THE MANDALORIAN AND THE JEDI - II
ACT 1. APART AGAIN.
PART 1.1. Under the Stars.
Sabine looked up at the stars, her thoughts wandering towards a lonesome tower amidst a sea of grass, until a strong gust of wind buffeted her and shook her back into reality. She swung down her helmet's scanner, looking for signs of intrusion as she continued her watch.
It's time to move on.
Those were the words of her master, over a year ago.
And so are we.
They were all where they were meant to be, she said to her that night. That thought, more than anything else, was able to quiet her soul and make her realize a peculiar truth about the duality of life : in order to do good, one has to learn let go.
The first few months immediately after they were left behind on this planet were spent training under Ahsoka. Though she was already well-prepared with her previous apprenticeship under her - it also helped that she was witness to Ezra's journey under Kanan, and witnessed first-hand the pitfalls of giving in to anger, impatience, and the desire hate and control - her master had now thought it necessary to refine and consolidate her training now that she finally was able to touch the Force. But then came a puzzle nobody else saw : what was the master of the pair of dark Jedi after?
Then that time came. Whatever it was that was awakened on this planet, it was gone now - and with it the one who unwittingly released it, his apprentice, and her own master, all expended in the battle to extinguish the abomination and keep it from wreaking havoc across the cosmos. At the last - and when she thought it was finally her turn to be consumed - she saw a light come out of Ahsoka, seeming to simultaneously erase the threat as well as restore the very fabric of this planet itself. Life had finally returned to Peridea, but it would take decades, even centuries, for it to fully manifest.
It was more than a year ago now that she had been left alone on this planet, the last of the four force-wielders who arrived from the known galaxy to have survived. Images of the phantoms Ezra talked of returned to her, coming in the night and taking the form of her parents, her brother, and her crew, or the Jedi of the bygone era - and how they vanished from the face of this planet after the battle.
She shivered, and felt glad at least that they were now just a memory, and the least of her worries. The nightly watch was now mostly concerned with the straying of dangerous beasts and the occasional attacks of raiders - both of which were becoming more and more seldom as the planet healed itself of corruption. She breathed in the cold air and closed her eyes for a moment to rest them a bit; even in those few seconds she sensed, almost imperceptibly, the essence of her master pervade her surroundings. She still didn't understand completely what happened that day - and she fully expected that she never will - but she felt that her master's sacrifice had remade this planet for the better.
PART 1.2. Reminiscences.
She rested her hands on her belt as she continued to survey her surroundings, then she felt and heard a light tap on her greaves. She turned around to what had called her attention and went down one knee.
"Oh, thank you", she said to the small female Noti in its native language as she accepted a steaming bowl of soup from her. "This will warm me right up", she said cheerfully as she acknowledged her with a nod. The creature chattered back, telling her that she'll come back to bring her a blanket since the wind was especially cold tonight.
They were good people, the Noti, and their existence was an absolute wonder in a planet seemingly only filled previously with horrors. For centuries their way of life had forced them to become nomads - scrounging whatever they could from the land - but now that their world was finally cleansed, they had their first real chance to thrive.
She could have died up in the frozen heights of the mountains, weakened and wounded after the battle. When she came to, she found herself being nursed by the females of these loyal folk. It was only several months later, when she had finally made sense of their peculiar language, that she found out that the males of this Noti community - the one Ezra had nurtured and protected during his years of exile - had followed her and Ahsoka shortly after they departed to meet their fates in a bid to assist in any way they could. When they arrived, they found her unconscious and nearly buried in the snow.
This past year, she had helped these people establish their first settlement : helping to build permanent homes - the Noti preferred building into the earth rather than on the surface - and training them to defend themselves. She looked down on her soup and felt proud that every single morsel she saw in it had been grown or caught in their surroundings by this community that she was watching over.
Turning around to resume her watch, she sat on a nearby rock and laid the bowl down on her lap. She reached up and removed her scoured and dented helmet - which was in much the same condition as her spaulders and chest plate - and let her hair down, black as the new moon streaked with many white hairs from her decade of despair which ended only a couple of years ago. She smoothed and flung it to her back, then turned her attention to the steaming bowl on her knees, taking the horn spoon it came with. It warmed her insides and made the bitter chill of the night a bit easier to bear.
Her hair, once a focus of her attention and an outlet for her endless creativity, was frizzy now, long, and undyed. The battle had also claimed her master's ship - and with it, all the supplies and equipment she and her master had brought from their home galaxy before they were separated. What remained was Huyang's precious data bank which she only just managed to salvaged from the wreckage. Even her blasters had run out of ammunition, so she replaced them with a crude rifle she took from one of the raiders she and her diminutive comrades had taken out while defending themselves - she only had her lightsaber and the Force to protect her and her new tribe. Just like her Ezra before her, she was truly stranded and left to all that this place had in store for her.
In the distance, she spied a sparkle of reflected starlight from the ridge that they had chosen for their camp for the next several days. She'd quickly taken the topography of the landscape to heart - the better to take advantage of easily defensible camping spots for their caravan - and realized that it was somewhere familiar and dear to her heart. She remembered the words she heard when she first entered the camp that had been set up along the shores of the lake.
I knew I could count on you.
She remembered her family - her father, mother, and brother - back in their halls at Krownest; Hera, Kanan, and Zeb, the family she found on the Ghost; she remembered Jacen, her adoptive nephew; and she remembered Ezra, who taught her by his example her final lesson even before Ahsoka put it into words and made her understand its meaning. She had let him go, finally, so that they could fulfill their destinies, what they were meant to do; she couldn't help but think about how her friend had also done the same, more than twelve years ago now in the skies above Lothal, and endured a decade in this desolate place.
She closed her eyes and concentrated on him, trying to establish a connection through the Force just like Ahsoka did when she first came here. As she expected, there was nothing; the distance between them was simply too great. Despite that, she felt that he was happy, wherever he was. She turned her attention to the rest of her adoptive family - Hera, Jacen, and Zeb - and felt the same way. She smiled, and thanked the stars for this gift. Just like Ahsoka and herself, Ezra had also succeeded and ultimately did what he was meant to do.
I'll come back for you.
That was what he said at their second parting. Whether he eventually could or not, she felt that her fate was inescapable; something to accept rather than fight against. Her heart ached for home; but if staying here forever was the price she had to pay for everything that has happened, she had resolved to accept it.
As she heard the hum of activity in the fledgling community that she was watching over, she thought to herself how it must have been like for him. She shuddered to think of the horrors that had roamed on this planet previously; the Noti had told her of stories which made her blood run cold, and that more than once, they had to nurse Ezra back to health much like they did for her. It made her admire him even more that she found him just as he was when they were first separated - apart from his appearance, of course, and the maturity that a decade had brought to him.
"What do you look like now, I wonder?", she thought to herself as she sat on the ground and stretched out her legs.
Her thoughts wandered to the night of their reunion, feeling warmth creep from her cheeks and down into her chest. She remembered surrendering to her need for a respite after all the tragedies she had endured, and how she found herself pouring out her tears and heartaches on his shoulder; she remembered herself wanting to take all of him, and how she seddenly found her lips hungrily enveloping his. She put her arms around her, and remembered his doing the same; she remembered him shaking, as if holding himself back, and telling her to calm down and that everything between them alright. She remembered the kiss they shared after that, more conscious and tender, that told her that what he was saying was true. She remembered them laughing as she told him stories about what had happened back home in the ten years he was away.
She smiled as she looked back at their last parting, when she let the truth of what she really felt flow into him.
"We were simply out of time, Ez", she said sadly.
She heard the grass rustling behind her.
"Thanks for getting this for me, auntie", she said cheerfully in the Noti tongue as she felt a blanket being wrapped from behind her, but she started at the touch of a hand on her shoulder. Turning around, she found a familiar, clean-shaven face smiling at her. He was kneeling, his face barely a few inches away from hers.
"Hey, love", he said, as he reached out to tenderly caress her face.
She rushed forward, closing the gap between them, pulling him in a tight embrace and planting her lips squarely on his.