Hello all,

I have found such joy in writing again. The small bits of radio silence are disheartening, but I have decided to push on and continue this story to give Djibourdi, Kachina, Eddy, and Tombur their dues. They have quite the journey yet to make, and I hope you enjoy seeing their journeys continue.

Credit is due to a TikTok creator by the name of Charlotte Moore-Lambert, whose snapshot view of racism and perception helped me form the conversation within this chapter. If you ever have the time, please look it up.

If you have the means or the care, please let me know what you think so far, folks. Be safe.

Happy Writing,

Eliana

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Ahsoka wasn't quite sure what mesmerized her more – the tear between the defensive maneuver yards away from her and the waves of the Force that came through it was a tough call to make. It had been a whirlwind of events that led her to where she was currently on her knees, attempting to meditate with Anakin while watching the display that had caught her eye.

The morning itself had been straight forward: Djibourdi had decided to head into the forest after he and his master finished their training and meditation that morning, under the statement that he would like to hunt for some medicinal herbs and edible food for the camp. He had armed himself with his two lightsabers and a pair of mid-length vibroswords that were strapped to his back. Tombur had agreed as he watched his young padawan load the hovercart with empty crates, and then shocked both padawans by suggesting (although it was understood that it wasn't truly a suggestion) that Ahsoka and young Kachina accompany him.

Ahsoka herself had immediately agreed… and then watched as her friend seemed to hesitate. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of his alteration in behavior as they all headed the short distance away and into the cover of the trees. He had lulled himself into a timid silence, so much like his much younger self that she remembered from those days that they had suffered together, and even her lighthearted jokes and getting Kachina to laugh only earned her a shy half-smile. His face and Force signature had remained locked in that prized calm of the Jedi, the calm that she herself was currently grappling to hone again, and she found that no matter what she attempted she couldn't read into what was going on with him.

Even after they had found their spot in the cover of the trees on the edge of a small clearing, well within the range of their patrols, she couldn't get him to really speak. She settled for watching him pick through the ground litter and shrubs with a deft knowledge of what he was looking for as she played with Kachina – and then, when she couldn't stand it any longer, she decided to push him.

"What is it, Dji? What's wrong?"

Her sudden forwardness had seemed to catch him by surprise, and he could only blink at her owlishly where he had frozen, crouched with both hands busy pulling a root free from the soil. She had resettled into her old method of being able to understand him without words.

Nothing, he was trying to tell her, why do you think something's wrong?

"Oh come on," she grunted at him with a roll of her eyes, letting Kachina sit on her knee as she babbled happily, "You aren't making this hard, you know. You haven't said a thing to me since we reunited and right now, you're so nervous that I can feel it melting off of you."

Those golden eyes lowered to his hands to watch his fingers fiddle with the root he held. She immediately felt a twinge of regret. She hadn't meant for it to come across so harsh – her own frustration had altered the message.

I'm sorry.

"You don't have to apologize," Ahsoka's voice was suddenly gentle, a balm to soothe the unintended burn she had inflicted on him, "I just want to understand what I did… why you had to hide from me – why you're hiding right now. Don't you trust me?"

Her friend was startled at the hurt that leaked into her voice, and his own, tremblingly soft and hesitant, whispered back to her.

"It's not you I don't trust."

She was confused at that. Kachina started to wiggle on her lap so she set the toddler on her feet, steadying her with a slight bit of the Force as the little one bobbled her way across the short distance to where Djibourdi remained crouched. He seemed scared when he caught her, even her enthusiastic giggles as she wrapped her arms around his neck did little to ease the worry Ahsoka could feel radiating from him. A frown crossed the padawan's face and she moved to join her friend as he stood. He was starting to make her very concerned.

"Who is it that you don't trust, then?"

He wouldn't look at her as he carefully passed the giddy toddler back into her arms. His voice was a strangled whisper as he breathed out:

"Me."

Her heart must have been ripped out of her chest and stomped on the ground, she bargained, because that was the only thing that could have caused the unreal agony that crushed her breath out of her lungs. He had grown taller than her, more muscled than her, physically stronger than her… but suddenly, he seemed so small and lost that she felt a drive to gather him to her and pull what shattered pieces of him rattled loose back together again.

She told him then that she wanted to understand what he meant, and he had been cryptic in his answer. He had asked her to describe to him what she felt at that moment. She had. Then he asked her what she saw. What she heard. What she smelled. Although it seemed pointless to her, she answered each point reliably, and was then honestly a bit disoriented when the emotion that he let off shifted from concern to relief. She was normal, he told her, and was oddly happy that she had been forced to pause to tap the sense he had asked about as they went through the list.

"It's different for you?"

He had given her a soft sigh and a nod, sitting gingerly on a fallen log and finally tossing the root he held, aimlessly, into one of the small crates. She joined him as she set Kachina down again, letting the toddler scurry about on shaky legs on the soft grass.

"…it all comes at once," he had told her, gesturing around him to, well, everything, "like it's one giant conversation. The bigger the danger or the stronger the intent, the louder it becomes."

For the first time she noticed the irises of his eyes bouncing rapidly in tiny shifts of direction as his mind tried to take everything in all at the same time – Force, it was no wonder he was so quick to react to things, he never got a chance to stop.

"I can't really… stop it."

"And it's overwhelming," she offered softly, watching him nod.

Whatever she had wanted to say next would be forever silenced, because suddenly his head popped up, eyes dilating as he whipped around to focus on a space behind them. By the time she finally caught the disturbance in the Force he had already leapt up and sprinted as fast as a pursuing predator to that space, stopping short with his right-hand hovering over his shoulder where he had meant to draw one of the vibroswords. Ahsoka understood exactly what happened as she captured their young charge and held her in her arms.

It wasn't that Djibourdi had seen someone.

It was that someone just saw them.

He had turned dilated eyes to her then, a soft growled order to get Kachina to the camp leaving his lips as he activated an alarm on his gauntlet. She had wanted to argue with him, remind him that she was the older of the two of them so got seniority - but when the alarm call from his montrals echoed loudly among the trees and sent Kachina into startled clicks, Ahsoka picked the assignment over the argument. He had taken off after whoever that was and she was moving at full pace back to the camp.

Halfway there the stampeding group of Chargers whipped around her, Tombur leading them all straight on the path that his padawan had taken. Campion and two others had brought her and Kachina safely back to camp where she had passed the toddler to Eddy's concerned arms before joining Anakin on one of the grassy hills just outside the wall. Not long later, she was relieved to see her friend and his master emerge unharmed from the woods with their group of men – but they didn't return to the camp. Instead, the two jedi knelt on a weathered stone that jutted from the ground to form a flat surface.

They had knelt so closely that their knees were touching and crossed their arms to hold each other's opposite hand, Djibourdi's right with Tombur's left and vice versa, before both fell into a deep meditation. The Chargers had surprised her then, activating long shields that reminded her of those she had seen in the hands of droid commandos from the gauntlets around their left wrists, all of them linking the edges of their shields together as they marched. They had begun to move together in three separate circles around their officers: those in the middle raising their shields to link together in a ceiling over their heads, and the two rings after that marching in tandem to form moving walls that rotated clockwise around the Jedi.

It was an amazing sight…but a frustrating one. Those moving walls made it impossible for her to listen in to what could be said by the master and padawan that they protected, and even when trying to meditate with Anakin to help their allies in whatever they searched for, she ran across a dead end. Whatever Djibourdi and Tombur were hunting for… they were doing it in secret. So secret, that their signatures were gone.

They were tracking, one of the Chargers who guarded the camp had told her when she asked.

"They're gonna find out whoever that was. They can consider themselves mighty lucky to have gotten past our patrols and dodge the beasts in these woods… but in all the years he's been with the general, ain't nobody got past Red."

This day was no exception. The Force thrummed in the ground beneath her knees, and she realized that they were using the connected lines of the living Force to search for that same disturbance she and her friend had felt in the woods.

She could feel the sudden shift in the Force when they had found whatever it was that they were looking for – and could see the same image that all the other Jedi could. She watched her own master's eyes snap open with a darkened shadow sharpening them. She heard his unmistakable soft-winded growl that filled her with hesitation.

She didn't know the pale-skinned, black-haired human that flashed in her mind's eye. She had never met him before… but by his reaction, her master had.

Within the living fortress meters away, she would never hear the words that would come next.

Tombur and Djibourdi had dropped their meditation and unlinked their hands, grey eyes meeting gold as the realization set in. Tombur was watching his young apprentice carefully – there were two sudden realities that were coming to clash in this moment. When his padawan didn't speak and his walls ricocheted his master out of his space more readily than he thought they would, he knew exactly what was happening. The teenager was confident enough to look him in the eye in that second, but he knew that this brazen facade wasn't going to last long.

"We now know our enemy," the Echani spoke evenly, not tearing his searching gaze from Djibourdi's.

His padawan didn't answer, nor did he blink. Ever so slightly the fingers of the younger's hands twitched, so he pushed.

"Say the name, Red."

He didn't, but the slightest change in light that rippled through that confident look showed that he was beginning to step back.

"Say it. Out loud."

His padawan swallowed shallowly. He was beginning to show through that façade – and as much as it pained Tombur to give that final push, he couldn't allow that festering emotion to hide within his apprentice any longer. It was justified… Djibourdi just had to admit to that as well.

"Say the name, Djibourdi."

That statement was made firmly and without leeway, and finally the hoarse answer left those red lips. The two words were laced with an echo of past torture and torment, so cracking and broken that the knight had to pull on his own strength to not back off.

"Kailem Zimerek."

The first reality made itself known, one that somehow the padawan had always known to be true. That demon wasn't dead – he was very much alive, and very much here. He swallowed thickly against the sudden lump in his throat that choked him.

Tombur tilted his head and softened his gaze, searching in his padawan's shielded eyes as he questioned:

"Are you afraid?"

"No."

The answer was rapid. It manifested without hesitation. It took a very quick pull of control to hide the shock that wanted to twist Tombur's features, and instead he gathered himself and then prompted:

"So then ask yourself the things that we need to know. Why is he here? Why do all of this? What is his goal?"

"It won't end the same this time."

"And why is that?"

He hadn't expected the answer that he got, watching the walls in his padawan's mind slam up in a show that demanded that he back away down the road he had started on. This was a bold attempt at a fake-out, and Djibourdi was pleading with him not to make him face this – he couldn't do that. The brave face had to fall this time. He couldn't allow the teenager to run anymore.

"Because this time I'm not some weak, terrified little kid who can't stand his ground in a fight."

The Echani leaned back with a deep breath then, his features unreadable. Then, he reached one hand up to snap his fingers as he gave a sharp whistle and a call to halt. His troopers obeyed swiftly, stopping in their strides, and turning to face him for instruction.

"Thank you all for your assistance. You are dismissed."

They all saluted the affirmative and shut down their glowing blue shields, making their way back to the camp. Ahsoka and Anakin both responded to the change in atmosphere, the knight immediately drawing her into a conversation about what was going on. She had taken the bait…and then, when she saw the look in Djibourdi's eyes, she divided her attention two ways. She probably shouldn't have been listening in, but she did.

"Say that again," Tombur spoke calmly to his padawan, noting the confusion that flashed across the stoic façade, "What you just said – I want to hear you say that again, Djibourdi. I asked you if you were afraid. You said:"

He gestured one hand to his apprentice, who again responded:

"No."

"And then I asked you why it would be different this time than last. And you told me what?"

"That I'm not some powerless kid that can't defend himself."

Both padawans jumped slightly when Tombur snapped his fingers and pointed right to his padawan's chest in emphasis.

"That. That line of thinking right there tells me exactly what I need to know," his voice was firm and held a no-nonsense tone, that elegant face that was framed in snowy hair set in an expression that told Djibourdi that what he feared most was about to come to pass, "You know, kiddo… you amaze me. Everything I have thrown at you, you learn. You've learned my people's battle art faster than I have. You learned maneuvers and strategies that took Warren years to teach me in months. You have taken every lesson I put in front of you and made it into something remarkable."

He leaned forward so that their faces were only a handful of inches apart, watching the palpable emotion roll behind those guarded eyes. Djibourdi had caught on. He knew that his master knew, and he was terrified.

"But in all of our time together, Red… I never taught you how to lie."

The Togruta swallowed hard.

"Maybe that's why you're so bad at it."

Finally, the golden irises fell to the ground and Tombur softly sighed. He had to steel himself for what he was about to put his young apprentice through – there was nothing in him keen to poke at that old wound but it was a wound that had to be pulled open so that the infection could begin to ebb. Making up his mind the older of the two shifted so that he was sitting cross legged, trying to relax his posture so that his padawan would take his lead. With an easing brush of reassurance to the aching walls of Djibourdi's mind, he began to speak.

"Now, I'm going to say some things that you probably will wish that I kept to myself," he breathed out, giving a reassuring hum through the Force as his padawan moved to sit cross-legged in front of him despite wringing his hands anxiously, "but you, my dear boy, are terrible as self-examination because you are wholly obsessed with being perceived as strong."

When Djibourdi went to look down two elegant fingers gently hooked under his chin, bringing his face and view back to his master.

"You are a strong person, Red, and you are an incredibly honorable young man – and so you understand that coercion and abuse of any kind is bad… so you become upset with the mere insinuation that you could ever have been demoralized or treated in such a way that you have grown to despise."

He let his padawan's chin go, resting his hands on his knees.

"And that line of thinking right there is exactly why you will continue to take hits left and right, because… I need you to understand me," the Echani leaned himself forward to stare deeply into the terrified irises in front of him, "You can't confront a problem if you don't acknowledge that the problem exists, little one."

Djibourdi went to look down again, and then visibly jumped when his master tapped the ground in his field of vision, drawing his gaze back up.

"We're the ones having a conversation," Tombur gestured between them both, "The ground doesn't need your attention right now."

He acknowledged the slight tremble of his padawan's chin and reached through their bond, guiding him to release the painful emotion to the void of the Force. He was trying to do this as carefully as he could.

"Now you listen to me carefully," his voice was suddenly deep and serious, "You are not pathetic, or weak, or bad because these things happened to you – and no one with any shred of common sense will ever tell you that you are. What we will tell you is that it is a problem if you don't allow yourself the time to acknowledge what it means to have gone through that kind of treatment and conditioning in a space where you are trying to put yourself in a position to be the strongest person in a group. It is problem if you are not willing to examine the damages that were caused, and still continue to exist, from that time or what the presence of the person who caused them means to you."

He watched the trembling eyes in front of him turn a shade darker, and when his padawan found the courage to reach through their bond for reassurance he was quick to provide a flood of it.

"Now that's not to say that you can't be seen as 'bad' or 'weak' because of other reasons – there's a whole plethora of scenarios where any of us can be written as the villain in someone's story because we succumbed to someone that took advantage of us. You have proven to me, and to our troops, many times that you are able to stand among the most elite. You have outrun the expectation of your people, you have learned fighting styles that are years advanced from you, you can learn anything I put in front of you in record time… but your ability to just trust yourself to make a choice, any choice, has never, ever, ever been one of those things that you can do. You are terrified to make a decision because you truly have 'all or nothing' thinking. You believe that the wrong choice should be punished – and since I won't do that to you, you do it to yourself. Because he did it to you, and you've convinced yourself that he was right. And if you can't look me in the eye right now and say that out loud, Red –"

He stopped speaking long enough to make sure he had the full attention of his padawan who was trying desperately to not seem intimidated by being so clearly seen.

"- Then you are running away. You have to disabuse yourself of the notion that being afraid is dodging and physically reacting every time you hear his name – that's not what that is, kiddo. I asked you if you were afraid, and your answer was to tell me that you can physically defend yourself when it came to it. That's fear. You didn't spare consideration to any other circumstance other than when he put his hands on you… which is fear, my padawan. Fear is quiet. Fear sleeps. Fear is little things that you don't even know that you're doing until someone tells you about it after they see it. If you can just become comfortable with the fact that fear and the need for companionship are inherent parts of mortal existence, then getting feedback on it will involve much less anxiety and heartbreak than it does when someone sees through your ruse. If you're willing to accept it, you'll finally be ready to talk through it and find out how it affects you now… so that you can move past it."

He reached out one hand to gingerly cup his padawan's cheek, sending him praise when he watched the troublesome shadow that had bitten his eyes get banished into the light that was the Force.

"To be clear, my dear boy, to be strong means to accept your limitations and be alright with being the one in need of help sometimes. There is no dishonor in that."

Djibourdi leaned into that warm palm, his master's thumb gently ghosting below his eye that shut tightly as he sorted through the bubbling pit of emotion that oozed near-beyond his control. With Tombur's help he managed to sort through it and, when he opened his eyes to look back to his master, Tombur dropped his hand.

"So," the Echani spoke, sitting up straighter. He nodded in approval when his padawan did the same, "I will ask you again. What is the name of our enemy?"

"Kailem Zimerek."

The name was hoarsely spoken, but it was spoken nonetheless.

"Are you afraid?"

"Yes."

Both Ahsoka and Tombur could feel that pain ripple momentarily through the Force, and both offered their aid. The Echani smiled softly at that – these two were so much alike.

"Fear and anxiety are natural, padawan-mine. They serve to warn us of danger, or to propel us to a higher level of capability. In this moment, what is the purpose of this emotion?"

Djibourdi looked away from his master and out to the woods where they had come from, a deep breath held in his lungs. When he looked back, he and Tombur shared a long gaze…and then, the knight nodded.

"Alright then, Red."

Then, the conversation he had hesitated on over, the nurturing side of him came out with a mirthful chuckle.

"Now then," he mused, loosening his shoulders and then gazing affectionately at the teenager who regarded him with a note of curiosity, "what are we gonna do about that lie?"

That did it, and suddenly they were both chuckling heartily. The Togruta looked longingly at the fields and plains in the distance before unfastening the harness clip from his chest, carefully collecting the two sheathed swords from his back. He folded them gingerly around the securing piece of leather, handing them over with a bowed head to his master. Tombur accepted them with a deep nod, laying them across his lap.

"I think that's appropriate," he told the younger evenly, and then reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder, "But just for the rest of today. Is that fair?"

A single nod.

"And," Tombur added on, sending a jerk of the head and a glance toward Ahsoka and Anakin, "I think you should spend this time with your friend. Yes?"

He wasn't shocked at the hesitance that vibrated their link, but he firmly pushed anyway.

"You cannot avoid the conversation forever, Djibourdi. She deserves to know. It doesn't have to happen today, or tomorrow even, but it will have to happen eventually. The harder you run, the more painful it will be."

"Yes, master."

"That's my boy," he squeezed his padawan's shoulder before giving it a couple of pats to signal that they were done, "Off you go, then. I don't want to see you alone again until evening meal and meditation – am I understood?"

"Yes, master," was his answer before his apprentice stood with a bow (which he returned from his seated place) before he watched him walk back to where Ahsoka and Anakin were.

The two had been clearly disagreeing on something as they stood with their arms crossed, standing toe to toe, and only Djibourdi's approach pulled their attention away from their skirmish. He watched with careful eyes as Anakin gave the same instruction to Ahsoka that he had given to his own padawan, noting with amusement the difference in their reactions to it before she gave a mock huff. Young Djibourdi was towed along after her as they headed back into the camp.

Tombur's amusement at the two's antics matched Anakin's as the other knight watched them head back into the safe embrace of the walls before the human turned to trek down to where the Echani still sat on the ground with the swords on his lap. When Anakin sat across from him they both dropped the eased charade, the one they had put up for the sake of calming their padawans' nerves, and they regarded each other with tense expressions. It was Anakin who spoke first.

"How are we going to handle this, Tom?"

His friend released the breath he didn't realize he was holding as he looked out to the trees.

"Honestly, Anakin….I have no idea. We are ill prepared for this."

"Why couldn't he have just stayed dead?"

In any other circumstance, Tombur would have laughed.

"Well, clearly even death isn't a fan of his."

He still got a snort in response. They fell into a sober silence, the sounds coming from the camp and the singing of insects the markers that broke the dim mood.

"He has moved a long way off – too far for us to pinpoint where he is now. We will have to play our cards very carefully here, my friend," Tombur spoke softly, eyes sharp as they scanned the foliage.

"Something bad is in the works."

That was the last observation the human made, and his friend simply nodded in agreement. For the first time in a long time, the warrior had come to the realization that knowing their enemy wasn't going to be the deciding factor. A quick glance to the sky showed the now-solidified blockade that encircled the planet.

"This is open war."

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I will continue to push through the radio silence for the sake of honoring the characters I have made – I hope those of you who are reading enjoyed this chapter. Keep safe, all!

Happy Writing,

Eliana