"I had you to gain," Kanan said as he reached out and put a hand on Kiara's.

"If you really knew me you may not see that as a gain." Kiara pulled her hand back. "Alex told me what happened back on the Star Destroyer. What I did. That is why the Jedi didn't want me. You really think that having someone with unstable powers is a plus?"

Kanan lowered his brow. He sensed something behind those words. It was the fact that she had an extremely low opinion of herself. Up until now he hadn't seen it. She'd kept it tightly hidden. But right now, she was too vulnerable to cover her true feelings for herself. He could sense the self-loathing deep under the surface. She was even, if he had to put a word to it, ashamed of herself.

"Who told you that they are unstable? Untrained, yes. But unstable?"

"The Jedi who tested me. According to my mother, our mother, it was the same Jedi who tested you and asked for you to be sent to the temple after seeing your potential. She never let it go that I wasn't deemed worthy to go to the temple. And neither did... Elios," Kiara added without calling the Moff her father.

Kanan paused before considering. "You did draw on the dark side, which is dangerous, especially without any training. That could be what was referred to if the Jedi sensed that you had the tendency for it. Ezra... He had that tendency, too, but he overcame it." Kanan thought back to his padawan. "I suppose that if the Order was still around then they wouldn't have chosen to have him trained, either."

Kiara watched as the man beside her was lost in his own thoughts for a while. "He seemed like a good kid."

"He was, is, the best," Kanan corrected himself.

He wasn't dead. He never sensed his death so that meant that he was still out there somewhere. Just where, he didn't have a clue. Nor did he have any idea of where to start to look for him. Where did the purgill go? Where was their home? Is that where they took Ezra? Was it where there was no way to contact the rest of them? Because if he could have, he had no doubt that he would have found a way to reach out to them.


Hera walked up to where the supplies that the men had gotten while on their run were at and looked around. Kanan didn't seem to be with Kallus and Zeb.

"You guys are late. You were supposed to be back yesterday. And where is Kanan?"

Zeb exchanged a look with Kallus. "Uh, yeah, about that..."

"We had to extract Valour in a hurry. That's why we are a day late getting back." Kallus paused before adding, "Kanan is on the ship with her right now. They have a few things to discuss."

Hera gave a look of confusion as Kallus steered her away from the ship in search of a place to sit to have a talk with her. She was going to find out soon enough, so he figured he'd fill the Twi'lek in while the siblings were occupied. He told her what he knew, explained what he found out after the fight on Lothal but had been sworn to secrecy. He also explained how Kanan had learned about his relationship with the other woman while in the midst of the rescue attempt. Hera listened patiently until the end of the story.

"Well, is she alright?" Hera asked finally. She only briefly met the woman during the incident at the Jedi temple on Lothal as well as after the battle at the Imperial Complex on the planet, but she did like her.

Kallus nodded. "She'll be a bit out of sorts thanks to the drugs until they fully leave her system. But other than that, she's okay. I don't think that she was expecting to both have to leave the Empire and regain a brother in one instance."

Hera agreed. It was a big change. For both of them. She turned to see the ship where they'd left it and wondered how long Kanan and Kiara would be in there. How do you catch up on a lifetime apart?

"Well, I guess for right now, the rest of us have work to do. Were you and Zeb able to get everything that we need?" Hera stood and began to go back to where the supplies were left with the Lasat sorting through them.


Kanan spent the next couple of hours asking questions about Kiara and her childhood. With the way that it appeared that their mother had set a high standard with comparing Kiara to him even though he wasn't around, Kanan was surprised to not hear or sense an ounce of resentment coming from her. Without even knowing it, Kanan was always a ghost that Kiara was expected to live up to. To compete against, in a way.

Did their mother think that if Kiara were stronger in the force that the Jedi would change their minds? Did she not realize that it didn't work that way? That the older she got the less likely she was to be accepted as a Jedi youngling?

Kanan was suddenly struck with a disturbing thought. What if it hadn't been the Jedi who had then taken an interest in Kiara? The Jedi didn't know that the Sith were back, but they had been; even then, hidden in the shadows. And with her tendency it wouldn't have taken much to steer her down that path. Except, while she may have drawn on the dark side the other day, her lifetime of trying to help others showed that her heart wasn't darkened.

Kanan was pulled out of his thought when he realized that Kiara had asked him a question. They'd been going back and forth, each asking and answering. It was his turn to answer one.

"How were you... blinded? If you don't mind me asking?"

"Maul," Kanan said simply.

"What is a Maul?"

"He was a Sith. Ezra came across him when we were on Malachore and he has always been very trusting of the wrong kinds of people. Maul was among those whom he trusted without merit. He also is the one who put Ezra on the path toward the dark side. I didn't realize it for a while. But on Malachore, I was fighting against Maul, and he blinded me with his lightsaber. Though another millimeter or two and he would have taken more than just my sight."

"Oh." Kiara looked down for a moment before looking back up. "But how is it that you don't even seem to not have your sight, at all? I've saw you on Lothal and-"

"I draw heavily on the force now. In a way, I guess you can say that I've learned to see more than I ever saw with my eyes. There are still things that I wish that I could see. Like my child who is on the way, I'll never get to actually see his or her face. But it is almost like I've gained more than I have lost most of the time." Kanan thought about his child who would be coming within the year. "You know, if it wasn't for you, I would have died without knowing that I had a child coming. He would have grown up without me. I'm just glad that the Loth-wolf brought you to help that night at the depot. I still can't figure out why he did, though."

"You mean you don't know?" Kiara felt like a fool. Of course, he couldn't know. The Jedi didn't want their prodigies from having attachments to their families and that also likely would include not knowing where they were from. Their home worlds when it wasn't obvious. "Before you were taken to the temple, Lothal was your home. It is where I grew up, before the Empire."

Kanan thought back to how he had seemed to be drawn the planet; always returned there time and time again. Even long before he and the crew of the Ghost had met Ezra. They, he, had rarely been away for long after his first mission that took him to the planet. Now, it did seem to make sense. He was connected to the planet. And in turn, he had connected to the Loth-wolves from the moment that they first led them from the Imperial bombardment of the mountains where they had taken refuge.

"Wait, speaking of the Empire, how did you end up working for them?"

Kiara breathed out a sigh. "In the days following..." She didn't want to mention directly the execution of the Jedi. "Anyway, the Emperor began hunting down all force sensitives, not just the remaining Jedi. Hiding wasn't easy, as I know you can recall. And those who served the Republic who transitioned to serving the Empire were especially pressed to conform to the new regulations regarding the implications of harboring any sensitives."

Kiara paused as she recalled the day that changed everything. "Elios had set it up with a colleague to let me spend some time at an archeological dig of an ancient temple. By that time, I'd taken an interest in ancient force users and archeology, as well. I was there when an Inquisitor showed up for the first time. Elios had been the one to tell them where I was at. I didn't know what she was; just felt that something was wrong. The Inquisitor just showed up and started to slaughter the entire team. Everyone there died because of me. Including my mother."

Kiara had to pause for a minute before she continued. "I thought over that day a million times and I still can't understand why I was left behind. I was hidden but an Inquisitor should have been able to sense where I was hiding." She shook her head to clear her thoughts. "Anyway, after a while I was able to stowaway onboard various freighters and eventually made it to Coruscant. Once there, I was able to blend into the lower levels, but I suppose you can say hunger was what drove me to the maddening decision to join the Imperial Academy there. And I eventually figured that it was the best place to hide from the Empire. So long as I did everything that I could to not draw attention to myself."

"And that's where you met Kallus," Kanan said as a matter of fact.

Kiara chuckled. "Yes, that's where I met Alexsandr. He was a rare friend while at the Academy." She paused before she added, "I suppose that is one thing that the Jedi and the Empire have in common. Neither really encourage close friendships and even downright discouraged it. The only reason why we became friends was because I didn't bother really competing with the rest in the class. I had no desire to rise to the top, so I wasn't a threat to him, or anyone else in the class. He had different plans than I did. I planned to join the Imperial Department of Military Research; it had a branch for archeology which is what interested me. From what I have learned, even the Jedi had a section devoted to it, as well."

Kanan hadn't ever considered that the Order and the Empire had anything in common but now that he thought about it, he supposed that they did. He didn't like the idea that they could be compared in any form, so he decided to change the subject.

"But you two were in the same class at the Imperial Academy, you aren't even the same age? You are, what? Two years younger than he is? Three?"

"I lied about my name. Lying about my age to get in was just as simple. That's why Alex and I were in the same class."

"You know, I think you are the only one who I've heard call him by his first name. He just has everyone call him Kallus."

Kiara shrugged, "I've always called him Alex. It'd feel strange to call him Kallus. It'd be as if you called the other members of your crew by their last names."

"True, but we have lived and worked together for years on the Ghost. That brings about a level of friendship, of intimacy, that I know isn't encouraged in the Empire."

Kiara scrunched her nose at the term intimacy. "Oh gods, not you, too. You aren't one of those morons who think that if a man and woman are friends that they're hitting the sheets, are you?"

Kanan cringed at the imagery that popped into his head. Still, he added with a chuckle. "I didn't say that. But, since you brought it up, as your older brother, should I be giving Kallus a warning about how a lightsaber to the gut could find its way in his direction if he isn't careful?"

Even though she knew he couldn't see her rolling her eyes she couldn't stop herself from doing so anyway as she groaned. "You've been my brother a whopping three days and you are already going to go that route? In case you missed it, I don't need a protective brother monitoring who I befriend. Not to mention, it would appear that even you've learned that he's a good friend based on the banter I heard between you while I was in my cabin."

After spending hours discussing serious topics, he figured that this was a welcome reprieve. He started laughing before adding, "Defending him, huh? That is interesting."

Kiara shook her head as she pushed Kanan over on the couch as she considered getting up to go back to her cabin. Unfortunately, being unsteady on her feet from the drugs still finding their way out of her system didn't combine well with trying to storm off. Instead, she just muttered, "I'm glad you are enjoying yourself."

"Hey, I have a lot of years of catching up when it comes to being your older brother."

"Well, if that is true, then that means I have just as many years to catch up on as being your younger, bratty, sister." Kiara grinned since that was something that could be much more fun than his role as the older sibling. "Which means, I want to know about Hera."

Kanan pulled up short as he realized this could be a two-way street.

"Relax. I just want to know your story," Kiara added with a laugh. "You know that Alex and I became friends back during our academy days. So, it is only fair that I learn about how you and Hera, even the rest of the crew, got to know one another."