#force sensitive reader

Series Info: Title: Starlight Princess POV: Second-person (You x Poe Dameron) Genre: Action, Romance, Drama, Force lore, Canon Divergence Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader Warnings: Canon-typical violence, emotional trauma, pregnancy, slow-burn, Force visions

Chapters by Act:

Act I: Burning Stars and Broken Light

(The Force Awakens)

Chp. 1 Chp. 2 Chp. 3 Chp. 4 Chp.5 Chp.6 Chp.7

Act II: Echoes of Rebellion

(The Last Jedi)

Chp. 1 Chp. 2 Chp. 3 Chp. 4 Chp. 5 Chp. 6 Chp. 7

Act III: Seeds of a New Dawn

Chp. 1 Chp.2 Chp. 3 Chp. 4 Chp. 5 Chp. 6 Chp. 7

Act IV: The Rise of the Starlight Princess

(The Rise of Skywalker)

Chp. 1 Chp. 2 Chp. 3 Chp. 4 Chp. 5 Chp. 6 Chp. 7 Chp. 8 Chp. 9 Chp. 10 Chp. 11 Chp. 12

Epilogue

It was the first expected reaction, undeniably, to all the sadness the universe had decided to throw onto a body so young, yet, it was also the last one that the handlers wanted to see before you ended up in the wrong end of iron bars.

The galaxy had rendered you quite talented at concealing a million emotions under a flat expression.

It was a reflex hastily injected into the mind, as your body often intended to follow suit, in the slow and unspoken rhythm they both had to find throughout the years of surviving one run after the other.

It was a well-executed show that had managed to hold for the better part of a lifetime, getting you in and out of every beaten cockpit in one piece. It was a pulse adjacent to the one that beat in your sternum, a constant reminder that you had survived every starless port and every misaligned stabilizer, one that stood elevated behind the regulation door that had sealed you in for the cycle.

The quarters they had assigned you might have been the cleanest set of four steel walls you had sat within for years. A small viewport stood embedded next to the standard-issue metal cot, the lowlights of hyperspace filling the small room with a silver hue.

It was a soldier’s room, in all intents and purposes. It was one of many, tiny but functional, with the unheard of luxury of an attached refresher and furniture that still stood in one piece.

It was too sterile, too clean, for you had been used to sleeping next to barrels of engine grease, unknown metal crates of cargo, or on a spare piece of woven fabric that had needed many embellishments to ever be called sheets.

It was a mold that a smuggler pilot from the Outer Rim could never fit in, and your body knew you were no soldier.

Bodies were habitual creatures, and yours protested involuntarily against the softer bed and instead, had lowered itself onto the durasteel floor, your back resting against the cold wall yet your skin paid no mind to it.

The hum of the ship reverberated through your skin, trickling into your overworked senses, and the usual calm that exuded from machinery and engine maintenance noise did not prove enough tonight, for it echoed, in the faint lines of it, a heartbeat that belonged to different suns than half-cycle lights.

Tonight, nothing seemed to stay right where you had buried it.

Tonight, unease seeped into your veins.

Not many things in the galaxy scared you anymore, not after everything you had been through, and the realization did not arrive in surprise. From a childhood spent in the scorching heat and in rusted corridors, often behind bars, to the illusion of freedom the moment you stepped into a ship of your own command, you knew you always had to bow to another.

Yet, that was not what kept you up at night. That had come in with the realization that, the slimy hands that fed and housed you, always had another motive - and, worst of all, they knew just when to retract the offer.

Every reflex forced upon a captive body and soul, the ones that made you lower your eyes before something worse could blind them, the ones that made you flinch in the most invisible ways, the silence they willed long after the danger had passed, had dulled after each small achievement - ancient habits crushed with the reward that was flying, with every run returned victorious, with every deviation parsed in record time, with each sector threaded without a scratch.

And, the same way you had learned how to survive in the slums, the way your hands learned to command the console with fighters chasing you, fear was reduced to a tiny little pilot light tucked far within the corners of your soul, one that only rose into flames when you would let it.

With him, there was no permission, as there had never been.

All it had taken for flames to engulf your conscience was the sheer feeling of him nestled inside your sternum, the warmth in your chest erupting into the heat in a ship that knew of no sun.

A single look into eyes that you had thought you would never see again, a gentle tremble of a voice you had once known to laugh joyfully, and the fire had taken everything in its path.

The near memory of his proximity, the grown body that resembled the reflections of a warrior on the holofeeds you had managed to escape from, and the voice that held traces of a boy that ran through your dreams, were enough to make your hands tremble as you pulled your knees closer to your chest.

The words that you could never hope to say in these hangars were stuck in your tongue, and tasted like ash in your mouth.

A tear rolled down your cheek before you realized your chest was heaving, lips apart and eyes glassy, a wave of anxiety mirroring the goosebumps across your skin.

Your trembling fingers made their way, slowly yet surely, through a familiar route as they landed on the bolt around your neck.

It held the echoes of his name called into the void, in screams and sobs first, later in whispers.

Each dent had a story, carrying a piece of sand that no recycled air had ever been able to fly away, scratching each surface it came across.

They had stripped you of everything that merely directed your story across the years, the chip once lodged in the back of your ear, the collar once tight around your throat, the name your mother breathed into a planet that no longer spoiled you with blue skies.

Against all odds, this had remained - of all the things the galaxy had forcefully pried out of your grip, this was the one sliver of dark blue it had never seemed to want, because you had never once let it see just what it meant to you.

Tomorrow, you would fly.

But tonight, you would have the heavy responsibility of calming your nerves down to keep your hands still, to get some rest while another pulse beat within your chest.

Those hands, riddled with tiny scars across the knuckles and the callouses of a lifetime of fixing engines, that had witnessed the heat of dripping machine oil and dysfunctional wiring, that had never lost composure for a singular second when placed against a yoke - were trembling with an uncontrollable frequency.

Your eyes, softer, wetter than they had ever been in the darkness and behind closed doors, watched the extensions of your limbs as if they had never belonged to you, as you opened and closed your fingers in an attempt to will them into a stillness that you often had no problem finding - yet, they did not oblige.

From the one corner that the silver light forgot, a familiar figure stirred as it made its way to you, an unspoken hurry to the drag of metal across metal. Moto, a small scuffed dome of a droid you had constructed out of spare parts across the lower levels, drew up against the bend of your knee as it sensed the ragged breaths escaping your parted lips.

“I don’t know what to do, Moto.”

It was an admission you would never dare speak aloud, for word had traveled faster than light in Nar Shaddaa, and any sign of weakness had meant the difference between a holding cell and another cockpit.

Yet it was one that emanated so naturally, from the marrows of your bones that always stood restless.

You were tired of running.

In the quiet confinements of a small room deep in this behemoth of a ship, in the gentle dark of the half-cycle utility lights, you let your exhaustion bleed through.

A chirp followed, echoing your emotions in the longer duration of it, as the mechanical head turned a couple of times to nuzzle against your leg - a droid’s comfort offered in the certainty of machine language and bleeps.

“But I don’t think I know how to stop.”

The rest of your answer never found voice as it dissolved somewhere between your lips, words unable to escape their restraints as they caught onto the tremble in your tone. Your trusted droid only chirped again, this time a lower, more patient hum, not prying further, though you knew it sensed the fear in you.

It scared you more than you would ever let yourself show, more than you ever understood in your own mind.

You had not let yourself truly want anything in this galaxy in a very, very long time, for want often came with its own set of sacrifices, most of which you could not afford.

You had, with whatever leftover sliver of innocence, as many souls held with a leash would, imagined the very moment you would see him again.

Through the nights when your body hurt too much to fall asleep, or sometimes under the flickering moonlight on the way back to the Hutt compound after a run well flown - you had, with all the fragments of memory you could pull, imagined the day he would keep his promise.

Moments before you had raised your chin in that same defiant way of a slave child, to properly look at him for the first time in a decade, you had braced for the cold looks of a stranger, for the general the war had built over the remnants of a boy. The resolve you had trained so hard to keep intact, had screamed at you, once it saw the blue of his eyes had not dimmed one single bit.

As he so often did in your fleeting pictures of the past, Anakin Skywalker took the little light that kept a corner of your memories warm, and, in ways only he could have, coaxed it into something larger than itself, into a fire warm enough to fill an entire hangar with heat, into a blazing flame that would scorch the entire galaxy if given way.

And, lodged in the quiet intentions of voices whispering in your head, you had weighed the possibility that you would, maybe, one day, let it.

It scared you more than you would ever let yourself show, more than you ever understood in your own mind.

Somewhere above you, through the cold spine of the ship, the thread kept pulling at your sternum, and, this time, it held.

It held, a force so strong, so luminous, an orb of light riddled with emotion that would have made the suns rise in the black darkness of the moon.

Through the slabs of durasteel, through the layered decks in a warship, in his own version of four walls that enclosed him, the holofeed reflections appeared just a little dimmer.

Anakin woke up with a gasp, breathing heavily even as his dream faded. The only image that stayed with him was of your eyes, as was becoming a habit these days. He closed his eyes for a few seconds, attempting to block out the lights shining through his window and stay in blissful limbo for a little longer. Before, he would wake up excited for his training, eager to jump out of bed and explore his talents for another day-and now? Now he was begging his body to sleep for even just a few more minutes, just something to get him back in that dream world you seemed so close in. His hand pushed his hair back, and dropped into his lap. Anakin looked down, watching his fingers pick at stray threads on his sleeves, and furrowed his brow as he thought about what this meant for him. A knock sounded on his door, and your voice floated through to him. 

“Ani? You’re late, we’re about to start.”

His stomach turned at the way you said his name, flashes of his dream came to him and made him remember the sound of your voice laughing his name-he thought in a meadow somewhere, maybe. He felt you reach out through the force when he didn't respond, nudging at him gently and an image of you turning back to grin over your shoulder at him sprung to mind, blinding him for a second. Anakin hoped he didn’t accidentally project it to you, as he’s come close to doing many times.

Letting you know that he’ll be out in a second, he rolled out of his bed and reached for his clothes. As he pulled his shirt on, he thought he saw your hand pressed against his abdomen, fingers curling slightly and he could swear he felt your nails digging into his flesh. It’s gone in a second though, and he resumed dressing. 

You were leaning against the wall when he opened his door, eyes closed and face turned up to soak in the sun. 

“Well we’re both going to be late now, why did you wait?” He wondered if he actually wanted the answer to his question, if it might complicate things even further for him. You turned toward him, eyes opening and then squinting against the light, and hummed at his question. Appearing as though you were mulling it over, you suddenly smiled softly at him.

“Because then we’d both be late, of course.” No, he really didn’t want the answer after all. 

-

Training goes well for the both of you, with Anakin managing to forget about his dream for most of it. Until you both had to try an exercise with each other. 

He had forgotten the original purpose of this activity by now, only focusing on holding back from you. Both of you were sitting cross legged facing each other, trying to reach out into each other's minds-Anakin forgot how talented you were for a minute before you started probing, and he quickly had to try and close himself off. You had quirked your brow at sensing this, but thankfully didn’t say anything. It was silent in the room, and he was certain you could very likely hear his heartbeat. He prided himself on his control, his discipline-he knew he was a good jedi, there was no doubt about that. But at that moment it was like he couldn’t stop thinking about everything he’d tried to bury down. 

Anakin could feel you poking around in his mind, soft and gentle like everything else about you. His mind threw up the image of you from his dream grinning over your shoulder and he shut a metaphorical door on it, the ghost of your hand on his stomach reared up and he pulled it back, burying it deep down as he felt your presence getting closer. Your instructor started talking, telling all of you that you could stop now and Anakin immediately relaxed-not realising that you hadn’t withdrawn completely. The mirage of you laughing in a meadow burst forward and he couldn’t tell if you had seen it or not; you didn’t seem to react in any way so he forced himself to slow the thrumming in his chest.

You left together, automatically walking into his room to settle onto his balcony. It looked over some greenery and a small lake, and it was peaceful. Often, both of you can be found there just sitting in silence with each other and watching the various creatures glide through the water. It’s one of the few times Anakin feels truly at peace, a rare respite from the turmoil he often feels inside-though that usually calms somewhat when he sees you anyway. Sometimes he feels the dark pulling at him inside, the cold tendrils tugging him under and wrapping around him-then you’ll smile, and it’s like the clouds clear, sun blindingly bright. You have your own chairs on his balcony which you both instinctively settle into these days and Anakin relaxed into his, hands resting on the arms and only a few centimeters away from yours. The chairs used to be on opposite sides of this little area, he has no idea when it happened but somehow they migrated until there was less than half a foot between them.

Your eyes were closed and your face was turned up toward the setting sun again, a perfect mirror of that morning. Anakin’s eyes wandered down, sliding over your neck but pausing when you swallowed and your throat visibly moved. He concentrated, pushing forward slightly and centering in on your pulse point. The gentle thump of your heart beat resounded through him, he could sense the blood flowing under your skin, pumping around your body and all he could feel was life. His eyes closed as he let your presence wash over him. Everything about it was light, like a sunrise coming up inside him and reaching into even the deepest darkest corners of his soul. 

“I can feel when you do that, did you know?” Your voice was soft, barely louder than the breeze that swept his hair over his cheek. He opened his eyes slowly, still fixed on your pulse point. “It-I like it though.” The blood flowed faster as you spoke, and you tilted your head toward him. “I think-I think it’s what a kiss might feel like, Ani. It’s soft, and-and intimate.” Your cheeks flushed a little, and Anakin wanted to trace his fingertips over the blossoming heat. He sat up slowly and brushed his hair back.

Avoiding eye contact, he turned your hand over and smoothed his thumb across your palm. You watched him carefully, goosebumps rising along your arm as his thumb kept sliding along and stopped on your wrist just under your sleeve. He rubbed the digit in a gentle circle, brow furrowing as he cleared his throat lightly. His eyes darted back up to your neck quickly. 

“I can’t tell you if you’re right or not,” but I want to. He spoke quietly, and you could hardly hear him even though the only other sound was the leaves on the trees rustling. “I-I want to know, though. Do you?” Anakin’s head dipped down so he didn’t have to look at you as you responded, but his answer came in the form of your hand shifting to link your fingers with his, your thumb brushing the back of his hand instead. Looking up again, there was a soft smile on your face and your eyes shone slightly in the pink of the sky. You sat up straighter in your chair and he shifted forward, so close he could feel your breath on his face. Your lips were a hair's breadth away from his now, and he watched curiously as your gaze dipped down, glancing at his tongue poking out for a second. 

You shouldn’t be doing this, you couldn’t be doing this. It wasn’t right, not allowed. You were both jedi and had purposes, this wasn’t what was meant to happen. He wouldn’t-couldn’t.

Anakin closed his eyes for a couple of beats, then opened them and moved his free hand up toward your face. His fingertips pressed gently against your chin to tilt your head away, and he dipped down towards your neck. He stopped millimeters away, breathed out shakily, licked his lips, then pressed a kiss to your pulse point-and it felt holy. You gasped at the sensation and he stayed there for a few seconds before moving away again. Keeping his eyes closed, he moved slightly lower, pressed another kiss on your skin, feeling your pulse flutter against his lips and one of your hands slid into his hair. Moving lower again, he blew gently on your neck and listened to your breath hitch. He parted his lips and leaned in again, leaving an open mouthed kiss on you this time. 

Anakin swallowed and moved his face until he was looking at the column of your throat, stretched up as your head tilted back. His tongue licked into the hollow, gently lapping at your skin as the hand in his hair tightened. His lips pressed against you once more, and he was unable to resist the groan rising in his throat as he felt his hair being pulled again. Letting his eyes slip shut, he sucked tenderly at your flesh and your breathing picked up-whines flowing from you freely. He broke away after a few seconds and leaned his forehead against your neck, breathing hard with you. You opened and closed your mouth a few times, attempting to find the right words to say.

“Ani-Ani we shouldn’t-”

He slid his hands up to hold your waist, tugging at the fabric and pulling you slightly into his body.

“I need to-” He muttered shakily, and began to bunch the hem of your shirt up to slide his hands under the fabric. You gasped as your skin made contact and his palms flattened over your ribcage, almost spanning the expanse of your stomach. He pressed his lips together as his thumbs brushed back and forth, skimming the underside of your breasts and feeling your soft skin. Tilting his head to watch your reactions, he whispered into your throat, “Will you let me?” You pulled on his hair to move his face away and looked down to lean your forehead on his for a second. Lifting back up, you watched his eyelids flutter as you combed your fingers through his hair.

“Of course I will, Anakin.” You could have sworn he whimpered when you spoke, and his hands moved up again to cup your breasts. He left more kisses on your neck and decorating your collarbones as he smoothed his thumbs over your nipples. They stiffened under his touch and and he pushed the hem up even further to reveal your chest, mouth watering at the sight of you. You watched him carefully-he looked entranced, almost unaware of his actions as he slid off the chair and onto his knees to the floor between your legs. He stared at your chest, eyes dark as he leaned forward and wrapped his lips around one of your nipples-your eyes closed again and head fell back at the feeling, unlike anything else you’d experienced before. 

His teeth scraped lightly against your skin when you arched your back, subconsciously pushing your bust into his face. Anakin groaned, slid his hands around to clutch at your back, pulling you closer if possible, and sucked firmly until it almost hurt. He heard your gasp and let you go, watching the string of spit that connected his mouth to your pert breast. A whimper escaped you as his tongue licked at the other, tracing slow circles on your skin.

He moved down slowly, palming at your chest once more before letting your shirt fall back to where it was. Eyes focused on his expressions, you barely noticed his hands had moved until you felt fingers digging into your waistband, tugging it slowly over your hips. You gently prised his hands off you to lift your hips and tug them down yourself, leaving them halfway down your thighs, and he grabbed the waistband again to pull them down your legs. He bit back a moan when he saw you had pushed your underwear down too. His own trousers were becoming rather tight the longer he looked at you, and he shifted his hips to try and relieve the strain while wrestling the fabric off over your feet. 

Anakin pushed at your knees, opening you up to his gaze, and palmed his hand over his bulge at the sight. He couldn’t deny that he wasn’t an expert in this, he’d never so much as kissed anyone (technically) and he didn’t pretend to know what he was doing-but it somehow just felt right to grab at the backs of your thighs and hook your knees over his shoulders, pressing his face further toward your center. Something brushed against his cheek and over the bridge of his nose-he looked up to see you staring curiously down at him, pushing the force out and washing gently over his face. His lips suddenly felt dry and he licked them again, feeling your thighs twitch around his head, and he hesitantly licked into your cunt. Your arousal coated his tongue, making him immediately want to taste you again. You moaned quietly and thrusted your hands into his hair, grabbing what you could when his tongue traced the seam of your pussy, trailing up your slit from your entrance to the hood of your clit. 

It was like he lost it after that, couldn’t help pushing his face as far into you as he could-one of his hands reached up to paw at your breasts as he lapped at your center. His eyes closed while he embraced the feel of you-letting your taste, your scent, your sheer presence overwhelm him. The bridge of his nose bumped against your clit and you gasped, clenching and causing a rush of wetness to soak Anakin’s chin. He moaned at that, nails digging into your flesh and nose pressing harder against you. Stiffening his tongue, he ran it up and down your cunt, sloppily mixing his saliva and your juices together-then you moaned loudly when he suddenly decided to push the muscle inside you. You arched your back as your orgasm approached and attempted to close your legs, stopped by his head and roughly pushed back open by a strong hand. The display of force was too much and pushed you over the edge, which Anakin didn’t even seem to notice and he kept licking into you, nose still nudging at your clit and tongue slipping into your quivering entrance. 

Your whining finally made him pull away, watching you twitch slightly with the aftershocks and grinning at the heavy rise and fall of your chest. His hands slid down, gently tracing his fingers over your cunt and he felt himself harden further when your hips jerked up slightly, your body sensitive and unused to the attention. His thumbs spread you open to lick another stripe up-then he gently pressed an open mouthed kiss over your swollen bud, only stopping when you used the grip on his hair to push his face away, unable to handle anymore.

He sat up and rested his forehead on your stomach, drawing circles on your thighs with his fingers and humming quietly when your fingers relaxed to continue carding through his hair. Your finger tapped his temple and he pecked your tummy briefly before looking up.

“I-I want-”

“Okay.” He smiled up at you, eyes glassy at the thought.

Gently letting your legs down, he settled back into his chair and tugged on your hand, pulling you out of yours until you were leaning over him, holding onto his shoulders. He hooked his hands around your legs to pull you down on his lap, knees bracketing his thighs. Your arms circled his neck, both of you letting out a moan when your core settled over the tent in his trousers and his hands gripping your hips tightly. You rocked experimentally and Anakin groaned, quickly reaching down inside his pants to pull out his length. He watched through lidded eyes as you rose slightly and shifted until his tip pressed up into your entrance, carefully lowering yourself so that he was almost fully inside you.

Hands dropping down, you feverishly pushed at his shirt to get your hands on his stomach, just needing to feel his skin against yours. As soon as your palms pressed flatly on his abs, your body relaxed and he moaned filthily loudly as you sunk the rest of the way down his cock. Anakin let his head fall against the back of the chair and squeezed the meat of your hips. Slowly lifting you off him a little so he could buck his hips up, his mouth dropped open at the feeling of your slick channel welcoming him. 

He kept thrusting his hips up for a few minutes, enraptured by the intense pleasure he could feel-he reached out subconsciously and felt you respond, energy melding with his. Somehow the pleasure was even more intense and you clenched around him, nails digging into his stomach. His head snapped up as he looked down, watching you leave crescent shaped marks in his skin and he flashed back to that morning when he thought he saw your hand on him. The memory made him buck up roughly, cock pushing messily into you and making you cum suddenly, not that you had even realised your orgasm was that close. Your walls fluttered around him and in turn pushed him over the edge, making him groan as he spilled inside you-he let his hips fall back to the chair slowly, watching his cum drip out of you and down his shaft. Whimpering quietly, you settled back down, sliding onto him once more to rest in his lap and pressed your face into his neck. He slid his hand into your hair and he turned to kiss your temple, feeling like a ball of light was swelling inside his heart.

Anakin’s other hand gently traced over the marks your nails had left on his stomach and he couldn’t help but think of the other flashes he had seen that morning, of your smile and your laugh-yet to come, he hoped. 

This couldn’t be it, couldn’t be what the jedi forbade. This was warm and good and-and right.

(a/n)2 I was going to have anakin say "we need to-" not "I need to-" but as I reread it I was like idk why but I just feel like it Has to be 'I' not 'we'. feel like it fits better. anyway let me know what u think!!

Din was used to situations dissolving quickly from what he thought they would be, shifting into quick successions of movements and scenarios his instincts allowed him to maneuver with ease.

But the sight of you covered in nothing but bubbles from a foaming wash, bent over the side of the large communal bath had been something he wasn’t prepared for. Especially since the last time he had been intimate with you had turned out disastrously. His own emotions and devotion to something that wasn’t you tainting the moment and turning it from heated excitement to sour devastation.

The bubbles only reminded him further of the time before that, when you had been propped over his lap, both of you bare and exploring each other’s supple and scarred skin for the first time in the dim candlelight of a bath. It had been…thrilling to see the way your eyes had been overtaken by the pleasure he pulled from you, the sounds you had made…Maker, it had been such a good moment and he wishes you felt that same comfortability around him again. He knows you must to an extent, because he doesn’t see you exchange words beyond pleasantries with anyone around the palace but him.

But even so, with your memory restored he was fully aware that you might not want to be with him in that way ever again. He would have you as you wanted him to, even if it was in no ways at all. His want for you to be comfortable, to be your own person far exceeding his own desires. He only wished you were to stay beside him, his protectiveness over you never waning and increasing as the days continued on, the same he was beginning to feel over the child. You were all three bonded.

And then the sudden appearance of your fiancé, the man who got to hold you and kiss you free of worries was there in the same room as you clad in nothing but a towel with your hair weighted down and damp. The touches he had seen up until that point had been nothing but fleeting, the touches he had witnessed next everything but, setting his blood to boil. The harsh way he had pressed himself to you, trailed his fingers over the sensitive skin between your legs he knew the feeling of all too well, the way he had been rough with you enough for you to cry out. It had been something he was unequipped to handle. His mind had gone blank as his vision hyper focused into stark lines and too bright colors as if he had activated a sensor for his helmet with the touch of button.

The quiet way you had followed him back to your room in a flowing robe with ad’ika cradled in your arms had been another thing he hadn’t been prepared for. The version of you he knew was strong, a fighter, not one to let such things slide. Serving well deserved justice to those who picked on you and those around you, on those who deserved it. The you in front of him now? She was scared, on edge, hesitant. And he didn’t like it at all.

“Mesh’la, you don’t have to heed his command.” He hears the way his voice is strong, but it isn’t for him.

No, all of his strength is for you. A flame he tries to keep healthy and bright even as the situation is something he’s quickly realizing may be far too deep for him to help you escape from.

“I do have to, he – he’s to be my husband, he has to be happy with me. My…my mother would do something if this was to all fall apart because of me.” His heart steels, you need him. You need him now more than you ever had, even back at that compound he happened across you in the largest stroke of luck and sheer circumstance he’s ever experienced.

You had unwittingly helped him, you and the child, to realize that while he devoted his life, mind, and body to the Creed and his way of life: he also needed something for himself. He had been…lonely, if he was completely honest with himself. Leading a life chasing after credits and determined to work any job, hunt any quarry, commit himself to more and more and more in order to achieve the goal of helping to perpetrate his kind long after the world had merely watched on as they were picked off one by one, scattered among the stars in a heartbreaking way.

You had helped him to realize that in order to do so, he needed a little bit of saving himself. And he’d be damned if he didn’t try to help and return the favor now that you needed it in more blatant ways than he ever did. He wanted to return the favor, he wanted you back in his arms, aboard his ship, laughing and sharing bits of food across a table that wasn’t a table. You had been blossoming into someone he felt intense emotion for, love for, someone he yearned to be back by his side and in his bed, whispered words of affirmation and the same love back to him beneath the sheets and in the darkness of his personal quarters. He missed you even with you standing a few feet away from him. Because the person standing before him certainly missed him, even if you didn’t realize it.

“Then leave.”

“Maker, I can’t do that. I don’t even know who I am.” The look you give him is so unlike any other he’s ever seen and it clatters inside his ribs, the urge to move forward and embrace you. But it would be a line crossed, to do so.

“But I do.” He decided to use his words instead, to try and hold you up.

“You what?”

“I know you. I know who you are.”

“From before?” The hope that curls around the simple question almost pulls the truth from him, he’s unsure why he falters in voicing it.

“From…from now. I know you, mesh’la, and you deserve better than this.”

“He’s…he’ll hunt me down. I know it, in my very bones I know it.” The words seem so matter-of-fact, as if you were aware of them subconsciously. The fear and life of solitude you had led because of the very notion of people being after you something your body remembered even if your mind could not. He recalls how isolated your home in the desert had been, how hard it had been to even find the humble building. How it must’ve been a mere shadow of the life you had lived up until that point, but one you had willingly created in order to avoid further conflict and loss.

But yet, here you were standing in front of him having lost everything that made you who you were.

“I’ll protect you.”

“Aliit, you have a child. You have a wife.” And there’s the anger he’s seen flare in you before, the will to not put up with things you didn’t agree with.

“I’ve told you, I do and I do not. She…she is much like you. In a situation she can’t control.”

“Then go save her.” You make it sound so simple, so easy a feat. If only you realized…but when you repeated the words with solid frustration he felt something brim over the top of his chest.

“I’m trying to!” He lets his own frustration get the better of him and he realizes his mistake when you cower. His own flames of anger and anxiety dousing yours to nothing but shadow and smoke.

“Apologies, I…shouldn’t speak so plainly with you. You are working, probably trying to earn credits to fix your situation. I apologize.” You won’t look at him, avoiding his eyes as he tries to catch them across the room. He’s messed up again, and now his punishment is delivering you to the door of the man who is about to do whatever he wants and you’re going to let him. To appease your mother, to fall in line with what you’ve been forced to believe are your duties.

“Mesh’la,” He steps close to you, now in the doorway to the large closet. His words trail off as you turn with a blank face so reminiscent of how you used to look at him. The robe is untied by your hands and falls to the ground. He averts his eyes, not wanting to impinge on your privacy even as you expose yourself to him.

“You heard him, he commanded you to dress me yourself should I not want to. Practically gave you permission to touch me, is that why you don’t want me to go. You want me all to yourself?” Digging into one of the elaborate boxes atop a shelf you throw whatever was inside it at him. It’s all lace and thin straps, a bright baby blue that looks like the shine of starlight on his armor when he polishes it in the cockpit of the Razor Crest. It makes him sick, stomach churning at the connection.

You’re breathing heavily, shoulders shaking and eyes tinging pink as he sees the tears you’re trying to fight off shine in the whites of your eyes as he dares to look up from the floor where the garment had fallen. “All men are the same, doing whatever they want. Taking whatever they want. At least this way I get something out of it, even if…even if it feels like it’s all wrong.”

Your words trail off, the power behind them waning as you refuse to break the connected gaze from him.

“It is wrong, he’s not…he’s doesn’t love you.”

“No one loves me.”

He freezes, taken aback by the conviction in your words even as you speak so quietly, your face still schooled into an expression of no emotion.

“No one’s come to my side after my accident. It’s as if…I had no life before it, no one who was by my side. It’s why, it’s why I’ve taken what my mother says as truth, there’s no evidence to suggest otherwise. Even if it does feel wrong.”

His chest aches, his heart crumbles and settled heavy in the pit of his stomach. He’s failing. He’s completely failing at his task of saving you. He’s making it worse, and he thinks again that maybe you’d be better off without him here mucking things up if you’ve accepted this as your life. You just said so yourself that it seems to be a good set up, better than anything you even remotely recall. But…it would be a betrayal to leave you in the hands of a woman who tormented and tortured you, manipulated you to her will alongside a man who was beginning to show his true colors.

He had. He had come to your side the second he had figured out where you were. But…but maybe it was too late. Your memories warped too much for him to bring them to the light. He thought…he thought he had seen glimpses of clarity in your eyes as he and Cara fight to keep you away from the mind flayer, from the doctor who was the reason for your lack of awareness.

“You have a wife.” You whisper, as if it was the one lie you were being fed that you didn’t want to accept.

“I do and I do not.” He repeats, unable to string together any other words as he sees the way you’re trembling. He’s about to throw the whole plan of slowly getting your memory and mind strong enough to tell you the truth, to blurt it all out in the hopes that it helps you to understand, but you’ve lost the spark of your old self as quickly as it had come to life and he’s missed his moment. Again.

“You have a wife and I…I cannot have you the way- you are not mine to want.” You seem to pull yourself from your inner musings, digging through another pretty package of ribbons and silk. The matching set is a soft pink and you pull on both pieces before bending to retrieve your robe. “Please escort me to Prince Cala’s room.”

The walk to the prince’s room had felt just as damning as the one he had taken to hand ad’ika over to the Imps.

Din begins to slip more Mand’oa into his conversations with you, hoping for recognition. Hoping to right his wrongs of that fateful night in which you had laid with another man. You didn’t talk of what happened, though he doubted he would be the first you would turn to should something of that caliber occur. He doesn’t ask, knowing that in the deepest part of who he was, he wouldn’t be able to handle the knowledge of your answer should you give him one.

He was being put on patrol of the grounds every morning, his night shift of watching over your hall given to others, never the same person. Probably due to Prince Cala’s command that no one is to get too close to you. But he traded with those who were given the post, giving away what little credits he had accumulated from being ‘employed’ by the palace and anything they voiced wishing they had. Cara making the trips into the city markets to retrieve whatever it was they wanted as she was shifted to duties to prepare for the wedding that loomed closer and closer.

The whole ordeal was reminiscent of his younger days, made it feel like he was back in training or just thereafter as he worked whatever and however many jobs he could get in order to prove for the covert. Though he was significantly older in years, the issue of not getting enough sleep only seemed to upset ad’ika. The child had become increasingly fussy, lashing out in the only ways he knew how and unfortunately one of those ways was slamming doors and throwing food.

The arrival of foreign people of all species to the city and to the palace in particular signal the days of your relative freedom coming to an end. Endless discussions of hushed plans are shared between him and Cara, as they realize they don’t have the currency of time on their side any longer. If there was one thing Din wanted to prevent, as if he truly had any control over things, was the binding of your person to another.

Two weeks, they had only two weeks and the days begin to fly by with no signs your memory returning.

Until he’s suddenly sat across from you one quiet night and you speak words of Mando’a back to him.

Ner kar’ta. Your voice sounds so sweet, so cherished in its damning innocence as you look to him with confusion in your glittering eyes.

Din’s moving from his seat beside you, kneeling before you in a way he never had with another. His hands holding yours and he revels in the warmth of them in his own. He carefully asks if you know what you just said, if you realize the enormity of what just happened, what had just fallen from your lips. He fills his heart swell when you say you think it means exactly what it does.

The words he’s only whispered to you once before as he lay bleeding and struggling to breathe, are repeated lowly. No longer a desperate plea for you to leave him behind, but an affirmation to bring you back to him.

He’s sure he’s far too focused, something he knows you don’t like, direct attention, deliberate attention.

But you’re looking back at him with the same sharpness in your eyes even as they remain partially shrouded, hope filling him and making his heart quicken as he searching for anything, for everything in them so close.

But then the door to your room, to the sanctuary you had both found is suddenly opening and the woman who had caused this entire ordeal is stepping over the threshold with a raised voice full of thinly veiled distrust and aggression born of fear.

Tension fills the room, your mother in the doorway while you and Aliit remain beside the small lounge set up of chairs, small sofa, and low table. The soft atmosphere between the two of you shattered as the woman barged into your room at far too late an hour. Making you wonder how often she had done so before your sleep had become hard to maintain. What was she doing checking on you under the cover of dark, midnight skies and twinkling stars? A pinch in the crook of your elbow, the column of your neck both flare to life and you worry for the things she could’ve done to you while asleep, before Aliit had taken over the post of night guard.

The rattling of fine porcelain trills, the cups of tea on small serving saucers Aliit had prepared in quiet seeming to irritate your mother as her eyes dart from the set up to the man behind you, to you. A glare marring her beautiful but aged features. Her skin pale unlike yours, though you were seeing underneath the mask you were realizing she always had carefully in place. Hiding and covering things she didn’t want others to see, didn’t want to reveal.

“Stop doing that!” She snaps, dominant hand pointing harshly at you and your body reacts far quicker than your mind. A hand of your own raising up and waving broadly, manipulating hers to lower to her side.

“Tell me.” You demand, patience gone and emotions focused. She sees something in you, at that moment, something that causes her to take a step back and it makes you feel powerful.

“You and the Prince were on holiday. Off on some crowded planet to enjoy in each other’s company as you shop and attend a gala in honor of the news of your engagement. Someone high up in the ranks of the New Republic happy of the coupling. Some startled you as they approached to congratulate you, always so jumpy, even as a young girl. You tripped over your dress, hit your head on the corner of a table.”

“Why don’t I have a mark from the fall?”

“What planet were we on before that allowed me to get the attention of Prince Cala?”

“We were home, darling. K’ath. He was interested in the armor we sell in the wharf.”

“You don’t let me make armor anymore.”

“No, Prince Cala wishes for you to learn other skills that are fitting for royalty of this planet.”

“I don’t mind that, but I wish to reclaim the one thing I can recall from before my accident.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I said no, San! I don’t know where this is all coming from, Maker you must be so confused. So out of it you’re manifesting things that simply aren’t true. This is your life, darling, this is it. What we had before…it was not what I wanted for you. But this – this is what you deserve. A nice place to spend your days with no stress, with no worries.”

“Leave.”

“Darling-“

“I wish to rest! Both of you leave, right this instant!” The rattling of the porcelain is loud, followed by a rather startling pop as the glass of one of the windows cracks.

“Remove your mask.”

Din keeps his eyes trained on hers, reading the woman with an intensity that only seems to fuel her distrust of him. He knows he hasn’t done the best at keeping his emotions in check while scouting out the palace and trying to remain close to you, he does. It was a task he hadn’t been prepared for in the slightest, something he realizes and feels shameful of. You needed him to be able to keep his head and to go about this mission as if it was any other, you needed him to be able to act as he always does: stealthily, calculated, levelheaded, deadly focused. But he wasn’t, his heart and emotions getting the better of him in a way that could be detrimental to your well-being, to your life, to his and to ad’ikas.

His pause, the twitch of his bare fingers upsets your mother further.

“There are people, someone in particular that may come after her.” She doesn’t budge, keeping her stance in front of the man back at his post outside your door. The moonlight filtering into the lantern light hallway barely enough to see the ire and suspicion in her expression. The slight resemblance to you unnerves him, the reality of this woman being tied to you by blood and fate too heavy a thought when you were so kind and good to him. “Remove your mask, Aliit.”

He doesn’t want to. He can’t. And certainly not for someone as ingenuine as your mother. But…for all the beskar he donned and had been able to share with you, for all the weapons he had in his cache to protect you, for all the skills he had developed over a lifetime, none of it had been able to prevent you from being taken away from him. His Creed had allowed for it to happen, even if it by way of inadvertency. So perhaps…perhaps the display of his face would be the one thing that had jumpstarted this entire situation would be able to salvage it. To give him the time and chance he needed in order to stay and work on allowing out to heal enough to know the truth.

Holding his breath, Din reaches up to unclasp the pin keeping the flowing piece over his cowl. It falls to the right side of his face as braces himself to lower the cowl with steady fingers, though his mind is anything but calm.

He never wanted to show his face, let alone to someone so unfounded in their own beliefs, if the woman had any. She wasn’t deserving, but you….he had been struggling with the desire to show you. But she was premature in her gloating victory, because she waves a hand at him just as he’s beginning to pull the fabric down. He stills, worried he’s been found out but that doesn’t seem to be the case as the woman’s stern face breaks.

“Oh, good. I was worried for a second.” She smirks, knowing she had won the heated exchange, the power of her command being heeded going to her head in the worst way. “No Mandalorian would be foolish enough to throw away their very Creed for someone like San. Maker, I love her. But she’s such a fool sometimes, a little misguided. No idea how she even caught the attention of the person who was supposed to bring her back to me. Must’ve used her body, since her head seems to be empty.”

Resisting the urge to snarl and show just how deep her words cut, Din just nods at her, bowing his head slightly before resetting his coverage over the cowl. An insult to him, he could internalize and ignore. But an insult to you was stirring his instincts to protect, to shield, to kill.

“What is the meaning of this? Sending my handmaidens away and ordering guards to follow me around from now on,” Prince Cala is sat on the edge of your bed, two guards on either side of the bed. It’s early, the sun barely cresting over the horizon and the sky shifting slowly from dark to light as it does so. Alit has to still be on the other side of the door where your mother had ordered him to remain for the rest of his shift, overriding the royal man’s direct orders.

“My dear San, I’ve sent your handmaidens to tend to things for the wedding. The ceremony will be in a week’s time.” He curls a hand around your wrist, bringing it up to kiss along your knuckles and down the inside of your arm. His lips are soft, but his touch feels wrong, it feels charged: changed. “You’re mine.”

He’s suddenly hovering over you, knees on either side of your waist and pinning you beneath the covers as he brings his face close to yours. His handsome features twisted into a smirk that made your insides lurch. His hands bring your own above your head, pressing them into the plush pillows and gripping far too tightly. Trying to squirm is useless as he lets all of his weight press into you, pushing the breath from your lungs and cutting off the shout you were about to make.

“That guard of yours is to be sent to patrol the city streets, he’s not to come near you again.” He repeats his possession of you, his lips beginning to trail hard kisses down your neck. His breath is hot and sticky against your skin and you try to close your eyes tights in an effort to make the moment go by quicker.

One of his hands trails down your body, boldly giving your chest a squeeze over the thin covers before it’s gone from you completely. But you don’t get to revel in the touch of him gone because there’s a metallic clink you hear the clicking of a syringe just moments before it’s plunged into your still trapped arm.

“No.” You can’t help the venom and distrust that seeps into your voice, the feeling of being trapped, of being herded consumes you and it’s ugly how it sticks uncomfortably to your insides. You had already partook in countless meals and cups of tea, strolls through the gardens and around the different buildings and halls of the palace. All in the name of entertainment for the guests you didn’t want to interact with. The feeling of being on display, of being paraded around annoying you beyond anything else had since you had woken up in that infirmary bed.

You didn’t like the attention, how direct it was. How people fawned over the tone of your skin in comparison to theirs, how they felt entitled to reach out and caress your skin or face when complimenting you or the dresses you wore.

Head pounding, you feel energy flow through you, something so foreign yet familiar. The same energy that had filled you back when you had confronted your mother a few nights ago. The very same that clattered porcelain and shattered glass though you hadn’t even been looking at either of those things, they were merely in the same expansive room as you. You had tried to focus, in the quiet solitary of that same room, your room, the only place you were truly left alone for only the hours of the night as Aliit dutifully looked over you from just inside the doorway.

His eyes watched you without giving you impression he was doing so with purpose as you tried and succeeded in harnessing it to move random objects around the room. It was…a powerful feeling to wield such a power.

It fills you now, as your mother turns to face you and you clench your fists at your sides to quiet the thought of using it against her. Something in your mind warning of you letting her know that you are conscious of it now, her reaction to seeing you unintentionally wield it telling you it was better kept a secret.

“Excuse me?” Your mother demands from where she has begun to lead you from within your quarters, she’s quick as she grabs at you, your hands twitching with the urge to push her away the second her fingers are curling around you.

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you.” You flinch away from her, her touch far too tight around your wrists. It was as if you were shocked, your body recalling memories you couldn’t consciously do so and you feel the weight of metal heavy around your wrists in her hands around you, around your ankles and neck. Pulling you down, zapping you of any wherewithal for the body you inhabited. You close your eyes against the feeling, mind conjuring up the darkness of a room that feels far too familiar, that is filled faintly with the scent of salted air and willows native to your home world. “I wish to be alone in the week before I’m to be someone else’s.”

Breathing deep, the feeling of the air around you shifts to that of an arid land. Dry, bone-shattering heat suffocates you, your body too exhausted and dehydrated to even produce sweat. The cotton feel of your tongue thickens in your mouth as your head swims with the influence of narcotics and sedatives. The hush of a door opening blinds you even in your mind’s eye, a lone figure silhouetted in the front of the room you feel is so real around you.

A modulated voice speaks out, calling your given name and it startles you. The figure standing in front of you is swathed in shadows, making you believe it’s the one you had done your best to hide from until that very point. But the figure moves, revealing he’s not donning all black nor breathing with the assistance of a compressor.

He’s not the one who expertly wields a blade made of the same energy you feel coursing through you, red and blinding as it buzzes menacingly. The feeling of a handle is strong, the weight of it in your hands as the red spurs to life to form a weapon of your own. It diffuses to white and you feel a sense of calm, of kinship, of connection with the figure in front of you that you now know is armored in beskar.

Your eyes snap open and you seethe at the sight of your mother in front of you, of her still touching you, looming closer. She’s the reason for your feelings, every single one of them. The realization slams into you and it hurts. Your breath catches, lungs burning as you feel like no air is enough to breathe. You’re pulling away from her with more vigor, even as your mind swims at the lack of oxygen to function.

She’s the one who had first shackled you, keeping you under her control with the guise of hiding you away from those you had run home and away from. Their reach endless and their efforts never ceasing.

She was supposed to be a safe haven, someone you could return to after years of being separated. She was supposed to be someone who looked after you, protected you. But she had enslaved you instead, following in the footsteps of those you had run from though her power over you had been in the form of sedatives and metal so heavy it was debilitating. Not the same as the livelihood of someone you feel in your heart, someone who had since passed, someone who had given you a reason to live, taught you all he had to teach, cared for you with all the love he had to give. Donning the same metal you feel around your body, damning you where it had once saved you. The same metal you feel curling over your shoulders, a gift from someone truly good, who exuded care and honor. Someone who was associated with the one who had hunted then set you free.

Someone you could feel very close by. Accompanied by two others that called out to you in their familiarity as you stand in front of the woman who claims to be your mother even as she controls and tears you down to nothing more than errant thoughts she easily manipulates without a second thought.

“Darling, this is highly inappropriate.” You mother frowns, refusing to let you go, as if she knew the hold she had on you had crumbled away. “The medic should’ve…he should’ve fixed this.”

“Nothing’s wrong with me!” The commanding sound of your voice like a stranger’s in your own ears, someone who you don’t recognize. The windows of your room rattle, the tapestries float into the air, that power you feel deep in your very bones all around you, ready and willing to be harnessed.

“There is, San, you’re having delusions. The same thing happened to your father, that’s why I sent him away.” The woman insists, her knuckles whitening with the force she’s holding to you even as you step back, trying to get away from her. You raise your hands to push at her.

“That’s a kriffing lie!” You can’t help the burst of energy that flows from you, knocking you both to the ground. She’s yards away from you, her hands scrambling for something that had been flung from her pockets. A remote. Before you could even think of what it could be for, she’s pressing the button down in the center of it and your vision blacks out as something bright and burning flows through your veins.

Lethargic, your body is heavy as you leave the infirmary. Even as you move as silently as you can, mind humming with paranoia of being seen, of being tended to, of your mother. All you wanted right now was to see Aliit, to feel the calm only his presence seems to bring you. Especially as the wedding draws near the palace compound become crowded with guests invited by the king and queen, far too many of them displaying New Republic badges and pins. Something that was spiking adrenaline and worry in you for reasons you didn’t know. They had once been helpful, you thought, as the war raged on and landed on the shores of K’ath, their aid had helped to keep the economy afloat and food on the table.

But now, the mere mention and sight of their affiliation sent your instincts into a hum, the feeling of needing to run settling deep in every muscle of your body.  

The room you were in was small, but done up as a bedroom. Colorful tapestries and a four post bed complete with a headboard that had metal rings fastened at the top that unnerved you the longer you gazed up at them from where you lay against the pillows.

The guards are playing some sort of dice game, gathered at the end of the hall when you peek out of the door to the main part of the infirmary. A flash of lightning brightening the scene for you to see as clear as if it was the middle of the day, not well into the night at the only source of light was the lanterns fastened to the walls.

As you round the last corner to the hallway that held your bedroom, the safety of which you were seeking out, thunder rumbled outside. The storm was picking up, the rain falling down in sheets when you pass by a window. The wind shifts and the rain lashes against the windows in a manifestation of your heightening anxiety.

Just as you step into the hall, lightning strikes something far too close. The sharp crack of it hurting the very nerves of your body. The tall, wide shadow in the hall that turns to face you distorts from vague darkness to shiny metallic. The figure is swathed in beautiful armor for a the briefest of moments until the hallway is thrown back into darkness.

But it happens again as the lightning begins to stream down from the storm clouds as heavy as the rain.

The light of the lanterns bouncing off the polished surface of the glinting armor as the man begins to walk towards you. The dark visor across the sporadic flash of a helmet blends into the darkness, making it hard to gauge exactly who it is beneath. It’s overwhelming, the streaks of blinding light through the windows, an assault on your eyes and mind as you try to right yourself from where you must’ve leaned into the wall.

Thunder sounds and you realize you had tensed up, muscles protesting the steps you so desperately want to take, just a few yards to the door. To your room, to safety.

You feel a harsh current flow through your body again, sending you crashing to the floor as your words turn into a scream. Thunder drowning out the sound as it echoes in the hall, rain beating down against the windows. The figure now only a few feet away rushes to your side, catching you just before you could crumble completely. His arms are strong around you, cradling you as you thrash and convulse as more currents strike through your body, no longer a distant occurrence outside of the windows. Seemingly in time with the lightning lighting up the sky in blinding flashes.

But it’s not armor that you feel against your body, it’s the soft give of flesh beneath flowing fabric. Heart thudding at the realization, you realize that the armor hadn’t alarmed you, it had calmed you in its fleeting appearance. It had ben familiar, it had felt like…it had felt like something that had been missing from you the moment you had woken up in a bed and city you didn’t recognize. The presence of a shadowed figure you had tried to fill with the prince, only for it to not fit snuggly together like puzzle pieces. It felt so similar to how Aliit’s presence soothed you.

It must be him, you think as you feel yourself slump against the ground, the figure holding you lowering you both to the ground as the storm raged on. As you gazed up at him through bleary eyes, the silver armor glinted, the darkness of a visor glittered in the flashing light, and then it was clouded by the backs of your eyelids as you felt another current ravage your body. Behind them, you see the crisp image of the armored man standing atop a ramp leading to a ship, a small green figure in his arms as he turns to you and your heart jumps, the prickling of tears sharp as you realize what’s been missing all this time. What’s been hidden in plain sight beside you this whole time.

“San, it’s okay. It’s me, it’s-“ His voice is unmodulated, no vocoder distorting it. But it’s him and your heart swells.

“Din.” You breath out, eyes snapping open and finding his own. The man you loved was staring back at you, his helmet, his armor, all of it was gone to reveal a sliver of his face to you.

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“The chassis on that pod looks fucking shoddy.” 

“Should’ve put my money on that scrappy human from Coruscant….”

While the more technical jargon of other spectators more or less went over your head, it simply made the evening all the more enjoyable and real. To be in the shoulder to shoulder crowds of raucous fans, watching as the splayed herd of podracers hit the first corner at the start while kicking up the coarse sand of the desert…

Surely, the crowds were overwhelmingly harsh, debauched and perhaps even dangerous, but nevertheless the race remained completely thrilling and compelling, drawing you in with the impossible speeds and moments of inevitable chaotic destruction whenever a racer met an unfortunate fate. 

This, the feeling of being out from under the thumb of your father, of being able to exist elsewhere and stand on your own two feet without his heavy presence a stride away felt all too satisfying. Yes, he might be hovering above the damned planet in one of his star destroyers, tending to his own affairs, but just the illusion of independence had you aching for a more realized separation.

Not too long after the race ended, along with a grumbling flow of spectators, you left the circuit, trying to remember where you had landed the transport hours earlier. 

Perhaps it lay just beyond the outskirts? Or maybe it was a bit closer?

After such a long day spent broiling in the notorious Tatooine heat, it was difficult to think in complete strains of thought. You had been ill prepared, opting to focus on keeping your own identity swathed instead of actually accommodating for the harsh temperatures. 

Still, even heat exhaustion could not account for the complete lack of coherent thinking and proper mechanical coordination that you needed to simply walk from the circuit to your transport. This was something more precise and intentional. Each step seemed to require monumental effort, with your vision becoming blotchy, with flashes of pitch black. 

When you could feel your whole body start to buckle and sway, that familiar, all encompassing grip hastened midway along your spine and the back of your knees, scoping you cleanly off the ground with practiced effort. 

The confines of instilled slumber rendered your body and mind blissfully void of everything capable of thought, more importantly feeling, and even that woven tether to the living Force proved to be wholly useless in your dreamless slumber until the staccato beat of your father’s boots against durasteel flooring gradually roused you, with that sweet languid nature of sleep still lingering for a short while…

Your nose scrunched up as your perfectly brilliant eyes opened. That adorable little nose scrunch had been an instinctive habit Lord Vader had noticed within hours of first holding you as an infant. You had been such a chubby and tiny little thing back then, very easy to keep an eye on. There was no real concern unless you crawled a few feet away, and even then he could simply pluck you off the ground and into his arms. 

Such course of action was no longer plausible, and much to Vader’s excruciating paternal instincts that far breached the outlines of regularity, it was becoming increasingly plain that taking reasonable action would no longer have any real effect when you had proven countless times that you possessed a terrible proclivity for running off. 

Even so, you were his child. The fruit of his love, his little one and the only living being in his world that had yet to slip away into obscurity. And even in moments of steeped anger and malicious turmoil, Vader could never bring himself to inflict any element of pain outright. 

“You’re awake.”

He stated the obvious, but the words are merely intended to reintroduce you to the waking world. Vader could see your eyes flicker around the medbay room, taking in your surroundings while trying to formulate a sense of meaning before asking any unnecessary questions. His own heart started to thump with a resounding fervor as he could bear witness to your eyes trailing from the broader scope of the room, to your bed, and eventually, to the very presence of your physical being…

And how there was a jarring lack of flesh and bone to your right. 

At first your head tilted to the left, and then to the right, with your features then bearing the twisted fright that married well with profound confusion. 

“Last night.” Vader started gently, walking to the edge of the medbay bed, all while trying to keep his gait light so as to not overwhelm you. “I found you on the surface of Tatooine. Injured. All by your lonesome.”

Your mouth hung open, with newfound tears slipping over the edge of your lower lids, following the gentle curves of your lips and chin. 

“I can remember very clearly, once making you promise me not to wander. To not ever leave my side, lest you be irreparably harmed or taken from me, and now look what has happened to you ....”

Such silence from you, while not unusual, only proved to Vader how potent his own powers remained. With your memories crumbled finely and molded into something more suitable, you were teeming with guilt and more prudently, fear.

His gloved hands gingerly peeled back the thin medical bedding, allowing you to more clearly see the proclaimed ‘evidence’ of your misdeeds. When your hands pressed down against the empty space where your right leg should have been, Vader could feel his own hands clench when your precious hands found only the bedding underneath. 

“Though of your own accord, you have suffered greatly. And I see no further purpose in a true punishment. Still, I must ask of you something…” 

He tenses when your hand seizes his own, and Vader wonders if the fear he’s struck into your young mind will have consequences far beyond what he has already foreseen. Casting that train of thought aside, he gently grips your hand back. 

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@pedropascalsidechick

@dmitrytherat

“Ah ah, Cinder. Can’t let you do that. Venomous, ‘member?” You try your best not to slur your words as you begin to sloppily grind some herbs together. Cinder brought some pine straw to you in her mouth and placed it at your crossed legs.

“Thanks, sweetie.” You had to snap your fingers together a few times struggling to get the flame to light. The pine straw quickly erupted into flames, traveling down the long skinny stalks. Cinder piled on twigs and small branches as you breathed into the fire, willing it to grow.

You could sense the venom traveling quickly through your veins racing straight to your heart. It was like you could almost feel it shutter with every beat, trying its best to not make it your last. The world was spinning as you tried to steady your hands while you ground some dried sage in your mortar and pestle.

Din and Paz had finally wrestled the trandoshan, cuffing and tying him to a nearby tree. You could vaguely feel their energy. Din, quiet rage, trying his best to mask it so the trandoshan wouldn’t realize he had the advantage right now. Paz, frantic panic, right at the cusp of despair. Did you really look that bad to Paz?

You could hear Paz’s voice far off asking how you were. He was muffled as if he was behind a door or trying to talk to your under water. But, he was right next to you, shaking you, trying to get your attention. Finally, his words worked their way through the venom’s effect. “Din has him tied up. What do you need me to do?”

Think, you have to think. What is a common antidote to venom? This should not be such a struggle. You should know this off the top of your head, but the venom, it’s starting to take root. Panic starts to roll through you, the adrenaline jump-starting your brain.

“Sage…baby’s breath, ginger, and…” Your breathing was labored, trying your best to hang on. “Solomon's seal, yes. I labeled all the tins…” Your hand slipped as you slouched over, feeling too tired to hold yourself up.

Paz caught you and laid you on the ground before moving to gather the ingredients. “Fuck. Keep your eyes on me. Keep your fucking eyes on me. How much of each?” Paz frantically darted his gaze between you and all the tins he had finally found. He sounded so scared. It can’t be that bad, can it? The venom was working like a depressant, slowing you down, making you woozy as your breaths became less frequent, almost as if you were going to fall asleep.

“A pinch. S’all you need.” You felt Cinder between your legs, trying to comfort you in her own way. “Put it over the fire and add a little bit of water. We want paste, not soup.” You limply held your finger up, pointing to the small fire that you and Cinder had managed to start, but it was fading fast, just like you.

Paz lifted his helmet a bit to breathe on the fire, its flames jumping to attention from his ministrations. He found your wooden spoon and used it to mix the contents as he poured in water from his canteen. You laid on the forest floor, ear to the ground. It grounded you, reminding you that you still had a fight to win. That you could win.

“Paz, help me…please?” He quickly held you upright so that you could out stretch your hand and say a soft cantation over the medication. He stirred as you spoke. You focused on the wind slipping by the leaves, the birds’ wings flapping, and the clouds that slowly moved across the sky.

You laid back, hoping that the spell took. Paz scooped the paste and you motioned for him to rub it into your arm. Sharp pain came from your arm as Paz hastily rubbed it over the wound. You should have winced, but your body didn’t let you react. Despite all this effort, you slipped into unconsciousness, though at the last second you slid into Cinder’s mind.

----------◈----------

Weeks had passed as you, Din, and Paz continued to walk around the kingdom. A few adventures had ensued: a chance encounter with a warlock powered by some prince of hell, riddles and puzzles all to pass safely through old Mandalorian ruins, and that pesky shapeshifter who turned out to be a trandoshan spy.

You watched him through Cinder’s perceptive gaze, being held still by Paz while Din waited for an answer to a question that you had missed, letting his rage fester. To your shock, the creature laughed in his face, taunting Din. With efficient movement and no hesitation, Din slashed off the creature’s hand using the dark saber. He screamed out, thrashing trying to break free of Paz’s hold. Once Paz had re-secured him, Din pressed the flat side of the dark saber against the open wound, effectively cauterizing it. The smell of scorched flesh flooded your senses making you want to back away. The trandoshan continued to scream, but he laughed with the pain, flashing his sharp teeth in a wicked grin.

You knew you should feel sympathy, but nothing floated to the surface of your emotions. It had been too close. The trandoshan had come too close to murdering you. Its teeth had grated into your arm, venom entering into your body. It had disguised itself as an unassuming nymph near the creek that you had taken a break at to regain some energy. Dipping your feet in, you tried to strike up a conversation with it. You had a few encounters with a couple near your homestead. It had turned on you quickly, taking advantage of your exhausted state.

Cinder purred, completely unphased by the torture or the crazy reptile. She was just happy to have you with her while you were passed out. Paz had moved back to you when Din had signaled to give the prisoner some time to breath. Cinder trailed him, wanting to not miss any of the action. It was weird, looking back at yourself as you laid unconscious with Paz hold you close to him, trying to comfort you. His large frame cradled you, rocking you gently while he whispered something to you. You could tell he was shaken, but eventually he calmed down enough to check your pulse again.

“Paz, is she still with us?” Din’s voice, while commanding, had an edge of apprehension to it, as if he did not want the truth.

“Yes, her pulse is faint, but it is there.”

 You felt their relief wash over you. “Good, now we can turn to this other matter.” Din turned to look back at the trandoshan that was still panting from the last session of questioning. 

You scampered out of the tent, trying your best to adjust to Cinder’s vision. As night fell, you could perfectly see Din and Paz stalking toward the spy, ready to get some answers. You perched yourself up on a low branch that had an ideal vantage point.

You watched, with a hint of excitement, as Din and Paz manhandled the beast so that Paz had forced one of its arms to fully extend. Din pulled out his vibroblade and slid it along the inner side of its bicep. The bicep was a weak tender part of the arm, easy to pry and play with. Far enough away from the heart and major arteries to avoid bleeding the creature, but soft enough to cause pain. The buzz of the blade as it lightly tapped on its scales almost overwhelmed you. How was all of Cinder’s senses this strong?

“Who sent you?”

The trandoshan gnashed its teeth at Din in response. In silent communication, Paz tightened his grip and Din slowly worked his blade underneath one of its scales on its bicep. It tried to squirm and look away, but Paz forced its head to the side with a large hand around its chin, making it watch as Din popped a scale off. The scream that emitted from it made you involuntarily jump. It put you and Cinder on edge.

“Let’s try this again. Who sent you?”

Din dug his knife in where he had removed the scale, but before he could get too deep, the creature finally talked. A raspy serpentine voice came forth.

“You know who sent me. He’s killed plenty of us before.” the reptile darted his eyes to Paz.

“Why?”

The trandoshan laughed, causing Din’s anger to spike. He sunk his blade deeper. The creature howled in pain, but it was still somehow able to maintain a grin.

“Completely mad,” you thought and Cinder gave a short meow in agreement.

“To murder the girl! There is no hope for you without her.”

“And what was the plan after that?”

It giggled some more while Paz pressed its face further into the dirt.

“I die a hero and we take your kingdom.”

“How?”

“Two mandalorians tear me limb by limb as I laugh at their frustration!” Its hideous shrill laugh cut through the otherwise silent forest.

Din shoved the rest of the blade to the hilt into its bicep and Paz’s gauntlet flamethrower was at the ready, right in the line of sight of the trandoshan.

“We assault the front gates in a week’s time. Your kingdom will fall without her.”

You could feel Din’s shock and you felt it yourself. You had always thought that he would just need you for the protective boundary, a means to an end. How were you supposed to fight a whole army of trandoshans?

“Ah, you really think that lowly of yourself, my child?”

The booming voice caused you to reeled back in shock and confusion. Cinder’s hair rose in alarm, claws drawn, eye diluted, and attention fully turned to the source of the commanding voice.

A hulking mass towered above Cinder and the trees, casting her into darkness. You peered up at a face within the darkness. One that you somehow recognized.

“Bendu?” You whispered in Cinder’s mind, wondering how you knew it was him, the force-sensitive entity that your parents and your people had followed and learned from for eons. You glanced back, expected for Din and Paz to be looking on with you, but they were still crouched over the trandoshan.

“Cats are such perceptive beings, aren’t they? I can rarely hide from them for long. Glad you can perceive me in this form with her help.”

“Does that mean cats are force-sensitive?” You could hear your voice clearly even though that made little sense to you as you were clearly in Cinder’s consciousness.

“Mmm perhaps though I have not put much thought into it.” Bendu noticed your glances behind you, back to the mandalorians. “Ah ah, do not worry about them. They cannot see us and are not going anywhere anytime soon.”

“Why are you revealing yourself to me now? After all this time?”

“Quite simple. One, you never meditate, even though I and your elders have taught you otherwise. And, two, you need me.”

You glance over at yourself. You look pale and worn thin. This journey had taken its toll on you. And the venom, well that would surely come close to killing you.

“You will barely survive the poison without my help. But, the battle at the gates will surely wipe you out.”

“Such little faith in me,” you whisper with a twinge of sadness.

“Quite the contrary, I just know your limits, so do you, and you are right up against them.”

Pausing, you wondered why he cared. Why does it matter if you died?

“Because you bring balance to the force, my dear.”

“Get out of my head!” Frustration takes hold. Why now? Why couldn’t he have been there when you were alone? Why didn’t he help your parents? Your people? A flurry of emotions wash over you, frustration, sadness, loneliness, fear, and dread for the future. Always dread. You had been truly alone. You had made friends with anything you could to make up for the absence of your family, but at the same time shielded yourself from anything too new. And lastly, desperation for a semblance of stability. You craved stability, a constant to lean on.

“I am always here. I am always within you and you within me.”

“I never felt your presence. I was alone because of you.”

“When did you try to find me, hm? You buried me with your parents, little one. You abandoned me when you lost hope and turned to desperation for survival.”

“And what would you have done? What would you have done differently, oh pious one?! Be one with the Force and the Force will be with you? Not so easy when everything in your life was taken from you!”

Your voice was shrill, screaming out at him. You threw years of suppressed rage at him.

“You have done nothing wrong. Everything is worth doing to learn from the experience and to become your true self.”

You had forgotten how annoyingly simple and cryptic Bendu’s lessons were. Full of fables that could be many things, depending on one’s interpretation and mood that particular day. You huffed in annoyance, accepting his non-response. You allowed your emotions to flow out of you and let go of them, for now. Frustration simmered, just at the surface, but you tried to focus on the present instead of your past. There was still hope. Bendu smiled knowingly. You ignored his reaction, wanting to get to the point of this meeting.

“Why choose me? I thought you didn’t choose sides, a true pacifist.”

His booming voice rattled your skull, “If the sith were to bring balance, I’d choose them. If the Jedi were to bring balance, then they would be my choice. And if a beggar were to bring balance, then I’d happily choose them.”

“I am just a means to an end for you too then?” The frustration ebbed and in flowed the sadness. What was the point of all of this? What was the point of life?

“Life, my child, can always be simplified to just that, but it can be so much more, it is just up to you to forge it to your liking.”

“But you must bring back balance through me first?”

“I must maintain balance through you.”

“And how might we do that?”

“I help you and you keep a promise.”

“How would you help me?”

“Enhance your fighting abilities and give you more stamina so that you can finish the protective boundary just in time to meet the enemy at the gates.”

“But, the promise is the catch, right?”

“Yes, indeed my child, the promise is the catch.”

----------◈----------

Paz’s flamethrower ignited, scorching the skin underneath the layer of scales. The screams would have normally tortured Din, but tonight he was out for blood. He watched as the trandoshan burned alive as Paz doused it in flames. The smell assaulted him, but he was able to filter out most of it through his helmet, though he did feel the heat. His beskar armor warmed as the creature burned. Everything else around it was burned, a neat circle of black. As the body smoldered, Din knelt down by its head, which Paz had expertly avoided for him. Din looked into the lifeless eyes of the trandoshan as he cut its head with his blade. A trophy to send back to their leader. Din’s attention quickly turned to you as he heard a groan.

With the head in tow, he made his way over to you. He took in your small form, trying to sit up. Paz rushed over and helped you.

“How do you feel?” They both said in unison as you bleakly pried your eyes open.

“We have to make it to the gates within a week’s time,” you croaked out as Paz helped you up.

“How do you know that?” 

“Bendu, he visited me. Helped me power up. Did you get the same information from the spy?”

Din and Paz nodded. You thought you would’ve felt better after Bendu’s visit, but your energy was still way down…and the dread of the promise weighed heavy on your heart.

“I need to soak for a bit and then we can start moving.” You regarded the head of the spy that Din held.

“Can you call a bird to be a messenger for me?” You could still feel the sharpness of Din’s fury. You decided to not poke the bear and called a vulture.

“A vulture, a bringer of new beginnings.” You watched as the vulture pecked at the head for a bit, eating the eye of the spy. “And the scavenger of the dead.” You willed it to find the trandoshan encampment and deliver the head back to its people.

As it rose into the sky, you gingerly climbed into the creek to soak. You watched as Din and Paz refreshed their water supply, finally tilted your head back to the heavens to regard the bird. It was time to prepare for battle.

“The vulture, a malicious spirit that brings death with them.”