Summary

(Heir to the Empire/Thrawn Trilogy re-imagining).

Jedi who play by their own rules. A woman with a mysterious past. Master and apprentice, on the precipice of a universe-shattering discovery. Estranged allies ready to emerge from the shadows. Old enemies preparing to strike.

A powerful dagger waiting to forge a new destiny.

The tide is turning. Grand Admiral Thrawn has returned from exile and has his sights set on reclaiming the known galaxy in the name of the Empire. On Peridea, ancient forces are stirring that could change the course of history, and possibly alter the very fabric of reality itself. Worlds apart, each band of heroes must once again face the looming threat of darkness before it destroys everything they hold dear. Will Light triumph? Or is the path ahead much more perilous than anyone could have imagined?

A/N: Apologies for the delayed update, life got busy and then decided to strike me down with a bad cold so it was a struggle to get this finished. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed/favorited/followed. I appreciate the support :)

CHAPTER TWO: The Witch of the Waste

Present Day, Peridea

Sabine Wren collapsed onto the rock, her breaths coming out in uneven gasps. Even after all the months she and Ahsoka had spent stranded on Peridea, the trek up this particular hill still managed to knock the wind out of her. Logic might suggest that she choose a more accessible meditation spot. But her choice of location had little to do with logic, and even less to do with actual meditation.

This was the only place where she could feel his presence.

Sabine couldn't explain it. Thanks to Ahsoka's continued training, she'd learned to cultivate a greater understanding of the Force and her connection to it. But there were still many things that remained a mystery to her, the secret of this hill being one of them.

"Hi, Ezra," she said quietly, laying her palm flat against the rock's weather-beaten surface.

The wind whistled through the ring of stones surrounding her resting spot. Like the other stone circles that dotted the barren landscape of the planet, these were inscribed with faint carvings from days long past. Swirled patterns and arcane symbols peppered what was left of the crumbling boulders. Although the full meaning of the glyphs was lost to time, Sabine and Ahsoka surmised that these circles had most likely served some spiritual purpose for Peridea's previous inhabitants. Many had been built atop or nearby large mounds like this one. The Noti preferred to keep their distance from said mounds, and after several attempts to decipher their nervous chattering, Sabine had figured out that this avoidance was born out of superstition. The little creatures believed that the mounds were the tombs of the "Ancient Ones," and they were unwilling to draw too near for fear of angering the spirits of the dead.

Sabine wasn't sure if there was any truth to that superstition, but she did know that there was a strange energy that permeated the air on top of this hill. Almost as if the veil separating space and time was somehow thinner.

Perhaps this was the reason why she felt close to Ezra here. She inched her hand towards the center of the rock and smiled as she felt a familiar tingle tickling her fingers. She liked to think that he was sitting in a similar spot back home, placing his hand where hers might be if she'd been sitting there beside him.

"I dreamt about them again," she murmured into the wind.

Her smile faltered as the ghost of her nightmare took shape in her mind. It was always the same. Mandalore reduced to a field of fire and glass, her family's screams echoing through the smoke as they cried for her help, help that never came.

Sabine blinked back tears. "I should've been there," she continued in a cracked whisper. "I know I would've died too but…" She trailed off and tilted her head towards the sky. The wispy clouds floated by, blissfully unaware of her anguish. "I don't know how you did it," she went on. "Left Kanan to his fate instead of trying to change the past." She took a shuddering breath. "I know why it was the right thing to do, but I don't think I could've done it."

She felt a pinching sensation radiate across her palm, as if Ezra's invisible hand was trying to grant hers a reassuring squeeze. She let out a chuckle in spite of herself. "You're stronger than me, you know. If I saw my family dying in that…place…I think I'd try to rescue them. Even if it tore a hole through reality or whatever it is that's supposed to happen."

Sabine had never fully understood the concept of Ezra's other world. She only knew what he had told her after his experience - of his glimpse into the windows of the past, of how he'd dragged Ahsoka in with him, and of the way she'd convinced him to honor Kanan's sacrifice. When Ahsoka had eventually resurfaced and taken on Sabine as a student, Sabine had asked her why she hadn't immediately rejoined the Rebellion. "Awful things happen to those who meddle with time," the Togruta had explained. "I had to make absolutely certain that it was my destiny to survive that fight with Vader, even without Ezra's interference. Unfortunately, confirming that fact took more time than I anticipated."

Ahsoka had never elaborated on what that confirmation entailed, and Sabine doubted she ever would. She'd suspected, though, that part of her master's reluctance to return had just as much to do with a certain Jedi pilot as it had to do with preserving the integrity of the timeline. Until recently, Ahsoka's past as Anakin Skywalker's padawan had always been a sore spot for her. She'd never expressed so in words, but Sabine had guessed that drawing too close to her own master's son had been too emotionally overwhelming for her to even contemplate at the time. Sabine had only met Luke Skywalker a handful of times - after the Battle of Yavin, when the Rebel Alliance had been parading the poor guy around everywhere like a living piece of propaganda. She'd first run into him hiding from the then newly-formed Public Relations Committee, and they'd hit it off instantly, bonding over their shared disdain over the way the PRC was turning the rebel effort into a media circus.

"I get that they're trying to rally support for our cause," Luke had said once, rolling his eyes at an exaggerated poster of him and General Solo, "but this is ridiculous. I don't look anything like that!"

"Wait a minute," Sabine had teased, "you mean you aren't hiding bulging biceps and rippling pecs underneath that fashion disaster of a flight suit? What will the swooning masses think?"

Then they'd burst into laughter, continuing to poke fun at the PRC's many well-meant but equally ludicrous campaign strategies. She'd liked Luke, not just for his friendly demeanor and easygoing personality, but also because so much of him had reminded her of Ezra. "You two would've been best friends," she'd told him one time, when she'd been regaling him with stories of their days on the Ghost. "And you would've driven Kanan insane. Hera would've loved you, though."

"She loves me now," he'd quipped. "I'm the only other pilot who can keep up with her."

Ahsoka had reappeared some time after Yavin, while Luke had been away on an extended mission. Sabine's budding friendship with him had led her to question the role of the Force in her life and whether Kanan's Darksaber training had merely been a fluke or an indication of something more. She'd been excited at the prospect of Ahsoka maybe taking her and Luke under her wing together, but the Togruta had refused to involve him in the equation. "It's complicated," she'd said. "And technically, he already has a master."

"Master Kenobi is dead," Sabine had argued, "and besides, Luke deserves to know you."

But Ahsoka had refused to budge, claiming that he was better off not "compromising his emotions," whatever that meant. She'd been determined to keep her distance. So when the former Corellian Senator Garm Bel Iblis had broken off from the Alliance to form his own rogue rebel faction, Ahsoka had jumped at the chance to join him, bringing her new Mandalorian padawan along with her.

"Maybe I shouldn't have left," Sabine mused sadly, her thoughts returning to the present. "Maybe if I hadn't run off with Ahsoka I could've done something to…." To what? Save her family? Save all of Mandalore? Stop the Purge from happening entirely? She knew in her heart that her regrets were constructed from nothing more than wishful thinking, but that reality couldn't keep the recurring stab of guilt at bay. "I know Ahsoka says that we're where we're meant to be," she went on, wiping away a stray tear with the back of her free hand. "But I can't help thinking that maybe I'm in the wrong place again. That I chose the wrong path."

That was another source of guilt that gnawed away at her in private moments like these. The fact that her unflinching loyalty to Ezra had opened the door for Thrawn's return to the known galaxy. "I know I made a promise to you," she sniveled, swallowing back the sob rising in her throat. "But what if I was supposed to leave you here? People are going to die. Just like on Mandalore. And it's all my fault."

You were doing what you thought was right, Ezra's voice echoed in her mind.

"Yeah," she muttered through a round of sniffles. "That's exactly what I thought when I made that stupid weapon for the Empire."

You were a lot younger then, not-Ezra countered. The academy manipulated you.

"Right," she scoffed. "So it wasn't my fault I literally handed them the means to incinerate my own people."

You were thirteen, the voice bit back. What the hell kind of project is that to put into the hands of a kid?

She knew Ezra's phantom had a point. But she wasn't willing to let herself off the hook so easily. "I'm just so tired of messing up," she sighed. "It's like every decision I make is a mistake. And the cost just keeps piling up."

The voice in her head said nothing, but Sabine felt the pinch in her hand again. She let out another sigh, wishing that Ezra's offer of comfort was more than a likely figment of her imagination. "I hope you're okay," she whispered, allowing her eyes to slip closed. "At the very least I might've done one thing right."

Sabine wasn't sure how much time had passed by the time the storm hit. But if one thing was certain about this planet, it was that the weather was always prone to drastic mood shifts. What had begun as a clear, bright day had transformed into a murky downpour seemingly out of nowhere. Sabine was used to the fickle climate by now, but even with her cloak shielding her from the volleys of icy rain, she couldn't quite battle the wind. It latched onto the cloak and yanked her in every direction at once, causing her to stumble blindly through the rocky passageways that led back to the Noti's camp. After awhile she found she could no longer tolerate the storm's relentless assault and began searching for temporary shelter.

She eventually found it in the form of a cave cut into the face of a steep cliff. Sabine clambered over a layer of loose stones to get inside, then flicked on her glowrod to illuminate the dark space before her. She let out a gasp when the dull golden light revealed the mural on one of the walls. The artwork looked almost as ancient as the unintelligible scrawls at the stone circle, but two differences immediately caught her attention. One: the mural was painted, not carved. And two: she had seen this image before. Once, on Lothal, when Ezra had disappeared into that other world.

"Like it?"

Sabine jumped backwards and nearly tripped over a stalagmite jutting up from the cave floor. "Who's there?" she yelped, sweeping her glowrod in a wide arc.

A brittle laugh ricocheted off the walls. "You won't see much with that thing," the voice said in an unfamiliar accent. "Or dry off for that matter."

A weathered face emerged from the darkness, framed by a curtain of long, snowy hair. The body attached to it was short in stature and draped in an array of brightly-patterned cloth. A pale, knobbly hand gripped the top of a wooden staff that tapped against the ground as the figure shuffled closer.

Sabine's free hand drifted towards the lightsaber hitched to her belt. The old woman in front of her didn't look like a threat, but she knew that things weren't always as they appeared. "Who are you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes at the newcomer.

The old woman smiled, her grey-blue eyes glittering in the dim light. "I should ask you the same thing," she replied. "After all, this is my cave you've wandered into."

Sabine flushed. "I-I'm sorry," she stammered, her grip on the glowrod faltering. "I was just trying to get out of the storm and I didn't realize - "

The woman waved a hand dismissively. "Oh, don't get all twisted up into a knot," she interrupted. "I'm just messing with you. I've got a fire going a little ways back. Follow me and let's see if we can get you warmed up, hmm?"

Without waiting for assent, the old woman turned on her heel and headed back into the shadows. Sabine hesitated for a moment. The stranger seemed like nothing more than an innocent cave-dweller, but what if she was leading her into a trap?

"Well?" the woman called. "Are you coming or have you chosen to freeze to death in that wet rag?"

The maternal note in the stranger's voice convinced Sabine to let down her guard, if only a little bit. "I'm coming," she answered, finally moving her feet. Her free hand, however, remained poised above her saber hilt just in case.

After a few minutes of groping around in a narrow tunnel, Sabine followed the woman into a small, round cavern that had been outfitted as something of a living space. Woven rugs littered the earthen floor. Layers of crooked shelves were carved into a space on the wall, each housing an assortment of items - jars of food, herbs, dyes, and spices; musty leather-bound texts; and what appeared to be a collection of crudely-made cooking tools. In a hollow on the opposite side of the room sat a crackling fire topped with a bubbling cauldron, the aromatic smoke drifting upwards into a vent in the rock.

The cavern's most striking feature, however, was another mural spanning the circumference of the room. Painted colors twined together to tell a dazzling story of the cosmos, beginning with an exploding blaze of reds and oranges to the left of the front archway and ending with the somber blues of twilight to the right. In between stretched a narrative of the formation of planets, of the glorious birth of life beneath the stars, of the beauty of natural growth and prosperity, and of the universe's eventual decline into darkness. Sabine's jaw dropped open. She had seen a fair amount of artwork in her life, but never anything quite this breathtaking.

"Did you do this?" she whispered in awe.

"Oh this silly thing?" the woman responded with another flippant wave of her hand. "Made that ages ago. Huge mistake, if you ask me. I filled up the whole room and didn't leave any space for more."

"It's beautiful."

"Eh, it's all right," the woman said. "I was a bit mad back then. Obsessed with the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. What begins must end and what ends must begin again, all that kind of nonsense."

"I don't think it's nonsense," Sabine countered. "It's incredible."

The woman shrugged. "To each their own, I suppose. Personally I think I was being a bit over-dramatic."

Sabine laughed. "Well, that's just called being an artist."

The woman turned to her with a twinkle in her eye. "Ah, so you're an artist, now, are you?"

Sabine pulled back the edges of her cloak to reveal the decorated armor beneath. "You could say that."

The woman clucked her tongue in what sounded like approval. "Very interesting style there," she said, running her gaze over Sabine's handiwork. "You certainly have an eye for color."

Sabine blushed. "Thank you," she replied.

The woman offered her a warm smile, then beckoned her towards the fireplace. "Come, sit. And take that dreadful thing off, I'll hang it to dry for you."

Sabine peeled off the sodden cloak and handed it to the woman, who hung it on a hook next to the fire before shifting her attention to the cauldron. "Thank you," Sabine said again, settling onto one of the rugs. "I…" She hesitated once more. The woman had been nothing but hospitable so far, so there was no harm in getting comfortable, right? "I'm Sabine," she finished.

The woman nodded in acknowledgement. "Nice to meet you, dear. You may call me Danu."

"That's a pretty name."

To Sabine's surprise, the woman - Danu - doubled over with laughter. "Ha!" she cackled. "That's the first time I've heard that."

Sabine frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, lovely, do you know what the locals call me?"

Sabine shook her head.

Danu withdrew a spoon from the roiling kettle and jabbed it in Sabine's direction. "The Witch of the Waste," she hissed. "That's what they call me. I'm a curse on the land! I'll cast a spell to revive the dead or hex your family or lock your soul away in a prison from whence you can never escape!"

Sabine leaned back, a sudden wariness creeping into her bones. "Is…is that true?"

"Pff of course not," the woman scoffed, dropping the act and waggling the spoon at her. "Just rumor and superstition is all."

Sabine relaxed, although the faint residue of uneasiness still lingered. "I know what you mean," she said. "I've been living with the Noti. They believe all sorts of things."

Danu shook her head, a wry smile playing on her lips. "Those poor little darlings are afraid of everything," she chuckled, returning to the cauldron to give the contents a hearty stir. "I gave up trying to convince them that I'm no danger to them."

An unanswered question niggled at the back of Sabine's mind. "If you don't mind me asking," she started, "who exactly are you, then?"

The woman glanced over her shoulder, grinning. "Well, I'm not a witch, for starters. At least, not one like the kind that used to live here."

Sabine suppressed a shudder. "The Nightsisters," she murmured.

"Mmm, run into them, did you?"

"We weren't exactly on the best of terms."

Danu sighed. "Not surprising. They were a bad lot. Not sorry to see them go."

Sabine wrapped her arms around herself. "Have you been here long?" she continued, steering the conversation away from memories that were bound to inspire more nightmares. "On the planet, I mean."

Danu nodded. "Oh, I've been here quite awhile," she answered. "This place used to be teeming with life. Before the Blight, that is."

"The Blight?"

"Mhm. Terrible plague. Wiped out more than half the population. Then came the storms and the quakes. We didn't have fancy starships, you see, not back then. Not like that warlord who got stuck here recently. You lived and died here. And most…well, they died."

A sobering idea crept into Sabine's thoughts. "Your family…?"

Danu grew very still. "Gone," she whispered. "I lost them. A long time ago."

Sabine's heart clenched at the familiar tone of grief. "I'm sorry," she said softly. "I lost mine too."

Danu turned back to her and offered her a sad smile. "The wound of loss is one that never heals," she murmured. "It eats away at your soul until the only thing left is the desire to fix the past."

Sabine swallowed back the knot lodged in her throat. "Yeah," she said, hot tears now blurring her vision. "That's exactly what it's like."

A silence fell between them, weighted by the solidarity of shared emotions. When Danu finally spoke again, it was to offer Sabine a more tangible means of comfort. "Here," she said, ladling broth into an earthenware bowl. "Have some soup. It'll help warm you up."

Sabine took the bowl with a grateful smile. "Thank you." She gave the brew a quick sniff. "Smells good."

"Rabbit and root stew," Danu replied, filling a bowl for herself. She sat down on a cushioned stool next to the fireplace. "Easy to make if you can manage to catch the main ingredient."

Sabine laughed. "Yeah, I haven't had much luck in that area," she admitted.

"Don't be too hard on yourself. Peridean rabbits are notoriously elusive." The woman paused to stare into her soup. "Among other things."

"What other things?"

Danu gave her head a slight toss, shaking away whatever spell had just captured her in its thrall. "Oh, it's stupid. Just the silly pursuit of an old woman."

Sabine lowered her bowl into her lap. "I'm sure it isn't."

Danu squinted at her for a moment. Although mentally reading others had never been Sabine's strong suit, she could feel the faint impression of thoughts whirring in the woman's mind. "You're special, aren't you?" she blurted out suddenly.

Sabine was taken aback. "What?"

"Special," the woman repeated. "You can do and feel things others can't."

The sense of unease Sabine had felt earlier once again crawled to the surface. "I don't know what you mean."

"I'm not going to hurt you, dear," Danu went on. "You can be honest with me. I may not be like those other witches, but I suspect you and I might not be so different."

Sabine blinked, her jaw growing slack. "You…you mean you're Force-sensitive?"

"If that's what you call having a connection to the threads that bind the universe together, then yes."

Sabine sat still for a moment, allowing the shock of the revelation to sink in. When she could finally wrap her mind around it, she decided to come clean. After all, Danu had been willing to share her own story. "Back home," she began, "in the galaxy where I come from, there used to be a group of us called Jedi. Kind of like knights whose job it was to protect people." Before she could stop herself, she had laid her bowl down on the floor and was unlatching the lightsaber from her belt. "Most were killed in a war," she continued, cradling the hilt in her hands. "But some of us remained. I came here because a friend of mine got stranded and I promised I'd bring him home." She took a deep breath and ignited the blade.

Danu gasped. Sabine pressed on. "This was his," she said, willing her voice not to waver as memories of Ezra's face flooded her thoughts. "It's called a lightsaber. Every Jedi has one."

She tapped the button again and the blade disappeared. "He meant a lot to me. My friend." She let out a sigh. "He made it home. Stowed away on the warlord's ship. But me and the other Jedi who was with us…well, we got left behind while we were trying to help him escape."

Another heavy silence passed between the pair before Danu once again chose to shatter it. "That's quite the story," she whispered, the soup now forgotten. "It seems you've been on quite the journey."

"Yeah," Sabine murmured. A lone tear trickled down her cheek and she hastily wiped it away, not wanting to cry in front of Danu. "I'm just so tired of losing the people I love."

The old woman set down her bowl and offered Sabine another mournful smile. "I know the feeling," she said quietly. "But I think I may be able to help with that."

Sabine let out a half-hearted laugh. "How?"

Danu's smile simply broadened. "I think you may be right. About my 'silly pursuit' not being so silly." She paused a moment and drew in a long breath. "But, that will have to wait for another time." She pushed herself to her feet.

Sabine cocked her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Danu chuckled. "The storm's stopped. It'll be dark soon and I suspect you'll want to get back before your Noti friends panic."

"You can tell the weather from in here?"

The old woman winked and rapped her knuckles against her head. "It's like you said. Force…sensitive, was it?"

Sabine let out a small laugh. "I wish I had that ability. I wouldn't have gotten stuck out there in the first place."

"Ah, but then we wouldn't have met at all, would we?" Danu said, her eyes sparkling. She reached up and unhooked Sabine's cloak from the wall. "Perhaps fate sent that storm to bring the two of us together."

"Perhaps," Sabine mused, taking the cloak back and tossing it over her shoulders. "Hey! It's bone dry already."

"Another one of my witchy powers," Danu teased, granting Sabine another playful wink. "Now, let me see you out. That tunnel's a bit tricky."

A few minutes later Sabine found herself standing at the mouth of the cave, bidding her new companion farewell. "Thank you again," she said, laying a hand on Danu's arm. "I really appreciate everything."

The old woman took Sabine's hand in her own and gave it a gentle squeeze. "I should be thanking you. I haven't had company in a very long time. I think I'd forgotten how lonely it really is out here."

Sabine smiled. "I'm glad I could help," she said softly. "It's nice to make a new friend."

Danu's eyes glistened with tears, although Sabine could tell she was trying to hide them. "Yes, yes it is."

"I'll come back soon," Sabine promised, returning Danu's squeeze. She nodded up at the cliff face. "I think this place should be easy to spot again."

Danu nodded back. "Good. We have much more to talk about."

Sabine graced the woman with one more parting smile before heading out into the waning sunlight. "Bye!" she called over her shoulder.

"Goodbye, dear!" Danu answered, lifting her arm in a wave. "See you soon!"

Sabine was long gone by the time the woman finally turned around and retreated into the cave. As always, the ancient mural looked on as she passed it by. When at last she disappeared into the tunnel, three pairs of eyes followed her movement with a steady, watchful gaze.

Three pairs of eyes belonging to three painted figures, each one waiting silently in the darkness.

A/N: Sabine and Ezra's rock was inspired by Lyra and Will's bench in The Amber Spyglass. The idea of the stone circle and the sacred mounds came from similar sites in Britain and Ireland like Stonehenge, Newgrange, and the Hill of Tara.

Obviously, Diana Wynne Jones gets credit for the title of this chapter and Danu's nickname. I guess all the Oxford peeps are fighting for reference space in this story now lmao

Yes, the meddling with time quote was stolen from Prisoner of Azkaban.

The PRC was a creation of mine, inspired by District 13's propo campaign in The Hunger Games. On that note, I may be convinced to write a short fic about Sabine and Luke's meeting if anyone is interested in that :) I love the idea of them being friends and it pains me that we have no canonical confirmation (as far as I'm aware) of whether or not they've met. Hera, however, Luke has met at least once in a canon comic, hence the reason why he knows her.

When I was trying to figure out how to explain Ahsoka and Sabine's absence from the original trilogy, Garm Bel Iblis happily barged into this story and offered a solution. Like Karrde, I wasn't originally going to include him but who am I to deny him? The canon Wookieepedia page for him doesn't have a ton of information about him (as opposed to its Legends counterpart) so I'm taking that as free license to fill in the gaps.

I finished writing this while I had The Golden Girls playing on my TV in the background and somehow the theme song ended up pairing with the end of this chapter quite nicely xD