BLACK EYE GALAXY

Too much of this – too much of this and she’ll make a mistake. Far be it from her to show it at any given point, but she’s happy to be back on Yavin IV, filled with an insensible sort of gleeful exhilaration at having finished what she started. She doesn’t take pride in these things, she takes vicious satisfaction. Of course, she’s naturally inclined to glee regardless of outcome. It’s easy to see it; see where one thing might have gone different, a minute sooner, a minute later (after a night without crying out, she’d still be on Mandalore – possibly in a grave), and in those possibilities, she find amusement, as long as the potential does not come too close.

She would have never been a Jedi.

Still, she’s minding being around them less and less. Some are more interesting than others, but she’ll watch them all, whether it’s well-received or not. A ghost of a smile passes over her face at his words, and it’s enough of an invitation to stalk into the room. He is marked as much as the healer, but his presence is very different. Mathias, she thinks. A knight as well. Her eyes flit over his figure – if there’s hostility there, well, it’s too bad (for him.) “What are you offering?” The words are hollow, and she stops a little too close, peering down at him, eyes narrowed and head cocked, searching for something she can’t put a word to. “No, I don’t think I want your head. You can keep that. Maybe it’ll serve you, one day.”

He invites her toward him, while repelling at the same time. Maybe it’ll look like two different kinds of predator meeting somewhere in the middle. Her trained to kill him, him not trained to kill her, but he’ll give his damn. It shows on his face, in the light sneer over his mouth, half-veiled, half-not carrying at all, and its mostly the former. Killers stay killers. It was fatal to let her. A waste of their breath. A waste of hers. He doesn’t get the point of prolonging it or Rishla’s point to bring her with the team to Coruscant. 

When she begins to saunter over, he lets out a breath, keeping an eye on her even as he turns to the Younglings, “Here we have the swamp monster that lives at the bottom of the underground. Remember what I told you—don’t look her in the eye.” One of the kids asks confirmation if he’ll turn into a frog. “A very warty one.” (The irony of him saying this while he’s looking at her, isn’t missed.)

Near the experimental blasters laid out on the tables are notes. Drawings of the Crystals inside their durasteel. And more words than he knows how to understand. "Hey, hey, Grelan, hey, can you read any of this shit? Is anything gonna happen if I mess with this stuff?" He whispers over to her, maybe quietly yelling, voice raised, but that's to be heard over the rain pounding on the building, the wind against the walls that could rock a mountain. “We can have something explode on us another day, yeah?”

SEND ME THREE NAMES + A NUMBER…

MARRY, CUDDLE, SLEEP WITH

Marry: Orion

Cuddle: Khadis

Sleep with: Llewyn

SEND ME THREE NAMES + A NUMBER…

KILL, BETRAY, HAVE ON YOUR ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE TEAM

Kill: Fein

Betray: Xavis

Have on your zombie apocalypse team: Nimm

SEND ME THREE NAMES + A NUMBER…

SEDUCE, STEAL FROM, SERENADE

Seduce: Kal

Steal from: Sorin

Serenade: Jezha

Mathias is flickering – his body literally willing itself in and out of existence, corporeal and phantom all at once, one and the same. It takes Fein a moment to connect the phenomena with his own powers, takes him longer than it should to recognize the roll tide of his own doing. He let himself get caught up in the power of the violence, in the call of blood. His breath comes heavy in his chest, heart pounding along his collar bones. He lets Matt’s body move him to the crowd, lets himself fold into the place he belongs – an echo of his brother’s grace – and with an effort he reigns his Force ability back.

Like pulling ocean waves out of their consistent and immoveable patterns he pulls the nightmares back – Mirialan hands scrabbling at his throat to will him into silence, layers of dirt burying him into a long cold dead earth. He faces the crowd, shaking from the exertion, just in time to wonder idly out loud, “A speaker? What the fuck are you going to play? That trash you call music?”

Fein’s eyes flick to the crowd in front of them, taking in the chaos they’ve started. With little speck of recognition he sees their people taking action – Fein doesn’t know where Bail and Leia are. He hopes they’re in the hands of the rebels, not the alternative. Littered between frightened civilians and faceless troopers, he can see the flash of a saber, the call of a voice he knows, or the flash of someone moving towards the action.

That’s who they’re supposed to be – moving towards, not away; to protect, not condemn.

Hero, Matthias’ lips shape the word, but Fein’s never known it to be applied to him. He wonders if somewhere on a cold planet, in a temple of rules, if there’s a child who will see his green skin and know that there is always another choice.

“I think I’ll leave that label to the professionals,” he nods to where Rishla and Llewyn carve their way into the depth of the chaos, his eyes locking into the whirlwind of deadly grace Llewyn’s become, “We can be their backup.”

That felt more natural – backup. The shadow’s shadow. Fein was born to be a second son, the other brother, the back-up. That made sense to him.

“Come on,” he carves a gap between a trooper’s third rib and his stomach, “I think they’ve had enough of our faces.”

Maybe there is grace in the way Mathias moves, the way his Force signature has become so compact and hidden, it’s barely sensed at all, as if he might as well be a tree and not a breathing thing at all. Not a body. Only a weapon. Only a creature meant to wield a blade, switch hands, become all bared teeth, switch and in and out of existence even when more than a phantom. The Troopers reel back from the both of them for different reasons—would with or without Fein’s presence rolling in waves. 

He doesn’t notice Fein’s heavy breathes, that he thinks himself an echo. Doesn’t notice when the nightmares recede back to their ocean, except in the way he blinks back, except in the way he breaths as if without shadows in his lungs, but it’s passed by in the moment. “Always knew you had shit taste,” he barks back, laughter in it, “This isn’t the time to remind me ‘bout it.”

If this wasn’t a crowd, if there was more of a clear objective in the moment now, he would have kept a better eye on the Organas. Now, his movements are in the spinning saber he holds, body and blade blocking what he can from a crowd. The world stops there and doesn’t extend any further. He’s accustomed to fights without an audience, without anyone to protect. Which one do we call the better Jedi? When Matt would say it’s Fein. When perhaps Matt isn’t a good detector at all of what’s worthy. Maybe the phantoms, hands phasing through anything they touch, know best who’s worthy. We’ll worry about the way his heart beats later, the way it sinks in. Let it sink in what they’ve done.

It comes sooner than he wants it to, when Fein nods to the Masters and Mathias follows his gaze. “Fuck,” said for himself. He can’t explain it now, even to himself, but he won’t face them. He won’t face their eyes. There’s a moment his saber stops moving, just to look at Fein, and no one else. He can be backup, but he’ll stray, but he’ll stay to somewhere shadows are welcoming. “I can meet you there, yeah? I’ll meet you there.” He won’t. But that doesn’t mean he won’t watch over. Doesn’t mean he won’t be there, body undetected. 

The kyber crystals they brought back are exactly like new life, a new beginning…all the things that Luha finds she is not. And as she watches the younglings toil around with them she’s enveloped in this calm understanding: she was right in staying away from this mission, feeling as if she could only corrupt something so pure as is this new beginning. She could never join them like she would have years ago. There are many who could not join them because of her. Many who died without even knowing the face of their killer, and without having a chance to defend themselves. Blasters are an interesting thing; the sound of the shot that rings out before life is extinguished is deafening, but the silence that comes after louder even. Blasters, when in the wrong hands, are an interesting thing. Cowardly. “We could make new blasters all the same.”

Luha doesn’t have to think about the question because she knew from the very beginning that it’d feel wrong to. For one she didn’t want a new lightsaber, the attachment to the one she held near her hip was too strong, too much of an anchor to that padawan all those years ago. And if she made one what then, would she be able to find calm if she discards that girl and stops trying to reattach herself to the shadow of who she once was? Or is it the opposite, would that guilt that chokes her up when she thinks she’s alone only grow in size, swallowing her whole because she is living while other more deserving Jedi have died? She decides that both of those options are much too frightening to even consider and discards them with a shrug of her shoulders, “why would I? The one I have works just fine.”

(There's the difference between them. Woman shunning the mission because of the corruption in her veins. She's smarter than him. Because man went anyway. Decided to chase light with his padawan by his side, grasp it in his fingers and watch it let go, unable to be held in his hands. He won't be remembered by the universe, doesn't matter to it now. He'll do with that what he will. But the Crystal in his hand forces him to reconsider, whether he's ready to or not.) He stands beside now a woman he once would have ran from. Both take money for their work, but he's also the one being hunted, by the wanted posters she would have to answer to. Odd, should we say, them becoming like this? (Survived by how well they held a knife. By how well it sunk into the skin and he kept on walking when he met people like her.) 

Gilly rises immediately to greet Rishla, her purr a deep rumble in her chest as she bumps herself along Rishla’s side. She’s too big to be doing that now—the motion would send anyone unprepared for it tumbling to the side—but Rishla allows it, passing her hand over the space betwixt the tusk-cat’s eyes. Only then does her gaze turn to Mathias (though she was aware of him long before she stepped inside, make no mistake).

She tips her head, the motion saying: thank you. Part of her wonders if it was Mathias keeping Gilly company—or the other way around.

(Voice matching hers even without intention.) Even standing tall, there’s still exhaustion in her features, in the way darkness seems deeper under the eyes. Without breaking eye contact from Mathias, she lifts a hand, the Crystal rising from the desk and landing in her palm. Its humming ceases with she holds it. Closed off. “It calls to you.” She tells him, knowing this is something he already understands. 

The tusk-cat lets out a low sound before she curls up at the foot of the doorway and blocks the exit entirely. Rishla takes a few steps further into the room, hooking her coat and utility belt on the back of the only chair in the room. Her saberstaff, she rests on top of her bed. 

In the moments where her eyes aren’t on Mathias, she’s still watching. “I won’t keep this.” Finally, she turns to him. (Force, he’s so much himself, but so much her, too. How could that be?) “You have a bond with it, Mathias.” Her eyes narrow a fraction. A question: 

What makes him think he isn’t worthy of it? The Crystal certainly believes otherwise.

It’s colder with the oversized cat near, and it takes Matt a moment to sit up, leaning his back against one of the bunk bed’s columns, knees bent and legs spread, arms resting across his knees, a usual position. Half of his hair is sticking up where Gilly’s sandpaper tongue licked it, the floor imprinted on his face, showing just how long he had been here. He flicks sleep out of the corner of his eye. (Perhaps this is how someone would mistake him for her own, the comfort the cat has with him. An animal either of them could ride into battle if they wanted.)

He can read the exhaustion in her, even without looking into her eyes, even from his perspective from the ground. He remembers it. Knight, then Master, returning from a battlefield. Meet her in the morning when Noa would finally let him leave, straight to her lab. (Was this a battlefield? Was Jedha? He’s used to battle, in the alleyways of forgotten planets. In Nar Shaada, the middle of a cantina, helmet on. Take the credits from the bartender who offered the kill.)

The Crystal’s got the wrong idea. He wants it to. He wants it to be wrong. Wouldn’t that make shit easier? (It’d make his being here still the lie. Easier than anything else, isn’t it? Or just what he knows how to face? Worry about the fading of his chest another day.) “But you have the saber I’d probably end up putting it in.” He doesn’t expect her to say her next words, and it’s when he finally stands, wanting to look her in the eye, even as he still leans against the bed, think him casual even with the slant of his mouth, she’ll know better.

They’ve all been flickers for so long. Rishla doesn’t know the exact truth of what Mathias has been through, but she can see it—it’s written all over his body, his face, the way he carries himself, the way he never truly intends to be something permanent. “You believe you need a reason to leave this Rebellion, one that involves someone else making the decision for you.” Whether consciously or not. “I refuse to give you one.”

(See, Boy, the General made a promise to you decades ago that she could not keep. But she does intend to make up for it—she does intend to let her voice ring out true and sharp, like durasteel.) 

“This isn’t about what I want; I’m not a client.” She wants him by her side in this fight, it’s clear in her eyes. She wants him here. Mathias’s lack of understanding shows her more than she could have ever known had he told her what happened to him after Order 66 in words. “You’re asking the wrong questions.”

This isn’t about whether or not he’s worthy, this is, what does it mean to be worthy? This isn’t about who is deserving of worthiness, this is, what does it mean to be deserving of something? (It’s all up to him. It’s only ever been up to him.) 

Rishla lifts her chin. “The name is yours as much as it is mine.” She is telling him: no. 

“The fact of the matter is: this is our reality now. There are consequences for what we’ve done—and we will shoulder them, together.” Silence as she allows the words to settle with the dust. Her commlink blinks on, letting her know it’s time for the debriefing.

(Does she see herself in Mathias’s recklessness? If she thinks back, can she recall what it felt like to have him asking her endless questions? What does this tattoo mean? And that one? And that one?)

he’s done something wrong, hasn’t he? 

hands mathias the knife the way one would in surrender - almost wants to put his hands up as if in declaration - begging - of mercy. says, i am an innocent, pathetic thing. spare me. 

it’s a dialogue he thinks he could say quite well. 

“there’s lots of things that should and should not be.” he says, perhaps a bit too quietly. “i think we all hurt ourselves too much for it to be anything but a habit at this point.”

maybe even an addiction. a familiarity. maybe it is for him. 

and careful what you say next - the other is already a thing closer to being feral than what you are used to handling - in humans, humans only - see those darker gazes? see that expansion of space? the blade of teeth behind words? you are not equipped to handle dangerous things like this. be careful. be careful. 

he shrinks - almost flinches - at mathias’ words. defaults to curling into himself, as if in protection. makes eyes look down, only down, make him only a voice and not something too-real in front of him if he can’t see him. 

“i would be one of them. i know, i know.” repeat it longer, as if to drown out responses. “maybe i do. maybe it’s all i’m used to. i get it, i’m - i’m sorry for whatever i said. i didn’t mean to offend or anything, i - i can go, i can shut up now - “ 

There's a moment, an expression flashes across his face. The face that has befriended countesses and kings and assassins and fruit vendors and no one he knew he would see again after a week, maybe too. Risk becoming attached knowing this all the same. Easier to face someone when he knew he could leave his heart in a city when he couldn't return to it, let there be pain, let there be his hurt heart, he wouldn't have to face it anymore except in dreams. It's morbid, perhaps, how that's easier than this. Attached to people who will stay physical. Who will still be here tomorrow, if they stay alive for it.

He could make anything sound casual. Speak of death through laughter. (Cause it.) All stars that don't go out. Burn themselves dead. But now, he can’t look at Xavis as he speaks. Looks at him in the silences. Hurt is more than a habit. What does anyone know? “Apologizes are for ass-kissers or if you accidentally step on a Hutt, but you say it sarcastically, because you really don’t care. Save it for them, not me.”

It’s too loud. Hears: rain pounding, Cutie’s whirring and beeping (she doesn’t have to wonder who programmed her to say that), an unidentifiable chattering sound, Matt’s voice ringing back in the close quarters they’re in. And the smell. Burnt skin and blood and mud and mint. Nimm decides all at once that she hates the smell of the latter. She grits her teeth when the needle enters skin again, pulling the makeshift thread through, and her jaw ticks—she’s pale, solemn-faced, too-black eyes fixed on the wall. 

“I’m sorry,” Said almost too quietly for even her to hear, then said again, still without looking at Mathias as he stitches her as quickly as he can. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.” Heal like he can. (She had only ever successfully done it once; the slash on her throat, that night on Tatooine when the Hutt’s goons couldn’t make quick work of finishing her off. But never again.) If she’d just been able to, then they wouldn’t be here right now, locked away in some utility closet with mud and blood and floss. The needle enters skin again and her jaw ticks. This pain is far from the worst she’s ever experienced, but she’s still kicking herself mentally for not being able to heal herself. 

Another moment passes before she realizes the faint chattering noise is her own teeth, breath coming out in hisses between them. She’s freezing. 

“We should get moving soon, it won’t be safe here very long.” Nimm tells him, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. These are the words of someone raised to keep running, even wounded, even with teeth bared. Mathias would know it. 

(If someone claimed that he trained Cutie to speak like that, he'll deny it to hell. He found the droid working for a pirate and she just kinda kept on following him around, or he picked her up as a concession prize or he saw one of the crew kick the droid and he decided he quite liked its paint job, whatever reason you preferred he took it. He doesn't tell stories much about himself anyway.) The smell he doesn't mind, it barely hits his senses when there's something else pulling at all he has, at his mind, at his heart, at his brows knitting together. There's a sharp pain, and something else, the feeling of something with a point, more than just empathy, he feels it. Disregarded with his panting breaths, the concentration. (Another time, he might've had thread. But he needed to sew in another messy hem to the shirt he wears now. Too old and too small for him. Floss does the job, as long as they need it.)

Did you notice him shiver, a split second after her? Does he notice? Or does he only choose to feel fingers sticky with floss and her own blood? "Apologize to Cutie if you break your leg, because she might have to be the one to carry you out," he says, half smile that's gone before it's there, because he can't hold it. He'd carry her, she wouldn't be heavy, and not because of her weight. The same way she is now. Should he apologize that he never learned how to heal someone else? Only himself. Only his own bones.

Llewyn brought the quarterstaff to a halt. “Technically I asked why you’re making my problem - which in case I wasn’t clear wasn’t a problem - yours. But fine call it semantics.” Over the years his master had called him out on a number of things. Most of them were easy to overcome. He learned conservation. He learned how to step back and let his enemies be their own doing. He learned how to stop hitting himself in the face with his quarter and how to stop tripping his own feet. It was the ones that disguised themselves as strengths that were harder to undo. 

Other people had called him conviction manifested and told him they trusted in him at times before they trusted in themselves. It made sense to teach his padawans to trust their instincts and follow through. It made sense to be their safety net, anyone’s safety net in moments when they couldn’t. So he would train alone if that’s what it took to maintain it.

He didn’t want to be their safety net, didn’t want to be anyone’s anymore. Even if he wanted he couldn’t be, not emotionally and he feared not on a technical level. Llewyn wasn’t sure what a self was anymore let alone that he had one. If he did it felt more and more splintered with each day.

“Mocking my age,” Llewyn said disappointed. It was such a low bar he would have counted on better. “Clever.” His eyebrows creased as he tried to suppress a moment of déjàvu. A twelve year old trying to size up someone nine years his senior because he knew that she would say yes. “You know there are easier ways to ask than attempting to goad me.” It had felt competitive at the time and maybe it had been. Competition was one of the staples of their relationship. Now he wondered if some part of it had been for his sake or maybe both of theirs. Alone he was left defeated by something that wasn’t there. A voice in his head telling him that to push himself to his breaking point was the only proof he done enough.

“So you want to lose twice?” He laughed, but it made no sound. Llewyn held out the quarterstaff. It’s a challenge he didn’t want to make and he knew Mathias would take. “Masochistic.”

What Llewyn learned with a Master, Mathias had to learn on his own. Partially, on his own. On his own in the way that means, he will have to have his teeth bared, keep walking even as he's bleeding. Self-trained Knight. Earn the rank with the scars covering every inch of his skin as the resume, his paperwork. Hands over a knife. Child who's childhood ended with a lightsaber in his chest. He's still learning, everything formal he wasn't given, let the lessons fall through the cracks now, silent. For all he doesn't know, but walks forward anyway. 

They're both unconventional. Knight with no formal training, and fights in ways that'll make no old Jedi proud. Master who left before any of them died and is back again now. The hanged men. Put the noose around their own necks and took the plunge. Far from now, or sooner than we know, will they find something reflected in each other? Will they want to see it?

He cocks one brow, unbothered, sending silently over the question to Llewyn to guess if he cares if he’s unoriginal in his mocking. "Easier, maybe, but then I would have asked for that too. If you don’t want me to goad, you should get some hair dye. Not the cheap kind, just’ll make you look like a Hutt in a rat wig." He remembers, the young legend, the young phantom. Did Mathias remember him when he too disappeared from sight? Not in a war, but still in the face of those hoping to end him.

Kal wasn’t exactly sure what he was doing here. He had gotten a Kyber Crystal on the mission, but at this point, it all felt so strange. It didn’t feel right building himself a lightsaber when he already had one from his childhood. He always felt connected to that one, and building something new felt like he’d be abandoning the old saber from the Jedi Knight. Perhaps he simply wasn’t ready for this just yet, and maybe after he was more certain of himself and his role as a Jedi, he’d be fine building a saber. He could see everyone else excited to be making their own, but Kal couldn’t feel that way at all. “Huh?” he asked when he heard the other speak. It quickly registered in his head and he shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Probably not right now, but sometime later. It’s all a weird feeling at the moment.” 

The two of them come from far different places in life, and Mathias will say any not raised in the Temple turned out a hell of a lot better than any of them. Fate preferred them. Placed its focus on the shit they deserved it, and that was the people that didn't have to see it, any of it. The old Jedi teachings are still clear in Matt's mind, not in words, but as a calling, as honor he can't explain, that won't show in his behavior unless you look for it, know what you're looking for. The stolen one out of his grasp, and if he's not worthy of that, than this Crystal in his hand, is only a rock, calling his name.

Maybe the two of them will build their own together, when their names are more than what they are, when they are a rank that’s said with certainty. He doesn’t look at Kal as he speaks, just to the room, peripheral set on the Crystal, when it’s there. “You here with us, man? This is the place to pay attention, when not all of those kids are willing to ask for help yet.” He gives, half-jest. “The Kyber or the weapons? Because they’re one in the same, if you’re gonna do it right.” A beat. "It's not really that hard, you just have to know that it's not something you can build it with your hands." He gives, more quietly, now looking at him just out of the corner of his eye.

[He’s in the middle of a breathing exercise, trying to figure out if the same old techniques will work in the wake of his adapted training with Noa. He cracks an eye to view the little holo of Mat - rummaging through Fein’s things as usual.] Or you could give me back the ones you already stole. [He squints his one open eye,] Clean. You could give me back my shirts clean. [There is comfort in the way some things never change.]

TRANSMISSION...

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