we are the survivors of darkening stars

CW : illness , hospice care , financial instability

war. it’s all you’ve ever known , isn’t it ? you were so young when you survived the clone war. no wonder you’re so equipped in spirit to fight as you do. war is in your blood. i study the art of war , work to perfect it. but you , you were forged by it.

war and conflict is all she’s known , at least within living memory. she was , what , nine when the clone wars began and separatists began to occupy the ryloth system. her father was the hammer of ryloth , he was the freedom fighter for her people and she was raised beneath the shadow of his work. and in the fire of it. she lost her brother , a child , to the clone wars.

and there was no relief in its end. even as her father tried to accept the empire’s reign , hera was working espionage and recon for her mother and uncle at the age of TWELVE. and it’s her capture , her being accused of treason in pre-pubescence that shoves her father back into the fight. and it’s that fight that costs her mother’s life and her father’s heart.

and so she takes her dream and molds it to war. as a child ( and she was still a child !! ) , she dreamt of flying , but the rebellion becomes the vector. rebelling against the forces that have occupied her planet , stolen her people , killed her family , forced her to feel weak when she should have felt safe. hera syndulla has never felt safe.

i was a little girl when the clone war came to ryloth. my mother hid us below ground , but i’d peak out when the republic ships flew over as they fought to liberate my world. i dreamt of nothing more than to be up there with them. so you left your family to fight ? i left my family so i could fly. as a combat pilot ? if we want freedom , we must make difficult choices. i chose to leave my family , i chose to learn to fly , and then i chose to use that ability to help others in need. but it’s all rooted in something i can’t explain , a need to be up there. because even when there are explosions all around me and things are at their worst , i feel like i’m at my best.

the little girl who never felt safe at home , who watched two conflicts ravage her family and her people , who catered her dream to be something selfless. it’s no wonder she feels drawn to the fight , it’s all she has , her one constant. but it keeps taking from her. it takes allies & friends & people she loves. but she doesn’t stop fighting , even when it takes her away from her son. because it’s for her son , just as much as it’s for every single child in the galaxy who shouldn’t be raised in fear.

and if we are to believe that ghost in exegol means hera was there , too , she kept surviving and she kept fighting and she kept believing in a better galaxy , one where no child should be forged in the fires that she never truly left. hera syndulla , who was there at the end of the clone wars; who was there on endor when palpatine fell; who saw the battle of jakku with her own eyes and then watched in the decades that followed as it all seemed like it was for nothing; who was there , once again , when the galaxy stood against tyranny and tried again to make things right.