(Third-Person POV)

On the volcanic world of Nevarro, a planet home to bounty hunters, thieves, and the Empire, a ship docks. Not uncommon on the planet, this planet is, after all, full of bounty hunters. But this ship is different. Its only passengers are rebels. The ship's captain, a green Twi'lek named Hera Syndulla, a brown haired ex-Jedi named Kanan Jarrus, and a droid named Chopper.

The three wouldn't have stopped on Nevarro at all if they weren't out of nearly all of their supplies, including fuel. But they are, and Nevarro was the closest world to them. So they did stop. The Force hums around them, a persistent buzzing, making Kanan think that them stopping here wasn't purely coincidence.

As they make their way into the city, Kanan stops nearly dead in his tracks, realizing that it was indeed the will of the Force that he, Hera, and Chopper stop on Nevarro. He does not because of Imperials or bounty hunters, instead he stops because he senses something, or perhaps someone, within the city. Calling out to him.

"Hera, wait."

Hera stops and turns to face Kanan with a questioning look on her face. At the approach of a gang of bounty hunters, Kanan grabs her arm and pulls Hera into an alley. Kanan pulls the pilot further into the alleyway, and once they turn the corner into a dead end, he positions himself where he can see behind Hera, as well as explain everything to her.

But when he doesn't speak, Hera asks, "Kanan, what is it?"

"There's someone or something here here. The Force is calling to me."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure, Hera. There's a bright light shining in the Force here. Whoever that light belongs to, they haven't been taken by the Empire. At least, not yet."

Hera raises her eyebrow, and puts one of her hands on her hip. "And I assume you want to go find this person?"

Kanan only nods. Hera sighs, but agrees. She'll get the supplies because she knows everything they need, and she can't use the Force, and Kanan will go to find whoever it is that's calling to him. So the two exit the alley and split up. Hera goes to the stalls that crowd the streets, carefully avoiding the Imperial patrols. Kanan though, threads his way through the different alleyways of the city.

The Jedi follows the warm and sunlike Force signature to an alley where there is a small tent set up. Or, rather it's a couple of ratty blankets put up onto a few sticks. From the front of the tent, Kanan can see two small feet poking out. Kanan gently reaches out through the Force toward the tendrils of light that this apparent child has produced. He prods the threads of light, and the threads in turn turn to examine him.

It takes a moment, but the feet in the tent shift backward and a head pokes out. The head of a small child, whose facial features, despite the dirt and the grim that cover them, make Kanan feel as if he were staring directly into a mirror that showed him himself when he was small, only they belong to a small girl.

The Jedi snaps himself out of his surprise very quickly, and slowly takes a step forward. And another and another, until he is right in front of the tent and the young girl. Kanan kneels down to be on eye level with her, and the two stare at each other for a few moments before Kanan asks,

"Who are you?"

"Who are you?"

Kanan gives the girl a small smile of amusement. "My name's Kanan, what's yours?"

"Jessie. Why are you here?" The little girl's, Jessie's, eyes widen with the realization of a child. "Can you hear the music too?"

"Music?"

Jessie nods. "Uh huh. It's music and it sounds like chimes when it tells me something, it keeps me safe."

"I don't hear it, but I do feel something like that. Something that keeps me safe."

The girl tilts her head to the side. "What does it feel like?"

"It feels like something pushing me away from something dangerous. Or it warns me."

"That's what the chimes do!"

Kanan smiles at Jessie. "What you hear is called the Force. It is something that binds us all together, and it's in everything. The Force surrounds us."

"How do you know about it?"

"Because I have the Force too."

Jessie's eyes widen in childhood curiosity. Even living on the streets of Nevarro, the young girl still has not lost the curiosity so common of a child's mind. And that is something that Kanan takes careful note of.

"Can you tell me about the Force?"

Kanan looks around stealthily. "Not here, but if you want, you could come with me and a... friend... of mine."

Jessie leans forward and shifts onto her knees. "You would really teach me?"

Kanan nods to the girl with a very serious expression. Jessie fully climbs out of her tent, and gets to her feet, grabbing a shawl as she does. Kanan stands once the girl is out, and she nods back to him. So he offers Jessie his hand so she doesn't get lost, and, with the brightest grin Kanan thinks he has ever seen, she takes it after having wrapped the shawl around her shoulders.

The two make their way back to the ship, where Hera is supposed to be waiting for them, and indeed she is. At the bottom of the boarding ramp, Hera is standing with her arms crossed over her chest.

Once Kanan and Jessie get close to the ship, Jessie regards Hera with narrowed eyes. She walks closer with Kanan, and soon the man says,

"Jessie, this is the friend I told you about. This is Hera." Kanan then looks up from Jessie to Hera. "Hera, this is Jessie. She's the one I sensed earlier."

Hera bends down so that she's at eye level with Jessie. "Hi, Jessie. I'm Hera."

"I know. Kanan just said so."

Hera smiles at her. "You're pretty smart." Hera's comment makes Jessie smile. "Would you like to help me fly?"

Jessie's eyes go wide and her mouth forms an 'O' shape in shock. "Really! You'd let me help you fly?"

Hera nods, a small smile on her face. "I don't joke about flying."

"Okay!"

Jessie lets go of Kanan's hand, and walks with Hera into The Ghost. The Twi'lek lays a hand on the human girl's shoulder and guides her to the rung ladder. Jessie scrambles up the ladder and Hera follows her. The two walk into the cockpit, and Hera directs Jesse to the co-pilot's seat while taking the pilot's seat herself.

With careful direction from Hera, Jessie helps initiate liftoff, and after they hyperspace calculations are complete and they are deep enough into space, Hera even lets her press the lever that puts them into hyperspace forward. When The Ghost enters hyperspace, all Jessie can do is stare out the cockpit window at the swirl of colors.

"Wow," she breathes.

Hera turns to the girl with a gentle smile on her face. "You've never seen hyperspace before, huh?"

Jessie shakes her head. "I've never been off of Nevarro before."

"Well, now you'll get to go all sorts of places. If you want, I'll even teach you how to fly The Ghost."

Jessie finally breaks her stare out of the window, and turns to look at Hera. "You'd really teach me how to fly your ship?"

Hera nods. "I'd love to." Hera lowers her voice to a fake whisper. "Don't tell Kanan I said this, but he's not the greatest pilot in the world. Despite what he thinks."

Hera's comment sends Jessie into a fit of giggles. But the little girl nods. For a little while, Hera tells Jessie about some of the things that The Ghost can do. Which the girl listens to with rapt attention. It isn't very long though before Hera stands up and takes Jessie around the ship. Letting the girl pick which of the two empty cabins she wanted.

Once Jessie picked her room, Hera gave the girl a set of her own old clothes before showing her how to use the sonic shower. A luxury that the little girl had never had before. And one that has her staring at the controls in wonder for a long time. Much to the sorrow of Hera. Even growing up on Ryloth, she had always known what a sonic shower was.

Later that night, after late meal and while Jessie is lying in the top bunk of her room, she thinks, that for the first time since the Empire came to Nevarro, she might truly be happy.

(Jessie Jarrus's POV)

It's been about a year since I joined Kanan, Hera, and Chopper aboard The Ghost, so I'm nine now. I haven't got a lightsaber yet like Kanan, but I have learned how to use the Force some! Kanan did let me use his last name too, since I can't remember my old one, and we look enough alike that Hera says we could actually be brother and sister. Kanan and I don't really buy it though. I call him my brother though, just because it makes thing easier.

Hera's also been teaching me to fly The Ghost! Which is really fun! And I'm having even more fun today, because Kanan and Hera are finally letting me go with them into town. And just as a precaution, because Kanan and Hera have a tendency to get injured in the field, I go ahead and pack a med pack in my messenger bag.

I'm actually ready to go before Kanan and Hera because they'rebusy. Which means that I just need to find something to do, because we won't be leaving for another half hour, at least. I tried a few months ago to get them to hurry up, it took me at least three months to be able to look both of them straight in the eye again. Even just thinking about what I saw that day makes me shiver. Ugh.

But when my brother and his... And Hera are through, we finally leave The Ghost and go into town. While we're there, Kanan slips me a small drawstring pouch with credits inside and points out a stall on the other side of the street that's selling art supplies. And not just paints, which is the most popular, but charcoals and pencils! Plus notebooks that are made just for sketching!

Kanan gives me a nod, so I scamper across the street and pick out what I want from the stall. I hand the lady the credits and I end up having some left over. So when I walk back over to Kanan, with my drawing stuff in my messenger bag, I hold the small pouch towards him and say,

"Here you go, Kanan. I didn't spend all of them."

He pushes my hand back toward me and says, "Keep them. You'll need to learn how to manage credits on your own, and besides, Hera and I talked about it, and you're old enough to start getting a cut of credits from the missions that we do."

I don't even try to stop my grin as I put the drawstring pouch into my messenger bag. "Thanks, Kanan!" I say as I hug him, which is still slightly awkward since he's at least twice my height.

But he lets go first, which is unusual, usually it's me that lets go first. Then he leans down and whispers in my ear.

"Do you have a med pack with you?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Come with me."

"What about Hera?" I ask him.

"She'll be fine, Chopper's with her. You and I have to go, but we'll meet her back on The Ghost."

Kanan then grabs my hand and we both start running. It takes me a second to find what we're running towards, but in the end, I see a little girl clutching a toy and a woman, who I'm assuming is her mother, attempting to administer first aid to a big, purple thing, that appears to be male, inside of an alleyway.

"Excuse me, ma'am," Kanan says when we get closer. "My sister has some medical supplies and experience with first aid if you need some help."

The woman looks up at us with a face full of relief and says, "Please. I... I really have no idea what I'm doing, but he saved my daughter... I couldn't just let him bleed to death."

"Of course," I pipe up, walking over to the furry thing.

I kneel down beside him and assess his injuries. There seem to be several grazes from blaster bolts, but the most pressing injury is a knife sticking out from the center of his chest. It's spurting blood around the knife, but there doesn't seem to be too much blood around it. Which is because of the knife, that I know, because it's acting as a plug, keeping him from bleeding out.

I turn back to the woman, "How close is your house?"

"Not far, we live right next to this alley, Naria just likes to play out here."

"Is your husband home?" I ask her.

"Yes, he's just inside." She turns to her daughter, "Naria, go get your father."

The little girl nods and runs inside of one of the two houses with an entrance to the alleyway. It's barely a few moments after she ran inside that a man a little shorter than Kanan, but broader, runs out. His eyes asses the situation and he says,

"How can I help?"

"Do you two think you can get him inside without moving the knife too much?" I ask the little girl's father and my brother.

Kanan gets a grim expression, but he nods. They both walk over and I mumble to Kanan, "I think I can stabilize the knife with the Force, but try not to jostle him too much."

Kanan gives me a nod, but he and Naria's father go to work, lifting up the stranger and moving him into the house. I follow them and they lay him on the floor of the living room, as long as I have room to work, I'm good. I take out the tube of spray bacta, then the silver nitrate, the lidocaine, a needle and thread, gauze, cotton pliers, bandages, and a razor from my messenger bag and go to wash my hands.

It's when I'm just about to start, after having washed my hands, when I see the little girl. I turn back to her parents and say,

"You may want to take her out of the room. This won't be very pretty. If you don't have a strong stomach, I suggest you also leave the room."

Both parents nod and take their daughter out of the room, the mother though returns, taking up a position on the other side of the stranger. I shave off the purple hair around the knife, making sure that once the knife is out, I'll have a large enough area to work with in order to give stitches.

"Do you have anything he can bite down on?" I ask as he lets out a groan and looks at me oddly.

She nods and stands up, grabbing a towel from the hallway. Once she hands it to me, I turn to the stranger and tell him,

"My name's Jessie, this part is going to hurt so I suggest you bite down on the towel because I don't have anything to sedate you or that will numb the pain for long," I tell him as I soak a good amount of gauze in the silver nitrate and put them where I can easily reach them with the cotton pliers.

He nods and grunts out, "Nothin' I haven't been through before."

I hand the towel back to the woman and say, "Make sure he bites down on this, I don't want him biting his own tongue."

She nods, puts the towel in his mouth, and I get to work. I can't use the lidocaine yet, I won't be able to use it until I get to the point where I'm stitching up the wound, so I go ahead and start to slowly pull out the knife. It went in pretty deep, but it's nothing I haven't seen before. So once I finally have the entire knife out and I've flushed the wound out with some water Kanan got for me, I grab the cotton pliers, pick up a ball of gauze and say,

"This is going to burn pretty bad, so bite down on the towel if you have too."

I stick the gauze down into the wound and start to gently cauterize the nicked veins and arteries. Thankfully for him, the knife missed the vital arteries in larger aliens from what I know, and it missed the vital organs. It did severely nick a couple of arteries, but I fix those pretty easily with the silver nitrate. And even though the stranger does try to mask it, I can feel his pain swirling in the Force.

Once there's no more bleeding, I pick up the tube of lidocaine and rub the lidocaine along the skin. I go ahead and spray the bacta over the wound, but he shouldn't be able to feel it now since I've numbed the area. Once the bacta spray has been applied, I grab the needle and thread. I thread the needle and get to work.

I've had to give stitches more times than I can count, both to myself and others, so even though I'm making sure the stitches are even, it doesn't take me very long to stitch the wound closed. After it's closed, all that's left is the simple matter of spraying down more bacta and applying gauze over the wound as well as a sticky bandage.

After I'm done, the woman leaves and the stranger grunts out, "Thanks."

"You're welcome, you aren't the first one I've had to treat with a stab wound."

He grunts again. "You're awfully young for that."

I laugh lightly. "My brother and his girlfriend have a tendency to get hurt, and so do I. He can't handle her bleeding and in pain, he can't really handle blood at all actually, it makes him nauseous, and she never learned how to do much more than field first aid. So even though I'm a kid, I'm the best option we've got for medical stuff."

He huffs and says, "I'm Zeb, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Zeb. I'm Jessie. Although these circumstances aren't exactly the greatest to have met in."

Zeb chuckles lightly, and I stand up after having packed up my messenger bag. I go to wash my hands off again, them being nearly covered in blood, and when I come back, Zeb and Kanan are talking.

In the end, Zeb ends up staying with us on board The Ghost, even after he's all healed up, and he is assigned the codename Spectre-5. Kanan and Hera sometimes joke around and say that they regret letting Zeb stay because he and I get into trouble a lot. But I'm not complaining! Because they let me go into town without them as long as I go with Zeb. We do pull a lot of pranks on Kanan and Hera though, which they don't appreciate, but Chopper helps too.

It's been two years since Zeb joined the crew, and I'm eleven now. I still don't have a lightsaber yet, but Kanan lets me practice with his a lot more. He says I'm getting old enough to have one, we just have to find a crystal first. I'd like to have two, because I use dual blasters since we discovered that I'm not right or left handed. Hera called it ambidextrous. So secretly, I'm hoping I can have two lightsaber crystals.

Focus, Jess! I remind myself, digging my short nails into my palm. I'm supposed to be keeping an eye out while Kanan haggles for food. A loud argument across the street catches my attention. There's a girl, who doesn't look that much older than me, in full armor, and she's arguing with a street side merchant. I keep my eyes on the girl while Kanan finishes buying the supplies we need.

When he turns around, I nudge his arm and nod my head toward the girl. We leave the stall we're at and watch her argument. Eventually, it gets resolved. But then I am given my very first solo mission! I'm supposed to tail the girl and see what she does and where she goes. Woohoo!

And... it doesn't turn out to be much fun. I end up following her to a beat up old tent outside of town that's hidden within a maze of stacked up crates. Then, I watch her. Which is just as boring. Woohoo. Nothing much ends up happening, at least, not until her back is directly to me. She turns her head, almost like she's looking out of the corner of her eye, and says,

"I know you're there. You can stop hiding, I'm not going to hurt you."

I pop my head up above the crate I was hiding behind and cross my arms. "How did you know I was there?"

She turns to face me fully. "I saw your hair blow in the wind over the top of the crate. You might want to start tying it back or something."

I subconsciously reach up and run my fingers through my hair. It's almost to my thighs now, and it will be before very long if I don't cut it, so tying it up may not be a bad idea. I look at the other girl through the corner of my eye.

"Thanks."

"No problem. Why did you follow me though?"

I shrug. "I wanted too."

She raises her eyebrow at me. "Uh huh. Sure, kid. I believe you." She turns back to whatever she was doing, but then turns her head back to look at me. "Who are you anyway?"

"Who are you?" I ask her, crossing my arms over my chest again.

She laughs and turns around again. "I think I have more of a right to ask you who you are, since you were following me and all. So, who are you kid?"

"Can't tell you," I say. "I'm not allowed."

"Uh huh..."

The next thing I hear is my comm chirping. I glance down at it, and see a message from Kanan. 'Get back to The Ghost! Imperials incoming.' I look up at the other girl, and say,

"There are Imps coming. You wanna come with me? Or stay on your own?"

"Where would you go?"

"Back to my friends. We live on a ship."

She scoffs. "Like anyplace is safer than here. The Imperials don't even know that this place exists. You and I are currently the only people who know this exists. I'm plenty safe. But if you want to go back, go ahead. Just forget this whole thing. I don't really want to get found by the Empire."

"Neither do I," I tell her. "Can you tell me your name though? Cause I'll have to leave soon if I want to avoid the Empire."

The other girl looks around, and I copy her. I don't see anyone, so I cast out my senses with the Force. I don't sense anyone near us either. Everyone, except for the girl I followed, is farther away. Even the Imps.

When she comes to the same conclusion that I did, she looks at me and says, "My name's Sabine. It was nice meeting you."

I nod to her and say, "You too."

Then a voice comes from behind me. It sound cold and cruel. Now I feel someone else. It feels cold, so I turn around. It looks female, but I can't really tell too much except that the... person? is dressed in black, has a black mask on, and has a lightsaber hanging at her hip. She says,

"How sweet. A Mandalorian, Sabine Wren, right? And a little girl. The Grand Inquisitor will reward me greatly."

"I don't know who that is, lady, but you aren't welcome here," I say, crossing my arms over my chest and glaring at her.

She laughs. "I didn't ask you, girl. But you both will come with me, or you will die."

"How about neither?" Sabine asks.

"I'm afraid that isn't an option," a gruffer, but still evil, voice says from behind us.

I glance back and see a huge man, dressed in the same way, but without a mask. He has a lightsaber too, and it looks just like the woman's. Black, with two blade ports, and a circle thing around the hilt. Looks a bit ridiculous to me. Sabine whispers to me,

"I'll take the big guy. Can you handle the lady?"

I tilt my head and size her up. "I think so."

Sabine nods, and moves fluidly to stand with her back to mine. Then she runs forward, I hear the man's lightsaber ignite, and the sound of clashing. The two of them are fighting now. But the woman and I just stare at each other. I draw on the Force to calm my nerves and to stop my hands from shaking.

It's only a few more moments of silence between us, before the woman rushes forward. Igniting her lightsaber. That has two red blades. Once she gets close, I just step out of the way. I don't have a lightsaber, so trying to fight her like that wouldn't work. So I just avoid her. And it works, pretty well.

Eventually, she stops running after me, out of breath. And since I jumped up on top of a crate to get away, I'm right above her. So I jump down, onto her back, slipping my arm around her neck. I've done this to Zeb a couple of times, and I made him pass out twice, so if I can make a fully grown Lasat pass out, I think it'll work on her. Sure enough, it does.

The woman starts to falter, before falling to the ground. I clamber off of her, and go to leave her, when I hear something that sounds like soft flowing music. It's faint, and I almost can't hear it, but it's there. I haven't heard a song like these in years, not since Kanan started training me after they brought me back to the Ghost and we left Nevarro.

I follow the sound of the soft music over to the black lightsaber that the woman dropped. It sounds like it's coming from inside the hilt. So I hesitantly lift my foot off of the ground, then stomp on the lightsaber hilt. Right in the middle. It breaks with the sound of a snap, so I lift my foot off of it. Then I kneel down next to the broken lightsaber.

There's a faint glow coming from inside of the hilt pieces. I tilt both pieces so that the place where I broke it in half is facing the ground. Several things fall out of it, but the things that catch my eye the most are the two faintly glowing crystals. They're glowing a blood red, but have several cracks in them. I think this is where the music is coming from.

But we have to go. So I pick up the two crystals and stash them in my pocket. Then I stand up and gesture to Sabine to get going. We both start running and I lead her back to The Ghost. No one asks us what happened or what's going on, but Hera takes us up. Once we're in the air, and Sabine's somewhat settled in, I show Kanan those crystals I picked up. He says that they really are Kyber crystals. They've been bled, so they were used by a Darksider, but he says there is a way to purify them.

It take me a couple of weeks to get everything I need for lightsabers, and to get the crystals healed. But eventually, I finally have managed to heal the crystals, and assemble both lightsaber hilts. Kanan inspects them both for a moment, making sure I don't blow myself up, and then I get to ignite them for the first time.

A pale gold light floods the cargo bay, bathing everyone and everything in the pale golden light. Sabine says that the blade color is Light Champagne Gold. And once I learn to use them both proficiently, Sabine helps me customize my blaster holsters with a spot in the front of each for my lightsabers. That way they'e accessible, and don't look like lightsabers.

But if I thought our family was finished, oh how wrong I was. It's another couple of years, when I'm almost fifteen, that our little family aboard The Ghost grows once again. And we invite so much more chaos with us afterward. But the chaos causes trouble for the Empire, so personally I see that as a good thing.

"Family is where life begins and love never ends." -Unknown